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The House of Sforza (Italian: [ˈsfɔrtsa]) was a ruling family of Renaissance Italy, based in Milan. Sforza rule began with the family's acquisition of the Duchy of Milan following the extinction of the Visconti family in the mid-15th century and ended with the death of the last member of the family's main branch, Francesco II Sforza, in 1535.
Sforza Family, Italian family, first named Attendoli, that produced two famous soldiers of fortune and founded a dynasty that ruled Milan for almost a century. Document in which Francesco Sforza, duke of Milan, granted commercial rights to Giovanni Merlo and his descendants, September 7, 1452; it allowed them to buy and sell goods in Milan ...
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Bianca Maria Visconti in a portrait by Bonifacio Bembo, Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan Francesco's coat of arms encircled with the garter. Francesco I Sforza KG (Italian: [franˈtʃesko ˈpriːmo ˈsfɔrtsa]; 23 July 1401 – 8 March 1466) was an Italian condottiero who founded the Sforza dynasty in the duchy of Milan, ruling as its (fourth) duke from 1450 until his death.
Francesco Sforza (born July 23, 1401, San Miniato, Tuscany [Italy]—died March 8, 1466, Milan) was a condottiere who played a crucial role in 15th-century Italian politics and, as duke of Milan, founded a dynasty that ruled for nearly a century. The illegitimate son of a mercenary commander, Muzio Attendolo Sforza, Francesco grew up at the ...
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Overview
- Early life and assumption of power
- Conflicts and alliances
- Ludovico’s fall
Ludovico Sforza, (born July 27, 1452, Vigevano, Pavia, duchy of Milan [Italy]—died May 27, 1508, Loches, Toubrenne, France), Italian Renaissance regent (1480–94) and duke of Milan (1494–98), a ruthless prince and diplomatist and a patron of Leonardo da Vinci and other artists.
Ludovico Sforza was the second son of Francesco Sforza, who had made himself duke of Milan. While still a child, he received the epithet il Moro (“the Moor”) because of his dark complexion and black hair. Brought up at his father’s refined court, he remained, after his father’s death in 1466, in the service of the new ruler, his elder brother Galeazzo Maria.
When Galeazzo was murdered, however, in 1476, leaving the duchy to his seven-year-old son, Gian Galeazzo, Ludovico first revealed his appetite for power, plotting to win the regency from the child’s mother, Bona of Savoy. The plot failed, and Ludovico was exiled but eventually, through threats and flattery, won a reconciliation with Bona and brought about the execution of her most influential adviser and chief minister, Cicco Simonetta, in 1480. Shortly afterward, he compelled Bona to leave Milan and assumed the regency for his nephew.
From that moment he entered the arena of “equilibrium politics,” by which a precarious balance was maintained among the major Italian states. Taking advantage of the rivalry between these states, he established Milan’s supremacy. Distrusting Venice, he remained on good terms with Florence and its Medici ruler, Lorenzo the Magnificent. He secured useful alliances with Ferdinand I, king of Naples, whose granddaughter Isabella was married in 1489 to Gian Galeazzo, and with the Borgia pope Alexander VI, through the influence of Ludovico’s brother Ascanio, who was a cardinal. In 1491 Ludovico married Beatrice d’Este, the beautiful and cultured daughter of the duke of Ferrara. The marriage proved to be unusually harmonious, in spite of Ludovico’s mistresses, and Beatrice bore him two sons, Massimiliano and Francesco, both of whom later became dukes of Milan.
With lavish but enlightened patronage of artists and scholars, Ludovico made the court of Milan the most splendid not only in Italy but in Europe. Leonardo da Vinci and the architect Donato Bramante were among the many artists, poets, and musicians who gathered in Milan. Ludovico sponsored extensive work in civil and military engineering, such as canals and fortifications. The court and the common people alike rejoiced in Ludovico’s magnificent celebrations; the Milanese, however, though enjoying well-being, were increasingly burdened by taxes.
Resentful of the overshadowing splendour of the court of Ludovico and Beatrice, Gian Galeazzo, the rightful ruler of Milan, and his wife Isabella left Milan to establish another court at Pavia. Isabella was more outraged by Ludovico’s flagrant usurpation of the ducal powers than her husband was, and she appealed to her grandfather, Ferdinand I, who intervened in 1492, ordering Ludovico to surrender control of the duchy to Isabella and Gian Galeazzo.
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Ludovico refused and, fearing a war with Naples, formed an alliance with two foreign sovereigns, the emperor Maximilian I and King Charles VIII of France. For an enormous sum of money Maximilian not only bestowed upon Ludovico the title of duke of Milan in 1494, legitimizing his usurpation, but also married Bianca Maria, Gian Galeazzo’s sister. Charles VIII, who was contemplating the seizure of the kingdom of Naples from Ferdinand, received Ludovico’s promise of help.
Charles VIII died in 1498 and was succeeded by Louis XII, a descendant of the first duke of Milan. Louis claimed the duchy and, with the support of Venice and a Milanese population oppressed by Ludovico’s taxation, quickly conquered it. When the Milanese had in turn tired of Louis’s rule, Ludovico, who sought refuge with Maximilian, tried to retake Milan with German and Swiss mercenaries. His Swiss troops, however, refused to fight for him in a crucial battle, and in April 1500 Ludovico was captured by the French while attempting to escape, disguised as a Swiss. His fall was celebrated all over Italy. He was imprisoned in the castle of Loches in Touraine, from which he tried in vain to escape. He died there, still unresigned, in May 1508.
The memory of Ludovico was clouded for centuries by Niccoló Machiavelli’s accusation that he “invited” Charles VIII to invade Italy, paving the way for subsequent foreign domination. The charge was perpetuated by later historians who espoused the ideal of national independence. More recent historians, however, placing the figure of Ludovico in its Renaissance setting, have reevaluated his merits as a ruler and given a more equitable assessment of his achievement.
Feb 27, 2019 · Francesco Sforza was a pivotal figure in the state system of Italy in the 15th century. The son of a prominent condottiere, Muzio Attendolo Sforza, he inherited his father’s company of soldiers in 1424 and became one of the foremost condottieri of his time in his own right. In 1434 he took over much of the province of the Marche in the Papal ...
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Ludovico Maria Sforza (Italian: [ludoˈviːko maˈriːa ˈsfɔrtsa]; 27 July 1452 – 27 May 1508), also known as Ludovico il Moro (Italian: [il ˈmɔːro]; 'the Moor'), [b] and called the "arbiter of Italy" by historian Francesco Guicciardini, [3] was an Italian nobleman who ruled as the Duke of Milan from 1494 to 1499. Although he was the ...
