page_title: Skanderbeg's Italian expedition
section_title: Italian situation
hierarchical_section_title: Skanderbeg's Italian expedition / Background / Italian situation
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Skanderbeg in the Uffizi, Florence. Source: [1]
context_page_description: Skanderbeg's Italian expedition was undertaken to aid his ally Ferdinand I of Naples, whose rulership was threatened by the Angevin Dynasty. George Kastrioti Skanderbeg was the ruler of Albania who had been leading a rebellion against the Ottoman Empire since 1443 and allied himself with several European monarchs in order to consolidate his domains. In 1458, Alfonso V of Aragon, ruler of Sicily and Naples and Skanderbeg's most important ally, died, leaving his illegitimate son, Ferdinand, on the Neapolitan throne; René d'Anjou, the French Duke of Anjou, laid claim to the throne. The conflict between René's and Ferdinand's supporters soon erupted into a civil war. Pope Calixtus III, of Spanish background himself, could do little to secure Ferdinand, so he turned to Skanderbeg for aid.
  In 1457, Skanderbeg had achieved his most famous victory over the Ottoman Empire at Albulena, which was received with great enthusiasm throughout Italy. In order to repay Alfonso for the financial and military assistance given to him years before, Skanderbeg took up the pope's pleas to help out Alfonso's son by sending a military expedition to Italy.
context_section_description: On 27 September 1458, Alfonso V of Aragon, Skanderbeg's most important and helpful ally after the stipulation of the Treaty of Gaeta, died. In 1448, as a gesture of friendship with Alfonso, Skanderbeg sent a detachment of Albanian troops commanded by General Demetrios Reres to Crotone to quell a rebellion against Alfonso. The next year, many of these men were allowed to settle four villages in Sicily which Alfonso controlled. Upon hearing of his ally's death, Skanderbeg sent emissaries to the new King of Naples, Ferdinand I, to give condolence for his father's death, but also to congratulate him on his accession to the throne of Naples. The succession was not without turbulence, however: René d'Anjou laid claim to the throne since his family had controlled Naples before Aragon had taken control of it, and also because Ferdinand was Alfonso's illegitimate son. The Southern Italian nobility, many of Angevin background, supported René d'Anjou over the Aragonese Ferdinand. Among them was Giovanni Antonio del Balzo Orsini, the Prince of Taranto, and Jacopo Piccinino, a famed condottieri who had been invited by the Angevins. Francisco Sforza, the Duke of Milan, who was wary of a French presence in Italy, sided with Ferdinand and sent his nephew, Alessandro Sforza, to command his army in southern Italy. Pope Calixtus, a Spaniard who wished to see his compatriot in control of Naples, was in no position to help the weak Ferdinand, so he turned to Skanderbeg for help. However, by that time, Piccinino and his men had conquered all of southern Italy except Naples, Capua, Aversa, Gaeta, Troia, and Barletta, where Ferdinand was besieged.
  Skanderbeg had received much aid from Ferdinand's father, Alfonso, and was still a vassal of the Crown of Aragon, so he felt the need to repay the Crown. He accepted the pope's pleas to go to Italy and aid Ferdinand. Skanderbeg's stated reasoning was two-fold: he wanted to remain loyal to his ally and he wanted to prevent an Angevin takeover of Naples since they had maintained friendly relations with the Turks. Skanderbeg also feared that if the Angevins took Naples, they would turn to Albania where they had previously maintained a kingdom. On the other hand, before undertaking any action against the Angevins, he took measures to soften relations with Venice. Seeing that Southern Italy was locked in conflict, Venice no longer feared an Aragonese-Albanian alliance and the Senate decided to take a friendlier approach in Albanian-Venetian relations. Meanwhile, Pope Calixtus III had died and was succeeded by Pope Pius II. Sensing that war would soon begin, Pius tried to convince Giovanni Orsini, Ferdinand's main rival, to settle his differences with the King. The French King, Louis XI, took up the Angevin stance and, in the hopes of convincing Pius to allow the French takeover of Naples, proposed the repeal of the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges which undermined the pope's power and he even declared that he would be willing to lend 70,000 men for the planned papal crusade. Pius, however, was wary of insincerity and disregarded these proposals. A further effort to deter Skanderbeg's landing was made by Sigismondo Malatesta, the Lord of Rimini and Italy's most feared petty tyrant, who had tried to invite Mehmed to Italy with a detailed map of the Adriatic if Ferdinand sent for the Albanian. The manuscript, however, never reached the sultan and fell into Pius' hands.
caption: Portrait of Skanderbeg in the Uffizi, Florence
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