Bianca Lancia d'Agliano was an Italian noblewoman. She was the mistress and later 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.
Family
Possibly born in Agliano in Piedmont, where her ancestors of the Ghibelline Lancia noble family, so-called since Manfred I had been lanciferpikeman of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, served as margraves. There is no source which definitively states who her parents were, historians have offered three theories that she was a granddaughter of Manfred I Lancia:
as daughter of his daughter, by a son of Guglielmo di Moncucco and Belda di Agliano.
as daughter of his son Bonifacio di Agliano by an unknown wife.
as daughter of his son Manfred II, possible from a marriage to a lady called Bianca, of the Maletta family.
Bianca lived most of her life in Lancia Castle of Brolo, the ancestral residence of her family, the Castello Normanno in Paternò and the castle of Gioia del Colle. She met Frederick II, who was then married to Yolande of Jerusalem, in 1225 at Agliano near Asti. Thenceforth, it is said, the two maintained a romantic relationship. According to some historians, Bianca was the only true love of Frederick's life; others consider this a romanticexaggeration. It was certainly beneficial to the interests of the Lancia family, who were favoured by the Emperor with political posts in Italy. Nonetheless, the relationship of Bianca and Frederick was the longest to all the affairs of the Emperor. After the death of Isabella of England, Frederick's third wife, in 1241, he endowed Bianca with the castle of Monte Sant'Angelo, located in the cities of Vieste and Siponto. By the terms of the will of William II of Sicily, the castle was the traditional dower of the Sicilian queens consort. Bianca died either in the castle of Paternò or the castle of Gioia del Colle.
Marriage and children
The Chronicle of Salimbene di Adam, and also Matthew of Paris claimed that a "confirmatio matrimonii in articulo mortis" took place between Bianca and Frederick when she was dying. Bianca, apparently, desired the marriage for the salvation of her soul and the safety of their children's future. This marriage however was not deemed canonical by the Church, perhaps due to the fact that Frederick and Bianca's children were all born out of wedlock. Frederick and Bianca had three children together:
Constance, who married the Emperor of Nicea, John Vatatzes, and thereupon her name changed to Anna.
Manfred, who succeeded his father as ruler of Sicily.
Violante, who married Richard Sanseverino, Count of Caserta.
Death
It is not known exactly when she died. There are several conflicting reports. This date lingers in various reference works but appears based only on the assumption that she died after the birth of her last child, and before the marriage of her husband to his next wife. There are credible reports that she married Frederick while she was on her deathbed, and that her son was 12 at this time. Bianca may have died a short while before the wedding of her daughter to John Vatatzes in 1244. One source states that she died 20 years after the start of her relationship with Frederick, however the same source states that she died 20 years before events that were occurring in 1256.
