ABSTRACT
It has been seen that Ferrante's son Alfonso, duke of Calabria, was already exceedingly unpopular with some of the barons in the 1480s, so that he rather than his father appears to have been the primary focus of complaint during the Second Barons' War. His accession in 1494 was therefore less smooth than appearances suggested: the papal chronicler Burchard offers a glittering description of Alfonso's coronation in May at the hand of the pope's nephew. 1 The alliance between the papacy and Naples seemed still to have some meaning; marriage alliances linked the Borgia family with the house of Aragon, and attached to them were assignments of grand titles and lands in the deep south of Italy. In reality, however, Pope Alexander VI was constantly wavering between the desirability of showing some friendship to France and the advantages of maintaining close influence over his vassal and neighbour the king of Naples.
