Finding his position in Rome insecure, Innocent secretly withdrew in the summer of 124 to Genoa, and thence to Lyons, where he summoned a general council which met in 1245 and deposed Frederick. The agitation caused by this act throughout Europe terminated only with Frederick's death in 1250, which permitted he pope to return, first to Perugia, and afterwards in 1253 to Rome.
The remainder of his life was largely directed to schemes for compassing the overthrow of Manfred, the natural son of Frederick II, whom the towns and the nobility had for the most part received as his father's successor. It was on a sick bed at Naples that Innocent heard of Manfred's victory at Foggia, and the tidings are said to hav epreciptated his death (december 7, 1254).
His learning gave to the world an Apparatus in quinque libros decretalium, which is highly spoken of; but essentially Innocent IV was a small-minded man, whose avarice, cowardice, cunning, and vindictiveness suggets a striking contrast with Innocent III, whose character and career, if his selection of a name may be taken as an indication, he seems to have admired and sought to follow, He was succeeded by Alexander IV
text from the 19th edition (1880) of an unnamed encyclopedia