ALFONSO THE MAGNANIMOUS AND THE FALL OF ANJOUfortune, which Alfonso was ruthless in raising by heavy taxa-
tion, the sale of offices, loans from bankers; he sold the city
of Cefalu in Sicily to a new master even though it was sup-
posed to be free in perpetuity, and he sold one beneficiary
some lands in Sicily on the express condition that even if
he sold them again to someone else they were in fact the
property of the original beneficiary.~^0 On the other hand, it
is increasingly doubted whether such policies had the dev-
astating effect on the local economy that was once assumed;
Epstein has shown how local initiatives, for example the
establishment of new fairs, generated economic growth in
fifteenth-century Sicily.^21 At one point it looked as if Filippo
Maria Visconti intended to bequeath him the duchy of
Milan, with the result that he would have been master of
the two most powerful Italian states, but rebellion broke out
after Filippo Maria's death, an 'Ambrosian Republic' was
declared in Milan ( 144 7-50), and finally Francesco Sforza,
head of that condottierefamily that had supported Rene against
Alfonso in southern Italy, achieved his great ambition and
installed himself in 1450 as new duke, anchored firmly
in place by the fact of his marriage (as long ago as 1441)
to Filippo Maria's daughter Bianca Maria; henceforth he
took care to refer to himself as 'Franciscus Sfortia Vicecomes
Dux Mediolani', Francesco Sforza Visconti, duke of Milan,
a rare but significant example of the husband taking the
wife's surname.
Having lost Milan, Alfonso perhaps lost his dream of
re-establishing something like a Roman Empire in the
Mediterranean. Nevertheless, elegant medals and grandiose
- For a very negative view, see D. Mack Smith, Medieval Sicily (London,
1969), pp. 94-104, based on the works of C. Trasselli, several of
which are collected together in C. Trasselli, Mediterraneo e Sicilia all'inizio
dell'epoca modema (ricerche quattrocentesche) (Cosenza, 1977); a more
positive view of Aragonese finances emerges from W. Kuchler, Die
Finanzen der Krone Aragon wiihrend des 15. jahrhunderts (Alfons V und
johann II.) (Munster, 1983). - S.R. Epstein, An island for itself. Economic development and social change
in late medieval Sicily (Cambridge, 1992); see also E. Sakellariou, 'The
Kingdom of Naples under Aragonese and Spanish rule. Population
growth and economic and social evolution in the late fiteenth and
early sixteenth centuries', PhD dissertation, Cambridge University,
1996, indicating that developments on the mainland were in several
respects similar.