Frederick II: The Wonder of the World, 1194-1250 | Calm Bedtime History

In the hill town of Jesi, near Ancona on Italy's Adriatic coast, a boy was born on the day after Christmas in 1194. His mother, Constance of Sicily, was forty years old and had travelled north to secure his birth in imperial territory. Within hours, she would ride through the streets to prove that this heir was truly hers. The child was Frederick Roger, grandson of the great Frederick Barbarossa, and he would spend his first years as king of a island where Arabic, Greek, and Latin were spoken in the same markets.