**2. Before Coronation**

Concerns for the recognition of the legitimacy of Joanna's succession inspired all along her reign the representation of the queen and of the symbols of her power in illuminated manuscripts, sculptures and frescoes. In the years immediately preceding her coronation, such images intended to unequivocally affirm, in forms of grea<sup>t</sup> solemnity, Joanna's right to succeed Robert to the throne.

Joanna was orphaned at an early age. Her mother, Princess Mary of Valois, the second wife of Charles of Calabria, was buried in a majestic, canopied monument carved by Tino di Camaino and his workshop, housed in the church of Santa Chiara in Naples. This location, which fulfills the explicit will of the deceased to be buried next to her husband, nevertheless seems to represent an exception in the choices made by Robert of Anjou regarding the distribution of the royal burials. In fact, the sovereign seems to have reserved only to his direct descendants, children and grandchildren, the burial in the church he founded together with his wife Sancia. The princess' tomb, however, exhibits in the sacred space of the "royal" church an iconography that bears an unequivocal political message (Figure 1): on the frontal slab of the sepulcher, the deceased sits on a throne bearing royal attributes (she was the granddaughter of King Philip III of France and had been destined to be queen) among her children, with Joanna and Mary (the latter was second in the line of successor to the throne) on her right and her left, respectively ([13], p. 7). This relief was in fact executed after the two princesses were designated to the succession in a solemn ceremony held in November 1330 in the square in front of the royal residence, Castelnuovo.

**Figure 1.** Tino di Camaino and workshop, Tomb of Princess Mary of Valois († 1331) (detail of the sepulcher), sculpture. Santa Chiara, Naples (Archive of the Soprintendenza Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio per l'Area metropolitana di Napoli). Image published in: [13] (Figure 2).

The theme is shown also in the chapter house of the friars in the Franciscan convent of Santa Chiara in Naples. The wide fresco, painted around 1340, shows Joanna (Figure 2) kneeling in prayer with Robert, Sancia and Charles of Calabria ([14], pp. 126–132) or Andrew [15] and six Franciscan saints in front of the Christ in Majesty. However, the restricted audience that could access the room (the community of the friars) does not allow us to exclude that the fresco was conceived not just as an image of political propaganda but specially as a celebration of the kings as founders of the convent [15] and as an exhortation to the friars to pray for them ([16], pp. 145–152).

**Figure 2.** Christ in Majesty with members of the Angevine court and six Franciscan saints (detail of Joanna I of Anjou), fresco, around 1340. Convent of Santa Chiara, Naples. Image published in: [14] (III, Figure 52).

The most solemn representation of the legitimacy of Joanna's succession is represented in the so-called Anjou Bible (Leuven, Katholieke Universiteit, Maurits Sabbe Library, cod. 1). It is one of the most lavishly decorated of the illuminated manuscripts produced on the patronage of the court of Naples. The manuscript has been attributed to the commission of Robert of Anjou in the late 1330s, or of the royal counselor and chancellor Niccolò Alunno d'Alife around 1343 (active 1328–1367) and has been considered a present for Andrew of Hungary [10] (pp. 404–405) [17] (pp. 21, 117) or a wedding present for both Joanna and Andrew [5] (p. 179), or an homage for queen Sancia of Maiorca ([16], pp. 107–108). It was for the most part realized by the scribe *Iannucius de Matrice* and the illuminator Cristoforo Orimina but completed after Andrew's death: in this last decoration campaign, Andrew's connection with the book was expunged by overpainting the numerous Hungarian dynastic symbols with Niccolo's coats of arms. The manuscript contains a celebrated full-page decoration with the representation of the Angevin genealogy in the frontispiece (fol. 4r). The famous miniature (Figure 3) represents the unfolding of the dynastic line through the solemn designation of each sovereign by his predecessor, with an emphasis on the role of the queens that reinforce the image of a female royal tradition [18] (p. 522) [13] (pp. 1–4). In the first row, Charles I, seated on a sumptuous throne next to his wife Beatrice of Provence, crowns his son Charles II in the presence of armed warriors, who seem to evoke the climate of strong political and military tensions of the first years after the conquest of the Kingdom (1266). In the second row Charles II, seated next to Mary of Hungary, indicates among his children, Charles Martel, Louis and Robert, the third son as his successor on the throne of Naples. Finally, Robert receives the homage of Andrea of Hungary, while Joanna kneels

before Sancia in the company of her sister Mary, both introduced by their father Charles of Calabria. The queen is represented many other times in the manuscript miniatures, both in public and private contexts, for example sitting on a throne and flanked by jousting knights (fol. 231v), with Andrew caressing her (fol. 249r), playing chess with King Robert (fol. 257r), falcon hunting with Andrew (fol. 278r). On fol. 309r, three images show King Robert or Niccolò d'Alife commissioning the manuscript, the same character while reading it with Joanna and offering it to another person, probably Andrew ([16], pp. 104–105).

**Figure 3.** Cristoforo Orimina, Genealogy of the Angevins of Naples, illumination, 1330s–1340s. Leuven, Bibl. Fac. Theol., Ms. 1, fol. 4r. Image published in: [6] (tav. 2).
