By May 1495, with fresh troops and the support of Aragon allies, Ferdinand returned to the peninsula and with the assistance of the Spanish general Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, expelled French soldiers from the entire kingdom.

[2] He had as tutors, but also as advisors and secretaries, Aulus Janus Parrasius,[3] Gabriele Altilio and Chariteo, who followed their pupil with dedication and loyalty even when he, still a teenager, was called to try his hand at the art of war.

[6] Although the story is far-fetched, there is news from the ambassadors of his ruinous fall from his horse in the summer of 1486: initially the prince seemed to have done nothing, in fact he did not want to be medicated,[7] but then he was assailed by a great fever and was in danger of life.

[9] At the death of his younger brother Pietro, which occurred due to illness in 1491, he remained the last hope of Naples and of his old grandfather Ferrante, who by dying already foreshadowed the terrible war that was about to strike the kingdom.

The sovereign died on 25 January 1494, Alfonso II ascended to the throne of Naples and did not hesitate a single moment before declaring war on Ludovico il Moro, occupying as the first act of hostility the city of Bari, a fief of the duke.

[10][11] Ludovico responded to the threat by giving the green light to the monarch French Charles VIII to descend to Italy to reconquer the kingdom of Naples, which the latter believed usurped by the Aragonese to the Neapolitan Angevins.

Caterina, very angry, passed on the side of the French, who had devastated her lands and torn her subjects, breaking the alliance with the Neapolitans, and therefore Ferrandino, having learned the news, under a diverted rain was forced to leave Faenza with his men and to get on the way to Cesena.

In fact, when he was still near Imola, on 16 September 1494 "with the helmet on his head and throwing it on his thigh" he went down to openly challenge the French, and seeing that the enemy did not leave the camp "he sent some crossbowmen to invite him up to half a mile below; and no one ever showed up".

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.

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.Let's go back to Ferdinand the young boy, seen in the crowned kingdom.

to meet the enemy people.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.

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.

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".

[22] Despite having many supporters among the Neapolitan nobles, largely nostalgic for the Angevin period, and the almost total control of the kingdom, Charles did not know how to exploit these conditions in his favor and imposed French officials at the top of all administrations.

The weakness of his choices, dictated by the arrogant conviction of being the undisputed master of the realm and perhaps of the entire Peninsula, gave time and strength to the other Italian states to coalesce against him and ferrandino to reorganize the Neapolitan armies.

In the same month the king of France, following the pro-Aragonese impulses of the Neapolitan people and the advance of Ferrandino's armies in the Kingdom, understood the need to leave Naples and set out to return to his homeland, where he managed to arrive despite the defeat suffered by the forces of the anti-French league in the battle of Fornovo.

Charles, despite having many supporters among the Neapolitan nobles, largely nostalgic for the Angevin period, and the almost total control of the kingdom, did not know how to exploit these conditions in his favor and imposed French officials at the top of all administrations.

The weakness of his choices, dictated by the arrogant conviction of being the undisputed master of the realm and perhaps of the entire Peninsula, gave time and strength to the other Italian states to unite against him and Ferrandino to reorganize the Neapolitan armies.[...]

that have plundered Ponente and Levante.Ferrandino, who in the meantime had brought himself from Ischia to Messina, joined his cousin, Ferdinand II of Aragon, king of Sicily and Spain, who offered him assistance in the reconquest of the Kingdom.

Although the Grand Captain tried not to come into battle, finally to satisfy the king he accepted, and arrived on the appointed day, at the River of Seminara, fought with great courage; but King Ferrandino was easily recognized by the luxurious clothing of Aubigny, who killed his horse, causing him to fall to the ground, and would have been in danger of life, if John of Capua, brother of Andrew, Count of Altavilla[26] had not put him back on horseback, and left protecting him as best as possible, but the Aragonese, not being able to resist the fury of the French, on the advice of the Grand Captain he returned to Reggio, and the king having realized that he had made a great mistake in having exposed in danger his person and that of all his allies, recommending all the weight of that war to the Grand Captain, he returned to his father in Messina, who found him anxious for the course of this war.

[27][18] Slight aftermath of the war against the soldiers of Charles VIII dragged on until the following year, but in fact the kingdom had returned firmly into the hands of Ferrandino, who was thus able to celebrate his wedding with his aunt Giovanna, younger than him.

[28] Without a shadow of a doubt the labors of an entire life spent since the very first youth fighting for the defense of the kingdom, exposed to water, wind and frost, without indulging in the last three years even a moment of rest, had to contribute more than illness and more than marriage to his untimely death.

Having then devoutly obtained the extreme anointing, he died on 7 October, at Castel Capuano, where he had been transported to litter, among the great mourning of the people who had led in procession relics, including the miraculous blood of San Gennaro, and long prayed for his healing.

he helped her and immediately the betrayal was discovered; and today he died so softly, at the end of him winning him.The good King Ferrandino was then buried with funeral gifts in the sacristy of San Domenico, near the tomb of his grandfather Ferrante.

Following these painful events and the definitive sunset of the Aragonese lineage, the laments for the premature death of the good Ferrandino multiplied:If I had the son King Ferdinand, that he was alive with me in such misfortune, would give notice to all my worries, but unhappy to me no one is left to me, and I remember them weeping, for the fountain of mercy withered to his vessel for me, being a receptacle of torments

He was also cultivated in the literary arts, having as teachers Gabriele Altilio and Aulo Giano Parrasio, and in fact he delighted in composing poems and wacky people in his spare time.

[35] The event is reported in a letter dated 4 October by Bernardo Dovizi from Bibbiena to Piero il Fatuo:Ferrandino was approached one evening by a "good man" named Mattio, who made him understand that he had to talk about a matter of enormous importance.

[38] The letters of Dovizi of this period, overly stuffed with obscenity and double meanings, since the nineteenth century have been abundantly censored in all the works and essays that deal with the subject, however they are still preserved at the Medici state archive in Florence and digitally usable.