CONRAD IV., son of Frederic II. emperor of Germany, and king of Italy and of Sicily, was elected King of the Romans in his father's lifetime ; but at the death of Frederic, in 1250. he found a competitor for the crown of Germany in the person of William of Holland, who was supported by all the influence of Innocent IV. The pope excom municated Conrad, as the son of the excommunicated Frederic, and released all his subjects of Germany and Maly from their allegiance. This was an epoch of the greatest animosity in Italy between the Guelphs and the Ghibelines. The popes were bent on the destruction of the house of Hohenstauffeu, the great leaders of the Ghibelines, who had stoutly resisted the universal temporal sovereignty which was assumed by the see of Rome. Naples, Capua, and other towns of Apulia and Sicily, revolted against Conrad, but Manfred, the natural son of Frederic, who had been left regent of the kingdom in the absence of his brother, brought back most of them to their allegiance, and laid siege to Naples.
In 1251 Conrad, on arriving in Italy, was well received by the Ghibeline party, which was strong in Lombardy, especially at Verona, Pavia, Cremona, Piacenza, Tortona, Pistoia, and Pisa. In 1252 Conrad passed into Apulia, and on receiving the oath of allegiance from many of the barons, he asked the pope for the investiture of the kingdom of Sicily and Apulia ; but the pope maintained that all Conrad's rights were forfeited through the rebellion of his father against the authority of the church. Conrad, strengthening his army with the
Saracen colonists who had been removed from Sicily by his father and settled in Apulia, at Lucera, and in the neighbourhood, took Naples after an obstinate defence, and razed the walls of that town. Meantime the pope was offering the crown of Sicily, first to Richard of Cornwall, afterwards to Edmund III., son of Henry Crookback, of England, and lastly, to Charles, count of Anjou, who accepted it. In 1254, while Conrad was preparing to return to Germany to oppose William of Holland, he was taken ill at Lavelle, in Apulia, and died soon after. The Guelphs spread a report that Manfred had poisoned him in order to possess himself of the crown of Sicily and Apulia, as they had already Accused him of having hastened the death of his father Frederic; but these reports are deserving of little notice. Conrad left one only son, called also Conrad, who, on account of his tootler age, was styled by the Italians Conradino, or little Conrad. (Coeltaree.] The young prince was brought up In Germany, and Manfred remained repot of the kingdom of Sicily and Apulia in the name of his nephew. For the Ghibeline version of all those tram. sections. see ltaumer'a Geschichte der liohenstauffen,' and for the Guelph part, thy numerous Italian writers, and Sisusoncife ' Ilistoire des Republiquea hell. nues.'