Alfonso V of Aragon

The arms shield of King Alfonso V of Aragon The Magnanimous as a knight of the Order of the Golden Toy, to which he agreed after his seventh chapter of Ghent, 1445. Legend: TRÈS HAUTT ET TRÈS EXCELLENT ET TRES PUTISSANT PRINCE DON ALPHONSE, ROY D'ARRAGON V. DUT NOM. 'Very high and very excellent and very powerful prince Don Alfonso, king of Aragon V of the name.'

Alfonso V of Aragón (Medina del Campo, 1396 – Naples, June 27, 1458), also called the Wise or < i>the Magnanimous, between 1416 and 1458 he was King of Aragon, Valencia, Majorca, Sicily, Sardinia and Count of Barcelona; and between 1442 and 1458 King of Naples.

He was the eldest son of the Regent of Castile Fernando de Antequera and later King of Aragon under the name of Fernando I, and Countess Leonor de Alburquerque. He therefore belonged to the House of Aragon because he was the grandson of Leonor de Aragón (since the Aragonese royal dignity could be transmitted through the female line) and to the Trastámara lineage because he was the grandson of Juan I of Castilla.

On June 28, 1412, he became heir to the throne of the Crown of Aragon when his father was proclaimed king after the so-called Caspe Compromise and three years later, on June 12, 1415, in the cathedral of Valencia, married his cousin the Infanta María, daughter of Enrique III of Castile and Catalina de Lancáster.

On April 2, 1416, after the death of his father, he succeeded him as King of Aragon and of the other kingdoms he held.

Domestic policy

Aragon

In the courts of 1419, there will be a confrontation when the Catalan nobility formed a league of barons, towns and cities demanding that Alfonso V reduce the high number of members of the Castilian nobility elected to government positions, which made them the monarch reduced and reorganized the Royal House.

In 1448, Alfonso V dictated from Naples, where he had installed the court, a provision that allowed the peasants to meet in a union to discuss the suppression of bad uses. Landowners oppose the measure and make it fail. However, the issue would return in 1455 when Alfonso dictated what was known as the "Interlocutory Judgment" in which he suspended the easements and misuse, as in 1462, when Juan II of Aragon was already reigning, he would provoke the first remense war.

Castile

Juan II had occupied the Castilian throne since 1406 after the death of his father Enrique III, who in his will and due to the fact that when Juan acceded to the throne he was only a little over a year old, had arranged that the regency of the kingdom will be held by his widow Catalina de Lancaster and the infant Fernando de Trastámara.

When Fernando was crowned King of Aragon in the Caspe Compromise (1412), he left his sons, the Infantes of Aragon Juan II of Navarra and Enrique, as his lieutenants in Castile to defend their interests.

In 1419, Juan II of Castile reached the age of majority and tried to free himself from the influence of the Infantes. After the Tordesillas coup and the unsuccessful siege of the castle of La Puebla de Montalbán at the end of 1420, he delegated all power to the new Constable of Castilla Álvaro de Luna, which would lead to a long and intermittent civil war between two sides: the first formed by Don Álvaro and the minor nobility, and the second formed by the infantes of Aragon and the high nobility, supported by Alfonso V from Aragon.

However, the confrontation that arises between the infants themselves for power causes the Aragonese influence in Castile to be in danger, so Alfonso V, who was in Naples, decides to return to the Peninsula. In 1425, after accusing Álvaro de Luna of being a usurper of the government, he managed to reconcile his brothers, the infantes, and, although he managed at first, in 1427, for the Constable of Castile to be exiled to Cuéllar, he could not prevent his victorious return the following year..

Alfonso V, between 1429 and 1430, got involved in a war against his cousin Juan II of Castile and the policy of the valid Álvaro de Luna to support his brothers the infants but, when both sides met, near Jadraque, face to face to engage in battle, the personal intervention of the Aragonese queen María de Castilla, sister of Juan II of Castilla, prevented it.

In 1432 Alfonso returned to Italy and, in 1436, peace was signed with Castile through a treaty in which the infants left the Castilian kingdom in exchange for receiving annual income.

Foreign Policy

Map of the Crown of Aragon in 1443.

Sicily

Benedict XIII had invested Ferdinand I of Aragon as king of Sicily in 1412 and he had appointed his son Juan as lieutenant general of the island. When Ferdinand I died, the Sicilians tried to have his throne occupied by Juan, so the first foreign policy measure that Alfonso V took was to put an end to his desire for independence. He claimed the presence of his brother Juan de él at court and sent him, together with his, another brother of his, Enrique, to help him in the fight that he maintained to seize power in Castile.

Map of the first expedition of Alfonso V to Naples

Sardinia

Without the danger of Sicilian independence, Alfonso's next objective was the island of Sardinia, a territory over which the Aragonese crown claimed its sovereignty since in 1297 Pope Boniface VIII granted the island as a fief to James II of Aragon, and who at the time was immersed in a rebellion instigated by the Genoese.

Equestrian heraldic representation of the king of Aragon (“Le Roy Δ d’Aragon”) Alfonso V the Magnanimous with the real sign in overveste and horse gualdrapas in the Equestrian Armorial of the Toison d'Or. Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsénal, ms. 4790, f. 108r, miniature n.o 228.

Alfonso headed for the island at the head of a squadron of 24 galleys that set sail, in May 1420, from Los Alfaques in the direction of Alguer with the intention of subduing the cities that had rebelled. The arrival of the fleet caused the rebels to submit without putting up any resistance.

Corsica

From Sardinia, Afonso went with his squadron to the island of Corsica where he managed to take the city of Calvi and lay siege to the city of Bonifacio.

Naples

Alfonso V abandoned the siege of Bonifacio in 1421 when he received a request for help from Juana II of Naples before the siege she was suffering by the troops of Louis III of Anjou, commanded by Muzio Attendolo Sforza. The Aragonese monarch comes to the aid of Juana who, in gratitude, adopts him as his son and heir and names him Duke of Calabria and, after establishing his residence in Naples, appoints his wife María de él as Regent of Aragon.

The successive military and political successes of Alfonso V on the Mediterranean scene raised the suspicion of the Duke of Milan Filippo Maria Visconti who, taking advantage of the cooling of relations between Queen Juana and Alfonso when he had the Neapolitan prime minister and lover arrested of that one, Giovanni Caracciolo, encouraged a revolt led by Sforza that forced Alfonso to take refuge, on May 30, 1423, in the Neapolitan fortress of Castel Nuovo until the arrival of an Aragonese fleet of 22 galleys allowed him to recover Naples and force Juana to seek refuge in Aversa and later in Nola where she will revoke Alfonso's adoption and appoint Luis de Anjou as the new heir.

After receiving news from the Peninsula about the difficulties his brothers are going through in their confrontation with Castile, and needing economic and military reinforcements to continue with his expansion policy, Alfonso decides to leave Naples under the command of his brother Pedro and, After destroying the port of Marseille in the territory of the Anjou, he returned to his peninsular kingdoms where he would remain until 1432.

The absence of Alfonso in Italy allowed the Duke of Milan to conquer, in 1423, Gaeta, Procida, Sorrento and Castellammare; and after laying siege to Naples he allowed Francesco Sforza to take the city in 1424 forcing Peter to seek refuge in Sicily.

Map of the second expedition of Alfonso V to Naples

Alfonso V returned to Italy in 1432 but had to postpone the capture of Naples due to the military league that, with the support of Pope Eugenius IV and Emperor Sigismund, formed Venice, Florence and Milan and forced him to sign in 1433 a ten-year truce with Joanna II of Naples.

Portrait of Alfonso V de Aragón, de Mino da Fiesole.

The truce allowed Afonso to focus his attention on Africa where, in 1432, he had already led a military expedition against the island of Yerba. His interest resumed in 1434 with a new expedition to Tripoli, however the deaths of his Neapolitan rivals turned his attention back to Italy.

In fact, in 1434 Louis III of Anjou died, for which reason Queen Juana appointed his brother, Renato, as the new heir to the throne of Naples. However, before the death of Juana the following year, Pope Eugenio IV does not give his approval, so Alfonso sees the time has come to conquer Naples. Accompanied by his brothers Juan, Enrique and Pedro, he took the city of Capua and laid siege to Gaeta, to whose aid a Genoese fleet came, which defeated the Aragonese in the battle of Ponza that took place on August 4, 1435 and in which The king himself and his brothers Juan II of Navarre and Enrique were taken prisoner and handed over to the Duke of Milan Filippo María Visconti.

In 1436, the duke freed Juan de Navarra who returned to the Peninsula and replaced the wife of Alfonso V as regent of the kingdom of Aragon, so that María was left alone at the head of the Catalan principality.

Alfonso negotiates his freedom and reaches an agreement with the Duke of Milan whereby they both sign an alliance that will allow him to reconquer Capua and Gaeta in 1436 and lay siege to Naples, in which his brother Pedro will die in 1438 After taking several cities in Calabria, including Cosenza and Bisignano, he triumphantly entered Naples on February 23, 1443, obtaining the recognition of Eugenio IV in exchange for Alfonso supporting him in his confrontation against the Sforza.

Alfonso would never return to his kingdoms of the Crown of Aragon, establishing his court in the fortress of Castel Nuovo, which he ordered to be remodeled by the Majorcan architect Guillem Sagrera.

Cultural policy

The Stúñiga Songbook. Beautifully illuminated manuscript that collects the poetry of the Neapolitan court of Alfonso V de Aragón.

Alfonso V can be considered a genuine prince of the Renaissance, since he developed an important cultural and literary patronage that earned him the nickname the Wise One and that would make Naples the main focus of the entry of Renaissance humanism in the area of the Crown of Aragon. He protected outstanding humanists, such as Lorenzo Valla, Giovanni Pontano or Antonio Beccadelli. As a result of this patronage, he was a circle of songbook poets whose work is included in the Stúñiga Songbook .

His devotion to the classics was exceptional. In his own words he said: "Among my advisers, books are the ones I like the most, because neither fear nor hope prevent them from telling me what I should do." It is also said that Alfonso stopped his army in pious respect before the birthplace of a Latin writer, took Livy or Caesar on his campaigns, and his panegyrist Panormita did not consider it an incredible lie to say that the king was cured of an illness. when a few pages of the biography of Alexander the Great written by Quinto Curcio Rufo were read to him. Benedetto Croce, in Spain in Italian Life during the Renaissance notes that the monarch "familiarized the Spanish with Italian humanism and was one of the promoters of Renaissance culture".

Other facts

Silver Medal of Alfonso V (1449), by Pisanello.

He had diplomatic contacts with the Ethiopian empire. In 1428, he received a letter from Yeshaq I of Ethiopia, delivered by hand by two dignitaries, in which he proposed an alliance against the Muslims, sealed by a double marriage, that of the infant Don Pedro with Yeshaq's daughter, on condition that for him to take a group of craftsmen to Ethiopia. It is not clear if Alfonso responded to this letter and in what terms, although a message sent to Yeshaq's successor Zara Yagob in 1450 wrote that he would be happy to send them if their safety was guaranteed, since on a previous occasion a whole party of thirteen of his subjects had perished on the journey.

His reign ended with two new wars: one against his cousin and brother-in-law, Juan II of Castile, between the years 1445 and 1454, and another against Genoa that began in 1454 and continued until his death, which occurred on 27 August. June 1458 in the castle of Ovo (Naples).

In 1671 Pedro Antonio de Aragón, Viceroy of Naples, obtained permission to transfer the remains of Alfonso the Magnanimous from there and deposit them in the Royal Sepulchres of the Poblet Monastery. A tomb with a large pedestal was built next to the royal tombs, in the transept, on the Gospel side. Only the restored base or pedestal remains today (2007).

Ancestors

Offspring

In 1408 Alfonso became engaged to María de Castilla (1401-1458), daughter of Enrique III el Doliente, and his cousin. The marriage was celebrated in the cathedral of Valencia on June 12, 1415. They had no children.

From his relationship with Giraldona de Carlino, he had three natural children:

• Fernando (1423-1494), his successor in the kingdom of Naples with the name of Fernando I.
• Mary (1425-1449), married to Lionel, Marquis of East and Duke of Ferrara.
• Leonor, or Eleonora, married the noble Marzano, Prince of Rossano.

Succession

In the Crown of Aragon, Sicily and Sardinia, he was succeeded by his brother Juan. The kingdom of Naples was left in the hands of his bastard son Ferdinand.

Predecessor: Fernando I	King of Aragon and Valencia Count of Barcelona 1416 - 1458	Successor: John II
Predecessor: Renato I	King of Naples 1442 - 1458	Successor: Fernando I