ABSTRACT
In 1443 Alfonso V of Aragon conquered the throne of the kingdom of Naples, which was contested between him and Rene of Anjou-Provence.' The settlement of an Aragonese King in Naples divided the barons (the term commonly used in Neapolitan historiography for the tenants-in-chief) and the demesnial towns into one party that supported the deposed Angevin dynasty, and another, loyal to the Aragonese and, later, to the Spanish cause. The Angevin party rebelled against the Aragonese twice in the fifteenth century, and during that time many Neapolitan barons invited the king of France to restore the Angevin dynasty in Southern ltaly.2 The rapid conquest of Charles VID and the unconditioned retreat of Alfonso II and Ferrante II (commonly known as Ferrandino) in 1495 may have been related to the fact that the Aragonese kings of Naples did not have the support of many of their barons.3 In 1496 the Aragonese dynasty was restored in Naples, but in November 1500, with the treaty of Granada, the kings of France and Spain agreed to share the kingdom of
I Alfonso and Rene had been adopted by Joanna IT, last Angevin ruler of Naples, as her successors to the throne: N.F. Faraglia, Storia della regina Giovanna d'Angio (Lanciano, 1904); Faraglia, Storia della Iotta tra Alfonso V d'Aragona e Renato d'Angio (Lanciano, 1908); E. Pontieri, 'Alfonso V d'Aragona nel quadro della politica italiana del suo tempo', in E. Pontieri, Divagazioni storiche e storiograjiche, prima serie (Naples, 1960), 223-39; A. Ryder, The kingdom of Naples under Alfonso the Magnanimous. The Making of a Modern State (Oxford, 1976), 23-6.
