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By Root 1523 0

the civilized reign of King Robert, the “new Solomon” whose literary approval Petrarch came to seek. Boccaccio followed because he preferred residence in the “happy, peaceful, generous, and magnificent Naples with its one monarch” to his native republican Florence “devoured by innumerable cares.” Robert built his palace, Castel Nuovo, on the water’s edge facing Naples’ incomparable bay, where ships of Genoa, Spain, and Provence came to trade. Nobles and merchants added their palazzos alongside, bringing down Tuscan artists to fill them with frescoes and sculpture. Under just laws and a stable currency, with security of roads, hostels for traveling merchants, festivities, tournaments, music, and poetry, Robert’s reign, which ended in 1343, was said to be “something like Paradise.” Citizens could journey unarmed through Calabria and Apulia “except fora wooden club to defend themselves against dogs.”

The blight of the 14th century descended after the good King’s death. Robert’s talents petered out in his granddaughter and successor, Joanna, whose four ill-fated efforts to bolster the female succession by marriage brought turmoil culminating in the schism. The conflict of popes made Naples a battlefield. When Joanna opted for Clement and, at his instigation, named Anjou her heir, the furious Urban declared her deposed as a heretic and schismatic and crowned another Angevin descendant, Charles, Duke of Durazzo, as rightful King of Naples. Elevated from an obscure Albanian principality to a great Mediterranean kingdom, this prince took the throne as Charles III.

A small, fair-haired man said to resemble Robert in courage and geniality as well as love of learning, Charles of Durazzo did not let his good nature inhibit his struggle against Joanna. Within two months he had defeated her forces, established himself in the Castel Nuovo, and imprisoned the Queen in the hope of coercing her to appoint him her heir and thus legitimize his conquest. To put on the garment of legitimacy is the first aim of every coup. When Joanna refused to acknowledge him and Anjou entered Italy on his way to her aid, Charles did not hesitate. He had the Queen strangled in prison and her corpse exposed in the cathedral for six days before burial so that no doubt should be left of her death.

Anjou came by way of Avignon, where he, in turn, was crowned King of Naples, Sicily, and Jerusalem, including Provence, by Pope Clement, and his rival, Charles of Durazzo, was simultaneously excommunicated. Despite his persuasive arts, Anjou had been unable during the insurrections in France to collect enough funds to take him all the way to Naples and had tried in vain to persuade the Royal Council to finance his venture as a national war. Now, as sovereign of Provence, he minted huge quantities of coin and enriched his troops by allowing them freedom to loot his new subjects on the pretext of punishment for their recent rebelliousness. He collected additional money and forces from Pope Clement and was joined in his enterprise by that energetic nobleman, Amadeo, the Green Count of Savoy, who contributed 1,100 lances at a cost to Anjou of 20,000 ducats a month.

Replenished and leading an army of 15,000 “gorged with booty,” Anjou crossed into Lombardy followed by 300 pack mules and unnumbered baggage wagons. The Green Count’s equipment included an enormous green pavilion ornamented with twelve shields bearing the arms of Savoy in red and white, an emerald silk surcoat embroidered with the red-and-white device, twelve saddle-and-bridle sets all in green, and four others ornamented with “Hungarian ribbon knots” for his immediate retinue, and green shoes, hoods, and tunics for his pages. When, before leaving, certain of his barons objected to the venture on various grounds, he silenced them, saying with unhappy clairvoyance, “I will fulfill what I have promised even if it means my death.” Many notable lords joined under his banner “for love of the prowess and largesse they admired in him.”

In Milan, Visconti wealth supplied the largest portion of Anjou’s funds just as