"King of Bologna": The Captivity of Enzo, King of Sardinia, between History and Myth

One of the most significant events of the first half of the 13th century was the conflict among the emperor Frederick II Hohenstaufen, the Papacy and the communes of Lombardy and of the Po Valley; those strengths fought against the imperial vision of sovereignty intended as the universal coordination of State and Society. The events of this conflict are well known: the antagonism between Frederick and the Holy See, restrained until the 1220, burned up in the following decades, when Italian cities divided into Guelphs and Ghibellines (although these labels were actually referred to a shifting context, whose profiles changed on the strength of the different alliances). The capture and the imprisonment of Enzo, king of Sardinia, natural son of the Emperor and imperial vicar general in Italy, is central to this context, and make the young Hohenstaufen the “perfect” model of prisoner king. Enzo was kept prisoner in Bologna from the moment of his capture (Spring 1249) up to the day of his death (March 1272). He was defeated and captured in May 26th, 1249 from the Bolognese army during the Battle of Fossalta (a small location near Modena). He was taken to Bologna and sentenced to life long imprisonment; his father died the following year. As a consequence, he remained prisoner in the name of a political ideal that had started to give out at the moment of his capture, and that maintained him in the limelight of History right when that History had already come to an and end and everything around was changing. The Emperor’s death, however, did not prevent from the political re - elaboration of the defeat at Fossalta and of Enzo’s capture in the city area; actually, it amplified the importance of the existing conflict (that was turning in favour of the Guelphes forces). Certainly the Bolognese pride grew up, as testified by the chronicles (also Ghibellines), which relate the episode with abundance of details, and place the city pride before the faithfulness of the parts engaged in the conflict. In this way Enzo’s political myth arose, and he became the heroic and tragic protagonist of the “laic hagiographical legend” that started to take form among History, memory and myth.