ABSTRACT
Alfonso the Magnanimous, was a great man and in the opinion of his contemporaries a good king. The second and third kings, Ferdinand I and Alfonso II, were cruel and treacherous tyrants feared by their subjects and hated by their fellow princes. When Alfonso V of Aragon conquered Naples in 1442 and became Alfonso I of Naples, he added a seventh kingdom to the six he already ruled: Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, the Balearic Islands, Sicily, and Sardinia and Corsica. Born a prince of a junior branch of the Castilian royal house of Trastamara, Alfonso became a prince of Aragon in 1412, when his father became king. Waging wars never occupied the whole of Alfonso’s time and attention. Alfonso the Magnanimous was faithless in politics, artful in concealing his emotions and intentions, woefully extravagant. He taxed his Spanish subjects heavily as well as his Italian ones to support his wars and his luxurious court.
