“...The Gypsies travelled to Rome and secured a papal safe-conduct twenty years after their first appearance at Bologna. Hypocritical legend secured them passes and passports from the European powers who were then engaged in the perilous Ottoman Wars. They were more or less supported by the Emperor Sigismund and the bishop of the same name, who, a.d. 1540, at Fünf-Kirchen employed them in casting iron and cannon-balls for the benefit of the Turks; by Ladislas II., King of Hungary, and other pote ...