Constanza d'Altavilla

"'The other radiance that shows itself to you at my right hand, a brightness kindled by all the light that fills our heaven--she has understood what I have said: she was a sister, and from her head, too, by force, the shadow of the sacred veil was taken. But though she had been turned back to the world against her will, against all honest practice, the veil upon her heart was never loosed. This is the splendor of the great Costanza, who from the Swabians' second gust engendered the one who was their third and final power.' --Paradiso, Canto III Dante's Divine Comedy" Constanza d'Altavilla (German: Konstanza di Sizilien) was the wife of Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI and the mother of Frederick von Hohenstaufen II. She was an ambitious woman who aspired to make Sicily a powerful and prosperous kingdom as the Queen Regnant--without the aid of the Holy Roman Empire, but passed away just three years after Frederick was born.