1344-1346
IN NAPLES--THE ACCESSION OF GIOVANNA--THE MURDER OF ANDREW OF
HUNGARY--THE VENGEANCE
Those three years of tumult in Florence cannot but have made a
profound impression on a man like Boccaccio. "Florence is full of
boastful voices and cowardly deeds," he writes in the _Fiammetta_,
while his account of the Duke in the _De Casibus Virorum Illustrium_
tells us clearly enough what he thought of that business. Was it the
public confusion in Florence that sent him back to Naples in 1344
or 1345,[322] on an invitation from Niccolò Acciaiuolo, or just a
hope of seeing once more Madonna Fiammetta, whom, as we have seen,
even amid the dreadful excitement of those three years, he had never
been able really to forget for a moment? We shall never know; but
if it were any expectation of peace or hope of finding in that far
city the old splendour and gaiety he had once enjoyed there, he
must indeed have been disappointed. Already, before he returned
to Florence in 1341, the rule of King Robert, who was then in his
last years, had weakened; and factions were already forming which,
when the wise king passed away, were not slow to divide the city
against itself. No doubt the splendid reception offered to Petrarch,
the gaiety of all that, served to hide the dangerous condition of
affairs, which was not rendered less insecure by the fact that King
Robert's heir was a girl still in her first youth, Giovanna the
beautiful, daughter of Charles of Calabria.
"Giovanna Regina
Grassa nè magra, bella el viso tondo
Dotata bene de la virtù divina
D' animo grato, benigno, jocondo."[323]
So sang the poets, and that the painters were not less enthusiastic
is proved by the frescoes in S. Maria dell' Incoronata.
In 1342 Giovanna was entering her seventeenth year, while Andrew of
Hungary, her betrothed, was but fifteen. On Easter Day in that year
King Robert invested him with the insignia of knighthood, and four
days later he was to have been married to the Princess, but the death
first of Pope Benedict (April 25th), and then of the King of Hungary,
his father (July 15th), prevented the ceremony, so that it was not
till August that it could take place, and then quite suddenly King
Robert the Wise died, aged sixty-four, on January 19th, 1343. In the
frock of a Franciscan tertiary they buried him in S. Chiara, behind
the high altar, and Sancius and Johannes of Florence presently built
there the great and beautiful tomb we know.[324]
"Pastorum Rex Argus erat: cui lumina centum
Lyncea, cui centum vigiles cum sensibus aures
Centum artes, centumque manus, centumque lacerti
Lingua sed una fuit."[325]
So said Petrarch.
Now by his Will, as was inevitable, Robert appointed his
granddaughter Giovanna his successor and heiress to all his
dominions--including Provence and most of his Piedmontese
possessions; he left her too the unrestored island of Sicily and
the title of Jerusalem. In case of her death all was to pass to
Maria her sister, who later married the Duke of Durazzo. During
Giovanna's minority and that of her husband Andrew of Hungary,
which were to last till they were twenty-five, the Will vested the
government in a Supreme Council which was in fact dominated by the
Dowager Queen Sancia, and was composed of Philip de Cabassoles,
Bishop of Cavaillon, vice-chancellor of the realm on behalf of the
suzerain Holy See, Charles d'Artois, Count of S. Agata, natural son
of King Robert, Goffredo Marzano, Count of Squillace, admiral of the
Kingdom, and Filippo di Sanguinetto, Count of Altomonte, seneschal in
Provence. It thus appears that the intention of the King was to keep
the throne in his own line, certainly not to make Andrew of Hungary
king in Naples. The two branches of his house had had, it will be
remembered, almost equal rights to the throne, and if Clement V for
his own good had decided in favour of the younger branch, that is in
favour of Robert, though Charles Martel of Hungary, Andrew's father,
submitted to the Papal decision, Robert had thought it prudent to
make voluntarily a kind of composition of his rights and the claims
of his brothers in arranging the marriage between Andrew his nephew
and his granddaughter Giovanna. It will thus be seen that Giovanna's
marriage was a political act designed to establish peace between the
descendants of Charles d'Anjou.[326] That no peace but a sword came
of it we shall see.
[Illustration: CIMON AND IPHEGENIA. (DEC. V, 1)
_From a miniature in the French version of the "Decameron," made in
1414 by Laurent le Premierfait. MS. late XV century. (Brit. Mus.
Rothschild Bequest. MS. XIII)_]
King Robert had not been dead many months when the Hungarians, sure
of Andrew's protection, began to flock to Naples. They angered
those who surrounded the Queen and even the Queen herself by their
insolence, and thus the court was divided into two parties, or rather
there were two courts in one palace.
In the autumn of 1343 Petrarch was once more in Naples. In a letter
to Barbato di Sulmona he pays an eloquent tribute to King Robert, and
at the same time states his reasons for anxiety as to the condition
of the Kingdom. "I fear as much from the youthfulness of the Queen
and her consort as from the age and ideas of the Queen Dowager; but I
am especially afraid of the administration and manners of the court.
Perhaps I am a bad prophet: I hope so. But I seem to see two lambs
in the care of a pack of wolves...." Touching on the administration,
Petrarch gives the following account of Fra Roberto, the Franciscan
confessor of Andrew. "I encountered a deformed creature, barefooted,
hoodless, vainglorious in his poverty, degenerate through his
sensuality; in fact, a homunculus, bald and rubicund, with bloated
limbs.... Would you hear his revered name? He is called 'Robert.'
Yes, in the place of the noblest of kings, till lately the glory of
our age, has arisen this Robert who, on the contrary, will disgrace
it. Nor will I henceforth hold it a fable they relate of a serpent
able to be generated from a buried corpse, since from the royal
sepulchre has issued this reptile." And indeed of all the court he
has a good word for Philip de Cabassoles only: "he who alone stands
up on the side of justice."
So much for the administration; nor were the manners he found there
any better, in his judgment. The whole city was divided against
itself, and life was altogether insecure. The council is "compelled
to end its sittings at sunset, for the turbulent young nobles make
the streets quite unsafe after dark. And what wonder if they are
unruly and society corrupt, when the public authorities actually
countenance all the horrors of gladiatorial games? These disgusting
exhibitions take place in open day before the court and populace in
this city of Italy with more than barbaric ferocity."[327]
The vicious life of this and the following years in Naples is usually
attributed to the example and influence of Queen Giovanna. In fact
nothing can be further from the truth. In King Robert's time the
court life was, as we have seen, very far from being exemplary, but
Giovanna herself was not weak and abandoned. Already Hungary was
pressing the claims of Andrew to equal if not superior power to hers.
She never flinched for a moment; from the hour she perceived the way
things were drifting she determined to win.
At first things seemed altogether against her. In June, 1344, she
wrote to Charles of Durazzo, her sister's husband, telling him that
Cardinal Aimeric, the Papal Legate, had entered her kingdom without
her leave, and that therefore she and Andrew were gone to Aversa to
meet him. There she made peace, acknowledged the Cardinal as Regent,
and admitted her crown to be held from the Holy See. Andrew signed
her proclamation as a mere witness.[328] But this intrusion of the
Papacy by no means improved chances of peace.
The coming of Andrew, with his Hungarian pretensions and those crowds
of needy foreign place-hunters, angered the Neapolitan people it
is true, but it infuriated the long-established group of domestic
functionaries in Castel Nuovo, who in some sort had been confirmed
in their offices by the Will of King Robert. The head of this court
party, as whole-heartedly against Andrew as it was against the Pope,
was Filippa la Catanese, now quite an old woman. Among her family
were Raimondo the seneschal, Sancia de Cabannis, Contessa di Morcone,
her granddaughter, wife of Carlo di Gambatesa, Roberto de Cabannis,
grand seneschal of the Kingdom, and his wife. This group sided with
Giovanna, and in its own interest pushed her claims against those of
Aimeric and Andrew. They were supported more or less in secret by
Catherine of Taranto and her sons Robert and Louis.
A storm was obviously brewing, and it must have been about this time
that Boccaccio returned to Naples, perhaps on the invitation of
Niccolò Acciaiuoli, secretary and protégé of Catherine of Taranto.
No doubt he hoped to see Fiammetta--no doubt he did see her, though
what came of it we shall never know; but he found no more peace in
Naples than in Florence.
In February, 1345, the Pope removed Aimeric, who he declared had
succeeded in governing _pacifice et quiete_.[329] The Cardinal
returned to Avignon, and moved in the Consistory that Andrew be
crowned king. He was supported by Durazzo. Giovanna appealed.
The Pope listened, but ordered that Filippa la Catanese, Sancia,
Margherita, and others should be dismissed. From that moment the
Catanesi plotted to murder Andrew.
It was the custom of the court (then, as it happened, in mourning for
the Dowager Queen Sancia, who died July 28, 1345) to spend the summer
at one of the royal palaces outside Naples. In July Giovanna, then
with child, had gone with the court to Castellamare; in September
she moved to Aversa. On the night of the 18th, the anniversary of
Andrew's arrival in Naples, the Queen had retired early, and Andrew
too had gone early to his room, when Tommaso, son of Mambriccio di
Tropea, summoned him from his chamber into a passage leading toward
the garden, on the pretence, as it is said, that messengers had
arrived from Naples with important despatches. In that passageway
he was seized, gagged, and strangled, and his body thrown into the
garden, where it was discovered by his Hungarian nurse.[330] It was
at once whispered that the Queen was concerned in the murder, and
this rumour has been accepted as the truth even in our own day;[331]
but, in fact, there is little or nothing to substantiate it. Her
account[332] scarcely differs from that of the Pope, but adds that a
man had been seized and executed for the crime. Then, after a day or
two, the Queen left Aversa for Naples. Andrew's nurse remained in her
service and nursed her through her confinement in December.
The murder of Andrew, whose handiwork soever, effectually divided
the Kingdom into two parties, to wit those of Durazzo and Taranto;
the former demanding punishment of the murderers. Two Cardinals, di
S. Clemente and di S. Marco, were appointed by the Pope to rule in
Naples and to exact vengeance. The Queen was helpless. On December
25th her son was born and named Charles Martel. As time went on and
none of the assassins were brought to justice, the Hungarians became
furious, and at last requested the custody of the young prince;
and this request became a demand when it was known that Giovanna
was being sought in marriage by Robert of Taranto, who, with his
mother and his half-brother Louis, had been covertly associated with
the Catanesi. Something had to be done, and early in 1346 we find
Charles of Durazzo with Robert of Taranto and Ugo del Balzo seizing
Raimondo the seneschal, as one of the guilty persons. Under torture
he confessed that he had knowledge of the plot and assisted those who
committed the murder. Among his accomplices he named the Count of
Terlizzi, Roberto de Cabannis, Giovanni and Rostaino di Lagonessa,
Niccolò di Melezino, Filippa Catanese, and Sancia de Cabannis.
Charles of Durazzo and Robert of Taranto therefore determined to hunt
down the Catanese family and offer it as a peace-offering to the King
of Hungary, who already threatened to descend upon the Kingdom. At
Durazzo's instigation an armed mob surrounded Castel Nuovo hunting
for the murderers. A few had been wise enough to flee, but most of
those denounced were arrested, imprisoned in Castel Capuano, and put
to torture. In vain the Queen protested against the princes' action.
They achieved their purpose and the Pope, in a Bull of March 19th,
1346, pardoned them, asserting that God had moved them to it.
The Queen, as might be expected, had now no further wish to marry
Robert of Taranto; and, indeed, finding that she could not depend on
him for help, she had already promised herself to his half-brother
Louis. In this second marriage she begged for the favour of the Holy
See. The Pope, though not averse, bullied by Hungary, temporised.
Now, behind Louis of Taranto was the most astute mind of that age,
Boccaccio's old friend, Niccolò Acciaiuoli, the Florentine. He
resolved to win for his patron both the Queen of Naples and the
crown. Nor was he easily discouraged. Yet, at first certainly
things looked black enough for him.
[Illustration: GULFARDO AND GUASPARRUOLO. (DEC. VIII, 1)
_From a miniature in the French version of the "Decameron," made in
1414 by Laurent le Premierfait. MS. late XV century. (Brit. Museum.
Rothschild Bequest, MS. XIV.)_]
Early in August, 1346, there had been erected along the shore by the
Castello dell' Ovo a palisade encircling a raised platform. Here,
under Ugo del Balzo, the public torture of the suspected began.
Whatever else Boccaccio may have seen or done in Naples, it seems
certain that he was a witness of this dreadful orgie.[333]
But in Naples confusion followed on confusion. Without waiting for
the Pope's leave, risking an interdict, Louis of Taranto married
Giovanna in the Castel Nuovo in August, 1347, while already King
Louis of Hungary was creeping down through the Abruzzi to invade the
Kingdom and seize the city. On January 15, 1348, the Queen, with a
few friends, leaving her child behind, sailed for Provence. Not long
after Louis of Taranto and Acciaiuoli reached Naples, and, finding
her departed, took ship for Tuscany. With them, according to Witte,
went Boccaccio. However that may be, when next we hear of him he is
in Romagna at the court of Ostasio da Polenta. Louis of Taranto and
Acciaiuoli, with or without him, landed at Porto Ercole of the Counts
Orsini of Sovana, and two days later del Balzo surrendered Castel
dell' Ovo with the young Prince Charles Martel. King Louis was then
at Aversa, where he captured Philip of Taranto and Louis of Durazzo
who had come to treat with him. Then Charles of Durazzo was seized,
tried for the murder of Andrew, and condemned: and they took him to
Aversa and struck off his head on the scene of the crime. But even
the Neapolitans, who had in fact taken little part in the war, if a
war it can be called, being busy with their own feuds, grew weary of
the invasion, so that when King Louis demanded ransom from them,
posing as a conqueror, they proved to him that it would be wiser
to withdraw. And there were other arguments: for the Black Death
fell on his army and he fled, leaving only enough troops to prevent
Giovanna from returning. She, poor Queen, without soldiers or money,
was compelled to cede Avignon to the Holy See for 80,000 florins, on
condition that the Pope declared her innocent of the murder of her
husband and proclaimed the legality of her second marriage. Thus the
Church was the only gainer by these appalling crimes and treasons.
Once more Israel had spoiled the Egyptians. It was not till 1352,
after the second invasion of King Louis, that Giovanna was able to
return to Naples.
FOOTNOTES:
[322] We do not know when, if at all at this time, Boccaccio returned
to Naples. The only testimony by which Baldelli, Witte, and Koerting
hold that he was in Naples in 1345 is the passage in the _De Casibus
Virorum Illustrium_, Lib. IX, cap. 25, where he narrates, as though
he had been present on the occasion, the terrible end of Philippa
la Catanese (see _infra_). Witte, however, wishes to support this
evidence by an interpretation of certain words in the letter to
Zanobi, _Longum tempus effluxit_ (see CORRAZINI, _op. cit._, p.
33). Hortis, Gaspary, and Hauvette, however, assert that in the _De
Casibus, u.s._, Boccaccio does not actually say he was present on the
occasion mentioned, but only says, _quæ fere vidi_, while the passage
in the letter to Zanobi, they say, refers to Acciaiuoli. Lastly,
Hecker observes that the words of Boccaccio seem to prove that he was
in Naples in 1345. In fact, speaking of the condemnation and torture
of the Catanese as accomplice in the assassination of King Andrew he
says: "quædam auribus, quædam oculis sumpta meis describam."
[323] See _Arch. St. per la prov. Nap._, An. V, p. 617. For an
excellent account of King Robert's reign, as of Giovanna's, see
BADDELEY, _King Robert the Wise and His Heirs_ (Heinemann, 1881). It
is a good defence of the Queen.
[324] Gio. Villani, who did not love the Angevins, tells us that King
Robert was full of every virtue, admitting, however, that in his last
years he was very avaricious; and in this he agrees with Boccaccio.
He says, however, that he was the wisest monarch of Christendom after
Charlemagne. Boccaccio too calls him Solomon. In a poem attributed to
Convenevole da Prato he is hailed as the sovereign of United Italy.
But it is to Petrarch he owes his fame. Robert was a great patron
of the Franciscans, then utterly rotten. Boccaccio doubtless saw
enough in Naples to give him justification for his stories later. See
_infra_.
[325] Petrarch, _Egloga_, II.
[326] Here is the genealogical table:--
Charles I of Anjou, K. of Naples (1226-85)
|
Charles II == Mary of Hungary (1285-1309)
|
|
+---------------+-------+-------+--------------+------------+
| | | | |
Hungary Naples Durazzo Taranto Provence
| | | |
Charles Martel Robert John, D. of Philip, P. of
| (1309-43) Durazzo Taranto
| | | |
Charles Robert Charles | |
| | | |
+---+---+ +---+---+ +---+---+ +---+-------+
| | | | | | | |
Louis Andrew==Giovanna Maria==Charles Louis Louis |
(1343-82) | | m. Giovanna |
| | after Andrew's |
| | death |
| | Philip
Margaret==Charles III m. Maria
K. of Naples after Charles
of Durazzo's
death
[327] I quote Mr. Hollway-Calthrop's redaction in his _Petrarch_
(Methuen, 1907), p. 112. He adds: "Knowing nothing of what he was to
see, Petrarch was taken to a spectacle attended by the sovereigns in
state; suddenly, to his horror, he saw a beautiful youth killed for
pastime, expiring at his feet, and putting spurs to his horse, he
fled at full gallop from the place." These gladiatorial games took
place in Carbonara.
[328] BADDELEY, _op. cit._
[329] He received beside his board and lodging 19,000 florins of gold
as salary. These were not paid by the Pope, whose servant he was, but
by Queen Giovanna and the wretched Neapolitans. The amount was fixed
by the Pope. Cf. BADDELEY, _op. cit._
[330] Cf. BADDELEY, _op. cit._, p. 344. The Pope's account is as
follows: "Immediately he was summoned by them he went into the
gallery or promenade which is before the chamber. Then certain men
placed their hands over his mouth so that he could not cry out, and
in this act they so pressed their iron gauntlets that their print
and character were manifest after death. Others placed a rope round
his neck in order to strangle him, and this likewise left its mark;
others 'vero receperunt eum pro genitalia, et adeo traxerunt, quod
multi qui dicebant se vidisse retulerunt mihi quod transcendebant
genua', while others tore out his hair, dragged him, and threw him
into the garden. Some say with the rope with which they had strangled
him they swung him as if hanging over the garden. It was further
related to us that they intended to throw him into a well, and
thereafter to give it out he had left the Kingdom ... and this would
have been carried out had not his nurse quickly come upon the scene."
Cf. BALUZIUS, _Vitæ Paparum Avenonensium_, 1305-94, Vol. II, p. 86,
and BADDELEY, _op. cit._, p. 344 _et seq._
[331] e.g. another account states that "a conspiracy was formed
against the young Andrew, and it is said, with some truth, that
the Queen was the soul of it. One evening in September, 1345, the
court being at the Castello of Aversa, a chamberlain entered the
royal apartment, where Andrew was with the Queen, to announce to
them that despatches of great importance were arrived from Naples.
Andrew went out immediately, and as he passed through the salon which
separated his room from the Queen's, he was seized and hanged from
the window of the palace by a golden rope said to have been woven by
the Queen's hands, and there he was left for two days. The Queen, who
was, or pretended to be, stupefied with horror, returned to Naples.
No real attempt, even at the behest of the Pope, was made to find
the assassins." The Queen was within three months of the birth of
her child when the murder occurred. She gained nothing by Andrew's
death but exile. The murderers, so far as we can judge now, were
undoubtedly the Catanese group in danger of losing their positions at
court.
[332] Giovanna's own account is given in BADDELEY, _op. cit._, p.
345, n. 2. Mr. Baddeley is her ablest English defender. See also
a curious book by AMALFI, _La Regina Giovanna nella Tradizione_
(Naples, 1892).
[333] See _supra_, p. 108, n. 1. All sorts of stories have been
current as to Boccaccio's personal relations with Queen Giovanna.
By some he is said to have been her lover, by others to have been
in her debt for the suggestion of the scheme of the _Decameron_ so
far as it is merely a collection of merry tales. These tales he is
supposed to have told her. No evidence is to be found for any of
these assertions. But cf. HORTIS, _op. cit._, p. 109 and n. 1.