Part 85

"The death of Charles III. involved the kingdom of Naples in the most ruinous anarchy; and delivered it for many years a prey to all the disorders of a long minority and a disputed throne. Charles had left two children, Ladislaus, a boy of ten years old, and a daughter, Joanna; and his widow Margaret acted as regent for her son. On the other hand, the Sanseverini and other baronial families, rallying the Angevin party, proclaimed the young son of the late duke of Anjou king,—also under the guardianship of his mother, Maria,—by the title of Louis II. Thus Naples was disturbed by the rival pretensions of two boys, placed beneath the guidance of ambitious and intriguing mothers, and severally protected by two popes, who excommunicated each other, and laboured to crush the minors whom they respectively opposed, only that they might establish their own authority over the party which they supported. … For several years the Angevin party seemed to maintain the ascendancy. Louis II. was withheld in Provence from the scene of danger by his mother; but the barons who had raised his standard, forcing Margaret of Durazzo and the adherents of her son to retire to Greta, possessed themselves of the capital and great part of the kingdom. When Louis II., therefore, was at length suffered by his mother to appear at Naples, attended by a powerful fleet and a numerous train of the warlike nobles of France (A. D. 1390), he disembarked at the capital amidst the acclamations of his people, and would probably have overpowered the party of Durazzo with ease, if, as he advanced towards manhood, he had displayed any energy of character. But he proved very unequal, by his indolence and love of pleasure, to contend with the son of Charles III. Educated in the midst of alarms and danger, and surrounded from his infancy by civil wars and conspiracies, Ladislaus had early been exercised in courageous enterprise, and trained to intrigue and dissimulation. {1827} At the age of 16, his mother Margaret committed him to the barons of her party to make his first essay in arms; and from this period he was ever at the head of his troops. … A fortunate marriage, which his mother had effected for him with Constance di Clermont, the heiress of the most opulent noble of Sicily, increased his resources by an immense dowry; and while he made an able use of these riches [meanly and heartlessly divorcing the wife who brought them to him, when they had been spent], the new Italian pope, Boniface IX., the successor of Urban VI., recognized him for the legitimate son and vassal of the church, because Louis was supported by the Avignon pontiff. This decision gained him many partizans; … his talents and valour hourly advanced his success; and at last the Sanseverini and all the barons of the Angevin party, following the tide of fortune, went over to his standards, and opened to him the gates of Naples (A. D. 1399). Louis … retired by sea to his Provençal dominions, and finally abandoned the kingdom of Naples. Ladislaus, having thus triumphed over his sluggish antagonist, had leisure to consolidate his stern authority over the licentious and turbulent feudal aristocracy of his kingdom. … He … crushed the Sanseverini and other great families, whose power might make them dangerous; and having rooted out the seeds of all resistance to his sway in his own dominions, he prepared to direct his vigorous ambition to schemes of foreign conquest."

_G. Procter, History of Italy, chapter 5, part 3._

Until the death of Pope Boniface IX., Ladislas supported that pontiff through the hard struggle in which he crushed the rebellious Colonna and made himself master of the city of Rome. But when Boniface died, in 1404, the Neapolitan king began to scheme for bringing the ancient capital and the possessions of the Church under his own control. "His plan was to set the Pope [the newly elected Innocent, VII.] and the Roman people against one another, and by helping now one and now the other to get them both into his power. … He trusted that the rebellious Romans would drive the Pope from the city, and would then be compelled to submit to himself." He had entered Rome, four days after the papal election, ostensibly as a mediator between the rival factions, and between the Pope and the Roman people; and he was easily able to bring about an arrangement which gave him every opportunity for interference and for turning circumstances to his own advantage. Events soon followed as he had expected them, and as he helped, through his agents, to guide them. The turbulence of the people increased, until, in 1405, the Pope was driven to flight. "No sooner had the Pope left Rome than Giovanni Colonna, at the head of his troops, burst into the Vatican, where he took up his quarters. … The Vatican was sacked; even the Papal archives were pillaged, and Bulls, letters and registers were scattered about the streets. Many of these were afterwards restored, but the loss of historic documents must have been great." Ladislas now thought his time for seizing Rome was come; but when he sent 5,000 horse to join the Colonna, the Romans took alarm, repelled the Neapolitan troops, and called back the Pope, who returned in January, 1406, but who died in the following November. Under the next Pope, Gregory XII., there were negotiations with Avignon for the ending of the great schism; and all the craft of Ladislas was exerted to defeat that purpose; because a reunion of western Christendom would not be favorable to his designs. At last, a conference of the rival popes was arranged, to take place at Savona, near Genoa, and in August, 1407, Gregory XII. left Rome, moving slowly northwards, but finding reasons, equally with his competitor, for never presenting himself at the appointed meeting-place. In his absence the disorders of Rome increased, and when Ladislas, in April, 1408; appeared before the city with an army of 12,000 horse and as many foot, it was surrendered to him without resistance. "The craft of Ladislas had gained its end, and the temporal power of the Papacy had passed into his hands. … So utterly had the prestige of Rome, the memories of her glories, passed away from men's minds, that her sister republic of Florence could send and congratulate Ladislas on the triumphal victory which God and his own manhood had given him in the city of Rome." When, in 1408, the disgusted cardinals of both papal courts joined in calling a general Council of the Church, to meet at Pisa the following year, Ladislas threatened to prevent it. By this time "Gregory had sank to the lowest pitch of degradation: he sold to Ladislas for the small sum of 25,000 florins the entire States of the Church, and even Rome itself. After this bargain Ladislas set out for Rome, intending to proceed into Tuscany and break up the Council." Early in April, 1409, he marched northwards and threatened Siena. But Florence had now undertaken the defense of the Council, and resisted him so effectually that the meeting at Pisa was undisturbed. The immediate result of the Council was the election of a third claimant of the Papacy, Alexander V. (see PAPACY: A. D. 1377-1417). Around the new Pope a league was now formed which embraced Florence, Siena, and Louis of Anjou, whose claim upon Naples was revived. The league made an attempt on Rome in the autumn of 1409, and failed; but the following January the Neapolitans were expelled and the city was occupied by the papal forces. In May, 1410, Alexander V. died, and was succeeded by Baldassare Cossa, who took the name of John XXIII. The new Pope hastened to identify his cause with Louis of Anjou, and succeeded, by his energy, in putting into the field an army which comprised the four chief "condottieri" in Italy, with their veteran followers. Ladislas was attacked and routed completely at Rocca Secca, on the 19th of May, 1411. But the worthlessness of Louis and the mercenary character of his generals made the victory of no effect. Ladislas bought over the best of the troops and their leaders, and before the end of summer Louis was back in Provence, again abandoning his Neapolitan claims. Ladislas made peace, first, with Florence, by selling Cortona to that city, and then with the Pope, who recognized him as king, not only of Naples, but of Sicily as well. But Ladislas was only gaining time by these treaties. In June, 1413, he drove the Pope from Rome, and his troops again occupied the city. He seemed to be now well prepared for realizing his ambition to found an extended Italian kingdom; but his career was cut short by a mortal disease, which ended his life on the 6th of August, 1414.

_M. Creighton, History of the Papacy during the Period of the Reformation, book 1, chapters 3-8 (volume 1)._

{1828}

ITALY: A. D. 1390-1402. Resistance of Florence to the spreading tyranny of the Duke of Milan.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1390-1402.

ITALY: A. D. 1391-1451. Extension of the Italian dominions of the House of Savoy.

See SAVOY: 11TH-15TH CENTURIES.

ITALY: A. D. 1396-1409. The sovereignty of Genoa yielded to the King of France.

See GENOA: A. D. 1381-1422.

ITALY: A. D. 1402-1406. The crumbling of the Visconti dominion. Aggrandizement of Venice. Florentine purchase and conquest of Pisa. Decline of that city.

"The little states of Romagna, which had for the most part been conquered by Gian-Galeazzo [Visconti, Duke of Milan], were at his death [1402] overrun by the Count of Barbiano, who with his famous company entered the service of Pope Boniface IX. … The Count of Savoy, the Marquess of Montferrat, and the lords of Padua, Ferrara, and Mantua, were the only independent Sovereigns in North Italy in 1402. Of these Francesco, lord of Padua, was soon to fall. On the death of Gian-Galeazzo he seized on Verona. Venice would not allow her old enemy to gain this advantage, and made alliance with Francesco di Gonzaga, lord of Mantua, and with his help took Verona, and closely besieged Padua. After a gallant resistance Francesco da Carrara was forced to yield, and he and his two sons were taken prisoners to Venice, and were there strangled by order of the Council of Ten. This war gave the Venetians great power on the mainland. They reconquered Treviso, and gained Feltro, Verona [1405], Vicenza, and Padua [1405], and from this time Venice became an Italian power. In Tuscany, the death of her great enemy delivered Florence from her distress, and Siena, which now regained her liberty, placed herself under her protection. Pisa [which had been betrayed to Gian-Galeazzo in 1399] had been left to Gabriello Visconti, a bastard son of the late Duke. He put himself under the protection of Jean Boucicault, who governed Genoa for Charles VI., King of France, and with his consent he sold Pisa to the Florentines. The Pisans resisted this sacrifice of their freedom, and the war lasted a year, but in 1406 the city was forced to surrender. Many of the people left their homes; for, though Florence acted fairly towards her old enemy and new subject, yet the Pisans could not bear the yoke, and the greatness of the city, its trade and its wealth, vanished away."

_W. Hunt, History of Italy, chapter 6._

"From that day to this it [Pisa] has never recovered,—not its former greatness, wealth, and energy,—but even sufficient vitality to arrest it on the downward course. … Of the two great political tendencies which were then disputing the world between them it made itself the champion and the symbol of the losing one. Pisa went down in the world together with the feudalism and Ghibellinism with which it was identified."

_T. A. Trollope, History of the Commonwealth of Florence, book 4, chapter 6 (volume 2)._

_The City in the Sea, chapter 16._

ALSO IN: _W. C. Hazlitt, History of the Venetian Republic, chapter 21 (volume 3)._

_A. M. F. Robinson, The End of the Middle Ages, pages 340-367._

ITALY: A. D. 1409. The Council of Pisa.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1377-1417.

ITALY: A. D. 1412-1447. Renewed civil war in Naples. Defeat of the Angevins by Alfonso of Aragon and Sicily. Reconquest of Lombardy by Filippo Maria Visconti, and his wars with Florence, Venice and Naples.

On the death of Ladislaus, king of Naples (1414), "his sister, Joan II., widow of the son of the duke of Austria, succeeded him. She was 40 years of age; and, like her brother, abandoned to the most unrestrained libertinism. She left the government of her kingdom to her lovers, who disputed power by arms: they called into her service, or into that of her second husband, or of the rival princes whom she in turn adopted, the two armies of Sforza and Braccio [the two great mercenary captains of that time]. The consequence was the ruin of the kingdom of Naples, which ceased to menace the rest of Italy. The moment Ladislaus disappeared, a new enemy arose to disturb the Florentines—Filippo Maria Visconti [duke of Milan, second son of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, and successor to his elder brother Gian Maria, on the assassination of the latter, in 1412]. … Filippo … married the widow of Facino Cane, the powerful condottiere who had retained Gian Maria in 'his dependence, and who died the same day that Gian Maria was assassinated. By this sudden marriage he secured the army of Facino Cane,— which was, in fact, master of the greater part of the Milanese: with its aid he undertook, without delay, to recover the rest of his states from the hands of those tyrants who had divided amongst them the dominions of his father. … During the first year of his reign, which was to decide his existence as prince or subject, he fought with determined courage; but from that time, though he continually made war, he never showed himself to his armies. … In the battle of Monza, by which he acquired his brother's inheritance, and the only battle in which he was ever present, he remarked the brilliant courage of Francesco Carmagnola, a Piedmontese soldier of fortune, and immediately gave him a command. Carmagnola soon justified the duke's choice by the most distinguished talents for war, the most brilliant victories, and the most noble character. Francesco Carmagnola was, after a few years, placed at the head of the duke's armies; and, from the year 1412 to that of 1422, successively attacked all the tyrants who had divided the heritage of Gian Galeazzo, and brought those small states again under the dominion of the duke of Milan. Even the republic of Genoa submitted to him, in 1421, on the same conditions as those on which it had before submitted to the king of France,—reserving all its liberties; and granting the duke's lieutenant, who was Carmagnola himself, only those prerogatives which the constitution yielded to the doge. As soon as Filippo Maria had accomplished the conquest of Lombardy, he resumed the projects of his father against Romagna and Tuscany. He … renewed his intrigues against the republic of Florence, and combined them with those which he at the same time carried on in the kingdom of Naples. Joan, who had sent back to France her second husband, Jaques, count de la Marche, and who had no children, was persuaded, in 1420, by one of her lovers, to adopt Alphonso the Magnanimous, king of Aragon and Sicily, to whom she intrusted some of the fortresses of Naples. She revoked this adoption in 1423; and substituted in his place Louis III. of Anjou, son of Louis II. The former put himself at the head of the ancient party of Durazzo; the latter, of that of Anjou. {1829} The consequence was a civil war, in which the two great captains, Sforza and Braccio, were opposed to each other, and acquired new titles to glory. The duke of Milan made alliance with Joan II. and Louis III. of Anjou: Sforza, named great constable of the kingdom, was their general. The Florentines remained constant to Braccio, whom Alphonso had made governor of the Abruzzi; and who had seized, at the same time, the signoria of Perugia, his native city. … But Sforza and Braccio both perished, as Italy awaited with anxiety the result of the struggle about to be commenced. Sforza was drowned at the passage of the Pescara, on the 4th of January, 1424; Braccio was mortally wounded at the battle of Aquila, on the 2d of June of the same year. Francesco, son of the former, succeeded to his father's name and the command of his army, both of which he was destined to render still more illustrious. The son of Braccio, on the contrary, lost the sovereignty of Perugia, which resumed its freedom on the 29th of July of the same year; and the remnant of the army formed by this great captain elected for his chief his most able lieutenant, Nicolo Piccinino. This was the moment which Filippo Maria chose to push on his army to Romagna, and vigorously attack the Florentines. … The Florentines, having no tried general at the heart of their troops, experienced, from the 6th of September, 1423, to the 17th of October, 1425, no less than six successive defeats, either in Liguria or Romagna [at Forli, 1423, Zagonara, 1424, Lamone, Rapallo, Anghiari and Faggiola, 1425]. Undismayed by defeat, they reassembled their army for the seventh time: the patriotism of their rich merchants made up for the penury of their exhausted treasury. They, at the same time, sent their most distinguished statesmen as ambassadors to Venice, to represent to that republic that, if it did not join them while they still stood, the liberty of Italy was lost forever. … An illustrious fugitive, Francesco Carmagnola, who arrived about this time at Venice, accomplished what Florence had nearly failed in, by discovering to the Venetians the project of the duke of Milan to subjugate them." Carmagnola had been disgraced and discharged from employment by Filippo Maria, whose jealousy was alarmed by his great reputation, and he now took service against his late patron. "A league, formed between Florence and Venice, was successively joined by the marquis of Ferrara, the lord of Mantua, the Siennese, the duke Amadeus VIII. of Savoy, and the king Alphonso of Naples, who jointly declared war against Filippo Maria Visconti, on the 27th of January, 1426. … The good fortune of Carmagnola in war still attended him in the campaign of 1426. He was as successful against the duke of Milan as he had been for him: he took from him the city and whole province of Brescia. The duke ceded this conquest to the Venetians by treaty on the 30th of December; but he employed the winter in assembling his forces; and in the beginning of spring renewed the war." An indecisive engagement occurred at Casalsecco, July 12, 1427, and on the 11th of October following, in a marsh near Macalo, Carmagnola completely defeated the Milanese army commanded by Carlo Malatesta. A new peace was signed on the 18th of April, 1428; but war recommenced in the latter part of 1430. Fortune now abandoned Carmagnola. He suffered a surprise and defeat at Soncino, May 17, 1431, and the suspicious senate of Venice caused him to be arrested, tortured and put to death. "During the remainder of the reign of Filippo Maria he was habitually at war with the two republics of Venice and Florence. He … almost always lost ground by his distrust of his own generals, his versatility, his taste for contradictory intrigues, his eagerness to sign peace every year, and to recommence hostilities a few weeks afterwards." In 1441, on making peace with the two republics, he granted his daughter Bianca in marriage to their general, Francesco Sforza, with two lordships for her dowry. But he was soon intriguing against his son-in-law, soon at war again with Florence and Venice, and Sforza was again in the service of the latter. But in 1447 he made offers of reconciliation which were accepted, and Sforza was on his way to Milan when news came to him of the death of the duke, which occurred August 13. "The war of Lombardy was complicated by its connexion with another war which at the same time ravaged the kingdom of Naples. The queen, Joan II., had died there, on the 2d of February, 1435; three months after the death of her adopted son, Louis III. of Anjou: by her will she had substituted for that prince his brother René, duke of Lorraine. But Alphonso, king of Aragon and Sicily, whom she had primarily adopted, … claimed the succession, on the ground of this first adoption, as well as of the ancient rights of Manfred, to whom he had succeeded in the female line. The kingdom of Naples was divided between the parties of Aragon and Anjou. The Genoese, who had voluntarily ranged themselves under the protection of the duke of Milan, offered their assistance to the duke of Anjou. … On the 5th of August, 1435, their fleet met that of Alphonso, before the island of Ponza. They defeated it in a great battle, in which Alphonso had been made prisoner." Delivered to the duke of Milan, Alphonso soon convinced the latter that his alliance with the French interest at Naples was a mistake and a danger to him, and was set at liberty, with promises of aid. The Genoese were indignant at this and drove the Milanese garrison from their city, in December, 1435, recovering their freedom. "Alphonso, seconded by the duke of Milan, recommenced the war against René of Anjou with greater advantage. On the 2d of June, 1442, he took from him the city of Naples; from that time peace was re-established in that kingdom, and Alphonso … established himself amidst a people which he had conquered, but whose hearts he gained; and returned no more either to Sicily or Aragon. He died at Naples, on the 27th of June, 1458."

_J. C. L. de Sismondi, History of the Italian Republics, chapters 9-10._

ALSO IN: _W. P. Urquhart, Life and Times of Francesco Sforza, books 3-4 (volume 1)._

_Mrs. Jameson, Memoirs of Celebrated Female Sovereigns, volume 1, chapter 5._

_M. A. Hookham, Life and Times of Margaret of Anjou, volume 1, introduction and chapter 1._

ITALY: A. D. 1433-1464. The ascendancy of Cosimo de' Medici at Florence.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1433-1464.

{1830}

ITALY: A. D. 1447-1454. End of the Visconti in the duchy of Milan. Disputed succession. Francesco Sforza in possession. War of Venice, Naples and other states against Milan and Florence.

See MILAN: A. D. 1447-1454.

ITALY: A. D. 1447-1480. The Pontificate of Nicolas V. Regeneration of the Papacy. Revival of letters and art. Threatening advance of the Turks. Fresh troubles in Naples. Expulsion of the French from Genoa.