Alfonso V (1395–1458)

King of Aragon 1416–58 and, as Alfonso I, King of Naples 1442–58, known as ‘the Magnanimous’. Admired as a model prince and a devout Christian, he pursued a relentless course of territorial expansion, seeking to dominate the Mediterranean by uniting Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica and Naples. He died in battle against Genoa, leaving Naples to his illegitimate son Ferdinand I (Ferrante) and his other domains to his brother John II of Aragon.

The son of a Castilian prince, he was brought up in Castile and moved to Aragon in 1412 when he became Ferdinand I of Aragon. In 1415 he married Maria of Castile. After succeeding to Aragon in 1416 Alfonso angered his Aragonese subjects by relying on Castilian advisers, but he did follow the Aragonese tradition of expansion in the Mediterranean. In 1420 he set out to pacify his Sicilian and Sardinian subjects and to attack the Genoese in Corsica.

He arrived in Naples in 1421 and persuaded Queen Joanna (Giovanna) II to adopt him as her son and heir in exchange for his help against Louis III, the Angevin claimant to the throne of Naples. After quarrelling with Joanna in 1423 Alfonso returned to Spain and busied himself with Spanish problems. He returned to Sicily in 1432 and in 1435 was taken prisoner by Genoese forces at the Battle of Ponza in 1435. He was released after signing a treaty with the Milanese leader Filippo Maria Visconti.

On the death of Joanna in the same year he returned to Naples to claim his throne and finally succeeded, after seven years of struggle, in driving out his main rival, René of Anjou. He left the government of his other territories to viceroys and settled permanently in Naples from 1443. He reorganized the finances and administration of Naples and made his court there a brilliant centre of learning and the arts.