The Renaissance

men were strangled. In August 1503, Alex-
ander and Cesare suffered some form of
mysterious poisoning at a Vatican banquet.
Although Cesare survived, Alexander died
a slow and gruesome death. By this time
he was widely despised and feared; only
four church officials attended his funeral
Mass.

SEEALSO: Borgia, Cesare; Borgia, Lucrezia

Alfonso V of Aragon

(the Magnanimous)

(1396–1458)

King of Aragon and Naples, and an im-
portant Renaissance patron of the arts and
scholarship, Alfonso was the son of Ferdi-
nand I of Aragon and the adopted son of
Joanna II of Naples, who made him the
hereditary king of her realm. This queen,
who had no direct heir, allied with Alfonso
against Louis III, a prince of Anjou, whom
Alfonso defeated on the battlefield in 1421.
In this way Naples, then one of the wealthi-
est states in Europe, was made part of the
Spanish realm of Aragon. In 1423, how-
ever, Joanna and Alfonso broke off their
alliance and in 1435 the queen abdicated
the throne of Naples to Louis, who had
the support of Pope Martin V.

To contest Naples, Alfonso hired the
mercenary Braccio da Montone to lead his
forces. Joanna’s captain Muzio Sforza then
defeated Alfonso and the queen officially
named Louis III as her heir. After the death
of Louis in 1434, Joanna named Rene of
Anjou as her heir in her will. She died in
1435, leaving Naples as a prize for any
ruler with the ambition and the manpower
to capture it. Alfonso led his forces into
Italy, capturing the important towns of
Capua and Gaeta, but was then defeated
and taken prisoner. A persuasive speaker,
he convinced his captors in Milan to re-

lease him, then gathered another fleet and

returned to Naples. He besieged the city in

1441 and finally captured it the next year.

The pope formally recognized him as the

king of Naples in 1443. Alfonso left the

rule of Aragon to his wife and brother and

lived in Naples. He beautified and im-

proved the city, repairing aqueducts, pav-

ing streets, and building monuments. Al-

fonso introduced Italian Renaissance

humanism to Spain and made Naples the

center of the Renaissance by patronage of

artists such as Francesco Laurana.

Alfonso founded the academy of

Naples and commissioned from Laurana a

triumphal arch for his entrance into the

city in 1443, which formed part of the

Castel Nuovo. An important patron of the

arts and literature, Alfonso held the classi-

cal Roman writers in reverence and set an

example for future princes of Italy, who

considered patronage of great art and ar-

chitecture a way of making their perma-

nent mark on the states they ruled.

SEEALSO: Naples

Alighieri, Dante ................................

(1265–1321)

Medieval poet who set his three-part work

The Divine Comedyin Italian, breaking

with the tradition of writing serious liter-

ary works in Latin, and who is considered

the greatest poet of the Italian language.

Born in Florence, Italy, he was a member

of the minor aristocracy who traced their

lineage to celebrated Crusaders and to the

nobility of ancient Rome. Dante’s clan

sided with the Guelph faction, which sup-

ported the popes in their struggles with

the Holy Roman Emperor. Dante was edu-

cated in monastic schools in Florence and

also privately with Brunetto Latini, a re-

nowned teacher of rhetoric. In 1289, he

took part in the battle of Campoldino in

Alfonso V of Aragon
(the Magnanimous)