Royalty, Roman Catholic Saint. She was also known as Adelaide of Italy or Adele de Metz. Born in 931 or 932 as daughter of Rudolf II of High Burgundy and his wife Bertha of Swabia. In the year her father died (937) she was engaged to King Lothair II of Italy. They were married ten years later. Their daughter Emma later married Lothar II, King of the Westfranks. After Lothairs death she was imprisoned by Berengar of Ivrea who wanted to marry her to his son, thus cementing his power. She was able to flee and asked the German king Otto for help. He invaded Italy and defeated Berengar, but later installed him as his viceroy. Otto and she were married in 951 and she again was crowned queen. With this marriage they founded the connection of the east Frankish and the Lombard kingdoms that was the heart of the Imperium Romanum of the middle ages. Together they received the imperial crown in 962 and she accompanied him on his two campaigns against Italy. After Ottos death she was the most influential adviser of her son Otto II. When Heinrich of Bavaria was banned in 978 she left the court only to return after Ottos death to secure the reign of her grandchild Otto III. Her co-regency with Theophano and Willigis of Mainz only lasted for two years. In 985 she left the court after the tension with Theophano became unbearable for her. After Theophanos death in 991 she and her daughter Mathilde shared the regency for Otto III. She supported several monasteries and churches and had close contact with the abbots Maiolus and Odilio of Cluny. Based on their ecclesiastical reform she founded the Benedictine abbey in Selz. She retired there in 994 and died there five years later. Odilio of Cluny wrote her vita five years after her death. She was soon venerated as saint and canonized in 1097. In 1307 a flood destroyed the abbey and her grave.