Bianca Lancia d'Agliano, was an Italian noblewoman. She was the mistress and later, possibly the last wife of the Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick II. The marriage was conducted while she was on her deathbed, therefore it was considered non-canonical.
Miniature from the Codex Manesse, sometimes identified as Bianca and Frederick
Painting of the meeting of Bianca and Frederick
The Hohenstaufen dynasty, also known as the Staufer, was a noble family of unclear origin that rose to rule the Duchy of Swabia from 1079, and to royal rule in the Holy Roman Empire during the Middle Ages from 1138 until 1254. The dynasty's most prominent rulers – Frederick I (1155), Henry VI (1191) and Frederick II (1220) – ascended the imperial throne and also reigned over Italy and Burgundy. The non-contemporary name of 'Hohenstaufen' is derived from the family's Hohenstaufen Castle on Hohenstaufen mountain at the northern fringes of the Swabian Jura, near the town of Göppingen. Under Hohenstaufen rule, the Holy Roman Empire reached its greatest territorial extent from 1155 to 1268.
The Hohenstaufen Castle ruin
Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and his sons King Henry VI and Duke Frederick V of Swabia, Historia Welforum, 1167/79, Weingarten Abbey
Frederick's Castel del Monte, in Andria, Apulia, Italy.
Frederick II with his falcon, from De arte venandi cum avibus, c. 1240, Vatican Library