Louis of Hungary seeks to solidify Angevin…

Louis of Hungary seeks to solidify Angevin rule over Naples and avenge the murder of his younger brother, Andrew, against whom Queen Joanna of Naples, his wife, had supposedly conspired.

After marching through Udine, Verona, Modena, Bologna, Urbino, and Perugia, Louis had entered the Kingdom of Naples on December 24, 1347, near L'Aquila, which had yielded to him.

Queen Joanna had meanwhile remarried, wedding a distant cousin, Louis of Taranto, and flees for Marseille on January 11, 1348.

Their other relatives, Robert of Taranto and Charles of Durazzo, visit Louis in Aversa to yield to him.

Louis receives them amicably and convinces them to persuade their brothers, Philip of Taranto and Louis of Durazzo, to join them.

After their arrival, Louis's "smile was replaced by the harshest expression as he unveiled with terrible words the true feelings he had for the princes and that he had kept hidden until then", according to the contemporaneous Domenico da Gravina.

He repeats his former accusations, blames his kinsmen for his brother's murder, and has them captured on January 22.

The next day, Charles of Durazzo—the husband of Joanna I's sister, Mary—is beheaded upon Louis's orders in the same place where his brother Andrew was murdered.

Joanna and Andrew's son, Charles Martel (betrothed to Charles of Durazzo's eldest daughter), who had been left behind by his mother, is sent by his uncle, together with the other princes, to Visegrád in the Kingdom of Hungary, where the two-year-old Charles Martel dies after May 10, 1348.

Louis marches to Naples in February.

The citizens offer him a ceremonious entry, but he refuses, threatening them to let his soldiers sack the town if they do not raise the taxes.

He adopts the traditional titles of the kings of Naples —"King of Sicily and Jerusalem, Duke of Apulia and Prince of Capua"—and administers the kingdom from the Castel Nuovo, garrisoning his mercenaries in the most important forts.

He uses unusually brutal methods of investigation to capture all accomplices in the death of his brother, according to Domenico da Gravina.

Most local noble families (including the Balzos and the Sanseverinos) refuse to cooperate with him.

The pope refuses to confirm Louis's rule in Naples, which would have united two powerful kingdoms under Louis's rule.

The pope and the cardinals declare Queen Joanna innocent of her husband's murder at a formal meeting of the College of Cardinals.

The arrival of the Black Death forced Louis to leave Italy in May.

He makes Ulrich Wolfhardt governor of Naples, but his mercenaries do not hinder Joanna I and her husband from returning from Franced in late August.

One month after her arrival, she breaks her previous promises on September 20 by removing Raymond d'Agoult from his post of Seneschal and appointing in his place the Neapolitan Giovanni Barrili.

The public discontent forces Joanna to restore d'Agoult in his post.

Over time, the Hungarians have come to be viewed as barbarians by the Neapolitan people, including Giovanni Boccaccio (who describes Louis the Great as “’rabid’ and ‘more vicious than a snake’”), so it is easy for the Queen and her husband to gain popularity after their return.