Italy has always been, since the fall of the Roman Empire, a coveted territory for any self-respecting medieval or modern king. Their possession by European kings not only legitimized them within their borders, but also gave them great wealth and security. With geographically highly stabilized European kingdoms and the threat of the Turk on the other side of the Mediterranean, Italy in general and Naples in particular represented one of the few forms of expansion for kingdoms such as those of Aragon or France.
Precisely in this new article we will try to make known one of the first wars to take place in the Modern Age on Italian soil, the so-called I War of Naples (1494-1498), initiated by the claims to the throne of Naples of the French King Charles VIII. This will face a conglomerate of kingdoms and republics, among which Aragon will stand out, and therefore Castile.
In this war a young Cordovan general will stand out, Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, better known as “The Great Captain”, directing a Castilian-Aragonese army. Therefore, the study of his figure, together with the events that led to the war and its course, will be essential to know the outcome of one of the most interesting episodes of the Renaissance. Such a conflict will initiate the so-called “Cycle of Italian Wars”concluding in the middle of the 16th century and where the Castilian-Aragonese hegemony in the Italian peninsula will be confirmed (Molas, 1988, p. 66).
Historic context
We are in the mid-1490s, where Castile has finally completed the annexation of the Kingdom of Granada since 1492, so a period of tranquility in the foreign policy of the Catholic Monarchs could be expected. Although this was not entirely true, since the quarrels and tug-of-war between the Kingdom of Aragon (represented by Ferdinand the Catholic) and the French kingdom (where Charles VIII of France was crowned just nine years earlier, in 1483) by control of the Western Mediterranean began to mark the political agenda of the time (Jiménez, 2004, p. 3).
France felt surrounded on the European chessboardsince the alliance between England and Castile would also have to add the Navarre issue or the tensions with Aragon over the territories of Roussillon and Cerdanya, ceded in 1462 to France by John II (father of Ferdinand of Aragon) as compensation for the aid that he would receive from Louis XI, at that time French king, to fight the Catalan rebels and thus ensure his reign (Fernández; Martínez, 2014, p. 136).
Although in the end all this will have a maximum aggravation, the overthrow of René de Anjou (a relative of the French king) from the throne of Naples in 1443, carried out by Alfonso the Magnanimous, king of Aragon, who would end up placing an illegitimate descendant of the latter on the throne of Naples, lineage that would lend vassalage to the Aragonese kings from now on. Therefore, the defense of Aragonese interests in Naples would be marked by fire in the agenda of Fernando de Aragón, since he saw how it was a terrain with which to be able to negotiate with the French king the annexation of future territories (Jiménez, 2004, p. . 3).
These tensions multiplied when Aragon demanded the return of the territories of Roussillon and Cerdanya to France. This took place in the same embassy that traveled to the French court to publicize the death of Henry IV of Castile, the consequent coronation of his sister Isabella as queen of Castile and, therefore, the rise to the Castilian throne as king consort of Ferdinand of Aragon. Well, they considered that the debt contracted by his father with France was already more than settled.
This request would be finally rejected by the French king, causing discomfort in the Aragonese court. Despite this, an emissary would be sent to Castile to hold talks in order to deal with this issue (Fernández; Martínez, 2014, p. 136).
What leaves no room for doubt is how neither crown was interested in armed conflict at this timesince, on the one hand, Louis XI of France feared a possible Castilian-Aragonese alliance, while on the other Aragon was providing military assistance to Castile to prepare for the war in Granada.
After a new refusal from France to return the counties to Aragon, Fernando, very furious, asked the Aragonese court, meeting in Tarazona, for the necessary resources to recover these territories by force, but they refused to finance him, so that his last hope of raising the necessary money and troops would be on Isabel. Although he did not obtain Castilian help either, since it was focused solely on the war in Granada (Fernández; Martínez, 2014, p. 137).
Desperate, Fernando had to resign himself to not being able to access these territoriess, although not everything would be bad news for the Aragonese king, since he would get his wife to vary her foreign policy (until now an ally of France), reaching alliance commitments with the Emperor Maximilian and England.
In the meantime, the rise to the French throne of Charles VIII in 1483 will cause a change in French foreign policy, which will cause them to decide to reach new agreements with the Aragonese before undertaking the great dream of the French king, the French territorial expansion through the Italian peninsula, the control of the Mediterranean and, finally, the conquest of Constantinople (including the destruction of the turkish empire). These crusade ideals that the French king maintained, together with political and expansive issues, would be one of the reasons why he would try to justify his entry and takeover of the kingdom of Naples (Hernando, 2015, p. 83).
In this way, and Through the Treaty of Barcelona of 1493, the counties of Roussillon and Cerdanya will be returned to Aragon in exchange for King Ferdinand’s commitment not to interfere in the plans that the French had for the Italian territoriesas long as they did not touch the rights of the Pope (Fernández; Martínez, 2014, p. 139).
The final objective of Carlos VIII would be the crown of Naplesas it was an old French claim and now, due to the death of King Ferrante of Naples, events would rush.
To all these political tensions should be added not only the defense of Aragonese interests in the Mediterranean, with the Kingdom of Sicily as a base, but also the surveillance of the Ottomans, since they constituted a serious threat to merchants and Christian kingdoms since They conquered Constantinople in 1453. These, in just thirty years, captured a large number of Mediterranean territories such as those corresponding to modern Greece, Macedonia, Albania or Bosnia-Herzegovina. And they had begun a maritime expansion that took them to the Aegean, Ionian and eastern Mediterranean Seas, colliding with Venetian interests since they had the islands of Crete and Cyprus as their commercial base (Juan, 2002, p. 185).
Beginning of the armed conflict
In this way, and once Carlos VIII ensured the Castilian-Aragonese non-interference, between August 29 and September 2, 1494, a vast French army composed of some 20,000 units of heavy cavalry, the true jewel of the French crown and until then unstoppable, 15,000 infantrymen armed with pikes, crossbows and arquebuses, 150 cannons, falconets and culverins, plus some 8000 men who made up the army who followed them through Italian lands, crossed the Alps. In addition to numerous Swiss, German and French mercenaries (Fernández; Martínez, 2014, p.141).
Against King Charles VIII was an alliance formed by the King of Naples and the Pope, since Naples was feudatory not only of the Aragonese king, but also of the pontiff. In this way, Alfonso II, son of the ill-fated Ferrante, and cousin of the King of Aragon, made sure that his Aragonese relative would end up breaking the agreements he had with the French and support them.
Thus, the French army toured Turin, Milan, Florence and finally Rome. Considering his expedition as a true “military ride”. The need to get to Rome was not trivial, since he needed the Pope to grant him the investiture of the throne of Naplesreaffirming its legitimacy to him (Jiménez, 2004, p. 4).
The Pope took refuge in the castle of Santangelo, although this did not prevent him from having to give up numerous Italian placeslike the famous port of Ostia, to Carlos VIII to help him in his invasion of the Neapolitan kingdom (Pérez, 2018, p. 190).
Charles VIII attacking the Pope’s armies breached the Barcelona Treaty that he had signed with Fernando de Aragón barely a year before. For what caused Fernando to break his neutrality and help the new Neapolitan king, Alfonso II (Molas, 1988, p. 64).
It is for reasons like this that many experts consider that Ferdinand of Aragon will be one of the models for “The Prince” by Machiavelli. Well, for the Italian statesman: “A certain sovereign of our time, whom it is not opportune to name, he continually speaks of peace and loyalty,
when it is the greatest enemy of one and the other; but if he had respected them, both would have taken away his good fame and power” (Machiavelli, 2004, p. 91). Making clear reference to the Aragonese king and how he broke agreements according to his interests.
We can also highlight this other excerpt from “The Prince”, where Machiavelli warns the new princes that they should not be led by old medieval ideals of loyalty and fidelity, since this will make their states not prosper as much as they should: “A prudent prince should not observe the sworn faith when such observance goes against his interests and when the reasons that made him promise have disappeared” (Machiavelli, 2004, p. 89).
The Catholic Monarchs sent embassies to Naples, in order to obtain from these various coastal places in Calabria that would help the landing of the Castilian-Aragonese army in Italian lands, to support the King of Naples in his fight against the French. In this way, Fernando received the strengths of Reggio, Crotona, Squilace, Tropea and La Amantia (Perez, 2018, p. 191)
Just at this moment Alfonso II, who had been defeated by the French in Genoa and in the lower reaches of the Po River, will have to face an anti-Aragonese rebellion, as many of its nobles saw how the French heavy cavalry made its way practically without difficulty through the Italian peninsula, so those who were more in favor of the Gaul than the Hispanic turned against Alfonso II. He finally had to abdicate in his son Ferrante II to maintain the throne in his dynasty, although France would take advantage of the situation to attack Naples and seize the Neapolitan throne from the young king Ferrante II (Pérez, 2018, p. 190) .
The fall of Naples was a matter of timeand more since a condottiero Milanese at the service of the kings of Naples called Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, handed over to France the square of Capua, of vital importance due to its strategic location on the plane…