THE WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN KINGDOMS 1200-1!100in 1432. Equally disastrous was her decision to show favour
to a family of mercenary captains from outside the Regno:
Muzio Attendolo and his son Francesco, both called Sforza
('strongman'), were looking for land and titles like many
another condottiere who originated among the Italian petty
nobility, but even the acquisition of estates in southern Italy
did not ensure the loyalty of the Sforzas.^1
Thus under Joanna II tendencies already clearly visible
under Joanna I gained further impetus: the power of the
nobility was accentuated, as families such as the Carraciolo,
Sanseverino and Balzo Orsini (princes of Taranto, and lords
of much else besides) learned that it was possible to exercise
power as effectively by paying little attention to an ineffect-
ive and mercurial monarch as it was to try to mould that
monarch's policy in their favour. Ultimately, they determined
what happened on their vast estates; they, and not the crown,
increasingly controlled the income from the towns or from
the growing pastoral sector. Most importantly, it was the
barons who exercised military power, many of them offer-
ing their services for money, as did the formidable Jacopo
Caldora and as did the Caracciolo.~ Since the monarchy
was the object of competition between the house of Anjou-
Durazzo, that of Anjou-Provence and that of Aragon, there
were plenty of opportunities to earn fame and funds as a
soldier, and to increase control over alienated royal lands
as well. As Alfonso of Aragon was eventually to realise, it was
not possible to dismantle such formidable power at a stroke;
what was needed was the formulation of a new policy towards
the nobility which would bring internal peace and restore
the finances of the crown.
How empty, then, were all the titles on Joanna II's tomb-
stone: 'Here lies the body of Joanna II by the grace of God
queen of Hungary, Jerusalem and Sicily, of Dalmatia, Croatia,
Bavaria, Serbia, Galicia, Lodomeria, Romania, Bulgaria,
countess of Provence, Forcalquier and Piedmont.' She was
a 'queen of straw', una regina di paglia, lightly tossed back
and forth between competing factions of nobles and between
l. L. Boccia, Giovanna II. Una regina di paglia (Naples, 1980) is a colour-
ful biography, but the 'queen of straw' epithet in the title is apposite.- N.F. Faraglia, Studii intorno al regno di Giovannn II d:4ngzo (Naples,
1895, repr. Cosenza 1990), pp. 11-18.