ALFONSO THE MAGNANIMOUS AND THE FALL OF ANJOUhad only attracted Martin among his predecessors: Corsica.
Rockier and more impenetrable than Sardinia, Corsica was
less rich in the grain and minerals that made Sardinia so
desirable, and it had long been dominated first by the Pisans,
latterly by the Genoese. Even then, it was the local barons
who held effective power in the interior. There were strategic
advantages in holding Corsica, however, for it lay between
Sardinia and the Italian mainland, so that its possession could
bolster the weak position of the Aragonese in Sardinia, and
act as a lever against Genoese pretensions. Alfonso did secure
some notable results: the strong fortress town of Calvi on the
north-west coast came under his control, and a staircase cut
into the steep rock of the impregnable citadel at Bonifacio
on the southern tip of Corsica is still identified, perhaps
wrongly, as 'King Alfonso's staircase'. Bonifacio proved too
well defended for Alfonso, and he left the island in the
charge of an ambitious local noble, Vincitello d'Istria, who
was already far more powerful in Corsica than Alfonso.
Aragonese influence in the island rapidly slipped away; but
consideration of the Corsican scheme offers a valuable clue
to Alfonso's wider intentions.^1 -,
Alfonso did not leave Corsica with great regret. New op-
portunities beckoned, now that Joanna II of Naples needed
help against the combined forces of Louis III of Anjou
and the mercenary captain Muzio Attendolo Sforza, father
of the future Milanese duke Francesco Sforza.^16 Against such
formidable enemies, Alfonso could count on the support of
powerful south Italian barons such as the semi-independent
prince of Taranto, a member of a branch of the eminent
Orsini family. But the outcome of Alfonso's attempts to con-
quer Naples did not at first sight seem very encouraging; his
final conquest of Naples in 1442 was the result of over twenty
years of campaigning, first of all in 1420 in a war that cul-
minated in the sack of Naples by the Catalan navy (1423).^17
In 1432 he was planning a further major offensive; the death
of both Louis III and Joanna II in 1435 gave him an extra
motive for pouncing on Naples, though, as has been seen,
- Ryder, Alfonso, pp. 65, 82-9.
- C.M. Ady, A history of Milan under the Sforzas (London, 1907), pp. 8-
12. - Ryder, Alfonso, pp. 106-7.