Ladislaus of Naples

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Ladislaus
Croatia
Contested by Sigismund
Reign13 July 1403 – 7 November 1403
Coronation5 August 1403, Zadar[1]
PredecessorSigismund
SuccessorSigismund
Born15 February 1377
Naples, Kingdom of Naples
Died6 August 1414(1414-08-06) (aged 37)
Naples, Kingdom of Naples
Burial
Spouses
  • (m. 1390; ann. 1392)
  • Mary of Lusignan
    (m. 1403; died 1404)
  • Anjou-Durazzo
FatherCharles III of Naples
MotherMargaret of Durazzo

Ladislaus the Magnanimous (

King of Naples from 1386 until his death and an unsuccessful claimant to the kingdoms of Hungary and Croatia. Ladislaus was a skilled political and military leader, protector and controller of Pope Innocent VII; however, he earned a bad reputation concerning his personal life. He profited from disorder throughout Italy to greatly expand his kingdom and his power, appropriating much of the Papal States to his own use. He was the last male of the Capetian House of Anjou
.

Youth

Ladislaus was born in

Duchy of Calabria, traditionally held by the heir apparent.[2]

Ladislaus became King of Naples at the age of nine (1386) under his mother's regency after his father was assassinated while pursuing his claim to the throne of Hungary. At the time the kingdom saw a rebellion of the barons (fomented by Pope Urban VI), and there was a risk of a French invasion, since in 1385 the pope had assigned the throne to Louis II of Anjou, Count of Provence.[2] Urban VI refused to recognize Ladislaus, and in 1387 called a crusade against him. Margaret and her son at the time controlled not much more than Naples and its neighborhood. After turmoil broke out in the city, they fled to the fortress of Gaeta, while Naples was occupied by an Angevin army led by Otto of Brunswick, widower of Joanna I of Naples, who had named Louis' father as her heir.[2]

In 1389 the new Pope Boniface IX recognized Ladislaus as King of Naples, although he forbade him to unite it with his family lands in Germany and Italy. In Gaeta, Ladislaus married Costanza Chiaramonte, the daughter of the powerful Sicilian baron, Manfredi Chiaramonte. Within a few years the marriage was annulled.

In 1390, the archbishop of Arles poisoned Ladislaus, and though he survived, he subsequently stuttered and was forced to take repeated periods of rest.

Raimondo Del Balzo Orsini. Louis of Anjou then decided to return to the County of Provence. Ladislaus spent the year 1400 subduing Onorato Caetani, count of Fondi, and the last rebellions in Abruzzo and Apulia.[2]

Claim to Hungary

Coat of arms of Ladislaus, depicting his claims to the kingdoms of Hungary, Naples and Jerusalem

In 1401 Ladislaus married

Santa Maria dell'Incoronata in Naples. In these paintings, the Hungarian king is depicted receiving the royal crown, fighting against the pagans, and receiving the crown of Croatia. (The cult of Saint Ladislaus and other Hungarian kings was already present in Naples and other Italian regions since the second half of the 13th century, thanks to Mary of Hungary, Queen of Naples, who brought them when she married Charles II of Naples.)[3]

Considering himself the heir of the kings of Hungary, Ladislaus tried many times to obtain the crown of Hungary. He also proclaimed himself

Conquest of central Italy

Aspiring to the brilliant prestige and might of his imperial forbearer in southern Italy, Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Sicily, Ladislaus was determined to conquer central Italy and extend his power into Tuscany and farther north. Ladislaus endeavored to consolidate Neapolitan royal power at the expense of the barons, and brought about the murders of several members of the Sanseverino family for frustrating his ends. In 1405, he went again to Rome. When some nobles offered him the lordship of the city, the Pope responded by deposing him as King of Naples on 9 January 1406. The Pope had incited Raimondo Del Balzo Orsini to rebel, but he died soon after.[5] His wife, Mary of Enghien, continued the rebellion and successfully defended Taranto against a two-month long siege by Ladislaus in the spring of 1406. She did not surrender even after Ladislaus and the Pope signed a treaty of peace in July, by which Ladislaus became the protector of the Papal States. He moved to Taranto again early in 1407, this time with diplomatic intentions. Since his second wife had died in 1404, Ladislaus solved the matter of Taranto by marrying Mary of Enghien on 23 April 1407.

In 1407, trying to taking advantage of the feebler personality of the new pope,

Gregory XII, Ladislaus invaded the Papal States and conquered Ascoli Piceno and Fermo.[6] In 1408, he besieged Ostia to prevent a success of the French party in the schism between Gregory XII and Antipope Benedict XIII.[7] After a short siege, he captured the city by bribing the Papal commander, Paolo Orsini, and entered Rome on 25 April. Later, Perugia
also fell into his hands.

In 1409, Ladislaus sold his rights to

condottiere Braccio da Montone, who defeated Ladislaus, and he was forced to retreat. However, he had not abandoned his aims in northern Italy, and took advantage of the presence of Pope Gregory XII in Gaeta.[2]

Fearing his aims, the Republics of

Muzio Attendolo, Braccio da Montone and other condottieri, invaded the Papal lands under Ladislaus' control and moved to Rome; Orsini, left by Ladislaus to protect the city, defected to them with 2,000 men. However, the allies captured only the Vatican and the Trastevere
quarter. Cardinal Cossa and Louis left the siege to their condottieri, and moved to northern Italy and Provence in search of further support.

Ladislaus took advantage of an anti-French revolt in

indulgences to finance it.[8]

The slow pace of the allied army led the Florentines and Sienese to accept peace with Ladislaus, which he bought by renouncing some of his Tuscan conquests. Louis continued the struggle: his army, led by

florins, invested Ladislaus with the Neapolitan crown and named him as Gonfalonier of the Church. Ladislaus promised in turn to abandon the cause of Gregory XII, who was ousted from Gaeta and moved to Rimini
.

Last campaigns and death

Equestrian statue of Ladislaus atop his tomb monument

The peace was only a means to gain time for both John XXIII, who did not want to pay the 75,000 florins, and Ladislaus, who feared intervention in Italy by Sigismund of Hungary.[2] After Florence initiated diplomatic contacts with Sigismund, Ladislaus marched northwards in mid-May 1413. On 8 June, his troops conquered and sacked Rome, after which he went into Umbria and northern Latium. As it was clearly his next objective, Florence forestalled him by signing a treaty, which recognized Ladislaus' conquest of the Papal States (only Todi and Bologna had not fallen).

Having fallen ill in July 1414, Ladislaus was forced to return to Naples, where he died on 6 August 1414.[7] Rumours that he had been poisoned remain unproven: it is more likely that he fell ill due to an infection to his genitals.[2] He is buried in the church of San Giovanni a Carbonara, where a monument was built over his tomb. He was succeeded by his sister, Joanna II, the last member of the senior Angevin line in Italy.

Marriages and issue

In 1393, he agreed to marry a daughter of the Ottoman sultan

Sigismund of Hungary, but the marriage did not materialize due to the rejection of the clause providing for the princess's conversion to Christianity.[9][10][11][12]

Ladislaus married three times:

There were no children from any of his marriages. However Ladislaus had at least two illegitimate children:

Notes

  1. ^ Miskolczy, István (1922). Nápolyi László, 1. közlemény Századok 56, Budapest. pp. 330-350.
  2. ^
    Enciclopedia Italiana
    . Retrieved 21 May 2011.
  3. ^ Madas, E., Horváth, Z. (2008). Középkori predikációk és felképek Szent László királyról. San Ladislao d'Ungheria nella predicazione e nei dipinti murali. Romanika. Budapest. pp. 432-440.
  4. ^ Kenneth Setton (1976): The Papacy and the Levant, 1204-1571: The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (Volume I) p. 403.
  5. ^ Toomaspoeg, Kristjan (2013). "ORSINI DEL BALZO, Raimondo". Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (in Italian). Vol. 79.
  6. ^ Descriptions of his army numbering 12,000 cavalry and 12,000 infantry are considered exaggerated, due to Ladislaus' always limited financial basis; see A. Kiesewetter, "LADISLAO d'Angiò Durazzo, re di Sicilia", Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani.
  7. ^ a b ""Da Papa Bonifacio IX a Papa Martino V", Cronologia d'Italia". Archived from the original on 25 January 2009. Retrieved 24 October 2008.
  8. Hussite
    movement.
  9. .
  10. .
  11. .
  12. ^ Alderson, Anthony Dolphin (1956). "Tav.XXIV, n.25". The Structure of the Ottoman Dynasty. Clarendon Press.


Ladislaus of Naples
Cadet branch of the House of Anjou
Born: 5 September 1187 Died: 8 November 1226
Regnal titles
Preceded by
King of Naples

1386–1389
Succeeded by
Preceded by
King of Naples

1399–1414
Succeeded by
Preceded by
Croatia
1403
with Sigismund
(1403) (as contender)
Succeeded by
Preceded by
Raymond
Prince of Taranto

1406–1414
Succeeded by
Preceded by
Count of Lecce
1406–1414
With: Mary
Succeeded by