Papal election, 1254

The vacancy of the papal throne from 8–12 December 1254, during which the papal election of 11–12 December 1254 took place, followed the death of Pope Innocent IV and ended with the choice of Raynaldus de' Conti, who took the name Pope Alexander IV. The Election was held in Naples, in the former palazzo of Pietro della Vigna, and required only one day.

Innocent IV (Fieschi), who was elected on June 25, 1243, after a vacancy that had lasted more than nineteen months, undertook as his most important task the destruction of Frederick II, who had been excommunicated by his predecessor Gregory IX (Ugo dei Conti di Segni) on March 20, 1239, and by numerous other cardinals and bishops. He was compelled to flee from Rome on June 7, 1244; he reached Genoa on July 7, suffering from a fever and dysentery. There he remained until October, 1244, when he crossed the Alps, reaching Lyons at the end of November. There he remained, living in exile, until the middle of April 1251. He held a church council at Lyons in 1245, with some 150 bishops, a disappointing number, and issued an order deposing Frederick from the Imperial throne, and his son Conrad as well. Louis IX of France attempted to mediate a peace, but was unsuccessful. Both parties wanted blood. There was even an assassination attempt against the life of Frederick, led by Tibaldo Francesco, a former Podestà of Parma, who had been promised the Crown of Sicily (Only the Pope can invest a person with the fief of Sicily). When Frederick discovered the plot, 150 people were executed. In May, 1246, a new King of the Romans was elected in opposition to Frederick with the active support of the Pope, Henry Raspe Landgraf of Thurungia. Henry managed to defeat Conrad in battle at Nidda in August 1246, but death prevented him from following up on his success. A new emperor, William of Holland, was likewise elected, in October 1247, but he was defeated by Conrad in 1250. Frederick's best friend, Peter de la Vigne, was accused of attempting to assassinate Frederick through poison; he was tried and blinded, but before he could be confined for life (or worse), he committed suicide (1249). Frederick insisted that the moving force behind the plot had been the Pope. While campaigning in Italy, Frederick died of dysentery on December 13, 1250. He left the crown of Sicily, his initial inheritance, to his son Conrad IV, and, failing him, to his son Henry; or, if Henry was unavailable, in the last event to his legitimized son Manfred. Pope Innocent was impelled to eject the Hohenstaufen, and offered to Richard of Cornwall, the brother of King Henry III of England, both before and after the death of Conrad, and then to Charles d'Anjou, the brother of Louis IX of France.

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