In 1228 a terrible earthquake ravaged Ischia, anticipating, maybe, the disastrous volcanic eruption of 1300, where more than 700 islanders died. In 1265, with the death of Manfredi and Corradino, the reigning house of Suevians came to an end and the domination of the Anjou family started. Ischia was, on the side of Svevians, related to the Aragonese Royal Family and took part to the revolt headed by Giovanni da Procida (Sicilian Vespers). Once the Angevins were out of the island, King Peter III of Aragon, Manfredi's son-in-law, was elected by acclamation. Around the end of 1200, after a brief recapture of the island by the Angevins, defeated in Castellamare in 1285 thanks to the fleet of the Admiral Ruggiero di Lauria, king James II (the son of Peter III) came back on the Sicilian throne and gave his brother, Frederic II, Ischia seignory.

Until 1300 the island was politically and economically separate from the Angevins of Naples, but under the Aragoneses of Sicily. Actually, in 1299 Frederic II of Aragon put Ischia and Procida under Landolfo Galdo control. The same year, the ravages committed by the Angevin troops were followed by a fearful volcanic eruption coming out from a crater opened on the East side of Monte Epomeo. Its activity lasted two years, even though on alternate periods. Only in 1305 the survivors, who stayed for two years in Procida and on the Napolitan coast, came back to Ischia where Cesare Sterlich, ex-ambassador of Charles II at the Pope's court, governed the country and undertook the rebuilding with humanity and energy.

In 1313 Captain Giovanni Caracciolo Rossi succeeded Governor Sterlich. He was a follower of King Robert (Charles II of Anjou's third born), who, in 1328, preferred to die in the explosion of the powder-magazine of Ischia Castle, instead of surrendering to the besiegers of the island. In 1382 king Robert died at the age of eighty and his niece Giovanna I followed him. Starting from that moment Angevins and Aragoneses became the protagonists of the battle for the succession of the throne of Naples. Even the islanders participated, going through sacks and devastation until 1441 when Renato of Anjou was chased away from Naples by Alfonso d'Aragona and took refuge in Provence (France). The Aragonese dynasty succeeded the Angevin one with Alfonso I and ended in 1501 with Frederic.

A cura della dr.ssa Nicoletta Manzi - Da:
G.BUCHNER C.GIALANELLA, Guida al museo di Ischia, Napoli 1995.
G.CASTAGNA, Scavi e Museo Santa Restituta in Lacco Ameno, 1988.
E.MANCINI, Flegree, isole dei verdi vulcani, Milano 1980.
P.MONTI, Ischia, archeologia e storia, Napoli 1980.
P.MONTI, Ischia altomedievale, Napoli 1991.

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