1254 papal election
Innocent IV (Fieschi), who was elected on 25 June 1243, after a vacancy that had lasted more than nineteen months, undertook as his most important task the destruction of Frederick II, who had been excommunicated by his predecessor Gregory IX (Ugo dei Conti di Segni) on 20 March 1239, and by numerous other cardinals and bishops.
He held a church council at Lyons in 1245, with some 150 bishops, a disappointing number, and issued an order deposing Frederick from the Imperial throne, and his son Conrad as well.
In May, 1246, a new King of the Romans was elected in opposition to Frederick with the active support of the Pope, Henry Raspe Landgraf of Thurungia.
Next April, Innocent began his homeward journey, by sea from Marseille to Genoa; he spent the summer in Lombardy, and arrived in Bologna in mid-October, 1251.
But Innocent IV had not returned to Italy in 1251, to enjoy the peace and happiness consequent on the death of the Church's great enemy.
Already in 1246, if Matthew of Paris is to be believed,[4] there was a confrontation between Innocent and Cardinal Johannes Toletanus, who was defending the English who were refusing to pay the Pope's exorbitant tax demands, even under threat of interdict.
Toletanus wrote: May God forgive you your wrath, Lord, if I may speak frankly, you should try to control your wild temper, since the times are so bad.
As Innocent arrived in Bologna, Conrad, having arranged his affairs for the present in Germany, crossed the Brenner Pass, stopped at Verona and then at Goito,[5] where he met the Imperial Vicars for Italy.
A diet was held in Frederick's capital of Foggia in February, 1252,[7] where he worked to please the people, win over the barons, and do what he could to enter into friendly relations with the Universities at Naples and Salerno.
The business was especially delicate since he had to deal with his younger brother Manfred, who had been regent of the Kingdom of Naples and Sicily for Frederick, and was still the powerful Prince of Taranto.
But suspicion between brothers caused Conrad to strip Manfred of nearly all of his gains, except the Principality of Taranto, which had been left him by his father the Emperor Frederick.
On 23 October 1254, Innocent, who was at Capua at the time, detached Amalfi from its traditional obedience to the Kings of Sicily and received it directly into his own power.
Five days after the battle, on the Feast of S. Andrew, 7 December, around the time of Vespers, Innocent IV himself died, attended by the spiritual ministrations of Cardinal Rinaldo dei Conti di Segni.
He and the Papal Curia had been staying in Naples, the Pope occupying the palazzo that had once belonged to Frederick II's secretary, Peter de la Vigne.
Closing the gates was not a step leading to the idea of a Conclave, but only a wise and prudent measure to defend everyone's best interests by getting a pope as soon as possible.
[11] The Mass of the Holy Spirit was sung on Friday morning, 11 December, and the ten Cardinals who were in Naples settled down to negotiate.
Next morning, 12 December, around the third hour of the day, they reached agreement on their senior Cardinal Bishop, Raynaldus de' Conti, who chose the name Alexander IV.
It likewise flies in the face of the electoral manifesto, Quia fragilis, of Pope Alexander IV,[15] which indicates that the problem was actually to get him to agree to accept the Papacy.
After the victory at Foggia he conquered or reincorporated into his Kingdom of Sicily Barletta, Venusia, Acherunta, Rapolla, Amalfi, Trani and Bari.
The canonical period in which the citation had to be responded to makes it clear that Pope Alexander IV had taken the decision to pursue Manfred rather than seek peace with him shortly after his Coronation (20 December 1254).
The resistance to Conrad, then Manfred, then Conradin, did not end until 1268, and then only at the cost of bringing the Angevin Charles, brother of Louis IX of France, to rule the Kingdom of Naples.
