rederick II (1194-1250), Holy Roman emperor, the son of Emperor Henry IV and of Constance, heiress of Sicily, was born at Jesi, near Ancona, in Italy, was elected emperor in 1212, but was not crowned until 1215. In 1226 Frederick renewed the ancient imperial claims over Lombardy. Pope Honorius III prepared to support the Lombard cities, and his successor, Gregory IX, began the celebrated struggle between the papacy and the emperor. In the ensuing struggle with the papacy, Frederick neglected his duties in Germany, and devoted all his energies to establishing in his Sicilian kingdom "a centralized bureaucracy, dependent upon himself." Aided by the Lombard cities and by many German nobles, the papacy eventually won the day. See Kington’s History of Frederick II (1862); and Tout’s The Empire and the Papacy (1903). [World Wide Illustrated Encyclopedia, 1935]

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