FREDERICK IL, OF GERALiNY, grandson of the former, and son of the emperor Henry VI., and of Constance, heiress of Sicily, was b. in 1194. His mother secured the favor of pope Innocent III. for her infant son, by conceding many important privileges to the papal chair; and after the civil war which had raged in Germany for eight years between the rival claimants Of the throne, Philip of Swabia and Otho IV., was brought to an end by the agency of Innocent, F. succeeded (1812) in obtaining the suppOrt of the German electors. On his promising to undertake a crusade, the pope sanctioned his coronation at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1215. Like his grandfather, F. Was actuated by an ardent desire for the consolidation of the imperial power in Italy at the expense of the pontificate, which he wished to reduce to the rank of a mere archiepiscopal dignity. Having secured the nomination of his son Henry to the rank of king of the Romans, and appointed archbishop Engelhert of Cologne as his vicegerent, he left Germany; and after having been crowned emperor at Rome, in 1220, devoted himself to the task of organizing his Italian territories. He founded the university of Naples, gave encour agement to the medical school of Salerno, invited to his court and patronized men of learning, poets, and artists, and commissioned his chancellor, Petrus de Vineis, to draw up a code of laws, to suit all classes of his•German and Italian subjects. F.'s schemes for the union of his vast and widely scattered dominions were, however, frustrated by the refractory conduct of the Lombard cities, and still more by the arrogance of the popes Honorions III. and Gregory IX., who threatened him with excommuni cation unless he fulfilled his pledge of leading a crusade. Being compelled to depart on this expedition, he made the necessary preparations for its prosecution; but a pesti lence having broken out among his troops in the Morea, lie returned in haste to Italy, only to be again forced away by papal threats. This second attempted crusade proved
more successful; and in 1228, notwithstanding the machinations of the pope, and the treachery of the Knights Templars, F. extorted a ten years' truce from the Moslem ruler, and forced hini to give mid the territory around Joppa and Naza reth. The rest of his life was spent in bringing his rebellious Lombard subjects to sub jection, in counteracting the intrigues of the pope, the rebellion of his eldest son, and the treachery of his friend and minister, the chancellor Petrus de Vineis, who was suspected of attempting to poison him. F., who died suddenly in 1251, the possessor of seven crowns, was the most accomplished sovereign of the middle ages, for he not only spoke and wrote the six languages common to his subjects but he was famed for his talents as a minnesinger, and for his skill in all knightly exercises, while he wrote elabo rate treatises on natural history and philosophy. His strong sympathies with his Italian mother-land, and his unremitting endeavors to establish a compact and all-supreme empire in Italy, were the causes, not only of his own misfortunes, but of the miseries which he brought upon the German empire, by embroiling him in costly wars abroad and leading him to neglect the welfare and sacrifice the interests of his German subjects. See for Frederick I. and Frederick II., Raumer, Gcschichte der Rehenstauffen Sismondi, Italian Republics, and Europe in the Middle Ages; Voigt's Lombardenbund; Funk, GeschOite Kaiser Friedrich 11.