Editing Ferdinand II of Naples (section)

=== The French invasion ===
An attempt to stop the French fleet at Rapallo carrying the heavy artillery of the French king resulted in disaster. After leaving Romagna, Ferrandino had gone to Rome to exhort Pope Alexander VI "to be constant and firm, and not to abandon the king his father". But the Pope, reluctantly, finally yielded to the French, and if nothing else, in an extreme conversation, embracing the young Ferrandino weepingly, offered him safe conduct with which he could cross undisturbed the entire Papal States so as to return to Naples. Ferrandino instead, by nature proud and regardless of the danger, refused indignantly the safe conduct and on the last day of the year he went out to the door of San Sebastiano, just as King Charles VIII entered from that of Santa Maria del Popolo with the French army.<ref name=":2">{{cite book |title=Storia d'Italia|author=Francesco Guicciardini}}</ref>

With the approach of the enemy troops, Alfonso II, mentally unstable and persecuted, it is said, by the shadows of the killed barons, thought of ensuring greater stability to the throne and to the descendants by deciding to abdicate in favor of his eldest son, and he retired to monastic life at the monastery of Mazzara in Sicily.{{blockquote|Let's go back to Ferdinand the young boy,<br/>
seen in the crowned kingdom. <br/>
Daring, youth warms his chest, <br/>
eager to save the state of him, <br/>
he made up his mind and thought this: <br/>
not wanting to be locked up in the house, <br/>
but as a new frank and powerful king <br/>
to meet the enemy people.|Gerolamo Senese. La venuta del Re Carlo con la rotta del Taro (1496-1497). Guerre d'Italia in ottava rima (II 4.8:58)}}Unlike his father, a man feared for his cruelty and hated by the Neapolitans, he was much loved by the whole population "to be human and benign king" and young man of good customs, qualities that he demonstrated immediately, returning, despite the situation of deep economic crisis, to the legitimate owners the lands unjustly stolen by his father for the construction of the villa of Poggioreale, to the nuns of La Maddalena the convent that Alfonso had expropriated them for the construction of the villa called the Duchesca, and likewise returning freedom to those who for years languished in the unhealthy prisons of the castle.<ref>{{cite book |title=Napoli Aragonese|author=Marcello Orefice}}</ref> Ferrandino remedied in short all the offenses caused over the years by his father and grandfather, but this did not, however, prevent the end of the reign. He had also challenged King Charles VIII to a duel to decide in the old fashioned way who should own the kingdom, but the French monarch, knowing the skill of the young Neapolitan, did not want to face it.<ref name=":1">{{cite book |title=Storie e leggende napoletane|author=Benedetto Croce}}</ref>

[[File:Adriano_Fiorentino,_Ferdinand_of_Aragon,_died_1496,_Prince_of_Capua_and_King_of_Naples_1495_(obverse),_1494_or_before,_NGA_44499.jpg|link=https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Adriano_Fiorentino,_Ferdinand_of_Aragon,_died_1496,_Prince_of_Capua_and_King_of_Naples_1495_(obverse),_1494_or_before,_NGA_44499.jpg|thumb|Medal of Ferrandino prince of Capua. Adriano Fiorentino, before 1494, [[:it:National Gallery of Art|National Gallery of Art]], [[:it:Washington|Washington]]|left]]

A real betrayal was consumed against him: the cities began to give themselves spontaneously to the French and the captains and generals to plot behind him with the enemy, favoring his advance. Back in Naples from Capua, the young king was in a very bad mood, so much so that the dowager queen Joan induced him to feed after two days of fasting. He lamented that Fortune was against him and that he was losing the kingdom "without breaking a spear." When he was then told that the people were looting his stables, enraged, with a handful of men rushed to the place with the unhinged stocco and began to vehemently reproach the looters, wounding some and recovering a number of horses.<ref>{{cite book |title=Diurnali|author=Giacomo Gallo}}</ref>

Realizing by now that the situation was irreparable, Ferrandino therefore decided to move away from Naples in search of reinforcements. Before embarking for Ischia with his family, however, he summoned the entire people and promised them that he would return within 15 days and that, if this were not the case, they could all consider themselves freed from the oath of fidelity and obedience made towards him.

He then left the new Castel to Alfonso II d'Avalos, Marquis of Pescara with 4000 Swiss mercenaries; and with 14 galleys led by Berardino Villamarina went to Ischia.<ref name="Le vite de Re di Napoli">{{cite book|last=Biancardi|first=Bastian|title=Le vite de Re di Napoli, Raccolte succintamente con ogni accuratezza|year=1737|location=Napoli|via=F. Pitteri}}</ref>

Famous remains the betrayal of the castellan of the fortress of Ischia, Justo della Candida, who made the royal family find the doors of the castle barred. Ferrandino then, under the pretext of securing at least the dowager queen Giovanna and princess Giovannella (or, according to other sources, asking to be a parliamentarian with the castellan), persuaded Justo to let him enter the fortress in the company of a single man, not believing that he alone constituted a danger. Ferrandino instead, as soon as he found himself in front of him, pulled out a dagger and "he threw himself on him with such impetus that, with the ferocity and the memory of the royal authority, he frightened the others in such a way that in his power he immediately reduced the castle and the fortress".<ref name=":2"/> Then, after killing him, he cut off his head with a sword blow and threw the body into the sea, thus regaining possession of the castle and the garrison.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.isclano.com/it/ferdinando-ii-daragona-e-lomicidio-dautore-sul-castello-aragonese/|title=Ferrandino d'Aragona e "l'omicidio d'autore" sul Castello Aragonese|date=28 September 2015}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.ilportaledelsud.org/ferrandino.htm|title=Ferrandino d'Aragona}}</ref>