Duca di Noia, Map of Naples
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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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Headings
will be in this Color
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.
Headings
will be in this Color
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
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