Welf VII

Welf VII (c. 1135–1167), only son of Welf VI and Uta of Calw, managed the family's Italian domains while his father remained in Swabia. From 1154 he accompanied his cousin Emperor Frederick Barbarossa on his Italian campaigns, and in 1160 the emperor made him duke of Spoleto.

In 1167 he took part in Barbarossa's siege of Rome against Pope Alexander III; after the city fell a devastating epidemic swept the imperial army, and he died of it at Siena on 12 September. He was buried at Steingaden Abbey in Bavaria.