Costanza Chiaramonte ( – 1423) was a queen consort of Naples in 1389-1392, married to King
Ladislaus of Naples
Ladislaus the Magnanimous ( it, Ladislao, hu, László; 15 February 1377 – 6 August 1414) was King of Naples from 1386 until his death and an unsuccessful claimant to the kingdoms of Hungary and Croatia. Ladislaus was a skilled political and m ...
. With changing political circumstances, their marriage was annulled.
Life
Costanza was a daughter of
Manfredi III Chiaramonte Manfredi III Chiaramonte (died November 1391) was a Sicilian nobleman.
Of French origins, he was given the County of Modica, then one of the most powerful fiefs in the Kingdom of Sicily, in 1377. He was also made lord of Trapani, Agrigento, Bivona ...
, count of Modica and Malta, and a powerful figure in Palermo.
Queen
Her marriage to King
Ladislaus, took place celebrated in
Gaeta
Gaeta (; lat, Cāiēta; Southern Laziale: ''Gaieta'') is a city in the province of Latina, in Lazio, Southern Italy. Set on a promontory stretching towards the Gulf of Gaeta, it is from Rome and from Naples.
The town has played a consp ...
in 1389 when she was 12, was calculated to bring her family's financial and military support, and not adversity, to his rule.
The fortunes of the Chiaramonte family changed after her father died in 1391, and her brother was caught and executed by the forces of King
Martin of Aragon, who had declared himself
king of Sicily
The monarchs of Sicily ruled from the establishment of the County of Sicily in 1071 until the "perfect fusion" in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1816.
The origins of the Sicilian monarchy lie in the Norman conquest of southern Italy which occ ...
. With this turn of fortunes, Ladislaus obtained an annulment by decree of the pope
Boniface IX. In July 1392, the bishop of Gaeta and
Cardinal Acciaioli announced the dissolution of the marriage in church. The supposed reason for the annulment was either the age of the couple or the accusation that Costanza's mother was living dissolutely in concubinage.
Later life
The following year Constance was forced to marry the count of Altavilla, Andrea di Capua, son of Bartolomeo, and protonotary of the kingdom, who was residing in the
Palazzo Marigliano, Naples. At the public wedding ceremony, Costanza was said to have proclaimed to her groom to take pride in having the king's wife and queen for a concubine.
Legacy
Constanza's fate attracted later storytellers and songwriters. Even in the 20th century, it was pointed as an example of ecclesiastical hypocrisy over the sanctity of marriage.
El divorcio
By Setembrino E. Pereda, Montevideo, 1902, page 83.
References
{{Authority control
Chiaramonte family
14th-century Neapolitan people
14th-century Sicilian people
14th-century Italian women
15th-century Italian women