Kingdom of Naples - Aragonese and Spanish Kingdom of Naples

Aragonese and Spanish Kingdom of Naples

When Ferrante died in 1494, Charles VIII of France invaded Italy, using the Angevin claim to the throne of Naples, which his father had inherited on the death of King René's nephew in 1481, as a pretext, thus beginning the Italian Wars. Charles VIII expelled Alfonso II of Naples from Naples in 1495, but was soon forced to withdraw due to the support of Ferdinand II of Aragon for his cousin, Alfonso II's son Ferrantino. Ferrantino was restored to the throne, but died in 1496, and was succeeded by his uncle, Frederick IV. The French, however, did not give up their claim, and in 1501 agreed to a partition of the kingdom with Ferdinand of Aragon, who abandoned his cousin King Frederick. The deal soon fell through, however, and Aragon and France resumed their war over the kingdom, ultimately resulting in an Aragonese victory leaving Ferdinand in control of the kingdom by 1504.

The Spanish troops that were occupying Calabria and Apulia, led for Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordova and public inspectors to Fernando the Catholic, did not respect the new agreements and expelled of Mezzogiorno to them, which still had only Gaeta up to his definitive defeat in her Battle of Garigliano. The agreements of peace that continued were never definitive, but they established at least for that the title of King of Naples was waiting to Carlos I of Spain and his future wife Claudia. Fernando the Catholic nevertheless continued to possessing the kingdom being considered to be a legitimate inheritor of his uncle Alfonso I of Naples and of the former one Kingdom of Sicily (Regnum Utriusque Siciliae)

The kingdom continued to be a focus of dispute between France and Spain for the next several decades, but French efforts to gain control of it became feebler as the decades went on, and Spanish control was never genuinely endangered. The French finally abandoned their claims to the kingdom by the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559. With the Treaty of London (1557) the new territory of "Stato dei Presidi" (State of Presidi) was born and was governed directly by Spain, as part of the Kingdom of Naples.