Otto IV of Brunswick was one of two rival kings of the Holy Roman Empire from 1198 on, sole king from 1208 on, and emperor from 1209 on. The only king of the Welf dynasty, he incurred the wrath of Pope Innocent III and was excommunicated in...

Saint Francis of Assisi was an Italian Catholic friar and preacher. He founded the men's Order of Friars Minor, the women’s Order of St. Clare, and the Third Order of Saint Francis for men and women not able to live the lives of itinerant p...

Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, variously rendered in English as John of Pian de Carpine, John of Plano Carpini or Joannes de Plano, was a medieval Italian diplomat, archbishop and explorer and one of the first Europeans to enter the court of...

Albertus Magnus, also known as Saint Albert the Great and Albert of Cologne, was a Dominican friar who achieved fame for his comprehensive knowledge of and advocacy for the peaceful coexistence of science and religion. He is considered to b...

Frederick II of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, was a pretender to the title of King of the Romans from 1212 and unopposed holder of that monarchy from 1215. As such, he was King of Germany, of Italy, and of Burgundy. He was Holy Roman Emperor fr...

Pope Nicholas III, a Roman named Giovanni Gaetano Orsini; successor of John XXI. As a cardinal he made a great reputation in diplomacy, and he was a close confidant of popes for 30 years. He was elected pope after a six-month delay. Nichola...

Saint Bonaventure was the eighth Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor, commonly called the Franciscans. He was a scholastic theologian and medieval philosopher, a contemporary of Thomas Aquinas, and a Cardinal Bishop of Albano. He...

Thomas Aquinas was an Italian Dominican priest of the Catholic Church, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis, or Doctor Universalis. He was the...

Charles I, commonly called Charles of Anjou, was the King of Sicily by conquest from 1266 (though he had received it as a papal grant in 1262), though he was expelled from the island in the aftermath of the Sicilian Vespers of 1282. Thereaf...

Pope Boniface VIII was Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 1294 to 1303. Boniface VIII put forward some of the strongest claims to temporal, as well as spiritual, supremacy of any Pope and constantly involved himself with foreign affairs...

Peter the Great was the King of Aragon (as Peter III) and Valencia (as Peter I) and Count of Barcelona (as Peter II) from 1276 to his death. He conquered Sicily and became its king in 1282. He was one of the greatest of medieval Aragonese m...

Roger of Lauria was a Sicilian admiral in Aragonese service, who was the commander of the fleet of Aragon during the War of the Sicilian Vespers. He was probably the most successful and talented naval tactician of the medieval period. He is...

Conrad, called the Younger or the Boy, but usually known by the diminutive Conradin, was the Duke of Swabia (1254–1268, as Conrad IV), King of Jerusalem (1254–1268, as Conrad III), and King of Sicily (1254–1258, de jure until 1268, as Conra...

Marco Polo was a Christian merchant from the Venetian Republic whose travels are recorded in Il Milione, a book which did much to introduce Europeans to Central Asia and China. He learned about trading whilst his father and uncle, Niccolò a...

Durante degli Alighieri, simply called Dante, was a major Italian poet of the Late Middle Ages. His Divine Comedy, originally called Commedia and later christened Divina by Boccaccio, is widely considered the greatest literary work composed...