Joanna next goes to Aix en Provence, where her reception is very different: the Provençal barons clearly demonstrating their hostility to her.

She has to take an oath to do nothing against Provence and to appoint only locals in the county posts.

Louis II, born in Toulouse, is the son of Louis I of Anjou, King of Naples, and Marie of Blois.

He had come into his Angevin inheritance, which includes Provence, in 1384, with his rival Charles of Durazzo (father of Ladislaus), of the senior Angevin line, in possession of Naples.

Most towns in Provence revolted after the death of his father.

His mother then raised an army and they traveled from town to town, to gain support.

Louis II is formally recognized as Count in Aix-en-Provence.

Marie now appeals to Charles VI of France to support her son in obtaining Naples.

The University of Aix-en-Provence, founded on December 9, 1409 as a studium generale by Count of Provence Louis II of Anjou, is recognized by Papal Bull in 1413.

The decision to establish the university was, in part, a response to the already-thriving University of Paris.

Thus, the letters patent for the university had ben granted, and the government of the university had been created.

The Archbishop of Aix-en-Provence is appointed as the first chancellor of the university for the rest of his life.

Nicolas Froment, a member of the Avignonese school, gains renown for a major altarpieces, “The Raising of Lazarus.”

His Triptych of the Burning Bush, today installed in Aix Cathedral, had originally been painted for a Carmelite convent, destroyed during the French Revolution.

The central panel represents the Virgin and Child seen on the burning bush.

In the foreground, Moses, guarding his flock, is amazed by the vision.

The two other parts of the triptych show the patrons of the work, René of Anjou, ruler of Provence and titular king of Naples, and his consort Queen Jeanne, in devotional attitudes.

Nicholas Froment paints a second celebrated altarpiece in 1476, “The Burning Bush,” for the Cathedral of Saint Sauveur in Aix-en-Provence.

This work, like his earlier “The Raising of Saint Lazarus,” reveals an awareness of the innovations of both the Italian Renaissance and the new Flemish realism.

His concept of space, initially northern European in his detailed landscapes, seems now to become more Tuscan, employing an Italian style of perspective.

René d’Anjou, dying at seventy-one at Aix-en-Provence on July 10, 1480, leaves two romances in prose and verse.

The extinction of the princely house of Anjou will bring the French crown substantial territory and eliminate another dangerous rival to Louis XI, who himself dies on August 30, 1483.

France acquires Aix aome six years after the death of René, when the crown finally annexes the county of Anjou.

Charles de Lannoy launches an invasion of Provence, commanded by Don Fernando d'Avalos and Charles de Bourbon, crossing the Alps in early July with nearly eleven thousand men.

The Spanish-Imperial forces capture and sack most of the smaller towns of Provence, and finally Charles de Bourbon enters the provincial capital of Aix-en-Provence on August 9, taking the title of Count of Provence.

The increasing interaction of the Waldenses with the Protestant churches has brought the them to the attention of the authorities.

The Parlement of Provence issues the Arrêt de Mérindol on November 18, 1541, ordering the destruction of the villages of Lourmarin, Mérindol, and Cabriéres in the Luberon, because their inhabitants are Vaudois, of Italian Piedmontese origin, and are not considered sufficiently orthodox Catholics.

Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, a French antiquary and savant, has the use of a telescope newly purchased by his patron, Guillaume du Vair, president of the Parlement of Provence.

Peiresc and Joseph Gaultier use this for observing the skies.

Peiresc discovers the Orion Nebula in 1610; Gaultier becomes the second person to see it in the telescope.

Peiresc and Gaultier observe the moons of Jupiter in November 1610; Peiresc’s courtly suggestion that individual names from the Medici family be applied to these "Medicean stars" is not taken up.

...the area of Aix and ...