sire to “exterminate that brood of vipers,” the German Hohenstaufen dynasty, which had
acquired the Regno in 1194 and had seriously threatened the papal states. As the new
king of Sicily, Charles I continued the bureaucracy and system of taxation established by
earlier Norman and Hohenstaufen kings. His ambitious plans led to the diversion to Tunis
of Louis IX’s last crusade and to a projected attack on the recently restored Byzantine
state at Constantinople.
His oppressive government, marked by heavy taxation, led to the rebellion against
Charles I in 1282 known as the Sicilian Vespers. The ensuing war (1282–1302) pitted
Aragon, to whose royal house the Sicilians had entrusted themselves, Genoa, and
Byzantium against Naples, the mainland part of the Regno, supported by France, Venice,
and the papacy. Charles II (r. 1285–1309), who retained Provence and Naples but had to
return Anjou to France, concluded the Peace of Caltabellota with Frederick III of Sicily
in 1302, but intermittent conflict between the mainland and island parts of the old Regno
continued until 1442, when Alfonso V of Aragon seized the kingdom of Naples.
The older son of Charles II, known as Charles Martel, married the heiress of Hungary
and established an Angevin dynasty there. Charles Martel’s grandson Louis the Great (r.
1342–82) added Poland to his dominions in 1370. The younger son of Charles II,
Petrarch’s friend Robert (r. 1309–43), reigned in Naples and Provence and led the
resistance of the Italian Guelfs against the invasion of the emperor Henry VII. Robert’s
son, Charles of Calabria, became signore of Florence from 1325 to 1328. The latter’s
daughter, Joanna I (1326–1382), succeeded her grandfather Robert and married her
cousin Andrew of Hungary, whose murder in 1345 many blamed on Joanna. Her long
reign was troubled by the rebellious nobles of the Regno and an invasion by Louis of
Hungary, who pressed his claim to the succession.
In France, King John II the Good created the second house of Anjou by bestowing the
county on his son Louis I (1339–1384) as an apanage. Louis’s Italian ambitions were
fueled by the papal Schism of 1378, as the French-backed antipope Clement VII hoped
for French military assistance against Rome. The childless and oft-married Joanna I of
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