Introduction

Summary

In 1497, a lavishly illustrated volume of biographies dedicated to Beatrice d’Aragona, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia (1457–1508), was published in the northern Italian city of Ferrara. Jacopo Filippo Foresti's De plurimis claris selectisque mulieribus (1497) featured one hundred and eighty-six women, one of the largest to have ever been published in the tradition of Giovanni Boccaccio's De mulieribus claris (1374). The accounts were ordered chronologically, beginning with Eve and ending with a number of contemporary Italian women deemed worthy of praise. One of the final women featured was Beatrice's sister, Eleonora d’Aragona, duchess of Ferrara, (1450–1493). Eleonora was praised for her prudent administration, skills Foresti claimed were given to her by their mother, Isabella di Chiaromonte, Queen of Naples (1424–1465). Both Isabella and Eleonora's woodcut portraits are very similar, each woman wielding the sceptre of power in reference to their brief periods deputizing for their husbands. Beatrice was also linked to her Neapolitan origins; Isabella's woodcut was inserted into the final part of the prologue, instructing the Queen of Hungary and Bohemia to learn from the example of other illustrious women, including those closely related to her.

Beatrice and Eleonora, two princesses of Naples, led illustrious lives driven by their connection to Italy's sole kingdom. At the time of their birth, the Aragonese kingdom of Naples was the largest sovereign state in Renaissance Italy, stretching over seven hundred kilometres from Reggio Calabria on the Mediterranean shore to Teramo between the Apennines and the Adriatic. Although the French House of Anjou held the kingdom for almost two centuries, their dynasty began to decline around 1400. Sensing an opportunity, the sisters’ grandfather, King of Aragon, Alfonso V (r. 1442–1458), conquered Naples and brought a new era in Neapolitan history.

Inheriting a capital practically in ruins, Alfonso V and his son Ferrante I (r. 1458–1494), revitalized the city, transforming it into a thriving urban hub and artistic centre. Alfonso V committed to a host of public works to improve the city's defences and reputation: he repaired the city walls, founded the famed Academy of Naples helmed by Giovanni Pontano, and installed the imposing triumphal arches at the entrance of the Castel Nuovo to memorialize his defeat of the Angevins.