Gran Sasso d'Italia
In July 1142, the king and Alfonso held a great court at Silva Marca near Ariano, attended by all the counts of the mainland. Alfonso then invaded the papal territory of Marsia, which Alfonso claimed belonged to the princes of Capua, although they had no exercised power there since the reign of Prince Richard I in the 1070s. Alfonso also intervened in a dispute within the family of the counts of Teramo. He removed Count Matthew and replaced him with his brothers, William and Robert. In November 1143 the conquest of Marsia was completed and its feudal lords accepted the authority of the King of Sicily. All the conquered territories in the Abruzzo and Latium were then divided by the between Apulia and Capua, Alfonso taking the lands to the west of the Gran Sasso d'Italia.