Duca
di Noia, Map of Naples
This area may be used to further
explain any details from the map etc. We may even add
additional views and a link to explore the map with the
magnifier.
This area may be used to further explain any details from
the map etc. We may even add additional views and a link
to explore the map with the magnifier. This area may be
used to further explain any details from the map etc.
We may even add additional views and a link to explore
the map with the magnifier.This area may be used to further
explain any details from the map etc. We may even add
additional views and a link to explore the map with the
magnifier.
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Naples, kingdom of former state, occupying the Italian
peninsula south of the former Papal States. It comprised
roughly the present regions of Campania, Abruzzi, Molise,
Basilicata, Apulia, and Calabria. Naples was the capital.
In the 11th and 12th cent. the Normans under Robert Guiscard
and his successors seized S Italy from the Byzantines.
The popes, however, claimed suzerainty over S Italy and
were to play an important part in the history of Naples.
In 1139 Roger II, Guiscard’s nephew, was invested
by Innocent II with the kingdom of Sicily, including the
Norman lands in S Italy. The last Norman king designated
Constance, wife of Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI, as his
heir and the kingdom passed successively to Frederick
II, Conrad IV, Manfred, and Conradin of Hohenstaufen.
Under them S Italy flowered, but in 1266 Charles I (Charles
of Anjou), founder of the Angevin dynasty, was invested
with the crown by Pope Clement IV, who wished to drive
the Hohenstaufen family from Italy. Charles lost Sicily
in 1282 but retained his territories on the mainland,
which came to be known as the kingdom of Naples. Refusing
to give up their claim to Sicily, Charles and his successors
warred with the house of Aragón, which held the
island, until in 1373 Queen Joanna I of Naples formally
renounced her claim.
During
her reign began the struggle for succession between Charles
of Durazzo (later Charles III of Naples) and Louis of
Anjou (Louis I of Naples). The struggle was continued
by their heirs. Charles’s descendants, Lancelot and
Joanna II, successfully defended their thrones despite
papal support of their French rivals, but Joanna successively
adopted as her heir Alfonso V of Aragón and Louis
III and René of Anjou, and the dynastic struggle
was prolonged. Alfonso defeated René and in 1442
was invested with Naples by the pope. His successor in
Naples, Ferdinand I (Ferrante), suppressed (1485) a conspiracy
of the powerful feudal lords. Meanwhile the Angevin claim
to Naples had passed to the French crown with the death
(1486) of René’s nephew, Charles of Maine.
Charles VIII of France pressed the claim and in 1495 briefly
seized Naples, thus starting the Italian Wars between
France and Spain. Louis XII, Charles’s successor,
temporarily joined forces with Spain and dethroned Frederick
(1501), the last Aragonese king of Naples, but fell out
with his allies, who defeated him.
The Treaties of Blois (1504–5) gave Naples and Sicily
to Spain, which for two centuries ruled the two kingdoms
through viceroys—one at Palermo, one at Naples. Gonzalo
Fernández de Córdoba was the first viceroy
of Naples. Under Spain, S Italy became one of the most
backward and exploited areas in Europe. Heavy taxation
(from which the nobility and clergy were exempt) filled
the Spanish treasury; agriculture suffered from the accumulation
of huge estates by quarreling Italian and Spanish nobles
and the church; famines were almost chronic; disease,
superstition, and ignorance flourished. A popular revolt
against these conditions, led by Masaniello, was crushed
in 1648. In the War of the Spanish Succession the kingdom
was occupied (1707) by Austria, which kept it by the terms
of the Peace of Utrecht (1713; see Utrecht, Peace of).
During the War of the Polish Succession, however, Don
Carlos of Bourbon (later Charles III of Spain) reconquered
Naples and Sicily. The Treaty of Vienna (1738) confirmed
the conquest, and the two kingdoms became subsidiary to
the Spanish crown, ruled in personal union by a cadet
branch of the Spanish line of Bourbon. Naples then had
its own dynasty, but conditions improved little.
In 1798 Ferdinand IV and his queen, Marie Caroline, fled
from the French Revolutionary army. The Parthenopean Republic
was set up (1799), but the Bourbons returned the same
year with the help of the English under Lord Nelson. Reprisals
were severe; Sir John Acton, the queen’s favorite,
once more was supreme. In 1806 the French again drove
out the royal couple, who fled to Sicily. Joseph Bonaparte
(see under Bonaparte, made king of Naples by Napoleon
I, was replaced in 1808 by Joachim Murat. Murat’s
beneficent reforms were revoked after his fall and execution
(1815) by Ferdinand, who was restored to the throne (Marie
Caroline had died in 1814). In 1816 Ferdinand merged Sicily
and Naples and styled himself Ferdinand I, king of the
Two Sicilies.
Columbia
University | Department
of Art History and Archaeology
Media
Center for Art History, Archaeology & Historic Preservation
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