Louis fought a battle beneath the walls of Zara (July ist, 1346), which has been immortalized by Tintoretto, but was defeated and compelled to abandon the city to the republic.
The persistent hostility of Venice is partially attributable to her constant fear lest Louis should inherit the crown of Naples and thus threaten her trade and her sea-power from two sides simultaneously.
She then married Prince Louis of Taranto, and strong in the double support of the papal court at Avignon and of the Venetian republic (both of whom were opposed to Magyar aggrandisement in Italy) questioned the right of Louis to the two Sicilies, which he claimed as the next heir of his murdered brother.
The expansion of Taranto was limited to the coast because of the resistance of the populations of inner Apulia.
Taranto was finally conquered by the Normans: the sons of Petron elected the first Norman archbishop, Drogo, in 1071, and prepared a fleet to conquer Durazzo.
Taranto became the capital of a Norman principality, whose first ruler was Robert Guiscard's son, Bohemond of Taranto, who obtained it as result of succession dispute: his father repudiated his first wife, Bohemond's mother, and had Roger Borsa, his son by his second wife Sikelgaita, succeed him as Duke of Apulia.
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