The reign of Gaimar VIII
In the summer of 1492, Gaimar VIII achieved a big diplomatic success, with the forming of the ‘Quadruple Alliance’, between the kingdom of Salerno, the duchy of Milan, the duchy of Urbino and the Margravate of Modena.
The 4 nations promised each other the following things
I. To mutually come to each others aid, when one of them was attacked
II. To stop the expansion of the rich merchant republic of Venice
III. Prevent any foreign nation from gaining control over any part of Italy
IV. To conquer back all Italian lands currently in the hands of the non-Italians
To strengthen the alliance, marriages were arranged between the 4 ruling families.
In 1493, the duke of Milan, Giovanni Galleazo II, called upon his allies to support him in a war against the Swiss republic. This was much discussion between Gaimar VIII and his advisors. They all told him, that attacking the Swiss republic wasn’t something that was stated in the treaty, the Swiss didn’t hold any Italian lands nor were they plotting to seize any Italian land. This war was just a Milanese act of aggression against a peaceful neighbour.
But Gaimar VIII, thought differently. It was time he said that the Salernitian army proofed itself in battle and what better exam could there be then fighting against the famous Swiss pikemen. So the royal army, consisting of 2,000 heavy cavalry and 4,000 men-at-arms marched north.
The poor Swiss didn’t know what hit them and soon the Swiss field army was in full retreat and Gaimar’s army started to besiege Zürich, while the duke of Milan besieged Bern.
When after a short siege both cities were taken, a peace-treaty was signed. The Swiss republic would pay 50 ducats as indemnities to Salerno, while the province of Schwyz would go to the duke of Milan and hereby came an end to the 1st Milanese-Swiss War.
The royal palace of the kings of Salerno, Castello Gisolfo, was situated on a small promontory in the gulf of Napoli. Each Lombard prince and king had added or altered the palace to its own liking and Gaimar wanted to use the 50 gold ducats to improve the palace even more.
But Ulrich Fugger, the Secretary of Trade told him that there were better ways to use this money. The Salernitian fleet, he told Gaimar, was in a sad condition it consisted of just 5 old galleys. If Gaimar wanted to win back the islands of Sicily and Sardinia from Aragon then the fleet would have to be strengthened, so that it could at least transport the army to the islands.
Gaimar was easily persuaded, seeing the advantages of this plan and the order was therefor given to start building 3 new type of ships, ‘cogs’. With these ships it would be possible to transport a considerable army over sea.
Now that Italy was at peace again, Gaimar and his advisors had time to improve the internal situation of the kingdom, lots of money was spent on increasing the trade-revenues and subsidies were given to traders who wanted to gain a foothold in the commercial centres of Genoa and Venezia.
But pouring all this money into the economy didn’t seem to have the wanted effect, the Salernitian merchants had almost no success in trading and with all that money around, prices in Salerno started to rise.
Gaimar VIII, who was a military man didn’t know much about economics couldn’t understand that this was happening, but luckily for him and Salerno, his secretary of Trade did and on his advice in 1496 the National Bank of Salerno was founded. The purpose of the Bank would be to regulate the minting of gold and to see that the currency in used would keep its value.
While the economy stabilised itself, Gaimar his eye turned toward the sea, the cogs were built and his fleet was ready, all it needed was a man to command it. He found this man in Grimoald Farini, a man of low birth but with great knowledge of the sea, since he had been a sailor for almost his entire life.
In 1499 everything ready, to start the reconquest of Sicily, but when Gaimar was finishing his final draft for his declaration of war, news came from Milan. The 2nd Milanese-Swiss war had started and Giovanni Galleazo II requested Gaimar to join him again.
This of course wasn’t at all to Gaimar’s liking, he didn’t want a war in northern Italy, he wanted to conquer Sicily. He therefor, politely but firmly told the Milanese ambassador that he wished them all the luck but he would
not tell his army to march north again.
The Milanese ambassador was furious of course, calling Gaimar and his advisors, ‘backstabbing, dishonest, hideous barbarians’. His duke would not forget this insult.
Soon it became clear to Gaimar that he had made a mistake, since both the duke of Urbino and the marquis of Modena had joined the duke of Milan, the ‘Quadruple Alliance’ had come to an end and all 3 nations blamed Gaimar for this.
In the north, the Venetian Republic was the real benefactor. Since while the Milanese army was fighting in the mountains, it took the opportunity to invade the Milanese province of Lombardia and Genoa.
Gaimar, cancelled his plan for the invasion of Sicily. Aragon was to strong to be attacked by Salerno alone, he needed new allies. But they were hard to find, and neither a royal marriage with Castille nor a trade-agreement with Venice convinced these two nations to accept Salerno as an ally.
But in 1502 his search for allies had finally succeeded, the republics of Firenze and Siena were willing to form a defensive alliance, though both republics were rich they were also small so Gaimar was very pleased when just a couple of months later he was able to convince Pope Pius III to form an alliance with Salerno. Pius III brought with him two other allies, the arch-bishop of Bremen and the Knights Hospitallers of Rhodes. These small nations of course couldn’t contribute much to the Salernitian effort, but the prestige of being a friend and ally of the Pope was still a good thing.
Then suddenly, Gaimar started to have doubts about his Sicilian adventure. The risk would be to great he said, Aragon was much more powerful then Salerno. The invasion might just as well backfire on him. No he said, we need to expand in Italy first, our fleet and army aren’t strong enough.
The duchy of Urbino would be the target he decided, it was a small, single province nation, completely surrounded by Salerno and his allies and Urbino was already at war, with Venice.
Urbino, was invaded in the summer of 1502 and since its army and duke were away Gaimar was offered no opposition and soon the Ducal capital, Urbino was in his hands. Urbino was annexed by Salerno and the former duke Guidobaldo was forced to cede his title to Gaimar.
When Gaimar returned to Salerno a victory parade was held, to celebrate the first expansion of the kingdom in decades. Envoys from all over Europe went to Salerno to congratulate Gaimar with his success, the most important of them was the ambassador of the king of France, Louis XI.
Gaimar could get a long very well with the sophisticated Frenchman and he was very pleased to announce that the king of France had agreed to a marriage between one of his sons and a cousin of Gaimar. The marriage deal also had a secret clause, Gaimar promised the king of France not to interfere in the war that was about to begin between the king of France and Pope Pius III.
The advisors of Gaimar were shocked when they heard about this secret clause, the Pope they argued was a good and valuable ally, to give this up for a marriage of a French prince wasn’t worth it. It was also a very dishonest thing to do, they said, not very honourable. Gaimar told them that the alliance with the Pope had served his purpose. If he would give the king of France a free hand then he was convinced that Louis XI would help him in the upcoming war against Aragon.
His advisors very much doubted if this would happen, the relations between France and Aragon were to good they said. And not honouring an alliance for the 2nd time in a short time would make Salerno look very bad in the eyes of the other rulers of Europe.
And they were right, when the king of France and his vassal-states declared war on the Papal State, the people in Europe were shocked when they heard that king Gaimar refused to help Pope Pius III. But Gaimar didn’t have to live long with this knowledge, in the summer of 1504 he suddenly fell ill and he died soon afterwards, to be succeeded by his eldest son, Landulf.
