Also in that year Innocent died, succeeded by Alexander IV, who immediately excommunicated Manfred. In the meantime, the rival King William of Holland was in Germany though died, but a recapture of the reign of the Staufer had become completely illusory. Undeterred by the excommunication Manfred sought to obtain power in central and northern Italy, where the Ghibelline leader Ezzelino III da Romano had disappeared. Roggee. He named vicars in Tuscany, Spoleto, Marche, Romagna and Lombardy. After some minor clashes, the rival armies met at the Battle of Benevento on 26 February 1266, and Manfred's army was defeated.

He was the son of Emperor Frederick II and the Piedmontese nobles Bianca Lancia the Younger, with which the Emperor had still trust on their deathbed to explain Manfred's birth as legitimate. He soon reduced numerous Ghibelline strongholds in northern Italy and was crowned in Rome in January 1266, the pope being absent. The following year, taking advantage of a rumour that Conradin was dead, he was crowned King of Sicily at Palermo on August 10. He thus reached the status of patron of the Ghibelline League. Manfred's name was borrowed by the English author Horace Walpole for the main character of his short novel The Castle of Otranto (1764).

Manfred III (d. 1244) was the third marquess of Saluzzo, from 1215 to his death. [17] Helena died in prison in Nocera in 1271. Manfred, King of Sicily: Manfred Staufen of Sicily was born 1232 in Venosa to Friedrich II of the Holy Roman Empire (1195-1250) and Bianca Lancia (c1205-c1238) and died 26 February 1266 at the Battle of Benevento of battle wounds.

In 1257, however, Manfred crushed the papal army and settled all the rebellions, imposing his firm rule of southern Italy and receiving the title of vicar from Conradin.

As protector of the Italian Ghibellines, Manfred asserted himself also in Lombardy and Tuscany; and he further strengthened his position by the betrothal, in 1260, of his daughter Constance to the infante Peter of Aragon. B. Carusius in Bibliotheca historica regni Siciliae (Palermo, 1732).[7]. B. Carusius in Bibliotheca historica regni Siciliae (Palermo, 1732). Undeterred by the excommunication Manfred sought to obtain power in central and northern Italy, where the Ghibelline leader Ezzelino III da Romano had disappeared. In the Divine Comedy, Dante meets Manfred outside the gates of Purgatory, where the spirit explains that, although he repented of his sins in articulo mortis, he must atone for his contumacy by waiting 30 years for each year he lived as an excommunicate, before being admitted to Purgatory proper.