FREDERICKS WILL. 271 where Peter knew that the people were ready to tear him to pieces, he dashed his brains out against a pillar to which he was chained. The Emperor never recovered his spirits; he wept and wrung his hands, saying, "Woe is me! my own bowels fight against me! This Peter, whom I thought a rock, who was the other half of my life, has plotted my murder! Whom can I trust ? Where can I henceforth be safe?" Frederick II. names Manfred filius noster, in his will as his heir, failing Conrad, or Henry, or their sons. This would go to prove that he married Bianca in order to legitimize his favourite. For none of his other children, Enzio, Frederick of Antioch, Selvaggia, or the wives of the Counts of Acerra and Caserta, are even mentioned. He specially left the principality of Taranto and the counties of Montecaglioso, Tricarico, and Gravina, and the "honours" of Monte Sant' Angelo, to Manfred, and named him Regent of the kingdoms of Sicily and Apulia in Conrad's absence; so that his death left the whole weight of the Italian realm on the shoulders of a lad of eighteen.* Castle of Lucera. CHAPTER XXI. LUCERA. THE sight of Castel Fiorentino has taken me away from Lucera, the size of which may be imagined by my taking full twenty minutes to walk round the inside of the walls. Between the two large circular towers on the east, facing the town of Lucera, a long piece of wall projects beyond the regular line of the castle walls. This is the outer side of the great palace where the Emperor lived when at Lucera, and where the treasure (camera fiscalis) was kept. We THE HUGE WALLS OF LUCERA. 273 crept into the great square building through a hole in the massive walls and found that the centre was filled by a huge mound of rubble and earth, out of which projected broken arches and fragments of vaulting. The first storey windows have been bricked up, leaving slits for defence. In one corner towered far above us a portion of a fine vaulted roof, very like the baths of Caracalla at Rome. Some think that this was a portion of the old Roman citadel repaired and altered by Frederick II., but M. de Bréholles is of opinion that it is entirely medieval work. The fragment of Double Gateway, Lucera Castle. vaulting and a part of the external wall certainly look like Roman masonry, and different from the rest of the castle. Between the big palace and the largest of the circular towers are the ruins of the keep, with vaulted underground corridors in two storeys. They now serve as stabling for sheep, whose owners pay a high rent to the municipality of Lucera for the right of pasturage in and round the castle. While my companion was sketching I wandered about, and going through one of the fine double gateways I came on to a square platform where stood the ruins of what had evidently been the guard-house of a drawbridge. There I found an old woman, who was extremely surprised to see a visitor, and we began to talk as well as we could. "Will the Signora favour my house?" she said, smiling and pointing up to the sky. She gave me a little three-legged stool to sit down upon, and told me she, with her husband, her son, and grandson had come from Campobasso in the Abruzzi mountains, with their flock of eight hundred sheep, for the winter. She was a most picturesque old woman, and I envied her big silver pin and her handsome earrings. While we were talking a little wild head suddenly appeared above the edge of the bastion wall. “E lu guagnon!" ("it's the boy"), said the old woman; "come and salute the lady." I asked where he came from, and on getting up and looking over the side of the fortification I saw a steep staircase of which the outer wall had |