Ebook: Alfonso il Magnanimo e l’invenzione dell’Umanesimo monarchico. Ideologia e strategie di legittimazione alla corte aragonese di Napoli

Alfonso of Aragon, the Magnanimous (1394-1458), became king of the southern part of Italy after a twenty years long war. He was the Catalan King who completed the “trajectòria mediterrània” started by his ancestors in previous centuries and he reunited the two parts of the Kingdom of southern Italy, separated after the Sicilian Vespers (1282). After his conquest of Naples (1442), for about half a century the western Mediterranean became a “Catalan lake”. It was a short period, but it left an indelible mark in the institutional and cultural history of Europe. At his court, in fact, he gathered around himself the most learned intellectuals of the time, from any place: the concept of literature was completely renovated, and was adapted to the imperial aspirations of the new ruler. The cultural legitimacy of the new kingdom followed the different roads which are explored in this volume. The result was the invention of the “Monarchical Humanism” (concept developed for the first time in this book and now commonly adopted in all the studies): a Humanism that has identifying characters, absolutely innovative, alternative or totally opposed to, but certainly no less important than those of the “Civil Humanism” developed in other places.