Nameless Wars and Other Ghosts

New models for the War of the Neapolitan Succession (1458-1465)

Abstract

There are war events neglected by history for reasons not always easy to understand. This is the fate of the war fought in the Kingdom of Naples after the death of Alfonso the Magnanimous: an event of great importance to which the humanist Giovanni Pontano dedicated his great historical work, De Bello Neapolitano. Despite its impor-tance and its presence in the historiography of the modern age, it did not get the position it deserved in the history of the Renaissance. The research investigates the reasons for these omissions, starting from a scientific reconstruction of the conflict, to place it in its appro-priate space within contemporary historiography and, also, to give it a precise name, which it does not yet have: an analysis that, between history and historiography, constitutes an exemplary case study.