Innocent IV elected in Anagni

1243

After a twenty-month vacancy, the cardinals elected the Genoese canon lawyer Sinibaldo Fieschi as Innocent IV. He would spend his pontificate in open warfare with Frederick II, at one point fleeing disguised across the Alps to safety in Lyon. His legal mind sharpened the papacy's claim to depose secular rulers, a doctrine that would echo through centuries of church-state conflict in the West.