Filippo Maria Visconti
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Filippo Maria Visconti, (September 23, 1392–August 13, 1447) was ruler of Milan from 1412 to 1447.
Biography
Filippo Maria Visconti had become nominal ruler of Pavia in 1402 according to his father's will, succeeded his assassinated brother Gian Maria Visconti as Duke of Milan, in 1412. They were the sons of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Gian Maria's predecessor. His first consort was Beatrice Lascaris: from his marriage with the unhappy widow of Facino Cane— the condottiere who had fomented strife between the factions of the elder brother and his mother the regent—Filippo Maria received a dowry of nearly half a million florins. When she took too great an interest in affairs of state, he accused her of adultery and had her head struck off at the castle of Binasco, 1418.Cruel, paranoid and extremely sensitive about his personal ugliness, he nevertheless was a great politician, and by employing such powerful condottieri as Carmagnola, Piccinino—who successfully opposed him at the battle of Anghiari, 1440— and Francesco Sforza he managed to recover the Lombard portion of his father's duchy.
At the death of Giorgio Ordelaffi, signore of Forlì, he took the opportunity of having been named guardian of the boy heir, Tebaldo Ordelaffi, to attempt conquests in Romagna (1423), which occasioned war with Florence, which could not permit his ambitions to pass uncontested. Venice, urged on by the Francesco Bussone da Carmagnola, decided to intervene on the side of Florence (1425); the war's events unrolled in Lombardy. In March 1426 Carmagnola fomented riots in Brescia, which he had conquered for Visconti just five years previously. After a long campaign Venice conquered Brescia extending its terra ferma to the eastern shores of Lake Garda. Filippo Maria unsuccessfully sought Imperial aid but was constrained to accept the peace proposed by Pope Martin V, favoring Venice and Carmagnola. The terms were grudgingly accepted in Milan and by the Emperor, but hostilities taken up at the first pretext by Filippo Maria leading to the defeat of Maclodio (12 October 1427), followed by a more lasting peace signed at Ferrara with the mediation of Niccolò d'Este.
the following year, his second marriage was to Maria di Savoia (1411–1469), daughter of duke Amadeus VIII of Savoy, a potent ally. With Visconti's support, Amadeus had a brief reign as antipope Felix V from November 1439 to April 1449.
He invited the famous scholar Gasparino Barzizza to establish a school at Milan. Barzizza also served as his court orator.
He died in 1447, the last of the Visconti in direct male line, and was succeeded in the duchy, after the short-lived Ambrosian republic, by Francesco Sforza, who had married Filippo's only heir, his natural daughter Bianca Maria in 1441.
Trivia
- The first known Tarot decks, then still called Trionfi cards, were commissioned by Filippo Maria Visconti [link].
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References
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