Enzo was an illegitimate son of Frederick II by a certain
Adelaide, a member of the
Swabian noble House of Urslingen and relative of Duke
Conrad I of Spoleto. He was the second of the emperor's illegitimate sons and allegedly the favourite one until the birth of
Manfredi. He had a pleasant personality, a strong physical resemblance to his father, and also shared his love for the arts. Enzo fought in the ongoing wars of his father with
Pope Gregory IX and the Northern Italian communes of the
Lombard League. When
Ubaldo Visconti died in 1238, the
Doria noble family of
Genoa, in order to secure the Sardinian
Giudicato of Logudoro from
Pisan domination, convinced the emperor to marry Enzo to Ubaldo's widow,
Adelasia of Torres (died 1255). Upon the marriage, Enzo by
jure uxoris would accede to the
Sardinian Giudicati of Logudoro (Torres) and
Gallura, covering the northern half of the island of
Sardinia. He was created a knight in
Cremona and granted the Sardinian royal title, last held by
Barisone II of Arborea in 1164/65. Enzo 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. Sharing in his father's
excommunication in the same year, he took a prominent part in the
war which broke out between the emperor and the pope. In 1241, he took part in the capture of a papal fleet at the
Battle of Giglio in the
Tyrrhenian Sea. His first successful move as military leader was the reconquest of
Jesi, in the
Marche, which was Frederick's birthplace. In May 1241 he was in command of the forces which
defeated the Genoese fleet at Meloria, where he seized a large amount of
booty and captured a number of ecclesiastics who were proceeding to a council summoned by Gregory to Rome. 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 and continued to fight the Guelph Lombards, assaulting
Reggio and conducting an assault in the surroundings of Parma. During a campaign to support the Ghibelline cities of
Modena and Cremona against Guelph in Bologna, he was defeated and captured on 26 May 1249 at the
Battle of Fossalta. Though the emperor demanded his release, Enzo was thenceforth kept a knightly prisoner in Bologna, in a palace that came to be named
Palazzo Re Enzo after him. Every attempt to escape or to rescue him failed, and he died after more than 22 years in captivity. After a magnificent funeral he was buried in the
Basilica of San Domenico in Bologna. After the death of his half-brothers
Conrad IV in 1254,
Frederick of Antioch in 1256 and
Manfred in 1266, as well as the execution of his nephew
Conradin in 1268, he was one of the last of Hohenstaufen heirs. from 1731 by
Giuseppe Maria Mazza in the
Basilica of San Domenico, Bologna Enzo shared the father's passion for
falconry, and was thus nicknamed
Falconello ("little falcon"). He was the dedicatee of a
French translation of a hunting treatise by
Yatrib. Like his brother Manfred, he presumably grew fond of poetry at Frederick's court: during his long imprisonment Enzo wrote several poems, two of his
canzoni and a
sonnet (
Tempo vene che sale chi discende) are preserved. His fate and the fall of the Hohenstaufen dynasty was itself a source of inspiration for several poets, such as the Italian lyricist
Giovanni Pascoli (
Canzoni di re Enzio, 1909). The powerful
Bentivoglio family of Bologna and
Ferrara claimed descent from him. == Issue ==