Royal Diplomacy in Renaissance Italy: Ferrante d’Aragona (1458–1494) and his Ambassadors

In undertaking a study of the historiography of Renaissance Italy, one might be forgiven if he or she came to the conclusion that the Kingdom of Naples was not a constituent part of the Italian peninsula. In the cultural, social and political narratives of the Renaissance, Naples is largely missing Italy's largest and most populous state is rendered vestigial. This is certainly in part a function of being obscured in the great historiographical glare of Florence and Venice, a fate that has visited other Renaissance princely states as well. It is also the case that in some very important ways Naples was an outlier. It was the peninsula's only kingdom and thus faced political challenges unique to Italy. Although shorn of its Spanish territories in the division of the House of Aragon's inheritance by Alfonso in 1458, the Kingdom of Naples retained a Catalan veneer and was connected to Iberian affairs in a way unlike in any other state in Italy.2 The Kingdom also lacked, despite significant achievements in Naples itself, the urban dynamism that has so often been associated with Renaissance culture. As a territory it was overwhelmingly rural and agricultural, and its polity remained largely feudal in nature, despite the centralizing tendencies of the fifteenth-century Aragonese kings. The Renaissance Naples of historians thus bears a seemingly unshakeable mantle of backwardness. This essay suggests, however, that in one notable area, diplomatic practice, the reign of Ferrante (1458-94) embraced innovations for which Italy has long been credited. Ferrante' s Naples, like the Duchy of Milan and other princely states in the second half of the fifteenth century, came to regard diplomacy as a constant and seamless activity of state. He was served not only by short-term envoys but also by representatives who spent numerous years