ALPHONSO V. of Aragon
(1416-1458), surnamed the Magnanimous, who represented the
old line of the counts of Barcelona only through women, and
was on his father's side descended from the Castilian house of
Trastamara, is one of the most conspicuous figures of the early
Renaissance. No man of his time had a larger share of the
quality called by the Italians of the day "virtue." By
hereditary right king of Sicily, by the will of Joanna II.
and his own sword king of Naples, he fought and triumphed amid
the exuberant development of individuality which accompanied
the revival of learning and the birth of the modern world.
When a prisoner in the hands of Filipo Maria Visconti, duke of
Milan, in 1435, Alphonso persuaded his ferocious and crafty
captor to let him go by making it plain that it was the interest
of Milan not to prevent the victory of the Aragonese party in
Naples. Like a true prince of the Renaissance he favoured
men of letters whom he trusted to preserve his reputation to
posterity. His devotion to the classics was exceptional even
in that time. He halted his army in pious respect before
the birthplace of a Latin writer, carried Livy or Caesar on
his campaigns with him, and his panegyrist Panormita did not
think it an incredible lie to say that the king was cured of
an illness by having a few pages of Quintus Curtius read to
him. The classics had not refined his taste, for he was
amused by setting the wandering scholars, who swarmed to his
court, to abuse one another in the indescribably filthy
Latin scolding matches which were then the fashion. Alphonso
founded nothing, and after his conquest of Naples in 1442
ruled by his mercenary soldiers, and no less mercenary men of
letters. His Spanish possessions were ruled for him by his
brotherjohn. He left his conquest of Naples to his
bastard son Ferdinand; his inherited lands, Sicily and
Sardinia, going to his brother John who survived him.]
Initial text from 1911 encyclopedia -- Please update as needed
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