1.
Capetian House of Anjou
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The Capetian House of Anjou, also known as the House of Anjou-Sicily and House of Anjou-Naples, was a royal house and cadet branch of the direct French House of Capet, part of the Capetian dynasty. It is one of three royal houses referred to as Angevin, meaning from Anjou in France. Founded by Charles I of Naples, a son of Louis VIII of France, later the War of the Sicilian Vespers forced him out of the island of Sicily, leaving him with just the southern half of the Italian Peninsula — the Kingdom of Naples. The house and its various branches would go on to much of the history of Southern and Central Europe during the Middle Ages. Historically, the House ruled Naples and Sicily, parts of Greece, Hungary, and Poland. A younger son of House of Capet king Louis VIII of France the Lion, Charles married the heiress of the County of Provence named Beatrice of Provence, she was a member of the House of Barcelona, this meant Charles holdings were growing as Count of Provence. The reason for Charles being offered the kingdom was because of a conflict between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire, the latter of whom were represented by the ruling House of Hohenstaufen. It was at the Battle of Benevento that the Guelph Capetians gained the Sicilian kingdom from the Ghibelline Swabians, in keeping with the political landscape of the period, Charles is described by scholars as shrewd, energetic and highly ambitious. The Byzantines had taken back the city of Constantinople in 1261, for a while Charles was preoccupied helping his French brother in the unsuccessful Eighth Crusade on Tunis. After this he once again focused on Constantinople, but his fleet was wrecked in a storm off the coast of Trapani. Charles had fully solidified his rule over Durazzo by 1272, creating a small Kingdom of Albania for himself, out of previously Despotate of Epirus territory, Charles was driven out of Sicily in 1282, but his successors ruled Naples until 1435. The line became extinct in the line with the death of King Ladislaus of Naples in 1414. The Kingdom of Albania, or Regnum Albaniae, was established by Charles of Anjou in the Albanian territory he conquered from the Despotate of Epirus in 1271 and he took the title of King of Albania in February 1272. The kingdom extended from the region of Durrës south along the coast to Butrint, a major attempt to advance further in direction of Constantinople, failed at the Siege of Berat. A Byzantine counteroffensive soon ensued, which drove the Angevins out of the interior by 1281, the Sicilian Vespers further weakened the position of Charles, and the Kingdom was soon reduced by the Epirotes to a small area around Durrës. The Angevins held out here, however, until 1368, when the city was captured by Karl Thopia, in 1392 Karl Thopias son surrendered the city and his domains to the Republic of Venice. The Late Medieval Balkans, A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest, ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press. A History of the Crusades, Volume III, The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, madison, Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin Press
2.
Crown of Aragon
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Put in contemporary terms, it has sometimes been considered that the different lands of the Crown of Aragon functioned more as a confederation than as a single kingdom. In this sense, the larger Crown of Aragon must not be confused with one of its constituent parts, formally, the political center of the Crown of Aragon was Zaragoza, where kings were crowned at La Seo Cathedral. The de facto capital and leading cultural, administrative and economic centre of the Crown of Aragon was Barcelona followed by Valencia, finally, Palma was an additional important city and seaport. For brief periods the Crown of Aragon also controlled Montpellier, Provence, Corsica, the countries that are today known as Spain and Portugal spent the Middle Ages after 722 in an intermittent struggle called the Reconquista. This struggle pitted the northern Christian kingdoms against the Islamic taifa petty kingdoms of the South, in the Late Middle Ages, the expansion of the Aragonese Crown southwards met with the Castilian advance eastward in the region of Murcia. Afterward, the Aragonese Crown focused on the Mediterranean, acting as far as Greece and Barbary, whereas Portugal, mercenaries from the territories in the Crown, known as almogàvers participated in the creation of this Mediterranean empire, and later found employment in countries all across southern Europe. The Crown of Aragon has been considered by some as an empire which ruled in the Mediterranean for hundreds of years and it was indeed, at its height, one of the major powers in Europe. However, its different territories were connected through the person of the monarch. A modern historian, Juan de Contreras y Lopez de Ayala, Marqués de Lozoya described the Crown of Aragon as being more like a confederacy than a centralised kingdom, let alone an empire. Nor did official documents refer to it as an empire, instead. This union respected the institutions and parliaments of both territories. This was due to the loss of Catalan influence, the renunciation of the family rights of the counts of Barcelona in Occitania. Petronillas father King Ramiro, The Monk who was raised in the Saint Pons de Thomières Monastery and his brothers Peter I and Alfonso I El Batallador had bravely fought against Castile for hegemony in the Iberian peninsula. After the death of Alfonso I, the Aragonese nobility that campaigned close him feared being overwhelmed by the influence of Castile, and so, Ramiro was forced to leave his monastic life and proclaim himself King of Aragon. He married Agnes, sister of the Duke of Aquitaine and betrothed his daughter to Raymond Berengar IV of Barcelona. The wedding agreement provided Raymond Berengar IV the title of Princeps Aragonum and Dominator Aragonenesis and kept the title, Raymond Berengar IV, the first ruler of the united dynasty, called himself Count of Barcelona and Prince of Aragon. Alfonso II inherited two realms and with them, two different expansion processes, the House of Jiménez looked south in a battle against Castile for the control of the Mediterranean coast in the Iberian peninsula. The House of Barcelona looked north to its origins, Occitania, soon, Alfonso II of Aragon and Barcelona committed himself to conquer Valencia as the Aragonese nobility demanded
3.
Kingdom of France
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The Kingdom of France was a medieval and early modern monarchy in Western Europe. It was one of the most powerful states in Europe and a great power since the Late Middle Ages and it was also an early colonial power, with possessions around the world. France originated as West Francia, the half of the Carolingian Empire. A branch of the Carolingian dynasty continued to rule until 987, the territory remained known as Francia and its ruler as rex Francorum well into the High Middle Ages. The first king calling himself Roi de France was Philip II, France continued to be ruled by the Capetians and their cadet lines—the Valois and Bourbon—until the monarchy was overthrown in 1792 during the French Revolution. France in the Middle Ages was a de-centralised, feudal monarchy, in Brittany and Catalonia the authority of the French king was barely felt. Lorraine and Provence were states of the Holy Roman Empire and not yet a part of France, during the Late Middle Ages, the Kings of England laid claim to the French throne, resulting in a series of conflicts known as the Hundred Years War. Subsequently, France sought to extend its influence into Italy, but was defeated by Spain in the ensuing Italian Wars, religiously France became divided between the Catholic majority and a Protestant minority, the Huguenots, which led to a series of civil wars, the Wars of Religion. France laid claim to large stretches of North America, known collectively as New France, Wars with Great Britain led to the loss of much of this territory by 1763. French intervention in the American Revolutionary War helped secure the independence of the new United States of America, the Kingdom of France adopted a written constitution in 1791, but the Kingdom was abolished a year later and replaced with the First French Republic. The monarchy was restored by the great powers in 1814. During the later years of the elderly Charlemagnes rule, the Vikings made advances along the northern and western perimeters of the Kingdom of the Franks, after Charlemagnes death in 814 his heirs were incapable of maintaining political unity and the empire began to crumble. The Treaty of Verdun of 843 divided the Carolingian Empire into three parts, with Charles the Bald ruling over West Francia, the nucleus of what would develop into the kingdom of France. Viking advances were allowed to increase, and their dreaded longboats were sailing up the Loire and Seine rivers and other waterways, wreaking havoc. During the reign of Charles the Simple, Normans under Rollo from Norway, were settled in an area on either side of the River Seine, downstream from Paris, that was to become Normandy. With its offshoots, the houses of Valois and Bourbon, it was to rule France for more than 800 years. Henry II inherited the Duchy of Normandy and the County of Anjou, and married Frances newly divorced ex-queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, after the French victory at the Battle of Bouvines in 1214, the English monarchs maintained power only in southwestern Duchy of Guyenne. The death of Charles IV of France in 1328 without male heirs ended the main Capetian line, under Salic law the crown could not pass through a woman, so the throne passed to Philip VI, son of Charles of Valois
4.
Spanish Empire
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The Spanish Empire was one of the largest empires in history. The Spanish Empire became the foremost global power of its time and was the first to be called the empire on which the sun never sets, the Spanish Empire originated during the Age of Discovery after the voyages of Christopher Columbus. Following the Spanish–American War of 1898, Spain ceded its last colonies in the Caribbean and its last African colonies were granted independence or abandoned during Decolonisation of Africa finishing in 1976. The unity did not mean uniformity, nevertheless, some historians assert that Portugal was part of the Spanish monarchy at the time, while others draw a clear distinction between the Portuguese and Spanish empires. During the 15th century, Castile and Portugal became territorial and commercial rivals in the western Atlantic. The conquest was completed with the campaigns of the armies of the Crown of Castile between 1478 and 1496, when the islands of Gran Canaria, La Palma, and Tenerife were subjugated. The Portuguese tried in vain to keep secret their discovery of the Gold Coast in the Gulf of Guinea, chronicler Pulgar wrote that the fame of the treasures of Guinea spread around the ports of Andalusia in such way that everybody tried to go there. Worthless trinkets, Moorish textiles, and above all, shells from the Canary and Cape Verde islands were exchanged for gold, slaves, ivory and Guinea pepper. The Crown officially organized this trade with Guinea, every caravel had to get a government license, the treaty delimited the spheres of influence of the two countries, establishing the principle of the Mare clausum. It was confirmed in 1481 by the Pope Sixtus IV, in the papal bull Æterni regis, thus, the limitations imposed by the Alcáçovas treaty were overcome and a new and more balanced worlds division would be reached at Tordesillas between both emerging maritime powers. Seven months before the treaty of Alcaçovas, King John II of Aragon died, Ferdinand and Isabella drove the last Moorish king out of Granada in 1492 after a ten-year war. The Catholic Monarchs then negotiated with Christopher Columbus, a Genoese sailor attempting to reach Cipangu by sailing west, Castile was already engaged in a race of exploration with Portugal to reach the Far East by sea when Columbus made his bold proposal to Isabella. Columbus discoveries inaugurated the Spanish colonization of the Americas and these actions gave Spain exclusive rights to establish colonies in all of the New World from north to south, as well as the easternmost parts of Asia. The treaty of Tordesillas was confirmed by Pope Julius II in the bull Ea quae pro bono pacis on 24 January 1506, Spains expansion and colonization was driven by economic influences, a yearning to improve national prestige, and a desire to spread Catholicism into the New World. The Catholic Monarchs had developed a strategy of marriages for their children in order to isolate their long-time enemy, the Spanish princes married the heirs of Portugal, England and the House of Habsburg. Following the same strategy, the Catholic Monarchs decided to support the Catalan-Aragonese house of Naples against Charles VIII of France in the Italian Wars beginning in 1494. As King of Aragon, Ferdinand had been involved in the struggle against France and Venice for control of Italy, these conflicts became the center of Ferdinands foreign policy as king. Only a year later, Ferdinand became part of the Holy League against France and this war was less of a success than the war against Venice, and in 1516, France agreed to a truce that left Milan in its control and recognized Spanish control of Upper Navarre
5.
Habsburg Monarchy
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The Monarchy was a composite state composed of territories within and outside the Holy Roman Empire, united only in the person of the monarch. The dynastic capital was Vienna, except from 1583 to 1611, from 1804 to 1867 the Habsburg Monarchy was formally unified as the Austrian Empire, and from 1867 to 1918 as the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The two entities were never coterminous, as the Habsburg Monarchy covered many lands beyond the Holy Roman Empire, the monarchy had no official name. The entity had no official name, Austrian Empire, This was the official name. Note that the German version is Kaisertum Österreich, i. e. the English translation empire refers to a territory ruled by an emperor, Austria-Hungary, This was the official name. An unofficial popular name was the Danubian Monarchy also often used was the term Doppel-Monarchie meaning two states under one crowned ruler, Crownlands or crown lands, This is the name of all the individual parts of the Austrian Empire, and then of Austria-Hungary from 1867 on. The Hungarian parts of the Empire were called Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen or Lands of Holy Stephens Crown, the Bohemian Lands were called Lands of the St. Wenceslaus Crown. Burgenland came to Austria in 1921 from Hungary, Salzburg finally became Austrian in 1816 after the Napoleonic wars. Vienna, Austrias capital became a state January 1,1922, after being residence, Upper and Lower Austria, historically, were split into Austria above the Enns and Austria below the Enns. Upper Austria was enlarged after the Treaty of Teschen following the War of the Bavarian Succession by the so-called Innviertel, formerly part of Bavaria. Hereditary Lands or German Hereditary Lands or Austrian Hereditary Lands, In a narrower sense these were the original Habsburg Austrian territories, i. e. basically the Austrian lands, in a wider sense the Lands of the Bohemian Crown were also included in the Hereditary lands. The term was replaced by the term Crownlands in the 1849 March Constitution, within the Habsburg Monarchy, each province was governed according to its own particular customs. Until the mid 17th century, not all of the provinces were even necessarily ruled by the same members of the family often ruled portions of the Hereditary Lands as private apanages. An even greater attempt at centralization began in 1849 following the suppression of the revolutions of 1848. For the first time, ministers tried to transform the monarchy into a bureaucratic state ruled from Vienna. The Kingdom of Hungary, in particular, ceased to exist as a separate entity, in this system, the Kingdom of Hungary was given sovereignty and a parliament, with only a personal union and a joint foreign and military policy connecting it to the other Habsburg lands. When Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed, it was not incorporated into either half of the monarchy, instead, it was governed by the joint Ministry of Finance. Austria-Hungary collapsed under the weight of the various unsolved ethnic problems that came to a head with its defeat in World War I, to these were added in 1779 the Inn Quarter of Bavaria, and in 1803 the Bishoprics of Trent and Brixen
6.
House of Bourbon
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The House of Bourbon is a European royal house of French origin, a branch of the Capetian dynasty. Bourbon kings first ruled France and Navarre in the 16th century, by the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Parma. Spain and Luxembourg currently have Bourbon monarchs, the royal Bourbons originated in 1268, when the heiress of the lordship of Bourbon married a younger son of King Louis IX. The house continued for three centuries as a branch, while more senior Capetians ruled France, until Henry IV became the first Bourbon king of France in 1589. Restored briefly in 1814 and definitively in 1815 after the fall of the First French Empire, a cadet Bourbon branch, the House of Orléans, then ruled for 18 years, until it too was overthrown. The Princes de Condé were a branch of the Bourbons descended from an uncle of Henry IV. Both houses were prominent in French affairs, even during exile in the French Revolution, until their respective extinctions in 1830 and 1814. When the Bourbons inherited the strongest claim to the Spanish throne, the claim was passed to a cadet Bourbon prince, a grandson of Louis XIV of France, who became Philip V of Spain. The Spanish House of Bourbon has been overthrown and restored several times, reigning 1700–1808, 1813–1868, 1875–1931, Bourbons ruled in Naples from 1734–1806 and in Sicily from 1734–1816, and in a unified Kingdom of the Two Sicilies from 1816–1860. They also ruled in Parma from 1731–1735, 1748–1802 and 1847–1859, all legitimate, living members of the House of Bourbon, including its cadet branches, are direct agnatic descendants of Henry IV. The term House of Bourbon is sometimes used to refer to this first house and the House of Bourbon-Dampierre, the second family to rule the seigneury. In 1268, Robert, Count of Clermont, sixth son of King Louis IX of France, married Beatrix of Bourbon, heiress to the lordship of Bourbon and their son Louis was made Duke of Bourbon in 1327. His descendant, the Constable of France Charles de Bourbon, was the last of the senior Bourbon line when he died in 1527. Because he chose to fight under the banner of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and lived in exile from France, the remaining line of Bourbons henceforth descended from James I, Count of La Marche, the younger son of Louis I, Duke of Bourbon. With the death of his grandson James II, Count of La Marche in 1438, all future Bourbons would descend from James IIs younger brother, Louis, who became the Count of Vendôme through his mothers inheritance. In 1514, Charles, Count of Vendôme had his title raised to Duke of Vendôme and his son Antoine became King of Navarre, on the northern side of the Pyrenees, by marriage in 1555. Two of Antoines younger brothers were Cardinal Archbishop Charles de Bourbon, Louis male-line, the Princes de Condé, survived until 1830. Finally, in 1589, the House of Valois died out and he was born on 13 December 1553 in the Kingdom of Navarre
7.
First French Empire
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The First French Empire, Note 1 was the empire of Napoleon Bonaparte of France and the dominant power in much of continental Europe at the beginning of the 19th century. Its name was a misnomer, as France already had colonies overseas and was short lived compared to the Colonial Empire, a series of wars, known collectively as the Napoleonic Wars, extended French influence over much of Western Europe and into Poland. The plot included Bonapartes brother Lucien, then serving as speaker of the Council of Five Hundred, Roger Ducos, another Director, on 9 November 1799 and the following day, troops led by Bonaparte seized control. They dispersed the legislative councils, leaving a rump legislature to name Bonaparte, Sieyès, although Sieyès expected to dominate the new regime, the Consulate, he was outmaneuvered by Bonaparte, who drafted the Constitution of the Year VIII and secured his own election as First Consul. He thus became the most powerful person in France, a power that was increased by the Constitution of the Year X, the Battle of Marengo inaugurated the political idea that was to continue its development until Napoleons Moscow campaign. Napoleon planned only to keep the Duchy of Milan for France, setting aside Austria, the Peace of Amiens, which cost him control of Egypt, was a temporary truce. He gradually extended his authority in Italy by annexing the Piedmont and by acquiring Genoa, Parma, Tuscany and Naples, then he laid siege to the Roman state and initiated the Concordat of 1801 to control the material claims of the pope. Napoleon would have ruling elites from a fusion of the new bourgeoisie, on 12 May 1802, the French Tribunat voted unanimously, with exception of Carnot, in favour of the Life Consulship for the leader of France. This action was confirmed by the Corps Législatif, a general plebiscite followed thereafter resulting in 3,653,600 votes aye and 8,272 votes nay. On 2 August 1802, Napoleon Bonaparte was proclaimed Consul for life, pro-revolutionary sentiment swept through Germany aided by the Recess of 1803, which brought Bavaria, Württemberg and Baden to Frances side. The memories of imperial Rome were for a time, after Julius Caesar and Charlemagne. The Treaty of Pressburg, signed on 26 December 1805, did little other than create a more unified Germany to threaten France. On the other hand, Napoleons creation of the Kingdom of Italy, the occupation of Ancona, to create satellite states, Napoleon installed his relatives as rulers of many European states. The Bonapartes began to marry into old European monarchies, gaining sovereignty over many nations, in addition to the vassal titles, Napoleons closest relatives were also granted the title of French Prince and formed the Imperial House of France. Met with opposition, Napoleon would not tolerate any neutral power, Prussia had been offered the territory of Hanover to stay out of the Third Coalition. With the diplomatic situation changing, Napoleon offered Great Britain the province as part of a peace proposal and this, combined with growing tensions in Germany over French hegemony, Prussia responded by forming an alliance with Russia and sending troops into Bavaria on 1 October 1806. In this War of the Fourth Coalition, Napoleon destroyed the armies of Frederick William at Jena-Auerstedt, the Eylau and the Friedland against the Russians finally ruined Frederick the Greats formerly mighty kingdom, obliging Russia and Prussia to make peace with France at Tilsit. The Treaties of Tilsit ended the war between Russia and the French Empire and began an alliance between the two empires that held power of much of the rest of Europe, the two empires secretly agreed to aid each other in disputes
8.
Kingdom of Sicily
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The Kingdom of Sicily was a state that existed in the south of the Apennine peninsula from its founding by Roger II in 1130 until 1816. It was a state of the County of Sicily, which had been founded in 1071 during the Norman conquest of the southern peninsula. Until 1282 the Kingdom covered not only the island of Sicily, but also the whole Mezzogiorno region of the southern Apennines, the island was divided into three regions, Val di Mazara, Val Demone and Val di Noto, val being the Arabic word meaning district. In 1282, a revolt against Angevin rule, known as the Sicilian Vespers, the island became a separate kingdom under the Crown of Aragon. After 1302 the island kingdom was called the Kingdom of Trinacria. Often the kingship was vested in another such as the King of Aragon. In 1816 the island Kingdom of Sicily merged with the Kingdom of Naples to form the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. In 1860 the Two Sicilies were amalgamated with Sardinia and several northern city-states and duchies to form the Kingdom of Sardinia which in 1861 renamed itself the Kingdom of Italy, after taking Apulia and Calabria, Roger occupied Messina with an army of 700 knights. In 1068, Roger I of Sicily and his men defeated the Muslims at Misilmeri but the most crucial battle was the siege of Palermo, which led to Sicily being completely under Norman control by 1091. The Norman Kingdom was created on Christmas Day,1130, by Roger II of Sicily, with the agreement of Pope Innocent II, Roger threw his support behind the Antipope Anacletus II, who enthroned him as King of Sicily on Christmas Day 1130. In 1136, the rival of Anacletus, Pope Innocent II, convinced Lothair III, Two main armies, one led by Lothair, the other by Duke of Bavaria Henry the Proud, invaded Sicily. On the river Tronto, William of Loritello surrendered to Lothair and this was followed by Count Hugh II of Molise. The two armies were united at Bari, from where in 1137 they continued their campaign, Roger offered to give Apulia as a fief to the Empire, which Lothair refused after being pressured by Innocent. At the same period the army of Lothair revolted, then Lothair, who had hoped for the complete conquest of Sicily, gave Capua and Apulia from the Kingdom of Sicily to Rogers enemies. Innocent protested, claiming that Apulia fell under papal claims, Lothair turned north, but died while crossing the Alps on December 4,1137. At the Second Council of the Lateran in April 1139, Innocent excommunicated Roger for maintaining a schismatic attitude, on March 22,1139, at Galluccio, Rogers son Roger III, Duke of Apulia ambushed the papal troops with a thousand knights and captured the pope. On March 25,1139, Innocent was forced to acknowledge the kingship and it was through his admiral George of Antioch that Roger then proceeded to conquer the Mahdia in Africa, taking the unofficial title King of Africa. At the same time Rogers fleet attacked the Byzantine Empire, making Sicily the leading power in the Mediterranean Sea for almost a century
9.
Parthenopean Republic
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The republic existed from 21 January 1799 to 13 June 1799, when Ferdinands kingdom was re-established. Republicanism, however, gained ground, especially among the aristocracy, Nelson himself arrived at Naples in September 1798, where he was enthusiastically received. However, after a sudden French counter-attack, his troops were forced to retreat, a contemporary satirist said of the kings conquest of Rome, He came, he saw, he fled. The king hurried back to Naples, although the lazzaroni were devoted to the Bourbon dynasty and ready to defend it, he embarked on Nelsons Vanguard and fled with his court to Palermo in a panic. The prince Francesco Pignatelli Strongoli took over the city and the fleet was burned, on 12 January 1799, Pignatelli signed in Sparanise the surrender to the French general Championnet. Pignatelli also fled to Palermo on 16 January 1799, when the news of the treaty with the French reached Naples and the provinces, the lazzaroni rebelled. Though ill-armed and ill-disciplined, they resisted the enemy with desperate courage, in the meantime the Jacobin and Republican parties of Naples surged, and civil war broke out. On 20 January 1799 the Republicans conquered the fortress of Castel SantElmo, the casualties were 8,000 Neapolitans and 1,000 French. On 21 January 1799 the Parthenopean Republic was proclaimed, the name referred to an ancient Greek colony Parthenope on the site of the future city of Naples. The Republic had no real domestic constituency, and existed solely due to the power of the French Army, meanwhile, the court at Palermo sent Cardinal Fabrizio Ruffo, a wealthy and influential prelate, to Calabria to organize a counter-revolution. He succeeded beyond expectation, and with his Christian army of the Holy Faith, Ruffo, supported by the Russian and Turkish ships under command of Admiral Ushakov, now marched on the capital, whence the French, except for a small force under Méjean, withdrew. The scattered Republican detachments were defeated, only Naples and Pescara holding out, on 13 June 1799 Ruffo and his troops reached Naples, and after a desperate battle at the Ponte della Maddalena, entered the city. For weeks the Calabresi and lazzaroni continued to pillage and massacre, consequently, Ruffo was desperately anxious to come to terms with the Republicans for the evacuation of the castles, in spite of the queen’s orders to make no terms with the rebels. Although these expressions were equivocal, the Republicans were satisfied and embarked on the vessels prepared for them. However, on 28 June Nelson received despatches from the court, in consequence of which he had the vessels brought under the guns of his ships, on 10 July 1799, King Ferdinand entered the bay of Naples on a Neapolitan frigate, the Sirena. At four oclock that afternoon, he went aboard the British Foudroyant, more than 500 other people were imprisoned,288 were deported and 67 exiled. The subsequent censorship and oppression of all movement was far more debilitating for Naples. After these events were reported in Britain, Charles James Fox denounced Nelson in the House of Commons for the part in the atrocities at the Bay of Naples
10.
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
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The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was the largest of the states of Italy before the Italian unification. It was formed as a union of the Kingdom of Sicily and the Kingdom of Naples, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies lasted from 1815 until 1860, when it was annexed by the Kingdom of Sardinia to form the Kingdom of Italy in 1861. The capitals of the Two Sicilies were in Naples and in Palermo, the kingdom extended over the Mezzogiorno and the island of Sicily. Many went to the United States, Australia and Argentina, the kingdom was heavily agricultural, like the other Italian states, the church owned 50–65% of the land by 1750. The name Two Sicilies originated from the division of the medieval Kingdom of Sicily, until 1285, the island of Sicily and the Mezzogiorno each formed part of the Kingdom of Sicily. As a result of the War of the Sicilian Vespers, the King of Sicily lost the island of Sicily to the Crown of Aragon, but remained ruler over the peninsular part of the realm. Although his territory became known as the Kingdom of Naples, he and his successors never gave up the title of King of Sicily, at the same time, the Aragonese rulers of the island of Sicily called their realm the Kingdom of Sicily as well. Thus, formally, there were two kingdoms calling themselves Sicily, hence, the Two Sicilies, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies resulted from the re-unification of the Kingdom of Sicily with the Kingdom of Naples, by King Alfonso V of Aragon in 1442. The two states had functioned as separate realms since the War of the Sicilian Vespers in 1282, in 1501, King Ferdinand II of Aragon, son of John II, conquered Naples and reunified the two kingdoms under the authority of the newly united Spanish throne. The Kings of Spain then bore the title King of Both Sicilies or King of Sicily, at the end of that war, the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 granted Sicily to the Duke of Savoy until the Treaty of Rastatt in 1714 left Naples to the Emperor Charles VI. In 1720 the Emperor and Savoy exchanged Sicily for Sardinia, thus reuniting Naples and Sicily. In 1734, Charles, Duke of Parma, son of Philip V of Spain, took the Sicilian crown from the Austrians and became Charles VII & V, giving Parma to his younger brother, Philip. Apart from an interruption under Napoleon, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies remained under the Bourbon line continually until 1860. In January 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte, in the name of the French Republic, captured Naples and proclaimed the Parthenopaean Republic, King Ferdinand fled from Naples to Sicily until June of that year. In 1806, Napoleon, by then French Emperor, again dethroned King Ferdinand and appointed his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, throughout this Napoleonic interruption, King Ferdinand remained in Sicily, with Palermo as his capital. The Congress of Vienna restored King Ferdinand in 1815 and he established a concordat with the Papal States, which previously had a claim to the land. The expedition resulted in a series of defeats for the Sicilian armies facing the growing troops of Garibaldi. After the capture of Palermo and Sicily, Garibaldi disembarked in Calabria and moved towards Naples, the last battles took place at Volturnus in 1860 and at the siege of Gaeta, where King Francis II had sought shelter, hoping for French help, which never came
11.
Flag of Naples
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The flag of Naples is a vexillological symbol of the city of Naples, the capital of the Southern Italian region of Campania. The current flag representative of the city consists of two equal-sized rectangles, a yellow on the left and on the right side the colour is red. Previously the flag of Naples meant a national flag during the times of the Kingdom of Naples, perhaps the most prominent flags association with the kingdom are the original Angevin flag, the Bourbon flag and the senyera when the country was part of the Crown of Aragon. Naples has had other flags in the past, including flags of the Kingdom of Naples, after Naples was united with Sicily in 1442, the flag used the colours of Aragon. Starting in 1735, the flag of the Kingdom of Naples was green, when Naples was part of the Parthenopaean Republic, the flag had 3 vertical zones, blue, yellow and red. After 1806, the flag was split horizontally in white, red, both horizontal and vertical versions were in use. This flag was used up to 1808, when Joachim Murat was the king of Naples, the corners had 2 red and 2 black triangles, the coat of arms was inside a rhombus in the center. In 1811 Murat changed the flag to blue with a rectangle in the center whose border was checkered white, the coat of arms was on the left side of the rectangle. From 1820 through 1821, the flag of Naples had 3 horizontal zones colored blue, black, the current flag has been in use since 1821. Naples has formed the basis of Kingdoms and Republics during its history, below are some historical flags associated with Neapolitan domains
12.
Naples
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Naples is the capital of the Italian region Campania and the third-largest municipality in Italy, after Rome and Milan. In 2015, around 975,260 people lived within the administrative limits. The Metropolitan City of Naples had a population of 3,115,320, Naples is the 9th-most populous urban area in the European Union with a population of between 3 million and 3.7 million. About 4.4 million people live in the Naples metropolitan area, Naples is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. Bronze Age Greek settlements were established in the Naples area in the second millennium BC, a larger colony – initially known as Parthenope, Παρθενόπη – developed on the Island of Megaride around the ninth century BC, at the end of the Greek Dark Ages. Naples remained influential after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, thereafter, in union with Sicily, it became the capital of the Two Sicilies until the unification of Italy in 1861. Naples was the most-bombed Italian city during World War II, much of the citys 20th-century periphery was constructed under Benito Mussolinis fascist government, and during reconstruction efforts after World War II. The city has experienced significant economic growth in recent decades, and unemployment levels in the city, however, Naples still suffers from political and economic corruption, and unemployment levels remain high. Naples has the fourth-largest urban economy in Italy, after Milan, Rome and it is the worlds 103rd-richest city by purchasing power, with an estimated 2011 GDP of US$83.6 billion. The port of Naples is one of the most important in Europe, numerous major Italian companies, such as MSC Cruises Italy S. p. A, are headquartered in Naples. The city also hosts NATOs Allied Joint Force Command Naples, the SRM Institution for Economic Research, Naples is a full member of the Eurocities network of European cities. The city was selected to become the headquarters of the European institution ACP/UE and was named a City of Literature by UNESCOs Creative Cities Network, the Villa Rosebery, one of the three official residences of the President of Italy, is located in the citys Posillipo district. Naples historic city centre is the largest in Europe, covering 1,700 hectares and enclosing 27 centuries of history, Naples has long been a major cultural centre with a global sphere of influence, particularly during the Renaissance and Enlightenment eras. In the immediate vicinity of Naples are numerous culturally and historically significant sites, including the Palace of Caserta, culinarily, Naples is synonymous with pizza, which originated in the city. Neapolitan music has furthermore been highly influential, credited with the invention of the romantic guitar, according to CNN, the metro stop Toledo is the most beautiful in Europe and it won also the LEAF Award 2013 as Public building of the year. Naples is the Italian city with the highest number of accredited stars from the Michelin Guide, Naples sports scene is dominated by football and Serie A club S. S. C. Napoli, two-time Italian champions and winner of European trophies, who play at the San Paolo Stadium in the south-west of the city, the Phlegraean Fields around Naples has been inhabited since the Neolithic period. The earliest Greek settlements were established in the Naples area in the second millennium BC, sailors from the Greek island of Rhodes established a small commercial port called Parthenope on the island of Megaride in the ninth century BC
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Feudalism
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Feudalism was a combination of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour, since the publication of Elizabeth A. R. There is no commonly accepted definition of feudalism, at least among scholars. Since the publication of Elizabeth A. R, outside a European context, the concept of feudalism is often used only by analogy, most often in discussions of feudal Japan under the shoguns, and sometimes medieval and Gondarine Ethiopia. The term feudalism has also been applied—often inappropriately or pejoratively—to non-Western societies where institutions, the term féodal was used in 17th-century French legal treatises and translated into English legal treatises as an adjective, such as feodal government. In the 18th century, Adam Smith, seeking to describe systems, effectively coined the forms feudal government. In the 19th century the adjective feudal evolved into a noun, the term feudalism is recent, first appearing in French in 1823, Italian in 1827, English in 1839, and in German in the second half of the 19th century. The term feudal or feodal is derived from the medieval Latin word feodum, the etymology of feodum is complex with multiple theories, some suggesting a Germanic origin and others suggesting an Arabic origin. Initially in medieval Latin European documents, a grant in exchange for service was called a beneficium. Later, the term feudum, or feodum, began to replace beneficium in the documents, the first attested instance of this is from 984, although more primitive forms were seen up to one-hundred years earlier. The origin of the feudum and why it replaced beneficium has not been well established, the most widely held theory is put forth by Marc Bloch. Bloch said it is related to the Frankish term *fehu-ôd, in which means cattle and -ôd means goods. This was known as feos, a term that took on the meaning of paying for something in lieu of money. This meaning was then applied to itself, in which land was used to pay for fealty. Thus the old word feos meaning movable property changed little by little to feus meaning the exact opposite and this Germanic origin theory was also shared by William Stubbs in the 19th century. Another theory was put forward by Archibald R. Lewis, Lewis said the origin of fief is not feudum, but rather foderum, the earliest attested use being in Astronomuss Vita Hludovici. In that text is a passage about Louis the Pious that says annona militaris quas vulgo foderum vocant, another theory by Alauddin Samarrai suggests an Arabic origin, from fuyū. Samarrais theory is that early forms of fief include feo, feu, feuz, feuum and others, indeed, the first use of these terms is in Languedoc, one of the least Germanic areas of Europe and bordering Muslim Spain
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Absolute monarchy
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Absolute monarchy, or despotic monarchy, is a form of monarchy in which one ruler has supreme authority that is not restricted by any written laws, legislature, or customs. These are often, but not always, hereditary monarchies, in contrast, in constitutional monarchies, the head of states authority derives from and is legally bounded or restricted by a constitution or legislature. Some monarchies have weak or symbolic legislatures and other bodies that the monarch can alter or dissolve at will. Countries where a monarch still maintains absolute power are Brunei, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, the individual emirates composing the United Arab Emirates, Swaziland, in Ancient Egypt, the Pharaoh wielded absolute power over the country and was considered a living god by his people. In ancient Mesopotamia, many rulers of Assyria, Babylonia and Sumer were absolute monarchs as well, in ancient and medieval India, rulers of the Maurya, Satahavana, Gupta and Chalukya Empires, as well as other major and minor empires, were considered absolute monarchs. In the Khmer Empire, the kings were called Devaraja and Chakravartin, in Kingdom of Siam, the kings were esestablished Somburanaya-sittiraj. Throughout Chinese history, many emperors and one empress wielded absolute power through the Mandate of Heaven, in pre-Columbian America, the Inca Empire was ruled by a Sapa Inca, who was considered the son of Inti, the sun god and absolute ruler over the people and nation. Throughout much of European history, the right of kings was the theological justification for absolute monarchy. Many European monarchs, such as those of Russia, claimed supreme autocratic power by right. James VI of Scotland and his son Charles I of Scotland and England tried to import this principle, there is a considerable variety of opinion by historians on the extent of absolutism among European monarchs. Some, such as Perry Anderson, argue that quite a few monarchs achieved levels of absolutist control over their states, a widely held story about Louis XIV of France is that he proclaimed Létat, cest moi. What Louis did say was, The interests of the state come first, when one gives these priority, one labors for ones own good. These advantages to the state redounds to ones glory, although often criticized for his extravagances, such as the Palace of Versailles, he reigned over France for a long period, and some historians consider him a successful absolute monarch. More recently, revisionist historians have questioned whether Louis reign should be considered absolute, the King of France concentrated in his person legislative, executive, and judicial powers. He was the judicial authority. He could condemn men to death without the right of appeal and it was both his duty to punish offenses and stop them from being committed. From his judicial authority followed his power both to make laws and to annul them and this law consequently authorized the king to abolish all other centers of power. Most important was the abolition of the Council of the Realm and his actions largely originated the militaristic streak of the Hohenzollern
15.
Charles I of Anjou
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Thereafter, he claimed the island, though his power was restricted to the peninsular possessions of the kingdom, with his capital at Naples. Charles was the child and youngest son of Louis VIII of France and Blanche of Castile. He conquered the Kingdom of Sicily from the Hohenstaufen and acquired lands in the eastern Mediterranean, however, the War of the Sicilian Vespers forced him to abandon his plans to reassemble the Latin Empire. By marriage to Beatrice of Provence, heiress of Raymond Berengar IV of Provence, he was Count of Provence, in 1247, his brother Louis IX made him Count of Anjou and Maine, as appanages of the French crown. By conquest and self-proclamation, he became King of Albania in 1272, by the testament of William II of Villehardouin, he inherited the Principality of Achaea in 1278. Charles was born in March 1227, four months after the death of his father, like his immediate older brother, Philip Dagobert, he did not receive a county as appanage, as had their older brothers. In 1232, his brothers Philip Dagobert and John, Count of Anjou and Maine, died, Charles became the next in line to receive the Counties, but was formally invested only in 1247. The affection of his mother Blanche seems largely to have bestowed upon his brother Louis. The self-reliance this engendered in Charles may account for the drive, upon his accession as Count of Provence and Forcalquier in 1246, Charles rapidly found himself in difficulties. Furthermore, while Provence was technically a part of the Burgundy and hence of the Holy Roman Empire, recent counts had governed with a light hand, and the nobilities and cities had enjoyed great liberties. Three cities, Marseille, Arles, and Avignon were Imperial cities technically separate from the county. In 1247, while Charles was in France to receive the counties of Anjou and Maine, the local nobility joined with Beatrice, unfortunately for Charles, he had promised to join his brother on the Seventh Crusade. For the time being, Charles compromised with Beatrice, allowing her to have Forcalquier, rich Provence provided the funds that supported his wider career. His rights as landlord were, on the whole, of recent establishment, from the Church, unlike his brothers in the north, he received virtually nothing. Charles agents were efficient, the towns were prosperous, the peasants were buying up the duties of corvée and establishing self-governing consulats in the villages, Charles sailed with the rest of the Crusaders from Aigues-Mortes in 1248 and fought at Damietta and in the struggle around Mansourah, Egypt. However, his piety does not seem to have matched that of his brother, during his absence, open rebellion had broken out in Provence. Charles moved to suppress it, and Arles, Avignon, Marseille held out until July 1252, but then sued for peace. Charles imposed a lenient peace, but insisted on the recognition of his full rights, in November 1252, the death of his mother Blanche of Castile caused him to go north to Paris and assume the joint regency of the kingdom with his brother Alphonse
16.
Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies
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Ferdinand I, was the King of the Two Sicilies from 1816, after his restoration following victory in the Napoleonic Wars. Before that he had been, since 1759, Ferdinand IV of the Kingdom of Naples and he was deposed twice from the throne of Naples, once by the revolutionary Parthenopean Republic for six months in 1799 and again by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1805. Ferdinand was the son of King Charles III of Spain, Naples and Sicily by his wife. On 10 August 1759, Charles succeeded his brother, Ferdinand VI. Ferdinand was the founder of the cadet House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Ferdinand was styled both Ferdinand III of Sicily and Ferdinand IV of Naples. On 21 January 1799, the Kingdom of Naples was abolished and replaced by the Parthenopaean Republic which lasted until 13 June 1799, Ferdinand was restored to the throne for a while. On 26 December 1805, Napoleon I of France declared Ferdinand deposed again, Ferdinand was restored for the second time following the Austrian victory at the Battle of Tolentino over rival monarch King Joachim I. On 8 March 1816 he merged the thrones of Sicily and Naples into the throne of the Two Sicilies and he continued to rule until his death on 4 January 1825. Ferdinand was born in Naples and grew up amidst many of the monuments erected there by his father which can be seen today, Ferdinand was his parents third son, his elder brother Charles was expected to inherit Naples and Sicily. When his father ascended the Spanish throne in 1759 he abdicated Naples in Ferdinands favor in accordance with the treaties forbidding the union of the two crowns, a regency council presided over by the Tuscan Bernardo Tanucci was set up. Ferdinands minority ended in 1767, and his first act was the expulsion of the Jesuits, the following year he married Archduchess Maria Carolina, daughter of Empress Maria Theresa. By the marriage contract the queen was to have a voice in the council of state after the birth of her first son, Tanucci, who attempted to thwart her, was dismissed in 1777. He became practically and afterward prime minister. Although not a mere grasping adventurer, he was responsible for reducing the internal administration of the country to a system of espionage, corruption. The French entered the city in spite of the resistance of the lazzaroni. When, a few weeks later the French troops were recalled to northern Italy, Ferdinand sent a hastily assembled force, under Cardinal Ruffo, to reconquer the mainland kingdom. Ruffo, with the support of British artillery, the Church, and the aristocracy, succeeded, reaching Naples in May 1800. After some months King Ferdinand returned to the throne, the king returned to Naples soon afterwards, and ordered a few hundred who had collaborated with the French executed
17.
Sicilian Vespers
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Within six weeks, three thousand French men and women were slain by the rebels, and the government of King Charles lost control of the island. It was the beginning of the War of the Sicilian Vespers and these lay between Hohenstaufen lands in northern Italy and the Hohenstaufen Kingdom of Sicily in the south, the Hohenstaufen also at the time ruled Germany. In 1245 Pope Innocent IV excommunicated Frederick II and declared him deposed, when Frederick died in 1250, his dominion was inherited by his son, Conrad IV of Germany. A period of turmoil followed Conrads death in 1254, and the Kingdom of Sicily was seized by Manfred, King of Sicily, Fredericks illegitimate son, Manfred had no involvement in German politics, where the interregnum lasted longer and there was no emperor until 1274. He first styled himself as vicar of his nephew Conradin, Conrads son, however, following a false rumour that Conradin was dead, Manfred later had himself crowned as king. He wished for a reconciliation with the papacy, which may have explained his support for the landless Baldwin II, Latin Emperor. However, Pope Urban IV and later Pope Clement IV were not prepared to recognize Manfred as lawful ruler of Sicily and first excommunicated then sought to depose him by force of arms. After abortive attempts to enlist England as the champion of the Papacy against Manfred, Charles invaded Italy and defeated and killed Manfred in 1266 at the Battle of Benevento, becoming King of Sicily. In 1268 Conradin, who had come of age, invaded Italy to press his claim to the throne. Charles was now undisputed master of the Kingdom of Sicily, beginning on that night, thousands of Sicilys French inhabitants were massacred within six weeks. The events that started the uprising are not known for certain, the only town in Sicily not to join the rebellion was a small village called Sperlinga, which protected French soldiers in a castle excavated in sandstone. According to Steven Runciman, the Sicilians at the church were engaged in holiday festivities, a sergeant named Drouet dragged a young married woman from the crowd, pestering her with his advances. Her husband then attacked Drouet with a knife, killing him, when the other Frenchmen tried to avenge their comrade, the Sicilian crowd fell upon them, killing them all. At that moment all the bells in Palermo began to ring for Vespers. The French were attacked, first with rocks, then weapons, the news spread to other cities leading to revolt throughout Sicily. By the time the furious anger at their insolence had drunk its fill of blood, there is also a third version of the events that is quite close to Runcimans, varying only in the minor details. This story is part of the tradition on the island up to the present time. This oral tradition cannot be verified, but is of interest to sociologists, according to the legend, John of Procida was the mastermind behind the conspiracy
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Neapolitan Republic (1647)
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The Neapolitan Republic was a republic created in Naples, which lasted from 22 October 1647 to 5 April 1648. It began after the revolt led by Masaniello and Giulio Genoino against King Philip III. The leader of the Republic was Henry II of Lorraine, duke of Guise, the Republic had the following official names, Serenissima Repubblica di questo regno di Napoli, Reale Repubblica, and Serenissima Monarchia repubblicana di Napoli. All indicated the nature of the Republic, both republican and monarchical, and Serenissima was a purposeful comparison with the famous Italian maritime republic with the same title. The coat of arms was a red shield with the motto S. P. Q. N. in imitation of the well-known S. P. Q. R. The initialism of the Latin phrase, Senatus Populusque Romanus, Thus, the coat of arms contained the crest of the duke of Guise. The Kingdom of Naples had been in union with the crown of Spain since 1504. In the first half of the 17th century Naples was in the midst of a economic crisis. In Naples it was worsened by a government with few local concerns. Though repressed by the forces of viceroy Don Rodrigo Ponce de León, when a fleet led by John of Austria the Younger, King Philips son, came to soothe the last insurgents by cannonading the city, a new revolt broke out. This time the revolt was not one of lazzari simply rebelling against the class that held power, the viceroys army was expelled and a Republic declared. Neapolitans sought French support and called Henry of Guise to be entrusted with the leadership of the new state. The duke of Guise was in Rome at that moment and accepted the offer, being eager to have a crown, on November 15,1647, he landed in Naples and took the reins of the Republic. The Neapolitan Republic had, in fact, no hopes from the very beginning, the viceroys forces controlled the line of castles around the city and the nobility controlled the provinces from their base in Aversa, thus controlling supply lines into Naples. In 1648 the duke of Guise managed to take Aversa, the kings army, again under the command of John of Austria, chose a prudent strategy and filled Naples with spies, agitators and other agents to win over the remaining nobles. On April 5,1648, Henry, deceitfully pressed by some of his counsellors who were in Philips pay, tried a sally, and Naples was reconquered by its former masters without resistance. On June 4 a French fleet of 40 ships tried to reconquer the city, the French attempted to land on the neighbouring island of Procida, but they were beaten by Spanish forces and had to flee. Another and even more powerful French fleet appeared in the Gulf of Naples on August 4 of the same year and this time they managed to conquer Procida but, after being repulsed by Spanish naval forces near Ischia, Pozzuoli and Salerno, they abandoned any hope of taking Naples
19.
Treaty of Rastatt
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The treaty followed the earlier Treaty of Utrecht of 11 April 1713, which ended hostilities between France and Spain, on the one hand, and Britain and the Dutch Republic, on the other hand. A third treaty at Baden was required to end the hostilities between France and the Holy Roman Empire. By 1713, all parties to the War of the Spanish Succession were militarily depleted, the Treaty of Rastatt was negotiated by Marshal of France, Claude Louis Hector de Villars and the Austrian prince, Prince Eugene of Savoy. The Rastatt Treaty is associated with changes in European politics, associated with the shift to the balance of power politics, Austria began to negotiate the treaty with France after it had been abandoned by its allies, particularly Great Britain, during negotiations for the Treaty of Utrecht. Under the treaty, Austria received the following from Spain, the Spanish territories in Italy of Naples, Milan, Sardinia, Austria received from France Freiburg and several other small areas at its eastern borders, but France retained Landau. As a result of the treaty, the Austrian Habsburg Empire reached the largest territorial extent in its history and it became a major power in Western and southern Europe, in addition to its already dominant influence in Central Europe. Moreover, bargaining in Rastatt gained for Austria much more than it was offered at Utrecht, however, Emperor Charles VI was outraged at the loss of Spain and considered it an unacceptable failure. List of treaties R. R. Palmer, Joel Colton, a History of the Modern World. CS1 maint, Multiple names, authors list Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Treaty of Utrecht
20.
Battle of Campo Tenese
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The Battle of Campo Tenese saw two divisions of the Imperial French Army of Naples led by Jean Reynier attack the left wing of the Royal Neapolitan Army under Roger de Damas. Though the defenders were protected by fortifications, a French frontal attack combined with a turning movement rapidly overran the position. The action occurred at Campotenese, a mountain village in the municipality of Morano Calabro in the north of Calabria. The battle was fought during the War of the Third Coalition, in the second week of February 1806 the Imperial French armies poured across the border in the Invasion of Naples. The Neapolitan army, divided into two wings, retreated before the forces of their opponents. At Campo Tenese, Damas attempted to make a stand with the wing in order to give the right wing time to join him. After the defeat, the Neapolitan army melted away from desertion, however, the conflict was far from over. The Siege of Gaeta, the British victory at Maida, in early 1805, French Emperor Napoleon prepared to defend his possessions in Italy against the Austrian Empire. For its part, the Austrian army in Italy under Archduke Charles, King Ferdinand IVs Neapolitan army counted only 22,000 soldiers. Afraid that Saint-Cyrs corps might overrun his lands, the king concluded a treaty with Napoleon to remain neutral during the War of the Third Coalition. As soon as Saint-Cyrs army marched north, Ferdinand and Queen Maria Carolina violated the agreement and invited the British, lieutenant General James Henry Craigs 6,000 British and General Maurice Lacy of Grodnos 7,350 Russians landed at Naples on 20 November 1805. However, Napoleons decisive victory at the Battle of Austerlitz on 2 December 1805 resulted in the demise of the Third Coalition, as a result, both expeditionary forces were ordered by their governments to withdraw and they were gone by mid-January. This left Ferdinand alone to face the fury of Napoleon, who had determined to conquer the Kingdom of Naples, Saint-Cyrs corps was renamed the Army of Naples in January 1806 and placed under the command of Masséna, though Joseph was the nominal leader. Annoyed at being demoted, Saint-Cyr clashed with Masséna and was recalled early in the campaign, the army was divided into three wings. General of Division Jean Reynier commanded 7,500 soldiers of the wing assembled at Rome. Masséna led the 17,500 troops of the center, also concentrated at Rome, the 5,000 men of the left wing under General of Division Giuseppe Lechi massed at Ancona on the Adriatic Sea. General of Division Guillaume Philibert Duhesme was marching from Austria with an additional 7, in total, Massénas army numbered more than 41,000 men. While the Imperial French armys combat effectiveness was high, it suffered from maladministration and its troops were poorly paid, clothed, and fed, leading the soldiers to rob the local people as a matter of course
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Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
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Italian language
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By most measures, Italian, together with Sardinian, is the closest to Latin of the Romance languages. Italian is a language in Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City. Italian is spoken by minorities in places such as France, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Crimea and Tunisia and by large expatriate communities in the Americas. Many speakers are native bilinguals of both standardized Italian and other regional languages, Italian is the fourth most studied language in the world. Italian is a major European language, being one of the languages of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. It is the third most widely spoken first language in the European Union with 65 million native speakers, including Italian speakers in non-EU European countries and on other continents, the total number of speakers is around 85 million. Italian is the working language of the Holy See, serving as the lingua franca in the Roman Catholic hierarchy as well as the official language of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Italian is known as the language of music because of its use in musical terminology and its influence is also widespread in the arts and in the luxury goods market. Italian has been reported as the fourth or fifth most frequently taught foreign language in the world, Italian was adopted by the state after the Unification of Italy, having previously been a literary language based on Tuscan as spoken mostly by the upper class of Florentine society. Its development was influenced by other Italian languages and to some minor extent. Its vowels are the second-closest to Latin after Sardinian, unlike most other Romance languages, Italian retains Latins contrast between short and long consonants. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive, however, Italian as a language used in Italy and some surrounding regions has a longer history. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the early 14th century through the works of Tuscan writer Dante Alighieri, written in his native Florentine. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language, and thus the dialect of Florence became the basis for what would become the language of Italy. Italian was also one of the recognised languages in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Italy has always had a dialect for each city, because the cities. Those dialects now have considerable variety, as Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout Italy, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. Even in the case of Northern Italian languages, however, scholars are not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages
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Italian Peninsula
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The Italian Peninsula or Apennine Peninsula is the central and the smallest of the three large peninsulas of Southern Europe. It extends 1,000 km from the Po Valley in the north to the central Mediterranean Sea in the south, the peninsulas shape gives it the nickname lo Stivale. Three smaller peninsulas contribute to this shape, namely Calabria, Salento. Geographically, the Italian peninsula consists of the south of a line extending from the Magra to the Rubicon rivers. It excludes the Po Valley and the slopes of the Alps. All of the lies within the territory of the Italian Republic except for the microstates of San Marino. Additionally, Sicily, Elba and other islands, such as Palagruža, are usually considered as islands off the peninsula. The peninsula lies between the Tyrrhenian Sea on the west, the Ionian Sea on the south, and the Adriatic Sea on the east, the backbone of the Italian peninsula consists of the Apennine Mountains, from which it takes one of its names. Most of its coast is lined with cliffs, the Italian Peninsulas location between the centre of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea made it the target of many conquests. The peninsula has mainly a Mediterranean climate, though in the parts the climate is much cooler. Its natural vegetation includes macchia along the coasts and deciduous and mixed coniferous forests in the interior. Political divisions of the peninsula sorted by area, Apennine Mountains Roman Republic Roman Italy Insular Italy Media related to Italian Peninsula at Wikimedia Commons
24.
Papal States
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The Papal States, officially the State of the Church, were territories in the Italian Peninsula under the sovereign direct rule of the pope, from the 8th century until 1870. They were among the states of Italy from roughly the 8th century until the Italian Peninsula was unified in 1861 by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia. At their zenith, they covered most of the modern Italian regions of Lazio, Marche, Umbria and Romagna and these holdings were considered to be a manifestation of the temporal power of the pope, as opposed to his ecclesiastical primacy. By 1861, much of the Papal States territory had been conquered by the Kingdom of Italy, only Lazio, including Rome, remained under the Popes temporal control. In 1870, the pope lost Lazio and Rome and had no physical territory at all, Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini ended the crisis between unified Italy and the Vatican by signing the Lateran Treaty, granting the Vatican City State sovereignty. The Papal States were also known as the Papal State, the territories were also referred to variously as the State of the Church, the Pontifical States, the Ecclesiastical States, or the Roman States. For its first 300 years the Catholic Church was persecuted and unrecognized and this system began to change during the reign of the emperor Constantine I, who made Christianity legal within the Roman Empire, and restoring to it any properties that had been confiscated. The Lateran Palace was the first significant new donation to the Church, other donations followed, primarily in mainland Italy but also in the provinces of the Roman Empire. But the Church held all of these lands as a private landowner, the seeds of the Papal States as a sovereign political entity were planted in the 6th century. Beginning In 535, the Byzantine Empire, under emperor Justinian I, launched a reconquest of Italy that took decades and devastated Italys political, just as these wars wound down, the Lombards entered the peninsula from the north and conquered much of the countryside. While the popes remained Byzantine subjects, in practice the Duchy of Rome, nevertheless, the pope and the exarch still worked together to control the rising power of the Lombards in Italy. As Byzantine power weakened, though, the took a ever larger role in defending Rome from the Lombards. In practice, the papal efforts served to focus Lombard aggrandizement on the exarch, a climactic moment in the founding of the Papal States was the agreement over boundaries embodied in the Lombard king Liutprands Donation of Sutri to Pope Gregory II. When the Exarchate of Ravenna finally fell to the Lombards in 751, the popes renewed earlier attempts to secure the support of the Franks. In 751, Pope Zachary had Pepin the Younger crowned king in place of the powerless Merovingian figurehead king Childeric III, zacharys successor, Pope Stephen II, later granted Pepin the title Patrician of the Romans. Pepin led a Frankish army into Italy in 754 and 756, Pepin defeated the Lombards – taking control of northern Italy – and made a gift of the properties formerly constituting the Exarchate of Ravenna to the pope. The cooperation between the papacy and the Carolingian dynasty climaxed in 800, when Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Emperor, the precise nature of the relationship between the popes and emperors – and between the Papal States and the Empire – is disputed. Events in the 9th century postponed the conflict, the Holy Roman Empire in its Frankish form collapsed as it was subdivided among Charlemagnes grandchildren
25.
War of the Sicilian Vespers
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His reign had been inherited by Frederick II of Sicily, whose son Manfred was however ousted by the French invasion of Charles I of Anjou in 1266. The French rule soon assumed a repressive and ferocious character, on Easter Monday 1282, at the Church of the Holy Spirit just outside Palermo, at evening prayer, a Frenchman harassed a Sicilian woman. Accounts differ as to what the harassment entailed, who the woman was, and this single event led to the massacre of four thousand Frenchmen over the course of the next six weeks. Only a few officials notable for their good conduct were spared, but through the diplomatic errors of the vicar, Herbert of Orléans, Messina revolted on April 28. Herbert retreated to the castle of Mategriffon and the fleet stationed in the harbour was burned. The physician John of Procida acted on behalf of Peter of Aragon, John had been a loyal servant of Manfreds and had fled to Aragon after Charles success at Tagliacozzo. John travelled to Sicily to stir up discontent in favour of Peter, Michael refused to aid the Aragonese king without papal approval and so John voyaged to Rome and there gained the consent of Pope Nicholas III, who feared the ascent of Charles in the Mezzogiorno. John of Procida then returned to Barcelona and the pope died, to be replaced by Simon de Brie, a Frenchman. Soon after the Vespers itself, the Sicilians turned to Peter of Aragon to deliver them from French dominion, an Aragonese fleet under Peter himself had landed at Collo, now in eastern Algeria, and to those troops the Sicilians sent envoys. Peter was offered the throne of Sicily and accepted, Charles gathered his forces, abandoning Crusading hopes, in Calabria and made a landing near Messina and began a siege. Five months after the Vespers, on 30 August, Peter landed at Trapani and he quickly marched into Palermo and, on 4 September, received the homage of the Sicilians and confirmed their ancient privileges. Only the vacancy of the Palermitan archdiocese prevented a coronation, Charles was still besieging Messina when Peters forces first met him. Charles was forced to vacate the isle by the end of October and was restricted to the mainland. The pope then excommunicated the Aragonese king and deprived him of his kingdom, Peter pressed his advantage and by February 1283 he had taken most of the Calabrian coastline. Charles, perhaps feeling desperate, sent letters to Peter demanding they resolve the conflict by personal combat, the invader accepted and Charles returned to France to arrange the duel. Both kings chose six knights to settle matters of places and dates, a duel was scheduled for 1 June at Bordeaux. A hundred knights would accompany each side and Edward I of England would adjudge the contest, Peter left John of Procida in charge of Sicily and returned via his own kingdom to Bordeaux, which he entered in disguise to evade a suspected French ambush. Needless to say, no combat took place and Peter returned to a very troubled Spain
26.
Sicily
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Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is an autonomous Region of Italy, along with surrounding minor islands, Sicily is located in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula, from which it is separated by the narrow Strait of Messina. Its most prominent landmark is Mount Etna, the tallest active volcano in Europe, the island has a typical Mediterranean climate. The earliest archaeological evidence of activity on the island dates from as early as 12,000 BC. It became part of Italy in 1860 following the Expedition of the Thousand, a revolt led by Giuseppe Garibaldi during the Italian unification, Sicily was given special status as an autonomous region after the Italian constitutional referendum of 1946. Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially regard to the arts, music, literature, cuisine. It is also home to important archaeological and ancient sites, such as the Necropolis of Pantalica, the Valley of the Temples, Sicily has a roughly triangular shape, earning it the name Trinacria. To the east, it is separated from the Italian mainland by the Strait of Messina, about 3 km wide in the north, and about 16 km wide in the southern part. The northern and southern coasts are each about 280 km long measured as a line, while the eastern coast measures around 180 km. The total area of the island is 25,711 km2, the terrain of inland Sicily is mostly hilly and is intensively cultivated wherever possible. Along the northern coast, the ranges of Madonie,2,000 m, Nebrodi,1,800 m. The cone of Mount Etna dominates the eastern coast, in the southeast lie the lower Hyblaean Mountains,1,000 m. The mines of the Enna and Caltanissetta districts were part of a leading sulphur-producing area throughout the 19th century, Sicily and its surrounding small islands have some highly active volcanoes. Mount Etna is the largest active volcano in Europe and still casts black ash over the island with its ever-present eruptions and it currently stands 3,329 metres high, though this varies with summit eruptions, the mountain is 21 m lower now than it was in 1981. It is the highest mountain in Italy south of the Alps, Etna covers an area of 1,190 km2 with a basal circumference of 140 km. This makes it by far the largest of the three volcanoes in Italy, being about two and a half times the height of the next largest, Mount Vesuvius. In Greek Mythology, the deadly monster Typhon was trapped under the mountain by Zeus, Mount Etna is widely regarded as a cultural symbol and icon of Sicily. The Aeolian Islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea, to the northeast of mainland Sicily form a volcanic complex, the three volcanoes of Vulcano, Vulcanello and Lipari are also currently active, although the latter is usually dormant
27.
Strait of Messina
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The Strait of Messina is the narrow passage between the eastern tip of Sicily and the western tip of Calabria in the south of Italy. It connects the Tyrrhenian Sea to the north with the Ionian Sea to the south, within the central Mediterranean. At its narrowest point, between Torre Faro and Villa San Giovanni, it measures 3.1 km in width, though near the town of Messina the width is some 5.1 km, the strait has strong tidal currents that create a unique marine ecosystem. A natural whirlpool in the portion of the strait has been linked to the Greek legend of Scylla. In some circumstances, the mirage of Fata Morgana can be observed when looking at Sicily from Calabria, with its bottleneck shape, it is also a compulsory point of transit of the migration of many bird species. In 1957, a 220 kV overhead power line was built across the Strait of Messina and its pylons are among the highest in the world. This power line has since replaced by a submarine power cable. Due to this form of more than 300 species are recorded in the area that is a major European hot spot for raptors with a record of 35.000 in a spring. Between them the Honey Buzzard and the Marsh Harrier are the most frequent, species like Bonellis Eagle and Egyptian Vulture are less frequent, in the coastal salt lakes of the Strait of Messina species like Glossy Ibis, Flamingos and Black-winged Stilt use to stop to rest. The site is also favorable to observe the storks, the monte Dinnammare and the other Peloritani mountains overlooking the Strait are a natural theater for the birdwatching of these spectacular flights. Due to the peculiar hydrogeological conditions the Strait of Messina has high levels of biodiversity, the strait is also an important point of migration of many species of fish in the Mediterranean Sea. There is also a service between Messina and Reggio Calabria. For decades, the possibility of building a bridge across the Messina Strait has been under discussion, in 2006, under Prime Minister Romano Prodi the project was cancelled. Supporters perceive the bridge as a huge job-creation scheme and a boost for tourism to the island, opponents see it as an ecological disaster, a structure at risk due to especially strong winds and earthquakes, and a boon for Sicilian and Calabrian organized crime. Berlusconi claimed in 2009 that work would be completed by 2016 although in February 2013, between Scylla and Charybdis Fabio Spadi The Bridge on the Strait of Messina, Lowering the Right of Innocent Passage. International and Comparative Law Quarterly 50,411 ff, from Rome to Sicily, Plane or Train. Expert Travel Advice, The New York Times, Feb.7,2008 The New York Times
28.
Alfonso V of Aragon
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Alfonso the Magnanimous KG was the King of Aragon, Valencia, Majorca, Sardinia and Corsica, Sicily and Count of Barcelona from 1416, and King of Naples from 1442 until his death. He was one of the most prominent figures of the early Renaissance, born at Medina del Campo, he was the son of Ferdinand I of Aragon and Eleanor of Alburquerque. He represented the old line of the counts of Barcelona through the line, and was on his fathers side descended from the House of Trastamara. By hereditary right he was king of Sicily and claimed the island of Sardinia for himself, Alfonso was also in possession of much of Corsica by the 1420s. In 1421 the childless Queen Joanna II of Naples adopted and named him as heir to the Kingdom of Naples, and Alfonso went to Naples. Here he hired the condottiero Braccio da Montone with the task of reducing the resistance of his rival claimant, Louis III of Anjou, with Pope Martin V supporting Sforza, Alfonso switched his religious allegiance to the Aragonese antipope Benedict XIII. After an attempt to arrest the queen herself had failed, Joan called on Sforza who defeated the Aragonese militias near Castel Capuano in Naples, Alfonso fled to Castel Nuovo, but the help of a fleet of 22 galleys led by Giovanni da Cardona improved his situation. Sforza and Joanna ransomed Caracciolo and retreated to the fortress of Aversa, here she repudiated her earlier adoption of Alfonso and, with the backing of Martin V, named Louis III as her heir instead. The Duke of Milan, Filippo Maria Visconti, joined the anti-Aragonese coalition, on his way towards Barcelona, Alfonso destroyed Marseille, a possession of Louis III. In late 1423 the Genoese fleet of Filippo Maria Visconti moved in the southern Tyrrhenian Sea, rapidly conquering Gaeta, Procida, Castellammare and Sorrento. Naples, which was held by Alfonsos brother, Pedro de Aragon, was besieged in 1424 by the Genoese ships and Joannas troops, now led by Francesco Sforza, the city fell in April 1424. Pedro, after a resistance in Castel Nuovo, fled to Sicily in August. Joanna II and Louis III again took possession of the realm, an opportunity for Alfonso to reconquer Naples occurred in 1432, when Caracciolo was killed in a conspiracy. Alfonso tried to regain the favour of the queen, but failed, in her will, she bequeathed her realm to René of Anjou, Louis IIIs younger brother. This solution was opposed by the new pope, Eugene IV, the Neapolitans having called in the French, Alfonso decided to intervene and, with the support of several barons of the kingdom, captured Capua and besieged the important sea fortress of Gaeta. His fleet of 25 galleys was met by the Genoese ships sent by Visconti, in the battle of Ponza that ensued, Alfonso was defeated and taken prisoner. Helped by a Sicilian fleet, Alfonso recaptured Capua and set his base in Gaeta in February 1436, meanwhile, papal troops had invaded the Neapolitan kingdom, but Alfonso bribed their commander, Cardinal Giovanni Vitelleschi, and their successes waned. In the meantime, René had managed to reach Naples on 19 May 1438, Alfonso tried to besiege the city in the following September, but failed
29.
Ferdinand I of Naples
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Ferdinand I of Naples should not be confused with Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies, a later king of Naples. Ferdinand I, also called Ferrante, was the King of Naples from 1458 to 1494 and he was the son of Alfonso V of Aragon and his mistress, Giraldona Carlino. She was a granddaughter of Mary of Enghien, who had been queen consort of Naples between 1406 and 1414, Ferdinands wife was the heiress presumptive of remarkable feudal possessions in Southern Italy. He used the title Ferdinand I, King of Naples and Jerusalem, in accordance with his fathers will, Ferdinand succeeded Alfonso on the throne of Naples in 1458, when he was 35 years old. Pope Calixtus III, however, declared the line of Aragon extinct, Calixtus died before he could make good his claim, and the new Pope Pius II within the year publicly recognized Ferdinands titles. In 1459, Ferdinands rule was threatened by a revolt of the barons. Among the leaders of revolt were Giovanni Antonio Orsini, prince of Taranto, the rebels joined to offer the crown to John of Anjou, a son of the former king René. With the help of the Genoese, John brought a fleet and landed, on July 7,1460, Ferdinand was defeated by John in the plain beside the mouth of the Sarno River south of Mount Vesuvius. Ferdinand was nearly captured and escaped with a guard of only twenty men, Isabella appears to have been responsible for dissuading Orsini from supporting John and Genoa removed their assistance. His fleet was finally demolished by the forces of Ferdinand. By 1464, Ferdinand had re-established his authority in the kingdom, in 1478 he allied himself with Pope Sixtus IV against Lorenzo de Medici, but the latter journeyed alone to Naples where he succeeded in negotiating an honorable peace with Ferdinand. Isabella became also the holder of Brienne rights to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Ferdinands wife Isabellas had died in 1465, and by 1476, Ferdinand had remarried Joanna of Aragon, his first cousin. In 1482, abandoning his position of paladin of the Papal States, he fought alongside Ferrara and Milan against the alliance of Sixtus IV. Coppola and Antonello Petrucci were arrested during a wedding at Castel Nuovo, ultimately this uprising was crushed, many of the nobles, notwithstanding Ferdinands signing of a general amnesty, were afterwards jailed and executed at his command. In December 1491 Ferdinand was visited by a group of pilgrims on their return from the Holy Land and this group was led by William I, Landgrave of Hesse. With almost prophetic instinct he warned the Italian princes of the calamities in store for them, but his negotiations with Pope Alexander VI and Ludovico Sforza failed. He died on 25 January 1494, worn out with anxiety, he was succeeded by his son, Alphonse, Duke of Calabria, the cause of his death was determined, in 2006, to have been colorectal cancer, by examination of his mummy. His remains show levels of carbon 13 and nitrogen 15 consistent with reports of considerable consumption of meat
30.
Peter III of Aragon
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Peter the Great was the King of Aragon of Valencia, and Count of Barcelona from 1276 to his death. At the invitation of some rebels, he conquered Sicily and became its king in 1282, pressing the claim of his wife, Constance of Hohenstaufen and he was one of the greatest of medieval Aragonese monarchs. Peter was the eldest son of James I of Aragon and his second wife Violant of Hungary, among betrothals of his youth, he was betrothed to Eudoxia Laskarina, the youngest daughter of Emperor Theodoros II of Nicaea, in or before 1260. This contract was dissolved, however, after Eudoxias brother lost the throne in 1261. On 13 June 1262, Peter married Constance, daughter and heiress of Manfred of Sicily, during his youth and early adulthood, Peter gained a great deal of military experience in his fathers wars of the Reconquista against the Moors. On James Is death in 1276, the lands of the Crown of Aragon were divided amongst his two sons, Peter the Great and Constance of Sicily were crowned in Zaragoza in November 1276 by the archbishop of Tarragona. Peters first act as king was to complete the pacification of his Valencian territory, however, a revolt soon broke out in Catalonia, led by the viscount of Cardona and abetted by Roger-Bernard III of Foix, Arnold Roger I of Pallars Sobirà, and Ermengol X of Urgell. The rebels had developed a hatred for Peter as a result of the severity of his dealings with them during the reign of his father, now they opposed him for not summoning the Catalan corts, and confirming its privileges after his ascension to the throne. At the same time, a succession crisis continued in the County of Urgell, meanwhile, a good portion of the county had been repossessed by Peters father, James I, and was thus inherited by Peter in 1276. In 1278, Ermengol X, Álvaros eldest son, succeeded in recovering most of his lost patrimony, in 1280, Peter defeated the stewing rebellion led by Roger-Bernard III after besieging the rebels in Balaguer for a month. Most of the leaders were imprisoned in Lleida until 1281. When Muhammad I al-Mustansir, the Hafsid Emir of Tunisia who had put himself under James the Conqueror, died in 1277, Peter first sent an expedition to Tunis in 1280 under Conrad de Llansa designed to re-establish his suzerainty. In 1281, he prepared to lead a fleet of 140 ships with 15,000 men to invade Tunisia on behalf of the governor of Constantine. The fleet landed at Alcoyll in 1282 and it was these Aragonese troops that received a Sicilian embassy after the Vespers of 30 March asking Peter to take their throne from Charles of Anjou. This made Peter III the heir of Manfred of Sicily in right of his wife, the Italian physician John of Procida acted on behalf of Peter in Sicily. John had fled to Aragon after Charles success at Tagliacozzo, John travelled to Sicily to stir up the discontents in favour of Peter and thence to Constantinople to procure the support of Michael VIII Palaeologus. Michael refused to aid the Aragonese king without papal approval, and so John voyaged to Rome and there gained the consent of Pope Nicholas III, who feared the ascent of Charles in the Mezzogiorno. John then returned to Barcelona but the pope died, to be replaced by Simon de Brion, a Frenchman and an ally of Charles
31.
Joanna I of Naples
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Joanna I was Queen of Naples and Countess of Provence and Forcalquier from 1343 until her death. She also reigned as Princess of Achaea and claimed the crowns of Jerusalem, during her long reign she was involved in numerous conflicts both internal and external. Most sources indicate that she was born in March 1328, although some indicate 1326 as the year of her birth, Joanna was the fourth but eldest surviving child of Charles, Duke of Calabria, and Marie of Valois. Two years later, on 23 October 1331, Marie of Valois died during a pilgrimage to Bari, with the death of the Duke of Calabria, King Robert faced the serious problem of his succession, he had to choose between his eldest granddaughter or his nephews. Because the descendants of his older brother Charles had already bypassed in favour of himself. As heir presumptive to the throne of Naples, she received homage on 4 November 1330, through his father he had a claim to Naples, which could be argued to be superior to that of Robert and consequently also to that of Joanna. The marriage contract between Joanna and Andrew was signed on 8 November 1332, and they were married at Santa Chiara Basilica on 26 September 1333. In the ceremony, Andrew was created Duke of Calabria and began to live in Naples, in the event of Joannas death without children, the crown would fall to her younger sister Maria and not to him. Faced with the ineffectiveness of the Council, the Pope, in his capacity as overlord, decided to impose his rule by sending a Legate. Philip I, Prince of Taranto, the Kings younger brother, Charles, Duke of Durazzo son of John, Duke of Durazzo, the Kings youngest brother, husband of Agnes de Périgord, sister of Cardinal Hélie de Talleyrand-Périgord). The Durazzo branch took major importance with the marriage between Charles of Durazzo and Maria, Countess of Alba and the Queens sister, on 21 April 1343, through this union, the Duke of Durazzo was placed first in line to the throne. When Joanna reached her majority, it was necessary to proceed with her official coronation, in accordance with the will of her grandfather, she opposed the coronation of her husband, long pressed for by his Hungarian relatives. Pope Clement VI, as overlord of the Kingdom of Naples, Joanna was crowned by the Pope as Queen of Naples on 28 August 1344. Andrew was present in the ceremony and received the title of King, angered with this, he began to claim a part in the government and the right to be properly crowned. Fearing for his life, Andrew wrote to his mother Elizabeth that he would soon flee Naples and she intervened, and made a state visit, at that same time, she allegedly bribed the Pope to revert his previous decision and permit Andrews coronation. She also gave a ring to her son, which was supposed to him from death by blade or poison. Joanna lost an important ally when her stepgrandmother withdrew into a monastery, due to her letters to the pope, the pope agreed that though Andrew would be crowned, only her coronation would be Blessed by God. When Joanna fell ill in the summer of 1344, Andrew caused great controversy when he released the Pipini brothers and they had been locked up by King Robert the Wise after having been convicted for murder, rape, pillage, treason and several other offences
32.
Louis I of Hungary
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Louis I, also Louis the Great or Louis the Hungarian, was King of Hungary and Croatia from 1342 and King of Poland from 1370. He was the first child of Charles I of Hungary and his wife, Elizabeth of Poland, a 1338 treaty between his father and Casimir III of Poland, Louiss maternal uncle, confirmed Louiss right to inherit the Kingdom of Poland if his uncle died without a son. In exchange, Louis was obliged to assist his uncle to reoccupy the lands that Poland had lost in previous decades and he bore the title of Duke of Transylvania between 1339 and 1342 but did not administer the province. Louis was of age when succeeded his father in 1342, and he inherited a centralized kingdom and a rich treasury from his father. He launched two campaigns to the Kingdom of Naples between 1347 and 1350 and his troops occupied large territories on both occasions, and Louis adopted the styles of Neapolitan sovereigns, but the Holy See never recognized his claim. Louiss arbitrary acts and atrocities committed by his mercenaries made his rule unpopular in Southern Italy and he withdrew all his troops from the Kingdom of Naples in 1351. Like his father, Louis administered Hungary with absolute power and used royal prerogatives to grant privileges to his courtiers, however, he also confirmed the liberties of the Hungarian nobility at the Diet of 1351, emphasizing the equal status of all noblemen. At the same Diet, he introduced a system and a uniform rent payable by the peasants to the landowners. He forced the Republic of Venice to renounce the Dalmatian towns in 1358 and he also made several attempts to expand his suzerainty over the rulers of Bosnia, Moldavia, Wallachia, and parts of Bulgaria and Serbia. His attempts to convert his pagan or Orthodox subjects to Catholicism made him unpopular in the Balkan states, Louis established a university in Pécs in 1367, but it was closed within two decades because he did not arrange for sufficient revenues to maintain it. Louis inherited Poland after his uncles death in 1370, since he had no sons, he wanted his subjects to acknowledge the right of his daughters to succeed him in both Hungary and Poland. For this purpose, he issued the Privilege of Koszyce in 1374 spelling out the liberties of Polish noblemen, however, his rule remained unpopular in Poland. In Hungary, he authorized the free cities to delegate jurors to the high court hearing their cases. Suffering from a disease, Louis became even more religious during the last years of his life. At the beginning of the Western Schism, he acknowledged Urban VI as the legitimate pope, after the pope dethroned Joanna I of Naples and made Louiss distant cousin, Charles of Durazzo, king of Naples, Louis helped Charles occupy the kingdom. In Hungarian historiography, Louis was regarded for centuries as the most powerful Hungarian monarch who ruled over an empire whose shores were washed by three seas, born on 5 March 1326, Louis was the third son of Charles I of Hungary and his wife, Elizabeth of Poland. He was named for his fathers uncle, Louis, Bishop of Toulouse, the first-born son of his parents, Charles, died before Louis was born. Louis became his fathers heir after the death of his brother Ladislaus in 1329 and he had a liberal education by the standards of his age and learned French, German and Latin
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History of Hungary
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For the history of the area before this period, see Pannonian basin before Hungary. The oldest archaeological site in Hungary is Vértesszőlős, where palaeolithic Oldowan pebble tools, the Roman Empire conquered territory west of the Danube River between 35 and 9 BC. From 9 BC to the end of the 4th century AD, Pannonia, among the first to arrive were the Huns, who built up a powerful empire under Attila the Hun in 435 AD. Attila was regarded in past centuries as a ruler of the Hungarians. They entered what is now Hungary in the 7th century AD, the Avar Khaganate was weakened by constant wars and outside pressure, and the Franks under Charlemagne managed to defeat the Avars to end their 250-year rule. Árpád was the leader who unified the Magyar tribes via the Covenant of Blood and he led the new nation to the Carpathian Basin in the 9th century. Between 895 and 902 the whole area of the Carpathian Basin was conquered by the Hungarians, an early Hungarian state was formed in this territory in 895. The military power of the nation allowed the Hungarians to conduct successful fierce campaigns, Prince Géza of the Árpád dynasty, who ruled only part of the united territory, was the nominal overlord of all seven Magyar tribes. He aimed to integrate Hungary into Christian Western Europe by rebuilding the state according to the Western political and social models, Géza established a dynasty by naming his son Vajk as his successor. This decision was contrary to the dominant tradition of the time to have the eldest surviving member of the ruling family succeed the incumbent. By ancestral right, Prince Koppány, the oldest member of the dynasty, should have claimed the throne, Koppány did not relinquish his ancestral rights without a fight. After Gézas death in 997, Koppány took up arms, the rebels claimed to represent the old political order, ancient human rights, tribal independence and pagan belief. Stephen won a victory over his uncle Koppány and had him executed. Hungary was recognized as a Catholic Apostolic Kingdom under Saint Stephen I, Stephen was the son of Géza and thus a descendant of Árpád. Stephen was crowned with the Holy Crown of Hungary in the first day of 1000 AD in the city of Esztergom. Pope Sylvester II conferred on him the right to have the cross carried before him, with full authority over bishoprics. By 1006, Stephen had solidified his power by eliminating all rivals who either wanted to follow the old traditions or wanted an alliance with the Eastern Christian Byzantine Empire. Then he initiated sweeping reforms to convert Hungary into a feudal state, complete with forced Christianization
34.
Louis I, Duke of Anjou
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Louis I was the second son of John II of France and the founder of the Angevin branch of the French royal house. Bonne of Bohemia gave birth to him at the Château de Vincennes and his father appointed him Count of Anjou and Count of Maine in 1356, and then raised him to the title Duke of Anjou in 1360 and Duke of Touraine in 1370. In 1382, as the son of Joan I, he succeeded to the counties of Provence. He also inherited from her a claim to the kingdoms of Naples and he was already a veteran of the Hundred Years War against the English when he led an army into Italy to claim his Neapolitan inheritance. He died on the march and his claims and titles fell to his son and namesake, Louis II, Louis was present at the Battle of Poitiers, in the battalion commanded by his brother Charles, the Dauphin. They hardly fought and the group escaped in the middle of the confrontation. Although humiliating, their flight allowed them to capture by the English. King John II and Louis younger brother Philip were not so fortunate and were captured by the English, commanded by Edward and their ransom and peace conditions between France and England were agreed in the Treaty of Brétigny, signed in 1360. Amongst the complicated items of the treaty was a clause that determined the surrender of 40 high-born hostages as guarantee for the payment of the kings ransom, Louis, already Duke of Anjou, was in this group and sailed to England in October 1360. However, France was not in good condition and further installments of the debt were delayed. As consequence, Louis was in English custody for more than the expected six months. He tried to negotiate his freedom in a negotiation with Edward III of England and. On his return to France, he met his fathers disapproval for his unknightly behavior, from 1380 to 1382 Louis served as regent for his nephew, King Charles VI of France. In 1382 Louis left France in the year to claim the throne of Naples following the death of Queen Joanna I. She had adopted him to succeed her, as she was childless and did not wish to leave her inheritance to any of her close relatives and he was also able to succeed her as count of Provence and Forcalquier. The expedition, counting to some 40,000 troops, was however unsuccessful, amadeus fell ill and died in Molise on 1 March 1383 and his troops abandoned the field. Louis asked for help from his nephew in France, who sent him an army under Enguerrand of Coucy. The latter was able to conquer Arezzo and then invade the Kingdom of Naples and he soon sold Arezzo to Florence and returned to France
35.
Charles III of Naples
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Charles the Short or Charles of Durazzo was King of Naples and titular King of Jerusalem from 1382 to 1386 as Charles III, and King of Hungary from 1385 to 1386 as Charles II. In 1382 Charles created the order of Argonauts of Saint Nicholas, in 1383 he succeeded to the Principality of Achaea on the death of James of Baux. He was the child of Louis of Durazzo and his wife. Louis of Durazzo was a son of John, Duke of Durazzo who was the youngest son of King Charles II of Naples. Charless date of birth is uncertain, he was born in 1354, according to historian Szilárd Süttő, Louis of Durazzo rebelled against his cousins, Joanna I of Naples, and her husband, Louis of Taranto in the spring of 1360, but he was defeated. He was also compelled to send the child Charles as a hostage to Queen Joanna Is court in Naples. After Charless father died in prison in the summer of 1362, Queen Joanna ordered that Charles was to be treated with all due to the royal household. Charless distant cousin, Louis I of Hungary, who had not fathered a son, Charles came to Hungary in 1364 or 1365. King Louis initially planned to arrange a marriage between Charles and Anne, who was a daughter of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor, however, the negotiations of their marriage were broken off because the relations between Louis I and Charles IV had deteriorated. Next, Louis proposed a marriage between Charles and Charless cousin, Margaret of Durazzo, who was the youngest daughter of Queen Joannas younger sister, Maria of Calabria. Although the queen was opposed to the marriage, Pope Urban VI granted the dispensation that was necessary for the marriage on 15 June 1369. Their marriage took place in Naples on 24 January 1370, Louis made Charles governor of Slavonia, Croatia and Dalmatia with the title of duke in 1371. The conflict between Joanna and Pope Urban VI caused the Pope to declare her dethroned in 1381 and give the kingdom to Charles. He marched on the Kingdom of Naples with a Croatian army, defeated her husband Otto, Duke of Brunswick-Grubenhagen, at San Germano, seized the city, after Ottos failed attempt to relieve her, Charles captured her and had her imprisoned at San Fele. Soon afterwards, when news reached Charles that her adopted heir, then he succeeded to the crown. Queen Joanna I of Naples officially acknowledged Clement VII as the pope against Urban VI on 22 November 1378. She even gave shelter to Clement VII, who had expelled from Rome. In retaliation, Pope Urban VI excommunicated the queen and declared her deprived of her kingdom in favor of Charles of Durazzo and his wife Margaret on 17 June
36.
Joanna II of Naples
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Joanna II was Queen of Naples from 1414 to her death, upon which the senior Angevin line of Naples became extinct. As a mere formality, she used the title of Queen of Jerusalem, Sicily, Joanna was born at Zara, Dalmatia on 25 June 1373, as the daughter of Charles III of Naples and Margaret of Durazzo. In 1414, she succeeded her brother Ladislaus to the throne of Naples, at that date she was 41 years old and was already the widow of her cousin Hedwigs rejected fiancé, William and she married twice, but had no children. Joanna married her first husband, William, Duke of Austria in Vienna in the autumn of 1401 when she was 28 years of age and he had been rejected as a husband by her cousin, Hedwig of Poland. Joanna did not have any children by William, who died in 1406 after five years of marriage and it was sometime after his death, that she acquired a lover by the name of Pandolfello Alopo, whom she appointed Grand Chamberlain. Alopo was the first in what would become a series of lovers and he later caused the downfall of the influential condottiero and grand constable Muzio Sforza, provoking much jealousy. In early 1415, she became fiancee to John of Aragon, a son of King Ferdinand I of Aragon, the betrothal was annulled shortly after, which left Joanna free to choose another husband. On 10 August 1415, she married a second time, to James of Bourbon, Count of La Marche, the marriage contract stipulated that upon his marriage to Joanna, James would be granted the title of Prince of Taranto. Not having received the title, he had Alopo killed and forced Joanna to name him King of Naples. In an attempt to complete power, James imprisoned Joanna in her own apartments in the royal palace, however. In 1416, a riot exploded in Naples, and James was compelled to back his French administrators. In this period, Joanna began her relationship with Sergianni Caracciolo, on 28 August 1417, she reconquered Rome, and the following year, James left Naples for France. With James now powerless, Joanna could finally celebrate her coronation on 28 October 1419, however, her relationship with Naples nominal feudal suzerain, Pope Martin V, soon worsened. Upon the advice of Caracciolo, she denied Martin economic aid to rebuild the papal army, in response, the Pope called in Louis III of Anjou, son of the rival of King Ladislaus and himself still a pretender to the Neapolitan throne. In 1420, Louis invaded Campania, but the Pope, trying to gain advantage from the menace posed to Joanna. Joanna rejected the ambiguous papal proposal calling for help from the brother of her erstwhile betrothed, Alfonso entered Naples in July 1421. Louis lost the support of the Pope, but at the time the relationship between Joanna and Alfonso worsened. In May 1423, Alfonso had Caracciolo arrested and besieged Joannas residence, an agreement was obtained, Sergianni was freed, and fled to Aversa with Joanna
37.
Louis III of Anjou
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Louis III was titular King of Naples from 1417 to 1426, Count of Provence, Forcalquier, Piedmont, and Maine and Duke of Anjou from 1417 to 1434, and Duke of Calabria from 1426 to 1434. He was the eldest son and heir of Louis II of Anjou, the throne of Aragon fell vacant in 1410 when king Martin I of Aragon died. Louis mother Yolande was the daughter of sonless King John I of Aragon. They claimed the throne of Aragon for the young Louis, however, unclear though they were, the succession rules of Aragon and Barcelona at that time were understood to favor all male relatives before any female. Martin died without surviving issue in 1410, and after two years without a king, the Estates of Aragon by Compromise of Caspe in 1412 elected Infante Ferdinand of Castile as the next King of Aragon. Ferdinand was the son of Eleanor of Aragon and John I of Castile. The family however had secured some Aragonese lands in Montpellier and Roussillon, Yolande and her sons regarded themselves as heirs of higher claim and began to use the title of Kings of Aragon. From this inheritance forward, Louis and Yolande were called the King and Queen of Four Kingdoms, those four being Sicily, Jerusalem, Aragon, of those, only the mainland part of Sicily was ever directly held by Louis, and only briefly. Louis also had claims on the title Latin Emperor, which his grandfather Louis I had purchased in 1383, Pope Martin V invested Louis III on 4 December 1419 as King of Sicily. This was in contrast with the will of the childless and aged queen of the Italian kingdom, Joanna II, in 1420 Louis disembarked in Campania and besieged Naples, but had to flee at the arrive of an Aragonese fleet. Alfonso entered the city in 1421 and Louis lost the support of the Pope, however, when the relationships between Alfonso and queen suddenly worsened after the arrest of Joannas lover and prime minister, Gianni Caracciolo, the queen moved to Aversa where Louis joined her. He was adopted and named heir in lieu of Alfonso, giving him the title of Duke of Calabria, when Alfonso had to return to Aragon, the kingdom was pacified. Louis moved to his possession in Calabria, where he lived with Margaret of Savoy, daughter of Amadeus VIII. Louis could never become king effectively, as he died of malaria at Cosenza in 1434, after Joannas death the following year, his brother René of Anjou was named King of Naples. The Good King, René of Anjou and Fifteenth Century Europe, amedeo Miceli di Serradileo, Una dichiarazione di Luigi III dAngiò dalla città di San Marco, Archivio Storico per la Calabria e la Lucania, Rome, XLIII,1976, pp. 69–83
38.
Charles VIII of France
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Charles VIII, called the Affable, French, lAffable, was a monarch of the House of Valois who ruled as King of France from 1483 to his death in 1498. He succeeded his father Louis XI at the age of 13 and his elder sister Anne of France acted as regent jointly with her husband Peter II, Duke of Bourbon until 1491 when the young king turned 21 years of age. During Annes regency, the great lords rebelled against royal centralisation efforts in a known as the Mad War. Preoccupied by the succession in the Kingdom of Hungary, Maximilian failed to press his claim. Upon his marriage, Charles became administrator of Brittany and established a union that enabled France to avoid total encirclement by Habsburg territories. The coalition formed against the French invasion of 1494-98 finally drove out Charles army, Charles died in 1498 after accidentally striking his head on the lintel of a door. Since he had no heir, he was succeeded by his cousin Louis XII of France from the Orléans cadet branch of the House of Valois. Charles was born at the Château dAmboise in France, the surviving son of King Louis XI by his second wife Charlotte of Savoy. Charles succeeded to the throne on 30 August 1483 at the age of 13 and he was regarded by his contemporaries as possessing a pleasant disposition, but also as foolish and unsuited for the business of the state. She would rule as regent, together with her husband Peter of Bourbon, Charles was betrothed on 22 July 1483 to the 3-year-old Margaret of Austria, daughter of the Archduke Maximilian of Austria and Mary, Duchess of Burgundy. The marriage was arranged by Louis XI, Maximilian, and the Estates of the Low Countries as part of the 1482 Peace of Arras between France and the Duchy of Burgundy. Margaret brought the Counties of Artois and Burgundy to France as her dowry, in 1488, however, Francis II, Duke of Brittany, died in a riding accident, leaving his 11-year-old daughter Anne as his heiress. The Regent Anne of France and her husband Peter refused to countenance such a marriage, however, since it would place Maximilian and his family, the Habsburgs, on two French borders. The French army invaded Brittany, taking advantage of the preoccupation of Frederick III and his son with the succession to Mathias Corvinus. Anne of Brittany was forced to renounce Maximilian and agree to be married to Charles VIII instead, in December 1491, in an elaborate ceremony at the Château de Langeais, Charles and Anne of Brittany were married. The 14-year-old Duchess Anne, not happy with the arranged marriage, however, Charless marriage brought him independence from his relatives and thereafter he managed affairs according to his own inclinations. Queen Anne lived at the Clos Lucé in Amboise, there still remained the matter of Charles first betrothed, the young Margaret of Austria. Although the cancellation of her betrothal meant that she by rights should have returned to her family, Charles did not initially do so
39.
Italian Wars
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Ludovico Sforza of Milan, seeking an ally against the Republic of Venice, encouraged Charles VIII of France to invade Italy, using the Angevin claim to the throne of Naples as a pretext. For several months, French forces moved through Italy virtually unopposed, Charles VIII made triumphant entries into Pisa on November 8,1494, Florence on November 17,1494, and Rome on December 31,1494. Upon reaching the city of Monte San Giovanni in the Kingdom of Naples, Charles VIII sent envoys to the town, the garrison killed and mutilated the envoys and sent the bodies back to the French lines. This enraged the French army so that reduced the castle in the town with blistering artillery fire on February 9,1495 and stormed the fort. This was the sack of Naples. News of the French Armys sack of Naples provoked a reaction among the city-states of Northern Italy, the League was specifically formed to resist French aggression. The League was established on 31 March after negotiations by Venice, Milan, Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. Later on the League consisted of the Holy Roman Empire, the Duchy of Milan, Spain, the Papal States, the Republic of Florence, the Duchy of Mantua and this coalition, effectively, cut Charles army off from returning to France. After establishing a government in Naples, Charles started to march north on his return to France. However, in the town of Fornovo he met the League army. In contemporary tradition, though, the battle counted as a Holy League victory, because the French forces had to leave, to the Italian coalition, however, it was at best a pyrrhic victory, in that its strategic outcome and long-term consequences were unfavorable. Although the League managed to force Charles VIII off the battlefield, it suffered much higher casualties and could not prevent the opposing army crossing the Italian lands as it returned to France. As a result of Charles VIIIs expedition, the states of Italy were shown once. In fact, the individual Italian states could not field armies comparable to those of the feudal monarchies of Europe in numbers. Thus, Charles VIII lost all that he conquered in Italy, King Charles VIII died on April 7,1498 and was succeeded to the throne of France by his cousin, Louis II, Duke of Orléans, who became Louis XII of France. Ludovico Sforza retained his throne in Milan until 1499, when Charless successor, Louis XII of France, invaded Lombardy, Louis XII justified his claim to the Duchy of Milan by right of his paternal grandfather, Louis duc dOrléans having married Valentina Visconti in 1387. Valentina Visconti was the heir to the Duchy of Milan in the Visconti dynasty, the marriage contract between Valentina Visconti and Louis, duc dOrléans, guaranteed that in failure of male heirs, she would inherit the Visconti dominions. However, when the Visconti dynasty died out in 1447, the Milanese ignored the Orleans claim to the Duchy of Milan, however, bitter factionalism arose under the new republic which set the stage for Francisco Sforza to seize control of Milan in 1450
40.
Alfonso II of Naples
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Alfonso II, also called Alfonso of Aragon, was King of Naples from 25 January 1494 to 22 February 1495 with the title King of Naples and Jerusalem. As Duke of Calabria he was a patron of Renaissance poets, born at Naples, Alfonso was the eldest child of Ferdinand I of Naples by his first wife, Isabella of Clermont. She was the daughter of Tristan, Count of Copertino and Caterina Del Balzo Orsini, Alfonso was the cousin of Ferdinand II of Aragon, king of Aragon and the first ruler of a unified Spain. His teacher was the humanist Giovanni Pontano, whose De splendore describes the proper virtues, when his mother Isabella of Clermont died, he succeeded to her feudal claims, which included the Brienne claim to the Kingdom of Jerusalem. In 1463, when Alfonso was fifteen, his great-uncle Giovanni Antonio del Balzo Orsini, Prince of Taranto, died, and he obtained some lands from the inheritance. Alfonso had shown himself a skilled and determined soldier, helping his father in the suppression of the Conjure of the Barons, as a condottiero, he fought in the most important wars of the age, such the war following the Pazzi Conspiracy and the War of Ferrara. Alfonsos reign was destined to be short, Charles invaded Italy in September,1494. Alfonso managed to regain the support of Pope Alexander VI, who invited Charles to devote his effort against the Turks instead. Alfonso received the official Papal coronation as Rex Siciliae on May 8,1494 from Juan de Borja Lanzol de Romaní, el mayor, previously the papal legate to Alfonso II. Alfonso, terrified by a series of portents, as well as dreams, abdicated in favour of his son, Ferdinand or Ferrandino. He died in Messina later that year, as Crown Prince, Alfonso had participated in the brilliant Renaissance culture that surrounded his fathers court. Poggio Reale, which Vasari said was designed by Giuliano da Maiano, there are no archives to connect Giuliano or his brother Benedetto with the project, for documentation only a section and plan, reproduced with apologies for its inaccuracy, by Sebastiano Serlio. Serlios reproduction seems to show a plan, identical on all four sides. It was all unlike anything experienced by the French king, who retreated from Italy, loaded with tapestries and works of art, like his father, Alfonso married twice. His first wife was Ippolita Maria Sforza, whom he married on 10 October 1465 in Milan and his mistress, by whom he also had children, was Trogia Gazzela. Piero, Prince of Rossano, Lieutenant General of Apulia, died of a following leg surgery. Sancha of Aragon is portrayed as his rather than his daughter. In Da Vincis Demons he is played by Kieran Bew and is depicted as a sadistic warlord, hersey, George L. Alfonso II and the Artistic Renewal of Naples
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