The legend of Pope Gregory became known to Thomas Mann earlier: during the winter semester of 1894/1895 as an auditor in the lectures of the Munich Germanist Wilhelm Hertz on Hartmann von Aue. He then encountered this "Christian Oedipus," conceived through incest, with the "power of repentance for the forgiveness of any sin" again while searching for material "to be processed as grotesque puppet plays" for his hero Adrian Leverkühn, "in the old book 'Gesta Romanorum'"; it was only then, in October 1945, that he became aware of the appeal of the original material while summarizing the legendary content in the emerging Doctor Faustus; following the ancient example of the Faust tragedy, a satyr play - "this little book that delights in God" - was to follow. Utilizing all means "that psychology and narrative art have accumulated over seven centuries," he shaped, indeed stylized it.