The Kingdom of Naples

Il saggio prospetta alcune considerazioni sull’allineamento internazionale del Regno di Napoli nel XVIII secolo e sulla graduale apertura realizzata nei confronti dell’Austria dopo la drammatica rottura del 1734, quando Carlo di Borbone pose fine alla dominazione asburgica nel Mezzogiorno e si impadronì del trono meridionale. Attraverso un particolare caso di studio, indaga le reazioni ai mutamenti dinastici elaborate della società napoletana o, per meglio dire, da una parte dei gruppi dominanti.
Le vicende del principe Antonio Pignatelli Aymerich sono ricostruite nella convinzione che il genere biografico, aldilà dell’evolversi delle tendenze storiografiche e dell’affinarsi delle metodologie di ricerca, conservi un suo particolare fascino narrativo e presenti un’efficacia descrittiva e interpretativa del contesto in cui si dipanano le storie indagate. La significatività del caso permette riflessioni in margine a nodi problematici centrali nella odierna storiografia, interessata agli italiani al servizio della Monarchia iberica, alle loro carriere itineranti, realizzate con il favore della corte, al loro inserimento in élites transnazionali aggregate intorno al sovrano; consente, inoltre, precisazioni sui ruoli delle donne e sulle valenze dei matrimoni misti e/o delle unioni endogamiche.


The essay offers some considerations on the international alignment of the Kingdom of Naples in the eighteenth century and on the gradual opening towards Austria after the dramatic break in 1734, when Charles of Bourbon put an end to the Habsburg domination in the South of Italy and seized the throne. Through a particular case study, the essay investigates the reactions to dynastic changes elaborated by Neapolitan society or, better, by a part of the dominant groups.
The events of Prince Antonio Pignatelli Aymerich are reconstructed in the belief that the biographical genre, beyond the evolution of historiographic trends and the refinement of research methodologies, retains its particular narrative charm and presents a descriptive and interpretative efficacy of the context in which the investigated stories unfold. The significance of the case allows reflections on the margins of central problematic nodes in today's historiography, interested in Italians at the service of the Iberian Monarchy, in their itinerant careers, realized with the favor of the court, in their insertion in transnational élites aggregated around the sovereign; it also allows clarifications on the roles of women and on the values of mixed marriages and / or endogamous unions.

This article analyzes the De Bellis Gothorum, a long neglected and misunderstood history of the ancient Goths written in 1472–73 by Nicholas of Modruš, the leading Croatian-Illyrian bishop at the papal curia. By placing the work in its proper context, this article reconstructs a previously unknown episode in the political history of the fifteenth-century Adriatic. It is argued that the De Bellis Gothorum was in fact a national history that was meant to provide a trans-Adriatic network of Croatian and Bosnian nobles and churchmen with support from Naples and the papacy for their border wars against the Ottomans and reestablishment of their national kingdom.

On August 19, 1925 Walter Benjamin published in Frankfurter Zeitung a report from Naples, which was the first of a series dedicated to European cities. “Fabulous travel accounts,” he wrote, “attributed colors to a town that is grey instead, a red grey or ochre, a white-grey. It is really grey compared to the sky and the sea. ... The town is built on the rocks. Looking from the top, near Castel San Martino, where the shouts do not reach you, it lies dead in the twilight, one with the rock. You can hardly see a strip of shore and the buildings that throng together behind it.” Why should Naples, a town on the blue Mediterranean, have appeared to Benjamin grey and dead, indistinguishable from the rock on which it stands? The question, and Benjamin’s acute observation, may be answered by considering the long period of Spanish supremacy over Naples between 1503 and 1707 when these conditions were determined. This was the period when the town assumed a new urban configuration that also engendered an architectural development of high quality. It is therefore as the capital city of a vast viceroyalty that Naples occupies us here (in particular architectural developement in Lecce and in L’Aquila). This chapter focuses on this period also because it was precisely at this time that the social and economic contradictions, problems, and tensions emerged that were to affect the city for centuries to come.

Il saggio analizza in dettaglio, con immagini inedite e di alta qualità (frutto di apposita campagna fotografica), le trecentesche Storie della Passione di Cristo della cappella «degli Illustrissimi», posta all'estremità del braccio settentrionale del transetto del duomo di Napoli. L'opera, realizzata a monocromo, si compone di quattro scene maggiori, leggibili da sinistra a destra, Cristo schernito e spogliato delle vesti, Flagellazione, Andata al Calvario e Deposizione, e di una scena minore, un'Annunciazione con probabile offerente. A dispetto dell'alta qualità esecutiva e del raffinato livello d'invenzione, l'opera è scarsamente conosciuta, e spesso ignorata, da parte della critica moderna. Scopo del contributo è di presentare in dettaglio le Storie della Passione per fornire una corretta e approfondita lettura iconografica dei singoli episodi e per individuare le fonti visive alla base della rappresentazione. / This paper analyses in detail, with unpublished high-quality images (produced specifically for this project), the fourteenth-century Stories of the Passion of Christ in the chapel ‘degli Illustrissimi’, located at the end of the northern arm of the transept in Naples Cathedral. The work, produced in monochrome, is made up of four major scenes, to be read from left to right: Christ mocked and stripped of his clothing; The Flagellation; The Journey to Calvary; The Deposition; and a minor scene, an Annunciation with probable donor. Despite the high quality of the execution and the refined level of invention, the work is scarcely known, and often ignored by modern criticism. The purpose of this contribution is to present the Stories of the Passion in detail, to provide a correct and thorough iconographic reading of the individual episodes and to identify the visual sources that underlie the representation. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/papers-of-the-british-school-at-rome/article/le-storie-della-passione-di-cristo-della-cappella-degli-illustrissimi-nel-duomo-di-napoli-riflessioni-sul-triangolo-napoli-siena-e-avignone/1706E53DB4348E37D237B288AEE6113D

The article presents the decipherment and translation of a little-known letter (1460) of King John II of Aragon found in the archive of the Saint Petersburg Institute of History of Russian Academy of Sciences. The author demonstrates his own approach to the decoding of the homophonic substitution cipher, which was popular in the Middle Ages. The resulting Latin text reveals the secret plan to capture Genoa proposed to the Aragonese King by Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan. The Republic of Genoa in 1460 was under control of John II, Duke of Lorraine, who launched war a year earlier against Neapolitan King Ferdinand (Ferrante) I, nephew of John II of Aragon.

In this paper we present the results obtained from the systematic investigation of the sub-series ‘Conti erariali dei feudi’ of the fund ‘Dipendenze della Sommaria’ preserved in the State Ar- chives of Naples. A reasoned analytical inventory is proposed, limited to the documentation re- lating to the period between 1421 and 1500, for a count of 58 envelopes and 212 dossiers. This is fiscal documentation that has flowed into the Archive of the Camera della Sommaria following the deliveries by the provincial administrators required to submit their work to the audit of the rational of the king, but also as a result of traumas and confiscations on fiefs by the sovereign.

Giovan Marco di Parma, known as Cinico, occupies a special place in the Library of the Aragon in Naples in the 15th century. Scribe, he has ties of friendship with many humanists of the court, and even participates in the establishment of the printing press in Naples. His philosophical position, claiming Cynicism, earned him the admiration of his contemporaries and a great freedom in relation to administrative constraints. His philosophical commitment also pushes him to favor copies of history or political books. However, even if he is stoic, Giovan Marco fits perfectly into the courtesan life of his time. His collaboration with the great illuminateur Rapicano, shows these ties between writing and painting in building an ideal portrait of the royalty. He even tries to soften the harshness of the king towards the barons by becoming author of miscellanea with partly controversial content.

This paper focuses on the first fifty years of a Neapolitan brotherhood, “Confraternita di Santa Maria del Gesù della Redenzione dei Cattivi”, while the Ottoman Empire reaches its apogee in the Mediterranean area. Especially, the Neapolitan court needs to respond to the sultan’s corsairs, which attack, each summer, the coasts of the kingdom. In response to this hard condition, Viceroy Pedro de Toledo supports the project of brotherhood in his correspondence with the Emperor Charles V. The Holy House of Naples is the first secular association with these ends in the Italian peninsula. Between 1598 and 1599, after many attempts, the brotherhood organizes a mission to Algiers, which is the most important slave market in the Barbary coast.

This present essay focuses on the information that Hispanic spies collected in the Levant during the sixteenth-century. Based on archival and literary sources, the study is built around the typical structure of a lyric opera to show the worth of the secret correspondence such as archetype of European perception about the Ottoman Empire and, more generally, about all the Islam.
KEY WORDS: Intelligence; Secret information; Ottoman Empire; Hispanic Monarchy; Eastern Mediterranean; Otherness.

Diciamolo subito, senza alcuna esitazione: Naples and Napoleon è un libro importante, caratterizzato da tesi forti e divisive che hanno suscitato accesi dibatti storiografici negli ultimi anni e sono destinate a far discutere per molto tempo ancora 1 . John Davis riesamina il punto di vista attraverso il quale si guarda alla storia italiana Sette-Ottocentesca, incentrato su manichee polarizzazioni fra modernità settentrionale e arretratezza meridionale, e ridimensiona fortemente l'immagine di un Mezzogiorno immobile e ancorato alla tradizione. Pur assegnando un ruolo centrale alle dinamiche economiche e produttive, l'autore cerca di offrire una complessa visione d'insieme, capace di fondere i temi della storia sociale, politica, militare, la storia delle idee, quella culturale e quella religiosa. Negli ultimi anni, anche in virtù delle celebrazioni del bicentenario del "decennio francese", l'attenzione degli studiosi si è soffermata sulle spinte riformiste che hanno caratterizzato l'epoca napoleonica 2 . Si è posto l'accento sulle novità introdotte in quegli anni crucialil'abolizione del sistema feudale, la costruzione di un apparato amministrativo centrale e periferico, la ristrutturazione del sistema fiscale, la ridefinizione del ruolo del clero, dei linguaggi religiosi, dei saperi scientifici, della vita intellettuale, delle attività artistiche -ma si sono troppo spesso sottovalutate le continuità con il secolo precedente, già segnato da trasformazioni importanti, ben individuate dagli storici. Gli studi sulla nobiltà e sui patriziati italiani del XVIII secolo hanno, infatti, messo in evidenza nuovi atteggiamenti culturali, la propensione verso l'uso di nuovi strumenti di partecipazione politica, la ricerca di un consolidamento del prestigio sociale attraverso lo sfruttamento di attività economiche e funzioni burocratiche, la valorizzazione delle tradizionali funzioni svolte nelle milizie 3 . La storia militare, dal canto suo, ha dato un contributo importante mostrando «tutto il rilievo del rafforzamento e della professionalizzazione degli eserciti nella vita degli Stati […], sul piano sociale come su quello politico e culturale, per le sue strette connessioni con amministrazione e fiscalità, processi di ridefinizione delle nobiltà tra onore, mestiere e sapere, con gli sviluppi scientifici e tecnologici» 4 . Altrettanto importanti sono state le suggestioni provenienti dalle ricerche sulla sociabilità culturale, sull'opinione pubblica, sull'editoria e gli scambi librari. Si è arrivati a considerare in maniera autonoma -in particolare grazie ai lavori di studiosi come Daniel Roche, Roger Chartier, Robert Darnton -gli strumenti di circolazione delle idee, come i carteggi, le gazzette, i libelli e i fogli volanti. Il rapporto fra intellettuali e potere, che in passato aveva occupato un ruolo centrale negli studi sull'Illuminismo italiano, ha ceduto il posto «a una meno anacronistica considerazione della figura sociale del letterato e delle sue trasformazioni, e dei processi di 1 Fra le numerosissime recensioni pubblicate negli ultimi anni da riviste specialistiche, mi pare opportuno segnalare quelle di M. Petrusewicz (Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 2008), T. Astarita (Catholic Historical Review, 2008), W. Daum (Rivista storica italiana, 2009). 2 Mi limito a segnalare -per le importanti indicazioni di metodo -il volume curato da S. Russo, All'ombra di Murat. Studi e ricerche sul decennio francese, Bari, Edipuglia, 2007; si vedano in particolar modo gli interventi di A. Spagnoletti (La storiografia meridionale sul Decennio tra Ottocento e Novecento, pp. 11-24), R. De Lorenzo (Riflessioni sul Decennio, pp. 2017-210) e il bilancio tracciato da A.M. Rao (Considerazioni conclusive: le nuove ricerche sul Decennio, pp. 211-224). 3 Per una trattazione più ampia dei nuovi orientamenti storiografici e per indicazioni bibliografiche dettagliate rimando ad A.M. Rao, Lumi Riforme Rivoluzione. Percorsi storiografici, Roma, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2011, pp. 3-48. 4 Ivi, pp. 16-17.

A royal dynasty cultivates its traditions above all through the commemoration of its ancestors. Tombs play a central role in this. This study examines the tombs of the royal house of Anjou erected in the Kingdom of Sicily (Naples) by the first of the ruling generations in the second half of the 13th century and the first half of the 14th century.
The monuments had concretely tangible political and legitimising functions, but they can also be explained by the piety and the understanding of rule of their time. Both aspects are dealt with in this book. The study contributes to the systematic research of the two fundamental functions of funerary monuments, the memoria of the deceased and the representation of the kingdom by the royal family.
The tombs of the royal house of Anjou present themselves as a form of a well planned, public staging of their own lineage.

Besides its historical intent, this work stems from my profound admiration for the cartographer as a human agent and from my innate interest in cartography and for every representation of the environment, filtered and enlivened by the human mind. I was a draftsman and map compiler like many others; my interest in cartographic drafting preceded that of writing, and unexplained factors have led me in recent years to deepen my interest in the historical aspects of cartography.
With this compilation, I pay a debt of gratitude-which we all have-toward a neglected and forgotten band of graphic artists, seldom praised then as now, and forgotten by the official history of great events and historical figures. Topographers, makers of ephemeral images, continually overcome by human actions, never rose to the fame of artists or scientists, except in the rarest cases. And yet these men constructed the image of our country; we have used and abused their maps to modify the environment in which we live.
Maps, like the air we breathe or the water we drink, seem to belong to that category of objects whose existence is not even discussed; we appreciate their importance only when they are missing, and we tend to forget that men and institutions have
been heavily involved in their production for time immemorial.
Mapping is like Penelope' s tapestry or the rock of Sisyphus. It is never completed; as the completion nears it becomes apparent that little has been achieved because everything has to be redone.
The information revolution is at the door, and before making the ultimate step to abandon the analogue image for the digitaI image, let us stop for a moment to acknowledge those who have preceded us.

The purpose of this article is to explore the political importance of Neapolitan Carnival and the government's involvement in steering and controlling the celebrations at various historical junctions during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is particularly important to note in this context the ritual pillages of cuccagne staged by the rulers. The sponsorship of such Carnivalesque entertainments quelled the rulers' fears from popular rebellion and disorder as much as they fed popular needs for bread and circuses; and it is in this context of maintaining intact the city's fragile social balances that we should interpret the ubiquity of these violent spectacles in early modern Naples.

Eighteenth-century intellectuals disagreed on what constituted proper archaeological techniques.  This study examines new material, especially from the British perspective.  A strong critic of the excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum was Sir William Hamilton, British envoy at the Court of Naples, whose own behavior, however, was sometimes inconsistent with the views he expressed to others.

"[It] Il libro ripercorre i processi di “burocratizzazione” degli uffici finanziari del Regno di Napoli soffermandosi sulla prassi amministrativa della Regia Camera della Sommaria. Esso prende avvio dall’edizione critica del Repertorium Alphabeticum Solutionum Fiscalium Regni Siciliae, un manoscritto cinquecentesco prodotto dalla Sommaria, ricco di informazioni relative all’intera area del Mezzogiorno, divenuto particolarmente prezioso dopo la distruzione della documentazione aragonese dell’Archivio di Stato di Napoli nell’incendio del settembre 1943. La ricerca ha quindi origine dalla lettura “lenta” di un testo, dall’indagine sui suoi caratteri e sulla sua struttura, sulle sue fonti, sul contesto e sulle vicende che condussero alla sua redazione, sulle pratiche di lavoro amministrativo che esso intendeva descrivere e orientare. Il volume ricostruisce poi il lungo processo che portò alla formazione dell’ufficio della Sommaria tra gli ultimi decenni del Duecento e primi del Quattrocento. Ne delinea in seguito le competenze e le modalità di funzionamento in età aragonese, per seguirne infine le vicende fino alla metà del Cinquecento, sulla base di fonti edite e inedite, conservate in diversi archivi e biblioteche, italiane ed europee, senza mai tralasciare il confronto con un’ampia bibliografia internazionale.

[En] The book outlines the processes of "bureaucratization" of the financial offices of the Kingdom of Naples, dwelling on the administrative praxis of the Regia Camera della Sommaria. It starts from the critical edition of Repertorium Alphabeticum Solutionum Fiscalium Regni Siciliae, a XVIth century manuscipt produced by Sommaria, rich with information about the whole area of Southern Italy, which became particularly precious after the destruction of the Aragonese documentation of the State Archive in Naples in the fire of September 1943. The research originates in the "slow" reading of a text, in the inquiry on its characteristics, structure, sources, context, events which led to its writing and on the practices of administrative work which it was to describe and orientate. This volume reconstructs also the long process which led to the Sommaria office, between the last decades of the XIIIth century and the first of the XVth century, its competences and working from the Aragonese age, up to the middle of the XVIth centuryt, on the basis of published and unpublished sources, kept in various Italian and European archives and libraries, in a costant comparison with the wide international bibliography."

Large, concentrated settlements known as ‘agro-towns’ abound across Southern Italy and other parts of the Mediterranean. The prevalence and persistence of these settlements are very curious but not yet well understood. Initially, scholars interpreted their development as stemming from Southern Italy's economic and social ‘backwardness’ and inequality. This view has now been challenged by scholarship which emphasises that the pre-industrial Mezzogiorno supported not only a dynamic economy but also a diverse array of institutional structures. By recourse to a comparative study within Apulia, this paper suggests that both interpretations are equally correct. ‘Agro-towns’ in Southern Italy were linked to the inequitable distribution of land, perpetuated over the long term, but the institutional origins of this inequality were both diverse and dynamic.

Y a-t-il un modèle «agro-urbain» dans le Sud de l'Italie? Racines et développement d'une structure agro-urbaine: une étude comparative dans les Pouilles
En Italie du Sud, comme dans d'autres régions méditerranéennes, les grandes colonies de peuplement concentré appelées «agrovilles» sont nombreuses. La prévalence de ces localités surprend autant que leur persistance qui reste encore mystérieuse. Initialement, les chercheurs interprétaient le développement de cette forme d'habitat groupé comme issu du «retard» économique et social de cette région méridionale et d'inégalités spécifiques. Mais ce point de vue a été maintenant contesté par de récents travaux scientifiques qui soulignent que le Mezzogiorno préindustriel a connu non seulement une économie dynamique, mais aussi un large éventail de structures institutionnelles. La présente étude comparative, menée dans les Pouilles, suggère que ces deux interprétations sont de fait également correctes: les «agrovilles» du sud de l'Italie étaient liées à une distribution inégalitaire du foncier, situation perpétuée sur le long terme, mais les origines institutionnelles de cette inégalité étaient à la fois diversifiées et dynamiques.

Gibt es ein Agrarstadt-Modell für das südliche Italien? Eine vergleichende Fallstudie für Apulien fragt nach den unterschiedlichen Wurzeln und Entwicklungssträngen der agrarstädtischen Struktur
Süditalien und andere Regionen im Mittelmeerraum wimmeln von großen, konzentrierten Siedlungen, die als Agrarstädte bezeichnet werden. Die Verbreitung und Langlebigkeit dieser Siedlungen sind äußerst seltam, aber noch kaum wirklich verstanden. Während man ihre Entwicklung ursprünlich als Folge der wirtschaftlichen und sozialen „Rückständigkeit“ und Ungleichheit Süditaliens gedeutet hat, wird diese Auffassung inzwischen durch Forschungen angezweifelt, die darauf abheben, dass das vorindustrielle Mezzogiorno nicht nur eine dynamische Wirtschaft, sondern auch ein vielschichtiges Spektrum institutioneller Strukturen besaß. Unter Bezugnahme auf eine vergleichende Studie innerhalb Apuliens legt dieser Beitrag nahe, dass beide Auffassungen gleichermaßen richtig sind. Agrarstädte in Süditalien waren mit der ungerechten Landverteilung, die langfristig aufrechterhalten wurde, eng verknüpft, aber die institutionellen Ursprünge dieser Ungleichheit waren sowohl vielschichtig als auch dynamisch.

"The essay focuses on the Muslims in Naples during the Sixteenth century, when the capital is experiencing a deep urban transformation, which is linked to the massive immigration and the conflict against the Turk. The warfare between the House of Austria and the Porte affects the lifes of the Muslims, which belong to three categories: slaves, free-men or refugees. Depending of their condition Muslims occupy the urban spaces. The Muslims of Naples respond to social, political and religious pressures with individual solutions like the redemption, getaway or conversion to Catholicism. The reputation of the city, the war to the sultan and the big number of Muslims force the Hispanic authorities of the kingdom to a closer contact with the alien.

Keywords: Naples, Islam, slaves, refugees, neophytes, urban spaces."

From Louis Ist to René Ist, the Valois dukes of Anjou tried to establish their power on the kingdom of Naples. The former had indeed been adopted by Jeanne Ist, the last queen of the Capetian dynasty. The Valois dukes led several military expeditions to establish their power in Naples, facing the rivalry of the Anjou-Duras and then of the Aragon dynasty. These armies would later on constitute the framework of the Valois’s local administration in Italy. This paper will examine how the three first dukes of Anjou exerted military power. On the one hand, the smaller military responsibilities—exerted on a limited geographical area—were most of the time entrusted to Neapolitean subjects. On the other hand, the officers in charge of the conduct of armies and of the strongholds close to the prince (castles or province of residence) turned out to be most of the time entrusted to foreigners. In sum, the balance of power between the local feudal lords and the duke of Anjou drew the military structures of the royal power ; and each of the parties found there its own interest.

This essay examines the attributes of some typical opere buffe by Vincenzo Fioravanti, Nicola De Giosa, and Errico Petrella that may count as particularly Neapolitan. Contextualizing these 'Neapolitan' elements – especially the 'Neapolitan characters' like Pulcinella, and the use of local dialect and spoken dialogue – demonstrates their function in the comedy of these works, which rests on the multifarious, complex and yet direct connections between theatrical events and the real world surrounding them.

Astronomy and Cartography in Aragonese Naples.
Aim of the paper is to show the existence of a humanistic cartography, a missing piece in the mosaic of Western Cartography which allows us to link the Medieval world
to the Renaissance new view of the world. Metrical experiences carried on in the field of art (perspective, orthogonal projections in architectural drawings), in economics (Abaci treatises) and Mathematics and Astronomy (tables of cords, solar and moon positions) had to have a punctual counterpart in the measuring and representing the earth. Aragonese cartography, produced in Naples in the second half of the XV century, clearly expresses the above stated close connection. Furthermore, an insight to the maps (survived thanks to slavish copies made on the originaI «pergamene» found by Ferdinando Galiani, in Paris in 1776) throws lights on procedures and scientific knowledge of aragonese technicians such as the use of compass bearings, mathematical formulas for computing latitudes, drawings to scale, and an exact measure of the dimension of the spherical earth.

Questo è un "libro involontario". L'espressione, presa in prestito da Cesare Garboli che la utilizzò nel 1969 sulla copertina della edizione Mondadori di La stanza separata, non vuole essere giustificativa della scelta, da cui questo libro è nato, di raccogliere insieme saggi già apparsi in diverse sedi, con altri inediti, ma certo in qualche modo essa spiega il percorso di chi lo ha scritto. Molti dei saggi che compongono il volume sono stati elaborati, infatti, almeno in prima istanza, in occasione di Convegni e Seminari su temi apparentemente slegati fra loro. Sennonché non ci è apparso poi del tutto peregrino mettere insieme quelli e altri studi, dal momento che sono percorsi tutti, o almeno a noi così sembra, da un filo rosso che li unisce. Il filo segue il corso delle domande che volta a volta abbiamo posto alle fonti e che ora sono racchiuse nel titolo del libro Sacro, pubblico e privato. Donne nei secoli XV-XVIII. Cercheremo di spiegare cosa hanno significato per noi e cosa significano nella organizzazione del libro.

Tiene questo tribunale una corte di cursori, i quali vestono d'abbate, e vanno armati di pistole e di altre armi corte con espressa permissione del Regio, e questi ancora, come tutti gli altri ecclesiastici, sono esenti dal braccio della giustizia secolare. Facciamo ora conoscere l'impedimenti che la grande autorità di questo tribunale apporta alla giustizia, all'economia, al buon ordine di questo Regno 1 .

This article explores the ways in which the Roman artist Pietro Cavallini and the Florentine artist Giotto were received in Naples and subsequently influenced Neapolitan art. Using documents and monuments, it analyses their contribution to the artistic and political image of the Neapolitan court. A number of scholars have based their assessment of the oeuvres of Cavallini and Giotto on the writings of Lorenzo Ghiberti and Giorgio Vasari, circa one hundred and two hundred and fifty years, respectively, after the artists lived. This article considers the stylistic, aesthetic, technological and political reasons for the appointment of Cavallini and Giotto to the Angevin court, and the subsequent spread of their style in Naples. As Martin Warnke has discussed in The Court Artist (first published in German in 1985), the late medieval court gave dignities to an artist that affected his reputation. The evidence of this article indicates that the court of Naples in the fourteenth century recognized each artist's individual identity and influence, thus affirming his image and thereby promoting its own.

The article aims to present some reflections from a more general study focused on the political conduct of the Neapolitan aristocracy during the seventeenth century. The sessions' analysis of the Parliament of the Kingdom of Naples, convened until 1642, is an excellent tool to investigate how the leading families of the Kingdom have acted for decades, in particular during moments of great uncertainty: in the succession from a deceased king to his heir or even in the transition from the government of a minister-favorite to another. The connection with the political fight of the Madrid court and the relations between the Neapolitan aristocrats and the viceroys who represented the policy developed by the favorite of that moment are, in fact, central elements within this theme.

L'articolo è dedicato a Carlo Celano, monumentale conoscitore di cose napoletane. Oltre però l'idea di enciclopedista della napoletanità ed oltre i primi giudizi storiografici, il presente testo prova, sulla scorta delle suggestioni offerte dalla critica più recente, a formulare un nuovo e completo quadro delle indagini del Celano. Scopo è quello di orizzontare l'avvento della storia dell'arte napoletana rimontando alla tradizione periegetica, anziché da Bernardo De Dominici, guardando al Celano come il campione e il pioniere della narrazione d'arte, nonostante non si serva del tradizionale criterio biografico . Metodi, strumenti, fonti e stili ricognitivi fanno dell'autore un vero e proprio prototipo dello storico dell'arte com'è oggi inteso.

Through the Angevin family, Naples and Hungary had very close relations
in the 14th century. Matthias Corvinus (1458–1490) was thus
reviving an old connection when he married Beatrice, daughter of King
Ferdinand of Naples, in 1476. The Aragon dynasty’ s patronage of the
arts was most notable in book collecting and music, and this found a
lively echo in the court of Buda, especially the Corvina Library and the
musical life. It was also through the link with Naples that Matthias’ library acquired Renaissance architectural treatises in the 1480s. Beatrice’ s
brother Giovanni d’ Aragona may have been instrumental in this. Matthias
appointed him Archbishop of Esztergom, the highest ecclesiastical
dignity in Hungary (1484–1485). The other intermediary in the study
of architecture was the Florentine humanist Francesco Bandini, who
lived in Naples and came to the Hungarian court in 1476 in Beatrice’ s
retinue. He brought Filarete’ s treatise from Italy for Matthias in 1488.

Il saggio propone una rilettura della nota guida di Napoli pubblicata nel 1692 da Carlo Celano, le Notitie del bello, dell’antico e del curioso della città di Napoli, ma con particolare attenzione per l’interesse continuo ivi dimostrato per la dimensione materiale della città. Soffermandosi sistematicamente sulla qualità della pietra utilizzata in molti edifici napoletani, Celano offre nella sua guida un’illustrazione dettagliata ed esperta della notevole varietà e ricchezza di materiali edili, che nella realtà napoletana del Seicento contraddistingue non solo il panorama urbano ma anche la stessa identità cittadina. La documentazione contenuta nel libro di Celano illustra pertanto un fenomeno caratteristico per l’urbanistica napoletana, e in un momento che precede di poco la sua distruzione, in seguito all’introduzione di stucco come materiale adatto per coprire quasi tutte le superfici, anche quelle in pietre solo recentemente elogiate per la loro propria qualità estetica.

Il repertorio consente di tracciare per la prima volta la geografia editoriale del paese in un secolo segnato da radicali cambiamenti nelle forme di produzione del libro. Ne emerge un fitto tessuto di imprese disseminate su tutto il territorio nazionale, in cui tipografi e librai di tradizione artigianale si affiancano alle grandi case editrici già impegnate nel processo di industrializzazione delle attività editoriali.

Abstract: Ottoman expansion into the Western Mediterranean in the sixteenth century created an intense rivalry with the Habsburgs. This article examines this conflict from a different aspect, i.e. that of espionage. While on the one hand analysing the political changes in the Mare Nostrum in the 1530s, on the other, it scrutinizes the Neapolitan intelligence, the most important information gathering at the service of Emperor Charles V. It furthermore specifically concentrates on the contribution of espionage to the Emperor’s campaign of Tunis against Khayr al-din Barbarossa.

Keywords: Mediterranean studies, early modern espionage, Habsburg-Ottoman rivalry, Kingdom of Naples, North Africa.

The article aims to compare different moments in the evolution of the valimiento through the government and the political conduct of three viceroys of Naples. The VII Count of Lemos in the years of Lerma, the Duke of Medina de las Torres in the Olivares' period and the Count of Castrillo during the government of Haro are three examples of viceroys who were linked to their respective valido by close kinship ties and they were part of that group of families that supported the favorite and benefited from his power. Attention will be paid to the relationships that the three viceroys established with the great aristocracy of the kingdom of Naples, that is, with the main noble families which, during the 17th century, were not only strong in the provinces (the so-called baronaggio), but they were deeply rooted in the capital and in the institutions of government of the kingdom.

This article investigates the largely neglected ceremonial and festive system of the Austrian viceroyalty in Naples (1707-34). A thorough exploration of contemporary ceremonial books, festival chronicles and state correspondence shows a tradition of continuity with the previous Spanish regime, alongside breaks and changes dictated by the political agenda and limitations of the Austrians, which were largely shaped by their dynastic rivalry with the Spanish Bourbons during the War of the Spanish Succession. Accordingly, this investigation presents a unique opportunity to chart how the cultural policies of the most influential eighteenth-century European dynasties played out in the distinctive context of Naples.

[it] La particolare attenzione riservata all’«umanesimo civile» fiorentino e l’affermarsi nella storiografia anglo-americana del paradigma “repubblicano” hanno contribuito, in forme diverse, a limitare l’interesse degli storici per i contesti principeschi e monarchici della penisola italiana nel tardo Medioevo. Questa tendenza, unita alle gravi perdite documentarie dell’Archivio di Stato di Napoli, ha relegato finora le élites ascritte ai Seggi di numerose città del Regnum ai margini del dibattito storiografico internazionale. Nel corso del Quattrocento il riuso dell’Antico non trasformò solo i linguaggi di legittimità e l’azione dei principi, ma anche quelli delle élites urbane dell’intera penisola. A quali auctores essi s’ispirarono? Qual è il rapporto tra il classicismo e i progetti di riforme istituzionali? Il volume prova a rispondere a tali quesiti, soffermandosi sul contesto napoletano, finora poco indagato, attraverso l’analisi e l’edizione critica del Libro terczo de regimento de l’Opera de le medaglie di Pietro Jacopo de Jennaro. Si tratta di un’opera composta tra il 1500 e il 1504, come libero commento in medaglie agli Ab urbe condita libri di Livio, per ridefinire la preminenza politica della più antica nobiltà dei Seggi e per proporre un nuovo modello di governo misto. Attraverso l’esame di tale opera si ripercorrono i dibattiti relativi al rapporto tra rappresentanza e obbedienza, tra consenso e legittimità negli ultimi anni del regno dei Trastámara, offrendo nuovi spunti per ripensare il classicismo politico umanistico e i processi di chiusura oligarchica tra Quattro e Cinquecento. [en] The specific attention paid to the Florentine «civic humanism» and the success of “republican” paradigm achieved by the Anglo-American historiography are responsible, in various forms, for limiting differently historical interests in the princely and monarchical contexts of the late Middle Ages Italian peninsula. This tendency, joined with the serious documentary loss of the Naples State Archive, put so far the Seggi élites of many Southern mainland cities away on the margins of historical international debate. During the 15th century the reception of the Antiquity transformed the legitimacy languages and the power practices both of the princes and of the whole peninsula urban élites. Which auctores did they inspire to? Which is the relationship between the classicism and the institutional reform proposals? This book tries to answer to these questions, focusing on the Naples context, not deeply investigated, through the study and the critical edition of Pietro Jacopo de Jennaro’s Libro terczo de regimento de l’Opera de le medaglie. It is a book wrote between 1500 and 1504, as free comment in form of medaglie to Livy’s Ab urbe condita libri, in order to legitimize the political prominence of Seggi antiqui lineages and to propose a new mixed government. By studying this work it is possible to identify the debates developed during the Aragonese kingdom fall, concerning the relationships between representation and obedience, consensus and legitimacy, and to offer new ways to rethink the humanistic political classicism and the establishments of oligarchical urban governments between the 15th and 16th centuries.

Just as the making of a patron saint was an important event in baroque devotional and urban history, so the city itself was an event in holiness and sanctity. This article investigates the figuring of saint and city while resisting the tendency in historical scholarship to treat city and saint in terms of representation. Instead I examine the co-implication of saint and city in terms of event in baroque Naples, seeking to treat neither as discrete and thus their relation as more than merely sequential, in order to consider the re-imagining of the city that was implicated in the re-imaging of sanctity. I argue that reconfiguring this relation amounts to a dislocation. That dislocation also entails the question of the subject of the city and indeed of subjectivity, with which city and saint were intimately enfolded.