CHAPTER VIII. DESPOTS AND TYRANTS OF THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES
[ca. 1309-1496 A.D.]
In the present chapter we shall take up the history of Italy in the latter part of the fourteenth century and carry it forward to about the year 1500, with chief reference to the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily—which become united into the kingdom of the Two Sicilies—in the south, and the tyranny of the Visconti and Sforza at Milan in the north. The history of these principalities necessarily involves reference to most of the states of Italy, as they were constantly embroiled one with another. But for such incidental references, we shall reserve the more specific history of the important maritime republics, Venice and Genoa, and of the chief Tuscan republic, Florence, for separate treatment in later chapters. During the dominance of the Visconti in Milan in the latter half of the fourteenth century and the first half of the fifteenth, this principality dominated northern Italy and was much of the time in open warfare with Florence. The history of Florence will, therefore, be given considerable prominence, and our later chapters will be chiefly directed to the events of the period of the great Medici, Cosmo and Lorenzo, whose dictatorship in Florence, it will be recalled, coincides in time with the later events of the present chapter. The period now under consideration introduces a number of really important men, including Alfonso the Magnanimous, king of Sicily and Naples.
But the kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the duchy of Milan, important as they must have seemed to their Italian contemporaries, had no very direct world-historical influences. They embroiled Italy and kept her in touch with the nations of the north, to her disadvantage; but their rulers had no thought beyond self-aggrandisement, and no one of them attained sufficient influence to bring the entire peninsula under his control. Despite the picturesqueness of individual characters,[16] therefore, we shall be justified in dealing with the period somewhat briefly, reserving larger space for the more important developments that came about through the influence of the commercial republics.
THE KINGDOM OF NAPLES
[1309-1326 A.D.]
On the death of Charles II of Naples (1309) his younger son Robert succeeded to the crowns of Naples and Provence to which he had no recognised or inherited right. They belonged to Carobert, the young king of Hungary, whose father was the elder son of Charles. But Naples was a papal fief, and Robert, who hastened to Avignon, had little difficulty in obtaining from Clement V who saw in this energetic vassal a formidable opponent of the Ghibellines, a sentence setting aside the claims of his nephew. At the same time he received the government of Ferrara as viceroy of the pope. Robert was no military genius, but he possessed both wisdom and address, and at once assumed the Guelf leadership in Italy. He was a prominent member of the great league formed at Florence against the designs of Henry VII, and the Tuscan republic went so far in 1312 as to confer a temporary dictatorship upon him, in anticipation of his assistance in resisting imperial aggression.
But Robert’s ambition was none less than the general sovereignty of Italy, and to this end he opposed Henry at every step. A Neapolitan army seized the principal fortresses of Rome in an attempt to prevent the emperor’s coronation, but the struggle was brought to an unexpected end the following year (1313) by Henry’s sudden death. It seemed now as if Robert would realise his dream, but a number of truly remarkable leaders arose to meet the crisis from the Ghibelline ranks. Against the talents and energies of Uguccione della Faggiuola, Castruccio Castracani, Matteo Visconti, and Cane della Scala, whose exploits have been detailed elsewhere, the Guelfic cause went swiftly to ruin. Robert saw his armies and his allies repeatedly overcome, and when he passed into Provence in 1318 he had obtained no success but that of raising the Ghibelline siege of Genoa, for which service that city surrendered its liberties into his hands for ten years. The plight of the Guelfs became more desperate day by day, but Robert remained in Provence insensible to their disasters, and only his greed of dominion roused him to the continued appeals of the Florentines. His command over that republic had expired in 1321, and now he promised aid on condition that his son Charles be made its absolute ruler for ten years. The Florentines stipulated for the preservation of their liberties and agreed to his terms, and in 1326 the young duke of Calabria arrived in Tuscany with two thousand men.
[1285-1345 A.D.]
During these years the kingdom of Naples saw little of its ruler, and was exposed to the ambition of the Aragonese rulers of Sicily. The fortunes of this Spanish house need not detain us. When Pedro I died in 1285, Aragon and Sicily were separated, and the late king’s second son James I received Sicily. He remained there but six years when he was called to the throne of Aragon, and left his younger brother Frederick regent. But James was faithless to his island subjects, and when his long standing difficulties with the pope were settled in 1295, he agreed to restore Sicily to the house of Anjou. Frederick placed himself at once at the head of the opposition to the transfer and in 1296 was rewarded with the crown. Frederick II was the restorer of Sicilian independence; and by 1302 James gave up the attempt of forcing the Sicilians to keep his perfidious agreement. Robert made several attempts to annex Sicily to his dominions. The first in 1314 ended in a truce. Frederick, who repulsed the ambitious monarch several times, died in 1337, and the great love of his subjects established his feeble son Peter II on the throne. Robert came again at Frederick’s death and also after that of Peter five years later, but the independent spirit of the islanders was never overcome; the projects were renounced and Sicily was left the peaceful possession of its dynasty. Henceforth it sinks into obscurity until reunited with Naples in 1435.[a]