FREDERICK THE SECOND: Wonder of the World 1194-1250

First published in 1927, this stylish and absorbing biography was one of the first examples of popular narrative history writing, and it is a classic of its time. This edition has a new introduction by bestselling historian Dan Jones. Saviour, antichrist, warrior, scholar, tyrant, emperor. Dubbed the 'stupor mundi', the wonder of the world, Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, led a life of extraordinary drama and ambition. Born in 1194, he was the son of Emperor Henry VI and Constance, Queen of Sicily. His grandfathers were Frederick I Barbarossa and King Roger II - a diabolical combination. He inherited the Sicilian throne when he was only four years old and, in adulthood, the charismatic Frederick fought for control over the lands he considered his birthright to become King of the Germans and Holy Roman Emperor. At the zenith of his power he crowned himself King of Jerusalem in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, thereby securing an empire which embraced vast areas of Western Europe and the Holy Land. He was a towering figure of his age, but a man full of contradictions. For some he was a Messiah, an enlightened monarch and a bringer of justice and peace. For others, he was a tyrant and a devil, bent on absolute power. He led crusades but was excommunicated four times. He was a warrior but also an influential patron of the arts. He welcomed Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars to his court, whilst persecuting Arabs and Jews in his Sicilian homeland. Myth, legend, prophecy, poetry, melodrama and fatalism are all marshalled alongside the familiar tools of careful source analysis in this monumental biography of a Renaissance man, politician, negotiator and tyrant, an expert in falconry and a polymath. Latin chroniclers tutted at the sight of his 'Saracen' dancing girls in his entourage, and he forced the Jews of Sicily to wear yellow stars and conducted ethnic cleansing of Sicilian Arabs. 623 monumental pages, pagemarker.