Images of Power in Medieval Naples: Queen Joanna I and King David

The prayer book of Joanna I of Naples provides a unique glimpse at a female monarch who has been much maligned, both by her contemporaries and later scholars. The lack of primary sources on the Angevin rulers after the 1943 destruction of the archives in Naples has only compounded the problem. The illustrations in the prayer book thus provide a valuable look at Joanna’s self-representation even without other sources. In this article, I examine folio 36r, an image of the biblical King David that bears striking similarities in appearance to illustrations of Joanna later in the prayer book. By 1370, Joanna had experienced both domestic and military upheavals. The image in the prayer book indicates that Joanna’s decision to tie herself to King David may be read as an attempt to both rehabilitate herself in the eyes of her subjects and to reassert her right to rule Naples.