THE WESTER}.; MEDITERRAI\EAN KINGDOMS 1200-1500a dangerous outside party, Peter IV of Aragon, who saw
himself as a possible heir to Frederick IV. The Neapolitans
had continually underestimated the degree to which internal
rivalries within Sicily, rather than their own intervention, were
the controlling factor in the island's intricate politics.^10
In 1362 Louis of Taranto died, perhaps of plague; two years
later Nicola Acciauoli was buried in the vault of the magnifi-
cent Charterhouse he had built outside his native Florence.
'The death of Louis of Taranto caused great corruption in
all the kingdom', a chronicler wrote. Louis had lacked the
broad vision of Robert the Wise, but he had also had little
time for political initiatives of his own, caught as he was amid
the scheming of Durazzeschi, Hungarians and other rivals.
Yet by appointing Nicola Acciaiuoli to high office, he had pro-
vided the Regno with a capable administrator who was also
competent on the battle field; Acciaiuoli's fault was perhaps
a desperate wish to be recognised as a true grandee, count of
Melfi and of Malta, an attitude which fellow Florentines such
as his boyhood friend Boccaccio tended to mock. Joanna,
alone again, sought the support of a new husband, rapidly
choosing James IV, son of the last king of Majorca, a figure
of no political weight who was also mentally unstable, aptly
described by a papal legate as argumentosus.^11 Before long he
wandered off and found himself once again in a Spanish
prison, to no great regret ofJoanna. Yet he injected further
instability into the government of a kingdom which was
already severely fractured.
THE RISE OF THE HOUSE OF ANJOU-DURAZZO
The history of the last years of Queen Joanna I is a constant
record of court intrigues, lightened to some degree by the
final end to the Sicilian war, now that all sides accepted the
treaty of 1373. The papacy sought to draw Naples into an
alliance which would help clear Italy of the scourge of the
mercenary bands (1371), yet this soon became transformed
into a crusade against Visconti Milan. Even so far north, the
- Leonard, Angioini, pp. 493-5.
- E. Oliveres de Pic6, El rei sense reialme (jaume IV de Mallorca) (Barce-
lona, 1965); A. Lecoy de Ia Marc he, Les relations politiques de la France
avec le royaume de Majorque, 2 vols (Paris, 1892), vol. 2, pp. 181-2.