SCOT AGAIN AT COURT 147 



Naples, a fortress which we know to have been 

 built, or at least strengthened, by Frederick ii. 

 What if the rest of the legend embalm, like a fly 

 in amber, the tradition, strangely altered, of some 

 instrument set up there to measure the force of 

 the earthquakes so prevalent in that part of Italy ? 



Such a notion is not the pure matter of conjec- 

 ture it may at first sight seem to be. Frederick was 

 in relation with those who might well have put him 

 in possession of this among other secrets. When 

 the Tartars stormed the Vulture's Nest, as it was 

 called, in the Syrian castle of Alamout, they found 

 an observatory well supplied with instruments of 

 precision, and that of all kinds. ^ Now this place 

 was the last refuge of the Assassins, that strange 

 sect who owned obedience to the Old Man of the 

 Mountain. Frederick ii. when in the East paid 

 these people a visit, ^ and again at Melfi, in his own 

 dominions, he received their ambassadors and enter- 

 tained them at a great banquet.^ Considering then 

 the Emperor's well-known curiosity in all matters 

 of physical science, we may feel sure he would 

 profit by any improvements or discoveries the ob- 

 servers at Alamout could communicate. If the 

 contrivance set up at Naples was really a seismo- 

 meter, this would furnish a curious comment on 

 Bacon's statement that Michael Scot excelled in 

 investigating the movements of matter.* 



Passing to what rests on more certain evidence, 

 we find Scot's fame in those days attested by one 



^ Lenormant, Quest. Hist. vol. ii. pp. 144, 145. 



'^ Cento Novelle Antiche, No. C. 



'■^ 22 July 1232. See 'Ann. Colon. Max.' in Pertz, Scri2)tores Rei 

 Germanicae, xvii. 843. 



* 'Physicoruni motuum.' The passage will be found in the De 

 Utilitate Linguarum. 



