Joan of Naples (1478–1518)

Joan of Naples (15 April 1479^[1] – 27 August 1518) was the Queen consort of Ferdinand II of Naples.

Biography

Joan was born at Naples, a daughter of Ferdinand I of Naples and his second wife Joanna of Aragon. Her maternal grandparents were John II of Aragon and his second wife Juana Enríquez.

She was a paternal half-sister of (among others) Alfonso II of Naples and Frederick IV of Naples.

In 1496, Joan married her nephew Ferdinand II of Naples. He was a son of her paternal half-brother Alfonso II of Naples. The aunt and bride was actually only 17 years old while the nephew and groom was 27.

Ferdinand II died on 7 September of the same year. He was childless and was succeeded by his uncle and her half-brother Frederick IV of Naples. Joan survived him by twenty-two years but never remarried.

King Henry VII of England "Shops" for a Second Wife

King Henry VII of England lost his first wife Elizabeth of York on 11 February 1503. At age 46, he was interested in taking a second wife and (the still young) Joan was suggested as a potential queen by Queen Isabella of Castile, who probably wanted to divert Henry's interest from her daughter, Catherine of Aragon. Lacking a portrait of Joan, Henry sent ambassadors to Naples in 1505 to report on the physical qualities of the prospective bride.

Henry's questions, and the ambassador's answers, were mentioned by Henry Bacon in his 1622 biography, The Historie of the Raigne of King Henry The Seventh. A document containing the questions and answers was published in London, 250 years after the fact, as Instructions given by King Henry the Seventh, to his embassadors, When he intended to marry the young Queen of Naples: together with the answers of the embassadors (published in London: 1761, by T. Becket and P.A. De Hondt).

In the 1761 book, the information - listed as "Articles" in sequential Roman numerals, each "Article" followed by an "Answer" - sought by Henry dealt with all aspects of Joan's appearance: the color of her hair, the condition of her teeth, the size and shape of her nose, the complexion of her skin, whether she had hair on her upper lip. "Article XVI" instructed the ambassadors to note "hir brestes... whether they be bigge or smale." The ambassadors told the king that Joan's breasts "be somewhat great & fully, and in as much as that they were trussed somewhat high after the manner of (the) country, which causes her Grace for to seem much the fuller and her neck to be the shorter."^[2]

The ambassador's report on Joan's appearance was satisfactory, but - according to historian Arthur L. Schwarz in 2009 - the marriage negotiations failed for political and financial reasons.

Ancestry

References

External links

• A listing of descendants of Ferdinand IV of Castile
• A listing for the 1761 book Instructions given by King Henry the Seventh can be found in the on-line ESTC, English Short Title Catalogue; accessed 4 September 2010.