Margaret of Sicily, Countess Palatine of the Rhine Margaret of Sicily, Countess Palatine of the Rhine Margaret of Sicily or Margherita di Sicilia-Aragona (Palermo, 1331 – Neustadt, 1377) was a Sicilian princess, daughter of the King Frederick III of Sicily and his wife Eleanor of Anjou. In 1348 she married Rudolf II, Count Palatine of the Rhine, and was Countess Palatine of the Rhine until 1353, year of the husband's death. Margaret was the youngest daughter of King Frederick II of Sicily-Aragon (1272-1337) and his wife Eleanore, daughter of Charles II of Anjou. Her parents resided in Palermo, where she presumably was born. In 1348 Margaret married the
Lombards of Sicily Lombards of Sicily Lombards of Sicily () are an ethnolinguistic minority living in Sicily, southern Italy, speaking an isolated variety of Gallo-Italic dialects, the so-called Gallo-Italic of Sicily. The origins of these communities goes back to the 11th century when soldiers and settlers from Northern Italy, settled the central and eastern part of Sicily during the Norman conquest of the island. After the marriage between the Norman king Roger I of Sicily with Adelaide del Vasto, member of Aleramici family, many Lombard colonisers left their homeland, in the Aleramici's possessions in Piedmont and Liguria, to settle on the island of