Today a new column begins: the kings of Naples! The statues of the kings of Naples are located on the facade of the Royal Palace, in Piazza del Plebiscito, and were placed there by the will of King Umberto I, in 1888. The first king of Naples is Roger II the Norman, and indeed, the first statue, the work of Emilio Franceschi, is dedicated to him. The Normans were initially recruited by Duke Sergius IV, in 1027, to free themselves from the pressing pressure of the Lombards. To reward them, he gave them land, which the Normans called "Aversa," because it was hostile, both to Naples and to Capua. From Aversa, they spread rapidly, until they besieged the city of Naples in 1130. This was Roger of Sicily, who defeated the last loyalists of Duke Sergius VIII and nine years later received the keys to the city. Roger the Norman was a wise king, but he imposed a unitary organization of the kingdom. This did not allow the Neapolitan bourgeoisie to become autonomous, nor the city of Naples to develop as a free commune. During the Norman reign, Castel dell'Ovo (residence at the time of Roger the Norman) and Castel Capuano (later residence, desired by William I the Norman, also to reconcile the need for a residence with that of a military garrison) were built. In the next episode with the kings of Naples, we will talk about how power passed to the Swabians.
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Second episode of the #ReDiNapoli column. Today we talk about the Swabians and in particular about Frederick II of Swabia. His statue on the facade of the Royal Palace of Naples is a work by Emanuele Caggiano. Frederick Roger of Hohenstaufen entered Naples because he was descended on his mother's side from the Normans of Hauteville. His reign was characterized by a moralizing government, privileges and medieval freedoms were suppressed. Frederick was repeatedly opposed by the church, and even received two excommunications from Pope Gregory IX, who called him the Antichrist. Frederick nevertheless managed to carry out several works in the kingdom: in Naples he rebuilt the walls and increased trade, limiting the power of his local representative, the "compalazzo," to whom he added a curia composed of five judges and eight notaries. But his greatest work is certainly the establishment of the Studium Generale, in 1224. This is the University of Naples, the first secular university in Italy, which takes the name of Frederick II. The Swabian reign ended in 1266, with the arrival of the Angevins. The transfer of power was marked by a tragic event, which will forever remain in the memory of the Neapolitans: the beheading, in 1268, in Piazza Mercato, of Conradin of Swabia, a boy of only 14 years old. But we will talk about the Angevins in the next episode of the column! See you soon!
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Third episode of the column dedicated to the #ReDiNapoli! The third statue on the facade of the Royal Palace of Naples is dedicated to Charles of Anjou, and is a work by Tommaso Solari. The sovereign is depicted with a fierce expression, and indeed he did not have a gentle character. The Neapolitans, after the death of Frederick II of Swabia, began to show signs of impatience towards the empire, rebelled against the governors, and Naples became a free commune under the protection of Pope Innocent IV. The church, taking advantage of popular discontent, introduced Franciscan and Dominican convents into the city, and used the Frenchman Charles of Anjou, in 1266, to eliminate even the last traces of Ghibelline power. This happened in 1268, with the beheading of Conradin of Swabia in Piazza Mercato. The capital was moved from Palermo to Naples, and during the Angevin period many churches were built in Naples, such as the cathedral, San Lorenzo, Sant'Eligio, Santa Chiara, San Domenico, and the relationship of the Neapolitans with religion was consolidated, but also spread bigotry and superstition among the population. Sculptors like Tino da Camaino and painters like Giotto and Simone Martini came to Naples to work in places of worship. Civil construction also flourished, with the construction of Castel Nuovo, which became the new royal residence of the Angevins, and Castel Sant'Elmo. The city's middle classes were slow to emerge. Charles accentuated the feudal component, and the needs of the lower classes found no representation at the top. Discontent led, in 1282, to the Sicilian Vespers revolt, which anticipated the rise of a new domination, the Aragonese, which we will discuss in the next episode. Charles of Anjou was succeeded by Charles II the Lame, and then Robert of Anjou. He brought personalities such as Francesco Petrarca to court, but the flourishing of the arts did not correspond to great governing ability. Taxes were too high, as were the costs of foreign policy. Brigandage, the Inquisition, the plague of 1348, and the confusion of the years following the death of King Robert and linked to the two Joannas accelerated the entry of the Aragonese into the city, which took place in 1442.
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Fourth episode of the column on the #redinapoli! The fourth statue on the facade of the Royal Palace in Naples is dedicated to the Aragonese king Alfonso of Aragon, called "The Magnanimous." It is a work by Achille D'Orsi. How did Alfonso of Aragon arrive in Naples? On the portal of Castel Nuovo, a splendid work by Pietro De Martino from drawings by Francesco Laurana, the triumphant entry into the city of Alfonso, transported on the chariot of victory, is depicted. Also in the Hall of Aragonese Glories, the second antechamber of the Royal Palace, we find, on the ceiling frescoes, the same scene. The reality, however, is slightly different. Alfonso of Aragon, after a long siege of the city of Naples, went to a lady who lived in the "extra moenia" area, a certain "donna Ceccarella," and promised her a life annuity in exchange for a small favor: to allow him to access the Neapolitan underground, entering from the garden well. So he did, and emerged, through the aqueduct tunnels, inside the walls. His entry into Naples, therefore, was anything but triumphant, and more like that of a sewer rat. During Alfonso's reign, foreign policy flourished, and Naples was the center of a vast Mediterranean domain. The production of wool and silk developed. At the same time, art and literature experienced a particularly flourishing moment. Just think of figures such as Panormita and Giovanni Pontano, or like Pinturicchio and Perugino, who worked in Naples at this time. Alfonso's policy, however, was aimed at favoring the barons and eliminated the people's seat; moreover, the sovereign was very religious - he boasted of having read the Bible in its entirety forty times - and sought a devout alliance with the Roman pontiff, also to defeat the Angevins and Turks. The splendor and luxury of the festivities compromised the economic situation of the kingdom, and Alfonso's favor continued to lean towards barons and feudal lords, to whom he granted various favors, feeling blackmailed by the threat of rebellions. The feudal lords dominated the countryside, acted with arrogance, and this provoked the indignation of merchants from other parts of Italy who visited the kingdom. The development of the navy remained practically at a standstill in the Aragonese era. Alfonso the Magnanimous was succeeded by Ferrante, who tried to win the trust of the Neapolitans with a policy aimed at the cultural and urban development of the city, despite being a man indifferent to culture. Ferrante devoted himself to the development of craftsmanship, calling to court from all over Italy the greatest silk makers, goldsmiths, and leather workers, and surrounded Naples with twenty-two cylindrical towers, reclaimed it, and improved the administration of justice. Against him, however, the barons conspired, who, motivated by the increase in taxes, gathered in the famous conspiracy in 1485. Ferrante discovered them and had them executed or sent into exile in France the following year. The Aragonese rule was, in those years, undermined by the great European powers, which contended for Italian territory. After Ferrante's death, the crown passed in a few years to Alfonso II and then to Ferrantino, then was threatened by Charles VIII, King of France, of the Angevin house, called to Italy by Ludovico il Moro. After the French threat was averted, Ferrantino was recalled, and after him the crown went again to Frederick III, the last of the Aragonese, who tried to govern with intelligence and caution. The Aragonese rule in Naples ended, however, in 1503, when Ferdinand the Catholic conquered the kingdom thanks to Don Consalvo de Cordoba, and Naples was reduced to a peripheral province in the vast Spanish empire. But we will talk about this in the next episode...
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Fifth episode of the column on the #redinapoli! The fifth statue on the facade of the Royal Palace of Naples is dedicated to Charles V and is the work of Vincenzo Gemito. Charles inherited in 1506 the kingdom of Castile and the lands of the New World from his father Philip the Handsome of Habsburg, Archduke of Austria and lord of the Netherlands. Charles was only six years old at the time, so the kingdom was administered by his maternal grandfather, Ferdinand the Catholic, until he came of age. On June 28, 1519, he was elected Holy Roman Emperor with the name Charles V and in 1529, after the Battle of Pavia and the sack of Rome, imposed the Peace of Cambrai on France and that of Barcelona on the pope, asserting his dominance also in Italy, and receiving, the following year, the iron crown of King of Italy and the imperial crown from Pope Clement VII. The empire of Charles V included much of the Italian peninsula: Naples, Palermo, Cagliari, Milan, Genoa, Florence, and the capitals of the Po Valley duchies and was based on an idea of universal peace, guaranteed by Christianity. Naples lost its role as capital and declined to that of a province, the government was entrusted to Spanish viceroys. The first, and most important, was certainly Don Pedro de Toledo, who ruled Naples for twenty years, from 1532 to 1553. Don Pedro implemented a real urban plan in Naples: he built the street that bears his name, stationed Spanish troops in the Montecalvario district, in what later became known as the "Spanish quarters." He extended the city walls to Vomero and Chiaia, and restored some of the Neapolitan fortresses, such as Castel Sant'Elmo, which took on the six-pointed star shape we see today. Pedro de Toledo is also responsible for the establishment of the Vicaria court, which in eighteen years sent about eighteen thousand local rascals to the gallows, and that of the Monti di Pietà (institutions formed by , which the viceroy established to solve the problem of the multitude of Jewish usurers in the city. The policy towards the barons was generally strict: they had been reduced to simple landowners, often living off their income, far from the fiefs, squandering their wealth in splendor and luxury, but Pedro de Toledo enacted a series of pragmatic laws against them, to combat abuses in the commercial and legal fields. Unfortunately, however, corruption also spread among the magistrates, so the punitive actions of the viceroys often had no effect. Crime and usury spread easily in the city. The policy conducted by the viceroys was much less strict, moreover, towards their own Spanish soldiers, who established promiscuous relations with the Neapolitan plebs, infecting them with both Spanish defects - such as foul language and superstition - and diseases. Many Spanish-derived terms in the Neapolitan dialect date back to this period. Convents and churches proliferated, and despite the ban - from 1566 - on building outside the walls, due to the enormous population growth, inhabited nuclei formed in Mergellina, in the Vergini, in Sant'Antonio Abate, in Avvocata and in other Neapolitan villages. Even after the death of Pedro de Toledo, in reality, a period anything but flourishing came for Naples. During the seventeenth century, the arts flourished, with Neapolitan Baroque and with the presence of artists such as Cosimo Fanzago and Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio in Naples, but the plebs lived in prolonged misery, also aggravated by numerous plague epidemics. GuzmánGuzmánIn 1643, thanks to the viceroy Ramiro de Guzmán, who married the noblewoman Anna Carafa, the ramps of Sant'Antonio in Posillipo, the connection between the hill and the lower city, were made accessible to carriages, right where Palazzo Donn'Anna was located, built by Cosimo Fanzago for Anna Carafa. A few years later, in 1647, the Neapolitan people, incited by the young Masaniello, united in a popular revolt, due to a tax on fruit, and therefore on a basic necessity. The revolt of Masaniello was followed by the terrible plague of 1656, which, in addition to decimating the population, gave rise in Naples to the "cult of the skulls." The eighteenth century brought the end of the viceregal period and introduced the Bourbon dynasty, which ruled until the unification of Italy. Before the arrival of the Bourbons in Naples, there was a brief (from 1707 to 1734) Austrian rule, of little significance for the city. The rest we will discover in the next episode...
(Source: "The History of Naples" by Antonio Ghirelli)
Today a new column begins: the kings of Naples! The statues of the kings of Naples are located on the facade of the Royal Palace, in Piazza del Plebiscito, and were placed there by order of King Umberto I, in 1888. The first king of Naples is Roger II the Norman, and indeed, the first statue, the work of Emilio Franceschi, is dedicated to him. The Normans were initially recruited by Duke Sergius IV, in 1027, to free themselves from the pressing pressure of the Lombards. To reward them, he gave them land, which the Normans called "Aversa," because it was hostile, both to Naples and to Capua. From Aversa, they spread rapidly, until they besieged the city of Naples in 1130. This was Roger of Sicily, who defeated the last loyalists of Duke Sergius VIII and nine years later received the keys to the city. The year Roger the Norman was a wise king, but he imposed a unitary organization of the kingdom. This did not allow the Neapolitan bourgeoisie to become autonomous, nor the city of Naples to evolve as a free commune. During the Norman reign, Castel dell'Ovo (residence at the time of Roger the Norman) and Castel Capuano (later residence, commissioned by William I the Norman, also to reconcile the need for a residence with that of a military garrison) were built. In the next episode with the kings of Naples, we will talk about how power passed to the Swabians. *************************************************************************************Second episode of the #ReDiNapoli column. Today we talk about the Swabians and in particular about . His statue on the facade of the Royal Palace of Naples is a work by Emanuele Caggiano. Frederick Roger of Hohenstaufen entered Naples because he was descended on his mother's side from the Normans of Hauteville. His reign was characterized by a moralizing government, privileges and medieval freedoms were suppressed. Frederick was repeatedly opposed by the church, and even received two excommunications from Pope Gregory IX, who called him the Antichrist. Frederick nevertheless managed to carry out several works in the kingdom: in Naples he rebuilt the walls and increased trade, limiting the power of his local representative, the "compalazzo," to whom he added a curia composed of five judges and eight notaries. But his greatest work is certainly the establishment of the Studio Generale, in 1224. This is the University of Naples, the first secular university in Italy, which takes the name of Federico II. The Swabian kingdom would end in 1266, with the arrival of the Angevins. The transfer of power would be marked by a tragic event, which would remain forever in the memory of the Neapolitans: the beheading, in 1268, in Piazza Mercato, of Conradin of Swabia, a boy of only 14 years. But we will talk about the Angevins in the next episode of the column! See you soon! ***************************************************************************************Third episode of the column dedicated to #ReDiNapoli! The third statue on the facade of the Royal Palace of Naples is dedicated to , and is a work by Tommaso Solari. The sovereign is depicted with a fierce expression, and in fact his character was certainly not docile. The Neapolitans, after the death of Frederick II of Swabia, began to show signs of impatience towards the empire, rebelled against the governors and Naples became a free commune under the protection of Pope Innocent IV. The church, taking advantage of popular discontent, introduced convents of Franciscans and Dominicans into the city, and used the Frenchman Charles of Anjou, in 1266, to eliminate even the last traces of Ghibelline power. This happened in 1268, with the beheading of Conradin of Swabia in Piazza Mercato. The capital was moved from Palermo to Naples, and during the Angevin period many churches were built in Naples, such as the cathedral, San Lorenzo, Sant'Eligio, Santa Chiara, San Domenico, and the relationship of the Neapolitans with religion was consolidated, but also spread bigotry and superstition among the population. Sculptors such as Tino da Camaino and painters such as Giotto and Simone Martini came to Naples to work in places of worship. Civil construction also flourished, with the construction of Castel Nuovo, which became the new royal residence of the Angevins, and Castel Sant'Elmo. The city's middle classes were slow to emerge. Charles accentuated the feudal component, and the needs of the lower classes found no representative at the top. Discontent led, in 1282, to the Sicilian Vespers revolt, which anticipated the rise of a new domination, the Aragonese, which we will discuss in the next episode. Charles of Anjou was succeeded by Charles II the Lame, and then Robert of Anjou. He brought personalities such as Francesco Petrarca to court, but the flourishing of the arts did not correspond to great governing ability. Taxes were too high, as were the costs of foreign policy. Brigandage, the Inquisition, the plague of 1348, and the confusion of the years following the death of King Robert and linked to the two Joannas accelerated the entry of the Aragonese into the city, which took place in 1442.***************************************************************************************Fourth episode of the column on the #redinapoli! The fourth statue on the facade of the Royal Palace in Naples is dedicated to the Aragonese king, called "The Magnanimous." It is a work by Achille D'Orsi. How did Alfonso of Aragon arrive in Naples? On the portal of Castel Nuovo, a splendid work by Pietro De Martino from drawings by Francesco Laurana, the triumphant entry into the city of Alfonso, carried on the chariot of victory, is depicted. Also in the Hall of Aragonese Glories, the second antechamber of the Royal Palace, we find, on the ceiling frescoes, the same scene. The reality, however, is slightly different. Alfonso of Aragon, after a long siege of the city of Naples, went to a lady who lived in the "extra moenia" area, a certain "donna Ceccarella," and promised her a pension in exchange for a small favor: to allow him to access the Neapolitan underground, entering from the garden well. So he did, and emerged, through the aqueduct tunnels, inside the walls. His entry into Naples, therefore, was anything but triumphant, and more like that of a sewer rat. During Alfonso's reign, foreign policy flourished, and Naples was the center of the vast Mediterranean domain. Wool and silk production developed. At the same time, art and literature experienced a particularly flourishing moment. Just think of figures such as Panormita and Giovanni Pontano, or like Pinturicchio and Perugino, who worked in Naples at this time. Alfonso's policy, however, was aimed at favoring the barons and eliminated the people's seat; moreover, the sovereign was very religious - he boasted of having read the Bible in its entirety forty times - and sought a devout alliance with the Roman pontiff, also to defeat the Angevins and Turks. The splendor and luxury of the festivities compromised the kingdom's economic situation, and Alfonso's favor continued to lean towards barons and feudal lords, to whom he granted various favors, feeling blackmailed by the threat of rebellions. The feudal lords acted as masters in the countryside, acted arrogantly, and this provoked the indignation of merchants from other parts of Italy who visited the kingdom. The development of the navy remained practically at a standstill in the Aragonese era. Alfonso the Magnanimous was succeeded by Ferrante, who tried to win the trust of the Neapolitans with a policy aimed at the cultural and urban promotion of the city, despite being a man indifferent to culture. Ferrante devoted himself to the development of crafts, calling to court from all over Italy the greatest silk makers, goldsmiths, and leather workers, and surrounded Naples with twenty-two cylindrical towers, reclaimed it, and improved the administration of justice. Against him, however, the barons conspired, who, motivated by the increase in taxes, gathered in the famous conspiracy in 1485. Ferrante discovered them and had them executed or sent into exile in France the following year. The Aragonese rule was, in those years, undermined by the great European powers, which contended for Italian territory. After Ferrante's death, the crown passed in a few years to Alfonso II and then to Ferrantino, was then threatened by Charles VIII, King of France, of the Angevin house, called to Italy by Ludovico il Moro. After the French threat was averted, Ferrantino was recalled, and after him the crown went again to Frederick III, the last of the Aragonese, who tried to govern with intelligence and caution. The Aragonese rule in Naples would end, however, in 1503, when Ferdinand the Catholic conquered the kingdom thanks to Don Consalvo de Cordoba, and Naples was reduced to a peripheral province in the vast Spanish empire. But we will talk about this in the next episode...************************************************************************************Fifth episode of the column on the #redinapoli! The fifth statue on the facade of the Royal Palace of Naples is dedicated to and is the work of Vincenzo Gemito. Charles inherited in 1506 the kingdom of Castile and the lands of the New World from his father Philip of Habsburg the Handsome, Archduke of Austria and lord of the Netherlands. Charles was only six years old at the time, so the kingdom was administered by his maternal grandfather, Ferdinand the Catholic, until he came of age. On June 28, 1519, he was elected Holy Roman Emperor with the name Charles V and in 1529, after the Battle of Pavia and the sack of Rome, imposed the Peace of Cambrai on France and that of Barcelona on the pope, asserting his rule also in Italy, and receiving, the following year, the iron crown of King of Italy and the imperial crown from Pope Clement VII. Charles V's empire included much of the Italian peninsula: Naples, Palermo, Cagliari, Milan, Genoa, Florence, and the capitals of the Po Valley duchies and was based on an idea of universal peace, guaranteed by Christianity. Naples lost its role as capital and declined to that of a province, the government was entrusted to Spanish viceroys. The first, and most important, was certainly Don Pedro da Toledo, who reigned in Naples for twenty years, from 1532 to 1553. Don Pedro implemented a real urban plan in Naples: he built the street that bears his name, stationed Spanish troops in the Montecalvario district, in what later became known as the "Spanish quarters." He extended the city walls to Vomero and Chiaia, and restored some of the Neapolitan fortresses, such as Castel Sant'Elmo, which took on the six-pointed star shape we see today. Pedro da Toledo is also responsible for the establishment of the Vicaria court, which in eighteen years sent about eighteen thousand local scoundrels to the gallows, and that of the Monti di Pietà (organizations formed by , which the viceroy established to address the problem of the multitude of Jewish usurers in the city. The policy towards the barons was generally strict: they had been reduced to mere landowners, often living off their income, far from the fiefs, squandering their wealth in splendor and luxury, but Pedro da Toledo enacted a series of pragmatic measures against them, to combat abuses in the commercial and legal fields. Unfortunately, however, corruption also spread among the magistrates, and therefore the punitive actions of the viceroys often had no effect. Crime and usury spread easily in the city. The policy conducted by the viceroys was much less strict, moreover, towards their own Spanish soldiers, who established promiscuous relations with the Neapolitan plebs, infecting them with both Spanish defects - such as foul language and superstition - and diseases. Many Spanish-derived terms in the Neapolitan dialect date back to this period. Convents and churches proliferated, and despite the ban - from 1566 - on building outside the walls, due to the enormous population growth, inhabited centers formed in Mergellina, in the Vergini, in Sant'Antonio Abate, in Avvocata, and in other Neapolitan villages. Even after the death of Pedro da Toledo, in reality, Naples entered a period that was anything but flourishing. In the seventeenth century, the arts flourished, with Neapolitan Baroque and with the presence of artists such as Cosimo Fanzago and Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio in Naples, but the plebs lived in prolonged misery, aggravated also by numerous plague epidemics. GuzmánGuzmánIn 1643, thanks to the viceroy Ramiro de Guzmán, who married the noblewoman Anna Carafa, the ramps of Sant'Antonio in Posillipo, a connection between the hill and the lower city, were made accessible to carriages, right where Palazzo Donn'Anna was located, built by Cosimo Fanzago for Anna Carafa. A few years later, in 1647, the Neapolitan people, incited by the young Masaniello, united in a popular revolt, due to a tax on fruit, and therefore on a basic good. The Masaniello revolt was followed by the terrible plague of 1656, which, in addition to decimating the population, gave rise in Naples to the "cult of the skulls." The eighteenth century brought the end of the viceregal period and introduced the Bourbon dynasty, which ruled until the unification of Italy. Before the arrival of the Bourbons in Naples, there was a brief (from 1707 to 1734) Austrian rule, of little significance for the city. We will discover the rest in the next episode... (Source: "The History of Naples" by Antonio Ghirelli)
Today a new column begins: the kings of Naples! The statues of the kings of Naples are located on the facade of the Royal Palace, in Piazza del Plebiscito, and were placed there by the will of King Umberto I, in 1888. The first king of Naples is Roger II the Norman, and indeed, the first statue, the work of Emilio Franceschi, is dedicated to him. The Normans were initially recruited by Duke Sergius IV, in 1027, to free themselves from the pressing pressure of the Lombards. To reward them, he gave them land, which the Normans called "Aversa," because it was hostile, both to Naples and to Capua. From Aversa, they spread rapidly, until they besieged the city of Naples in 1130. This was Roger of Sicily, who defeated the last loyalists of Duke Sergius VIII and nine years later received the keys to the city. The year Roger the Norman was a wise king, but he imposed a unitary organization of the kingdom. This did not allow the Neapolitan bourgeoisie to become autonomous, nor the city of Naples to evolve as a free commune. During the Norman reign, Castel dell'Ovo (residence at the time of Roger the Norman) and Castel Capuano (later residence, desired by William I the Norman, also to reconcile the need for a residence with that of a military garrison) were built. In the next episode with the kings of Naples, we will talk about how power passed to the Swabians. *************************************************************************************Second episode of the #ReDiNapoli column Today we talk about the Swabians and in particular about . His statue on the facade of the Royal Palace of Naples is a work by Emanuele Caggiano. Frederick Roger of Hohenstaufen entered Naples because he was descended on his mother's side from the Normans of Hauteville. His reign was characterized by a moralizing government, privileges and medieval freedoms were suppressed. Frederick was repeatedly opposed by the church, and even received two excommunications from Pope Gregory IX, who called him the Antichrist. Frederick nevertheless managed to carry out several works in the kingdom: in Naples he rebuilt the walls and increased trade, limiting the power of his local representative, the "compalazzo," to whom he added a curia composed of five judges and eight notaries. But his greatest work is certainly the establishment of the Studium Generale, in 1224. This is the University of Naples, the first secular university in Italy, which takes the name of Frederick II. The Swabian reign ended in 1266, with the arrival of the Angevins. The transfer of power was marked by a tragic event, which will forever remain in the memory of the Neapolitans: the beheading, in 1268, in Piazza Mercato, of Conradin of Swabia, a boy of only 14 years. But we will talk about the Angevins in the next episode of the column! See you soon! ***************************************************************************************Third episode of the column dedicated to #ReDiNapoli! The third statue on the facade of the Royal Palace of Naples is dedicated to , and is a work by Tommaso Solari. The sovereign is depicted with a fierce expression, and indeed his character was certainly not docile. The Neapolitans, after the death of Frederick II of Swabia, began to show signs of impatience towards the empire, rebelled against the governors, and Naples became a free commune under the protection of Pope Innocent IV. The church, taking advantage of popular discontent, introduced convents of Franciscans and Dominicans into the city, and used the Frenchman Charles of Anjou, in 1266, to eliminate even the last traces of Ghibelline power. This happened in 1268, with the beheading of Conradin of Swabia in Piazza Mercato. The capital was moved from Palermo to Naples, and during the Angevin period many churches were built in Naples, such as the cathedral, San Lorenzo, Sant'Eligio, Santa Chiara, San Domenico, and the relationship of the Neapolitans with religion was consolidated, but also spread bigotry and superstition among the population. Sculptors such as Tino da Camaino and painters such as Giotto and Simone Martini came to Naples to work in places of worship. Civil construction also flourished, with the construction of Castel Nuovo, which became the new royal residence of the Angevins, and Castel Sant'Elmo. The city's middle classes were slow to emerge. Charles accentuated the feudal component, and the needs of the lower classes of the population found no representative at the top. Discontent led, in 1282, to the Sicilian Vespers revolt, which anticipated the rise of a new domination, the Aragonese, which we will talk about in the next episode. Charles of Anjou was succeeded by Charles II the Lame, and then Robert of Anjou. He brought personalities such as Francesco Petrarca to court, but the flourishing of the arts did not correspond to great governing ability. Taxes were too high, as were the costs of foreign policy. Banditry, the Inquisition, the plague of 1348, and the confusion of the years following the death of King Robert and linked to the two Joannas accelerated the entry of the Aragonese into the city, which took place in 1442.***************************************************************************************Fourth episode of the column on the #redinapoli! The fourth statue on the facade of the Royal Palace in Naples is dedicated to the Aragonese king, called "The Magnanimous." It is a work by Achille D'Orsi. How did Alfonso of Aragon arrive in Naples? On the portal of Castel Nuovo, a splendid work by Pietro De Martino from drawings by Francesco Laurana, the triumphant entry of Alfonso into the city is depicted, carried on the chariot of victory. Also in the hall of Aragonese glories, the second antechamber of the Royal Palace, we find, on the ceiling frescoes, the same scene. The reality, however, is slightly different. Alfonso of Aragon, after a long siege of the city of Naples, went to a lady who lived in the "extra moenia" area, a certain "donna Ceccarella," and promised her a pension in exchange for a small favor: to allow him to access the Neapolitan underground, entering from the garden well. So he did, and emerged, through the aqueduct tunnels, inside the walls. His entry into Naples, therefore, was anything but triumphant, and more like that of a sewer rat. During Alfonso's reign, foreign policy flourished, and Naples was the center of the vast Mediterranean domain. Wool and silk production developed. At the same time, art and literature experienced a particularly flourishing moment. Just think of figures such as Panormita and Giovanni Pontano, or like Pinturicchio and Perugino, who worked in Naples at this time. Alfonso's policy, however, was aimed at favoring the barons and eliminated the people's seat; moreover, the sovereign was very religious - he boasted of having read the Bible in its entirety forty times - and sought a devout alliance with the Roman pontiff, also to defeat the Angevins and Turks. The splendor and luxury of the festivities compromised the kingdom's economic situation, and Alfonso's favor continued to lean towards barons and feudal lords, to whom he granted various favors, feeling blackmailed by the threat of rebellions. The feudal lords acted as masters in the countryside, acted arrogantly, and this provoked the indignation of merchants from other parts of Italy who visited the kingdom. The development of the navy remained practically at a standstill in the Aragonese era. Alfonso the Magnanimous was succeeded by Ferrante, who tried to win the trust of the Neapolitans with a policy aimed at the cultural and urban development of the city, despite being a man indifferent to culture. Ferrante devoted himself to the development of crafts, calling to court from all over Italy the greatest silk makers, goldsmiths, and leather workers, and surrounded Naples with twenty-two cylindrical towers, reclaimed it, and improved the administration of justice. Against him, however, the barons conspired, who, motivated by the increase in taxes, gathered in the famous conspiracy in 1485. Ferrante discovered them and had them executed or sent into exile in France the following year. The Aragonese rule was, in those years, undermined by the great European powers, which contended for Italian territory. After Ferrante's death, the crown passed in a few years to Alfonso II and then to Ferrantino, was then threatened by Charles VIII, King of France, belonging to the Angevin house, called to Italy by Ludovico il Moro. After the French threat was averted, Ferrantino was recalled, and after him the crown went again to Frederick III, the last of the Aragonese, who tried to govern with intelligence and caution. The Aragonese rule in Naples, however, ended in 1503, when Ferdinand the Catholic conquered the kingdom thanks to Don Consalvo de Cordoba, and Naples was reduced to a peripheral province in the vast Spanish empire. But we will talk about this in the next episode...************************************************************************************Fifth episode of the column on the #redinapoli! The fifth statue on the facade of the Royal Palace of Naples is dedicated to and is the work of Vincenzo Gemito. Charles inherited in 1506 the kingdom of Castile and the lands of the New World from his father Philip of Habsburg the Handsome, Archduke of Austria and lord of the Netherlands. Charles was only six years old at the time, so the kingdom was administered by his maternal grandfather, Ferdinand the Catholic, until he came of age. On June 28, 1519, he was elected Holy Roman Emperor with the name Charles V and in 1529, after the battle of Pavia and the sack of Rome, imposed the Peace of Cambrai on France and that of Barcelona on the pope, asserting his dominion also in Italy, and receiving, the following year, the iron crown of King of Italy and the imperial crown from Pope Clement VII. The empire of Charles V included much of the Italian peninsula: Naples, Palermo, Cagliari, Milan, Genoa, Florence, and the capitals of the Po Valley duchies and was based on an idea of universal peace, guaranteed by Christianity. Naples lost its role as capital and declined to that of a province, the government was entrusted to the Spanish viceroys. The first, and the most important, was certainly Don Pedro da Toledo, who reigned in Naples for twenty years, from 1532 to 1553. Don Pedro implemented a real urban plan in Naples: he built the street that bears his name, stationed the Spanish troops in the Montecalvario district, in what were later called the "Spanish quarters." He extended the city walls to Vomero and Chiaia, and restored some of the Neapolitan fortresses, such as Castel Sant'Elmo, which took on the shape of a six-pointed star, the same we see today. Pedro da Toledo is also responsible for the establishment of the Vicaria court, which in eighteen years hanged about eighteen thousand local rascals, and that of the Monti di Pietà (institutions formed by , which the viceroy established to remedy the problem of the multitude of Jewish usurers in the city. The policy towards the barons was generally strict: they had been reduced to mere landowners, and often lived off their income, far from the fiefs, squandering their wealth in splendor and luxury, but Pedro da Toledo enacted a series of pragmatic measures against them, to combat abuses in the commercial and legal fields. Unfortunately, however, corruption also spread among the magistrates, and therefore the punitive actions of the viceroys often had no effect. Crime and usury spread easily in the city. The policy conducted by the viceroys was much less strict, moreover, towards their own Spanish soldiers, who established promiscuous relations with the Neapolitan plebs, infecting them with both Spanish defects - such as foul language and superstition - and diseases. Many Spanish-derived terms in the Neapolitan dialect date back to this period. Convents and churches proliferated, and despite the ban - from 1566 - on building outside the walls, due to the enormous population growth, inhabited nuclei formed in Mergellina, in the Vergini, in Sant'Antonio Abate, in the Avvocata, and in other Neapolitan villages. Even after the death of Pedro da Toledo, in reality, for Naples a period followed that was anything but flourishing. In the seventeenth century, the arts flourished, with Neapolitan Baroque and with the presence of artists such as Cosimo Fanzago and Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio in Naples, but the plebs lived in prolonged misery, also aggravated by numerous plague epidemics. GuzmánGuzmánIn 1643, thanks to the viceroy Ramiro de Guzmán, who married the noblewoman Anna Carafa, the ramps of Sant'Antonio in Posillipo were made carriageable, connecting the hill and the lower city, right where Palazzo Donn'Anna was located, built by Cosimo Fanzago for Anna Carafa. A few years later, in 1647, the Neapolitan people, incited by the young Masaniello, united in a popular revolt, due to a tax on fruit, and therefore on a basic good. The revolt of Masaniello was followed by the terrible plague of 1656, which, in addition to decimating the population, gave rise in Naples to the "cult of the skulls." The eighteenth century brought the end of the viceregal period and introduced the Bourbon dynasty, which ruled until the unification of Italy. Before the arrival of the Bourbons in Naples, there was a brief (from 1707 to 1734) Austrian rule, of little significance for the city. The rest we will discover in the next episode... (Source: "The History of Naples" by Antonio Ghirelli)
Today a new column begins: the kings of Naples! The statues of the kings of Naples are located on the facade of the Royal Palace, in Piazza del Plebiscito, and were placed there by the will of King Umberto I, in 1888. The first king of Naples is Roger II the Norman, and in fact, the first statue, the work of Emilio Franceschi, is dedicated to him. The Normans were initially recruited by Duke Sergio IV, in 1027, to free themselves from the pressing pressure of the Lombards. To reward them, he gave them a land, which the Normans called "Aversa," because it was hostile, both to Naples and to Capua. From Aversa they spread rapidly, until they besieged the city of Naples in 1130. This was Roger of Sicily, who defeated the last loyalists of Duke Sergio VIII and nine years later received the keys to the city. Roger the Norman was a wise king, but he imposed a unitary organization of the kingdom. This did not allow the Neapolitan bourgeois class to become autonomous, nor the city of Naples to evolve as a free commune. During the Norman reign, Castel dell'Ovo (residence at the time of Roger the Norman) and Castel Capuano (later residence, desired by William I the Norman, also to reconcile the need for a residence with that of a military garrison) were built. In the next episode with the kings of Naples, we will talk about how power passed to the Swabians. *************************************************************************************Second episode of the #ReDiNapoli column. Today we talk about the Swabians and in particular about . His statue on the facade of the Royal Palace of Naples is a work by Emanuele Caggiano. Frederick Roger of Hohenstaufen entered Naples because he was a descendant on his mother's side from the Normans of Hauteville. His reign was characterized by a moralizing government, privileges and medieval freedoms were suppressed. Frederick was repeatedly opposed by the church, and even received two excommunications from Pope Gregory IX, who called him the Antichrist. Frederick nevertheless managed to carry out several works in the kingdom: in Naples he rebuilt the walls and increased trade, limiting the power of his local representative, the "compalazzo," to whom he added a curia composed of five judges and eight notaries. But his greatest work is certainly the establishment of the Studium Generale, in 1224. This is the University of Naples, the first secular university in Italy, which takes the name of Federico II. The Swabian reign ended in 1266, with the arrival of the Angevins. The transfer of power was marked by a tragic event, which will remain forever in the memory of Neapolitans: the beheading, in 1268, in Piazza Mercato, of Conradin of Swabia, a boy of only 14 years. But we will talk about the Angevins in the next episode of the column! See you soon! ***************************************************************************************Third episode of the column dedicated to #ReDiNapoli! The third statue on the facade of the Royal Palace of Naples is dedicated to , and is a work by Tommaso Solari. The sovereign is depicted with a fierce expression, and indeed his character was certainly not docile. The Neapolitans, after the death of Frederick II of Swabia, began to show signs of impatience towards the empire, rebelled against the governors, and Naples became a free commune under the protection of Pope Innocent IV. The church, taking advantage of popular discontent, introduced convents of Franciscans and Dominicans in the city, and used the Frenchman Charles of Anjou, in 1266, to eliminate even the last traces of the power of the Ghibellines. This happened in 1268, with the beheading of Conradin of Swabia in Piazza Mercato. The capital was moved from Palermo to Naples, and during the Angevin period many churches were built in Naples, such as the cathedral, San Lorenzo, Sant'Eligio, Santa Chiara, San Domenico, and the relationship of the Neapolitans with religion was consolidated, but also spread bigotry and superstition among the population. Sculptors such as Tino da Camaino and painters such as Giotto and Simone Martini came to Naples to work in places of worship. Civil construction also flourished, with the construction of Castel Nuovo, which became the new royal residence of the Angevins, and Castel Sant'Elmo. The city's middle classes were slow to emerge. Charles accentuated the feudal component, and the needs of the lower classes of the population found no representative at the top. Discontent led, in 1282, to the Sicilian Vespers revolt, which anticipated the rise of a new domination, the Aragonese, which we will talk about in the next episode. Charles of Anjou was succeeded by Charles II the Lame, and then Robert of Anjou. He brought personalities such as Francesco Petrarca to court, but the flourishing of the arts did not correspond to great governing ability. Taxes were too high, as were the costs of foreign policy. Banditry, the Inquisition, the plague of 1348, and the confusion of the years following the death of King Robert and linked to the two Joannas accelerated the entry of the Aragonese into the city, which took place in 1442.***************************************************************************************Fourth episode of the column on #redinapoli! The fourth statue on the facade of the Royal Palace in Naples is dedicated to the Aragonese king, called "The Magnanimous." It is a work by Achille D'Orsi. How did Alfonso of Aragon arrive in Naples? On the portal of Castel Nuovo, a splendid work by Pietro De Martino from drawings by Francesco Laurana, the triumphant entry into the city of Alfonso, transported on the chariot of victory, is depicted. Also in the hall of Aragonese glories, the second antechamber of the Royal Palace, we find, on the ceiling frescoes, the same scene. The reality, however, is slightly different. Alfonso of Aragon, after a long siege of the city of Naples, went to a lady who lived in the "extra moenia" area, a certain "donna Ceccarella," and promised her a pension in exchange for a small favor: to allow him to access the Neapolitan underground, entering from the garden well. So he did, and emerged, through the aqueduct tunnels, inside the walls. His entry into Naples, therefore, was anything but triumphant, and more like that of a sewer rat. During Alfonso's reign, foreign policy flourished, Naples was the center of the vast Mediterranean domain. The production of wool and silk developed. At the same time, art and literature experienced a particularly flourishing moment. Just think of figures such as Panormita and Giovanni Pontano, or like Pinturicchio and Perugino, who worked in Naples at this time. Alfonso's policy, however, was aimed at favoring the barons and eliminated the people's seat; moreover, the sovereign was very religious - he boasted of having read the Bible in its entirety forty times - and sought a devout alliance with the Roman pontiff, also to defeat the Angevins and the Turks. The splendor and luxury of the festivities compromised the economic situation of the kingdom, and Alfonso's favor continued to lean towards barons and feudal lords, to whom he granted various favors, feeling blackmailed by the threat of rebellions. The feudal lords acted as masters in the countryside, acted arrogantly, and this provoked the indignation of merchants from other parts of Italy who visited the kingdom. The development of the navy remained practically at a standstill in the Aragonese era. Alfonso the Magnanimous was succeeded by Ferrante, who tried to win the trust of the Neapolitans with a policy aimed at the cultural and urban promotion of the city, despite being a man indifferent to culture. Ferrante devoted himself to the development of crafts, calling to court from all over Italy the greatest silk makers, goldsmiths, and leather workers, and surrounded Naples with twenty-two cylindrical towers, reclaimed it, and improved the administration of justice. Against him, however, the barons conspired, who, motivated by the increase in taxes, gathered in the famous conspiracy in 1485. Ferrante discovered them and had them executed or sent into exile in France the following year. The Aragonese rule was, in those years, undermined by the great European powers, which contended for Italian territory. After Ferrante's death, the crown passed in a few years to Alfonso II and then to Ferrantino, was then threatened by Charles VIII, King of France, belonging to the Angevin house, called to Italy by Ludovico il Moro. After the French threat was averted, Ferrantino was recalled, and after him the crown went again to Frederick III, the last of the Aragonese, who tried to govern with intelligence and caution. The Aragonese rule in Naples, however, ended in 1503, when Ferdinand the Catholic conquered the kingdom thanks to Don Consalvo de Cordoba, and Naples was reduced to a peripheral province in the vast Spanish empire. But we will talk about this in the next episode...************************************************************************************Fifth episode of the column on #redinapoli! The fifth statue on the facade of the Royal Palace of Naples is dedicated to and is the work of Vincenzo Gemito. Charles inherited in 1506 the kingdom of Castile and the lands of the New World from his father Philip of Habsburg the Handsome, Archduke of Austria and lord of the Netherlands. Charles was only six years old at the time, so the kingdom was administered by his maternal grandfather, Ferdinand the Catholic, until he came of age. On June 28, 1519, he was elected Holy Roman Emperor with the name Charles V and in 1529, after the battle of Pavia and the sack of Rome, imposed the peace of Cambrai on France and that of Barcelona on the pope, asserting his dominion also in Italy, and receiving, the following year, the iron crown of king of Italy and the imperial crown from Pope Clement VII. The empire of Charles V included much of the Italian peninsula: Naples, Palermo, Cagliari, Milan, Genoa, Florence, and the capitals of the Po Valley duchies and was based on an idea of universal peace, guaranteed by Christianity. Naples lost its role as capital and declined to that of a province, the government was entrusted to Spanish viceroys. The first, and the most important, was certainly Don Pedro da Toledo, who reigned in Naples for twenty years, from 1532 to 1553. Don Pedro implemented a real urban plan in Naples: he built the street that bears his name, stationed Spanish troops in the Montecalvario district, in what were later called the "Spanish quarters." He extended the city walls to Vomero and Chiaia, and restored some of the Neapolitan fortresses, such as Castel Sant'Elmo, which took on the six-pointed star shape we see today. Pedro da Toledo is also responsible for the establishment of the Vicaria court, which in eighteen years hanged about eighteen thousand local criminals, and that of the Monti di Pietà (organizations formed by , which the viceroy established to remedy the problem of the multitude of Jewish usurers in the city. The policy towards the barons was generally strict: they had been reduced to simple landowners, and often lived off income, far from the fiefs, squandering their wealth in splendor and luxury, but Pedro da Toledo enacted a series of laws against them, to combat abuses in the commercial and legal fields. Unfortunately, however, corruption also spread among the magistrates, and therefore the punitive actions of the viceroys often had no effect. Crime and usury spread easily in the city. The policy conducted by the viceroys was much less strict, moreover, towards their own Spanish soldiers, who established promiscuous relations with the Neapolitan plebs, infecting them with both Spanish defects - such as foul language and superstition - and diseases. Many Spanish-derived terms in the Neapolitan dialect date back precisely to this period. Convents and churches proliferated, and despite the ban - from 1566 - on building outside the walls, due to the excessive population growth, inhabited nuclei formed in Mergellina, in the Vergini, in Sant'Antonio Abate, at the Avvocata and in other Neapolitan villages. Even after the death of Pedro da Toledo, in reality, for Naples a period followed that was anything but flourishing. In the seventeenth century, the arts flourished, with Neapolitan Baroque and with the presence of artists such as Cosimo Fanzago and Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio in Naples, but the plebs lived in prolonged misery, also aggravated by numerous plague epidemics. GuzmánGuzmánIn 1643, by the work of the viceroy Ramiro de Guzmán, who married the noblewoman Anna Carafa, the ramps of Sant'Antonio in Posillipo were made carriageable, connecting the hill and the lower city, right where Palazzo Donn'Anna was located, built by Cosimo Fanzago for Anna Carafa. A few years later, in 1647, the Neapolitan people, incited by the young Masaniello, united in a popular revolt, because of a tax on fruit, and therefore on a basic necessity. The revolt of Masaniello was followed by the terrible plague of 1656, which, in addition to decimating the population, gave rise in Naples to the "cult of the skulls." The eighteenth century brought the end of the viceregal period and introduced the Bourbon dynasty, which ruled until the unification of Italy. Before the arrival of the Bourbons in Naples there was a parenthesis (from 1707 to 1734) of Austrian rule, of little significance for the city. The rest we will discover in the next episode... (Source: "The History of Naples" by Antonio Ghirelli)
Today a new column begins: the kings of Naples! The statues of the kings of Naples are located on the facade of the Royal Palace, in Piazza del Plebiscito, and were placed there by the will of King Umberto I, in 1888. The first king of Naples is Roger II the Norman, and in fact, the first statue, the work of Emilio Franceschi, is dedicated to him. The Normans were initially recruited by Duke Sergius IV, in 1027, to free themselves from the pressing pressure of the Lombards. To reward them, he gave them land, which the Normans called "Aversa," because it was hostile, both to Naples and to Capua. From Aversa, they spread rapidly, until they besieged the city of Naples in 1130. This was Roger of Sicily, who defeated the last loyalists of Duke Sergius VIII and nine years later received the keys to the city. The year Roger the Norman was a wise king, but he imposed a unitary organization of the kingdom. This did not allow the Neapolitan bourgeois class to become autonomous, nor the city of Naples to evolve as a free commune. During the Norman reign, Castel dell'Ovo (residence at the time of Roger the Norman) and Castel Capuano (later residence, wanted by William I the Norman, also to reconcile the need for a residence with that of a military garrison) were built. In the next episode with the kings of Naples, we will talk about how power passed to the Swabians. *************************************************************************************Second episode of the #ReDiNapoli column Today we talk about the Swabians and in particular about . His statue on the facade of the Royal Palace of Naples is a work by Emanuele Caggiano. Frederick Roger of Hohenstaufen entered Naples because he was descended on his mother's side from the Normans of Hauteville. His reign was characterized by a moralizing government, privileges and medieval freedoms were suppressed. Frederick was repeatedly opposed by the church, and even received two excommunications from Pope Gregory IX, who called him the Antichrist. Frederick nevertheless managed to carry out several works in the kingdom: in Naples he rebuilt the walls and increased trade, limiting the power of his local representative, the "compalazzo," to whom he added a curia composed of five judges and eight notaries. But his greatest work is certainly the establishment of the Studio Generale, in 1224. This is the University of Naples, the first secular university in Italy, which takes the name of Federico II. The Swabian kingdom would end in 1266, with the arrival of the Angevins. The transfer of power would be marked by a tragic event, which would remain forever in the memory of Neapolitans: the beheading, in 1268, in Piazza Mercato, of Conradin of Swabia, a boy of only 14 years. But we will talk about the Angevins in the next episode of the column! See you soon! ***************************************************************************************Third episode of the column dedicated to #ReDiNapoli! The third statue on the facade of the Royal Palace of Naples is dedicated to , and is a work by Tommaso Solari. The sovereign is depicted with a fierce expression, and in fact, his character was certainly not docile. The Neapolitans, after the death of Frederick II of Swabia, began to show signs of impatience towards the empire, rebelled against the governors and Naples became a free commune under the protection of Pope Innocent IV. The church, taking advantage of popular discontent, introduced Franciscan and Dominican convents in the city, and used the Frenchman Charles of Anjou, in 1266, to eliminate even the last traces of Ghibelline power. This happened in 1268, with the beheading of Conradin of Swabia in Piazza Mercato. The capital was moved from Palermo to Naples, and during the Angevin period many churches were built in Naples, such as the cathedral, San Lorenzo, Sant'Eligio, Santa Chiara, San Domenico, and the relationship of Neapolitans with religion was consolidated, but also spread bigotry and superstition among the population. Sculptors such as Tino da Camaino and painters such as Giotto and Simone Martini came to Naples to work in places of worship. Civil construction also flourished, with the construction of Castel Nuovo, which became the new royal residence of the Angevins, and Castel Sant'Elmo. The city's middle classes were slow to emerge. Charles accentuated the feudal component, and the needs of the lower classes found no representative at the top. Discontent led, in 1282, to the Sicilian Vespers revolt, which anticipated the rise of a new domination, the Aragonese, which we will talk about in the next episode. Charles of Anjou was succeeded by Charles II the Lame, and then Robert of Anjou. He brought personalities such as Francesco Petrarca to court, but the flourishing of the arts did not correspond to great governing ability. Taxes were too high, as were the costs of foreign policy. Brigandage, the Inquisition, the plague of 1348, and the confusion of the years following the death of King Robert and linked to the two Joannas accelerated the entry of the Aragonese into the city, which took place in 1442.***************************************************************************************Fourth episode of the column on #redinapoli!The fourth statue on the facade of the Royal Palace in Naples is dedicated to the Aragonese king, called "The Magnanimous." It is a work by Achille D'Orsi.How did Alfonso of Aragon arrive in Naples? On the portal of Castel Nuovo, a splendid work by Pietro De Martino from the drawings of Francesco Laurana, the triumphant entry into the city of Alfonso, carried on the chariot of victory, is depicted. Also in the hall of Aragonese glories, the second antechamber of the Royal Palace, we find, on the ceiling frescoes, the same scene.The reality, however, is slightly different. Alfonso of Aragon, after a long siege of the city of Naples, went to a lady who lived in the "extra moenia" area, a certain "donna Ceccarella," and promised her a pension in exchange for a small favor: to allow him to access the Neapolitan underground, entering from the garden well. So he did, and emerged, through the aqueduct tunnels, inside the walls. His entry into Naples, therefore, was anything but triumphant, and more like that of a sewer rat. During Alfonso's reign, foreign policy flourished, Naples was the center of the vast Mediterranean dominion. The production of wool and silk developed. At the same time, art and literature experienced a particularly flourishing moment. Just think of figures such as Panormita and Giovanni Pontano, or like Pinturicchio and Perugino, who worked in Naples at this time. Alfonso's policy, however, was oriented to favor the barons and eliminated the people's seat; moreover, the sovereign was very religious - think that he boasted of having read the Bible in its entirety forty times - and sought a devout alliance with the Roman pontiff, also to defeat the Angevins and Turks.The splendor and luxury of the festivities compromised the economic situation of the kingdom, and Alfonso's favor continued to lean towards barons and feudal lords, to whom he granted various favors, feeling blackmailed by the threat of rebellions. The feudal lords acted as masters in the countryside, acted with arrogance, and this provoked the indignation of merchants from other parts of Italy who visited the kingdom. The development of the navy remained practically at a standstill in the Aragonese era. Alfonso the Magnanimous was succeeded by Ferrante, who tried to win the trust of the Neapolitans with a policy aimed at the cultural and urban promotion of the city, despite being a man indifferent to culture. Ferrante devoted himself to the development of crafts, calling to court from all over Italy the greatest silk workers, goldsmiths, and leather workers, and surrounded Naples with twenty-two cylindrical towers, reclaimed it, and improved the administration of justice. Against him, however, the barons conspired, who, motivated by the increase in taxes, gathered in the famous conspiracy in 1485. Ferrante discovered them and had them executed or sent into exile in France the following year.The Aragonese rule was, in those years, undermined by the great European powers, who vied for Italian territory. After Ferrante's death, the crown passed in a few years to Alfonso II and then to Ferrantino, was then threatened by Charles VIII, King of France, belonging to the Angevin house, called to Italy by Ludovico il Moro. After the French threat was averted, Ferrantino was recalled, and after him the crown went again to Frederick III, the last of the Aragonese, who tried to govern with intelligence and caution.The Aragonese rule in Naples would end, however, in 1503, when Ferdinand the Catholic conquered the kingdom thanks to Don Consalvo de Cordoba, and Naples was reduced to a peripheral province in the vast Spanish empire.But we will talk about this in the next episode...************************************************************************************Fifth episode of the column on #redinapoli! The fifth statue on the facade of the Royal Palace of Naples is dedicated to and is the work of Vincenzo Gemito. Charles inherited in 1506 the kingdom of Castile and the lands of the New World from his father Philip of Habsburg the Handsome, Archduke of Austria and lord of the Netherlands. Charles was only six years old at the time, and so the kingdom was administered by his maternal grandfather, Ferdinand the Catholic, until he came of age. On June 28, 1519, he was elected Holy Roman Emperor with the name Charles V and in 1529, after the battle of Pavia and the sack of Rome, imposed the peace of Cambrai on France and that of Barcelona on the pope, asserting his rule also in Italy, and receiving, the following year, the iron crown of king of Italy and the imperial crown from Pope Clement VII. The empire of Charles V included much of the Italian peninsula: Naples, Palermo, Cagliari, Milan, Genoa, Florence, and the capitals of the Po Valley duchies and was based on an idea of universal peace, guaranteed by Christianity. Naples lost its role as capital and declined to that of a province, the government was entrusted to the Spanish viceroys. The first, and most important, was certainly Don Pedro da Toledo, who reigned in Naples for twenty years, from 1532 to 1553. Don Pedro implemented a real urban plan in Naples: he built the street that bears his name, stationing the Spanish troops in the Montecalvario district, in what were later called the "Spanish quarters." He extended the city walls to Vomero and Chiaia, and restored some of the Neapolitan fortresses, such as Castel Sant'Elmo, which took on the shape of a six-pointed star, the same we see today. Pedro da Toledo is also credited with the establishment of the Vicaria court, which in eighteen years hanged about eighteen thousand local criminals, and that of the Monti di Pietà (institutions formed by , which the viceroy established to remedy the problem of the multitude of Jewish usurers in the city. The policy towards the barons was generally strict: they had been reduced to mere landowners, and often lived off income, far from the fiefs, squandering their wealth in splendor and luxury, but Pedro da Toledo enacted a series of pragmatic measures against them, to combat abuses in the commercial and legal fields. Unfortunately, however, corruption also spread among the magistrates, and therefore the punitive actions of the viceroys often had no effect. Crime and usury spread easily in the city. The policy conducted by the viceroys was much less strict, moreover, towards their own Spanish soldiers, who established promiscuous relations with the Neapolitan plebs, infecting them with both Spanish defects - such as foul language and superstition - and diseases. Many terms of Spanish origin in the Neapolitan dialect date back precisely to this period. Convents and churches proliferated, and despite the ban - from 1566 - on building outside the walls, due to the excessive population growth, inhabited centers formed in Mergellina, in the Vergini, in Sant'Antonio Abate, in Avvocata, and in other Neapolitan villages. Even after the death of Pedro da Toledo, in reality, for Naples a period anything but flourishing came. In the seventeenth century, the arts flourished, with Neapolitan Baroque and with the presence of artists such as Cosimo Fanzago and Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio in Naples, but the plebs lived in a situation of prolonged misery, also aggravated by numerous plague epidemics. GuzmánGuzmánIn 1643, thanks to the viceroy Ramiro de Guzmán, who married the noblewoman Anna Carafa, the ramps of Sant'Antonio in Posillipo, a connection between the hill and the lower city, were made accessible to carriages, right where Donn'Anna palace stood, built by Cosimo Fanzago for Anna Carafa. A few years later, in 1647, the Neapolitan people, incited by the young Masaniello, joined in a popular revolt, because of a tax on fruit, and therefore on a basic good. The revolt of Masaniello was followed by the terrible plague of 1656, which, in addition to decimating the population, gave rise in Naples to the "cult of the skulls." The eighteenth century brought the end of the viceregal period and introduced the Bourbon dynasty, which ruled until the unification of Italy. Before the arrival of the Bourbons in Naples, there was a brief period (from 1707 to 1734) of Austrian rule, of little significance for the city. We will discover the rest in the next episode... (Source: "The history of Naples" by Antonio Ghirelli)
Today a new column begins: the kings of Naples! The statues of the kings of Naples are located on the facade of the Royal Palace, in Piazza del Plebiscito, and were placed there by order of King Umberto I, in 1888. The first king of Naples is Roger II the Norman, and indeed, the first statue, the work of Emilio Franceschi, is dedicated to him. The Normans were initially recruited by Duke Sergio IV, in 1027, to free themselves from the pressing pressure of the Lombards. To reward them, he gave them a land, which the Normans called "Aversa," because it was hostile, both to Naples and Capua. From Aversa they spread rapidly, until they besieged the city of Naples in 1130. This was Roger of Sicily, who defeated the last supporters of Duke Sergio VIII and nine years later received the keys to the city. Roger the Norman was a wise king, but he imposed a unified organization of the kingdom. This did not allow the Neapolitan bourgeoisie to become autonomous, nor the city of Naples to develop as a free commune. During the Norman reign, Castel dell'Ovo (residence at the time of Roger the Norman) and Castel Capuano (later residence, commissioned by William I the Norman, also to reconcile the need for a residence with that of a military garrison) were built. In the next episode with the kings of Naples, we will talk about how power passed to the Swabians. *************************************************************************************Second episode of the #ReDiNapoli column. Today we talk about the Swabians and in particular about . His statue on the facade of the Royal Palace of Naples is a work by Emanuele Caggiano. Frederick Roger of Hohenstaufen entered Naples because he was descended on his mother's side from the Normans of Hauteville. His reign was characterized by a moralizing government, privileges and medieval freedoms were suppressed. Frederick was repeatedly opposed by the Church, and even received two excommunications from Pope Gregory IX, who called him the Antichrist. Frederick nevertheless managed to carry out several works in the kingdom: in Naples he rebuilt the walls and increased trade, limiting the power of his local representative, the "compalazzo," to whom he added a curia composed of five judges and eight notaries. But his greatest work is certainly the establishment of the Studio Generale, in 1224. This is the University of Naples, the first secular university in Italy, which takes the name of Federico II. The Swabian reign ended in 1266, with the arrival of the Angevins. The transfer of power was marked by a tragic event, which will forever remain in the memory of the Neapolitans: the beheading, in 1268, in Piazza Mercato, of Conradin of Swabia, a boy of only 14 years. But we will talk about the Angevins in the next episode of the column! See you soon! ***************************************************************************************Third episode of the column dedicated to #ReDiNapoli! The third statue on the facade of the Royal Palace of Naples is dedicated to , and is a work by Tommaso Solari. The sovereign is depicted with a fierce expression, and indeed his character was certainly not docile. The Neapolitans, after the death of Frederick II of Swabia, began to show signs of impatience towards the empire, rebelled against the governors and Naples became a free commune under the protection of Pope Innocent IV. The Church, taking advantage of popular discontent, introduced Franciscan and Dominican convents in the city, and used the Frenchman Charles of Anjou, in 1266, to eliminate even the last traces of Ghibelline power. This happened in 1268, with the beheading of Conradin of Swabia in Piazza Mercato. The capital was moved from Palermo to Naples, and during the Angevin period many churches were built in Naples, such as the cathedral, San Lorenzo, Sant'Eligio, Santa Chiara, San Domenico, and the relationship of the Neapolitans with religion was consolidated, but also spread bigotry and superstition among the population. Sculptors like Tino da Camaino and painters like Giotto and Simone Martini came to Naples to work in places of worship. Civil construction also flourished, with the construction of Castel Nuovo, which became the new royal residence of the Angevins, and Castel Sant'Elmo. The city's middle classes were slow to emerge. Charles accentuated the feudal component, and the needs of the lower classes found no representative at the top. Discontent led, in 1282, to the Sicilian Vespers revolt, which anticipated the rise of a new domination, the Aragonese, which we will talk about in the next episode. Charles of Anjou was succeeded by Charles II the Lame, and then Robert of Anjou. He brought personalities such as Francesco Petrarca to court, but the flourishing of the arts did not correspond to great governing ability. Taxes were too high, as were the costs of foreign policy. Brigandage, the Inquisition, the plague of 1348 and the confusion of the years following the death of King Robert and linked to the two Joannas accelerated the entry of the Aragonese into the city, which took place in 1442.***************************************************************************************Fourth episode of the column on the #redinapoli! The fourth statue on the facade of the Royal Palace in Naples is dedicated to the Aragonese king, called "The Magnanimous." It is a work by Achille D'Orsi. How did Alfonso of Aragon arrive in Naples? On the portal of Castel Nuovo, a splendid work by Pietro De Martino from drawings by Francesco Laurana, the triumphant entry of Alfonso into the city is depicted, carried on the chariot of victory. Also in the Hall of Aragonese Glories, the second antechamber of the Royal Palace, we find, on the ceiling frescoes, the same scene. The reality, however, is slightly different. Alfonso of Aragon, after a long siege of the city of Naples, went to a lady who lived in the "extra moenia" area, a certain "donna Ceccarella," and promised her a pension in exchange for a small favor: to allow him to access the Neapolitan underground, entering from the garden well. So he did, and emerged, through the aqueduct tunnels, inside the walls. His entry into Naples, therefore, was anything but triumphant, and more like that of a sewer rat. During Alfonso's reign, foreign policy flourished, and Naples was the center of the vast Mediterranean domain. The production of wool and silk developed. At the same time, art and literature experienced a particularly flourishing moment. Just think of figures such as Panormita and Giovanni Pontano, or like Pinturicchio and Perugino, who worked in Naples at this time. Alfonso's policy, however, was aimed at favoring the barons and eliminated the people's seat; moreover, the sovereign was very religious - he boasted of having read the Bible in its entirety forty times - and sought a devout alliance with the Roman pontiff, also to defeat the Angevins and Turks. The splendor and luxury of the festivities compromised the kingdom's economic situation, and Alfonso's favor continued to lean towards the barons and feudal lords, to whom he granted various favors, feeling blackmailed by the threat of rebellions. The feudal lords acted as masters in the countryside, acted with arrogance, and this provoked the indignation of merchants from other parts of Italy who visited the kingdom. The development of the navy remained practically at a standstill in the Aragonese era. Alfonso the Magnanimous was succeeded by Ferrante, who tried to win the trust of the Neapolitans with a policy aimed at the cultural and urban promotion of the city, despite being a man indifferent to culture. Ferrante devoted himself to the development of crafts, calling to court from all over Italy the greatest silk makers, goldsmiths, and leather workers, and surrounded Naples with twenty-two cylindrical towers, reclaimed it, and improved the administration of justice. Against him, however, the barons conspired, who, motivated by the increase in taxes, gathered in the famous conspiracy in 1485. Ferrante discovered them and had them executed or sent into exile in France the following year. The Aragonese dominion was, in those years, undermined by the great European powers, who vied for Italian territory. After Ferrante's death, the crown passed in a few years to Alfonso II and then to Ferrantino, then was threatened by Charles VIII, King of France, of the Angevin house, called to Italy by Ludovico il Moro. After the French threat was averted, Ferrantino was recalled, and after him the crown went again to Frederick III, the last of the Aragonese, who tried to govern with intelligence and caution. The Aragonese dominion in Naples ended, however, in 1503, when Ferdinand the Catholic conquered the kingdom thanks to Don Consalvo de Cordoba, and Naples was reduced to a peripheral province in the vast Spanish empire. But we will talk about this in the next episode...************************************************************************************Fifth episode of the column on the #redinapoli! The fifth statue on the facade of the Royal Palace of Naples is dedicated to and is the work of Vincenzo Gemito. Charles inherited in 1506 the kingdom of Castile and the lands of the New World from his father Philip of Habsburg the Handsome, Archduke of Austria and lord of the Netherlands. Charles was only six years old at the time, so the kingdom was administered by his maternal grandfather, Ferdinand the Catholic, until he came of age. On June 28, 1519, he was elected Holy Roman Emperor with the name Charles V and in 1529, after the Battle of Pavia and the sack of Rome, imposed the Peace of Cambrai on France and that of Barcelona on the pope, asserting his rule also in Italy, and receiving, the following year, the iron crown of King of Italy and the imperial crown from Pope Clement VII. Charles V's empire included much of the Italian peninsula: Naples, Palermo, Cagliari, Milan, Genoa, Florence, and the capitals of the Po Valley duchies and was based on an idea of universal peace, guaranteed by Christianity. Naples lost its role as capital and declined to that of a province, the government was entrusted to the Spanish viceroys. The first, and the most important, was certainly Don Pedro da Toledo, who reigned in Naples for twenty years, from 1532 to 1553. Don Pedro implemented a real urban plan in Naples: he built the street that bears his name, stationed Spanish troops in the Montecalvario district, in what later became known as the "Spanish quarters." He extended the city walls to Vomero and Chiaia, and restored some of the Neapolitan fortresses, such as Castel Sant'Elmo, which took on the shape of a six-pointed star, the same as we see today. Pedro da Toledo is also responsible for the establishment of the Vicaria court, which in eighteen years sent about eighteen thousand local scoundrels to the gallows, and that of the Monti di Pietà (institutions formed by , which the viceroy established to address the problem of the multitude of Jewish usurers in the city. The policy towards the barons was generally strict: they had been reduced to mere landowners, often living off their income, far from the fiefs, squandering their wealth in splendor and luxury, but Pedro da Toledo implemented a series of pragmatic measures against them, to combat abuses in the commercial and legal fields. Unfortunately, however, corruption also spread among the magistrates, and therefore the punitive actions of the viceroys often had no effect. Crime and usury spread easily in the city. The policy conducted by the viceroys was much less strict, moreover, towards their own Spanish soldiers, who established promiscuous relationships with the Neapolitan plebs, infecting them with both Spanish defects - such as foul language and superstition - and diseases. Many Spanish-derived terms in the Neapolitan dialect date back to this period. Convents and churches proliferated, and despite the ban - from 1566 - on building outside the walls, due to the enormous population growth, inhabited nuclei formed in Mergellina, in the Vergini, in Sant'Antonio Abate, in Avvocata and in other Neapolitan villages. Even after the death of Pedro da Toledo, in reality, Naples entered a period that was anything but flourishing. In the seventeenth century, the arts flourished, with Neapolitan Baroque and with the presence of artists such as Cosimo Fanzago and Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio in Naples, but the plebs lived in prolonged misery, also aggravated by numerous plague epidemics. GuzmánGuzmánIn 1643, thanks to the viceroy Ramiro de Guzmán, who married the noblewoman Anna Carafa, the ramps of Sant'Antonio in Posillipo, the connection between the hill and the lower city, were made accessible to carriages, right where Palazzo Donn'Anna was located, built by Cosimo Fanzago for Anna Carafa. A few years later, in 1647, the Neapolitan people, incited by the young Masaniello, united in a popular revolt, because of a tax on fruit, and therefore on a primary good. The Masaniello revolt was followed by the terrible plague of 1656, which, in addition to decimating the population, gave rise in Naples to the "cult of the skulls." The eighteenth century brought the end of the viceregal period and introduced the Bourbon dynasty, which ruled until the unification of Italy. Before the arrival of the Bourbons in Naples, there was a brief period (from 1707 to 1734) of Austrian rule, of little significance for the city. The rest we will discover in the next episode... (Source: "The History of Naples" by Antonio Ghirelli)