Maria of Calabria

Maria of Calabria (6 May 1329 – 20 May 1366), Countess of Alba, was a Neapolitan princess of the Capetian House of Anjou whose descendants inherited the crown of Naples following the death of her older sister, Queen Joanna I. Life Early years Maria was the fifth and posthumous child of Charles, Duke of Calabria (eldest son of King Robert the Wise of Naples) and Marie of Valois (half-sister of King Philip VI of France). She was born approximately six months following her father's death, on 9 November 1328. At the time of her birth, from her older three sisters and one brother, only her sister Joanna, born in March 1325, was alive. Two years later, on 23 October 1331, Maria's mother Marie of Valois died during a pilgrimage to Bari, leaving Maria and her older sister Joanna (now heiress of the throne of Naples) orphans. Both were raised at the court of their paternal grandfather King Robert in Naples. By a bull dated on 30 June 1332, Pope John XXII officially decreed that Maria and her older sister would be married to the sons of the King Charles I of Hungary: Joanna was betrothed with Andrew of Hungary, while Maria was destined to his older brother and heir of the Hungarian throne, Louis I of Hungary; however, this engagement was conditioned that if Joanna died before her marriage could be consummated, then Maria would marry his younger brother Andrew. In this way, King Robert wanted to reconcile his bloodline with the descendants of his older brother, deprived from the crown of Naples in his favor.