Enzio (or Enzo) (Italianisation of Heinz, diminutive of Heinrich) (c. 1218–1272) was an illegitimate son of Emperor Frederick II and King of Sardinia.
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Enzio was an illegitimate son of Frederick II by a certain Adelaide. It is speculated that she was Adelaide of Urslingen. He was the eldest of the illegitimate sons of the emperor, and allegedly the favourite one.[1]
He had a pleasant personality and a strong physical resemblance to his father. He fought in the wars between his father, the pope, and the Northern Italian communes.
When Ubaldo of Gallura died in 1238, the Doria family of Genoa, in order to secure the Giudicato of Logudoro from Pisan domination, convinced the emperor to marry Enzio to Ubaldo's widow, Adelasia of Torres.[2][3] By marrying her, Enzio would accede to half of the island of Sardinia jure uxoris. He was created a knight in Cremona and granted the title "King of Sardinia". He travelled to the island to marry Adelasia in October that year.
In July 1239, he was assigned as imperial vicar general in Lombardy, as well as General-Legate in Romagna, and left Sardinia never to return. In 1241, he took part in the capture of a papal fleet at Giglio Island in the Tyrrhenian Sea. His first successful move as military leader was the reconquest of Jesi, in the Marche, which was Frederick's birthplace. Later he was captured in a skirmish against the Milanese at Gorgonzola, but soon released. In 1245 or 1246 his marriage was annulled. In 1247, he took part in the unsuccessful siege of Parma.
He continued to fight the Guelph Lombards, assaulting the Guelphs of Reggio and conducting an assault in the surroundings of Parma.
During a campaign to support the Ghibelline cities of Modena and Cremona against Guelph Bologna, he was defeated and captured on 26 May 1249 at the Battle of Fossalta. Enzio was thenceforth kept prisoner in Bologna, in the palace that came to bear his name. Every attempt to escape or to rescue him failed, and he died in prison in 1272: after the murder of Conradin in 1268, he was the last of the Hohenstaufen.
Enzio shared the father's passion for falconry, and was thus nicknamed Falconcello ("little falcon"[4]). He was the dedicatee of a French translation of a hunting treatise by Yatrib. Like his brother Manfred, he presumambly grew fond of poetry at Frederick's court: during his long imprisonment Enzio wrote several poems, and his pitiful fate was itself a source of inspiration for several poets.[5]
The powerful Bentivoglio family of Bologna and Ferrara claimed descent from him.
| Preceded by Ubaldo |
Giudice of Logudoro 1238–1245 |
Succeeded by none |