ABSTRACT
The reign of Joanna II of Anjou (1414-35) expressed neatly all the difficulties that had been piling on the dynasty's head in Naples since the contest between Joanna I and her rivals, and the victory of the Durazzo branch of the house of Anjou. Joanna II was credited with more lovers than Joanna I had husbands, a sordid reputation that grew in the telling. What is more certain is that she had an ability to change her mind, or worse still not quite to make up her mind, that played further into the hands of the south Italian baronage and into those of aspirants for her throne. Pope Martin V excommunicated Joanna II in 1419, declaring that the house of Anjou Provence was entitled to wear her crown; not surprisingly the queen looked elsewhere than the rival .Angevin house for an heir, nominating Alfonso, king of Aragon and Sicily in 1421, but then backtracking in 1423, and giving Duke Louis III of Anjou the right to succeed, a claim which then passed to his heir René, of whom more shortly. This see-sawing created instability within the Regno, even before competing armies descended on the kingdom's shores. Other examples of her inconsistency are legion: favours to a Jew-baiting friar, Giovanno da Capestrano, led to a sudden reversal of the traditional royal policy of protecting the Jews, and soon Joanna herself was persuaded to abandon the friar and to renew the privileges of the Jews. Joanna's Grand Seneschal Gianni Caracciolo was a member of a leading south Italian noble family, and his undue influence, which appeared to extend inside the royal bedroom, led to his assassination in 1432. Equally disastrous was her decision to show favour to a family of mercenary captains from outside the Regno: Muzio Attendolo and his son Francesco, both called Sforza ('strongman'), were looking for land and titles like many another condottiere who originated among the Italian petty nobility, but even the acquisition of estates in southern Italy did not ensure the loyalty of the Sforzas. 1
