Giovanni Boccaccio, a Biographical Study

CHAPTER VII

Chapter 123,670 wordsPublic domain

1344-1346

IN NAPLES--THE ACCESSION OF GIOVANNA--THE MURDER OF ANDREW OF HUNGARY--THE VENGEANCE

Those three years of tumult in Florence cannot but have made a profound impression on a man like Boccaccio. "Florence is full of boastful voices and cowardly deeds," he writes in the _Fiammetta_, while his account of the Duke in the _De Casibus Virorum Illustrium_ tells us clearly enough what he thought of that business. Was it the public confusion in Florence that sent him back to Naples in 1344 or 1345,[322] on an invitation from Niccolò Acciaiuolo, or just a hope of seeing once more Madonna Fiammetta, whom, as we have seen, even amid the dreadful excitement of those three years, he had never been able really to forget for a moment? We shall never know; but if it were any expectation of peace or hope of finding in that far city the old splendour and gaiety he had once enjoyed there, he must indeed have been disappointed. Already, before he returned to Florence in 1341, the rule of King Robert, who was then in his last years, had weakened; and factions were already forming which, when the wise king passed away, were not slow to divide the city against itself. No doubt the splendid reception offered to Petrarch, the gaiety of all that, served to hide the dangerous condition of affairs, which was not rendered less insecure by the fact that King Robert's heir was a girl still in her first youth, Giovanna the beautiful, daughter of Charles of Calabria.

"Giovanna Regina Grassa nè magra, bella el viso tondo Dotata bene de la virtù divina D' animo grato, benigno, jocondo."[323]

So sang the poets, and that the painters were not less enthusiastic is proved by the frescoes in S. Maria dell' Incoronata.

In 1342 Giovanna was entering her seventeenth year, while Andrew of Hungary, her betrothed, was but fifteen. On Easter Day in that year King Robert invested him with the insignia of knighthood, and four days later he was to have been married to the Princess, but the death first of Pope Benedict (April 25th), and then of the King of Hungary, his father (July 15th), prevented the ceremony, so that it was not till August that it could take place, and then quite suddenly King Robert the Wise died, aged sixty-four, on January 19th, 1343. In the frock of a Franciscan tertiary they buried him in S. Chiara, behind the high altar, and Sancius and Johannes of Florence presently built there the great and beautiful tomb we know.[324]

"Pastorum Rex Argus erat: cui lumina centum Lyncea, cui centum vigiles cum sensibus aures Centum artes, centumque manus, centumque lacerti Lingua sed una fuit."[325]

So said Petrarch.

Now by his Will, as was inevitable, Robert appointed his granddaughter Giovanna his successor and heiress to all his dominions--including Provence and most of his Piedmontese possessions; he left her too the unrestored island of Sicily and the title of Jerusalem. In case of her death all was to pass to Maria her sister, who later married the Duke of Durazzo. During Giovanna's minority and that of her husband Andrew of Hungary, which were to last till they were twenty-five, the Will vested the government in a Supreme Council which was in fact dominated by the Dowager Queen Sancia, and was composed of Philip de Cabassoles, Bishop of Cavaillon, vice-chancellor of the realm on behalf of the suzerain Holy See, Charles d'Artois, Count of S. Agata, natural son of King Robert, Goffredo Marzano, Count of Squillace, admiral of the Kingdom, and Filippo di Sanguinetto, Count of Altomonte, seneschal in Provence. It thus appears that the intention of the King was to keep the throne in his own line, certainly not to make Andrew of Hungary king in Naples. The two branches of his house had had, it will be remembered, almost equal rights to the throne, and if Clement V for his own good had decided in favour of the younger branch, that is in favour of Robert, though Charles Martel of Hungary, Andrew's father, submitted to the Papal decision, Robert had thought it prudent to make voluntarily a kind of composition of his rights and the claims of his brothers in arranging the marriage between Andrew his nephew and his granddaughter Giovanna. It will thus be seen that Giovanna's marriage was a political act designed to establish peace between the descendants of Charles d'Anjou.[326] That no peace but a sword came of it we shall see.

King Robert had not been dead many months when the Hungarians, sure of Andrew's protection, began to flock to Naples. They angered those who surrounded the Queen and even the Queen herself by their insolence, and thus the court was divided into two parties, or rather there were two courts in one palace.

In the autumn of 1343 Petrarch was once more in Naples. In a letter to Barbato di Sulmona he pays an eloquent tribute to King Robert, and at the same time states his reasons for anxiety as to the condition of the Kingdom. "I fear as much from the youthfulness of the Queen and her consort as from the age and ideas of the Queen Dowager; but I am especially afraid of the administration and manners of the court. Perhaps I am a bad prophet: I hope so. But I seem to see two lambs in the care of a pack of wolves...." Touching on the administration, Petrarch gives the following account of Fra Roberto, the Franciscan confessor of Andrew. "I encountered a deformed creature, barefooted, hoodless, vainglorious in his poverty, degenerate through his sensuality; in fact, a homunculus, bald and rubicund, with bloated limbs.... Would you hear his revered name? He is called 'Robert.' Yes, in the place of the noblest of kings, till lately the glory of our age, has arisen this Robert who, on the contrary, will disgrace it. Nor will I henceforth hold it a fable they relate of a serpent able to be generated from a buried corpse, since from the royal sepulchre has issued this reptile." And indeed of all the court he has a good word for Philip de Cabassoles only: "he who alone stands up on the side of justice."

So much for the administration; nor were the manners he found there any better, in his judgment. The whole city was divided against itself, and life was altogether insecure. The council is "compelled to end its sittings at sunset, for the turbulent young nobles make the streets quite unsafe after dark. And what wonder if they are unruly and society corrupt, when the public authorities actually countenance all the horrors of gladiatorial games? These disgusting exhibitions take place in open day before the court and populace in this city of Italy with more than barbaric ferocity."[327]

The vicious life of this and the following years in Naples is usually attributed to the example and influence of Queen Giovanna. In fact nothing can be further from the truth. In King Robert's time the court life was, as we have seen, very far from being exemplary, but Giovanna herself was not weak and abandoned. Already Hungary was pressing the claims of Andrew to equal if not superior power to hers. She never flinched for a moment; from the hour she perceived the way things were drifting she determined to win.

At first things seemed altogether against her. In June, 1344, she wrote to Charles of Durazzo, her sister's husband, telling him that Cardinal Aimeric, the Papal Legate, had entered her kingdom without her leave, and that therefore she and Andrew were gone to Aversa to meet him. There she made peace, acknowledged the Cardinal as Regent, and admitted her crown to be held from the Holy See. Andrew signed her proclamation as a mere witness.[328] But this intrusion of the Papacy by no means improved chances of peace.

The coming of Andrew, with his Hungarian pretensions and those crowds of needy foreign place-hunters, angered the Neapolitan people it is true, but it infuriated the long-established group of domestic functionaries in Castel Nuovo, who in some sort had been confirmed in their offices by the Will of King Robert. The head of this court party, as whole-heartedly against Andrew as it was against the Pope, was Filippa la Catanese, now quite an old woman. Among her family were Raimondo the seneschal, Sancia de Cabannis, Contessa di Morcone, her granddaughter, wife of Carlo di Gambatesa, Roberto de Cabannis, grand seneschal of the Kingdom, and his wife. This group sided with Giovanna, and in its own interest pushed her claims against those of Aimeric and Andrew. They were supported more or less in secret by Catherine of Taranto and her sons Robert and Louis.

A storm was obviously brewing, and it must have been about this time that Boccaccio returned to Naples, perhaps on the invitation of Niccolò Acciaiuoli, secretary and protégé of Catherine of Taranto. No doubt he hoped to see Fiammetta--no doubt he did see her, though what came of it we shall never know; but he found no more peace in Naples than in Florence.

In February, 1345, the Pope removed Aimeric, who he declared had succeeded in governing _pacifice et quiete_.[329] The Cardinal returned to Avignon, and moved in the Consistory that Andrew be crowned king. He was supported by Durazzo. Giovanna appealed. The Pope listened, but ordered that Filippa la Catanese, Sancia, Margherita, and others should be dismissed. From that moment the Catanesi plotted to murder Andrew.

It was the custom of the court (then, as it happened, in mourning for the Dowager Queen Sancia, who died July 28, 1345) to spend the summer at one of the royal palaces outside Naples. In July Giovanna, then with child, had gone with the court to Castellamare; in September she moved to Aversa. On the night of the 18th, the anniversary of Andrew's arrival in Naples, the Queen had retired early, and Andrew too had gone early to his room, when Tommaso, son of Mambriccio di Tropea, summoned him from his chamber into a passage leading toward the garden, on the pretence, as it is said, that messengers had arrived from Naples with important despatches. In that passageway he was seized, gagged, and strangled, and his body thrown into the garden, where it was discovered by his Hungarian nurse.[330] It was at once whispered that the Queen was concerned in the murder, and this rumour has been accepted as the truth even in our own day;[331] but, in fact, there is little or nothing to substantiate it. Her account[332] scarcely differs from that of the Pope, but adds that a man had been seized and executed for the crime. Then, after a day or two, the Queen left Aversa for Naples. Andrew's nurse remained in her service and nursed her through her confinement in December.

The murder of Andrew, whose handiwork soever, effectually divided the Kingdom into two parties, to wit those of Durazzo and Taranto; the former demanding punishment of the murderers. Two Cardinals, di S. Clemente and di S. Marco, were appointed by the Pope to rule in Naples and to exact vengeance. The Queen was helpless. On December 25th her son was born and named Charles Martel. As time went on and none of the assassins were brought to justice, the Hungarians became furious, and at last requested the custody of the young prince; and this request became a demand when it was known that Giovanna was being sought in marriage by Robert of Taranto, who, with his mother and his half-brother Louis, had been covertly associated with the Catanesi. Something had to be done, and early in 1346 we find Charles of Durazzo with Robert of Taranto and Ugo del Balzo seizing Raimondo the seneschal, as one of the guilty persons. Under torture he confessed that he had knowledge of the plot and assisted those who committed the murder. Among his accomplices he named the Count of Terlizzi, Roberto de Cabannis, Giovanni and Rostaino di Lagonessa, Niccolò di Melezino, Filippa Catanese, and Sancia de Cabannis.

Charles of Durazzo and Robert of Taranto therefore determined to hunt down the Catanese family and offer it as a peace-offering to the King of Hungary, who already threatened to descend upon the Kingdom. At Durazzo's instigation an armed mob surrounded Castel Nuovo hunting for the murderers. A few had been wise enough to flee, but most of those denounced were arrested, imprisoned in Castel Capuano, and put to torture. In vain the Queen protested against the princes' action. They achieved their purpose and the Pope, in a Bull of March 19th, 1346, pardoned them, asserting that God had moved them to it.

The Queen, as might be expected, had now no further wish to marry Robert of Taranto; and, indeed, finding that she could not depend on him for help, she had already promised herself to his half-brother Louis. In this second marriage she begged for the favour of the Holy See. The Pope, though not averse, bullied by Hungary, temporised.

Now, behind Louis of Taranto was the most astute mind of that age, Boccaccio's old friend, Niccolò Acciaiuoli, the Florentine. He resolved to win for his patron both the Queen of Naples and the crown. Nor was he easily discouraged. Yet, at first certainly things looked black enough for him.

Early in August, 1346, there had been erected along the shore by the Castello dell' Ovo a palisade encircling a raised platform. Here, under Ugo del Balzo, the public torture of the suspected began. Whatever else Boccaccio may have seen or done in Naples, it seems certain that he was a witness of this dreadful orgie.[333]

But in Naples confusion followed on confusion. Without waiting for the Pope's leave, risking an interdict, Louis of Taranto married Giovanna in the Castel Nuovo in August, 1347, while already King Louis of Hungary was creeping down through the Abruzzi to invade the Kingdom and seize the city. On January 15, 1348, the Queen, with a few friends, leaving her child behind, sailed for Provence. Not long after Louis of Taranto and Acciaiuoli reached Naples, and, finding her departed, took ship for Tuscany. With them, according to Witte, went Boccaccio. However that may be, when next we hear of him he is in Romagna at the court of Ostasio da Polenta. Louis of Taranto and Acciaiuoli, with or without him, landed at Porto Ercole of the Counts Orsini of Sovana, and two days later del Balzo surrendered Castel dell' Ovo with the young Prince Charles Martel. King Louis was then at Aversa, where he captured Philip of Taranto and Louis of Durazzo who had come to treat with him. Then Charles of Durazzo was seized, tried for the murder of Andrew, and condemned: and they took him to Aversa and struck off his head on the scene of the crime. But even the Neapolitans, who had in fact taken little part in the war, if a war it can be called, being busy with their own feuds, grew weary of the invasion, so that when King Louis demanded ransom from them, posing as a conqueror, they proved to him that it would be wiser to withdraw. And there were other arguments: for the Black Death fell on his army and he fled, leaving only enough troops to prevent Giovanna from returning. She, poor Queen, without soldiers or money, was compelled to cede Avignon to the Holy See for 80,000 florins, on condition that the Pope declared her innocent of the murder of her husband and proclaimed the legality of her second marriage. Thus the Church was the only gainer by these appalling crimes and treasons. Once more Israel had spoiled the Egyptians. It was not till 1352, after the second invasion of King Louis, that Giovanna was able to return to Naples.

FOOTNOTES:

[322] We do not know when, if at all at this time, Boccaccio returned to Naples. The only testimony by which Baldelli, Witte, and Koerting hold that he was in Naples in 1345 is the passage in the _De Casibus Virorum Illustrium_, Lib. IX, cap. 25, where he narrates, as though he had been present on the occasion, the terrible end of Philippa la Catanese (see _infra_). Witte, however, wishes to support this evidence by an interpretation of certain words in the letter to Zanobi, _Longum tempus effluxit_ (see CORRAZINI, _op. cit._, p. 33). Hortis, Gaspary, and Hauvette, however, assert that in the _De Casibus, u.s._, Boccaccio does not actually say he was present on the occasion mentioned, but only says, _quæ fere vidi_, while the passage in the letter to Zanobi, they say, refers to Acciaiuoli. Lastly, Hecker observes that the words of Boccaccio seem to prove that he was in Naples in 1345. In fact, speaking of the condemnation and torture of the Catanese as accomplice in the assassination of King Andrew he says: "quædam auribus, quædam oculis sumpta meis describam."

[323] See _Arch. St. per la prov. Nap._, An. V, p. 617. For an excellent account of King Robert's reign, as of Giovanna's, see BADDELEY, _King Robert the Wise and His Heirs_ (Heinemann, 1881). It is a good defence of the Queen.

[324] Gio. Villani, who did not love the Angevins, tells us that King Robert was full of every virtue, admitting, however, that in his last years he was very avaricious; and in this he agrees with Boccaccio. He says, however, that he was the wisest monarch of Christendom after Charlemagne. Boccaccio too calls him Solomon. In a poem attributed to Convenevole da Prato he is hailed as the sovereign of United Italy. But it is to Petrarch he owes his fame. Robert was a great patron of the Franciscans, then utterly rotten. Boccaccio doubtless saw enough in Naples to give him justification for his stories later. See _infra_.

[325] Petrarch, _Egloga_, II.

[326] Here is the genealogical table:--

[327] I quote Mr. Hollway-Calthrop's redaction in his _Petrarch_ (Methuen, 1907), p. 112. He adds: "Knowing nothing of what he was to see, Petrarch was taken to a spectacle attended by the sovereigns in state; suddenly, to his horror, he saw a beautiful youth killed for pastime, expiring at his feet, and putting spurs to his horse, he fled at full gallop from the place." These gladiatorial games took place in Carbonara.

[328] BADDELEY, _op. cit._

[329] He received beside his board and lodging 19,000 florins of gold as salary. These were not paid by the Pope, whose servant he was, but by Queen Giovanna and the wretched Neapolitans. The amount was fixed by the Pope. Cf. BADDELEY, _op. cit._

[330] Cf. BADDELEY, _op. cit._, p. 344. The Pope's account is as follows: "Immediately he was summoned by them he went into the gallery or promenade which is before the chamber. Then certain men placed their hands over his mouth so that he could not cry out, and in this act they so pressed their iron gauntlets that their print and character were manifest after death. Others placed a rope round his neck in order to strangle him, and this likewise left its mark; others 'vero receperunt eum pro genitalia, et adeo traxerunt, quod multi qui dicebant se vidisse retulerunt mihi quod transcendebant genua', while others tore out his hair, dragged him, and threw him into the garden. Some say with the rope with which they had strangled him they swung him as if hanging over the garden. It was further related to us that they intended to throw him into a well, and thereafter to give it out he had left the Kingdom ... and this would have been carried out had not his nurse quickly come upon the scene." Cf. BALUZIUS, _Vitæ Paparum Avenonensium_, 1305-94, Vol. II, p. 86, and BADDELEY, _op. cit._, p. 344 _et seq._

[331] e.g. another account states that "a conspiracy was formed against the young Andrew, and it is said, with some truth, that the Queen was the soul of it. One evening in September, 1345, the court being at the Castello of Aversa, a chamberlain entered the royal apartment, where Andrew was with the Queen, to announce to them that despatches of great importance were arrived from Naples. Andrew went out immediately, and as he passed through the salon which separated his room from the Queen's, he was seized and hanged from the window of the palace by a golden rope said to have been woven by the Queen's hands, and there he was left for two days. The Queen, who was, or pretended to be, stupefied with horror, returned to Naples. No real attempt, even at the behest of the Pope, was made to find the assassins." The Queen was within three months of the birth of her child when the murder occurred. She gained nothing by Andrew's death but exile. The murderers, so far as we can judge now, were undoubtedly the Catanese group in danger of losing their positions at court.

[332] Giovanna's own account is given in BADDELEY, _op. cit._, p. 345, n. 2. Mr. Baddeley is her ablest English defender. See also a curious book by AMALFI, _La Regina Giovanna nella Tradizione_ (Naples, 1892).

[333] See _supra_, p. 108, n. 1. All sorts of stories have been current as to Boccaccio's personal relations with Queen Giovanna. By some he is said to have been her lover, by others to have been in her debt for the suggestion of the scheme of the _Decameron_ so far as it is merely a collection of merry tales. These tales he is supposed to have told her. No evidence is to be found for any of these assertions. But cf. HORTIS, _op. cit._, p. 109 and n. 1.