In 1208, when Frederick II was no longer under papal protection, he was crowned king of Sicily in his own right. The following year, it was the Pope himself who organised the marriage between Frederick and Constance of Aragon, daughter of Peter of Aragon and former widow of Emeric of Hungary. Constance was older than Frederick, who was only fifteen years old, but this union was very important and wanted by the princes, the feudal lords and the nobility because it brought peace and alliances. To commemorate the marriage, and until 1213, mints in southern Italy produced the mixed denarii known as “Constance’s wedding denarii”, bearing on the obverse: an eagle with spread wings, facing frontally but with its head turned to the left and the inscription + FREDERICUS R, and on the reverse: a cross with a cornflower decoration facing the centre and the inscription + CONSTANCIA R ‘. From their union, Henry VII, the future king of Germany, was born. Constance died in Catania in 1222.
