FEDERICO III d'Aragona king of SICILY. - Third son of Pietro II d'Aragona, born in 1272, died at Paternò near Catania on 25 June 1337. The second of that name on the throne of the island, he styled himself III in order to emphasize his own descent from the Swabian house (he was the son of Costanza, daughter of Manfredi). He came to Sicily as a child in 1283, in the aftermath of the “Vespers”; when his brother Giacomo left the kingdom of the island for that of Aragon (1291), he was appointed lieutenant general. In 1293 he went to Rome with Giovanni da Procida to negotiate peace with Bonifacio VIII, but unsuccessfully, because the latter could not sanction so grave an infringement of the rights of the sovereigns of Naples, invested by the popes. The maritime republics too were enemies, owing to commercial rivalry.
Finding themselves opposed by all Italy, the Sicilians elected Federico their king on 25 March 1293. After alternating reverses and victories, with his own brother Giacomo against him, F. was able to obtain the peace of Calmbellata (1302), by which Sicily was assigned to him for the duration of his natural life, with the title of king of Trinscria, by the will of the Pope, while that of king of Sicily remained with the Angevins.
When Arrigo VII arose in Italy and King Roberto d'Angiò was placed under the ban of the Empire, F. assumed the title of king of Sicily and attacked Angevin lands. Reciprocal raids, lasting until 1333, only impoverished Calabria, the Neapolitan coasts, and Sicily, which at his death he left economically and spiritually exhausted. He was buried in the cathedral of Catania.