Alfonso I of Aragon

The first Aragonese sovereign of Naples, Alfonso of Trastamara also known as the Magnanimous. He was born in Medina del Campo the 24th of February 1396. He took the throne of Aragon when his father Ferdinand died in 1416, while his brothers took care of consolidating the control of the dynasty in Castile, Alfonso asked to be financed from the Cortes for the expedition of the conquest of Sardinia and for an unsuccessful attempt to occupy Corsica.

In the meantime, in Naples, Queen Joanna II came into conflict with Pope Martin V, who nominated king of Naples to replace her Louis III of Anjou. The sovereign, who didn’t have children, decided to nominate Alfonso as her heir, who got the support of Pope Benedict XIII. Therefore, Alfonso went to Naples on the 8th of July 1421, welcomed as a son by the queen. Alfonso opposed efficiently the Angevines and he was about to beat them definitively when, in 1423, the capture of the queen’s mistress Sergianni Caracciolo, pushed Joanna II to an unexpected change of mind, which led her to ask for his friend’s help, the commander of the Angevine troops Muzio Attendolo Sforza. Near Castel Capuano he succeeded in beating Alfonso, who sought refuge in the Maschio Angioino, where he organised the resistance. Joanna reconciled with Louis of Anjou and with the Pope, disowning Alfonso. He left Naples and moved to Provence with his army, while the Genoese occupied Castellammare, Sorrento, Procida and Gaeta and laid siege to the capital, which fell in April 1424. Once he got an Aragonese Pope elected, Clement VIII, Alfonso went back to Spain. In 1429, a war started for Castile, which ended one year later with the expulsion of Alfonso and his brothers.

In 1433, Alfonso asked and obtained from Joanna II to be again designated heir. However, the following year, the queen chose René of Anjou as an heir, who succeeded her when she died in 1435. Alfonso and his brothers tried to conquer the reign in 1436 and he managed to steal progressively large parts of the territory from the Angevine’s control, up to Naples, which after months of siege, fell on 2nd of June 1441. Once the last pockets of resistance were won, Alfonso declared the union of the Kingdom of Naples and of Sicily in 1443 and on 2nd of February 1443, he made a triumphant entry in Naples. Still in that year, Pope Eugene IV recognised him as the king of Naples. 

During the years of his maturity in Naples, the young Lucrezia d’Alagno of Torre del Greco was his beloved partner, with who he was spending long periods in the Castle of Ischia, which he provided with new fortifications, with a bridge connected with the big island and a tower fit for a king’s residence. When the works ended, Alfonso gave the Castle to Lucrezia, who in turn transferred it to her brother-in-law, who strenuously protected that present when Alfonso died, until when King Ferdinand interrupted the residency. On the other hand, Alfonso rebuilt in Naples too the Maschio Angioino, renamed Castel Nuovo, which was particularly destroyed by battles and sieges. He celebrated his triumph in the low reliefs of the marble arch built at the entrance of the Castle. With Alfonso, the town experienced a period of considerable economic, cultural and demographic recovery.

During the following years, Alfonso conquered Sardinia and started again the war in Castile. In 1447, he was designated heir by Filippo Maria Visconti, duke of Milan. When he died, Alfonso could not keep control of the duchy to which he eventually renounced. From 145, he resumed the war against the Genoese and four years later, he laid a siege to Genoa, who asked for the protection of the king of France and got John of Anjou, René’s son, as a governor. During a hunting trip in Apulia, Alfonso died of a malaria attack on 27th of June 1458.  After him, the reigns of Naples and Sicily were separated again and Ferdinand succeeded on the throne of the town of Parthenope.