Niccolò Speciale

Who is Niccolò Speciale?

Niccolò Speziale di Noto 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 around 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, heavily linked since then to the study of sixteenth-century European culture.