THE WESTERN MEDITERRANEA!\1 KINGDOMS 1200-1500nor Piero de'Medici had the backbone to withstand the
French armies, while the pope was boxed into a corner, and
discovered, not for the first time, that the crown of Naples
was in theory his to dispose of, but in practice belonged to
the invader with the most fearful army.
And yet Charles VIII himself retained power in the south
of Italy only briefly, and proved far less able to secure the
peace and cooperation of the other Italian powers than had
his Aragonese predecessors in Naples. By creating further
instability, he only succeeded in preparing the way for the
final destruction of the house of Aragon-Naples by that of
Aragon-Catalonia. Thus a third force, already present in the
Italian islands, now took charge of southern Italy, which was
to remain for centuries a Spanish dominion.