SICILY AND SOUTHERN ITALY IN AN AGE OF DISORDERThere was another victor: Nicola Acciaiuoli, the cultured
Florentine businessman who had acquired lands and favour
in the Morea and who now rose to be Grand Seneschal of
the Regno and count of Melfi and of Malta; he remained a
devotee of traditional knightly values, expressed most expli-
citly in the chivalric order he helped found. Writing in 1354,
Nicola Acciaiuoli spoke of the need 'to recover the kingdom
of Jerusalem after having recovered Sicily', an idea which
was rooted in the past policy of Angevin kings. As the Hun-
garian menace evaporated, Naples turned its war machine
towards Sicily again. The death of Robert the Wise had been
followed by Angevin successes at Milazzo and in the Lipari
islands; the 1350s saw a change in approach, with appeals
from the Chiaramonte faction to the court of Naples, and
the formulation of elaborate plans to ensure that the island
would retain a degree of autonomy within a reunited king-
dom. Without such internal support, Acciaiuoli's small fleet
and army could not possibly have achieved, in April 1354,
the submission of much of Sicily, including Palermo but
excluding the power bases of the Catalan faction in Messina
and Catania. To hold down his gains, Nicola Acciaiuoli would
need further resources, but Louis of Taranto failed to pro-
vide them, and his success evaporated, though fortunes later
revived to the point where the king and queen of Naples
could make their triumphant entry into Messina (24 Decem-
ber, 1356). Other concerns dominated the king's thinking
in 1354-55: there was trouble in the Abruzzi, where Lalle
Camponeschi, ally of the Durazzo faction, was murdered at
the behest of the Taranto faction, and where the mercenary
companies continued to wreak havoc. There was trouble with
the new pope, Innocent VI, who taught Louis and Joanna
a lesson, excommunicating them for failing to pay their
annual tribute to the Holy See; a visit to Avignon by Nicola
Acciaiuoli would be required (in 1360) before this issue could
be laid to rest. There was constant and serious trouble in
Provence, where the Durazzo faction had powerful allies; in
1361-62 Louis of Durazzo became the focus of opposition
to Louis of Taranto in Apulia, while (with Durazzo encour-
agement) German and Hungarian mercenary companies
were unleashed on the Regno. A final attempt to overwhelm
Sicily became enmeshed in the rivalries of Ventimiglia and
Chiaramonte, as well as making ever plainer the interests of