According to legend, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, who was intelligent (spoke six languages) and influential, also purportedly used cold-blooded methods to further his "scientific" inquiries. According to the Wikipedia entry:
[Frederick] was also alleged to have carried out a number of experiments on people. These experiments were recorded by the monk Salimbene di Adam (who despised Frederick) in his Chronicles. Amongst the experiments included shutting a prisoner up in a cask to see if the soul could be observed escaping though a hole in the cask when the prisoner died; feeding two prisoners, sending one out to hunt and the other to bed and then have them disemboweled to see which had digested their meal better; imprisoning children without any contact to see if they would develop a natural language.
I've read this elsewhere long ago, and as there isn't too much information about Frederick, I'm wondering if anyone can point to a definitive source. Certainly Salimbene di Adam might have had an axe to grind, but the consistency of the accounts makes them seem believable and, given the character of Frederick (his belief in reason, his winning of Jerusalem by treaty rather than by war), which points to an unconventional mind that was unhobbled by conventional restraints.
Can anyone clarify this issue? Was Frederick a real monster or someone who had been given the 13th century version of a swift-boating by the Church he defied?