A first fierce confrontation had raged across the kingdom for three years, but King Ferrante managed to put down the riot, thanks to the assistance of a garrison of 1000 foot soldiers and 700 knights led by Giogio Castriota Scanderbeg from Albania, looking for new lands for his folk scattered by the Turkish army.
Their armed forces besieged the city of Otranto, whose population lacking in assistance and protection from the King and the local noble families, had to capitulate some weeks later.
[citation needed] Moreover, a general impoverishment and a critical financial disorder was spreading in the country so that even the King was obliged either to sell or pawn part of his family's jewels and some precious books and manuscripts from his library.
Some of the most influential barons in the Neapolitan realm such as Antonello Petrucci, Francesco Coppola and Girolamo Sanseverino were willing to make the most of this situation, arranging a new plot against Ferrante and his son the Duke of Calabria, fifteen years after a first baronial attempt.
First, the rebels gathered in Melfi and gave Girolamo Sanseverino, Prince of Bisignano and count of Tricarico and Miglionico, the duty of checking the potential alliances, gaining the support of others noble families and working at the same time on a negotiation with the King Girolamo Sanseverino met in Naples Antonello Petrucci and Bernardo Coppola, councillors of Ferrante, in order to discover the intentions of the Court and figure out their next steps.
[citation needed] On 26 September 1485, a first group of rebel barons took possession of the city of L'Aquila, getting rid of the royal garrison and raising the banner of the Pope, who was the only authority up to question the legitimacy of Ferrante as king of Naples.
[citation needed] The events were described by the 16th-century Italian historian Camillo Porzio in one of his most famous works : "La congiura dei Baroni del regno di Napoli contra re Ferdinando".