Kingdom of Naples
From Freepedia
The Kingdom of Naples was born out of the division of the Kingdom of Sicily after the Sicilian Vespers rebellion of 1282. King Charles I of Sicily (Charles of Anjou) was forced to leave the island of Sicily by Peter III of Aragon's troops. Charles, however, maintained his possessions on the mainland, customarily known as the "Kingdom of Naples." Charles and his Angevin successors maintained a claim to Sicily, warring against the Aragonese until in 1373, Queen Joan I of Naples formally renounced the claim.
Queen Joan I also played a part in the ultimate demise of the first Kingdom of Naples. As she was childless, she adopted Louis I of Naples as her heir, effectively setting up a junior Angevin line in competion with the senior line. After Joan I's death in 1382, the two competing Angevin lines contested each other for the possession of the Kingdom of Naples over the following decades. Joan II of Naples adopted Alfons V of Aragon (whom she later repudiated) and Louis III of Anjou as heirs alternately, finally settling succession on Louis' son René of Anjou (later René I of Naples) of the junior Angevin line.
René of Anjou temporarily united the claims of junior and senior Angevin lines. In 1442, however, King Alfons V of Aragon conquered the Kingdom of Naples and unified Sicily and Naples once again as dependencies of Aragon. At his death in 1458, the kingdom was again separated and Naples was inherited by Ferdinand I of Naples, Alfons' illegitimate son.
When Ferdinand I died in 1494, Charles VIII of France invaded Italy, using the Angevin claim to the throne of Naples as a pretext, thus beginning the Italian Wars. Charles VIII expelled Alphonso II of Naples from Naples in 1495, but his cousin, Ferdinand II of Aragon had resumed control of the kingdom by 1504.
After the War of the Spanish Succession, possession of the kingdom again changed hands. Under the terms of the treaty of Rastatt in 1714, Naples was given to Charles VI, the Holy Roman Emperor. Sicily was later informally annexed to the Empire, but Sicily was not legally reunited with Naples until the 1815 Congress of Vienna, forming The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
In 1806, Napoléon Bonaparte installed his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, and then his brother-in-law Joachim Murat as kings of Naples, the latter reigning until 1815.
