During the first years of his exile Wagner still hoped that the revolution would break out again in Germany. In order to define his objectives define objectives the of his artistic creation, he wrote several works based on the ideas of his last months in Dresden, such as Art and Revolution (1849), The Work of Art of the Future (1850) and Opera and Drama (1851). While in exile, Wagner created many of his musical works, which made him the greatest German musical dramatist of the 19th century and established his worldwide reputation. In 1862 Wagner was granted an amnesty by the Saxon government and two years later acquired as his patron Bavarian King Ludwig II. In 1866 his wife, Minna died and Wagner is forced to leave Vienna because of an affair with Cosima von Bülow, wife of Hans von Bülow and daughter of Franz Liszt. Four years later, Wagner and Cosima got married in Luzern, Switzerland. During a travel through Bayreuth in 1871, Wagner found a place to build an opera house, which Ludwig II was happy to fund. A year later he moved to Bayreuth to set the stage for the first Bayreuth festival (1876) and his 26-year composition of the Ring of the Nibelung.