FERDINAND I. of Naples was the natural son of Alfonso V. of Aragon and of Sicily. His father obtained of the Neapolitan barons in Parliament assembled, in 1442, the acknowledgment of Ferdinand as duke of Calabria and heir to the Crown of Naples, thus securing to his favourite and only son one of his several kingdoms, as Aragon, Sardi nia, and Sicily devolved upon John of Aragon, Alfoneo 's brother. In 1458, after the death of his father, Ferdinand assumed the crown of Naples. Pope Calixtus IIL refused him the investiture, which how ever was granted to him by Pius 11., the successor of Calixtus. His reign began well, but a conspiracy of the barons, who called in John of Anjou, who had some remote claim to the throne, threw the country into a civil war. Ferdinand, assisted by Scauderbeg, prince of Albania, gave battle to John near Troja, in Apulia, and defeated him completely, in the year 1462. After the battle he concluded a peace with the revolted barons upon conciliatory terms; but iu short time, breaking the treaty, he put to death two of them, an act which kept alive tho jealousy and fears of the rest. In 1480, Moham med II. eent an armament on the coast of Apulia; which took the town of Otranto, and caused great alarm in all Italy. Ferdinand, however, quickly recalled his son Alfoneo, duke of Calabria, who was then in Tuscany at the head of an army, and who retook Otranto. A
fresh conspiracy of the barons broke out, encouraged by Pope Inno cent VIII., but it was again repressed, and Ferdinand solemnly pro mised a general amnesty. But ho kept his word no better than before; for having contrived, on the occasion of the marriage of his niece, to collect at Naples most of the leading barons, he arrested them all, and threw them into prison, where most of them were strangled. The whole of this tragedy, which was attended by circumstances of fearful treachery and cruelty, is eloquently related by Porzio, in his work, La Cnngiura dci L'aroni contra it lt6 Ferdi nando L' Ferdinand continued to reign for several years after this, feared and bated by his subjects, and himself in perpetual anxiety, which was increased by the advance of Charles VIII. of France, who was coming for the purpose of asserting his claims, derived from the Anjoua, to the throne of Naples. In the midst of the alarm at the approaching storm, which be had not the means of averting, Ferdinand died in 1494, at the age of 71. He was succeeded by his son Alfonso, a gloomy and cruel prince, who, terrified at the approach of the French, abdicated in favour of his eon Ferdinand, and retired to a convent in Sicily.