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CHARLES III. OF NAPLES
AND URBAN VL
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NAPl^S, SICILY. ANr> JERUSALF.M.
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Charles III. of Naples
AND URBAN VL
ALSO
CECCO D'ASCOLI
POET, ASTROLOGER, PHYSICIAN
SvDo fetetottcal eeestee
»t^ SI CLAIR BADDELEY
It^irn ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON
WILLIAM HEINEMANN
1894
lAI/ rights mmttf]
To
LOUIS SCHOTT, Esq
PREFACE.
JOR the understanding of the tragic
and somewhat remarkable history
laid bare in the following pages, it
is sufficient to premise that Charles,
Duke of Durazzo (Delia Pace), was at
this period the sole surviving direct male representa-
tive of the three Neapolitan branches of the House
of Anjou. That being so, he had been adopted,
educated, and treated in all things as a possible
successor to her throne by Queen Joanna I.
His father, Louis, had died in the prisons of the
Castello deir Ovo at Naples in June 1362, while
undergoing captivity for persistent rebellion.^ It has
often been stated that he died of poison administered
to him by Queen Joanna ; but I find that an Inquisi-
torial process had been opened against him during the
last few months of his life on account of hia having
joined and patronised the proscribed sect of the
Fraticelli.^ He had further incurred the wrath of
Avignon by violently laying hands on the properties
of his niece, Joanna, Duchess of Durazzo.^ More-
1 Chron. Vatic, 19 ; M. Villani, i. 86. He had previously given his
eon, Charlea, a hostage to Queen Joannft, for his own good behaviour.
' Archivio Storico per le Province Napolilane ; Lea, Hist. laquisi-
tion, vol, iiL 158, anno xii. faac. i. pp. 39, 40.
' BegesCo delle lettere Innocenzo VI. ; Mart^e and Durand, Thea-
aiinu, u. 77,
viii PREFACK
over, as formerly with Andrew of Hungary, the
princes Robert and Philip of Taranto were not un-
interested' in his decease,^ thinking that he might be-
come a suitor for the Queen's hand upon the death of
their brother King LuigL^ Hence, it is manifestly
unnecessary to lay the charge of his death at Queen
Joanna's door, as has usually been done, and for which
there is not forthcoming one tittle of evidence.
The mother of Charles, Margherita da Corigliano,
was a daughter of Roberto San Severino, Count of
Tricarico, and had predeceased his father. His own
wife was destined to bear the same Christian name ;
for Queen Joanna, having lost all her own children
in their infancy, had already adopted Margaret,
youngest daughter of her only sister, and prospec-
tive heiress, Maria da Durazzo. These two children
were therefore brought up together. It was later
on intended by the Queen, that Margaret should
marry Frederick HI. of Sicily. Owing, however, to
the fact that Sicily with her Aragonese ruler was at
this period under Papal interdict, the project was
abandoned, and the Queen afterwards obtained a
1369. dispensation from Urban V. for the union of Mar-
garet with her cousin, Charles of Durazzo, which
1370. consequently took place at Naples with very natural
rejoicings.*
In consequence of the interested and reiterated
* Chron. di Parthenope, iii. 40, apud Muratori, RI.S.S.
* He died 26th May 1362.
^ Her elder sisters, Joanna and Agnes, had in turn surrendered their
rights to the throne on the occasions of their respective marriages, so
PREFACK ix
overtures made him by his kinsman Louis, King of
Hungary and Poland (perhaps the most powerful
monarch of his day in Europe), to whom, as early
^ 1363, Urban V. had written reconmiending him,
the young prince obtained the reluctant consent of
Queen Joanna to his visiting Buda, in order to
acquaint himself with the arts of war and the exer-
cises of chivalry.^
Unfortunately, a life-long jealousy and enmity had
subsisted between the King of Hungary and his
cousin. Queen Joanna, owing to the bitter family
divisions which had formerly culminated in the
assassination of his brother Andrew, her first hus-
band, in 1345. These feelings, though necessarily
moderated by time, and by vengeance taken, had
been assiduously kept alive through the vindictive
vigour of the old queen -mother, Elisabeth, who
now governed her native Poland for her son Louis.
Outward harmony between the respective realms was,
nevertheless, ably preserved by the political tact of
three successive Pontiffs — Innocent VL, Urban V.,
and Gregory XL, who continuously advised and
favoured the unfortunate Queen of Naples.
Acutely made aware of the antagonism nourished
against her at the Hungarian Court, it is scarcely
matter for wonder that Queen Joanna should have
regarded the departure of Charles from Italy with
that Margaret was now definitively heiress to Queen Joanna, by suc-
cession to her mother, Maria da Durazzo, in accordance with the wiU
of King Robert. See * Genealogy.' Chron. di Parth., 41.
^ Theiner, Mon. Hist Hungar., torn, ii 62 ; Chron. di Parthenope, iii 40.
X PKEFACK
the gravest misgivings. A brief interval sufficed to
confirm, in no doubtful manner, the accuracy of her
tristful forecast. More and more of his time was
spent at Buda : less and less was spent at Naples.
Louis having daughters only, succeeded in absorbing
the Prince's affection, and trained him, during his
ensuing wars with the Venetian Republic, for a
military commander.
Left alone at Naples, owing to the insane Spanish
enterprises of her husband, James of Majorca,^ and
later, by his death, finding herself once more a widow
burdened with great political responsibilities, in 1376
March 95. 1376. Queen Joanna accepted the hand of Otho, Duke of
Brunswick, a tried and famous general, and conferred
upon him the Principality of Taranto. There can be
no doubt this union, ^ reasonable as it was, gave um-
brage to both Charles and Margaret, who had been
made, not unduly, to realise their own proximity to
the throne, though it cannot be reputed the primal
cause of the rupture between Charles and his well-
intentioned foster-mother. It is probable that it
seemed a vigorous response to the policy being pur-
sued by the King of Hungary, who, with a view of
dictating to Naples in case of the death of Queen
Joanna, was then carrying on active negotiations
with Charles V. of France.^
* Annales de Aragon, Q. Zurita, voL iL See excerpts translated in
the Appendix to Queen Joanna I. Froissart's Chronicle.
* Although Otho had in the previous yeax stood godfather to their son
Ladislaus. ' Cujus compater idem Dux Otto erat, qui ipsum Ladislanm
regem de sacro fonte levavit' De Niem, De Scismate, lib. L xxi
' The Queen was now fifty-one years of age ; see p. 33, note 4 ; also
PREFACK xi
So long as the Papacy was in the keeping of
French Pontiffs at Avignon, the relations between it 1305-1378.
and the throne of Naples were cordial in the ex-
treme. To Queen Joanna herself the Holy See owed
possession of Avignon, which, as Countess of Pro-
vence, she had sold to it in 1 348 ; and to the Holy
See in the first instance the House of Anjou owed
possession of the thrones of Naples and Hungary.
As soon, however, as in answer to the popular demand
for an Italian Pontiff, an upstart Neapolitan prelate
was elected to fill the throne of St. Peter in the person
of (Bartolommeo Prignano) Urban VI. , a heavy storm-
cloud again not only overshadowed the diplomatic
relations of those realms with one another, but
threatened those of every other state in Christendom.
Almost from the day of his election, in 1378,
this Pope openly avowed designs upon the king-
dom of Naples for the aggrandisement of his own
family. Not successful in bringing about a pro-
jected union between Maria, daughter and heiress of
Frederick III. of Sicily, and his nephew Francesco
Prignano, he picked a quarrel with Queen Joanna
and her husband over the matter,^ and then, taking
advantage of the thinly veiled enmity borne her by
King Louis, promised his Pontifical assistance to
Charles of Durazzo if he would come from Hungary
to snatch Naples from its ruler. Meanwhile he
Archivio Storico per le Province Napolitane, anno xii fasc. ii 394,
note I.
^ See ' Queen Joanna I.,' pp. 248, 249 ; De Niem, De Scismate, 1. i,
c vi ; Bonincontri, c 29 ; Chron. Reginens, Gazat, apud Muratori,
xii PREPACK
gratuitously insulted the Cardinals who had elected
him; whereupon, disgusted with his violence and
brutality, they deserted him in a body, and elected in
his stead, Robert, Cardinal of Geneva, styled Clement
VII., simultaneously declaring Urban s election to be
void. Thus commenced the Western Schism. In
the extraordinary ferment that ensued, Louis of Hun-
gary adhered to Urban, while Queen Joanna naturally
sided with the French Cardinals and their patron,
Onorato Cajetani, Lord of Fondi.^
Urban now pronounced the Queen excommunicate ^
and her throne vacant, and forthwith sent urgent
messages to Hungary, first of all offering her king-
dom to Louis, who refused it, and then to Charles
of Durazzo, whom he entreated to hasten, promising
personally to crown him at Rome ; at the same time,
however, slily determining to exact intolerable con-
ditions from him in the event of his success in the
necessary campaign. Meantime, seeing no clear way
out of the stormy straits into which these ominous
developments were rapidly driving her. Queen Joanna
had reluctant recourse to the only important political
means for self-defence in her power, and summoned
to her aid her kinsman Louis, Duke of Anjou, brother
xviiL 88. Otho desired to marry her to his ward and kinsman,
Giovanni, Marquis of Montfcrrat, afterwards killed in the skirmish
with Charles of Durazzo before Naples, when Otho himself was taken
prisoner. Chron. Vaticanum, 39.
* Clement created him * Rector CampanijB et Maritimae,' and his
daughter, Jacobella, married Duke Otho's brother, Balthasar, 1379. II
Saggiatore, anno ii. voL iv. 296.
* April 21, 138a Qol)elinus, Persona in Cosmodrom, vi. 76.
PREFACE. xui
of Charles V. of France, granting him in return for
promise of it, letters of adoption as her absolute suc-
cessor to the throne of Naples and the Countships of
Provence and Forcalquier.^
The Duke eagerly accepted his new responsibilities,
and, in concert with the Antipope, at once devised
means for collecting a formidable army in order to
counteract Charles and Urban in Italy. But fortune
was against the Queen of Naples. Her antagonists,
already equipped for the fray, descended upon her
realm before the Duke of Anjou could even organise
his forces. Consequently, in July 1 381, by the out-
flanking of her army under command of Duke
Otho, she found herself closely besieged by Charles
in the Castello Nuovo, in her own capital, and vainly
awaiting the advent of the Duke of Anjou.
Some details of these important affairs have been
recounted at length in a previous work, on Queen
Joanna I., for the kind reception of which, in spite of
its many defects and shortcomings, I am sincerely
grateful to my reviewers. Since that was published,
however, I have had the advantage of making a
further considerable sojourn among the scenes where
these events took place, and of studying the many
valuable archivial documents brought to light in
recent years by the admirable researches of the late
Matteo Camera, N. Barone, Giuseppe de Blasiis,
^ Clement confirmed her assignment, August i, 1380. Liinig, Codic.
ItaL Diplom., ii. 1 142 ; Vita dementis, apud Baluzium ; Juvenal des
Ursins, Hist Charles VI., 1.L 543.
xiv PREFACE
Minieri Riccio, and Dr. George Erier, to which I
have here united the results of similar studies in
contemporaneous Hungarian and French history.
In this volume I have included an Essay on another
Italian subject belonging to the fourteenth century,
namely, "Cecco d'Ascoli, Poet, Physician, Astrologer;"
a noted contemporary of Dante ; for a short time an
instructor of Petrarch; and ultimately a victim of
the Holy Inquisition.
November 27, 1893.
^ b
iENEAL^
Naples.
died 1SS7. She
died 1341.
1345.
BOBERT, „ I ,1
d 1343 Bbatrics, Leonora,
m. (1) Vioiante»v 0) ^mo Este, m. Frederick, Kin«
ofAWon Duke of Ferrara. of Sicily. He
m. (2) 8aAcha\(2) Ber^ando del - "
of Aragon, d. ?»fe. Connt of
Andria and Monte-
Bcaglioso.
I
ANCESCO DEL BALZO,
CuKitnt^* ^^® ®' Andria,
^v. 1 77, 1 L-i Margaret of Taranto.
Ai2L« if ^?9\ o' ^er brothers In
.l2TMa%tf V'^ol «-^. ^««-
d, 1331. He die
1328.
1326,
, 1341.
jUo,
I of Tar-
of Ma-
)uke of
1376.
11393.
1882.
^?^*i AGNES,
**• ^h) Can Signorio
sllaScala.
Ij2) Oiaoomo del
MaJuzo, Duke of
d. Uidria. 1881, d.
*M1) CH83.
Duraz^
m. (2) }
delfia]
m. (3) P)
Taranti
Clbmentia.
d. onmarriea.
Maroherita,
d. 1412,
at Salerno.
Charles III., Louis,
King of Naples, d. infant
1882.
I I
Maria, Joanna II..
d. 1371. Queen of Naples,
m. a) William of
Hapeburg.
m. (2i James, Count
de la Marene.
Died 1486.
Ladislaus,
King of Naples,
1888,
m. (1) Costanza di
Cmaramonte.
m. (2) Maria de
Luslgnan.
m. (8) Maria d'En-
ghien. Countess of
Lecce.
Died 1404.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAOK
Results of Victory over Queen Joanna I. — EKs other Prisoners
— The Fate of Joanna da Durazzo and Agnes del Balzo —
The Duke of Andria Flees to Taranto— His Death— The
Coming Struggle with Louis of Anjou 1-18
CHAPTER 11.
Louis of Anjou in France — Preparations at Naples — Escape and
Recapture of Royal Prisoners — The Abbot of Monte-Cassino
— Louis Reaches Aquila — Sir John Hawkwood Arrives at
Naples 19-26
CHAPTER HL
Conduct of Charles towards Queen Joanna — Boccaccio's Opinion
— ^A Challenge — ^A Skirmish — Arezzo Sacked — Urban's Vexa-
tion — Punishes his Cardinals — Comes to Naples — ^Violent
Quarrel — Reconciliation — Urban goes to Nocera — Louis
Dies 27-45
CHAPTER IV.
Renewed Quarrel betwixt Urban and Charles — Pirates — Con-
spiracy of Cardinals — A Traitor — Tortures for the Cardinals
—-Siege of Nocera — Relief of Nocera — Escape of Urban — He
Kills the Bishop of Aquila — Sails for Genoa . . . 46-61
CHAPTER V.
The Situation in Hungary — The Crown offered to Charles-
He seta out for Buda — The Ladies Dissemble and Plot his
Assassination — His Coronation — His Death . . . 62-75
XV
xvi CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VI.
PAOIC
Urban at Qenoa — Gian Qaleazzo Visconti — Fate of the Cardinals
— News of the King's Death received at Naples — Louis II.
of Anjou in Provence with Mary of Blois . . . 76-84
CHAPTER Vn.
The Remaining Career of Urban VI. — He goes to Lucca — Thence
to Perugia — ^An Accident — Reaches Tivoli — Dies — His Char-
acter — Some Effects of the Schism — Gian Galeazzo Visconti
— Sir John Hawkwood — Boniface IX. — Ladislaus, King of
Naples 85-108
CECCO D'ASCOLI.
The Attitude of the Church with Regard to Inquiry — Hazy
Boundary- lines — Superstition Within and Without the
Church — The Arab Philosophers and their Influence — The
Norman Invasion — Frederick 11. — Astrology and Magic —
Heresies — The Age of Giotto and Dante — Ascoli — The
Inquisition — Bologna — Penalties — Cecco at Florence — A
Rival — Second Citation by the Inquisition — His Poem
*L*Acerba' — His Burning — His Portrait at Pisa . . 109-154
Index 155-159
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Charles of Durazzo (Bella Pace) . . Frontispiece
Castello dell' Ovo, Naples To face page 5
Tomb of Qiovanna da Durazzo and Robert, Count
OF Artois, in San Lorenzo, Naples . . » » 9
ToxB OF Agnes AND Clementia DA Durazzo . . » n 17
Castle of the Cajetani at Fondi . . . „ „ 21
A Tomb of the Falcone Familt at Bisceolia . „ ,,45
Louis L, King of Naples and Count of Provence,
AND Marie de Blois, Countess of Provence . „ „ 83
Charles de Duras, Ejng of Jerusalem and Sicilt „ „ 83
Tomb of King Ladislaus » » 103
CHARLES III. (DURAZZO) OF NAPLES
AND URBAN VI.
zjSz-tjyt.
AUTBOBITIES GOSfiCXTKa.
ATtJuwiaatonMpiTlePronmttXapiiitatte. Oim mlr ddPmeaiK MamUUon^
Toai,SliwiMdiamBadiMdiltaite-Omt*ima. Hmo. de Nwm, Ac &snitfe,
Ckromioom SieWiOB, Imeerii AtOkarit, Kapoli, 1887. Minieri Riccio,
Si^lgio di Oodiet Diplamatiea, 1SS2. Amimnkto, /jlorM Ji Firatst.
Ardurio Storiea ItalitiM, Ifit Series. B. IblaTolti, Sfana di Swao,
Ctaia.StOTiadiMila»o. Walangfaam, fliitor»« A aglieamt, adit. RDey,
18G4. SuiiiiiODt«, £t«rM dt KmpUi. CocUniO, Man* dol H^^iw
di yapnU. Gobelimis, Penana ut CboMxlrao. Bussi, talaria di
Fittrio, 1742. (?Kin«^ A'spolcf., afNtd Itntalori, ILLsa Jannd
dn Unim, BiMoirt dt Ckariet VI. Tbdaer, MaHMmaOa HiMoriam
Hmtgana. Himlori. Jtown AafKoma f^>toriEi. L too Fesder,
OoeliEfac mM Cmgam. Bonfiaina. BUL Hmapar. J. Tlmnicn,
Ckrmtie. KanL Parvo. Of(«oiaviiu, AaeUdbc ifn- St«b Jto* m
Mittd^ttr. Lea, BiHorj <tf tin /ngtttritiait. Hosbeim, SedaUt-
tiealButMy. BMjialAiia, An»aL SeOa. BaoAB,BuUnredePrvwaier,
Balmiiis, Filte Ptmlifie. Jondon, Zet Somvnuw Panti/a. Tbonu*
Kbendorfieri de HMfllMLCh, CAroawon Atutria. Ciaccooiiu, Vit. tl
ra. gat. PoaL Somam.
CHAPTER I.
JPON the sorrender of the Castelnuovo
by Qaeen Joanna on August 25th to
her kinsman, Charles of Durazzo, and
his army, the victor's attention was
drawn, perforce, simultaneously in
three directions. First of all, he had to consider the
immediate needs of a distracted realm ; secondly, he
2 CHARLES m. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL
had to detennine what should be his own future
attitude toward Urban, in regard to the bargain
which that ambitious Pontiff had exacted of him,
namely, that if successful in driving out Queen
Joanna and her husband, Duke Otho of Brunswick,
he should give up Capua, Amalfi, Salerno, Nocera,
and Scafate to Francesco Prignano, Urban's nephew ;
and lastly, he had to make preparations against a
formidable invading army, headed by his kinsman,
Louis, Duke of Anjou, which had been raised in
France through the instrumentality of the Antipope,
aement VIL
In view of his success, responsibilities thus came
thick upon him ; but the immediate needs of the
realm pressed him closest. It was before all politic
to commence dealing out rewards to those of his
friends and subjects who had aided him in his re-
cent undertakings, as by this means he would both
fortify them in their fidelity and tempt from further
allegiance to the captive Queen certain of their
influential kinsmen. For the most part, these con-
sisted in handing over to them the estates forfeited
by their loyal adversaries. This measure was carried
out on a large and generous scale, and it greatly
extended the King's popularity. Those alone escaped
the forfeiture of their property who, before it was
too late, deserted the Queen's cause, out of fear,
greed, or desperation.
It was natural that, in this state of affairs, many
of the leading families should become divided ; and it
CHARLES m. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL 3
would be difficult, perhaps, to name any single one of
importance that was not. Onorato Cajetani, head of
the great house of Fondi,^ resolutely adhered to the
Antipope, and as obstinately refused to acknow-
ledge the King, as being at once the creature of
Urban and the usurper of Queen Joanna's throne.
His brother Giacomo, however, probably in the hope
of dispossessing him, curried favour so successfully at
Naples that he was created a Knight of the * Ship/ ^
an Order of Chivalry which Charles now instituted
in emulation of King Luigi (of Taranto), and his
Order of the ' Knot.' * The branches of the numerous
clan of San Severino, closely related to the King
through his mother,* were somewhat confusingly
pitted against one another. Ugo San Severino,
Count of Potenza, who had acted as envoy between
Queen Joanna and Charles in the matter of her
surrender, and had held the post of great Protono-
tary of the kingdom, afterwards held office for a time
under the King ; while Tommaso San Severino, who
had proved an energetic High Constable, was now
equally energetic in France, organising affairs in favour
of the invader. One Count of Conversano * officiated
1 Luigi Tosti, La Badia di Monte-Cassino, vol. iii. lib. 8. Matteo
Camera, Elucubrazioni Diplomatidie, p. 297, note i.
> Compagnia della Nave. In aUusion to the Argonauts. Vide
Matteo Camera.
' Costanzo, the Neapolitan historian, considers this Order, 'Del
Nodo,' to have been the first Order instituted in Italy. Istoria di
Napoli, lib. vi
* Vide Genealogy, Table III.
^ Giovanni di Luxemburg.
4 CHAELES IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL
at the coronation of Queen Margaret, while another
was banded with the rebel Giacomo San Severino,
in the province of Bari. Against these, Eaimondello
Orsini, son of Niccolo, Count of Nola, was presently
despatched with troops. The Orsini family took
care to be on the winning side, as likewise did the
Caraccioli. Of this Eaimondello Orsini we shall hear
much in the ensuing narrative. The only individual
bearing the great name of Del Balzo, who figured
in the train of the conqueror, was the wily Giacomo,
Duke of Andria, whose long and inherited contumacy
was now to be recompensed, as he thought, by the
recovery from the captive Duke Otho of Brunswick,
of the desired principality of Taranto, his reiterated
claims upon which, in right of his mother, Margaret,^
Queen Joanna had steadfastly refused to countenance.*
There were two other actual home requirements
especially pressing upon Charles, which shall be
noticed here. The first was the necessity of dealing
with his royal relatives (now his prisoners), of whom
there were no less than seven to reckon with, namely.
Queen Joanna, her nieces Agnes della Scala and
Joanna of Durazzo, with the latter s husband, Robert,
Count of Artois, both of them elder sisters of Queen
Margaret, — the three brothers, Otho, Duke of Bruns-
wick, husband of Queen Joanna, Balthasar, and the
Abbot of Cava. His other need was money.
^ See Qenealogical Table.
« Philip 1. of Taranto, dying in Dec. 1331, had left his principality to
the infi&nt Joanna, then presumptive heiress of King Robert, his brother.
I
T I I
■■■ ■.:■ ^i;
'\
»'. ■ V ■
. I .
i
f ,
u ■■'
.-!.« r-
.■»•
■»'■.:■•
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"■ .■■'.
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^■.,'
CHAELES in OF NAPLES AND UEBAN VL 5
With regard to Queen Joanna herself, she had
on the 2nd of September been removed to the
Castello deir Ovo, upon which the King took up
his own abode in the much-damaged Castelnuovo.^
There is no evidence whatever to show that he
treated her otherwise than with indulgence. In
the Castello dell' Ovo she remained until the end
of January in the following year, when she was
transferred to the Castle of Nocera, together with
Jacopo di Capri,^ his wife, and others, who had
shared with her the previous anxieties and distresses
of the siege. Her husband, Otho, after his capture in
the fierce skirmish of September ist, had been con-
ducted before King Charles,* who was then residing
in the palace formerly belonging to Acciajuoli, the
Grand Seneschal He also was consigned to the Cas-
tello dell' Ovo, where he found, likewise as captives,
his brothers, Duke Balthasar, who had commanded a
German garrison up at St. Elmo, and the Abbot of Cava.
The foreign soldiers were given seven fiorini apiece,
and sworn to keep beyond the confines of the king-
dom for a year. Six weeks later, the Abbot of Cava,
together with Duke Balthasar, was taken to the
1 Chron. Siculum, p. 39. * Ibid., p. 45.
' *Cum autem dictus dominus Otto ad presenciam ejusdem regis
Karoli perveniret, idem Karolus incepit eum vituperare dicens, quo
animo ipse dictum regnum Sicilie contra eum presumeret detinere.
Cui dictus dux respondit dicens, quod nichil sibi de ipsius Karoli regis
regno constaret, sed regnum domine sue, pront tenebatur, contra ipsius
domine hostes pro posse fideliter defensasset, quodque nemo aliud dicere
in veritate posset, nee caput nee genua coram ipso Karolo flexit. De
quo ammiratus idem Karolus Hex eum in carceribus detrudi mandavit.'
— De Scismate, xxiv., De Niem.
6 CHARLES IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL
Castle of Capua, while Duke Otho was removed to
Altamura.
Agnes della Scala (widow of Can Signorio of
Verona) had resided with her aunt, Queen Joanna,
since her return to Naples.^ She was the twin-
sister of Clementia da Durazzo, who had died un-
married many years previously. She had shared the
Queen s beleaguerment in Castelnuovo, and a tragic
fate likewise awaited her.
A more curious and not less tragic interest,
however, attaches to Joanna, her elder sister, the
wife of Eobert, Count of Artois. She was the
eldest of the four daughters of Charles (I.) Duke
of Durazzo, whom Louis of Hungary had put to
death, and of Mary, only sister of Queen Joanna.
In 1363 she had married Louis d*Evreux, son of
the King of Navarre. He had died in 1376, and
in April 1378 she was united to Robert, Count of
Artois, nephew of the King of France. As the eldest
daughter of her sonless parents, she was placed
nearer the throne than her sisters, but upon her
marriage she had surrendered her right of succes-
sion. She had become possessed of considerable
wealth in land and specie ; the latter of which she
had lately hidden for security in the monastery
of Sta. Croce.* Her husband had commanded one
division of Otho's troops during the siege. He was
* 1375-
* Founded by Queen Sancia, wife of King Robert. It was named
after that at Florence, where their infant son had been buried. Vide
Tristan Caraccioli, Joann. vit ap. Muratori, xxiL 15.
CHARUES HL OF NAPLES AKD URBAN VI. 7
now a prisoner ; her palace had been looted ; while
King Charles went in person to Sta. Croce and
compelled the nuns to deliver up her property.
What boded still worse for her, however, was her
having been wedded the second time under an Anti-
papal dispensation, so that she might, if judged
severely, have been considered to have forfeited all
rights whatsoever. She lost no time, therefore, in
making terms with her brother-in-law and sister ; and
accordingly, on the 8th of September, before Queen
Margaret herself had arrived in Naples, she did
homage to Charles as King of Naples, in the Chapel of
Castelnuovo.^ The chief offence she and her husband
were charged with was that they had written en-
couraging letters to Louis of Anjou,* and for this they
were consigned to strict, but at first gentle, durance.
By a documentary agreement,* dated January of the
following year, the Duchess makes over to the King
her castle of Monte St. Angelo, at Gargano, with other
lands inherited from her mother ; while, on his part.
King Charles pardons her and her husband for their
rebellion in favour of Queen Joanna, forgives them for
having corresponded with Louis of Anjou. and pro-
vides easy conditions for their honourable captivity.
Among other terms mentioned as agreed upon, the
1 Chron. Siculum, p. 4a Archiv. Storico NapoL, anno ziL fasc ii
p. 403, note 4.
' ' Specialiter de litteris missis per eos . . . Duci Andegavie et aliis
Uteris receptis per eos a dicto Duce per manus Johannis Vo (Vaux).' —
Saggio di Cod., DipL 2, pt 2, p. 26.
' Given in Matteo Camera, Elucubrazioni Storico Diplomatiche,
8U Qiovanna I., Salerno, 1889.
8 CHAELES IIL OF NAPLES AND UEBAN VI.
Duchess is permitted to go freely whithersoever she
will, while Queen Margaret is with her. She is to
have day and night servants, a secretary, a chaplain,
and a physician. Moreover, the Count, her husband,
is permitted to keep his French cook.^ Neither hus-
band nor wife, however, regained their freedom.
Let me note whatever can be cleared up of their
tragic mystery. Their beautiful tomb in San Lorenzo
declares that they died on the same day in July
1387: that is to say, the inscription ^ thereon expli-
citly states such was the case. There is, however,
ground for declaring this inscription to be at variance
with facts. For it can be shown on reliable evidence
that Count Robert died on the i8th June 1383 *in
castro Ovi existens captius in compedibus ferreis, et,
eodem sero, secunda hora noctis, fiiit delatus per
CXXX. fratres minores cum XII. facibus accensis ad
Sanctum Laurentium,' ^ while his wife, according to
the same Chronicle, survived until 1393, when King
Ladislaus invested his mother. Queen Margaret, with
certain feudal rights possessed by Joanna, * her late
sister.' Professor Josephus de Blasiis adduces further
evidence which goes to shew that she died many
years later than her husband, that her body was
carried to Gaeta, where Margaret and Ladislaus held
their court during the long strife betwixt the latter
1 Archiv. Stor. Napol. Ex. Regest. Karol. HI., 1382-3, fol. 134.
* * Hie jacent coqwra illustrium dnor dni Robert! De Artois Et Dna
Johana ducisse Duracii conjugor Qui obiemnt anno dni m.cxxj.lxxxvit.
die XX mensifl Julii decima Indictionis quom anime requiescant in pace.'
' Chronicon Siculum, p. 49. Giomale del Duca.
I >
.- ^ -
-* y'
■■'■.. '
^
CHARLES m. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL 9
and Louis H. of Anjou, and that in 1399 it was
brought back to Naples, and then for the first time
deposited in the tomb where it now rests. ^
How then did the fiction about their simultaneous
deaths arise ? Of this, the learned De Blasiis gives
no satisfactory account ; but after personally exa-
mining the tomb in San Lorenzo,' matters seem
somewhat clearer to me. The sarcophagus in
which their remains lie is supported by three smaU
caryatid figures. One of these, with a chalice and
host, represents Faith, and another, with a torch,
Hope : the middle one, however, holds in one hand a
broken scourge (?), and in the other a charger or platter
bearing two decapitated heads. Now, like the other
beautiful Durazzo monuments in the church, this one,
the work of an unknown master, was made probably
at a distance from the capital, and afterwards brought
thither in portions and put together. Whether the
sculptor received garbled information as to their
deaths, and so acted upon it by introducing this
token of their supposed execution, it is not possible
to decide ; but I am strongly inclined to suspect this
carven fiction has given rise to the inscribed fiction
upon the tomb, which therefore must be of later
date than the tomb itself. In any case, one fact
is quite certain about this Joanna, Queen Mar-
garet's eldest sister — namely, that she survived her
* See Archivio Storico Napol., anno xii p. 408, note 2 ; Chron.
Sic, p. 49, note 2 ; Giom. NapoL, 1.1. 1046.
' See Handbook of Italian Sculpture, p. 169. C. Perkins. New
York, 1883.
{
r
t
10 CHARLES HL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL
husband, and did not die during the reign of Charles
of Durazzo.
To return to King Charles. As to the raising
of money, there were three means open to him,
of all of which he made ample use — confisca-
tion, fresh taxation, and plunder of the native
and foreign merchants. Towards the first, there
was at his disposal the private wealth of all these
royal captives and their officers, as well as that
of the Clementist clerics. Fresh taxation was
decreed in a general Parliament called together in
November,^ when Niccolo Orsini, Count of Nola, pro-
posed and carried a resolution for raising 3CX),ooo
fiorinL This measure, however, proved far too
exacting for the undecided loyalty of many of the
Council, who, on retiring safely to their estates,
either found themselves unable to pay their quota,
or openly unfurled the standard of Louis of Anjou.
Among those who threw off their allegiance were
numbered Luigi d'Artois (brother of the aforesaid
Count Robert), and Niccolo d'Enghien, Count of
Lecce.
The foreign trade of Naples had by this time
dwindled considerably, owing before all to the diffi-
culties with Rome, naturally the chief consumer of
, Neapolitan exports. To this depressing circumstance
another had now to be added, namely, the absolute
insecurity of goods sent by land or water. Over and
I ^ See Matteo Camera, p. 297 ; Chron. SicuL, p. 14, note 4 ; Costanzo,
» lib. viiL
I
CHARLES IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL ii
over again in the rolls of these years do we meet
with edicts against brigands and pirates, the former
of whom, when opportunity occurred, scrupled not
to appropriate even the royal treasure and the mules
conveying it; while the latter, boldly descending
upon the coasts, looted the vessels of the Genoese
and Pisan merchants. The knowledge that a vast
army of invasion was on its way from France did
not, it may be imagined, tend to improve the state
of affairs.
But while dealing out rewards to his deserving
captains, and consolidating the fidelity of his capri-
cious subjects, Charles was compelled to be mindful
of his critical relations with Urban.
He knew that Louis of Anjou, as the adoptive
heir of Queen Joanna, was preparing to contest his
throne by force of arms ; although from that struggle
he had no reason to shrink. War, on any scale,
was a definite contingency, which, as a trained
and practised soldier, he was not afraid to face.
He was now thirty-five years of age, and essentially
a man of action. He could conmiand money and
material enough at least to enable him to act
on the defensive. King Louis of Hungary, who
had prompted his enterprise, and who had been
much beholden to him, would, if necessary, help him
further to stand his ground. But there remained
Urban to deal with, and the severely exacting
bargain which that grasping Pontiff had wrung
from him as to the handing over to his nephew,
12 CHARLES IIL OF NAPLES AKD URBAN VL
Francesco Prignano, the Principality of Capua, the
Duchy of Amalfi, and the Countships of Nocera
and Scafate. Charles realised the impossibility of
fulfilling this bargain and at the same time of
being able to retain his dignity as King of Naples.
He had undergone all the heat and worry of the
struggle, had won the day and the kingdom, and
now he was expected to calmly dismember the
realm of his forefathers, yield the very choicest and
strongest portions of it to the nephew of an upstart
Neapolitan PontiflF. Yet it behoved him, as he well
knew, to avoid open rupture with Urban, as long
as possible, and by so doing steady and strengthen
himself in his dominion. One thing, however, was
clear : come what might between them. Urban, in
his own interest as supreme Pontiff, would be bound
to side with Charles against Louis of Anjou and
the Antipope. Yet another thing seemed scarcely
less obvious. From what Charles had already experi-
enced of the Pope's character, it was unlikely that
Urban would abate any jot of his former pretensions.
On the contrary, it was probable he would multiply
his claims. Still, it would not do to break with
him. Rather than do this, it would be wiser to
surrender Nocera and Scafate, and this, indeed, before
long, he felt himself compelled to do.
Urban had already given evidence that his nepo-
tism was of a more pronounced and bolder character
than that of almost any of his predecessors in the
Holy See. To some people this seemed the more
CHARLES IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL 13
singular, inasmuch as, unlike the families of Colonna,
Orsini, and Cajetani, the Prignano family was not
merely unknown in the world of Eome, but it could
boast of no previous honours, or influence, civic or
clerical, of any kind. In accordance, however, with
an obscure law of human nature, the pretensions it
displayed were in an inverse ratio to its shortcomings
in these respects. All Papal nepotism was vice ; and
it was unblushing in its procedure. The Holy See
had been swayed more than once by members of each
of the historic houses before-mentioned, and upon
each occasion with flagrant accumulation of feudal
advantages; but no Orsini, no Colonna, none even
of the powerful house of Fondi, had actually dared
to raise his relatives to regal supremacy. In this
respect Urban was determined to outdo them all.
Once promoted by capricious fortune to the supreme
command in the Church, he resolved to make the
fullest secular advantages of his position. The like
opportunity would scarcely occur again to a Prignano.
For the purpose, therefore, of conciliating Urban,
and, for the time being, to dissemble his feelings
with regard to that Pontiff's ambition, Charles felt
it necessary to give free hand to Cardinal Gentile
di Sangro, who had been despatched to Naples in
order to inspire with inquisitorial terrors the open
adherents of Clement there.
Chief among the latter were Cardinals Leonardo
Gifoni and Giacomo dltri,^ the former of whom had,
1 Matteo Camera, p. 297.
14 CHARLES m. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL
by Queen Joanna's expressed desire, been raised by
the Antipope from the Generalship of the Franciscans
to the tasselled hat, while the latter had arrived at
Naples the previous June as special legate from
Avignon, to convey to that Queen the news that
Clement had confirmed her adoption of Louis of Anjou.
Both had been captured at the surrender of Castel-
nuovo, and early in September, at the Church of St.
Chiara, in the presence of Charles and a throng of
nobles and citizens, these two Antipapal Cardinals were
compelled by Di Sangro to deny that Clement was the
true Pope ; to denounce and anathematise him ; to
seek for mercy ; and, finally, to burn their hats in a
fire lighted for the purpose.^ Along with them, and
for similar degradation, appeared Tommaso Brancaccio,
Bishop of Chieti, Bishop Cosillus, and many others.
These were afterwards taken back to prison to be
subjected to the torture by the inquisitors Domenico
di Afragola ^ and Leonardo di Napoli, under the in-
fliction of which some of the lesser clergy succumbed.'
Di Sangro reserved the Cardinals, however, for the
personal vengeance of Urban, and they were taken in
the following February to Benevento. In 1 393, never-
theless, Giacomo d'ltri survived, and finally found his
way back to Clement at Avignon.* The benefices
1 Matteo Camera, p. 297 ; Chronicon Siculum, p. 40 ; Summon tc,
Istoria di Napoli, vol. ii. p. 477. * Fu arso lo capcllo et li panni dello
detto Cardinale in mezzo alia ecclesia de Saiita Chiara.' — Giom. Napol.,
1.1. 1044.
* Archiyio Storico NapoL, anno xii fasc. i. p. 21, note 2.
> Ciaconii Vit et Res. Gest. Pontif. £d. ab Oldoino, 1 1, 644.
^ Chronicon Siculum, p. 40, note i.
CHARLES III. OF NAPLES AND UEBAN VL 15
thus rendered vacant by the triumph of Charles were
speedily filled with the creatures of Urban, while
Gentile di Sangro and his family were rewarded with
a portion of the property of Giovanna da Durazzo.^
On the 25th of November this blood-stained Di
Sangro placed the crown of Naples on the brow of
Queen Margaret in the Church of Sta. Maria dell'
Incoronata,* in the presence of the King and Francesco
Prignano, Urban's nephew; after which the Queen,
mounted on a white palfrey, crowned and sceptred,
was led through the streets of the capital, her bridle
being held on one side by Giovanni di Luxemburg,
Count of Conversano, and on the other by her cousin,
Giacomo del Balzo, Duke of Andria, the citizens and
soldiers making great jubilation.
The honours of the house of Del Balzo were thus
still in the ascendant ; indeed, at this very moment
they were to be rendered yet brighter by the Queen
consenting to give the ambitious Andria in marriage
her elder sister, Agnes della Scala. The Duke cer-
tainly had good reason to believe that the triumph
of Charles and Margaret was as much due to his
exertions against Queen Joanna as to Urban or the
Hungarian troops. Indeed, he had acted all along as
the wire-puller betwixt Urban and Charles. But his
hard-won success was made yet sweeter, for it was
not only a triumph over Queen Joanna, but it was
tantamount to a crushing defeat of the rival San
1 Archivio Storico NapoL, anno xiL fasc L p. 17, note.
* Chionicon Siculum, p. 43.
i6 CHARLES IIL OF NAPLES AND UEBAN VI.
Severini, who were the King's first cousins.^ The
X38X. marriage took place on the 4th of December, with
royal honours and in the royal presence.
Andria's exultation, nevertheless, like that of Car-
dinal di Sangro, was not destined to be enduring.
The Duke, above all things, desired actual possession
of the Principality of Taranto, which his father, Fran-
cesco del Balzo, had vainly claimed before him ; for
the Princes of Taranto had lefb no legitimate offspring,
and his mother, Margaret, had been their only sister.
Within a short time he took the opportunity to
solicit the King for the restitution of such Tarantine
lands as Queen Joanna had apportioned between Otho
of Brunswick and the Marzano family. This Charles
professed he was unable to do, and therefore refused.
Andria perhaps concealed his chagrin by confidently
styling himself Emperor of Constantinople.^ The
San Severini, however, now took their advantage, by
pointing out to the King that Andria was the indi-
vidual most dangerous to the peace of the kingdom,
since, so closely allied was he to the throne by his
marriage with the Queen's elder sister, and by de-
scent from a senior branch of the House of Anjou ;
moreover, being personally encouraged by Urban,
should that grasping Pontiff resort to extreme mea-
sures against Charles, it was upon him the crown
might not improbably devolve.
* Vide Genealogy.
* At this time liis hailly, Pietro de Saperano, did actuaUy exercise. for
him rights over Achaia, in virtue of the titular righto of Catherine Cour-
tenay,'^hia maternal grandmother. Finlay, Hist, of Greece, iv. 223.
I
I.
t
■^\:-.~.A ■ '■-^'-.
>
CHARLES nL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL 17
Charles saw his danger, and consequently made haste
to secure Andria's person. Forewarned of his peril
(probably by his wife), the Duke fled to Taranto, leaving
his spouse to bear the displeasure of her brother-in-
law. She was made prisoner again, and sent to the fatal
Castle of Muro, where she died loth February 1383.^
Her body was afterwards brought to Naples and in-
terred in the noble monument which still commemo-
rates her and her sister, dementia, in St. Chiara.^
The Duke meanwhUe found Taranto in possession
of Raimondello Orsini, who refused him entrance.
Nevertheless, by compromising his claims with Orsini
(who afterwards, in consequence, joined to his own
the name of Del Balzo), he took up his abode there ;
but dying in the same year, he was buried there in
the Church of San Cataldo.'
The year 1 38 1 , as we have seen, had closed in family
and national festivals, and the citizens of Naples were
pleased to think they were now subject to a native
King and an equally native Pope, whose personal
interests, despite their vital personal difibrences,
must perforce unite them against the common foe.
Nor did either of them underrate the importance
of the coming struggle. Urban continued to press
the King for fulfilment of the distasteful conditions
upon acceptance of which he had formerly decreed
the latter's coronation ; while the King in reply sent J»«»« «. »38x.
1 Summonte, Istoria di Napoli, tom. ii p. 479.
' Chron. Siculom, p. 121. The *Giornale del Duca' says Sept.
5, 1382,
' Matteo Camera, Elucubrazioni Diplomatiche, p. 314.
B
f
i8 CHAELES III. OF NAPLES AND UEBAN VL
benign messages, and temporised as long as was pos-
sible. How this difference inevitably developed into
open and dramatic rupture will be traced in the
following chapters.
Whatever minor troubles fretted him in the
first year of his reign — and there were not a few
— Charles did not permit himself to under-esti-
mate the formidable contest about to commence,
in which his hard-won crown was to be the stake.
In having snatched that crown from the brows of
Queen Joanna, he was doubtless aware of having
taken upon himself troubles peculiar to its former
wearers.
It is not difl&cult to imagine how far from dis-
pleasing in the eyes of the Ghibelline powers in
Northern Italy was all this distress both from with-
out and from within, to which the much-vaunted
Guelfic kingdom of Naples was still subject. Ber-
nabo Visconti himself, aiming, like Urban, at general
sovereignty over Italy, contributed further to the
discomfort of Charles by bringing about a betrothal
between his daughter Lucia ^ and the second son of
Louis of Anjou.^
* Corio, Storia di Milano, vol. ii. p. 296.
* The marriage, however, did not take pkce.
CHAPTER II.
ET me now turn attention to the schemes
of the invader, and mark how far
affairs prospered with him and seemed
to portend succeaa. The promised de-
volution upon him of his kinswoman's
crown, together with the necessity for raising a vast
armament in order to obtain actual possession of it,
reached Louis of Anjou while fulfilling the duties
of Regent and President of the Royal Council for
his nephew, Charles VI. of France. With this his
brothers, the Dukes of Berri and Burgundy,' seeing
in his removal &om France the promise of their own
advancement, were not a little pleased ; while his
Duchess, Mary of Blois,' was not behindhand in dis-
playing her desire to wear the quadruple honours of
Naples, Sicily, Jerusalem, and Provence. To procure
means for his campaign, two sources lay open to him
— his friendship with Clement at Avignon, and his
office as Comptroller of Finances. It is not difficult
to imagine how both these advantages were made
use of He sold without scruple the royal jewels
and the various treasures collected in the Castle of
Melun; while Clement, seeing in him the best pos-
sible instrument for triumphing over Urban, not only
' Hiatory of Franca, vol- i p. 481. Kitehin, 3rd edition.
■ ' Dite Ia Clope on la Boiteuse.' Bouche, Hist Provence, torn, ii. p^ 40&
20 CHARLES IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL
received him and his Duchess with regal honours,
but encouraged various nobles of importance to join
his rapidly swelling forces, and caused fleet after
fleet of Proven9al galleys to put forth to harry
the coasts of Naples in order to stimulate to fresh
efforts the forlorn adherents of the still captive Queen
Joanna. Thus we find, on September 22nd (1381),
five Provenjal galleys effected the escape of a number
of Germans who had fought for the Queen and Otho.
On October 4th nine more sacked Positano and Triper-
golL^ Others followed them, treating Castellamare
in similar fashion, while in July of the next year
several more eff^ected a landing on Capri, and forth-
with unfurled there the Angevine standard.
Charies spent the opening months of 1382 in
reorganising the affairs of the realm and drawing
around him men of tried character, especially befriend-
ing among the ecclesiastics those he deemed likely to
be of use in the inevitable contest with Urban. Chief
among these were Bartolommeo Mezzavacca, Cardinal
of Kieti,^ and Pietro di Tartaris, Abbot of Monte-
Cassino. He also took care to despatch trusty
envoys, such as Giovanni Caracciolo and Giugliotto
de Brancardis, to distant parts of Italy, where he
had friends, and — as one Chronicle at least reports
— to convey a personal challenge to Louis of Anjou.
^ Chronicon Siciilum, p. 4a
^ On March 20, landed at Posilippo the three Cardinals, of Bieti, San
Cyriaci in Thermis, and Luigi Donato of Venice, sent forward by Urban
in order to press the King for the surrendering of the principality of
Capua to Francesco Prignano. Ciacconiu8,ii.64i; Chron. SicuL, 45, 46.
CHAELKS III. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VI. 21
One item of interest in Art-History must be re-
corded of this time. On account of his * right happy
and copious industry/ and the advancement of pic-
torial art by means of his talents, we learn the King
appoints Koberto de Oderisio his master-painter, grant-
ing him an annual salary of thirty ounces of gold. It
is to this master that, with considerable probability,
Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle ^ have ascribed the fres-
coes executed for Queen Joanna in the Church of St.
Maria dell' Incoronata.^ His style may be described as
Giottesque on a miniature scale, and it can claim also a
certain naive originality ; but little of his work remains.
On January 28th, Queen Joanna was removed from
Naples to Nocera. Though there may have been
some natural anxiety about the security of the royal
prisoners, owing to the many attempts being made
upon the coast by the aforesaid Provenjal galleys, it
certainly was of no little importance to the King to
hold Queen Joanna securely. Within a few days of
this event, too, he found cause to tighten the hitherto
easy bonds of her niece, the Duchess of Durazzo ; '
while between these two events I find recorded the
escape of Balthasar of Brunswick * and the Abbot of
Cava, from the Castle of Capua. The fugitives were,
^ Hist of Painting in Italy.
* 'Queen Joanna I.,' by the author, p. 112, where reproductions of
two of them may be examined. Also, Eugler's 'Italian Schools of
Painting.' Edit Layard. 1382. VoL i. p. 95.
3 Chron. Siculum, p. 44.
^ He had wedded Jacobella, daughter of Onorato Cajetani, Count
of Fondi, in presence of Queen Joanna and the French Cardinals.
' Queen Joanna I.,' p. 259.
22 CHARLES III. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL
however, discovered hiding in a pine-wood three
months later, and the former of them was cruelly
punished by the loss of his eyes ^ and a fresh incar-
ceration in St. Elmo. These incidents, added to the
escape of the Duke of Andria to Taranto, sufficiently
account for the more stringent treatment of his royal
captives by King Charles.
Of the Abbot of Monte-Cassino, we learn from
Father Tosti^ that he had already governed the
great baronial monastery of St. Benedict for many
years with martial rigour. He had been attached
to Queen Joanna during her later troubles, as long
as it was safe for one in his peculiar position to be.
He had watched the struggle with Urban, rather more
in sympathy with the Queen, his liege, than Urban
could have approved, and had probably received with
sorrow and annoyance Urban's former letter announc-
ing her excommunication. On the other hand, his
monastery had suflFered severely from the soldiers in
the pay of King Charles and Alberico da Barbiano, just
as forty years before it had suffered from the Germans
and Hungarians in the pay of King Louis of Hungary ;
but when Charles and Margaret passed by San Ger-
mano, at the foot of the mountain, the Abbot had
taken advantage to make friends with them and show
them over the historic pile. The King now appointed
Di Tartaris, Chancellor of the realm, and gave his
nephew, Raimondo, a valuable office at court.'
1 Giom. del Duca. * Fe crepar Tocchi a Messer Baldassar . . . con
un langetta de insagnar. . . .'
' Storia della Badia di Monte-Cassino, voL iiL lib. 8.
3 Eegistr. di Cancelleria di Carlo, iii. 338, foL 324.
CHARLES m. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VI. 23
The Cardinal of Rieti ^ appears on the scene, to-
gether with Luigi Donato, Cardinal of Venice, and
Niccolo, Cardinal of St. Cyriaco, in March* of this
year, as ambassador from Urban in Rome. Their
mission was, of course, to press the former demands
of Urban.' Eight days later Queen Joanna was
spirited away from Nocera to Muro ; and it is not im-
probable this move was effected with a view to giving
up Nocera and Scafate to Francisco Prignano, so as
somewhat to appease Urban. The Cardinal of Rieti
seems henceforward to have remained with the King
as Legate at Naples. In May following, the King
gave safe-conducts to two Nuncios sent by the said
Cardinal to Rome. Later on, we shall find that pre-
late degraded by Urban as a consequence of his too
pronounced partiality for the King, and still later,
together with that monarch and the Abbot of Monte-
Cassino, sharing Urban's vehement excommunication.
In Provence things did not proceed quite as
smoothly as Louis of Anjou had been led to expect.
While many cities sent their clerics and deputies
to do homage and proffer him assistance, others,
— Aix, Aries, and Tarascon, — calling to mind his
former lawless depredations, openly refused him
support.* Unable at present to compel their
allegiance, he punished the first-named city by
transferring her precious archives to Marseilles.
^ Native of Bologna. * 20th March 1382.
' Chron. Siculom, p. 45.
^ Bouche, Hist, de Provence, torn. ii. pp. 403, 404. See also ' Queen
Joanna I.,' p. 229.
24 CHARLES III. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL
For the rest, he trusted they would prove more
tractable after he should have achieved the con-
quest in Italy in prospect. At the close of May,
Clement actually crowned him King of Naples, Sicily,
and Jerusalem, at Avignon. Soon after arrived the
May 29, X38a. ucws of thc vlolcut dcath of Queen Joanna at Muro.
The Angevine forces, led into Italy by him, have
been variously estimated; too often fabulously. It
is probable they amounted to no more than i5,ocx)
men. Conspicuous among those who held com-
mands (or condotti) were Amadeo VL, Count of
Savoy ; Rudolf of Luxemburg, Count of Conversano ;
the Count of Geneva (brother of the Antipope) ;
the Counts of St. Paul, Artois, and Soult, and not
least, Tommaso San Severino. With these, Louis
of Anjou crossed the Alps, and, favoured by his pro-
jected relationship with Bernabo Visconti, halted at
Piacenza previous to his descent, via Ancona, into
the Abruzzi. The Chronicler of Rimini wrote that
he himself, and others with him, well used to the
affairs of war, had never beheld so noble an army.
People at Forli had made similar observations, as also
did the citizens of Ancona. Nevertheless, the germs
of a fatal epidemic were awaiting it at the roadsides,
and the polished French swords, shine as terribly as
they would, were finally degraded to discharge little
more than the menial function of spades.
Early in September Louis reached Aquila,^ which
had revolted in his favour under Lallo Camponesco,
^ Minieri Riccio, Cod ice Diplom., ii. p. 25.
CHAELES UL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VI. 25
Count of Montorio and Sant' Ilario, as far back as the
previous March.* Here he remained thirteen days, re-
ceiving homage from rebel barons, and coining money
bearing his own effigies as King of Naples. While he
was there, an event of signal importance to this narra-
tive was taking place in remote Hungary. Louis the
Great, dying, left his vast kingdoms of Poland and
Hungary to his two daughters, Hedwig and Mary,
and a long and successful reign came to its close.
Charles, meanwhile, had not been idle. The
walls and towers of Capua, Naples, and the other
strongholds had been repaired and strengthened ;
ships had been built and equipped; moreover,
Alberico da Barbiano, Cione da Siena,^ and other
experienced captains had been consulted, and a
fleet of valiant Genoese, under command of Spinoli
and Grimaldi, had arrived to his assistance for the
better protection of the capital from the sea. Rai-
mondello Orsini had now been made Captain-general
in the eastern province of Bari, while a certain
Villanuccio di Brunaforte, with an Italian company,
called Deir Uncino,* had undertaken the no small
task of suppressing certain rebellious corners of other
Adriatic provinces of the kingdom.
But more than upon all these forces, which
amounted, perhaps, to about 8cx)0 men, the King
relied on the effect upon the hardy Frenchmen of
the torrid Neapolitan summer. He was unaware
^ Matteo Camera, p. 306. Chron. Siculum, p. 46.
^ Archivio Storico NapoL, anno. xii. fasc. ii. 406.
' Ibid., anno xiL fasc. i pp. 25, 29.
26 CHARLES HI. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VI.
at the time that the above-mentioned pestilence was
also destined to be of assistance. In order to further
harass his foe, he caused the peasants to bring all the
grain and live-stock into Capua and Naples, thereby
leaving the country practically bare of supplies. For
the rest, he and his captains resolved to act entirely
on the defensive, and thus to exasperate the enemy.
Meanwhile, though involved in quarrels with his
Cardinals, and himself in considerable dread of Louis
of Anjou, Urban had arranged with the Florentines
(whom, on consideration of large sums, he had
released from the terrible interdict of Gregory XL)
to send Sir John Hawkwood and his English archers
to the aid of the King of Naples. When Louis
knew of this, he sent word to France to plunder
the Florentine merchants there.
Before the close of October 1382, Hawkwood,
welcomed by Charles, arrived in time to learn that
in a skirmish with the enemy near Caserta the
Neapolitans had captured no less important per-
sonages than Bernardo and Pietro de la Salle and
Count Francesco del Balzo, all of whom had come
with the condotta of the Count of Savoy. These
captains, however, contrived to make good their
escape. Not so fortunate was Luigi, brother of
Raimondo and Jacopo Caldora,^ well-known condot-
tieri on the Angevine side. Charles had him imme-
diately beheaded at the Capuan Gate,^ as an example ;
and thus the long desultory war began.
^ Matteo Camera, p. 307. ^ Giornale del Duca.
CHAPTER III.
a'EE the close of the eventful year 1382,
we find King Charles pardoning
Zurulo di Napoli,' Seneschal to the
late Queen, and his children, who
had been taken at the surrender of
the Castelnuovo. This was another act of forbear-
ance exhibiting the clemency which the King habi-
tually practised under circumstances of exceptional
difficulty ; and I may here say boldly that the more
the conduct of Charles of Durazzo towards Queen
Joanna ia observed, from such evidence as the Ar-
chives can reveal, the leas justifiable appear to be the
sweeping charges usually brought against him, and
which have now become as conventional and unquali-
fied as those brought against Queen Joanna herself.
That he dispossessed her of her realm in endea-
vouring to secure from alien hands the crown long
promised to him by her in right of his wife,* was not
so much a sin as a success. Nevertheless, sympathy
must be with Queen Joanna. She became entangled,
' Archivio Storico NapoL, anno liL faec ii, p, 90.
* Margaret'B elder Histen had each surrendered their rights to the
throne on the occasions of their respective marriHges. Their mother,
Mary of Durazzo, hy King Bobert's will had been declared heiress to
Queen Joanna, should the latter die childless. Archivio Storico Napol.,
annoii. fasc. i. p. 151.
28 CHARLES HI. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VI.
through no fault of her own, in the iron meshes
drawn round her by the almost demoniac woman-
hating Urban and the mother of Louis of Hungary,
her old enemy. As a consequence, she sided with
the French Antipope, Clement VII., an act which
had resulted in her excommunication and declared
dethronement by Urban, had thereupon reluctantly
called Louis of Anjou to her aid, and thus desperately
adopted for her heir a kinsman who had hitherto
acted as the most despicable of her many foes.^
Charles having become deeply indebted to Louis of
Hungary, who had steadfastly supported Urban, and
had from of old hated Queen Joanna, and being
threatened with loss of his promised kingdom if he
refused to help himself to it, had no choice left but
to do his best to possess it. How gently he used his
hard-won victory has been already shown. In order
to see how recklessly he has been traduced and
vilified for so doing, one needs only to examine any
chronicle, ancient or modern (save that of Donato
degli Albanzani,* which, I believe, alone rightly excul-
^ He had a few years previously laid waste portions of Provence
without a shadow of a justification. Peace between them had been
made by Gregory XI.
* * Donato degli Albanzani-Aggiunte al libro de Claris Mulieribus.' —
Boccaccio. In contrariety to the highly -inventive chroniclers, Boccaccio
himself writes : — * Alcuni dicono, e queste piti famosa opinione h tenuta
vera, ch'eUa morl naturalmente come la maggior parte degli uomini,
essendo costretta d'infermita, e forse perch6 ella non degna e non
meritevole deUa sua infelice sorte, menossi al fine quasi come sdegna«»a
di vivere. Altri sparlando contro al re, come h d'uzanza de rei, hanno
avuto ardire dire ch'ella fu awelenata ; la quale opinione dee parere
vana e falsa, s'io guardo aUa benignita di quello re contro a tutti i ^^ti
da lui.' — De Claris Mulieribus.
CHARLES IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VI. 39
pates him for the death of Queen JoaDDa). In further
evidence of this I shall show how he liberates Otho of
Brunswick after but two years of captivity.
Louis of Anjou, not succeeding in enticing his
adversary to an open engagement, or in procuring
sufficient supplies for his forces, soon found him-
self embarrassed at Benevento. Moreover, being
obliged, for the latter cause, to despatch large divi-
sions toward Bari and Taranto, and many of the rebel
nobles having deserted him on pretence of defending
their own territories, ^e was left with but 8000 men.
In these awkward circumstances, be bethought him-
self of settling the diflBculty by sending Amadeo of
Savoy to Naples, to convey his personal challenge
to King Charles.'
But the King had no &vour for this inadequate
mode of settlement, and saw in the challenge but a
confirmation of the rumoured embarrassment of Louis.
He, however, commissioned the authorities of Arpaia,
Arienzo, and Maddaloni to lodge and supply four of
his nobles, whom he deputed to accompany Amadeo
, and his knights in search of a befitting ground for
the proposed duel. But, like the challenge of Charles I.
of Anjou to Alphonso of Castile — like that of Luigi
of Taranto to Louis of Hungary, this challenge
resulted in no meeting of the principals, and on
the I St of March the gallant Amadeo having fallen
• Sagpo di Codice Diplom., Uinieri Riccio, vol. ii, pL 1, p. 28,
where are given in full two royal orden for tlie safe-conduct of the
Count of Savoy and hio guai-ds while chooaing a spot near Cbpua for
the projected duel Dated respectively 39th Jan. and Sth Feb. 138J.
30 CHARLES III. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL
ill, breathed his last at Castro San Stefano.^ Louis,
more and more perplexed, instead of attempting the
projected siege of Capua, now resolved to retire to
the fertile plains around Foggia. On his way thither
an epidemic (apparently scarlet fever ^) carried off the
Count of Geneva and a large number of the troops.
Charles, learning of his opportunity, fell upon the
Angevine rearguard at Pietra-Catella, near the famous
Caudine Forks ; but though several were slain and
captured on both sides, he gained no important ad-
vantage by this proceeding. Angelo Pignatello, a
Neapolitan, fell into the hands of the enemy, and was
taken to Louis of Anjou, at Ariano. Costunzo records
that upon learning of the bravery displayed by
Pignatello ^ in the action, Louis made him tempting
offers for his services, but these, much to the royal
chagrin, the prisoner resolutely refused. Thereupon
Louis threatened him with death. To this cruel
menace Pignatello replied he did not believe the
Duke capable of perpetrating so unbecoming an act.
Pleased with the adroit and chivalrous answer, Louis
kept him on parole, and later on exchanged him for
Francesco (or Raimondo) del Balzo.
Charles now saw with increasing satisfaction the
difficulties besetting his enemy, and he posted squad-
rons around to threaten his main position. Crippled
thus in all his endeavours by the ravages of an
^ In Provincia Molisii, March i, 1383.
* * Una infermitii estraordinaria, per la quale tutti scorticato k modo
di serpi.' — Summonte, lib. iv. 487.
3 Giomale del Duca. Chronicon Siculum.
CHARLES in. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL 31
epidemic, and in dread of the threatening failure of
his campaign, Louis now summoned to his aid the
services of Engherand, Lord of Coucy,^ who had
formerly distinguished himself as a valiant servitor
of the Church in her struggles with the Visconti.^
Accompanied by the Bishop of Beauvais and a number
of illustrious knights, De Coucy responded to the
call and came to Milan. Thence, greatly to the
anxiety of the Florentines, he descended to Lucca.
He had mischief in hand, and his designs were upon
Arezzo, a city which had been practically over-lorded
by the kingdom of Naples ever since the days of
King Robert. De Coucy contrived to scale the walls
of Arezzo and sack the city, after which he sold it to
the Sienese for 20,000 fiorini.® The Florentines, later
in the year, repurchased it from Siena for nearly
double that sum.
All this cheap triumph and bluster, however, helped
matters but little. The new French force poured down
into the Abruzzi as a stream of lava destined to be lost
in the sea. Fever and want destroyed it in a very short
time. The crowTi of Naples, therefore, was no whit
nearer the brows of Louis than it had been when he first
^ Ammirato, Istoria di Firenze, lib. xv.
* Matteo Camera, Elucubrazioni Diplom., p. 313.
3 Ammirato, Istoria di Firenze, lib. xv. In 1381 Arezzo had given
itself to Charles, who accordingly sent some soldiers from Home to
represent his Seignorial powers. In consequence, however, of an out-
break of Ghibellinism in the city, these guardians ^cacciarono tutti
dalla citt4, mettendo a sacco la medesima, e stuprando le nobile vergini
e maritate, . . . e poscia presidiarono la citt& in nome di Carlo.' —
Corio., tom. ii. 292.
32 CHARLES IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL
crossed the Alps. He still had to content himself with
desultory skirmishes, vainly endeavouring to engage
a craftily impassive adversary, and with over-running
the distracted Adriatic provinces of the kingdom.
Let me now pass to Urban and more closely inspect
his relations with the King. It was clear enough
that the latter had shown himself determined not to
fulfil his promise of yielding Capua and Amalfi ; but
Urban had no intention whatever of foregoing his
demands. Charles was himself feeling the heavy pres-
sure of stagnated trade and the neighbourhood of
a plundering foe. Urban, though he had hitherto
assisted him so far as to obtain the services of Hawk-
wood, had not yet chosen to employ the full powers
of the Church by preaching a crusade against Louis.
Urban now further perceived with extreme vexation
the growing partiality of the Abbot of Monte-Cassino
and the Cardinal of Rieti^ for King Charles, and
determined to go to Naples ^ and show that he con-
sidered himself alone master of the situation, and was
not to be trifled with.
The Cardinals who were around Urban, fearing both
the hardships and dangers of the journey through the
mountains and the possible results of the expected wrath
of the King, pleaded various excuses for not accom-
panying him. Some few managed to place themselves
beyond immediate recall. Threats of actual deposition
prevailed with the rest, to the number of seven, who,
^ Chron. Siculum, p. 5a
^ Fear of the plague at Rome contributed to give shape to his resolution.
CHARLES m. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL 33
leaving Palestrina, travelled with him, wearily and in
fear, down from Ferentino and Frosinone to Monte
Cassino, and thence to Sessa, which they reached on
October 6.^ No sooner had they arrived here than Ur-
ban instituted a formal process against five of them on a
charge of aiding and abetting the King in his so-called
contumacy. The result of this process was that he de-
prived the Cardinals of Rieti, Venice, Grenoa, Salerno,
and Pietramala of their hats.* Of these, Luigi Donato,
Cardinal of Venice (or San Marco), was destined to an
evil fate at Urban's hands, as we shall see befell him
later on ; while Mezzavacca, Cardinal of Rieti, had,
fortunately for him, remained at Naples, and for that
reason, though looked upon as the head and front of
oflFending, was out of Urban's personal reach.
Soon hearing of the harsh treatment of the Car-
dinals, the Roman people, who had never loved Urban,
wrote to him and to King Charles in favour of the
unfortunate captives. The dogged Pontifi* at first
refused to receive their letter. The King, however,
opened that addressed to him, and at once caused it
to be read all over Naples.'
Let me note that there now arrived on the scene
envoys from Elisabeth of Hungary, announcing that
Mary, her second surviving daughter by Louis, had
been crowned as ' King Mary.' *
1 De Scifimate, lib. i. xxix.
* Chron. Siculuni, p. 5a Ciacconius, il 641.
* Chron. Siculum, p. 50.
* Feb. 2, 1383. Archivio Storico Napol., anno xii. fasc. ii. p. 193.
Caterina, his first-bom, for whom he had made a solemn contract in
c
34 CHARLES IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL
Things now looked exceedingly black between
Urban and the King. All Naples felt thunder was in
the air, and awaited the Pope s coming with mingled
awe and excitement. Before long the Papal procession
was announced to be approaching Aversa, within a few
kilometres of the capital ; whereupon Urban resumed
his pontifical vestments, while the townsfolk came forth
to do homage and receive his benediction. Forewarned
of the arrival of his enemy, the King had taken up his
own lodging in the castle, and now, habited in simple
black,^ he rode with Ugo San Severino through the
vineyards to meet him. The two presently entered the
town, silent, side by side : a meeting, as both must have
been keenly conscious, very difierent from their last.
Urban soon revealed his frame of mind by abruptly
declining to lodge in the apartments prepared for him
Not. 1383. by royal order at the Castle, and dismounted at the
Episcopal Palace, close beside the Cathedral of St.
I^aul. The Palace, however, being unprepared for
his accommodation, the King amiably caused all the
necessaries to be brought from tbe Castle, and duly
arranged for the Pontiff's comfort. This business com-
pleted, they partook of a repast together.^ Afterwards,
1373-74 with Charles V. of France, in order that Louis of Orleans, that
king's second son, should marry her and inherit the kingdom of Naples
and Sicily, together with Provence, had died before the union could
take place. Thus a far-reaching scheme, his and his mother's last, for
reuniting the unrighteously severed Angevine thrones of Hungary and
Naples, fell through, and Louis freely encouraged Charles to win Queen
Joanna's throne. Archivio Storico NapoL, anno ii. fasc i. p. 108.
^ VoT the deaths of two of the Queen's nearest relatives, Agnes del
Balzo and Count Robert d'Artois.
* Gobelini, Persona in Cosmodrom, vi yy.
CHARLES IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VI. 35
Charles courteously entreated him on behalf of the
Cardinals — especially on behalf of his personal friend,
the Cardinal of Rieti. Urban impatiently refused to
listen to him, and the King went away to the Castle.
In the evening he returned, and once more endea-
voured to move Urban, urging, moreover, that, in
view of the great Schism, the treatment to which he
was subjecting his own Cardinals was scandalising the
whole Christian world. The Pope replied that it was
no aflFair of the King's. Charles, indignant to the last
degree, again returned to the Castle. The next day,
being Saturday, and the eve of All-Saints Day, Charles
made one last eflFort, but met with similarly annoying
result. Urban went to say Vespers in the Duomo,
while the King retired to the Castle as before, fully
determined to make no further concession.^
Late in the evening, however, being thoroughly
aroused to a sense of his oflFended dignity, the King
sent Antonio de Afflitto, Tommaso de Marzano,
Enrico Burgarelli, and Luigi d'Alemannia, with
their followers, to the Palace. Arrived there, they
knocked at the huge portal, and taking no notice
of protesting porters and attendants, entered the Nov. 2383.
Pope's sleeping-chamber. Thereupon, Afflitto, on his
bended knees, in the King's name, implored Urban
to pardon the Cardinals and forego his severe pro-
ceedings against them. Urban returned an ill answer,
and declared that the King, by his conduct, was
creating a still greater Schism. Then Marzano like-
^ Chron. Siculum, p. 51*
J
36 CHAKLES IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL
wise reiterated the entreaty, equally in vain. Seeing
the Pope inflexible, Burgarelli and Luigi d'Alemannia
besought Urban to come to the King. Urban replied,
* It is contrary to custom that I should go to the King ! '
— to which they firmly rejoined, ' It needs then you
miLSt come 1 ' — whereupon, whether he liked it or not,
the one and the other lifted him on either side from
his seat, and bodily carried him off to the Castle, where
the King received him in a chamber with four torches
burning at the corners, and therein he was set down.
Here these two men angrily eyed one another under
the glare of the torches. Of the two, the master of
himself was certainly not Urban. A grand moment,
doubtless— full of terror to the few beholders, full of
conquest and firm triumph for Charles, even if it lasted
but five minutes 1 Gobelinus, one of Urban's apostolic
secretaries, has told us that for three days Urban,
cut off from advice or consolation, remained there
in the Castle, ' much against his will.' ^ When we
remember what that will was, the words are volumes.
Urban for once gave in, and a peace of a certain kind
was arranged between the two. There can be little
doubt that Charles demonstrated to Urban the impossi-
bility of his yielding Capua and Amalfi, and that he
also obtained some temporary grace for the Cardinals.^
On the following Wednesday, Charles left Aversa
for Naples in order to make ready for Urban's recep-
tion there, and to let the world be aware that at las
there was peace betwixt Pope and King.
1 Persona in Cosmodrom, vi. 77. ■ Chron. Siculum, p. 51.
CHARLES m. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL 37
De Niem/ another of Urban's secretaries, relates
that during the stay at Aversa, being out with several
comrades, he fell into the hands of brigands, who
nearly killed him, and that before his actual release
(which, however, was a prompt one) his life was
further endangered by the gruesome condition of his
wounds.^ In consequence, he reached Naples before
his master, and the citizens there, learning his per-
sonal importance, anxiously pressed him for news as
to the advent of Urban, informing him also it was
rumoured the Pope was the King's prisoner. De
Niem avers that the Cardinals had done their utmost
to patch up the old quarrel between Charles and
Urban. At any rate, they came to Naples, and were
there regarded as having been received into grace.
Their hour, indeed, was not yet come !
On the eighth day after his arrival at Aversa,
Urban set out the remaining few miles to Naples.
Finally, at the Capuan Gate he confronted King
Charles, sitting upon his throne,® and robed as a
deacon of the Church in a dalmatic of golden tissue,
holding in his left hand the sceptre, and in his right
a golden lily. Charles waited until the Pope drew
nigh, then rose up and kissed his foot, while Urban,
duly fulfilling customary formalities, dismounted and
kissed him on the forehead. Thereupon, taking the
Papal bridle, Charles led the remounted Pontiff as
^ De Scismate, i. xxix.
* * Jam vermiculare seu putrescere inceperunt.' — Ibid.
3 Summonte, Istoria di Napoli, torn. 11. p. 483.
38 CHARLES IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL
far as the steps of San Stefano, when the Pope bade
him likewise be remounted. Forthwith, preceded by
nine Cardinals, they rode together to the great gate
of Castelnuovo, the citizens all the way testifying
their pleasure by displaying at their windows abund-
ance of embroidered linen, tapestry, and flowers.
The Pope, doubtless awed by the presence of the
soldiers, though expressing his desire to lodge at the
Archiepiscopal Palace, yielded to the command of
the King and Queen, and accordingly lodged at the
Castelnuovo, where, at a later hour, both of them
visited him.^ It is certain that, although magnificently
entertained, behind those royal towers Urban regarded
himself a prisoner. He had learned an astonishing
lesson, and unquestionably looked upon King Charles
in a more respectful light. He may have, for once in
his life, felt actually terrified by something in the un-
shrinking audacity of Charles, which perhaps recalled
all too vividly the traditionally calm manner of his
ancestor, the famous executioner of Conradin. Never-
theless, Urban did not intend to forego his old
claims ; on the contrary, he resolved to renew them,
though in a more tactful and reasonable manner.
How far the King really acceded to the desires of
Urban, in order to gain to his side the ecclesiastical
thunderbolts, it is diflScult to determine. But Nocera
and Scafate were certainly given up to Francesco
Prignano, his nephew; while, in return, Urban as
certainly promised to proclaim a crusade against
^ Qiomale del Duca.
CHARLES IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VI. 39
Louis of Anjou. Thereupon he was permitted to
leave the Castle and take up his abode in the palace
of Archbishop Bozzuto.^ Dec x6, 1383
Having, upon the whole, gained no small advantage,
despite the changed aspect of his relations with Charles,
Urban now fortified himself still further by contriv-
ing that two of his nieces ^ should marry, respectively,
Giovanni, Count of Artois, and Matteo di Celano,
Lord of Isola, and he persuaded the King and Queen
to grace the double ceremony with their presence.
De Niem is our sole authority for the incident
now to be related affecting the character of Francesco
Prignano, the Pope's nephew, concerning the advance-
ment of whom Urban had shown such fretful and
energetic anxiety. But although De Niem's account
is circumstantial enough to convince one of the pro-
bability of his story, it should be borne in mind that
his narrative, wherever this Francesco is referred
to, bears the impress of acute personal animosity ; *
moreover, familiarity with De Niem*s writing has
convinced me of his frequent inaccuracies of date
and statement, which give portions of his narrative
the appearance of having been dressed up consider-
ably after the events it deals with had taken place.
*Butillo (otherwise, Francesco) Prignano, Prince
of Capua, entered by force the convent (of San
Salvatore), and abducted one of the most beautiful
^ Giomale del Duca. Costanzo, Istoria di Napoli.
^ Chron. Siculum, p. 54. Cizula and Cicella Prignano.
' De SciBniate, edit. Qeorg Erler, author's note, p. 64.
40 CHARLES IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL
and nobly-bom of the nuns. This aflFair tlirew the
whole city into an uproar; and the magistrates
having complained to the King of the outrage,
the King sent them to the Pope. But the latter,
though he was most austere as regarded himself,
was over-indulgent in the extreme toward his own
relatives, and he answered them that it was no
great matter, the Prince, his nephew, having been
spurred on by his youth — (although the said Prince
was already past forty years of age).' ^
The King is said to have pronounced the culprit
worthy of death, and directed to have him sent for trial ;
but Urban took occasion to inform the King that in
such a case his own authority must be considered para-
mount. At any rate, the culprit was set at liberty.^
This scandal was immediately followed by the
marriage of the said Francesco (Butillo) to the
niece of Carluccio EuflFo di Montalto, Chief Justiciary
1384- of the realm ; which ceremony was likewise honoured
by the royal presence.*
On the first of the new year, Urban celebrated
solemn mass in the presence of most of the notables
of Naples, after which he declared Louis, Duke of
Anjou, Charles, King of France, and the other
Eoyal Dukes of that realm, rebels and heretics,
promising plenary indulgence to all who should take
^ As Erler points out in his edition of De S^'ismate, none of the
other contemporary writers mention this story, the truth of which is
certainly to be doubted.
' De Scismate, Theo. de Nyem. Lipeise, 1890^ pp. 63, 64.
' I st January 1384.
CHARLES III. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VI. 41
up arms against them. He then proceeded to create
King Charles Gonfalonier of the Holy Church, and
blessed the standard which the King held.
The following three months, therefore, were spent
in active preparations for a fresh development of
the struggle. But in spite of increased taxation and
promises of financial aid from the Pope, Charles found
himself more and more at a loss for money. Mean-
while, Urban was quietly sapping the resources of the
Church at Naples for his own purposes, just as he had
formerly done at Rome— turning plate, jewels, and
ornaments into cash. The King finally had to resort
to the desperate measure of plundering the store-
houses of the foreign merchants.^ In due course,
this brought upon him the retaliation of the Genoese,
Pisan, and Venetian Republics; the latter later on
seizing upon Durazzo (Dyrrachium), on the Dalma-
tian coast, from the possession of which the King's
grandfather had first taken his ducal style and title.^
Early in April Charles set forth from Naples at
the head of an army disposed in three divisions,
under the respective banners of the Church and the
realm. A crowd of captains held commands in it,
while Cardinal Landolfo Marramaldo^ accompanied
^ Matteo Camera, p. 320 ; also Costanzo and Summonte.
* * Queen Joanna I.,' by the author, p. 1 50 ; also Buchon, Recherches
Historiques. Finlay, Hiat of Greece.
* Marramaldo himself later on fell into disgrace with Urban, being
suspected of pandering to Charles. Unable, however, to lay hands
upon him, Urban declared him deprived of his Cardinalate, the
Archbishopric of Ban, and every other dignity held by him. After
Urban's death in 1 389, Boniface IX. restored liim to his dignities, and
44 CHARLES IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL
Urban now resolved to take advantage of the
King's absence to get himself and his following well
out of Naples, and take up his residence at Nocera
with his nephew. He had perhaps intended more
important breaches of his agreement; but Charles,
ere his departure for the seat of war, had taken the
precaution to leave powerful garrisons in the chief
towns. Furious on discovering the dexterous fore-
thought of his rival, the Pope and his Cardinals made
their way to Nocera beyond Castellamare.
Looking upon this move as a flagrant breach of
the compact between them. Queen Margaret promptly
protested. Finding her protest unavailing, she issued
an edict sternly forbidding any one under pain of
death to supply Urban with provisions. Accord-
ingly, De Niem tells us that salt could not be pro-
cured at Nocera, and Urban *vehementer indoluit,
asserens talia fieri in ejus contumeliam et despectum/ ^
The war dragged on through the summer months
in contemptible languor, more distinguished even by
cowardly raids on defenceless towns than by casual
skirmishes. The only noteworthy episode occur-
ring in the neighbourhood of Naples was that the
Count of Caserta together with Bernardo de la Salle
attacked Castello Casoria, and scoured the vicinity,
killing, burning, and plundering.
The condition of the French army by this time
had become deplorable in the extreme. With the
^ * Sal quandoque per dies aliquos nee prece nee pecunia pro condi-
mento suorum cibariorom possent habere.' — De Scismate, p. lo.
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CHARLES in. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VI. 45
heat of August, disease had broken out afresh.
Louis of Anjou was actually reduced to wearing gar-
ments painted merely to represent armour;^ while
his half-naked knights could not be restrained from
sacking even the friendly towns. King Charles him-
self now fell ill of the epidemic, but fortunately
recovered.* The Queen despatched a well-provisioned
fleet to his aid at Barletta,' but eight ships out of
the twelve were wrecked in a storm.
It is related that Louis, while endeavouring to re-
strain the valour of his chivalry, who were looting the
friendly town of Bisceglia,* took fever, of which he died
on September 2 1 st, in the forty-seventh year of his age. U84.
The French army, now decimated by disease and
desertion, was likewise leaderless, and forthwith did
its best to make its way out of Italy. Juvenal des
Ursins * narrates : ' Having placed the King in a
leaden cofiin, with such obsequies as could be de-
vised, nobles and knights made for France in sore
straits, and very pitiful was it to see them, each
one staff in hand ; and all the chivalry which Louis
had gotten out of France was wasted — an example,
indeed, for princes not to undertake enterprises they
understand not to carry through.'
^ * N'avait qii'ime cotte d'armes de toiles peinte seulement/ — Juvenal
des Ursins. This, however, was not very unusuaL The lighter leather
armour w^as often thus decorated.
* De Niem, lib. i. xxxv.
3 Archiv. Stor. Nap., anno xii.
* Chron. di Rimini, toni. xv. R. I. Sc.
* Hist. Charles VI.
CHAPTER IV.
JJIEING restored to health, and his anxie-
ties as to the tactics of the Duke of
Anjou being ended by that adver-
sary's death, Charles and his captains
returned to Naples in time to cele-
brate the Feast of St. Martino, and were received
with great jubilation by the populace.
But no sooner had the horizon on one side of
him become clear than clouds arose upon the other.
Learning of Urban'a defiant departure, and of his
sojourn at Nocera, the King sent special envoys to
remind him of their former agreement, and beg-
ging him to return, in order that together they
might give their attention to the very critical state
of affairs. Feeling himself secure in Nocera, which
his nephew had freshly fortified, Urban now allowed
his resentment full sway, and replied through the
envoys that if the King desired to confer with him,
it was his place to come to Nocera, and not for
the Sovereign-Pontiff to go to Naples ; ' moreover,
that if Charles wished to retain his goodwill at all,
he must, without delay, abate the taxes under wliich
the kingdom was absolutely groaning.
' Gionia]« del Duca, in Muratori, R. I. Sc Rayoaldus, Anna). Ecvlea.
CHAELES IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VI. 47
Fully perceiving the tenor of these replies from
his old enemy, the King now returned him ominous
answer, that if he should have indeed to go to Nocera,
it would be at the head of his army ; that the king-
dom was his by right of his Queen and by force
of his own arms ; furthermore, that to Urban he was
indebted for no more than the mere formal words
of investiture.
In the middle of December Urban created eighteen
new cardinals, of whom no less than six were natives
of Naples. By this measure he obviously looked for
two very desirable results — namely, that his former
cardinals should lose all the force or influence they
had gained by cohesion among themselves, and that
he himself should recover the popularity he had
lost during his stay at Naples.
De Niem incidentally gives us an attractive account
of the beauty and resources of the neighbourhood of
Nocera in those distant days, though he naively avers
that what with the brigands and ' malandrini ' who
haunted the mountains above it (Chiunzo and St.
Angelo), and the Catalan pirates who infested the
coast around, no one could be considered safe without
a strong bodyguard. For fear of these gentry, several
of the Cardinals on one occasion fled to Naples ; but,
with the exception of the Cardinal of Rieti, they were
soon persuaded to return. A party of Papal courtiers
and servants, while on their way to Naples, were beset
at Castellamare and actually carried off* to sea. Our
author states that oranges, lemons, and pomegranates
p. 32.
48 CHARLES III. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL
throve in the gardens, and that the mountain-flanks
were clothed with magnificent chestnut-woods, which
sheltered innumerable boars and stags, * which, in
former days, Duke Otho used to hunt.' ^
Raynaldus, the Papal historian, has hinted that
Pietro de Tartaris, Abbot of Monte-Cassino, was an
ambitious prelate, who, on the demise of Gregory XL,
had himself aspired to the chair of St. Peter ; and
further, that in the possible event of the deposi-
tion of Urban, he now welcomed a fresh chance of his
elevation to that supreme dignity.^ Certain it is that
the Abbot was created Chancellor of the kingdom of
Naples, and, together with the Cardinal of Rieti and
a certain Naccarello Dentice, had become one of the
most familiar advisers of the King and Queen. This
was more than sufficient to draw upon him the wrath
and hatred of Urban.
Conscious of the great scandal caused by the re-
opening of the quarrel betwixt Pope and King, the
elder Cardinals again entreated Urban to forego his
anger and effect a reconciliation — at any rate, until
he should return to Rome. Their good offices were
thrown away. Finding Urban implacable, in con-
junction with the Cardinal of Rieti, they engaged
the services of Bartolino da Piacenza,® a dexterous
^ De Niem also mentions a chamber, presumably in the Castle of
Nocei'a, in which he saw a portrait of Duke Otho. Lib. i. xxxiv.
and De Seism., xL
* At the period of Urban's election to the Papacy, some had called
out that the vote had fallen on the Abbot of Monte-Cassino.
3 De Niem, De Scismate. €k>belinu8, Persona in Cosmod., vi.
CHARLES III. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL 49
canonical lawyer, who, under their combined and
secret supervision, framed for them a certain signi-
ficant interrogatory, the tenor of which went to
show that if, by conduct unbecoming the majesty
of his office, a reigning Pope should recklessly com-
promise the welfare of the Church or the well-being
of the Sacred College, it became the duty of the
Cardinals to exercise forcible control over him, to
give him a coadjutor, or eVen to elect another
Pontiff in his room.
Whether the conspiracy actually went further
than the adoption of these measures, and whether, as
Gobelinus declares (from evidence wrung by torture),
the Cardinals were prepared to make Urban prisoner,
try him in the Church of San Francesco, and what-
ever answers he might make, take and burn him
as a heretic, it is impossible to determine. In any
case, a traitor was amongst them. Seeking, mayhap,
to save himself from the terrible consequences of
its possible failure, Tommaso Orsini, Cardinal di
Manupello, secretly informed Urban of the con-
spiracy contemplated against him.^
On the nth January 1385, Urban held a Con-
sistory,^ in which in a tempest of wrath he
branded the Cardinals and the Bishop of Aquila
with treachery, degraded them, and commanding
his guards to seize their persons, loaded them with
1 * Accedens secrete ad ipsum Urbanum sibi haec omnia revelavit' —
De Niem, xlii.
* Chron. Siculum, p. 55.
D
50 CHARLES IH OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL
chains/ at the same time appropriating all the goods
they had with them at Nocera. They .were forth-
with thrown into dungeons in the keeps of the old
castle, in some of which so limited was the space,
the captive was unable to sit down.'* The victims
were seven in number, namely, the truculent Gen-
tile di Sangro, Luigi Donato, Cardinal of Venice ;
Giovanni, Cardinal-Archbishop of Corfu ; Adam
Aston, of Hertford, Cardinal of S. Cecilia ; the
Cardinal of Genoa ; the Cardinal -Archbishop of
Taranto, and Stefano Sidonio (?), Bishop of Aquila
— all of them, remarks Muratori, conspicuous for
their attainments in the Sacred College ; moreover,
most of them bordering on old age, if they had not,
like the Bishop of Aquila, already attained it. The
now totally ruined citadel of Nocera dei Pagani,
in which the tragedy about to be related took place,
crowns a steep, but not abrupt, declivity close to the
town. In it had occurred many events of historical
importance. The young and beautiful Helena, widow
of Manfred, died within its walls after five years
of captivity. A little later died there Beatrice of
Provence, first Queen of Charles of Anjou. In
1275 was born in it Louis (afterwards canonised),
Bishop of Toulouse. Luigi of Taranto, second hus-
band of Queen Joanna L, was vainly besieged within
it by Conrad Wolff*, one of the German captains of
^ * Catenis onustis in corporibus.' — De Niem.
2 De Niem says of the dungeon occupied by Cardinal di Sangro,
' yix potuit extendere pedes suos.' — De Scismate, p. 83.
CHARLES III. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL 51
Louis of Hungary. Lastly, we have seen Queen
Joanna herself a two-months captive therein.
Urban now commandeJ his nephew, Francesco,
and a knight of St. John called Basilius of Genoa,^ to
torture the Bishop of Aquila. The aged and unhappy
martyr was dragged from his dungeon to a room,
in which had been arranged the corda and the rack.
He was then stripped of his shirt and placed upon
the rack. After fainting several times from his
torments, and being as constantly revived by the
attendants, his moral strength gave way under the
strain, and he is believed to have made the con-
fession above stated, which inculpated the other
victims.
News of this violent proceeding reaching Naples,
Queen Margaret at once caused to be seized the
two lately married nieces of Urban,* and imprisoned
them in Castelnuovo. On the following day, it being
January 14th, Basilio received the Pope's command
to torture the Cardinals. The first of these was Gen-
tile di Sangro, who had so distinguished himself by
his ferocity against the Clementists at Naples after
the downfall of Queen Joanna. De Niem (who was
present) says the miserable man, who was corpulent,
8
^ De Niem endeavours to make him out a common pirate. * Insignia
pirata uacione Januensis.' But see Chronicon Siculum, p. 54, note 7,
where it is shown by De Blasiis that Basilius had been made a Cavalier
of the Order by Urban in December previous, in presence of the King
and Queen, and with great pomp and ceremony.
2 Chron. Siculum, p. 54.
5 *Qui fuit vir etatis mature, corpulentus et longe stature.'— De
Scismate, lib. i. li.
52 CHARLES IH. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VI.
was first stripped to his shirt,^ fastened by ropes,
and hoisted by means of a pulley from the ground
to a certain height, and then suddenly let fall.
This operation was repeated three times in succes-
sion. The same witness avers that Francesco Prig-
nano stood by laughing^ at the agonies of the
ungainly sufferer ; but that himself (De Niem),
being scarce able to endure the scene, entreated
Di Sangro to confess : — * Do you not see, father,
that these fiends wish to have your life? For
Christ's sake, say something, and free yourself from
them ! ' To which the Cardinal muttered : * I have
nothing to confess. The Lord is just. It is my
due for having dealt so hardly with the partisans
of Queen Joanna and Clement at Naples.'
The next victim was Luigi Donato, the Cardinal
of Venice.* Urban commanded Basilio to rack him
till his cries should be heard by him as he medi-
tated in the castle-garden beneath. He was sub-
jected to the same process as Di Sangro had been,
and re-tormented at intervals during the day. At
every pang, the wretched man gasped out passion-
1 * Femoralibus et camisia vix relictis, et Btrictissime in eisdem funi-
bus per ipsos camefices ligabatiir.' — De Scismate, lib. i. IL
2 * Stans immoderate ridebat.' — Ibid. ; Gobelinus, Pers. Cosm., 78.
8 * Et dum veniremus ad locum, in quo dictus Cardinalia Venetua
tenebatur inclusus, eum exinde dictus Basilius traxitnecnon ad quandam
aulam dicte arcis usque perduxit, quern vestibus, quibus indutus erat,
denudavit et in funibus in altum suspensis ad terram usque pendentibus
satis stricte ligavit, et licet esset fractus, morbosus et senex ac valde
debilis complexionis, tamcn de mane usque ad prandii horam in eculeo
assidue ac crudelissime eum tormentavit.' — De Scismate, L liL
CHARLES III. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL 53
ately : * Christ suffered for us I' — and Urban halted
a moment in his walk, grunted satisfaction, and
went on reading the Holy Office,
'Then,' says our witness, 'hating to see further
cruelties, I obtained leave from Conrad, the governor
of the castle, to take some recreation beyond the
walls, which, upon my promising to return soon,
I obtained.' However, he thought little of his
promise, and lay hiding in the town, whither, after
a while, the confederates of Basilio were sent to
bring him back. De Niem relates that he succeeded
in persuading them likewise to flee.
The rest of the Cardinals underwent similar tor-
ments.^ On the 15th, the Pope made men bring
materials and construct a platform over the chief
gate of the castle, whereon his chair was to be
placed. This being accomplished, he took his seat
there, attended by six other Cardinals, clad in full
pontificals. He then caused the Bishop of Florence
to read aloud to the assembled folk below an interdict
to be launched by him against *King Charles and
his consort. Queen Margaret; against Orsini, Count
of Nola ; against the Abbot of Monte-Cassino, and
the Count of Montalto, the Chief Justiciary ; against
Villanuccio de Brunaforte, and against all in their
several services respectively, and against all those
named in his interdict formerly pronounced against
Queen Joanna.'
This being concluded. Urban took in his hand
^ Chron. Siculum, p. 55 ; De Scismate, liii.
54 CHARLES IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL
a torch, each of the Cardinals doing likewise, and
thundered anathema and excommunication, at the
same time granting indulgence for seven years to
those who attended there to hear him. Whereupon
he and they threw their torches upon the ground.
This ceremony was afterwards daily repeated.
On the 1 8th, Urban held- a public consistory, in
which the Cardinal of Genoa first, and the other cap-
tives in succession, were made to ratify all that the
first-named had privately confessed, to the effect
that he and they had conspired with the King and
Queen, with the Cardinal of Rieti and Villanuccio,
to seize the Pope's person on the 20th of the same
month in consistorial council, to put him to death,
and in his place elect the said Cardinal of Rieti.
They then fell upon their knees and implored Urban
for mercy, inasmuch as they were prepared to noise
it abroad throughout the world that they had acted
by the prompting of the devil. Urban was almost
moved to pity. * His face,' says De Niem, ' up till
that moment burned like a lamp with fury.' The
Cardinals were, however, remitted to prison.
On the 22nd, royal troops appeared at the gates
of Nocera, killing every one they intercepted ; and
ere the close of the month Count Tommaso di Mar-
zano and Villanuccio, with the rest of the King's
forces, arrived in order to commence the siege. The
difficulties, however, of provisioning the troops, to-
gether with the peculiar nature of the stronghold
besieged, soon brought about a relaxed state of
CHARLES III. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL 55
operations, to which perhaps the superstitious awe
in which ordinary soldiers held excommunication in
those days not a little contributed/
On the 19th February, however, twelve members
from the University of Naples came on an embassy
to Nocera, avowedly to bring the scandalous dead-
lock betwixt Urban and the King to an end.
These well-meaning persons left their horses with
Villanuccio de Brunaforte before entering the castle.
They then made due reverence to the Pope, who at
once told them that if they wished to speak with
him, they must be very careful not to mention
Charles of Durazzo. Obtaining no concessions from
the Pope, they left him with sorrowful countenances,
and slept that night in the garden of the castle,
* whither Basilio of Genoa sent them three beds.' *
On the 2 ist, having caused the great hall to be made
ready for celebrating mass. Urban sent for the said
ambassadors and much other people, and then, sitting
in pontifical state with six of his Cardinals, he caused
the Bishop (of Florence) to celebrate ; and when the
Gospel was finished, Urban personally related all the
evil-doings of the King toward him, after which he
made one bring him a document containing the con-
fession of the deposed Cardinals, their signatures and
seals ; but as all, save the Cardinal of Corfu, had lost
their seals, each had made use of the one remaining
seal. After this document had been read aloud, he
began to have read over his indictment of the King
* Chron. Siculum, p. 56. * Ibid.
56 CHARLES HI. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VI.
and Queen and the others. Then the envoys rose
up declaring they had not come to hear indictments,
but to endeavour to make peace. Urban responded,
'We will, and command you to be seated, and to
listen to the said process!' They returned him
answer, ' Your Holiness does us wrong, and we listen
upon compulsion.*
Then, while the interdict was being read, the Pope
and the six Cardinals held burning torches in their
hands, and after it was done, they threw them upon
the ground. Thereafter the Pope took his repast
and the envoys retired to the garden. A little later
Urban sent for them again, and after much talk said :
' Charles has robbed our nephew, Francesco, of his
patrimonies ; and we take away from him not only
his kingdom, but all his rights whatsoever ! ' He
spoke further in private with them, and then per-
mitted them go forth and down into Nocera, where
Villanuccio gave them back their horses and servants,
and forthwith they returned to Naples.
Three days later the King held an assembly com-
posed of numbers of citizens from Capua and Nido,
besides those of the capital, together with the envoys ;
on which occasion, he caused to be shown three letters
in the writing of the Pope, which had just fallen into
his hands. The first to the traitor Raimondello Orsini,
the next was to Feulo Citrolo, and the last was to
a notorious pirate, Francesco di Lettere.^ In them
Urban related that he had received ambassadors from
^ Lettere is at the foot of Monte Sant' Angelo, to the rear of Gastellamare.
CHARLES m. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VI. 57
the city of Naples, who had told him that if he would
come thither with an army, they themselves were
prepared to deliver up Naples to him; on which
account he urges Raimondello and the others to
hasten to his assistance with their profifered troops.
When the reading of this letter was ended, the
King rose and said to the assembly, 'I am certain
that this is a lie devised by the Pope, in order to
bring about a quarrel betwixt ourselves and our
subjects of the State of Naples/
The next night (says the author of the Chroni-
con Siculum) the port of Naples was visited by a
Catalan and a Capriote galiot for purposes of plunder.
Finding nothing of value among the boats there, they
used filthy language and went oiF to Castellamare,
where they burned a ship. Thence they set sail for
Gaeta, meeting on the way with an armed galiot
belonging to Amalfi, laden with grain, which they
captured.
On the 5th of March we find Raimondello Orsini,
Francesco de la Rath, Count of Caserta, and that
relapsed rebel, Charles d'Artois, with four hundred
lances, making a diversion at Afragola, on the north
side of Naples, and falling in with the troops of the
King under Jacobello Stendardo. A sharp skirmish
ensued, in which many were killed and wounded.
Satisfied with this move, only five days later, the
said Raimondello and his colleagues, appearing behind
Nocera, encamped at CasoUa, and so effected a junc-
tion with Urban and his nephew.
i
58 CHARLES IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VI.
Next day the King sent Alberico da Barbiano and
Villanuccio back to Sarno, near Pompeii, with orders
to mobilise all the male inhabitants of the Duchy of
Amalfi, to collect forage and regularly besiege Nocera.
Collisions soon occurred, but being unable to engage
in open fight with the royal forces, the Papal troops
kept to the castle, and endured showers of stones
from the enemy's slingers. In the night, however,
Francesco Prignano effected his escape from Nocera
and reached Scafate, four miles nearer to Castella-
mare, and shut himself therein, while Charles d'Artois
and the Count of Caserta went back in a semi-
circle toward Caserta. Eaimondello, suffering from
an arrow-wound in the foot,^ was obliged to remain
within the castle.
Alberico, hearing of the escape of Francesco Prig-
nano to Scafate, moved forward so as to surround
that little stronghold. After a fortnight's siege,
Francesco was delivered over to him, with the town,
for 4000 florins, by the Papal stipendiaries. On
the 27th April, therefore, Alberico conducted his
prisoner to Naples, where he was straightway com-
mitted to the Castello dell' Ovo.
Two further embassies from Naples to Nocera took
place in the month of May, without effecting any
improvement whatever in the situation. There now
arrived, however, envoys from the Eepublic of Genoa,
who obtained audiences of King Charles at Naples,
and afterwards of the Bishop of Florence on behalf of
^ Qobelinus, Persona Cosmod., vL 78.
CHARLES IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL 59
the Pope, at Castellamare. Pileus de Prato, Cardinal
of Ravenna and legate at Corneto, likewise used his
best endeavours to brii^g about an agreement. He
was requited by becoming suspected of entertaining
ill intentions toward Urban.
Early in June preparations for a more vigorous
attack on Nocera being completed, the King caused
to be proclaimed at the sound of the trumpet that
10,000 florins would be given to any who should
deliver Urban alive into his hands, adding that
any found abetting his escape from Nocera would
be treated as rebels and forthwith executed. Then
appeared upon the scene the martial Abbot of Monte-
Cassino, who took much pains in directing the huge
catapults erected for bombarding the castle.^ He is
related to have captured several partisans of the Pope
and to have put them to terrible deaths, while a
certain spy, upon whose person was found a letter
from Raimondello Orsini, was placed in one of the
said catapults and slung to death into the castle.
Early in the following month Raimondello Orsini
and Tommaso San Severino, at the head of a band of
Bretons and Gascons, managed to put to flight the
Abbot ^ and his troops (perhaps by a night surprise),
and effected entrance to the castle in order to succour
the Pope. Urban received them with transports of
joy, moderated later by having to pay them 10,000
1 *Erectis ihachinis bombardis que oppositis ingentia saxa emitten-
tibus.'— GobeL, vi. 78.
2 * Subito f ugit de obeidione et salvavit se in Castro Mare de Stabia,
et deinde Neapoli cum tota comitiva sua.' — Cbroo. Sicul.
t
6o CHABLE8 IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VI.
florins for their trouble, and to present Raimondello
with the goodly town of Benevento.^
Setting out next day with his prisoners and secre-
taries, Urban rode by way of Materdomini eastward
to San Severino, and thence turned southward to
Gifoni,^ where he rested several days. Two inci-
dents of note occurred by the wayside. Some skir-
mishers belonging to the enemy (or quite possibly to
their friends) captured two of the Pontifical mules
laden too heavily with treasure. The old Bishop of
Aquila, by reason of the anguish of his tortured
limbs, lingered behind the rest, for which cause
Urban brutally ordered his attendants to despatch
him,^ which was done there and then, and his body
was left by the roadside for the wolves and ravens.
The other reverend martyrs are said to have been
conducted almost naked, tightly strapped under the
bellies of their horses.*
Meanwhile, Antonietto Adorno, Doge of Genoa, to
whom Urban had previously sent urgent entreaties
that he would furnish him ten armed galleys, having
perceived it would be an excellent thing for the
Republic to have the Supreme PontiflF residing in its
midst, despatched them, and they had just arrived in
the Bay of Naples.^ From Gifoni the Pope made a
1 Some of the leading citizens of this town, at the period of Urban's
election to the Pontificate, had adhered to Clement. Mem. Storia de
Benevento v. Borgia.
' Summonte, Istoria di Napoli, torn, ii lib. iv. p. 490.
' De Scismate, Ivi. * Chron, SicuL, p. 61.
^ Qiomale del Duca.
CHAELES III. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VI. 6i
brief visit to Benevento, and returned thither on
August 3rd. The galleys, receiving messages from
him, now sailed toward Sicily, and passing round the
southern coast, made for Barletta on the Adriatic.
Urban, led by Raimondello Orsini, now struck east-
ward across the mountains to Lacedonia and Miner-
bino,^ and finally was received on board in solemn August 19.
style by the Genoese admiral.
At midnight the galleys sailed for Messina, whence
Urban issued a fresh interdict against the Ejuig.
Sailing northward, they nevertheless touched at Cas-
tellamare, and sent envoys to King Charles, begging
him to give up to the Genoese the nieces of the
Pope, the Papal registers left at Nocera, and the
lately created Cardinals, who were now in Naples.* sept. 7, 1385.
The King only surrendered the captive ladies, and
the Papal galleys weighed for Corneto.^
Thus was concluded one more phase of the struggle
of Church and State in Naples, leaving the advan-
tage, as may be noted, decidedly with the latter.
* Gobelin., Persona Cosmod., vi
' Chronicon Siculum, p. 62.
5 Gobelin., Persona Cosmod., vL 80.
CHAPTER V.
f T now becomes necessary to turn atten-
tion to the affairs of Hungary, which,
since the death of King Louis in
1382, had been in a very unsettled
state. Failing male issue, his second
daughter, Mary, had been accepted and crowned by
the Magyars under the style of King Mary/ Never-
theless, an influential party among them insisted
that the crown was hereditary in the male line only ;
and, as had been foreseen by King Louis, this party
now wished to offer it to Charles, King of Naples.^
Yet, even on this ground, Charles could show no
actual right to the throne, seeing that his great-uncle,
Charles Martel, had been made King of Hungary
solely by election. The crown, therefore, could be
considered to descend legitimately to his own descen-
dants, but by no means to the side branches of the
entire House of Anjou. There were special circum-
stances, however, in the former relations between
King Charles HI. and the kingdom of Hungary which
made it not unnatural that a warlike people, who
' Maria Eex, Sept. 17, 1382.
* Geschicbte von Hungam, Ignaz. A. Fessler, vol ii. pp. 239-241 ;
Thuriiczy, Chrgnica III. de Carolo Parvo ; BonfiiiiuB, Hi*L Hungar.
CHARLES III. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL 63
detested the idea of female government, and with
whom Mary's future husband, Sigismund, was by no
means popular, should look very favourably toward
him. He had lived among them by the pressing
invitation of King Louis ; and while there, not only
had he learned the arts of war, but had conspicuously
distinguished himself both in public tournament and
as a commander in the great Venetian war. More-
over, in arranging the subsequent terms of peace, he
had gained the ill-befitting sobriquet of ' Delia Pace/
Louis had lived to realise the danger to his heiress and
successor likely to arise from the popularity of his
young kinsman and quasi -adoptive son, and had
therefore caused him to swear he would not aspire to
the crown of Hungary in the event of his own decease.
But when that event actually came to pass in Sep-
tember 1382, the want of an able and energetic ruler
was acutely felt in the realm, and in Charles of
Durazzo the people naturally recognised by far the
most eligible personage for king. In a thriving mili-
tary kingdom, so powerful that its aid or alliance was
now being continually sought both by the Popes and
monarchs of the West in their struggles with one
another, and by the Emperors of the East in their
struggles against the all-prevailing Turk, it was felt
to be a matter of absolute necessity to possess a
military ruler. Out of mingled regret and respect for
their great King, however, the Magyars had already
crowned Mary, who was betrothed to Sigismund of
Bohemia, — second son of the late Emperor Charles
64 CHARLES IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL
IV., and brother of the reigning Wenceslaus. Be it
observed, also, that during the latter years of her
father's life Mary had been governing Poland for him ;
and the Poles, by race, language, and traditions vitally
opposed to the Magyars, had definitely refused to be
ruled by the acknowledged female sovereign of the
latter people. Among other significant circumstances,
they perceived that Mary would no longer be able to
live among them, but would be compelled to reside
in Hungary. The Queen -mother, Elisabeth, had
attempted a solution of this difficulty by offering
her elder daughter, Hedwig, to them for their Queen,
whom, indeed, they ultimately accepted.
During the three years that had elapsed, therefore,
since the death of King Louis, Mary and her mother,
by the aid of Nicholas Garay, Ban of Zara, had, in
spite of frequent outbursts of discontent, managed to
hold their own ; and as King Charles had been entirely
absorbed in the critical afiairs of Naples, they saw
little to fear from the limited opposition which
favoured him calling him to the throne. But with
the practical advantages now gained at home by
the latter monarch, through the death of the Duke
Louis I. of Anjou and the memorable siege of Nocera,
commenced a new period, and the conspirators in
Dalmatia, Croatia, and Bosnia, saw opportunity ripe
for urging King Charles to return to Hungary.
For that purpose Paul Horvathy, Bishop of Agram,
August 1385. under pretext of a pilgrimage to Eome, had pro-
ceeded to Naples, empowered by his party to ofier
CHARLES IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL 65
him the crown. Obtaining audience of the King,
that prelate vividly sketched for him the state of aflfairs
in Hungary, and entreated him to come without delay
to Buda, where the throne most assuredly awaited
him. 'Thus,' said he, * would the two realms be
reunited, and the ancient quarrel forgotten.'
Eemembering his promise to King Louis, Charles
at first peremptorily refused the temptation. ' It is
true,' replied the Bishop, * your promise forbids you to
aspire to the throne of Hungary ; but does that prevent
your acceptance of a gift oflfered you, for their own
interest and for that of the Church, by the represen-
tatives of a great nation ? ' The political sophistries
of the Bishop found a sympathetic echo in the ambition
of the successful soldier, and he began to look upon his
possible acquiescence as constituting a still more com-
plete triumph over Urban. ^ Queen Margaret, never-
theless, tormented by Ul-bodings, tearfully besought
her husband to content himself with the fair realm of
Naples, reminding him that Hungary was not only
faithful to Urban, but that it had been the chief source
of the many violent troubles during the reign of Queen
Joanna, from which every branch of their family had
most cruelly suffered. Her arguments proved unavail-
ing. Had he been begged to go as a conqueror with
an army, it is probable he would have refused to do
so ; but finding himself invited to come as a guest
and hear the will of a friendly and powerful faction, he
saw no valid reason for refusing ; and however much
^ John Thur6cz7, Chron. EaroL Parvo, i. 20a
s
66 CHARLES III. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VI.
some may bo inclined to reproach him, it must be
conceded the temptation was at least an exceptional
one. In finally acceding to the request, he resolved
to regard it as an experiment, and to prove its worth
in a very practical manner.
On the 14th September 1385, accompanied by
Alberico da Barbiano, Naccarello Dentice,^ and a
small retinue, he left Naples with four galleys, and,
after touching at Manfrodonia and at Corfu (which
belonged to his dominions), landed at Fiume, whence
he journeyed to Agram, where, on arrival, he was
welcomed and sumptuously entertained. He was
already upon perilous ground. Well had it been
for him had he proceeded no further ! The Queen-
mother, Elisabeth, learning of his coming, became
exceedingly suspicious as to his designs, and de-
spatched Sigismund, her son-in-law, to Prague, in
order to bring the influence of the Emperor, his
brother, to bear upon the King of Naples in Mary's
favour, should it become necessary so to do. At the
same time, she despatched envoys to Charles him-
self, in order to gain clear information as to his
real intentions. Charles entertained no hostility
to the two royal ladies themselves, and therefore
assured them in reply that he had not come as a
conqueror, but that hearing of their many diffi-
culties, he was there at the request of certain
magnates of the people, to ofier them his aid. As,
however, they were in reality under the despotism
^ Bonincontrius, Annali, R. I. Sc. zzi.
CHARLES IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VI. 67
of Nicholas Garay, Ban of Zara, against whom the
people now had reason to bear animosity, matters
soon developed a more acute phase. What with native
dissatisfaction and foreign bribery, the King's party
daily augmented, and noble after noble openly
favoured the election of Charles, at any rate as
Governor or Viceroy. Meanwhile, the two Queens
convened a Diet at Buda on November 8th, when
Mary ratified all former privileges, and received the
homage of the magnates. In the following month,
Charles himself reached Buda, and prudently reject-
ing the oflfer of lodgment in the royal castle, took up
his abode at the palace of one of the notables.
It began to be felt he could not long refuse the
honour more and more ardently pressed upon him.
Nevertheless, he managed as long as was possible
to keep on good terms with the royal ladies. But
the game of cunning had begun in earnest, and the
opposing parties were now face to face : the Queens
being represented by Nicholas Garay, Ban of Zara,
while Charles was represented by Horvathy, Palis-
nay, and others. The ladies certainly behaved with
finished dissimulation. On his arrival near Buda,
assuming him to have no vexatious intentions, but
rather to have come to their aid and protection, they
drove out to meet him in their state-chariot, and
conducted him to the residence in which he elected
to reside, where, presently, he received most friendly
ovations from the populace.
A few days sufficed to show him he was strong
68 CHARLES HI. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL
enough to assume the part of Regent, and there-
upon he took up his residence in the castle, where,
at Christmas-tide, he made bold to assemble a Diet.
A little later, during a tumult, the demonstrations
made against the two Queens so terrified them and
their guards, that Charles was actually called upon
to offer them the protection of his Italian soldiers,
and personally to allay their terror. He soon learned,
as also did the royal ladies themselves, that the
people had proclaimed him King.
Upon receiving this announcement, which in-
volved her own deposition, Mary wrathfully declared
she would never surrender her crown and kingdom.
'As for you,' said she, addressing King Charles,
'follow the path you have undertaken, but I beg
of you, for the sake of my father Louis, your former
benefactor, permit me to go and join my husband
in Bohemia.' Queen Elisabeth,^ with more tact and
dexterity, merely replied, that for her part, she was
sensible women were incapable of controlling a people
so impatient of rule as the Magyars, — ' I have used
my authority over my daughter, and have now
begged her to yield to destiny. I am, at least,
pleased that you, who are of the blood of King
Charles of Anjou, should receive the crown in pre-
ference to all others. All I entreat of you, in yield-
ing you the sceptre, is to allow us to quit the
kingdom in safety.' There can be no doubt they de-
sired to go. In reply, Charles expressed his grateful
1 She was Bosnian by birth. Vide Genealogy.
CHARLES m. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL 69
satisfaction, and vowed he would revere the widow
of his former benefactor as a mother, and Mary as
his sister.
But it seems probable he felt he could only 1385.
guarantee their personal safety so long as they
accompanied him, and enjoyed the protection of his
own bodyguard. At the same time, their presence at
his approaching coronation would naturally have the
effect of proving to the people that they willingly
renounced their rights and sanctioned his accession.
Meanwhile a considerable increase in the royal re-
tinue took place from another cause, namely, the
arrival of several more Neapolitan nobles. Their
presence, however, did not contribute additional har-
mony, inasmuch as several of the native magnates now
began to evince jealous uneasiness as to the part
these Italians might play in Hungarian affairs.
Immediately after Christmas the King set out
for Stuhlweissenburg (Alba Regalis), where grand
preparations had been made for his coronation. His
dethroned kinswomen accompanied him thither.
On the 31st of December, the Cathedral being
thronged with nobles and prelates of the realm,
and Charles seated in the chair of state, the
Archbishop of Gran thrice asked the congregation
whether it was willing to accept King Charles of
Naples as King of Hungary. On the first asking,
enthusiastic plaudits greeted the question ; but on
each of the subsequent repetitions there arose but
feeble and feebler murmurs. This was due not so
70 CHARLES HI. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL
much to any real change of feeling toward the
King, but to the melodramatic eflfect caused by
the audible sobbing of the two realmless Queens,
who presently sank down passionately weeping upon
the sepulchre of King Louis.
The coronation concluded, Charles, preceded by
the banner of King Stephen, left the Cathedral in
order to mount his attendant charger and make
a customary progress to the castle. The bearer
of that historical trophy, however, in passing out
of the church, struck the arched doorway with the
pole, which, being like tinder with age, snapped
in twain. The incident was looked upon by many
present as of peculiarly evil omen. A token con-
sidered yet more inauspicious was a terrific thunder-
storm which a few days later broke over Buda,
just as the King was about to re-enter the castle
there. Every mediaBval chronicler of these incidents
lavishes on them his wealth of superstitious exaggera-
tion. Costanzo, the Neapolitan historian, even goes
so far as to say that tiles were blown into the air
from the roofe, causing many of the older houses to
collapse and bury their inmates. A Magyar writer
declares that dense flights of ravens, dismally croak-
ing, flapped their wings against the windows, and
tore at one another.^
1 At Naples the news of his coronation was received with delight,
both by the natives and the foreign merchants, and Queen Margaret
on horseback paraded the streets with nine of her ladies, dressed in
white embroidered with gold. * Nobiles Capuanad et Nidi, qui cum
bandenis et magnis instrumentis equitando per avitatem Neapoles,
CHARLES m. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL 71
It must be confessed that, in still keeping the
royal ladies at his side, according them full liberty
and outward honours, though it showed openly
enough his chivalrous disposition and his regard
for the promise formerly made to Elisabeth, Charles
betrayed a want of caution bordering on insanity.
He was well aware of the respective characters of the
two Queens and of the perilous number of their
sympathisers. It was impossible to suppose they
would prove other than the most probable cause
or centre of a future conspiracy for regaining that
which had been so reluctantly surrendered, to say
nothing of revenging their misfortune upon their
favoured kinsman. He knew that the Queen-mother
was a more than practised dissembler; he knew
equally well that Mary was fiery and courageous;
above all, he was aware that the Ban of Zara had
remained the staunch confidant of both Queens all
through. In reality, each of these three had signed
the death-warrant of Charles with their heart's blood.
The Ban now devised his death, and lost no time
in putting the plot into execution. As Charles was
sharing the castle with them, this could not have
proved a very difficult matter.
It was therefore planned that Queen Elisabeth, Feb. 7, 1386.
on an appointed day, toward evening, should invite
Charles to confer with her anent letters she professed
iverant ad dictum castrum (Nuovo).' — Chron. Siculum, 63. See also
Archivio Storico NapoL, anno xii 'florentini feceront maximum
festum postquam Carolus fuit factus rex Hungaria.' — Sozomeni, Pisto-
rienais, R. L Sc. 1129.
72 CHARLES HI. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL
to have received from Sigismund, her son-in-law,
who had been raising forces and unlawfully mort-
gaging certain Hungarian and other estates while
in Bohemia. The Ban, on pretence of being about
to start for Syrmia in order to be present at his
daughters' wedding, was to arrive at the same hour,
to take formal leave of the two royal ladies.^
At the appointed time, the King, accompanied
by his Italian bodyguard, waited upon the Queen-
mother ; but perceiving ajffairs of state were to be
discussed, he dismissed his attendants into the corri-
dors. A letter from Sigismund was then handed to
him. While in the act of perusing it, the Ban, a
certain Gyorgyi, and the cup-bearer, Blasius Forgach,
entered the hall, in order, as it seemed, to take formal
leave. The King and Naccarello Dentice, suspecting
nothing, turned their backs upon them, and the for-
mer continued reading. Suddenly Forgach, raising a
battle-axe which he had concealed beneath his cloak,
smote Charles upon the head with it, felling him to
the floor. Dentice was also struck down. Hearing
groans, his attendants rushed in, whereupon the
conspirators made for the courtyard, where their
friends were awaiting them. The Queen swooned,
or pretended to do so, and Charles was carried by
the terrified courtiers to his apartments. The con-
spirators, whose adherents had been collected secretly
in various portions of the city, now drove their oppo-
nents before them, and Paul Horvathy, with many
^ L Feseler, Gesch. von. Ungam, torn. ii. pp. 242, 243.
CHARLES in. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VI. 73
of the Italians, quitted the city that night and fled
into Croatia, while Forgach, the actual assassin, fear-
ing for his life, likewise made his escape into the
country.
Next day the Queens sent out heralds proclaiming
that Mary was their only legitimate sovereign, and
granting full pardon to all who, by force or bribery,
had been guilty of swerving from their allegiance in
favour of the King of Naples ; whereupon the towns-
folk, seeing their advantage, fell upon the unfortu-
nate Italian merchants and pillaged their houses.
Charles meanwhile was kept prisoner, and soon
afterwards was removed to the castle of Visegrad,
where (despite three desperate wounds), showing in-
convenient signs of recovery, he was either poisoned Feb 24, 1386.
or strangled.^ Being regarded as under Urban's in-
terdict, his body was buried without rites of any kind.
Four years later. Pope Boniface IX., another Neapoli-
tan Pontiff, whose family (Tomacelli) had been greatly
favoured and advanced by Charles, caused his remains
to be taken up and re-interred becomingly in the
Church of St. Andrew in that city.^
Thus perished Charles III. in the prime of his life,
being but forty-one years of age, a victim rather to
his want of caution than to his ambition. De Niem
incidentally describes his person for us, and his intel-
lectual pleasures : * Karolus erat brevis staturse, et
rufus et pulcher aspectu necnon loquela et incessu
^ I. Feealer, p. 244.
« Ibid.
74 CHARLES HL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL
placidus, poetis et historiis sufficienter instructus, in
quibus etiam libenter post cenam et prandium cum
doctis in illis plerumque conferre consuevit/ ^
By his death, it must be confessed, Hungary was
destined to suflFer deplorably ; for that realm was on
the eve not only of desperate struggles with the
invading Moslem, but of civil war between the
returning Sigismund and Mary his wife, in which
the ability of such a commander as Charles would
have stood the latter in good stead.
Elisabeth did not long enjoy her triumph. By
the advice of Nicholas of Zara, the two Queens pre-
sently determined to proceed with a small escort to
Croatia, believing that by their coming the rebels
who still opposed them there would be pacified.
Confident of success, they journeyed to Agram ; but
Horvathy learning of their approach, collected some
troops, and intercepted them and their escort near
Diacovar (or Gorgan), whereupon a sanguinary en-
. counter took place. Blasius Forgach was killed by
a lance-thrust while defending the royal carriage,
and his body was immediately decapitated. The
Ban Nicholas fell beneath a shower of arrows^ and
his son was taken prisoner by Horvathy.
Horvathy, thus making the two Queens prisoners,
was implored for mercy by Elisabeth, who confessed
herself to have been the sole instigator of the murder
1 De Seism., lib. i. xlix. See also Paris de Puteo, De Duello, cap. xiv.
lib. 9. Minerbetti, Chron, ap. Tartini, R I. Ss. ii 1385. Matteo
Camera, p. 331.
CHARLES m. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VI. 75
of King Charles. Horvathy sent Mary to be con-
fined in the fortress of Gomneck, whUe Elisabeth was
taken to Novigrad, near Zara, where afterwards she
was strangled.^ Meanwhile John of Palisnay, bear-
ing the heads of the slaughtered Ban and Forgach,
carried the news of the capture of the two Queens
to Naples, and laid his gory trophies at the feet of
the disconsolate Margaret.
1 M. Horvath, Qeschichte von Ungarn, 194.
CHAPTER VI.
fET me now observe how things had
fared with Urban and his unfor-
tunate Cardinala They had duly-
arrived at Genoa toward the close
of September 1385, and the popular
demonstrations there had been both soothing to
Urban's ruffled pride and very flattering to hia obsti-
nacy. In the midst of hia discomfiture he remained
inflexible in purpose. If, however, he enjoyed the
cruel triumph of dragging the worn-out victims in his
train to the Hospital of the Knights of St. John, where
he took up his abode, he did it at the expense of his
sudden popularity with the townfolk of Genoa. To
their eyes a living Pontiff afforded a pleasant and
unwonted sight ; but the news of the treatment to
which his Cardinals had been subjected, the actual
glimpses obtained of them, fettered and emaciated,
as they had left the ships, and their subsequent utter
seclusion, created profound astonishment commingled
with intense curiosity and commiseration. Never-
theless events fell out as agreeably as possible for
Urban, and he found it not compulsory to listen to
the voice of popular sympathy.
It had happened that, with consummate craft, Gian
CHARLES IIL OF NAPLES ANJD URBAN VL 77
Galeazzo Visconti had lately surprised his unsuspect-
ing uncle Bemabo and his sons, and confining them
in various prisons, had made himself master of
Milan.^ In December Bemabo died,* it was believed
by poison, and was honoured with a sumptuous public
funeral by his tactful successor, just as if he had been
reigning prince. In order to clear himself of the
crime and obtain absolution for having married his
uncle's daughter, Caterina, without having obtained
Papal dispensation, Gian Galeazzo now sent splendid
gifts' to Urban, presently visited him, and without
difficulty obtained his desire. All this conduced to
fortify Urban in his new position, and partly enabled
him to repay the heavy expenses incurred in acquir-
ing the ten Genoese galleys.*
These things, however, did not quench the com-
passion felt for the Cardinals. Already, while
touching at Pisa, on the voyage to Genoa, Pietro
Gambacorta, Lord of that city, had interceded with
Urban for them ; but Urban had sternly replied that
their crimes had been great, and in no wise did they
deserve pity. At Genoa, first of all, certain of their
kinsmen, together with the Cardinals of Ravenna
and Pietramala, begged Urban to have pity upon
them, but their entreaties were in vain. Finally, the
^ Corio, Istoria di Milano, vol. ii
* Johan. de Mussis, Chron. Placent. apud Muratori, vol. xvL * Eodem
anno Christi mccclxxxv. dictus dominus Bemaboe decessit in Castro
Trecii,* pp. 545, 546. Sozomeni, Pistor. ap. Muratori, voL xvL 11 83.
3 ' Multa preciosa vasa argentea.' — De Scismate, lib. L Ivii. ; De Niem.
^ Each of the gaUeys had carried fifty archers and one hundred and
fifty rowers (Qobelinus, Persona Coemodrom, vi). See p. 87.
78 CHAKLES HI. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VI.
Doge himself made endeavours to the same purpose,
which proved equally unavailing. Presently a letter
arrived from King Richard 11. of England, beseech-
ing for the release of Adam Aston,^ Cardinal of St.
Cecilia, and his subject ; in the event of refusal* by
the Pope, possibly hinting that his people might be
tempted to acknowledge the Anti-Pope.^
As Urban felt he could not aflFord to lose the so
profitable fidelity of the English, he set the wretched
captive free." The Cardinals of Ravenna and Pietra-
mala, having failed in their attempts to obtain the
release of their colleagues, now felt it necessary
for their own safety to flee. The former went to
Pavia, where he created some sensation by burning
his hat in the Piazza, and the latter to Avignon,
where, being gladly welcomed by Clement, he was
created an Anti-Papal Cardinal.*
Urban now grew suspicious of every one who en-
tered the Hospital, and doubled the guards. Before
long, however, he determined to make an end of
the Cardinals ; though by what means he did so
is not precisely known. The mystery preserved in
regard to this tragedy gave rise, as was but natural
^ His sepulchre may be seen on entering the Church of St. Cecilia, at
Rome, bearing the arms of England — three leopards and three fleur-de-
lis. He died 1388.
* See Walsingham, Historia Anglicana, IL 123, 197. De Niem says,
* Ad supplicationem eiusdem Richard! regis Angliae postea dimisit' —
De Scismate, Ivii ; (Jobelini, Pers. Cosmod., vi. 81.
^ *Erat inter illos unus de Anglia cardinalis magnipotens, quem
liberavit potentum Anglorum instantia.* — Qeoi-g Stella, U. xvii. 11 27.
^ He lived to receive a third cardinalate from Boniface IX., whence he
became nicknamed the Cardinal of the three hats.
k
CHARLES III. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL 79
in those times, to speculations quite as various as
those disseminated in regard to the death of Queen
Joanna. Some said that the Cardinals were tied up
in sacks and dropped into the sea ;^ others, that
they were strangled, and others still, that they
were walled up alive.' Their supposed remains were
discovered a few years back in the convent of San
Giovanni, which possibly gives more favour to the
latter conjecture. Each version became duly em-
broidered with new and ingenious details, in order
to suit the contemporary appetite for horrors.*
Gobelinus, however, who was personally familiar
with Urban, simply declares that the Cardinals died in
prison, but that he is ignorant of the manner of their
deaths. He heard in later years that they were buried
under the stables.* That arch-fabricator, CoUenucio,
as might be expected, vigorously out-distanced all
competitors in detailing the unknown circumstances.
Meantime had occurred those startling events in
Hungary which have been already recorded, and
which culminated in the assassination of King
Charles.
^ Baluze in his Life of Clement VII. and Bonincontrius, vol xxL 47,
Muratori, Rer. ItaL Script
^ ' Dicitur fecit dictos Cardinales carceratos vivos sepeliri in quadam
staUa equorum.' — Joh. de Mussis, Chron. Placent., 539, apud Muratori,
vol. xvi. * Selon les divers sentiments dee historiens.* — St C. B.
De Niem writes — 'Dicebator enim a multis, quod in stabulo
equorum dicti Urbani in quadam fossa repleta calce viva eorum cor-
pora projecta et in eadem totaliter combusta et in cineres conversa
fuerant' — Lib. Ix.
3 Histor. Paduan. Andreas Qatarus, apud Muratori, voL xvii. 460.
^ Gobelini, Pers. in Cosmod., vi. 81.
8o CHARLES IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL
On the first of the year had taken place a total
eclipse of the sun ; on the 1 5th the moon had likewise
undergone eclipse.^ In those credulous times, it may
be accepted such events gave rise to ominous specu-
lation ; but added afterwards to the fact of Urban's
violent excommunication of the King and Queen,
it is not to be wondered that the tragic death of
the former was looked upon by many as the direct
and special result of the Papal anathema, of which
the eclipses were sure phenomenal foretoken.
Ere the close of January the University of Zara
sent letters to Naples informing the Queen of her
husband's coronation at Alba-Regalis, and stating it
had been performed with the consent of the Hun-
garian Queen, the barons, and the clergy. In conse-
quence, all Naples was illuminated, and a magnificent
festivity commenced, which lasted for more than a
month.* The Queen called together the nobles and
magistrates, and conveyed to them the good news,
which indeed was soon confirmed by letters from the
King himself. In consequence there ensued a round of
dances, processions, and tournaments, which Margaret
and her son Ladislaus, and Joanna, her daughter, —
dressed in red and azure velvet, and preceded by the
standard bearing the arms of Hungary, — honoured
with their presence. Adding greater glory to this ex-
traordinary spectacle, the ambassadors of Genoa and
Florence, with their respective suites, rode on gor-
^ Chronicon Siculum, p. 63. Bonincontri, 0. c. 47.
^ Chronia Siculum, p. 63.
CHAELES IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VI. 8i
geously caparisoned horses through the city to make
their respective homages to her at the Castelnuovo,
and that done, they paraded through the city by
night with torches burning. Nine ladies of the
Queen's household, robed in white with armlets of
gold/ seem also to have attracted much attention as
they followed their royal mistress in her progresses.
On the 15th of February, while witnessing with
her children one of the tournaments held in the
Strade delle Correggie,* the Florentine ambassador
received letters from Florence containing news of the
assassination of King Charles. Later on he went to
the castle and took counsel with Orsini, Count of Nola,
Tommaso Marzano, the Chief Justiciary, and others,
showed them his letters, and, afterwards obtain-
ing audience of the Queen, acquainted her with her
dire misfortune. According to one account, the news
reached her while witnessing the tournament, and
Margaret left it at once weeping, and went to shut
herself in the castle — 'and the crowd dispersing
quickly, so that in an hour not a person was to be
seen.' *
On the following Sunday, Luigi di Gesualdo arrived
from Hungary, bearing details of the tragedy, but
adding that though the King was dreadfully wounded
and had lost an eye, he was not yet dead. At
this the Queen took some comfort, and in grati-
tude to Heaven walked barefooted, taper in hand,
1 Chronic. Siculum, p. 63.
' Giomale del Duca di Montileoue. ' Ibid.
82 CHARLES IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL
followed by a reverent throng of her subjects, to the
Church of S. Maria di Piedigrotta, near Posilippo,
and there gave thanks to the Virgin.^ In a short
time the news of his death reached her.
In order fuUy to understand the situation at
fTaples, it now becomes necessary to survey the poli-
tical doings of the Angevine or Anti-Papal party,
who, owing to Urban s art of making enemies, were
at no loss for adherents even in Italy.
By means of successive creations of Cardinals, the
wily Clement had aimed directly at obtaining for
his cause the financial resources of the wealthiest
families in France. His efforts were well rewarded.
One of his Cardinals, Pierre de Luxembourg, was
but eighteen years of age.* The lower clergy were
oppressed to the utmost with taxes and tithes. The
collectors of the Apostolic Chamber developed into
absolute tyrants. At the decease of any clerical
dignitary they immediately appeared upon the scene,
pounced upon his goods, sold the ornaments of his
church, imprisoned his heirs if they offered resist-
ance, and even went to the extreme of mortgaging
the harvests years in advance ; so that oftentimes a
newly-elevated bishop found himself obliged to tra-
verse his diocese at the head of an armed company
levying contributions from the penniless inhabitants.
The writer of the Chronicle of St. Denis declares
^ Costanzo.
2 Les Souverains Pontifes k Avignon. J. B. Joudou, vol. ii.
p. 247.
/
r
f-j'-i*^'-
:ji*
^~^m ' iw«
• A
w;Il.
CHARLES in. OF NAPLES AND UEBAN VL 83
that the exactions of Clement VIL surpassed those
of Boniface VIIL, and even those of John XXTL In
addition to these resources, the kingdoms of Aragon
and Navarre had, by means of the skilful eloquence
of Cardinal Pedro di Luna,^ submitted to his sway,
while in Italy, Bologna and a portion of Naples
openly acknowledged him.
Upon learning the death of Louis of Anjou, Cle-
ment had lost no time in sending for his widow,
Mary of Blois, and her son, Louis II., in order that
they should receive at his hands the investiture to
the kingdom of Naples and the Countship of Pro-
vence. Mary, while in Paris, had made good use
of her time in attaching to her cause the sympathies
of Charles VL There Tommaso San Severino found
her, and thence he gladly conducted her to Avignon,
where the Anti-Pope welcomed her with entirely royal
magnificence. Soon after her arrival she attended an
open consistory, and went through the absurd for-
mality of receiving at his hands the guardianship
of her own son, after which the latter was presented
with a standard as the sign of his investiture.
Having thus been made Kegent during the minority April a4, 1385.
of Louis, Mary made haste to win the goodwill of the
various cities of Provence and their feudal masters.
Having for this end raised a considerable army, under
the command of the Count of Kochefort, she convened
a meeting of the States at Apt, the chief outcome of
which was an agreement with the people of Mar-
^ Afterwards Pope Benedict XIII.
i
84 CHAKLES IH. OF NAPLES AND TJKBAN VI.
seilles that they should give their allegiance, albeit
with somewhat thorny conditions, to her son. Per-
ceiving that no more influential means of ingratiating
herself with the Proven9als could be devised than by
freely showing herself and Louis, she now made a state
progress with him. She had returned to Avignon
at the very moment when Charles III. was starting
on his fatal journey to Hungary ; and there learning
that Clement was enjoying his summer at Chateau-
neuf, she and Louis pressed forward, till at the gate
of that town the young King dismounted, and
taking the bridle of the Pope's mule, conducted its
master to the castle. Baluze^ relates that the boy
being small of stature, the Sire de Viviers raised him
in his arms so that he might perform this dutiful
ceremony. In December Mary gratified the people
of Aries by making that city her principal residence.
In the following months occurred in Hungary the
events previously recorded, which so tragically placed
Ladislaus upon the throne of Naples ; which there-
fore brings us to fresh developments in the dual
struggle between the rival heirs to the throne of
Queen Joanna I., and in that between the rival
Pontifis, Urban and Clement.
1 Vita Clem. VII.
CHAPTER VII.
T is not my intention to follow out the
development of the long and desul-
tory civil war in Naples which ensued
upon the death of King Charles, be-
tween Queen Mai^aret on behalf of
their son, Ladislaus, on the one hand, and Mary of
Blois and her son, Louis II. of Anjou, on the other,
complicated by the factions of the rival Popes, which
continued till quite the close of the century, and was
vigorously renewed in the next. But it will be a
matter of more general interest to trace the brief
remaining career of Urban, and see what results
followed from his turbulent ambition to possess the
kingdom of Naples.
The death of Kjng Charles had removed the chief
rock of offence; and to the eyes of most people
it appeared that by according charity, or at least,
forbearance, to the widowed Queen and her son,
Urban would not only be doing a Christian act of
clemency, but would most dexterously recover his
vanished dignity, and possibly the territorial prizes
of which he had so entirely lost hold. But pity was
a quality entirely foreign to Urban's nature ; more-
over, Margaret had always hitherto identified her-
self completely and rigidly with her late husband's
86 CHARLES IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN TL
policy. Angry with the world and with himself, it
flattered his morbid rancour to further advertise to
every one how remorseless he could be.
At the very time when the King met his death in
Hungar}% ambassadors from Margaret to Urban had
arrived in Genoa, for the purpose of making terms
of peace between them. The Pope, with his Car-
dinals, thereupon celebrated mass in their presence.
After this he ordered one of the deacons to read
aloud the same terrible interdict he had used while
at Nocera, he and the Cardinals meanwhile holding
the lighted torches in their hands, which they threw
down at the close.^ The insulted ambassadors im-
mediately lefb the church and made their way back
to Naples.
Margaret, though fully occupied with dire civic
discords at Naples, and the active intrigues of the
Anti-Papal party, nevertheless, at the urgent request
of her Ministers, sent another embassy to Genoa in
the foUowing August for the same purpose. DeNiem*
tells us that special advocates from Florence and
other Italian States at the same time begged Urban
to forget the offences of the father and husband,
and to take pity upon the widow and her children.'
Margaret, moreover, offered to liberate his nephew,
Francesco Prignano, who was still in the Castle of
St. Elmo. Nothing could soften him.
* Chronicon Siculum, p. 63. * De Scismate, Ixiv.
> ' Florentini oratores, cum Papa Urbanus esset Lucsb pluries ad eum
iverunt, ut vellet in Regno Neapoli ponere pacem, et favere Ladislao
filio Regis.' — Sozomeni, Pistoriensis, apud Muratoii, vol. xvi. p. 1131.
CHARLES IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL 87
In September a gory trophy arrived in Naples in
the shape of the heads of the assassins of Charles,
which were placed on pikes and stuck over the
various gates of Naples.
Urban's assumption that Margaret, distracted by
her difficulties, would be weak enough to surrender her
son's rights over Capua and Amalfi, proved entirely
fallacious ; but he was still meditating a final elffort
to possess himself of the kingdom. Owing, however,
to the immense charge of 80,000 florins incurred on
account of the armed galleys supplied him by the
Genoese Republic, he found himself short of the
means wherewith to undertake it.
Nevertheless, alarmed at the renewed activity of the
Clementists around Louis II. of Anjou, with whom
Duke Otho of Brunswick now freely joined himself,
he felt the urgent necessity of taking active measures.
With this intention he had sought aid from the
Aragonese monarch of Sicily, and was eagerly treating
for the services of certain condottieri in Central Italy,
who were reaping the benefit of desultory outbreaks
between the various Tuscan republics. In December, 1386.
having acquainted the Governor of Lucca that he
contemplated visiting that town on his way toward
Rome, he left Genoa, and passing by Pietra Santa
with a numerous foUowing, presently arrived there.^
The Governor decreed that in honour of his visit
the Pope should be lodged and entertained at
^ Archivio Storico Italiano, rst Series, torn. x. lib. ii. chap. viL
p. 265.
i
88 CHARLES HI. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL
the public expense. On Christmas Eve he cele-
brated mass in the Cathedral of San Martino, and
afterwards presented Forteguerra, the chief magis-
trate, with the ducal cap and sword.^ So gratified
was he with his treatment by the Lucchese, that
instead of a merely passing visit, his stay was
graciously extended to nine full months, during
which time he was enabled to mature his plans
and make various seemingly advantageous treaties.
Further, in virtue of the yet uncompleted payment
for the repurchase of her liberties from the late
Emperor Charles IV., he now managed to extract
large sums of money from the city funds.
In August 1387, a month ere his departure from
Lucca, Urban issued a fiery manifesto, summoning
all who considered themselves of the faithful to join
his crusade against the impious and contumacious
kingdom of Naples, illustrating his remarks by adroit
reference to the dealings of the ferocious Levites
with Midian.
The cities of Central Italy, feeling Urban's proxi-
mity, at once assumed individual attitudes toward
him. The Florentines, who had not ceased entreat-
ing him to forget his former wrath with King Charles
and to crown his son, Ladislaus, obtained no favour
from him, and further, were only just able to keep
the peace. They knew his temper well enough not
to go too far, nor to trust him overmuch. Viterbo,
^ * Con ornamenti d'oro e di pieti'e preziose.* — ^Arch. Stor. Ital., ist
Series, voL xvL part i.
CHARLES IIL OF NAPLES AND XJRBAN VI. 89
under the tyranny of Francesco di Vico, defied him,
though finally it had to yield to an attack of the Papal
troops led by Tommaso Orsini/ Cardinal di Manu-
pello. Spoleto and Orvieto absolutely refused to
receive his envoys, and were placed under his inter-
dict. Perugia, however, desirous of profiting by
difiering from her neighbours and rivals, sent him
a rich embassy, inviting him not only to reside in her,
but to become her spiritual magistrate. Learning
this, the Florentines sent to the King of France
begging him to urge Clement to arrange a marriage
'twixt Louis IL of Anjou and Joanna, the sister of
Ladislaus (afterwards Queen Joanna IL), so as to
bring this protracted warfare of the two Angevine
families to a real and satisfactory conclusion.^
Urban gladly welcomed the Perugian embassy, and
promising the city many special privileges, began to
make active preparations for departure thither.
On the 23rd of September, therefore, accompanied
by his now liberated nephew, Francesco, and his wife
(styled Count and Countess of Abruzzo), by eleven
cardinals, and two thousand cavalry under the com-
mands of Giovanni Beltot,* Carlo Malatesta, and
Gentile da Camerino, he set out for Perugia by way
of Pisa. The magnates of the latter city entertained
1 Istoria di Viterbo (Bussi), where wiU be found related the trouble
into which this Cardinal fell with Urban, p. 216; also De Niem,
De Scismate, Ixvii.
* Sozomeni, Pistoriensis, apud Muratori, voL xvL p. 1131.
^ John Beltot, an English captain of adventure. 'Magnum capi-
taneum in Italia et eidem Urbano fideliter adherentem/ — De Scismate,
Ixvii.
90 CHARLES IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VI.
him in passing, and escorted him as far as Radicon-
dolL^ Thence, journeying by Buon-Conventx) and San
Quirico, his military cortbge augmenting continually,
he duly reached the Porta San Pietro of that noble
hill-city on the 2nd of October. A flattering chro-
nicler* tells us that when the PontiflF had reached
a certain point in the city called Trebbia di Luciano,
a white dove settled upon his hat, which was looked
upon as an especially auspicious omen.
For six whole days the citizens made feasts in
his honour, and the nights were made bright with
bonfires. On the second Sunday after his arrival
Urban took occasion to preach from a pulpit that
commanded the Piazza (not the present little pulpit
so well known to visitors at Perugia), and from it he
declared Spoleto and Orvieto to be under his inter-
dict. 'And it was held to be a miracle by some
that though a strong wind was blowing at the time,
it did not extinguish the torch he held.' * Moreover,
finding, says this writer, the clangour of the city
bells to be a nuisance, the magistrates gave order
the said bells were to be less frequently sounded.
During the ten months spent in Perugia, Urban
ripened various designs for replenishing his treasury
and for restoring his popularity with the Romans.
Chief among these was the holding of a Jubilee in the
Eternal City in 1 390, for which purpose he sent out
1 Istoria di Siena, Bern. Malavolti, p. 158.
' Qraziani, in Archivio Storico Italiano, lat Series, voL zvi. part L
» Ibid,
CHARLES IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VI. 91
proclamations far and wide. As De Niem ^ remarks,
however, * Urban sowed for Boniface to reap.'
Well satisfied by his treatment at Perugia, the Pope
at last decided to advance upon Naples while he could
yet rely, as he thought, upon the mercenaries he had
collected. He accordingly left that city on August
8th, giving it his benediction and an indulgence
extending to eight days after his departure. In
company with Beltot, the commander of a portion
of Hawkwood's English troops, he set out for TodL
He had not advanced ten miles, however, when his
mule stumbling, threw him heavily to the ground,^
shaking and bruising him so severely that he was
unable to remount, and had to be carried the rest
of the journey. After a rest at Todi, he proceeded
to Narni, where, being unable to meet Beltot's
reiterated demands for wages due to his soldiers,
that Captain left him.* Urban managed to reach
Tivoli, where many Eoman citizens came out to see
him. Feeling afraid, however, of his many enemies
in the Eternal City, he would not trust himself to
enter it, but passed on southward to Ferentino, —
the same place where, five years before, he had first
quarrelled with his ill-fated Cardinals. On entering
that quiet mountain-town, how vividly must he have
reflected upon the extraordinary sequence of events
1 De Scismate, Ixviii.
> De Niem, Ixiz. Graziani, Archivio Storico Italiano, ist Series,
vol. xvi.
3 De Niem, Ixix. Chron. di Pisa, apad Muratori, vol. xv. p. 1086.
Chron. di Minerbetti, anno 1 388, 1 2. Sozomeni, Pistoriensis, vol. xvL 1 1 38.
92 CHARLES III. OF NAPLES AND XJRBAN VL
since his previous visit ! Finding his project growing
as hopeless as his health, he was at last persuaded
to fall back on Rome, where, on the 1 5th of October
1389, he breathed his last, not without suspicions,
so usual in that age, of having been poisoned.^ The
Chronicon Siculum and other authorities state that
he died without receiving the sacraments.
Unregretted by any save certain members of his
family w^hom he had aggrandised, he was buried in
St. Peter's, where later on he was honoured with a
sumptuous monument, now almost destroyed, and a
somewhat flattering epitaph, in which his deathless
glory is assumed to be increasing the light of heaven.
De Niem tells us that in person Urban was short
and close-set, and of a swarthy complexion.*
The character of Urban truly possessed few attrac-
tions, but it was, happily for mankind, an unusual
one. Its vices, if we except nepotism and avarice,
were not of the class for which the Pontiffs of his
century are chiefly, and very justly, blamed. Morally,
he was an ascetic upon whom Nature perhaps re-
venged herself. If he had intellectual capability,
it was obscured by constant explosions of that un-
governable wrath which wreaked itself in so fero-
cious a manner on his victims. This indeed was
the destructive element in his character, the stead-
* Minerbetti, Chron., anno 1389, 15; Sozomeni, Pistoriensis, 1140,
apud Muratoriy xvi : ' Et per unum mensem f uit in segrotatione. Et
dictum fuit, quod de veneno deficit*
' *Erat etiam brevis stature et spissus, colons lividi sive fusci, et
sexagenarius vel circa, dum elegabatur in Papam.' — De Scismate, lib. i. i.
CHARLES m. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VI. 93
fast defeater of all his plans and ambitions. He
seems to have united in himself the toughness, the
weight, and the endurance of iron ; but whenever
these admirable qualities were most urgently re-
quired for action, the metal was found to be at white
heat, and, therefore, worse than useless. Some of
his contemporaries not unnaturally declared him
to be insane. Nevertheless, it cannot be said he
exhibited disorder in his ideas, or any indistinctness
in his aims, and certainly he showed no trace of
indecision in his eflforts for their achievement. He
seems, however, to have found a certain passionate
satisfaction in raising the very storms with which
he so vainly battled ; and it is difficult to give this
any other name than insanity. Yet we cannot with-
hold a sort of admiration for reckless daring when
found coupled with such inflexible determination.
Of the superior advantages of his adversaries Urban
made little account. His dexterity again was well
shown in extricating himself from Nocera. He had
no little gift of cunning. To the austerity of the
monk he added the pitilessness of the inquisitor,
which his sudden elevation to autocratic power gave
him ample means of gratifying. Without displaying
a remarkable mind, he had yet sufficient knowledge
of human nature to be even with all its worst
qualities. He saw nothing lovely in life at all,
except his own lust for power. Had Urban pos-
sessed a portion of the tact and self-control of King
Charles, it is quite probable the Western Schism
94 CHARLES IIL OF NAPLES AlfD UEBAN VL
I
would not have occurred. The mere fact of his
being an Italian, instead of a French Pontiff, gave
him extraordinary advantages, all of which he most
wilfully wasted. The mischievous despotism of the
foreign C!ondottieri, which his foreign predecessors on
the throne of St. Peter had set themselves earnestly,
if vainly, to check, was in consequence given fresh im-
petus, and the affairs of Italy were still further con-
founded. Cleavage in the Church in those days meant
dislocation in everything, a sanguinary scramble
throughout the land, crippling every mercantile enter-
prise, demoralising every social effort ; and the various
local tyrants were too shrewd to underrate their tempt-
ing opportunities. Thus Urban left the affairs of the
Church in Italy in a state of complete chaos.^
Yet, strange as it may seem, we should rather
be grateful than otherwise that all this far-reaching
confusion was brought about. But for the Western
Schism, the splendid critical displeasure of Wickliffe
and the English people with the despotic and irra-
tional exactions of the Church might have found no
sympathetic atmosphere wherein to flourish outside
England, and to set reflective minds working. That
reformer s dii-ect appeal to the suppressed germs of
Rationalism was, by means of the Schism, enabled
to stir them into very conscious existence. Oppor-
tunity was at last felt to be propitious, and the
man was not wanting. A feeble monarch, a dual
1 Florenz, Neapel und das Piipstliclie Schisma. Von Dr. Georg
Erler. Leipzig, 1889.
CHARLES III. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL 95
Papacy, an island - people with strong traditions,
exasperated by extreme and long-continued clerical
abuses, — Europe generally smarting under the deso-
lating extortions of a corrupt, avaricious, and divided
priesthood, — all unconsciously contributed to encou-
rage and fortify the audacity of that sincere and ener-
getic thinker, until his doctrines, spreading as they
did with healthy rapidity over a semi-sympathetic
continent, distantly foretokened the coming of Luther
and the emancipation of Eeason. The Schism, there-
fore, was a direct forebear of the Reformation.
It will be not uninteresting now to consider some
of the more immediate results of this great crisis
in Papal affairs.
To begin with, the example afforded by the leaders
of the Christian family was realistically imitated by
the other members. The chasm widened ; and as it
widened, it deepened.
Nominally speaking, France was Clementist and
Italy was Urbanist ; but virtually, the rival factions
impinged on one another throughout Europe, whence
mutual persecution and recrimination everywhere
prevailed. At Metz, at Liege, at Basle, at Coire,
and at Breslau, there were rival bishops who assailed
each other with anathemas, which faithfully re-
echoed the Pontifical thunders. The monastic
Orders soon became involved in the strife, and
the Carthusian, to which order Urban himself be-
longed, became divided against itself. This nar-
rative has shown that the most potent head of the
96 CHARLES HL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL
Benedictines, the Abbot of Monte Cassino, headed
the army which besieged Urban at Nocera. The
great military order of St. John did not escape
the common influence, and consequently owned
a Grand-Master and an Anti-Grand-Master. Fra
Giovanni-Fernandez d'Eredia, the Grand-Master by
right, had espoused the Anti-PajDal cause ; and while
at Palestrina in 1383 Urban declared him deprived,
and in his stead elected Fra Riccardo Caracciolo,
a Neapolitan, and Prior of the Hospitallers at Capua.
In every department of Western Christianity pre-
vailed this disruption, this anarchy; and to accen-
tuate ecclesiastical confusion, the Schism had broken
out in the midst of the war being w^aged by ortho-
dox theologians against those flourishing Mendicant
Orders, which the Roman Pontifis themselves had
had good cause for vigorously defending.
It was natural that dogmatical disputes already
long carried on in high quarters should receive
acute stimulation from the fresh division in the
rank and file of the Church. The sects or heresies,
which had endured more than a century of persecu-
tion at the hands of the Inquisition, now sprang
into fresh activity. Terror and repression had sub-
dued, but by no means extirpated them. They had
secretly spread over a larger area, and had found new
centres, between which had been begotte^Q numerous
hybrid and subordinate heresies ; whose haaders, how-
ever, defied and even menaced their persecutors as
daringly as any of their predecessors had done.
CHAELES III. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL 97
Of these, the Waldenses had so widely disseminated
their tenets, that in Austrian territories alone they
could boast of twelve Grand-Masters or Kegents;
and they flourished in Prussia and Poland as obsti-
nately as in Bohemia and Bavaria, or in the vale of
Mont Cenis. The core of their existence was nourished
by professed abhorrence of the greed of Kome and of
that corrupt Church, the commencement of whose
temporary downfall they were indeed regarding.
In theology, perhaps the most notable and im-
portant contention (having its birth in the last
years of the pontificate of Urban, and its parent-
age in the doctrines of Wickliffe) was that which
arose between the Aragonese Dominican, Juan de
Montesono, and the University of Paris, on the
long-fermenting subject of the Immaculate C!on-
ception.^ The Friar afl&rmed it to be contrary to
the Faith to aver that any save Christ Himself was
exempt from original sin. He declared it to be a
sin against the Faith to aver that the Virgin Mary
was immaculately conceived. The scandal evoked
by this bold assertion raged during five years.
When the University of Paris condemned him,
Montesono appealed to Avignon. Mosheim states
that the University had clung throughout the
century to the doctrine of the Immaculate Con-
ception.* The Bishop of Paris approved the censure
of the University, and threatened those who should
^ Lea, History of the Inquisition, vol. iii. p. 596. Summa Theolog.,
T. Aquinas, iiL 27.
> Mosheim, voL ii. p. 302.
o
98 CHARLES III. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VI.
preach according to Montesono's opinions with ex-
communication. However, the Friar had received
his doctrine from his Order, and his Order was
determined to stand by him. Presently, he re-
paired, by command, to the Court of Clement, and
was there confronted by four of the ablest doctors
from Paris. Among these figured the famous Pierre
d'Ailly, whose arguments soon prepossessing the
Anti-Pope in favour of the University, certain of
his Cardinals were charged to investigate the dispute
still further and come to a decision, meanwhile for-
bidding Montesono to leave Avignon on pain of
being found contumacious. Fearing for his life,
however, the Friar fled to Italy and transferred his
allegiance to Urban, in whose favour, later on, he
issued a treatise. In consequence of the Dominican
Order now refusing to accept the decision of Paris,
its members were denied access to the University;
and, as Lea has pointed out in his admirable His-
tory of the Inquisition,^ this contributed to the abase-
ment of the Inquisition in France, by supplanting it
* as an investigator of doctrine and judge of heresy.'
The area of Italian politics faithfully reflected the
contortionate attitudes of the Church. It was a fore-
gone conclusion that any loosening of the ties binding
the Angevine kingdom of Naples to the Holy See,
which had raised it up in the previous century in
order to counterbalance Imperial or Ghibelline des-
potism in Northern Italy, would prove a certain
^ VoL ii. p. 135.
I
CHARLES HL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL 99
provocation to the chiefis of that fisiction, of whom
the Visconti were at this period of leading impor-
tance, and from whom most of the more petty tyrants
took their cue. Even in his blinding chagrin after
the flight to Genoa, Urban had no need to be re-
minded of this ; and we have seen that while there
he gladly received the Vicar-General of the Empire,
Gian Galeazzo Visconti, and granting him absolution
for the murder of his uncle Bemabo,^ at the same
time. gave a dispensation for the marriage of his
daughter Valentina with her cousin, the Duke of
Orleans, only brother of Charles VI. of France.*
A little later, however, Urban's eyes were further
opened, and he perceived the intention of Visconti,
not only to make himself master of Tuscany and
the Papal patrimony, but to crown himself King of
Italy. For he had taken Verona and Vicenza, had
driven from Padua the reigning Carrara family, and
thus had extended his frontier to within sight of
the very domes of St. Mark's. At the same moment,
he aimed a heavy blow at the authority of the
Church by decreeing that no layman should be under
necessity of obeying a summons from the ecclesias-
tical courts. In consequence, the Pope excluded
him from the general indulgence promised to all who
should attend the Jubilee he intended to celebrate
in 1390. The adversary, nevertheless, seeing himself
^ Qian Galeazzo then began to build the Cathedral of Milan, in com-
memoration of having made himself tyrant Vide Corio, Istoria de
Milano, voL ii ^
> He himself married, first, Isabella, daughter of that King.
loo CHARLES IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL
master of two-thirds of entire Lombardy, could well
afford to make light of this little want of amiability
on the part of Urban, and accordingly he did so.
If a dislocated Naples depressed the Italian Papacy,
in a still more potent manner did an over-powerful
Milan depress Florence. The position of the latter
city was one of extraordinary difficulty. The thrift
and industry of her citizens had accumulated un-
rivalled wealth. Her shrewdness and enterprise had
created a greater Florence beyond her walls, of which,
indeed, she herself formed but the brain or luminous
nucleus. Her bankers maintained agents in every
European kingdom, even in many of their secondary
towns. There was scarcely a reigning dynasty at
the period I am speaking of but was considerably
indebted to her, and with her ruling love of money
was fused her somewhat peculiar love of freedom.
The money markets of Europe throve at this
period, as they ever will do under republican forms
of government, and of these Venice, Genoa, and Flor-
ence exhibited the principal examples ; but the one
long considered the most desirable as a possession
in the sight of the Visconti dynasty was Florence.
Gian Galeazzo felt himself obliged to support the
Genoese in order to spite his chronic antagonists the
Venetians. The latter, meanwhile, used all possible
means to stimulate his greed toward Florence.
Again, during the exile of the Papacy at Avignon,
and during these opening years of the Schism, many
of the cities of Central Italy had made use of the
c
»
CHARLES HL OF NAPLES AITD URBAN VL loi
opportunity thus given them to imitate the example
of Florence, and, throwing oflF their allegiance, had
chosen their own masters. Oppressed by the Car-
dinal-legates, they had called in the services of
various Free Companies and proclaimed their own in-
dependence. Others, less fortunate, had succumbed
to the legates after recurrent sanguinary struggles.
None of them, however, were proof against the
dexterous wiles of Visconti, who was aware that
their hatred of the Papal suzerainty was almost
counterbalanced by their envy of Florence.
Urban, defeated in his designs on Naples, naturaUy
had made it his next object to recover these revolted
towns of Tuscany and Romagna ; but in this he found
himself opposed by Gian Galeazzo, who claimed the
lion's share. Throughout the century the possession
of Bologna had been contested, and the Lord of Milan
now naturally refused to surrender his pretended rights
over her to an unpopular and a defeated PontiflF.
Florence, therefore, at this period had three dis-
tinct and powerful enemies variously allied against
her, viz., the Venetians, who were jealous of her
trade ; the Tuscan cities, who were envious of her
wealth ; and the Visconti, who were desirous of
entirely crushing her under their tyranny. Florence,
made afraid of Urban, had been glad enough to give
him the cold shoulder ; he returned the coldness by
refusing her request that he would join her league
against the Visconti
Finding their desires repulsed in this direction,
I02 CHAELES IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VI.
the magistrates of Florence, who had been eagerly
listening to the urgent proposals of Francisco IL of
Padua, and several other victims of Visconti's am-
bition or treachery, now determined to secure the
services of Hawkwood, Rinaldo Orsini, and those of
a French company led by the Count of Armagnac.
Having achieved this at immense cost, they con-
cluded a defensive and oflfensive alliance with Bol-
ogna, and then despatched an embassy to the insane
Charles VI. of France, in order to win him over to
their cause. To this they were prompted by the
Count of Armagnac, whose daughter had become the
second wife of the Duke of Orleans/ Their endeavour
fortunately did not meet with success, owing probably
to the advice of the Anti-Pope, who looked upon the
Duke of Milan as the most powerful enemy of the
Roman Pope — now Boniface IX.
The Duke was not behind -hand in gathering
strength for the struggle. His agents kept him
informed of every turn in the development of Flor-
entine politics. He was also aware that Florence
had lately lost to Urban the services of certain
desirable captains, among whom especially figured
Hawkwood, whose wife was a natural daughter of
his uncle Bernabo. But for the moment he mis-
reckoned the power of Florentine gold, and thus
made a serious miscalculation. At the summons of
the Signoria, those renowned captains left the ailing
^ His -Meter Beatrice had married Carlo Visconti, son of Bernabo.
Corio, Storia di Milano, t ii. 386.
CHARLES in. OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL 103
and bankrupt Pope and returned to Florentine ser-
vice. To them, however, Milan could oppose com-
manders only little less skilful, Jacopo del Verme,
Facino Cane, and, not least, the brothers Giovanni
and Alberico da Barbiano, CJounts of Cuneo.
Despite the death of Armagnac and the rout of juiy as. 1391.
his Gascons by Del Verme before the walls of Ales-
sandria, the result of the first phase of the long and
desultory war that followed was not unfavourable
to the Florentines. This was chiefly due both to the
admirable strategy of Hawkwood and to the terror
everywhere inspired by his corps of six hundred
English archers. For, hearing of the disaster to
Armagnac's forces, which prevented their efiecting the
desired junction with his own, Hawkwood contrived a
masterly retreat by fording the Adige, and presently
blocking the enemy in his descent upon Florence.^ A
temporary peace was brought about by the endeavours
of the new Pope, BonifEice IX., and was duly signed
by representatives of the respective adversaries in
the presence of Adomo, Doge of Genoa. January X39».
The advent of a new Italian Pontiflf, who felt the
necessity of throwing vigour into the cause of the
Guelfic allies of the Papacy, could not but prove a
matter of considerable satisfaction at Florence, and
a still greater to the House of Durazzo at Naples.
Boniface lost no time in declaring King Ladislaus
to be the only rightful monarch of that realm. Like
^ CJorio justly says, ^ e veigognoao fu il yitupero dell' esercito di Qiov.
Qaleazzo, che senza rompere una lancia, lasdasse scampare PAcuto dal
pericolo in cui versava.' — T. iL 363.
104 CHARLES IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VL
Urlmn, himself a Neapolitan (of the House of Toma-
eelli), his family had been greatly favoured and
advanced hj Charles III, He now repaid benefits
received at that King's hands to his vv-idow, Margaret,
and her son ; moreover, as we have seen, he caused
his excommunicated remains in Hungary to be re-
interred with full ecclesiastical rites. Pursuing this
patriotic course steadfastly till the close of the cen-
tury, he experienced the triumph, in 1399, of seeing
Louis n. of Anjou driven out of the kingdom.
CHARLES IIL OF NAPLES AND URBAN VI. 105
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CECCO D'ASCOLI,
POET, ASTROLOGER, PHYSICIAN.
liHE subject of this essay takes us back
to the latter half of the thirteenth
century, to a period in which Christian
InteUect, like a plain that had long
lain blackened by partly exhausted fires,
was commencing to put forth &esh growths. Had
it been actually in her power to do so, the Church
would have unquestioningly extirpated these growths.
Nevertheless, as she was constituted, it seemed easier,
or rather far more convenient, for her to modify and
control their development as in turn they arose.
She, therefore, may be said to have laid down as a
fundamental dogma that, though obeying the natural
law of their being, they were to be dependent for
existence upon her permission, otherwise to be
absolute vassals to her wUl. Speculations and in-
quiries into phenomena were to be guided and dis-
ciplined by scriptural text or patristic dogma alone.
Learning, outside theology, was to be considered pro-
tected in so far as its professors obeyed this despotic
112 CECCO D'ASCOLL
injunction, — heretical, in so fiEu: as they disobeyed
it. Theology in her arrogance cried out, *I can
explain all things. Death to those who do not
accept my explanation I '
Two of the inevitable consequences of this dis-
astrous and tyrannical limitation of the Spirit of
Inquiry w^ere intellectual servility or hypocrisy, on
the one hand, and perilous, occasionally fatal, auda-
city, on the other. The growth of true learning
was thus cruelly contorted as well as retarded. Curi-
osity, however, in the long-run proved more enduring
than fear ; with the result for mankind that Learning
has swallowed up Theology, as a forest swallows up
a deserted city. Moreover, though autocratic and
conscrs'^ativc, the Church herself was not stagnated,
but evolutionary, and slowly, though reluctantly,
adaptive.
In order, then, to judge of the kind of restricted
and superstitious atmosphere in which Francesco
Stabile, Astrologer, Physician, and Poet, grew up,
lived his day, and ultimately died at the hands of
the Inquisition, let us at some length regard the
development of the sciences then struggling for
existence.
Had a definite understanding and satisfactory ex-
planation of physical phenomena been miraculously
within the power of the Church, there would have
been little call upon the speculative powers of
studious laymen. The Church, nevertheless, was
herself so ignorant that she had thus far, however
CECCO D'ASCOLI. 113
willing, and even eager, been able to define very little
in respect of such things ; leaving, therefore, ample
room for secular inquiry in every branch of observed
phenomena. What rendered her pretended boundary
lines still more hazy and transgressible by laymen,
was the fact that she had adopted most of her ideas
on such subjects from Pagan sources, and she now
began to put forth these borrowed ideas under dis-
guises so flimsy and vaporous, that it would have
been exceedingly difficult to say where Pagan tradi-
tion ended and Christian embroidering began. So
that as long as speculators did not actually defy the
ecclesiastical autocracy, but either openly acknow-
ledged or humbly conceded to its judgment, they
remained tolerably safe ; but when they showed the
least tendency to diverge into paths of independent
research, they, as it were, encountered angels with
flaming swords standing in the way. The tree of
knowledge might be perceived by the eye, the rustle
of its leaves might be apprehended by the ear ; but
neither blossom nor fruit might be touched, far less
gathered. The Church was the re-embodiment of
the old Jehovah ; a dark, jealous, and vindictive
omnipotence.
The beliefs of the multitude, especially outside
the centres of learning, revealed their Pagan origin
far less opaquely than did those of the Church,
though it is true they had vastly degenerated. In
out-of-the-way places men still clung to the rites
practised by their forefathers, and the ancient deities,
114 CECCO D'ASCOLI.
where not actually worshipped, were constantly re-
garded as mighty demons fully worthy of the pro-
found respect begotten by timidity. Virgil and
Merlin were looked upon as puissant enchanters.
Diana and Hecate were still tutelary deities.^ Dante
shows us how Hades and Tartarus were combined
in the Christian Hell. The air was equally full of
saintly miracles and demonic manifestations, and it
was difficult for the ignorant to believe that the
Church could do more than barely hold her own
against her all-powerful adversary. The powers of
light and the powers of darkness were struggling for
mastery. Universal credulity prevailed in regard to
the miraculous or supernatural, whether of good or
of evil ; but the superior familiarity with which men
could regard things evil, not too secretly stimulated
their respect for the devil. The boundaries they
could draw for themselves between the conception
of a vindictive Deity and a maleficent Satan must
indeed have been extremely hazy. The manifesta-
tions of Divine wrath and Satanic mischief natu-
rally bore a strong family resemblance, and Satan
doubtless often successfully contested the credit of
the display. The same phenomena might be inter-
preted the glorious purposes of God or the superb
devices of the devil, and thus temptingly was opened
the door for superstitious, but eager and persevering,
speculation. Did not the Church herself admit that
* Alfred Maury, La Magie et rAetrologie, p. 1 76. J. Grimm, Deutsche
Mythologie, p. 26a
CECCO D'ASCOLI. 115
'rains and winds, and whatsoever occurs by local
impulse alone, can be caused by demons ' ? * It is
a dogma of faith that the demons can produce wind
and storm, and can rain fire from heaven.'^ Albertus
Magnus, in his * De Potentia Daemonum,' tells how a
certain salve dropped into a well caused a whirlwind.
Wherefore displays which were usually attributable
to God might nevertheless be sometimes occasioned
by the powers of Hell.
Here, then, was a state of semi-authorised belief
in direct sympathy with the polytheistic tendencies
from which Catholicism vainly declares its mission to
have been to wean the world. If Satan could work
marvels to impress the multitude, the Church pre-
tended she could at least do likewise, and be even
with him. History was, as it were, repeating the
wonders respectively performed before Pharaoh by
Moses and by the Chaldeans. All intellectual seed
fell, one way or another, in superstitious furrows.
There was warrant for fianatical intensity of faith ;
but there was also warrant for belief in the wildest
and darkest imaginings, especially for belief in the
vindictive powers of the but half-subjugated ancient
deities. In such a state of things, it was but natu-
ral fresh questions and doubtful points of all kinds
should crop up to tempt the dialectical acumen of
the schoolmen or to £a,scinate the attention of the
experimental inquirer.
^ Thomas Aquinas, Summa TheoL I. quest Ixxx. As Maury points
out, this was the origin of ringing the beUs during storms. See also
Rydberg^ Magic of the Middle Ages, p. 73.
ii6 CEOCO lyASCOLI.
The main standpoint of the Church was nominallj
based upon the saying of St. Augustine — * Nothing
is to be accepted save on the authority of Scripture,
since greater is that authority than all the powers of
the human mind/^ and upon his dictum as to the
nullity of celestial influencea Nevertheless, in things
regarded as supernatural, the authority of Scripture
was at once peculiarly limited, and its words sub-
jected to the most diverse interpretations. More-
over, one interpretation, after the manner of pro-
verbs, modified another, according as it appealed to
variously excited imaginations. For theological or
party purposes, texts in reference to the same subject
could readily be utilised in opposition to one another.
Besides, were not passages of a highly figurative
style susceptible of exceedingly elastic renderings?
However, to this scriptural ruling, enlarged and
expanded as it had been by the early Fathers, the
Church now subjected all doctrines regarding storms,
eclipses, comets, earthquakes, planetary conjunctions,
demoniac possessions,- epidemical visitations, &c., and
in this apparently illimitable field of natural or super-
natural phenomena intellectual men like Roger Bacon
and Albertus, subject to theological censorship and
terrifying cautions, were permitted to speculate. They
were on no account to forget that their business in so .
doing was to harmonise phenomena and the Fathers.
But these men soon came to perceive that their
personal safety lay either in extreme self-control by
1 Augustine, De Civ. Dei, lib. v. c 1-7.
CBCCO lyASCOLI. 117
totally avoiding certain engrossing subjects, or else
in busying themselves with tamely and ingeniously
reconciling Pagan speculations with the views of the
Church, — an attitude and occupation now comfort-
ably indulged in by so many Churchmen toward the
scientific revelations of our own day. Nevertheless
all did not so consult their own safety, as we see
by the examples of Bacon himself,^ Amauld de
Villeneuve, and Pietro d'Abano. General public
sympathy with their trade was in their favour,
but, unfortunately for them, there existed, as it
were, no true ' middle class ' of intellect to take up
at once and fertilise the bold ideas of these studi-
ous inquirers. The Emperor Frederick was dead,
and his line extinct. So that we are confronted in
the history of those times with certain figures of
entirely isolated giants, of great men, like Bacon,
Pietro d'Abano, Ockham, &c., apparently bom out
of their proper age, and in sympathetic touch with
far other and later days.^
In any case, the inquiring observer could not but
run continual risks. The isolation necessary to and
begotten of the nature of his studies rendered him
an object of awe and curiosity to the ignorant, of
enmity to the vain or jealous, and of suspicion to the
orthodox or bigoted. He was thus frequently in
1 With result that he was on two separate occasions condemned hj
the Council of his Order (the Franciscan), and was imprisoned for
many years.
B Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas took subtle care for their
self-preservation, as also did Raymond Lully.
ii8 CECCO D'ASCOLI.
danger of being taken for a magician, for an inter-
mediary 'twixt the powers of darkness and mankind —
in fact, for a direct agent of Satan. In his solitude
he was supposed to hold communion with demons,
and to win from them the secrets he was credited
with possessing. He was, therefore, by some ob-
served with suspicious dread, but consulted with
implicit faith or flattered with abject servility by
others. Moreover, he was continually over-watched
by the critical and credulous eyes of the Church.
With men of strong character, frankness and open-
ness proved of little avail, and these qualities were
easily misinterpreted by minds of an opposite deter-
mination ; while with weaker men the sense of easily
acquired power and the prospect of rapid gain could
not but be agreeably stimulated by the perception of
the timidity they at first quite involuntarily inspired.
The revival of Latin in the eleventh century had
imported into Christian theology the logic of Aris-
totle,^ which was readily adapted and assimilated
by countless professors ; so much so, that, the Greek
philosopher's doctrines grew to be regarded with
as much intellectual deference as were those of
St. Augustine, and their respective influences thus
became gradually dove -tailed. In the following
century, however, the *Metaphysic' and 'Natural
History,' which had for long formed the central
and sacred, though not unpolluted, Zemzem of the
^ * The logic of Aristotle seems to have been partly known in the
eleventh century.' — Hallam, Middle Ages, iii. 426.
CECCO D'ASCOLL 119
flourishing Arabian philosophy at Bagdad, at Cor-
dova, and in Morocco, were likewise imported into
Italy through the medium of Latin translations, and
soon became the cause of a terrible ferment in Chris-
tendom, which lasted through several generations.
Let us now, therefore, briefly consider the manner
and certain peculiar results of this invasion or re-
vival of Paganism, as it affected the atmosphere of
European learning and philosophy. It cannot be
denied to have shed very considerable light therein ;
yet it was the light not as that of the sun, but as of
a luminous haze or nebulosity, which, for the time
being, rather deepened the mystery than irradiated
the ways of learning. It brought with it a resusci-
tation of the ancient mystical science of astrology,
which the mediaeval mind,— long saturated with
love and dread of the marvellous, and fascinated
with the grotesqueness of its own misconceptions, —
was only too predisposed to receive. On the other
hand, it likewise imported a fresh and improved
school of medicine, which was destined to modify
many superstitious notions held in regard to the
nature of diseases and their treatment.
I have stated indirectly that until the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries, although accepted as a
ruling authority on logic and dialectic, Aristotle was
not known in Christendom by his other and greater
works. Had the * Physic' and 'Metaphysic' been
to hand in those days, it is more than probable
that the entire works of the Greek philosopher
120 CECCO D'ASCOLI.
would have been promptly banned, and St. Augustine
would have reigned supreme autocrat over that one
domain of logic, dry, huge, and barren as his own
African deserts. These important works, however,
had been fertilising intellects far outside the com-
munity of the Latin Church ; — among the Moors,
or philosophised town Arabs of Bagdad and of
Cordova, of Palermo, of Toledo, and Morocco ; — had
indeed been kept and nursed as rare and precious
plants in the cities of civilised Islam. During the
darkest era of Christianity these great centres had
been flourishing and busily developing those seeds
of light which they had received fix)m the decadent
Greeks and scattered Israelites.
This brings us to one of the most remarkable
events in mediaeval history, namely, that by means
of which, through the agency of mere Scandinavian
freebooters, Christianity was destined to receive en-
lightenment from the Semitic intellect it so incon-
sistently despised, from the Mohammedanism it so
ignorantly cursed ; — and how Italian literature, of
which the world has come to be so justly proud,
like the sun himself, was to take its glorious rise.
I am aware of no deduction in literary history
based upon evidence more conclusive than has already
abundantly been made known on this point. The real
foundation of the Renaissance is to be discovered
in the Norman occupation of Sicily, and the materials
for that foundation in the intellectual labours of
the Jews and Arabs of Palermo and Cordova.
CECCX) D'ASCOLL 121
Owing to toleration for heretics on the part of the
enlightened Moslems, there had been considerable
intimacy between the Moors and Christians in Spain
long previously. The former not only had permitted
Christians to observe their own creed in the towns,
but had admitted Christian children to Moorish
schools and Christian adults to ofl&ces of honour in
the Moorish Court.^ Gerbert (afterwards supreme
head of the Church in icxxd a.d. as Sylvester II.)
had even received his education in Andalusia, and
undoubtedly his later reputation as a necromancer
was gained from the unusual superiority of his
learning thus acquired. He is believed by some to
have been the first to introduce Arabic numerals
into Christendom. Nevertheless, isolated instances
of contact did not constitute chronic relationship
or sustained influence. Gerbert was only Pope for
four years. But the Christians in Spain evidently
had no reason for quitting a country where they
could enjoy the arts of learning and peace which
more and more assimilated them with their highly
civilised Semitic masters.^
^ 'The public echools and libraries of the Spanisli Arabs were
resorted to, not only by those of their own faith at home and in the
East, but by Chriatians from different parts of Europe.' —Ticknor,
Hist Spanish Litt, yoL iii. p. 392.
* * The inevitable result was that, in the course of ages, they gradu-
ally yielded something of their national character. They came at last
to wear the Moorish dress ; they adopted Moorish manners ; and they
served in the Moorish armies and in places of honour at the courts of
Cordova and Qranada.' — Ibid., p. 393.
*In 1254, Alfonso the Wise, when, by a solemn decree dated at
Burgos, 8th December, he was making provision for education at
122 CECCO D'ASCOLL
The century in which Gerbert died witnessed the
conquest of Saracen Sicily by the Normans under
Robert Guiscard and his son Roger, ending with the
capture of the great Moslem metropolis, Paleima
Now a transformation took place which in itself
might almost be termed magical, both by reason of
its rapidity and from its having involved the con-
querors themselves.
This splendid race of Northern adventurers, in
addition to their unusual physique, possessed a
mental elasticity that only awaited fitting oppor-
tunity for right and rich development. Just as in the
Mohammedan invasion of Persia (but more rapidly
than was the case there), the uncouth victors became
in turn subjugated by the superior culture of the de-
feated natives, so in Sicily the triumphant Normans
soon found themselves adopting the habits, and a
little later the ideas, of their Saracenic subjects. So
successfully and completely did this particular trans-
formation take place, that in a couple of generations
the toleration accorded the Christians at Cordova
could be matched by the toleration accorded the
Moslems at Palermo. It would have puzzled a
traveller who visited Sicily in those days to declare
whether the rulers and their Courts were more
Seville, established Arabic schools there as well as Latin. Indeed, stiU
later, and even down to the fourteenth century, the public Acts and
monuments of that part of Spain were often written in Arabic, and the
signatures to important ecclesiastical documents, though the body of
the instrument might be in Latin or Spanish, were sometimes made in
the Arabic character.' — Ibid., p. 395.
CECCO D'ASCOLL 123
Moslem or more Christian. Except in actual faith
and physical appearance, the respective diflFerences
were annulled. The mosque flourished side by side
with the temple of Christ, and the latter amiably
borrowed devices from the limited architecture of the
former. The costume was influenced in like manner ;
moreover, the simple Norman dialect gave way to
the richer Semitic. Consequently, the Norman King
of Sicily far more resembled a Moslem Kaliph than
a Christian monarch. While his power for govern-
ance remained steadfast to the hardy character he
had inherited, his Court and culture were subdued
to what they worked in. He became the patron of
sciences unknown even at Rome or in Paris, and
breathed an atmosphere the most intellectual the
world could then boast. His poets, physicians,
astrologers, merchants, and geographers were all
Arabs or Jews, and in the chief mosque at Palermo
were suspended the supposed bones of the prophet
of the Moslem intellect, — even of Aristotle himself.
The glory of the Hauteville dynasty culminated,
after nearly two centuries of rule, in the infant son "94 a.d.
of Constance, later the renowned Frederick H., who
seems to have united in himself qualities as opposite
as those which adorned our own Edward I., and
those for which the late Emperor of Brazil was
conspicuous among modem rulers. In him centred
all the fine tendencies of his Norman ancestry, as
well as a full measure of the resolution and magna-
nimity of his Swabian grandfather, Barbarossa, and
184 CKCCO D'ASCOLL
he carried on their best designs and traditions by
his enlightened patronage of learning. A master of
Arabic, we find him bringing himself under the shadow
of Papal suspicion by according unstinted toleration
to his Jewish^ and Moslem subjects, and still more
by his friendly relations with Sultan Kamil, and
his bloodless diplomatic capture of Jerusalem. One
of his proudest and most enduring achievements was
the foundation of the University of Naples. His
£Eunous secretary, Pietro delle Vigne, tells us that
his master sent letters out over all his realms
of Apulia and Sicily, to Germany, and to lands
beyond the seas, inviting learned men, irrespective
of creed, to come and reside at Naples and Salerno,
and take up professorships; and that they freely
responded.^ When, a little later, Bologna rebelled
from his sway, he commanded the students of the
recalcitrant University to transfer themselves to that
of Naples.
These professors not only fulfilled their duties of
teaching and conferring degrees, but occupied their
leisure in translating the scientific works of the
Greek and Moslem sages into Latin; and thus,
one after another, were introduced the medical and
philosophic works of Avenzoar, Avicenna, Averroes,
^ Barbaroeea was himself accused of extending too great toleration
to the Jews. Milman's History of the Jews, iiL 198 ; Von Raumer, Die
Hohenstauffen, iii. 486, 498.
* Among those who came were Judah Ben Solomon Cohen of Toledo
and Jacob Ben Abba Morri. Munk, Mdlauges, p. 335 ; Vie et Com-
spondance de Pierre de la Vigne, par A. Huillard-Breh611e8. Paris,
1866.
CECXX) D'ASCOLL 135
and Ibn-Maimun, the &mous Babbi, including their
versions and commentaries on the works of Aris-
totle.^ The fresh vigour given to learning of aU
kinds by this grand transfusion may as easily be
imagined as, on the other hand, can be imagined
the way in which the Church soon began to regard
it. The herb thus implanted grew up as it were in
a night, and shed seed on the morrow ; so that when
the angry gardener came months later, spade in hand,
to extirpate it, his most violent eflForts were destined
to be baffled. In fact, the Universities of Salerno
and Naples, being secular institutions under the
immediate patronage of the Emperor, the ecclesi-
astical authorities were at first unable to make head
against them ; and though they succeeded later on,
their success was very partial, and the foundation
laid by Frederick, in spite of every efibrt of the
Church to ruin and remove it, became the foundation
of the edifice of modern science. Emulation between
these universities quickly kindled that of similar
institutions, and the channels of trade became the
channels of learning.
With this^ flood of Moslem and Israelite erudition
1 *The principal share of glory in the great work of translation,
which occupied the entire thirteenth century and the first quarter of the
fourteenth, belongs to the family Tibbonides of Andalusia, which had
settled at LuneL' — * Averro^s,' E. Renan, p. i86.
* It was from Toledo that Michael Scott came with translations of
Aristotle and Averrhoes, and was warmly welcomed at the court of
Frederick. Hermannus Alemannus continued Michael's work at Toledo,
and brought versions of other books to Manfred, who inherited his
father's tastes.'— Lea, Hist Inquis., iii 561.
126 CECCO D'ASCOLL
was reintroduced a science which, after flourishing
in Greek and Roman days, had encountered the
anathemas of the early Popes, not only on account
of the fatalism its cultivation involved, hut be-
cause it obviously trespassed on the demesnes of the
Church. This was .the science of Astrology. Although
patronised of old by the Emperors, the Astrologers
of Rome had proved a frequent source of political
agitation,^ and their science was alternately favoured
and rigorously proscribed. Nevertheless, human
curiosity as to events in the future always survived
momentary chagrin, and the astrologer maintained
a place of honour at Court under most of the Caesars.
The later Emperors, obeying the Fathers, frequently
interdicted the science, although both of them held
it in awe.^ Their denunciations, therefore, however
severe, were shorn of much of their efficacy. To
their perceptive powers its actual vanity was not
at all apparent ; on the contrary, they timorously
believed in what they banned. Under these circum-
stances, Origen^ and St. Augustine might as well
have forbidden the stars to shine, as forbid men to
practise arts which gratified their greed and sense
of power. Besides, did not the Old Testament
declare the sweet influences of the Pleiades? and
* Mainly because they often were tempted to predict the demise
of Caesar.
* St. Augustine, De Genes, ad Litter., ii i6, 35 ; St. Basil, HomiL vL
in Hexamen.
* As Milman points out, the Cabalists and Origen believed identi-
cally in the final restoration of Satan or SamieL
CECCO D'ASCOLI, 127
did not the New Testament verify the faith of the
wise men in the guiding star ? ^ And did not Origen *
himself believe comets to be possessed of souls ?
Nevertheless, with the increasing forceful sway of
the Church the science of astrology dwindled away,
until it may be said to have fallen into a cataleptic
sleep, which lasted for many centuries, when suddenly
it felt this re-quickening breath of Greek and Moslem
learning, and straightway leapt back to conscious life,
evidently refreshed by the long slumber.
Thus, rigidly banished from Christianity, astrology
and magic had flourished under the patronage of the
Kaliphs and among the Jewish Rabbis, as indeed
among all Oriental rulers and races.* Faith in the
influence of particular stars, comets, and planetary
conjunctions had not only become an inherent in-
stinct with Arab, Jew, and Persian, but the culti-
vation of the supposititious science of interpreting
by their movements individual or national life had
developed into an absorbing intellectual passion.
Fond of everything that appealed to the imagination,
they gave a double portion of their love to astrology ;
1 The Sacred Books of India relate that the births of Krishna
and of Buddha were foreshewn by similar stars. Jewish legends speak
of similar appearances at the birdis of Abraham and Moses. Bunsen's
' Angel Messiah ' and Calmet's ' Fragments,' pt viii
> De Principiis, L 7, 3. Pamphilius, Apolog., ix. 84.
* On the banks of the Nile astronomy is still only astrology. Bur-
ton, ' Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Mecca,' vol. ii. p. 107, note. ' The
condition of medifioval Europe may stiU be perfectly realised by the
traveUer in Persia, where the Shah remains for days outside the walls
of his capital tiU the constellations allow him to enter.' — Primitive
Culture, voL i p. 1 19 (K R Tylor).
128 CECCO D'ASCOLL
and it is surely not difficult to perceive the nature
of its charms.
First of all, astrology was necessarily the aristocrat
of supernatural sciences, the monarch of mystic lore.
It was likewise the plutocrat, for no other science
could yield such rich and immediate profit to the
professor. It appealed at once to the love of money-
making, to the desire of controlling the actions of
others, and especially to the gratification of private
revenge. Yet it would be wrong to draw the con-
clusion that the men who made it their profession
were all tradesmen, or charlatans, or malefactors.
On the contrary, there can be little doubt the greater
number of astrologers implicitly believed in the
predictions they made, and, moreover, possessed the
courage of their opinions. Although, at all periods,
the profession must have included many quacks, it is
probable there was no great preponderance of these
until far later times, when the fancied science be-
came degraded by the low and ignorant class of men
who made it their perilous trade, and when the
mere pretence of possessing powers of divination had
become a sure, though somewhat precarious, path to
favour.
Beside (though apart from) natural astrology
(which consisted chiefly in observation and prediction
of the movements of heavenly bodies, — the direct
parent of astronomy), stood the mysterious depart-
ment of Judicial astrology, wherein were believed to
lie the precious secrets of all mundane occurrences.
CECCO D'ASCOLL 129
The celestial sphere was divided into twelve sec-
tions or houses, through which the various planets
went their ways, — the position containing the stars
about to rise being denominated *the ascendant/
These twelve 'houses' were held to represent re-
spectively : — Life, wealth, comrades, parents, oflF-
spring, health, marriage, death, religion, dignities,
friends, and foes; and certain of them were con-
sidered to belong to particular signs or planets, which
endued them with peculiar characteristics. Each
* house ' and * planet ' dominated some especial state,
some particular portion of the world, and some part
of the human body. Hence arose the necessity on
the part of the astrologer for untiring physical
observation of signs and appearances, in order to be
able to discriminate the admixture of various in-
fluences in any given case, and so be enabled to
foretell events, either to individuals or to states.
The possession of considerable learning was thus an
absolute necessity for any one aspiring to pass for an
astrologer, — at any rate, in the days of its revival.
The astrologer, then, being regarded by the people
as one favoured with priceless gifts of prophecy, as a
transmitter of celestial or demonic communications,
to whom therefore the future was an open book,
wherein his mental skill could infallibly decipher,
led a life of study and isolation, and was expected
to be conspicuously honourable in his dealings. His
vocation was one of good repute among men, and
his abode was held in awe both by the ignorant and
I30 CECCO D'ASCOLL
the intelligent. He was looked upon as an ency-
clopedia of curious learning, as a real seer. He was
credited with profound knowledge of animal functions,
with understanding all the states of health and dis-
ease ; likewise the nature of all herbs and of all their
powers, the qualities of metals, and the imagined
influence of the stars and seasons upon all of these.
Hence, he was doubly qualified for the professions
of prophet and physician, and the duties of these
professions, at the period we are considering, were in
consequence frequently combined in one individual.^
This manifold combination of accomplishments on
the part of the professed astrologer may have had
no small influence in modifying the views and actions
of the Church with respect to him. At first the eye
of the Church determined to regard him as the direct
colleague of Satan, to whom doubtless he had bartered
away his soul and the souls of his dupes. Such a
science, however credible, could not be cultivated with-
out denying free-will and responsibility. The future,
which he pretended to foretell, belonged only to God
and to Satan. If the astrologer foretold it by no
recognised divine gift or canonical medium, it followed
he had recourse to the Devil.* Still it sometimes hap-
* Pietro d'Abano declares in his * Conciliator Differentium ' (i 303) that
astrology is inseparable from medicine.
* In the popular creed of the Middle Ages, medicine was also closely
allied with witchcraft and the forbidden sciences.* — ^Wright, Sorcery
and Magic, vol. i. p. 100.
* Yet, according to Cornelius Agrippa, the ideal astrologer should
have unfaltering belief in the Almighty, in whose name he exercised
his celestial art De Occulta Philosophia.
CECCO D'ASCOLL 131
pened that the astrologer foretold things decidedly
beneficial to the Church or to society, such as good
seasons, victory over foes, &c., which it was im-
possible even for ecclesiastical perversity to credit
to Satan. This gave the churchman's credulity
great pause. Thomas Aquinas himself urged that
when astrology was utilised to predict rain or
drought it was lawful.^ So also Alonzo the Wise, in
his * Siete Partidas * extended reward and patronage
to those who used occult art to dispel hailstorm and
fog, or for destroying locusts and caterpillars. By
this means, then, the Church began to fluctuate in
her attitude towards it, now regarding its professors
with extreme hostility, and anon with surprising
toleration. Though in the main it was doubtless
condemned, even the highest authorities winked at
it, and we find the Archbishop of Ravenna, whom
the Pope despatched on the crusade against Ezzelino
in 1258,* captured by that tyrant together with his
astrologer, Everard, near Brescia. Lea aptly quotes a
letter of the Cardinal's, written in 1305, persuading
Clement V. to leave Avignon for Rome, in which
they remind him that * each planet is most powerful
in its own house.'
But let me take note that at the moment
when the sciences of astrology and medicine had
acquired this fresh hold upon the sunny shores of
Southern Europe, the arm of the Church — an arm
with very long and vengeful claws — which was
1 Summa Theologia, sec xc. 5. ^ Hist Inquis., yoL iii. 438.
132 CECCO D'ASCOLI.
destined so to prune and repress their development,
had been given its terrible license. The Inquisition
had been actually instituted by Innocent III., the
guardian of the enlightened Emperor Frederick him-
self; and under his successors in the pontificate,
judicial astrology, as an occult, instead of an exact,
science, and as a pursuit involving the doctrine of
fatalism, together with many other Moslem teachings
(though not the first to do so), gradually and surely
came beneath the Papal and Inquisitorial ban.
Hatred on the part of the Mendicant, and jealousy
on the part of the great Benedictine Order (in
whose orthodox hands medical science had long
stagnated), were bitterly aroused against Frederick,
and, taking advantage of Papal antagonism, the
grossest charges, such as that of human vivisection,
the practice of occult arts, &c., were eagerly circulated
in order to calunmiate him and his friends. It was
rumoured that he caused men to be laid open in
order to study the digestive functions; that he
made a habit of repeating the words attributed
to Averroes, to the effect that three persons had
deceived the world : Moses — the Jews ; Christ —
the Christians; and Mohammed — the Arabs ;^ that
he privately corresponded with the Sultan of Baby-
lon ; that he preferred Saracen women, &c. Un-
questionably in his steadfast patronage of Arabic
philosophy and protection of the Jews we recognise
^ Gregory IX. branded the Emperor with the authorship of the
Baying, which accusation Frederick vehemently denied*
CECCO D'ASCOLI. 133
one of the principal causes of the intense animosity
of the Papacy towards him. Renan quotes the
following lines from a Guelfic bard of the period : —
* Amisit astrologos et magos et vates
Beelzebub et Ashtaroth, proprios penates,
Tenebrarum consuleus per suos potestates,
Spreverat Ecclesiam et mundi magnates ; ' ^
which demonstrate with ironic force the intellectual
aspect in which Frederick was latterly regarded
by the Church, from which he was considered to
have seduced, among others, his friend. Cardinal
Ubaldini.
At the same time there were springing up in the
Church manifold crops of actual heretics of the
Manichean order, such as the Albigenses, Cathari,
Pauliciani, Stedingers, &c., in Southern France, at
Oldenburg, and in Northern and Central Italy, which,
both by their geographical positions and by the
devoted audacity of their leaders, appealed more
practically to this vengeful and vigilant arm of the
Church than did the far more dangerous aspirations
of Moslem rationalism, shielded as they were by
the Imperial beak and talons behind the mountains
of rugged Calabria. Alas! perhaps the better to
protect those who studied scientifically under his
sympathetic patronage, and to maintain peace with
the Papacy, Frederick himself seems to have made
a compromise with the Church by permitting its
officers to have their ruthless way with the miserable
^ Averroes, p. 288 (Ernest Renan).
134 CECCO D'ASCOLI.
Mendicants. This forms the ground of the famous
charge of cruelty and inconsistency usually brought
against the Emperor. The Inquisition possibly fore-
saw that it could aflFord to wait for the protected
Averroists, astrologers, &c. It is certain that it did
so. Moreover, the Emperor had little reason for
feeling especially interested in the fate of the per-
secuted monks, seeing that they were continually
assailing him with merciless rancour as an atheist
and blasphemer, declaring him to the world a
persecutor of his clergy, a lover of astrology, and
above all, that, besides his lawful Empress, he kept
a harem of Saracen concubines. Before the close
of the century, Dante included the Emperor and
Ubaldini in the throng of heretics who companion
the Epicurean Farinata in the sixth circle of the
Inferno :—
' More than a thousand here, he thus confessed,
I lie with ; Frederick the Second's here,
And the Cardinal I speak not of the rest ; ' ^
while with a certainly tolerant, if not semi-
sympathetic judgment, the poet places Avicenna
and Averroes in that first circle of the great Pagan
philosophers, in pleasant company with Orpheus,
Seneca, Euclid, Ptolemy, and Galen, as Renan points
out, because Dante, like Thomas Aquinas, was far
from viewing Averroes as impious, or of indulging
his wrath upon him, after the manner of Raymond
Lully and Petrarch in the following generations.
^ C. Tomlinoon's translation.
CECCO D'ASCOLI. 135
* Averroes had not as yet been made the standard-
bearer of unbelie£' ^
Yes, it was the age of Aquinas, and Dante, and
Giotto, the culmination of Papal supremacy and the
germination of a new spirit of learning in Christen-
dom. The age was ripe for it ; the Church could only
resist it up to a certain point, and then attempt to
adapt and modify, even as she had done with Pagan
rites and customs aforetime.
IL
Having thus noted some of the circumstances under
which the studies of medicine and astrology began
to take fresh life upon Italian soil, and the peculiar
atmosphere of mingled persecution and toleration in
which they were destined to thrive and bear fruit,
let me now turn to the consideration of what is known
of the life and death of one of the more unfortunate
professors of these sciences, known to fame as Cecco
d'Ascoli, and extoUed by some of his contemporaries
as poet, physician, and astrologer.
Since,-as I am inclined to believe, neither poetic art
nor physical science can be said to have benefited by
his writings, it would seem that he can have little
personal claim to attention. Nevertheless, we are
bound to admit that Cecco was a memorable personage
and lived a remarkable life (little in detail as we
know of it), in a period of exceeding interest. In our
* Averroes, p. 246 (E. Renan).
136 CECCO D'ASCOLL
own time Pietro Fanfani has constructed a popular
novel out of the few known facts of his career. There
is legitimate doubt as to the date of his birth, which
Alidosi has placed in 1257, and which would make
him seventy years of age at the time of his death at
the hands of the Inquisition in 1327; but in any
case, the last thirty years of his life included the last
twenty-five of the life of Dante and the first twenty-
three of that of Petrarch. Some writers, in view of
the bitter expressions used by Cecco, have ventured
to state that he was personally acquainted with Dante ;
but I have discovered no trustworthy basis for the
statement, and I can only admit that such may have
been the case. That he knew Petrarch is, however,
certain ; not at Avignon, as some have averred, but at
Bologna, in the year 1322, when the poet attended
the University there in order to take up his civil
rights. Cecco, as we shall see, was then holding a
Professorship of Philosophy there, and treading upon
very dangerous ground.
As the traveller of to-day quits Ancona on his
journey southward, and skirts the desolate strand of
the Adriatic, he crosses many a small stream, bearing
its muddy tribute to that sullen sea. After distantly
descrying Loreto and Fermo perched on an inland
ridge, he comes upon the mouth of a stream somewhat
larger in volume, and the sea is seen to be discoloured
far out by the rush of its turbid waters. This river
is the Tronto, and has flowed some fourteen miles
since it left Ascoli, an antique town of twenty
CECCO D'ASCOLI. 137
thousand souls. Should he be tempted to pay it a
visit, he will not be unrewarded for his trouble. The
mountain scenery behind it is exceptionally grand ;
the snowy summits display their majestic charms to
fascinating advantage in the not uncommon fiery
sunsets of that district. As far as the town itself is
concerned, Ascoli contains enough to entertain him
for at least a day. The various churches and cloisters
exhibit interesting intermixtures of Lombard and
Gothic styles, at once unusual and picturesque, while
among them appear structures dating from Roman
times, such as the noble Ponte Solesta, consisting of
a single span arch over the Tronto, a Roman double
gateway, and the remains of an Ionic and Corinthian
temple. Indeed, the possession of so many architec-
tural objects early gave fame to Asculum Picenum : —
' Asculum, excelsos turres, pontesque valete ! '
To-day the town thrives by manufacturing paper,
sealing-wax, and woollen materials, which explains the
presence of the small and attractive fleet of coasters
usually to be seen at the mouth of the Tronto.
Here, then, in the latter half of the thirteenth
century, was bom to the wife of Simone Stabile a son,
Francesco, afterwards to be known to history as Cecco
d' Ascoli, he whom Petrarch (before he took an intense
and contemptuous dislike to all whom he could include
under the banner of Averroes) deigned to reverence : —
* Tu sei il grand Ascolan, che il mondo allume.' ^
^ Crescimbeni quotes tills line as tlie commencement of a sonnet of
Petrarch. The rest of the sonnet, however, has not come down to us.
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138 CECCO D'ASCOLL
Possibly the next mention we have connecting him
} with his native town is contained in a statement by
f Appiani (written, however, two hundred years later)
* in his * Apology ' for his famous townsman.* In this
/ work the writer declares that Cecco once devised a
plan for conducting the waters of the Adriatic right
up to Ascoli, but that he was prevented carrying it
i out through the citizens deeming they would thus be
deprived of the advantages of the rich valley of the
Tronto.
Whence Cecco obtained his professional education
should be no diflficult matter for conjecture. The
locality of his birth, the nature of his profession, and
his friendship with Cino da Pistoia, point to Naples
4 or Salerno, possibly to both.* He may have there
attended the lectures of the * enlightened Doctor,*
Raymond Lully,' within an hour's walk of that
reputed tomb of Virgil, which in those days had
become the Mecca of European magicians, a spot
then fuUy as awe-inspiring to the Italian mind as
the Horselberg proved to the German. At any rate,
he found himself in one of the vortices of the flood of
Scholastic philosophy, amid the somewhat blinding
spindrift that arose round the names of Moses,
1 See Dom. BemiDi, Compendio di tutte TEresie, torn. iiL sec. xiv.
^ In the kingdom of >i'aple8 any one desiring to practise as a doctor
had to undergo five years of medical study, and two examinations for
his license and doctorate before masters of the school of Salerno,
and then to spend a year upon triaL Paul Lacroix, 'Science and
I Literature in the Middle Ages.'
^ 3 Who, however, devoted his powers expressly to combating Moslem
philosophy.
CECCO D'ASCOLI. 139
Aristotle, and Averroes, in which so many intellects
may be said to have been overwhelmed. There,
we may take it, he absorbed the Ptolemaic mathe-
matical treatises, those of Nemorarius, and especially
that by Giovanni Sacrobosco* (John Holiwood), on
the * Sphere,' the apparent significance of which, at
a later date, induced him to write a certain fatal
commentary upon it. There he would have wan-
dered over the endless argumentative deserts of the
writings of Albertus Magnus, perhaps have penetrated
the * Arcana ' of Roger Bacon ; while in medicine he
would have studied the great * Canon ' of Avicenna,
together with the writings of Almansur and Rhases ;
in order, finally, to become himself a notable pro-
duct of the ceaseless wrangle then raging between
Scholastic theology and metaphysic, — between the
Scotists and the Thomists ; outwardly, therefore, con-
forming to orthodoxy, with a strong determination
towards infidelity : truly not an ignorant man, but
one possibly without serious convictions ; pedantic,
without independence; with the encouragement of
a little success, likely perhaps, if not of a steadfast
character, to develop into something resembling a
solemn charlatan. Alas, poor Cecco ! keep watch on
thy theology and thy astrology, and a strict look-
out for the ' dogs of the Lord ! '
By accepting the theory of his having obtained
his curriculum at Naples or Salerno, we are able the
^ Of Oxford, who taught mathematics at Paris. His ' Sphesra Mundi'
was an abridgment of the * Kosmography ' of Claudius Ptolemeus.
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more easily to account for his introduction to the
Papal Court at Avignon, to which he is said to have
been appointed physician in 1 3 1 6 ; for King Robert
of Naples was Count of Provence and the most sub-
r^\ servient tool of the Popes. Moreover, the inter-
*''^ course between the two courts was necessarily of
' ; the most intimate nature, Italians frequently holding
V appointments at Avignon, and the chief officials of
the Neapolitan Court being invariably Provencals.
I - A native of South Italy and a man of marked attain-
ments ran no risk of being long overlooked by a
monarch who. distantly imitating Frederick IL and
ij Alfonso the Wise, prided himself on his love of cul-
ff ture and his enlightened patronage of learned men.
I J The Pope then reigning was John XXIL, Jacques
^) d'Euse (himself a former favourite of King Robert,
and likewise educated at Naples), who had just been
elected to succeed Clement V. ; while the widowed
Queen of France was Clemenza,* niece of that King.
} i Nothing, therefore, could have seemed more favour-
l* able for Cecco's career as a physician. He was thus
f backed by the patronage of his own King, and by
' that of the head of Christendom ; both of them men
) of considerable learning — especially the Pope, who
^j was reputed an authority both in Canon and Civil
Law, into which indeed he had been professionally
inducted. John's own youthful residence in Naples
■ I may have been considerably responsible for the depth
|; of his superstition, which events in France at this
} ^ Sister of Carobert, King of Hungary.
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CECCO D'ASCOLL 141
particular moment greatly tended to accentuate in him.
The late French King, Louis le Hutin, was believed
to have been done to death by the skill of sorcerers.
Partly melted waxen images of the King and his
brother had been discovered, and a magician and a
witch were executed for the crime. The power of
Satan was considered to be more than ever active.
Heresies, terrible epidemics, and derangements, deaths
of kings and atmospheric disturbances, were all attri-
buted to his now especially vigorous maleficence. In
old time had not Christ himself been caught up into an
exceeding high mountain and tempted of the Devil ?
Had not the Devil entered into a herd of Gada-
rene swine ? Had he not always manifested masterly
powers of self-transformation ? Did he not, for rea-
sons of his own, make choice of special moments ?
Was he not now subtly annoying the Church under
a marvellous variety of disguises ? And above all,
were not such men as denied his powers most evi-
dently working in his interests ? To deny the potency
of Satan was equal heresy with denying the omni-
potence of God ; for had not God delegated certain
powers to Satan.
Only ten years before, at Padua, the Inquisitors
had lighted a second time upon Pietro d'Abano,* a
celebrated Averroist philosopher and physician, who
was supposed to be keeping in durance, shut up in
1 filoy, Diction, de la Medicine. Mazzuclielli, Race. d'OpuscoU
Scientifici e Filologici Grasse, Bibliotheca Magica et Pneumatica.
Leipzig.
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142 CECCO lyASCOLL
a crystal, seven familiar spirits. To him was imputed
the convenient faculty of successfully summoning
back to his purse the monies paid out of it. He had
< made himself a master in the study of poisons and
^]- their antidotes; and further, he had not only dared
to deny the existence of demons, but had pretended to
cast the horoscope of the Faith itselt Among other
|l| things, he declared that the great monarchic changes
in the world were due to the periodic conjunctions of
Jupiter and Saturn in the head of Aries. It is true
he escaped his sentence (perhaps by poisoning him^
self, for he died during his trial), but it was ordered
his bones should be dug up, and they were burned in
public.^
Only six years before, i3io(?), had died on his way
to visit Clement V. at Avignon the far more famous
Amaud de Villeneuve,* whom the same Inquisition
had accused of sorcery and magic,' but who had
escaped burning at their hands through the especial
protection of King James IL of Aragon.
^' , Truly the times were perilous, if profitable, for all
inquiring rationalists. Fortunately for Cecco, some-
thing (the nature of which we have no details, —
'{i whether the displeasure of the Pope, the envy of
* This did not prevent Padua from erecting his statue ; and, accord-
ing to Lea (Hist. Inquis.), Federigo, Duke of Urbino, paid him the
same tribute.
* Amaldi, Vita. Campegius. Pierre J. Haitze, Vie d'Amauld.
3 * He more especially investigated the mysteries of chemical science
|t^ as bearing upon medicine. It is said he was the first who made
! ■ : alcohol.* — P. Lacroix. Pelayo, Heteix)doxos Espanoles.
if. '.
I •
CECCO D'ASCOLL 143
rivals/ or his own longing to return to Italy) caused
him to give up his post at Avignon, and he journeyed
to Florence. In the following year the Pope dis-
covered a conspiracy to poison him and certain of his
Cardinals. The conspirators, moreover, had made
three little waxen figures representing his Holiness,
which they placed in magical circles and pricked with
nails.* John wrote to the Bishop of Riez : * Les
magiciens, Jacques, dit Braban9on, — Jean Dumant,
m^decin, — ont pr^pard des breuvages pour nous
empoisonner, nous et quelques cardinaux nos fr^res,
et n'ayant pas eu la commodity de nous les faire
prendre, ils ont fait des images de cire, sous nos
propres noms, pour attaquer notre vie en piquant
ces images. Mais Dieu nous a pr^serv^s, et a
fait tomber en nos mains trois de ces images
diaboliques.'
The conspirators, over and above the doctors,
included Geraud, Bishop of Cahors, who being tried
and condemned, was flayed alive, then paraded down
the streets of Avignon, and finally hurled, still living,
1 * Ponrsuivi par Tenvie il retouma fen Italie.' — ^De Sade, Mdmoires
Petrarqne, Uv. i. 47.
* * The first step in this process was to model in clay or virgin wax
an effigy of the intended victim ; and the next was to kill a swallow,
the heart of which was placed under the right arm of the effigy, and
the liver under the left Then the sacrilegious operation began ; the
body and limbs of the wax or clay figure were pricked with new
needles to the accompaniment of the most horrible imprecations. . . .
In other cases, the effigy was made out of earth taken from a graveyard
and mixed with dead men's bones. An inscription in mystic characters
completed the bewitchment and caused the death of the victim in a short
time.' — P. Lacroix, Science and Literature in the Middle Ages, p. 228.
f
144 CECCO D'ASCOLI.
f
'.
. I
« ■
« ■
on to a funeral pyre in front of the Vice-Regent's
palace. The others experienced a similar fate ; and
the Pope, quivering with rage and terror, forthwith
fulminated a terrific edict against every imaginable
form of occult science.
Meanwhile, at Florence, Cecco was carrying on his
two professions, writing his poems, predicting poli-
tical events, and saying rather caustic things ; with
considerable circumspection, doubtless, but with profit,
and we do not hear more of him till 1322, the
year following Dante's death, when he was called
to fill a Chair of Philosophy at Bologna. There,
*} presently, he and his colleagues, Giovanni Andrea
*/ Calderini and Cino da Pistoia, numbered among
}k. their scholars the future poet of Vaucluse and his
'.^ brother Gerard.
Now Bologna was a much suspected University.
Fatalistic materialism had by this time found special
nourishment in its learned atmosphere. The experi-
mental spirit thrived beneath the dial-shadows cast by
i',t\ the Garisenda and Asinelli, although hard by stood
:( . the actual tomb and shrine of St. Dominic, repre-
sentinor its bitterest foes.* Even ecclesiastics were
not considered to be secure from the devices of
the evil one there ; for we find the same Pope John
instituting judicial proceedings against the Bishop
4 T
«
I
■ t
■f
i
1 Bologna University (i 1 58) is the oldest in Italy, antedating that of
Naples and that of Padua by more than half a century. Another re-
markable contrast is afforded in the same city and in the same Church
of San Domenico by the juxtaposition of the tomb of King Enzius, the
son of Frederick II., and Taddeo di Pepoli. .
CECCO D'ASCOLL 145
of Aix for professing and practising magical arts at
Bologna.^
It behoved Cecco, therefore, to be circumspect.
It happened, nevertheless, that he now issued his
commentary on Sacrobosco's treatise *De Sphsera
Mundi/ It is diflficult to believe that he was un-
aware of the extreme peril of this proceeding,
though he may carelessly have overlooked the
channel through which that peril would be likely
to approach him. This work, it seems, soon fell into
the hands of one Tommaso, son of a rival physi-
cian, Dino del Garbo.* These two, father and son,
having taken note of certain portions of the work,
gladly plotted the ruin of its author, by denounc-
ing him to the Inquisition. In consequence, Cecco
presently received citation to appear at the Con-
vent adjoining the Church of San Domenico, where,
upon examination by the Inquisitor, Fra Lamberto
del Cordiglio, he was promptly found guilty of pro-
pagating pernicious doctrines concerning Necessity
and the Will of God. * Egli afferito generasi nel cielo
spiriti maUgni U quali in tempo d'alcune constella-
zioni, potevano forzasi a scendere in terra e operano
maravigliosi prodigi, ed essere una necessita assoluta
negli influssi delle stelle, con la quale accordasi il voler
diDio.'"
^ Milman, Lat Christ, viL 343. Ammirato, Istoria di Firenze,
Hb. xii C.D.K
* G. Villani, Vita d'lUustri Fiorentini Ugolino Verini, De lUust.
Urbifl.
9 Bernini (Domen.), Storia di tutte THereeie, torn, iii sec. 14.
K
146 CECCX) lyASOOU.
D«. 16. «3a4. After having been grimly cautioned, he was ordered
to make a general confession of his sins, was warned
to discontinue his scientific pursuits, and was com-
manded to repeat daily thirty aves and paternosters.
Every Sunday he was compelled to attend a sermon
preached by a Dominican Friar. All his astrological
books were placed in the hands of Fra Alberto (Domi-
nican), and finally he was condemned to pay a fine of
seventy Bolognese pounds.^
Feeling himself fortunate to have thus escaped with
his life, the atmosphere of Bologna naturally seemed
to disagree with him ; and as soon as opportunity
offered, Cecco resigned his professorship and returned
to Florence.
Crescembeni speaks of his commentary ('De
Sphsera') as disfigured with a thousand absurdities
and pretensions, and says that at the close Cecco de-
clares that he has neither said nor desired to assert
anything contrary to the doctrines of the Church.*
That artful precaution possibly saved him from the
stake on this occasion.
It happened, however, that the before-mentioned
Dino del Garbo, himself a renowned doctor, had
likewise been a professor at Bologna ' (and by some
has been considered also to have held the post of
physician to Pope John XXIL), but he had been
driven away thence to Siena through the envy or
1 Bernini
* Istoria della Volg. Poesia, lib. v.
8 * BononiflB profecit et docet' — ^Anthropologia, lib. xxiL
CECCO D'ASCOLL 147
animosity of his colleagues, or, according to Villani
(likewise his contemporary), through his having been
discovered profitably teaching fix)m a treatise of
Torrigiani's,^ to them previously unknown. His son,
Tommaso,* in turn had held a chair at Bologna, and
thus the professional rivaby was continued after the
manner of a vendetta, with the result as related, so
far as Cecco was concerned. This Dino likewise set
up practice in Florence.
Fortune, nevertheless, once more befriended the
illustrious Cecco. Charles,* Duke of Calabria, only
son of King Robert of Naples, being invited by
the Republic of Florence to assume the supreme
power for ten years in their capital, arrived there
in July 1326, a year after the birth of his daughter,
afterwards Queen Giovanna L*
On May 31st of the following year, Cecco was
appointed court astrologer and physician, with a
salary of three ounces of gold per month.*
In this honourable berth he thought himself free
to air his opinions and forget those uncomfortable
admonitions formerly received at Bologna. Among
the citizens of Florence he was esteemed a vain,
bitter, and worldly man, and a despiser of women,
though many credited him with being a remarkable
* Di Torrigiano, Sommo Fisico. G. Villani, Vita d'lllustre FiorentinL
* Di Tommaso del Garbo. G. Villani, Vita d'lUustre Fiorentini.
' Ammirato, Storia di Firenze.
* On April 23, 1327, a son was bom to him by Mary of Valois,
christened Carlo Martello, but who died eight days after birth, and
was buried in Sta. Croce.
^ Archiv. Storic. Proyinc. Napol., anno xvii fasc 2.
148 CECCO D'ASCOLL
astrologer, and with having accurately predicted ^ the
death of Castruccio Castracane (the great scourge of
the Kepublic at that period) and the advent and
coronation at Kome of the excommunicated Emperor,
Louis of Bavaria. Cecco further circulated there
his dreary and feeble poem called * L'Acerba/ * and
amused himself by writing many sonnets to Cino da
Pistoia and others ; — just as Cino himself wrote to
Onesto di Boncima and Cavalcanti, and had formerly
written to Dante.
Nevertheless, the luxurious Court of Charles of
Calabria proved to be no bed of roses for Cecco.
Dino del Garbo, now living and practising in
Florence, was therefore eye to eye with his former
rival and future victim ; with a despised native of
Southern Italy promoted to a royal and Florentine
practice ; with the maundering, sharp-tongued poet-
aster who had dared in one and the same work to
challenge Dante to dispute with him about fate and
necessity, and to deride that great poet as a writer of
fables ; above all, with a notorious heretic* Besides
Dino, Cecco found a new enemy in the Franciscan
Bishop of Aversa, who then held the post of chap-
lain in the Duke's household. Whether, as is not
1 The story of Cecco having here predicted evil of Queen Joanna I.
on casting her horoscope may be dismissed as a fable, seeing that she
was bom before Charles of Calabria came to Florence,
» Crescimbeni, Istoria della Volgar Poesia, lib. v. 306. Tiraboachi,
Storia della Litt, tom. v. lib. ii cap. 2.
3 Among other perilously rash undertakings, Cecco seems to have
made fun of Guido Cavalcanti's poem ' Donna, mi pregha,' a poem
De Sade declares the Florentines to have idolised.
CECCO D'ASCOLL 149
improbable, these two combined against him (as Villani
gives reason for believing), or whether the Bishop acted
by himself in the matter, it is certain that Cecco,
after but a few weeks, was dismissed from the
Duke s service on the ground of being a fatalistic
philosopher.
One morning in July of the same year, Cecco
found himself once more arrested by two familiars
of the Inquisition, and being led toward the Church
of the Minor Friars (Sta. Croce ; Sta. Maria Novella
being in course of construction). He was then
charged before Fra Accursio, Inquisitor of Florence,
with being a relapsed heretic. A tribunal was
formed, which included the Cardinal-legate of Tus-
cany and the Bishops of Arezzo and Aversa. The
indictment proved to rest upon certain heretical^
statements in the before-mentioned commentary on
*De Sphaera.* The *Acerba'* was likewise put in
evidence, and, in order to wring full confession from
him, Cecco was severely tortured.' On the 15th of
September his doom was pronounced.
He was found guilty of having declared that
evil spirits are generated in the sky, and that at
certain seasons they can be compelled to descend to
earth and work wonders ; that necessity is owing to
1 * Pieno di eresie falsita e ingane.' — Extract from the sentence.
' * Un certo altro libretto, volgare intitolato Acerbo.* — Ibid.
' Although the sentence naively declares, ' Senza nissiina oppressione
di forza per sua libera e spontanea voluntk' — Extract from the sentence.
Lea, Hist Inquis.,yol. iL p. 65 5. Given also, but with manymisreadings,
in Fanfani's novel, ' Cecco d'Ascoli'
I50 CECCO D'ASCOLL
stellar influences, which, however, he identifies with
the will of God ; — that according to his horoscope,
Christ was predestined to lead the life of misery he
had led, and to die the death he had died ; ^ — ^finally,
that Antichrist would come into the world very rich
and powerful. This last declaration certainly looks
like a hit at his former master, the Papal miser, then
at Avignon, who died some years later worth no less
than 18,000,000 fiorini. He also confessed that he
had predicted by means of astrology the chief events
in the Florentine war with Castruccio Castracane and
the coming of the Bavarian Emperor.
Copy of the former confession and judgment at
Bologna in 1324 was furnished, and the miserable
man, found guilty on all counts, as a relapsed heretic,
was condemned to the stake, and therefore handed
over to Jacopo da Brescia, the Ducal Vicar-Secular.*
One appointed afternoon' (September 16, 1327),
accordingly, all Florence thronged to the place of
execution beyond the walls, many being anxious to
see whether the famous astrologer would merely
burn like any ordinary man, or whether the evil
spirits would come down to rescue and carry him off
from their midst/
1 * Che per cio doveva essere giuBta la sua morte per destinazione, e
doveva morire di queUa morte e modo che mori.* — Extract from the
sentence. Lea, Hist. Inquis., voL iiL p. 656.
2 * Che lo debba punire con debita considerazione.*— Extract from the
sentence. Lea, Hist. Inquis., voL iii pp. 655-657.
3 Giov. Villani, Chroniche, cap. xL Ammirato, Istoria di Firenze,
sub anno.
* Cantti, Eretici d*Italia, i. 149-152 ; Lea, Hist. Inquis., voL iiL
pp. 443, 444.
CECCO D'ASGOLL 151
De Sade passes the ironic verdict upon him —
*S'il n'etoit pas plus sorcier que poete comme il y
a apparence, on lui fit une grande injustice en le
brAlant/ '
In reading the ' Acerba/ * one is soon made aware of
the plentiful lack of poetical quality in its writer, and
of the constantly recurrent spirit of caustic envy
toward his great contemporary. The poem is divided
into five books, and is written in stanzas of six lines
with three rhymes, which arrangement just misses the
continuative advantage of Dante's terza rima. The
subject-matter pretends to be encyclopaedic, to embrace
aU things in heaven, earth, and air— things natural
and supernatural. In very deed it is a cabalistic
farrago, full of gnomes, salamanders, and cockatrices.
Ginguend wittily suggests that * L'Acerva ' = the
heap, would have befitted its character better than
' L' Acerba ' = the bitter. The latter term, however,
may be rendered ' the crabbed ' or ' the inhuman ' or
* the immature,' — each of which epithets can be well
justified by examination of its contents. Often,
amid the jingle of mystical nonsense, or in deserts of
irredeemable dulness, we come upon a bitter spring,
from which the vain and foolish author would have
us mock our thirst ere we proceed farther. These
saline draughts generally effervesce around the name
of Dante or of Bologna — as might be expected — and
1 Mem. Petrarque, liv. L p. 5a
^ The < Acerba ' passed through no less than eighteen editions before
1546.
IS2 CECCO D'ASCOLL
sometimes are nothing more than deliberate imita-
tions of Dante's manner or sentiment. Take this
anent Bologna and Florence : —
* O gente Acerba,
Bolognese, anime di fuoco,
A picol tempo regnerete al ponto
Che cadeva Bologna apoco apoco.
Hor vi ricordi come il divino archo
Ogni peccaio con la pena ha gionto,
£t aspectando assai piu si fa carcho
De vol me dole ch'io spero de venire
Al nido che f ondato in la giaccia
De li globate stelle al mio partire ;
Et po mi doglio e piango di Firenze
Che lacnmando discorderasse daccia
Facendo agli Lucchese nova offense.
Hor piange Pisa con sospir* dolenti
Quando triumpho di Monte Catino
Et del Francesco sangue teramenti
II tuo valor convien pur che si spegna.'
Or this, headed —
'Db la Nobilitatk.'
' Ma qui me scrisse dubitando Dante,
Son doi figlioli nati in uno parto
Et piu gentil si mostra quel davante
Et cio converso come gia vedi
Tomo a Ravenna de li non me parto
Dime, Esculano, quel che tu ne credi
Rescrissi a Dante intendi tu che legi
Fanno gli cieli per diversi aspecti
Secundo il modo philosopho che pregi
Per qualita li diverse mostre
In uno concepto variati cffecti
Secundo quelle ch'a Tanime lostre.'
— Lib. ii. cap. 12.
CECCO D'ASCOLL 153
I
*0n Temperance,' addressed to his native Ascoli
(lib. ii. cap. 8) : —
' madre bella, terra Esculana
• • • • •
Altieri e occtQti son gli tuoi figlioli
Et timidi in conspecto de le gente
Invidiosi sono pur f ra lor solL
Esculani, homini inconstanti,
Tomato ne gli belli acti lucenti 1 '
And this to Dante, reprehending his doctrines :-
* In cio peccastiy fiorentin Poeta,
Ponendo che gli ben de la fortuna
Necessitati sieno con lor meta.
Non h Fortuna, cui ragion non vinca,
Or pensa Dante, se prova nessuna
Si pu6 piu fare che questa convinca.
Fortuna non h altro che dLsposto
Cielo, che dispone cosa animata ;
Qual disponendo se trova s'opposto
Non yien necessitate il ben f elice
Essendo in liberta Talma creata
Fortuna in lei non pu6 se contradice.
Qui non si canta al modo de li rane.
Qui non si canta al modo del poeta
Che finge imaginando cose vane, —
Ma qui risplende e luce ogni natura
Che a chi intende fa la mente lieta
Qui non si sognia per la selva scura ;
Qui non vego Paulo ne Francesca,
De li Manfreddi non vego Alberigo
154 CECCO D'ASCOLL
Che (le li amari fracti ne la dolde escha
Dal mastino novo e vecchio da venichio
Che fecie di montagnia qui non dicho
Ke de franceschi lor sanguignio muchio.'
In one book lie flatters King Robert, in another he
presages the death of kings.
Well indeed might Benedetto de Cesena speak of
Cecco as —
' Asculan, col tuo indurata core,
De Invidia pregno, eresiarco ch'aise
Fiorenza te per lo tuo grand' errore.
Le rime tue bench' elle siano scarse
Del son cha pochi Calliope concede
Pur tra la gente sono molto sparse.' ^
The 'Acerba' concludes with *Laus Oninipotente
Deo!'
Pietro Lorenzetti has placed Cecco among the lost
in one of the circles of his * Last Judgment ' in the
Campo Santo at Pisa, in company with a certain
Guardi^ who, Vasari avers, had seized the painter's
goods for debt ; while he has figured Dino del Garbo,
his mortal enemy (who survived Cecco but ten days),^
supported by an angel, and wearing the Doctor's red
cap lined with grey miniver, among the Blessed.*
* De Honor. Mulier, lib. iv. epist 2.
* Serjeant of the Florentine Commune.
3 Vasari, voL i. art Andrea Orcagna.
* Giov. Villani, Chroniclie, cap. xliL
INDEX.
Abano, Pietxo d', 117, 141 ; his
death, 142
Acerba, L*, 148-153
Adomo, A., Doge of Gtenoa, 60 ; in-
tercedes with Urban for the car-
dinals, ^^y 103
Afflitto, Antonio de, 35
Afragola, 57
Aix, Bishop of, prosecuted, 145
Albertns Magnus, 115, 116, 139
Albigenses, the, 133
Alemannia, Luigi d', lays hands on
Urban VI., 35
Alfonso the Wise, 121, 131-140
Alidoei, 136
Altamura, 6, 42
Amadeo of Savoy dies, 29
Amalfi, 57, 87
Anjou, Louis, Duke of, 2, 10;
raises an army, 19 ; crowned at
Avignon, 24, 26 ; at Benevento,
28 ; excommunicated, 40 ; dies,
45
Appiani, 138
Apt, 83
Aquila, Bishop of, degraded, 49;
tortured, 51 ; killed, 60
Arabic numerals, 121
Arezzo, Bishop of, 149
Aristotle, his logic, 117, 119; his
bones, 123, 139
Aries, 84
Armagnac, Count of, 102-103
Artois, Charles d'. Count, 43, 57
Artois, Qiovanni, Count of, 38
Artoisi Loigi, Count of, 10
Artois, Robert, Count of, 4; his
story, 6-9, 34
Ascoli, described, 136
Aston, Adam, Cardinal, victim at
Nocera, 50 ; released at G^oa, 78
Astrologer, the, 129
Astrology, 1 28-1 31
Avenzoar, 124
Averroes, 124-132, I34) ^39
Aversa, 34-37
Avicenna, 124, 134, 139
Bacon, Roger, 116, 117, 139
Bagdad, 119
Balzo, Agnes del, 4, 5 ; dies at Muro,
16,34
Balzo, Francesco del, Duke of
Andria, 16
Balzo, Giacomo del, Duke of Andria,
15 ; flees to Taranto, 16 ; dies, 17
Balzo, Margherita del, 15
Barletta, 42, 45 ; Urban embarks at,6 1
Bartolino of Piacenza, 48
Basilius of G^noa, 51, 55
Beltot, John, 89, 91
Blois, Mary of, 19, 83
Bologna, 124 ; Petrarch at, 136, 145,
152
Boniface IX., Pope, 73, 91, 103
Bozzuto, Abbot, 39
Brigands, 37, 47
Brunswick, Duke Balthasar of, 4,
5 ; escapes and is recaptured, 21
Buda, 67, 70
Burgarelli, Enrico, lays hands on
the Pope, 35
X55
156
INDEX.
Cahors, Bishop of, executed, 143
Gajetani, 0., 3
Gajetani, Onorato, 3, 21, note
Galdorft, Jacopo, 26
Galdorft, Luigi, executed, 26
Galdorft, Raimondo, 26
Camponesco, Lallo, Count, 24
Gapri, Jacopo di, 5
Carrara fainily, of Padua, 99, loi
Casolla, 57
Castellamare, sacked, 20 ; Urban
touches there, 61
Caterina of Hungary, 33, note
Catliari, the, 133
Cava, Abbot of, 4, 21
Cavalcanti, Guido, 148, note
Cecco d'Ascoli, 1 1 i-i 54
Celano, Matteo, 39
Charles III., results of victory, 1-2 ;
deals with his prisoners, 4, 5-7 ;
raises money, 9 ; considers his
position, II ; endeavours to seize
the Duke of Andria, 16 ; appoints
Abbot of Monte-Cassino Chan-
cellor of the kingdom, 22 ; pre-
pares for the war, 25 ; receives
Sir John Hawkwood, 26 ; beheads
Luigi Caldora, 26 ; pardons Zurulo
di Napoli, 27 ; his clemency, 28,
29 ; receives letters from Rome, 32 ;
at Aversa, 33 ; meets Urban, 33 ;
quarrel, 34-35 ; leaves Aversa for
Naples, 36 ; receives Urban, 37 ;
created Gonfalonier, 40 ; sets out
for Barletta, 41 ; imprisons Orsini,
42 ; challenges Louis of Anjou,
42 ; consults Gtho of Brunswick,
42 ; falls ill, 44 ; sends envoys to
Nocera, 46 ; another quarrel with
Urban, 47-48 ; besieger Noceiu,
54 ; holds an assembly, 56 ; cap-
tures Urban's nephews, 58 ; offers
reward for capture of Urban, 59 ;
gives up the Pope's nieces, 61 ; his
former residence in Hungary, 63 ;
invited to return thither, 64 ; re-
solves to go^ 65-66 ; sets oat for
Agram by sea, 66 ; arrives at
Buda, 67 ; crowned King of Hun-
gary, 69 ; plot to kill him, 71 ;
assassinated, 72 ; his personal de-
scription, 73 ; news of his coro-
nation received at Naples, 80;
news of his death, 81-82; favoured
in his children and widow by
Boniface IX., 103
Charles, Duke of Calabria, at Flor-
ence, 147, 149
Chiunzo, 47
Gione da Siena, 25
Clement V., 131, 140
Cordova, 119, 121, 122
Corfu, Cardinal of, 50, 55
Goucy, Engherrand de, sacks Arezzo,
30-31
Courtenay, Catherine, 16
D*AiLLT, Pierre, 98
Dante, 114, 134, 136, 151
De Blasiis, Professor Giuseppe, 8
Dell' Uncino, Company of, 25
Dentice, Naccarello, 48; goes to
Hungary, 66, 72
Diacovar, 74
Diana in the Middle Ages, 1 14
Donato, Luigi, Cardinal of Venice,
ambassador to Naples, 23, 32 ;
victim at Nocera, 50 ; tortured, 52
Duel, proposed, 29
Durazzo, town of, seized, 41
Elisabeth (2), 64, 68
Enghien, Marie d', 42
Enzius, King, 144, note
Epidemic, 30
Ezzelino, 131
Facing, Cane, 102
Ferentino, 33, 91
Forgach, Bl&sius, 72-73 ; killed, 74
INDEX,
157
Frederick IL, Emperor, his char-
acter, 123, 133, 140
Frosinone, 33
GAMBA.CORTA, Pietro, ^^
Garay, Nicholas, Ban of Zara, 64,
67, 71 ; killed, 74
Qarbo, Dino del, 145
Garbo, Tommaso del, 147
Genoa, 76-77, 86, 100
Gerbert (Sylvester 1 1.), 121
Gesnaldo, Luigi di, 81
Gifoni, 60
Gifoni, Leonardo, Cardinal, 13; de-
prived, 14
GJobelinus, 36
Gbmneck, 75
Guiscard, Robert, 122
Gyorgyi, 72
Hawkwood, Sir John, 26, 31, 91,
102 ; masterly tactics, 103
Hecate in the Middle Ages, 1 14
Hedwig of Hungary, Queen of Po-
land, 64
Horvathy, Paid, Bishop of Agram,
64, 72 ; captures the two queens,
74
Ibn-Maimun, 125
Immaculate conception, 97
Inquisition, 1 31-134, 145
Itri, Giacomo d', Cardinal, 13, 14
Jambs II. of Aragon, 142
Joanna I., Queen, prisoner of war,
1-4 ; removed to Nocera, 5, 13,
21 ; transferred to Muro, 23 ;
death, 24
Joanna II., Queen, 80, 89
Joanna da Durazzo, 4; her story,
6-9, 21
John XXII., Pope, 140, 143 ; his
wealth, 150
Kamil, Sultan, 124
Ladislaus, King, 80, 88
La Salle, Bernardo de, 44
Lecce Niccolo, Count of, 10
Lisolo (Brancaccio), 43
Lorenzetti, P., the frescoist^ 154
Louis I. Bu Anjou
Louis II. of Ajijou, 83-84, 87
Louis, King of Hungary, 10; dies,
25, 62, 68
Louis le Hutin, King, 141
Lucca, Urban VL at, 88
Lully, Raymond, 117, note, 138
Luna, Pedro di, Cardinal, 83
Malatbsta, Carlo, 89
Margaret, Queen, 6, 8 ; crowned at
Naples, 14 ; consents to her sister
Agnes's union with Giacomo del
Balzo, Duke of Andria, 15; at
San Germano, 22, 38 ; governs
Naples, 43 ; deals with Urban,
44 ; sends a fleet to Barletta, 45 ;
excommunicated by Urban, 53 ;
entreats the king not to go to
Hungary, 65, 75 ; holds festival,
80; learns of her misfortune, 81 ;
sends an embassy to Urban at
Genoa, f?6 ; befriended by Boni-
face IX., 103
Marramaldo, Landolfo, Cardinal, 41
Martel, Charles, 62
Mary of Hungary, 62 ; her wrath,
68 ; re-proclaimed queen, 73 ;
made prisoner, 74
Marzano, Tommaso de, 34, 81
Materdomini, 60
Merlin as enchanter, 114
Mezzavacca, Cardinal of Rieti, 20,
22 ; L^^ate at Naples^ 23, 31, 32,
47,54
Minerbino, 60
Monte-Cassino, Abbot of, 20, 22, 31,
48 ; excommunicated, 53, 95
158
INDEX.
Montesono, Juan de, 97
Moors, the, 120, 122
Morocco, 119
Naples, University, 125
Nami, 91
Nocera, 2, 1 1, 23, 38, 43, 46, S^ 54 ;
siege of, 59
NormauiS the, 120
Novigrad, 75
OcKHAM, 117
Oderisio, Roljerto de, painter, re-
ceives stipend, 21
Origen, 127
Orsini, Count of Nola, 9, 81
Orsini, Raimondello, 4; master of
Taranto, 16, 25, 41, 56 ; obtains
Benevento, 60
Orsini, Rinaldo, 102
Orsini, Toinmaso, Cardinal, 49, 89
Orvieto, under interdict, 89-90
Otho, Duke of Brunswick, captive,
4; sent to Altamura, 5; consulted
by King Charles and set at liberty,
42 ; death at Foggia, 43, 87
Palermo, 120, 122
Palisnay, John of, a magnate, 67, 75
Paulicians, the, 133
Perugia, 90 ; Urlmn leaves, 91
Petrarch, Francesco, 136, 144
Pietra-Catella, Imttle at, 29
Pietramala, Cardinal of, 77-78
Pignatello, Angelo, 30
Pistoia, Cino da, 138, 144, 148
Positano. 20
Prignano, Francesco, 2, 11, 14, 38-
40 ; tortures the cardinals, 51 ;
escapes from Xocera, 58; prisoner,
58, S7, 89
Ravenna, Pileus da Prato, Cardinal
of, 59» 77
Renan, E., 133, 134
Roberti King, o£ Naples, 140
Rochefort, Count of, 83
Roger, Count, 122
Sacrobosgo, Qiovanni (Holiwood,
J.X 139, 145
Salerno, University, 125
Sancia, Queen, 6, note
Sangro, Cardinal di, 13 ; at Naples,
13-14 ; victim of Urban, 50, 52
San Severino, Tommaso, 3, 24, 59, 83
San Severino, Ugo, 3, 33
Samo, 57
St Augustine, on the authority of
Scripture, 116, 120, 126
Scafate, 2, 10, 1 1, 23, 38, 58
Schism, the Western, 95-96
Sessa, 32
Sigismund of Bohemia, 63, 66, 72, 74
Spoleto, under interdict, 89-90
Stedingers, the, 133
Stuhlweissenbuig, 69
TivoLi, 91
Todi, 91
Tripergoli, 20
Tronto, the, 136-137
Ubaldini, Cardinal, 133
Urban VI., his bargain with Charles
IIL, 2, II ; his nepotism, 12;
sends Di Sangro to Naples to
terrorise, 13, 23 ; vexed, 31 ;
makes prisoners of several cardi-
nals the first time, 32 ; Charles
meets him at Aversa, 33 ; laya
forcible hands on him, 35 ; re-
ception of Urban in Naples, 37 ;
preaches the crusade against
Louis of Aiijou, 40 ; quits Naples
for Nocera, 43 ; quarrels with
Cliarles again, 46; creates eighteen
canlinals, 47 ; arrests his cardi-
nals again, 49 ; orders them to be
tortured, 51 ; lays his interdict
IIPEXL
159
on the king and queen, &c., 53 ;
besieged, 54 ; receives envoys, 56 ;
escapes from Nocera, 60 ; orders
the old Bishop of AquUa to be
killed, 60 ; reaches Messina, 61 ;
touches at Castellamare, 61 ; ar-
rives at Genoa, 76 ; absolves Vis-
conti of murder, 77 ; releases the
English cardinal, 78 ; killB the
others, 78 ; reiterates his interdict
on Queen Margaret, 66 ; short of
means, 87 ; at Lucca, 88 ; fresh
crusade, 88 ; Orvieto and Spoleto
put under the ban, 89; Urban
sets out for Perugia, 89 ; projects
a jubilee, 90 ; falls from his mule
and is hurt, 91 ; rests at Todi
and reaches Tivoli, 91 ; dies, 92 ;
character of, 92-93
Yebhb, Jacopo del, 103
Vigne (or Vinea), Pietro delle, 124
Villanuccio di Brunaforte, 25 ; ex-
communicated, 53, 55, 58
Villeneuve, Amaidd de, 117, 142
Virgil as enchanter, 1 14 ; his tomb,
138
Visconti, Bemabo, 18, 24, 99
Visconti, Qian Qdeazzo, 99-103
Visegrad, Charles dies at, 73 ; buried
there, 104
Waldenses, 97
Waxen images, 141- 143
Wenceslaus, Emperor, 64
Wickliflfe, 94
ZuRULO di Napoli, 27
THE END.
PKINTBU BY BALLANTYNB, HANSON AND Ca
BOtNBURCH AND LONDON.
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