Niccolò Speciale
Niccolò Speziale di Noto ( - 1444) was the Viceroy of Sicily from 1423 - 1424, and 1425–1432.
He was a personal Sicilian vassal of Aragonese Infante John of Aragon, Viceroy of Sicily from 1409–1416, Peter, infans of Aragón, Viceroy of Sicily from 1524–1525, and of the Infante Henry of Aragon.
He was a close associate of Sicilian military man and diplomat Ruggero Paruta. He was in good terms with famous Italian literary author Antonio Beccadelli. It is most likely, that both, Speziale and Beccadelli assisted to the wedding in 1420, of Infante John of Aragon to widowed Navarrese Princess Blanche I of Navarre.
Aragonese power, centered on Sicilian-Spanish families, such as Ávalos or Davalos, Moncada, or Montcada, Cabrera, Cardona, Chiaramonte, Folch de Cardona, Aragón or Aragona, Requesens, Ximenez de Urrea, Luna, Centelles, Moncayo Pignatelli, Platamone, Caracciolo, Tagliacozzo, Corella, Paternò, and Ventimiglia.
Contemporary humanists and academicians were likely indebted to Speciale, such as Iovianus Pontanus and Neapolitan Jacopo Sannazaro, who influenced also Spanish poetry of the early Renaissance. Imperial Spain soldiers as Juan Boscàn, Garcilaso de la Vega and Jorge de Montemor, or Sicily based Gutierre de Cetina, (1520- Mexico, 1557), heavily linked since then to the study of sixteenth-century European culture.
Some references
- Storia cronologica dei vicerè, luogotenenti, e presidenti del regno di Sicilia. Seguita da un'appendice sino al 1842 [by P. Insenga]. by Giovanni Evangelista di Blasi e Gambacorta, Pompeo Insenga, (1842), 876 pages, Palermo, dalle Staperia Oretea. Available at the Monaco Royal Library, but fortunately, made available through Google 12 million books, by now, Program on Uncopyrighted and Old Books: https://books.google.com/books?id=_t4ahpdB9BgC&pg=RA1-PA864
- Compendio dela Storia di Sicilia by Niccolo Maggiore, (1840), bought by Harvard College Library 1912, available through Google Uncopyrighted and Old Books program: https://books.google.com/books?id=I_8KAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA255