INNOCENT IV., SINTIIALDO DE' Fizsenr, of Genoa, succeeded Celestine IV. in the year 1243. In the preceding bitter quarrels between Gregory IX. and the Emperor Frederick II., Cardinal Sini baldo had shown himself rather friendly towards the emperor ; and the Imperial courtiers, on receiving the news of his exaltation, were rejoicing at it; but the experienced Frederick checked them by remarking : "I have now lost a friendly cardinal, to find another hostile pope. No pope can be a Obibeline." Anxious however to be relieved from excommunication, Frederick made advances to the new pope, and offered conditions advantageous to the Roman see ; but Innocent remained inflexible, and suddenly leaving Rome, embarked for Genoa, whence he went to Lyon, where he summoned a council in 1245, to which he invited the emperor. Thaddeus of Seaga appeared before the council to answer to the charges brought by the pope against Frederick ; and after much wrangling, Innocent would listen to no terms, but excommunicated and deposed the emperor, commanded the Oerman princes to elect a new emperor, and reserved the disposal of the kingdom of Sicily to himself. In Italy the only consequence was that the war which already raged between the Guelphs and Gbibelines continued fiercer than before; but in Germany some of the electors raised a contemptible rival to Frederick in the person of Henry, landgrave of Thuringia, who was defeated by Conrad, Frederick's son. At last Frederick died in Apulia, A.D. 1250; and
Innocent, having returned to Italy, began to offer the crown of Sicily to several princes, one of whom, Richard of Cornwall, observed that the pope's offer " was much like making him a present of the moon." The popo at the same time excommunicated Conrad, the sou of Frederick, who however went into Italy in 1252, took possession of Apulia and Sicily ; and be dying two years after, his brother Manfred became regent, and baffled both the intrigues and the open attacks of the court of Rome. Innocent died soon after, at the end of 1254, at Rome, leaving Italy and Germany in the greatest confusion in con. sequence of his outrageous tyranny, and his unbending hostility to the whole house of Swabia. lie was succeeded by Alexander IV. (Reimer, Gesehielde der Hohensfauffen, and the numerous historians of the popes)