VESPRO SICILIANO. — This is the name given to the insurrectionary movement that broke out in Sicily in 1282 for complex reasons and with results different from those foreseen.
The Angevin rule, accepted with relative ease in southern Italy, had reacted with great vigor to the revival of Swabian traditions; but the harshness of the repression had opened a gulf between rulers and ruled, especially in Sicily, where the situation was aggravated by the severity of the fiscal exactions, by the introduction of Angevin feudal lords and officials, and by the definitive transfer of the capital from Palermo to Naples, with all the economic consequences that this entailed. The exiles from the island and from the continental part of the Kingdom — and in particular the Salernitan Giovanni da Procida — intrigued with the enemies of the Angevins and above all with Pietro III d'Aragona, husband of Costanza, daughter of Manfredi, who was deeply interested in all the Mediterranean developments of the Catalan maritime expansion. Preparations for a Venetian-Angevin military expedition against the Byzantine Empire induced Pietro III to reach an understanding with the latter and to prepare a landing in Sicily, transferring his fleet to the African coast. On 31 March 1282, a popular insurrection unexpectedly broke out in Palermo; after the French had been massacred or expelled, the Sicilian cities attempted to establish popular institutions and to form a federal government under the protection of the Pope, who instead repudiated the movement. Political unpreparedness and military difficulties led them, without too much hesitation, to offer the crown to Pietro III, who landed at Palermo on 7 September 1282 and, with the title of king of Sicily, assumed command of the war. After relieving Messina from the Angevin siege, Pietro III went on the offensive to drive the Angevins from the peninsula as well, and achieved military successes on the mainland and at sea. The Papacy and France intervened in support of Carlo d'Angiò, producing a dangerous Franco-Aragonese conflict, as a result of which Giacomo II deemed it advisable to renounce Sicily, obtaining Sardinia and Corsica in exchange. The Sicilians did not accept the cession and elected as their king Federico d'Aragona, Giacomo’s younger brother (January 1296), who continued the war against the Angevins with varying fortunes, until he obtained, by the Treaty of Caltabellotta (1302), recognition of the de facto situation and the title of king of Trinacria, on condition that at his death the island should return to the Angevins. This did not occur, and thus a continuous state of open or latent war was established between the two parts of the former Kingdom, exhausting its energies and resources, preparing the island’s subjection to the Aragonese, and opening the way to their subsequent intervention in the peninsula.