Renaissance Italy

Southern Italy Series

-----Renaissance Italy-----

In 1409 King Martin I of Aragon died, with no direct heirs. His nephew, Ferdinand I of the House of Trastámara assumed the thrones of Aragon in 1412. In 1416 Ferdinand died and was succeeded by his son Alfonso V of Aragon.

In 1414 King Ladislaus I of Naples died. Naples now passed to his sister Joan II. The Pope, fearing her power, made a deal with Louis III of Anjou. Joan responded by making a deal with Alfonso V: on her death Alfonso would inherit her throne. In exchange Alfonso would have to fight against the French. But by 1422 both deals were off and Joan made a new deal with Louis III against Alfonso V. In 1435 Joan died and the Kingdom of Naples passed to René of Anjou, brother of Louis III.

In 1434 Cosimo de’ Medici became Gran Maestro of Florence and took command of the state. Using Cosimo’s funding the architect Filippo Brunelleschi directed the construction of the dome of the Florence cathedral. It was the first large dome built in Western Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire and in many ways it signaled the beginning of the Renaissance.

But René was busy in France so Alfonso used the opportunity to invade and press his claim to the throne of Naples. Alfonso finally captured Naples after an 8-month siege in 1442. Four years later he completed the Aragonese conquest of Sardinia. In 1458 Alfonso V died. He was succeeded by his brother John II as King of Aragon. But the Kingdom of Naples went to Alfonso’s son, Ferdinand I of Naples.

Simultaneously, major events were happening in the east. In May of 1453 Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks, finally extinguishing the Byzantine Empire. But three years later the Turks were driven back from Belgrade and the Ottoman advance in the Balkans was delayed, for the moment.

In 1455 the Valencian cardinal Alfonso de Borja was elevated to the office of Pope. As Pope Callixtus III he made two of his nephews into cardinals, one of whom was Roderic Lançol de Borja. These appointments helped to cement his family, the House of Borgia, in Roman society. In 1492 Roderic was elevated to the Papacy as Pope Alexander VI. Alexander VI was an unusual Pope because he had a son, Cesare Borgia.

Cosimo died in 1464 and control of Florence passed to his son Pietro. But he died five years later and control passed to his son, Lorenzo. Lorenzo de’ Medici was referred to in his time as Lorenzo the Magnificent because of his great patronage of the arts. He employed both Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo as architects, painters and sculptors.

In 1469 John II of Aragon’s son Ferdinand married Isabella, the princess of Castile. But there was little time to celebrate for John because at the time he was still involved in a decade long civil war in Catalonia. In 1479 he died and was succeeded by his son, now Ferdinand II of Aragon. Ferdinand’s wife had ascended to her throne in 1474 as Isabella I of Castile. Their personal marriage cemented the alliance between the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon. In January of 1492 Ferdinand and Isabella completed the reconquest of Granada, the last Muslim province on the Iberian Peninsula. In August Christopher Columbus sailed west, funded exclusively by Isabella. In March of 1493 Columbus returned to Isabella with news of the Indies [link] . But Ferdinand was more concerned with events occurring in Italy because in 1493 King Charles VIII of France had invaded Italy to take Naples from Ferdinand’s cousin, Ferdinand of Naples. To make matters worse, Ferdinand of Naples died in January of 1494, leaving his son Alfonso II to face the French onslaught. The Italian Wars had begun.

Southern Italy Series

500 BC [link] Origins
264 BC [link] The Punic Wars
115 AD [link] The Roman Empire
405 [link] East and West
526 [link] Collapse of the West
565 [link] Reconquest
572 [link] Lombard Invasion
751 [link] Lombard Italy
814 [link] Charlemagne’s Empire
1000 [link] Italy and the Holy Roman Empire
1095 [link] The Norman Conquest
1154 [link] The Kingdom of Sicily
1250 [link] Hohenstaufen Italy
1280 [link] Anjou Sicily
1300 [link] War of the Vespers
1400 [link] Black Death
1492 Renaissance Italy
1559 [link] Italian Wars
1715 [link] Habsburg Italy
1780 [link] Bourbon Italy
1799 [link] Revolutionary Italy
1812 [link] Napoleonic Italy
1860 [link] United Italy

2/19/12 EDIT:
map base source [link]
map base created by Citypeek [link]