Soon after Theodore Laskaris reached the age of thirty in late 1251 or early 1252, two events had a profound effect on him. The sudden death (1252) of his wife Elena led to an outpouring of grief and soul searching. One year after her passing (1253), the arrival of the embassy of Marquis Berthold of Hohenburg – a right-hand man of the emperor Frederick II Hohenstaufen and a patron of letters – impelled him to take stock of relations with the Latin West and to begin to prepare manuscript editions of some of his ever-growing literary and philosophical works. These episodes in his life have left many traces in his writings and were occasions for self-descriptive compositions. They deserve our close attention.