CHARLES II. (1250-13o9), king of Naples and Sicily, son of Charles I., had been captured by Ruggiero di Lauria in the naval battle at Naples in 1284, and when his father died he was still a prisoner in the hands of Peter of Aragon. In 1288 Charles was liberated on the understanding that he was to retain Naples alone, Sicily being left to the Aragonese, and to induce his cousin Charles of Valois to renounce the kingdom of Aragon given to him by Pope Martin IV. He went to Rieti, where the new pope Nicholas IV. immediately absolved him from all the condi tions he had sworn to observe, crowned him king of the Two Sicilies (1289), and excommunicated Alphonso, while Charles of Valois, in alliance with Castile, prepared to take possession of Aragon. Alphonso III., the Aragonese king, being hard pressed, had to promise to withdraw the troops he had sent to help his brother James in Sicily, to renounce all rights over the island, and pay a tribute to the Holy See. But Alphonso died childless in I291 before the treaty could be carried out, and James took possession of Aragon, leaving the government of Sicily to the third brother Frederick. The new pope Boniface VIII., elected in 1294 at Naples under the auspices of King Charles, mediated between the latter and James, and a most dishonourable treaty was signed. An attempt was made to bribe Frederick into consenting to the arrangement, but being backed up by his people he refused, and was after wards crowned king of Sicily. The ensuing war was fought with great fury and peace was not made until 1302 at Caltabellotta, Charles II. giving up all rights to Sicily and agreeing to the mar riage of his daughter Leonora to King Frederick; the treaty was ratified by the pope in 1303. Charles died in Aug. 1309, and was succeeded by his son Robert.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-A. de Saint-Priest, Histoire de la conquete de Bibliography.-A. de Saint-Priest, Histoire de la conquete de Naples par Charles d'Anjou (4 vols., ; S. de Sismondi, in Histoire des republiques italiennes, vol. ii. (Brussels, 1838), gives a good general sketch ; R. Sternfeld, Karl von Anjou als Graf von Provence (1888) ; Charles's connection with north Italy is dealt with in Merkel's La Dominazione di Carlo d'Angid in Piemonte e in Lombardia (Turin, 1891) , while the R. Deputazione di Storia Patria Toscana has recently published a Codice diplomatico delle relazioni di Carlo d'Angio con la Toscano; by Durrien, Archives angevines de Naples (Toulouse, 1866-1867) . M. Amari's La Guerra del Vespro Sicilian° (8th ed., Florence, 1876) is a valuable history, but is prej udiced and should be compared with L. Cadier's Essai sur l'adminis tration du royaume de Sicile sous Charles 1 et Charles II d'Anjou (1891, Bibl. des ecoles francaises d'Athenes et de Rome, fasc. 59), which con tains many documents.