Giovanni Pontano’s De bello Neapolitano

Abstract

This chapter presents a critical study of Giovanni Pontano’s De bello Neapolitano, the historical account of the ‘conspiracy of the barons’ against Ferdinando of Aragon, king of Naples, and the war that followed the rebellion (1459–65). Pontano’s work is contextualized in the historical and cultural scenario of the Aragonese monarchy and in the humanist’s broader literary and political activity, as a historian, political and literary theorist, and royal secretary. In particular the De bello Neapolitano can be placed in the realm of ‘political historiography’, a genre that enjoyed considerable fortune in Italian Renaissance. Pontano’s work is inspired by different models, both classical and contemporary, and continues the tradition of Aragonese historiography (inaugurated by Valla, Facio, and Panormita). Moreover, the chapter examines the text from a political angle by investigating its connections with Pontano’s most significant political-theoretical treatises: De principe and De obedientia. The analysis illustrates how the humanist’s princely ideology and his theory of statecraft is framed by means of different works, through the interplay of historical narrative and theoretical speculation. In this productive literary interaction, the topic of internal political conflict occupies a prominent position and its treatment in Pontano’s works reveals a developing idea of political realism. Pontano provides a concrete model of an ideal state that is based on the principle of obedience and on the hierarchical relationship between different social components: the prince, the barons, and the common people, components that play a key function, both narrative and exemplary, also in the humanist’s historical work.