Chapter 11THE FRENCH INVASION OF
ITALY, 1494-95
TENSIONS IN ITALY
It has been seen that Ferrante's son Alfonso, duke of
Calabria, was already exceedingly unpopular with some of
the barons in the 1480s, so that he rather than his father
appears to have been the primary focus of complaint during
the Second Barons' War. His accession in^1494 was therefore
less smooth than appearances suggested: the papal chronicler
Burchard offers a glittering description of Alfonso's corona-
tion in May at the hand of the pope's nephew.^1 The alliance
between the papacy and Naples seemed still to have some
meaning; marriage alliances linked the Borgia family with
the house of Aragon, and attached to them were assignments
of grand titles and lands in the deep south of Italy. In reality,
however, Pope Alexander VI was constantly wavering between
the desirability of showing some friendship to France and
the advantages of maintaining close influence over his vassal
and neighbour the king of Naples.
So too in recent years had other props of the Italian
League been seriously weakened. The death of Lorenzo
de'Medici in 1492 had already been recognised by Ferrante
as a blow to the peace of Italy; more serious still was the
erosion of Neapolitan influence at the court of Milan. Duke
Giangaleazzo Sforza had married Alfonso's daughter Ippolita,
l. Johann Burchard, At the Court of the Borgia, being an account of the reign
of Pope Alexander VI written lrj his Master of Ceremonies, trans!. G. Parker
(London, 1963), pp. 70-81; original edn: Liber Notarum ab anna^1483
usque ad anna 1506, ed. E. Celani, Rerum italicarum scriptnres,^2 vols
(Citta di Castello, 1906).