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[caption id="attachment_3120" align="alignleft" width="110"] Ms. Parm. 1654, fol 4r.[/caption]In this paper the use of Aragonese coat of arms in the noble commission of Diomede Carafa (1406-1487), count of Maddaloni and right-hand man of Ferrante, will be analyzed, not as the expression of conceptual proximity to the Crown but as the vehicle of a large-scale effort political speech. In Naples the custom of adorning the noble palace with the King’s coat of arms is not something new: indeed there are many examples comparable to Diomede’s case. However in the case of the Carafas’ commission the amount, the heterogeneity and the multiplicity of the sources (documentary, narrative and iconographical) allow the development of the analysis about the political value of fidelitas as the virtue that characterizes the nobleman. The signs of the devotion to the King and the signs of the family promotion are related, on one hand, to the political rule practiced by the members of the family at the service of the Crown as officiales consiliarii and, on the other hand, to the peculiarity of the Carafas’ belonging to the Neapolitan elite of the noble “seggi”.Conference: Heraldry in the Medieval City: The Case of Italy in the European Context (Journées Héraldiques 5), Rome, 5th-7th May 2015