Alfonso V King of Aragon
Alfonso V 'The Magnaminous ', King of Aragon, Sicily and Naples 1396-1458 . Alfonso was a leading patron of men of letters, and one of the conspicuous figures in the Rennaissance.
Alfonso succeeded to the throne of Aragon in 1416 on the death of his father Ferdinand I of Antequerra. In 1421, considerable concern was being expressed concerning the future succession after the childless, middle-aged widow Queen Joanna II of the Kingdom of Naples. Joanna initially favoured Alfonso V to be favoured as her heir, but Pope Martin V nominated the Angevin candidate Louis III of Anjou. Joanna changed her mind, but this only led to armed conflict between the various faction in ther court. The Condottieri Muzio Attendolo Sforza and his son Francesco sided with the Angevin; Braccio da Montone, another great Condottieri, for Alfonso. They finally fought it out at the great battle of Aquila (1424) in which Braccio was killed, thus leaving Pope Martin in overall control.
Joanna, the last of her family died in 1435,and once again the succession was disputed between the supporters of Alfonso and those who supported René of Anjou, whom Joanna had later named as her heir. The new pope, Eugene IV,a Venetian eccleastic without much political astuteness, favoured, like his predecessor, the ineffective René, and so Alfonso set off from Aragon to lay claim to the Kingdom that he felt should be rightfully his. Umfortunately Alfonso was defeated and captured by the Genoaese en-route at the sea battle at Ponza. Genoa, was at that time under the control of Milan, and while a captive there Alfonso made an alliance with the Milanese Tyrant Fillipo Maria Visconti. With Alfonso and Fillipo Maria, ther twomost powerful men in Italyranged against him,all Popo Eugene could do was to send his soldier-Cardinal ,Giovanni Vitelleschi, into Naples in support of the French claimant (1437). This proved an unsucessful venture and by 1442 Alfonso was able to take the city of Naples itself.
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Article added: 2006-06-04 @ 6:22 am | Last Modified: 2006-06-19 @ 9:17 am
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