The Aragonese Period
In 1442 Alfonso I conquered Naples after his victory against the last Angevin king, Rene, and made his triumphal entry into the city in February 1443. The new dynasty enhanced commerce by connecting Naples to the Iberian peninsula and made Naples a centre of the Italian Renaissance: artists who worked in Naples in this period include Francesco Laurana, Antonello da Messina, Jacopo Sannazzaro and Angelo Poliziano. The court also granted land holdings in the provinces to the nobility; this, however, had the effect of fragmenting the kingdom.
After the brief conquest by Charles VIII of France in 1495, the two kingdoms were united under Spanish rule in 1501. In 1502 Spanish general Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba entered in the city, starting the two centuries of rule of the almost omnipotent viceré ("viceroys") in Naples.
Read more about this topic: History Of Naples
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