brought about a settlement of the disputed succession between the Habsburg line and the King of Hungary and Bohemia; another of his missions was to accompany Bona Sforza, the bride of King Sigismund of Poland, to Cracow. As a diplomat, he served as an envoy to Poland and Hungary and orchestrated the Habsburg and Jagellonian marriage alliance of 1515. In 1515 Sigismund I of Poland entered an alliance with the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. In return for Maximilian lending weight to the provisions of the 2nd Peace of Thorn, Sigismund consented to the marriage of the children of Vladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary, his brother, to the grandchildren of Maximilian. Through this double marriage contract, Bohemia and Hungary passed to the House of Habsburg in 1526, on the death of Sigismund's nephew, Louis II - a result of enormous importance for later central and eastern European history for centuries to come. Writings His literary activity covered the most varied domains. Although his poetical writings are of little importance, and his manuscript "Collectanea medicinalia" of no great value, nevertheless he attained a high reputation as a collector and, to some degree, as an editor of ancient and medieval manuscripts. Among other publications, he edited in 1511 L. Florus, in 1515 the "Libellus de lapidibus" of Marbod, and the medieval chronicler Otto of Freising. Important as a contribution to the study of ancient history is the publication which first appeared, after his death in 1553, namely, the "Fasti consulares", with which were united the "Chronicle" of Cassiodorus and the "Breviarium" of Faenius Rufus. Another valuable work of Cuspinian is the "History of the Roman Emperors", prepared during the years 1512-22 (in Latin, 1540, and in German, 1541). For a long time, especially after the Battle of Mohács, he busied himself with the Turkish question and printed both political and historical writings on the subject, the most important of which is his "De Turcarum origine, religione et tyrannide". It was at that time that some of Cuspinian's earlier writings were irrevocably lost because the only copies of them had been kept in the famed Bibliotheca Corviniana at Buda, destroyed during the Ottoman conquest. Cuspinian's best work is "Austria, sive Commentarius de rebus Austriæ", edited by Kaspar Brusch in 1553 with critical notes. A kind of diary (1502–27), which throws much light on his political activity, was published in "Fontes rerum austriacarum"