70 Dante Sexcentenary Lectures
of his triumph over the sons of Frederick. Upon Charles
was conferred by the Pope as suzerain the crown of the
kingdom of southern Italy and Sicily. And Charles, aided
by the papal resources of men and money, marched south-
ward against Manfred, who, for some sixteen years since
the death of his father and that of his elder brother Charles,
had been brilliantly maintaining the Hohenstaufen cause in
the south. Manfred’s romantic career has always had a
fascination for later generations, for he is a gallant and
attractive figure, and his life was full of daring deeds. Along
with many less worthy characters of the time he wins an
immortality in Dante’s pages. Yet Manfred fell before the
sword of Charles upon the plain of Benevento.
This battle of Benevento, in 1266, fought when Dante
was scarcely a year old, was the first of the two great con-
tests by which Charles of Anjou broke the Hohenstaufen
power. After the destruction of Manfred there yet re-
mained alive one scion of Frederick’s line. This was his
grandson, the young boy Curradino, barely fifteen years of
age. He was still in Germany, but he soon gathered forces,
and, in the fashion of his ancestors, came marching over the
Alps. Joyously received by the fickle Roman populace, he
marched eastward from Rome up into the Apennines, where
Charles awaited him. Here in August, 1268, near Taglia-
cozzo, in the center of the peninsula, the two forces joined
battle. For a while victory seemed almost in the grasp of
Curradino, but the tide of battle turned and Charles’s forces
swept the field. Curradino fled, but was ultimately caught,
imprisoned, tried, and executed. Thus tragically was the
line of Frederick brought to naught; the Pope was trium-
phant over the empire, and the French line was installed in
the kingdom of southern Italy and Sicily.
Yet the power of the French in the south did not remain