Ferdinand II of Aragon and Sicily
| Ferdinand the Catholic | |||||||||||||||||
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Portrait by Michael Sittow
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| King of Castile and León (jure uxoris) | |||||||||||||||||
| Reign | 15 January 1475 – 26 November 1504 | ||||||||||||||||
| Predecessor | Isabella I | ||||||||||||||||
| Successor | Joanna I | ||||||||||||||||
| Co-monarch | Isabella I | ||||||||||||||||
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| Reign | 20 January 1479 – 23 January 1516 | ||||||||||||||||
| Predecessor | John II | ||||||||||||||||
| Successor | Joanna I and Charles I | ||||||||||||||||
| Born |
10 March 1452 Sada Palace, Sos del Rey Católico, Zaragoza |
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| Died | 23 January 1516 (aged 63) Madrigalejo, Extremadura |
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| Burial | Royal Chapel of Granada | ||||||||||||||||
| Consort |
Isabella I of Castile (m. 1469; d. 1504) Germaine of Foix (m. 1505) |
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| Issue among others... |
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| House | Trastámara | ||||||||||||||||
| Father | John II of Aragon and Navarre | ||||||||||||||||
| Mother | Juana Enríquez | ||||||||||||||||
| Religion | Roman Catholicism | ||||||||||||||||
| Signature |  |
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Ferdinand II (Aragonese: Ferrando, Catalan: Ferran, Basque: Errando, Spanish: Fernando) (10 March 1452 – 23 January 1516), called the Catholic, was King of Sicily from 1468 and King of Aragon from 1479 until his death. The 1469 marriage of Ferdinand, heir apparent to the crown of Aragon, and Isabella of Castile, heir apparent to the crown of Castile, was the marital and political "cornerstone in the foundation of the Spanish monarchy." As a consequence of his marriage to Isabella I, he was de jure uxoris King of Castile as Ferdinand V from 1474 until her death in 1504. At Isabella's death the crown of Castile passed to their daughter Joanna, by the terms of their prenuptial agreement and her last will and testament. Following the death of Joanna's husband Philip I of Spain, and her alleged mental illness, Ferdinand was recognized as regent of Castile from 1508 until his own death. In 1504, after a war with France, he became King of Naples as Ferdinand III, reuniting Naples with Sicily permanently and for the first time since 1458. In 1512, he became King of Navarre by conquest. In 1505 he married Germaine de Foix of France, but Ferdinand's only son and child of that marriage died soon after birth; had the child survived, the personal union of the crowns of Aragon and Castile would have ceased.
Ferdinand had a role in inaugurating the discovery of the New World in the future Americas, since he and Isabella sponsored the first voyage of Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), in 1492. That year was the final victory in the war with Granada which defeated the last Muslim state in Iberia and all of Western Europe. This brought to a close the centuries-long Christian reconquest of Iberia. For that Christian victory, Pope Alexander VI, born in the kingdom of Valencia in Aragon, awarded the royal couple the title of Catholic Monarchs. At Ferdinand's death Joanna's son, Ferdinand's grandson, Charles I, who was co-ruler in name over all the several Iberian kingdoms except for Portugal, succeeded him, making Charles the first King of Spain. However, during the regency of Ferdinand, many called him the King of Spain as distinct from his daughter Joanna, “queen of Castile”.
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