Abstract
The backdrop to this chapter is the conquest of the Angevin kingdom of Naples by Alfonso V of Aragon, a 22-year undertaking concluded in 1442. While Alfonso could rely on the resources of maritime communities within the Aragonese confederation, the role of Sicily was especially significant. Situated a short distance from the Aragonese bridgehead at Gaeta, Sicily was a major source of grain and other agricultural products, sulfur and saltpeter, horses, weapons and cloth and specie to pay the troops. The intention here is to detail Sicily’s logistical contribution to the war effort during the second, critical phase of the conflict, namely from the time Alfonso left Spain for Italy in May 1432 until the capture of Naples itself ten years later.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
A. Ryder, Alfonso the Magnanimous. King of Aragon, Naples and Sicily, 1396–1458 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 431.
- 2.
The main narrative sources for these and subsequent events concerning Alfonso’s conquest of Naples are Bartolomeo Facio and Jerónimo Zurita. There are two recent editions of Facio’s work: B. Facio, Rerum gestarum Alfonsi regis libri, ed. D. Pietragalla (Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 2004) and B. Facio, La Conquista de Nápoles [1455]. Los diez libros de las hazañas del Rey Alfonso, ed. A.-I. Magallón (Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico, 2017). Zurita’s description of these events is in volumes 5 and 6 of J. Zurita, Anales de la corona de Aragón, ed. A. Canellas Lopez (Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico, 1977–1980). For a modern account see Ryder, Alfonso the Magnanimous.
- 3.
Ryder, Alfonso the Magnanimous, 217.
- 4.
Ryder, Alfonso the Magnanimous, 218.
- 5.
A. Silvestri, L’amministrazione del regno di Sicilia. Cancelleria, apparati finanziari e strumenti di governo nel tardo medioevo (Rome: Viella, 2018), 245–86; Ryder, Alfonso the Magnanimous, 213–4.
- 6.
Bresc, Un monde méditerranéen, 859 n. (letter dated 18 October 1435).
- 7.
Minieri Riccio, “Alcuni fatti,” 6.
- 8.
A. Ryder, “Cloth and Credit: Aragonese War Finance in the Mid-Fifteenth Century,” War and Society (1984), 1–21.
- 9.
A. Orlandi, “Il costo della guerra. La compagnia di Michele Attendolo da Cotignola ad Anghiari’, in E. Basso, ed., Il prezzo della guerra. Italia e Penisola iberica nei secoli XIII-XVI (La Morra: Associazione Culturale Antonella Salvatico, 2018), 139–40.
- 10.
Minieri Riccio, “Alcuni fatti,” 13.
- 11.
Ryder, Alfonso the Magnanimous, 212–3. Indeed, Gaeta itself may initially have needed to draw on provisions from Sicily. 2807 salme of grain and 80 salme of barley were sent from various carricatori.
- 12.
Valencia’s extensive contributions to Alfonso’s wars has been the subject of a number of studies. For the financial aspect, C. López Rodriguez, “La tesoreria general de Alfonso V el Magnánimo y la Bailía General del reino de Valencia”, Hispania, 54 (1994): 421–46; A. J. Mira Jodar, “La financiación de las empresas mediterráneas de Alfonso el Magnánimo. Bailía general, subsidios de cortes, y crédito institucional en Valencia (1419–1455)”, Anuario de Estudios Medievales, 33 (2003): 695–727.
- 13.
On these reforms see Silvestri, L’amministrazione del regno.
- 14.
Silvestri, L’amministrazione del regno, 282.
- 15.
ASP CR 843, ff. 91v, 93r, 95r, 99r; ff. 115v, 117v–118r; f. 119v.
- 16.
C. Trasselli, “Sul debito pubblico in Sicilia sotto Alfonso V d’Aragona,” Estudios de historia moderna, 6 (1956–9), 71–112; Silvestri, L’amministrazione del regno, 245–90.
- 17.
Trasselli, “Sul debito pubblico,” 81, 98.
- 18.
Ryder, “Cloth and Credit.”
- 19.
R. Conde y Delgado de Molina, “La letra de cambio en el sistema financiero de Alfonso el Magnanimo,” in XIV Congresso di Storia della Corona d’Aragona. Sassari-Alghero 19–24 maggio 1990 sul tema “La Corona d’Aragona in Italia (secc. 13–18)”, 5 vols (Sassari: Carlo Delfino Editore, 1996), III, 257–69.
- 20.
H. Lapeyre, “Alphonse V et ses banquiers”, Le Moyen Age, 67 (1961): 93–136.
- 21.
G. Petralia, Banchieri e famiglie mercantili nel Mediterraneo aragonese. L’emigrazione dei pisani in Sicilia nel Quattrocento (Pisa: Pacini Editore, 1989).
- 22.
The process of raising a fleet in fourteenth-century England was recently described in the fine study by C. L. Lambert, Shipping the Medieval Military. English Maritime Logistics in the Fourteenth Century (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2011).
- 23.
Ryder, Alfonso the Magnanimous, 149.
- 24.
Ryder, Alfonso the Magnanimous, 149.
- 25.
Ryder, Alfonso the Magnanimous, 177.
- 26.
M. Del Treppo, I mercanti catalani e l’espansione della Corona d’Aragona nel secolo XV (Naples: L’Arte tipografica, 1972), 42–4.
- 27.
Trasselli, “Sul debito pubblico,” 83; ASP LV 5, f.54v (28 September 1436). Correspondence dated 25 and 26 August 1436 referred to 4500 salme of confiscated wheat belonging to Genoese merchants in Licata, of which nearly half was subsequently shipped to Gaeta: ASP LV 4 bis, ff. 20v–21v and 27v.
- 28.
H. Bresc, Un monde méditerranéen. Économie et sociéte en Sicile 1300–1450. Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome (Palermo-Rome: Accademia di scienze, lettere e arti di Palermo, 1986), 253–60; S. R. Epstein, An Island for Itself. Economic Development and Social Change in Late Medieval Sicily (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 257–61.
- 29.
H. Penet, “Clavis Siciliae. Les activités portuaires du détroit de Messine (XIIe-XVe siècles),” in Ports maritime et ports fluviaux au Moyen Âge, Actes du XXXVe congrès de la SHMES (La Rochelle, 2004) (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne. Série Histoire ancienne et médiévale, 81, 2005), 272–3.
- 30.
S. R. Epstein, An Island for Itself. Economic Development and Social Change in Late Medieval Sicily (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 256n.
- 31.
Epstein, Island for Itself, 253.
- 32.
Epstein, Island for Itself, 252–3.
- 33.
V. Liguori Mignano et al., Gaeta agli inizi del Quattrocento. Economia e società (Gaeta: Edizioni del Comune di Gaeta, 1999).
- 34.
ASP LV 5, ff. 13r.–14r.
- 35.
ASP LV 5, ff. 7v.–8r.
- 36.
ASP LV 5, ff. 18v.–19v.
- 37.
J. Sanchis Sivera, ed., Dietari del Capellà d’Anfos el Magnànim (Valencia: Acción Bibliográfica Valenciana, 1932), 143 cited in J. Sáiz Serrano, Caballeros del rey. Nobleza y guerra en el reinado de Alfonso el Magnánimo (Valencia: Universitat de València, 2008), 36. For a discussion of the chronicle’s authorship see Melcior Miralles, Crònica y dietari del capellà d’Alfons el Magnànim, ed., M. Rodrigo Lizondo (Valencia: Universitat de València, 2011).
- 38.
Ryder, Alfonso the Magnanimous, 226.
- 39.
Ryder, Alfonso the Magnanimous, 226.
- 40.
Ryder, Alfonso the Magnanimous, 180 and Sáiz Serrano, Caballeros del rey, 34–5 describe the day’s events which began with a procession from the cathedral led by the archbishop and clergy of Barcelona. On their arrival at the Llotja Alfonso took his place on a dais under a large flag bearing the royal arms of Aragon and the hiring of men-at-arms and archers began. Ramón Perellós, captain of the royal fleet, deposited 15,000 florins on the taula d’acordar to pay those who wished to serve.
- 41.
Bresc, Un monde méditerranéen, 889–90.
- 42.
He first served Alfonso in 1420 during the first attempt to conquer the Regno, distinguished himself in the raid against Djerba in August 1432 and campaigned in the March of Ancona in 1445.
- 43.
C. Minieri Riccio, “Alcuni fatti di Alfonso I d’Aragona. Dal 15 Aprile 1437 al 31 di Maggio 1458”, Archivio storico per le province napoletane, VI, i (1881), 6. At this time the lance consisted of three men-at-arms rather than the standard five adopted in subsequent years under Alfonso’s son Ferrante: F. Storti, L’esercito napoletano nella seconda metà del Quattrocento (Salerno: Laveglia Editore, 2007), 10.
- 44.
Epstein, An Island for Itself, 328–9.
- 45.
Bresc, Un monde méditerranéen, 854 n.
- 46.
Ryder, Alfonso the Magnanimous, 91.
- 47.
ASP LV 5, f. 11r. One salma was equivalent to approximately 2.75 hectoliters.
- 48.
ASP LV 5, ff. 1v–2r.
- 49.
Such as an order in October 1436 for 3500–5000 salme of wheat, 2000 salme of barley and 1000 cantara of biscuit: Bresc, Un monde méditerranéen, 859.
- 50.
A total of 750 salme of wheat from Battista Agliata: ASP LV 4 bis, f.29r (22 August 1436); 804 salme of wheat and 105 salme of barley from Antonio da Settimo: ASP LV 5, ff.25v–26r (14 November 1436).
- 51.
Petralia, Banchieri e famiglie, 52.
- 52.
ASP RC 71, ff.91r–v.
- 53.
ASP LV 5, f.54r.
- 54.
ASP LV 5, ff.63v, 60r, 70v–71r.
- 55.
M. Van Creveld, Supplying War. Logistics from Wallerstein to Patton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 24.
- 56.
C. Minieri Riccio, “Alcuni fatti di Alfonso I d’Aragona. Dal 15 Aprile 1437 al 31 di Maggio 1458”, Archivio storico per le province napoletane, VI, i (1881): 5–6.
- 57.
Epstein, Island for Itself, 262.
- 58.
M. Letts, Pero Tafur. Travels and Adventures1435–1439 (London: G. Routledge. 1926), 233.
- 59.
H. Bresc, “Palermo in the 14th–15th century: urban economy and trade,” in A. Nef, ed., A Companion to Medieval Palermo. The History of a Mediterranean City from 600 to 1500 (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 239.
- 60.
Epstein, Island for Itself, 262.
- 61.
ASP RC 70, f.91v.
- 62.
ASP LV 4, ff.183v–184r.
- 63.
ASP LV 4, ff.18v–19v.
- 64.
In 1240 Frederick II had ordered that Sicilians who owned mares should mate them with a stallion in one year and a donkey the following year to ensure a steady supply of horses and mules, but there is no evidence that this provision continued to be enforced (if indeed it ever came into effect) by his successors: J. L. A. Huillard Bréholles, ed., Historia diplomatica Friderici secundi, 6 vols (Paris: Henricus excudebant Plon fratres, n.d., 1852–1861), V, ii, 738.
- 65.
ASP LV 5, f.30v.
- 66.
ASP LV 5, f.28v.
- 67.
Bresc, Un monde méditerranéen, 222.
- 68.
Epstein, Island for Itself, 234.
- 69.
ASP LV 4 bis, ff.37r–v.
- 70.
ASP LV 5, ff.1r–v.
- 71.
Oliverio Boyra, described as refinatori salsinitri, received 10 onze for his services on 29 August 1436: ASP LV 4 bis f. 31r–v.
- 72.
ASP LV 5, ff.1r–v, 8r.
- 73.
ASP LV 5, f.23r.
- 74.
ASP LV 5, ff.95v–96v.
- 75.
ASP LV 5, ff.7r, 25r.
- 76.
Ryder, Alfonso the Magnanimous, 219, 222.
- 77.
ASP LV 5, ff.22r–23v; ASP RC 71, f.95r; ASP LV 4 bis., ff.31r–v (68 barrels of tallow).
- 78.
“le nerf de la guerre”: Bresc, Un monde méditerranéen, 854.
Abbreviations
- ASP CR:
-
Archivio di Stato di Palermo, Conservatoria di Registro
- ASP LV:
-
Archivio di Stato di Palermo, Tribunale del Real Patrimonio, Lettere viceregie e dispacci patrimoniali
- ASP RC:
-
Archivio di Stato di Palermo, Real Cancelleria
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Aloisio, M. (2022). Sicily’s Financial and Logistical Contribution During the Military Campaign of Alfonso V for the Conquest of Naples. In: Sohmer Tai, E., Reyerson, K.L. (eds) Mapping Pre-Modern Sicily. Mediterranean Perspectives. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04915-6_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04915-6_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-04914-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-04915-6
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)