Toynbee "Carlo_1"
Charles I, king of Naples and Sicily, count of Anjou and Provence, seventh son of Louis VIII of France and Blanche of Castile, and brother of St. Louis; he was born in 1226; in 1246 he married Beatrice, youngest daughter of Count Raymond Berenger IV of Provence, in whose right he became count of Provence; after the death of Beatrice in 1267, he married Margaret of Burgundy, daughter of Eudes, duke of Burgundy, in 1268; and in 1266, after the defeat of Manfred at Benevento, he became king of Naples and Sicily; he died Jan. 7, 1284/5. [Beringhieri, Ramondo: Provenza: Table VIII.]

D. places Charles in the valley of flowers in Ante-Purgatory among the princes whose worldly cares caused them to put off repentance until the last moment; he is seated beside Peter III of Aragon; Sordello, who points him out, refers to him as colui dal maschio naso, [Purg. vii. 113]; il Nasuto, [Purg. vii. 124]; lui, [Purg. vii. 125]; il seme, [Purg. vii. 127] [Antipurgatorio]; and says that he (il seme) is as superior to his son Charles II (la pianta), as Peter III of Aragon is to him (Charles I) ([Purg. vii. 127-129]) [Beatrice_2: Carlo_2: Margherita_2: Pietro_3]; he is mentioned in connextion with Pope Nicholas III, who was his enemy, [Inf. xix. 99] [Niccolo_3]; his victories at Ceprano (where Manfred was defeated in 1266) and at Tagliacozzo (where Conradin was defeated in 1268) are alluded to, [Inf. xxviii. 16-17]; Oderisi (in Circle I of Purgatory) mentions him in connexion with Provenzano Salvani, whose friend (taken prisoner at Tagliacozzo) he held to ransom, [Purg. xi. 136-137] [Provenzan Salvani]; Hugh Capet (in Circle V of Purgatory) speaks of la gran dota provenzale, the wealth added to the house of Capet by the marriage of Charles I to Beatrice, [Purg. xx. 61]; then Hugh Capet speaks of his coming into Italy, and charges him with the murder of Conradin and of Thomas Aquinas, [Purg. xx. 67-69] [Curradino: Tommaso_2]; his grandson Charles Martel (in the Heaven of Venus) speaks of him (or, as some think, of his son, C. M.'s father, Charles II) as the ancestor in whose right his own descendants ought to have been on the throne of Sicily, [Par. viii. 67-72] [Carlo_3].

Charles of Anjou, 'the greatest champion the Guelph cause ever had', having been invited (in 1263) by Urban IV to assume the crown of Naples ('to which', says Milman, 'there were already three claimants of right -- if it was hereditary, it belonged to Conradin, if at the disposal of the pope, it was already awarded to Edmund of England: and Manfred was on the throne, summoned, as it seemed, by the voice of the nation'), in response to the entreaties of the new pope, Clement IV, came into Italy in the spring of 1265, and in little more than three years, by his defeat of Manfred at Benevento (Feb. 26, 1265/6), and of Conradin at Tagliacozzo (Aug. 23, 1268), completely and finally crushed the power of the Hohenstaufen in Italy.

Charles, whose wife Beatrice, as Villani records ({Villani. vi. 89}), had pledged her jewels in order to furnish the expedition which was to make her a queen like her three elder sisters, arrived in Rome in May, 1265, and was forthwith elected senator. On Jan. 6, 1265/6, he was crowned king of Sicily and Apulia, and immediately after he set out to invade Manfred's dominions. Meeting the proposal of the latter for negotiations with the defiance 'I will send him to Hell or he shall send me to Paradise', Charles engaged him on Feb. 26 at Benevento, the pass at Ceprano having been treacherously left open, and totally defeated him, Manfred himself being among the slain [Benevento: Ceperano: Manfredi]. Charles thus became master of the kingdom; but in less than two years the insupportable tyranny of the French led to an invitation to the young Conradin, son of the Emperor Conrad IV, to come and assert his hereditary rights and deliver the country from the foreign yoke. In response to this appeal Conradin entered Italy, and during the absence of Charles in Tuscany, made his way to Rome, where he was received with enthusiasm, notwithstanding his having been excommunicated by the pope. After collecting men and treasure at Rome, he set out on Aug. 10, 1268, to make good the Hohenstaufen claim to the kingdom of Naples. Charles, on hearing of his advance, hastened to oppose him, and two weeks later (Aug. 23) the two armies met at Tagliacozzo in the Abruzzi. Though inferior in numbers, Charles's forces gained a complete victory, owing to the superior strategy of the veteran captain Érard de Valéry, who had offered his services to the brother of his sovereign. Conradin fled from the field and attempted to escape into Sicily, but he was betrayed into the hands of Charles who, after a mock trial, had him beheaded like a felon in the market-place at Naples (Oct. 29), where his body was buried, Charles not allowing it to be laid in consecrated ground [Alardo: Curradino: Tagliacozzo].

Thus confirmed in the possession of the two Sicilies, Charles gradually extended his influence in Italy, until, as Villani says, he became one of most powerful princes in Europe:

Ne' detti tempi (1279) lo re Carlo re di Gerusaleme di Cicilia era il più possente re e il più ridottato in mare e in terra, che nullo re de' cristiani. ({Villani. vii. 57.})

The people of Sicily, however, rendered desperate by the tyranny and exactions of their conquerors, determined to throw off the French yoke, and at length, in 1282, an insurrection which had been carefully fostered for some time previously by John of Procida, a devoted adherent of the Hohenstaufen, with the connivance and help (as was commonly believed) of Pope Nicholas III and the Greek Emperor Palaeologus, suddenly broke out. The immediate occasion of the rising was an insult offered to a Sicilian girl by a French soldier during the Easter festival at Palermo which led to the frightful massacre of the French, known as the 'Sicilian Vespers', and to the termination of their rule in the island [Vespri Siciliani]. After the expulsion of the Angevins the crown of Sicily was offered to and accepted by Peter III of Aragon, who had a claim to it in right of his wife, Constance, the daughter of Manfred [Costanza_2]. Charles made several unsuccessful attempts to regain possession of the island, and finally died at Foggia in Apulia, in the midst of preparations for a fresh invasion, Jan. 7, 1284/5.

Villani, who devotes considerable space to the doings of Charles of Anjou ({Villani. vi. 88-89}; {Villani. vii. 1-95}) speaks of him as

il più sofficiente principe di prodezza d'arme, e d'ogni virtù che fosse al suo tempo'; il più temuto e ridottato signore e il più valente d'arme e con più alti intendimenti, che niuno re che fosse nella casa di Francia da Carlo Magno infino a lui, e quegli che più esaltò la Chiesa di Roma.

He gives the following description of his character and person, noting, as D. does ([Purg. vii. 113, 124]), his large nose:

. . . questo Carlo fu il primo origine de' re di Cicilia e di Puglia stratti della casa di Francia . . . ed è bene ragione di far memoria di tanto signore, e tanto amico e protettore e difenditore di santa Chiesa e della nostra città di Firenze. . . .fu savio, di sano consiglio, e prode in arme, e aspro, e molto temuto e ridottato da tutti i re del mondo, magnanimo e d'alti intendimenti, in fare ogni grande impresa sicuro, in ogni avversità fermo, e veritiere d'ogm sua promessa, poco parlante, e molto adoperante, e quasi non ridea se non poco, onesto com'uno religioso, e cattolico, aspro in giustizia, e di feroce riguardo, grande di persona e nerboruto, di colore ulivigno, e con grande naso, e parea bene maestà reale più ch'altro signore; molto vegghiava e poco dormiva e usava di dire, che dormendo, tanto tempo si perdea; largo fu a' cavalieri d'arme, ma covidoso d'acquistare terra e signoria e moneta d'onde si venisse, per fornire le sue imprese e guerre; di gente di corte, minestrieri e giucolari, non si dilettò mai. ({Villani. vii. 1}.)

Rutebeuf, a contemporary Burgundian poet, who wrote two poems appealing to the young nobles to join Charles in his expedition against Manfred, speaks thus highly of him:

De Puille est la matyre que je vuel coumancier
Et dou roi de Cezile, que Dieux puisse avancier!
Qui vodrat elz sainz cielz semance semancier
Voisse aidier au boen roi qui tant fait a prisier.

Li boens rois estoit cuens d'Anjou et de Provance,
Et s'estoit filz de roi, freres au roi de France.
Bien pert qu'il ne vuet pas faire Dieu de la pance
Quant por l'arme sauveir met le cors en balance.
(Le Dit de Pouille 5-12.)

©Oxford University Press 1968. From A Dictionary of Proper Names and Notable Matters in the Works of Dante by Paget Toynbee (1968) by permission of Oxford University Press