Gian Galeazzo Visconti
Gian Galeazzo Visconti | |
---|---|
Lord of Milan | |
Reign | 6 May 1385 – 5 September 1395 |
Predecessor | Bernabò Visconti |
Lord of Pavia | |
Reign | 4 August 1378 – 5 September 1395 |
Predecessor | Galeazzo II Visconti |
Lord of Pisa | |
Reign | 13 February 1399 – 3 September 1402 |
Predecessor | Gherardo Appiani |
Successor | Gabriele Maria Visconti |
Born | 16 October 1351 Pavia, Italy |
Died | 3 September 1402 Melegnano, Duchy of Milan, Italy | (aged 50)
Burial | |
Spouse | |
Issue |
|
House | Visconti |
Father | Galeazzo II Visconti |
Mother | Bianca of Savoy |
Gian Galeazzo Visconti (16 October 1351 – 3 September 1402), was the first
Biography
During his patronage of the Visconti Castle, he contributed to the growth of the collection of scientific treatises and richly illuminated manuscripts in the Visconti Library.[2]
Gian Galeazzo was the son of Galeazzo II Visconti and Bianca of Savoy.[3] His father possessed the signoria of the city of Pavia. In 1385 Gian Galeazzo gained control of Milan by overthrowing his uncle Bernabò through treacherous means by faking a religious conversion and ambushing him during a religious procession in Milan.[4] He imprisoned his uncle who soon died, supposedly poisoned on his orders.[5]
Galeazzo's role as a statesman also took other forms. Soon after seizing Milan, he took
Gian Galeazzo spent 300,000 golden florins[citation needed] in attempting to turn from their courses the rivers Mincio from Mantua and the Brenta from Padua, in order to render those cities helpless before the force of his arms.[9]
Notable are his library, housed in the grandest princely dwelling in Italy, the Castello in Pavia, and his rich collection of manuscripts, many of them the fruits of his conquests. In 1400, Gian Galeazzo appointed a host of clerks and departments entrusted with improving public health. For the new system of administration and bookkeeping this established, he is credited with creating the first modern bureaucracy, with the assistance of his Chancellor Francesco Barbavara.[10]
Conflict with France
Galeazzo was a devoted father to his daughter Valentina. He reacted to gossip about Valentina at the French Court by threatening to declare war on France.[11] The wife of King Charles VI of France was Isabeau of Bavaria, the granddaughter of Bernabò Visconti, and, thus, a bitter rival of Valentina and her father Gian Galeazzo.[12]
Furious at French political manoeuvring that had removed
In 1396, after the disaster of Nicopolis, Galeazzo was strongly suspected of having informed the Ottomans of the Crusaders' plans and of the size and strength of their army as vengeance for his daughter being accused of being behind the illness of King Charles VI of France, and for France's increasing control over the city of Genoa that he had attempted to hamper, for which he had been rebuked by Enguerrand VII before the battle.[citation needed]
Uniting Italy and death
Gian Galeazzo had dreams of uniting all of northern Italy into one kingdom, a revived Lombard empire.
Galeazzo's dreams were to come to nought, however, as he succumbed to a fever at the Castello of Melegnano on 10 August 1402. He died on 3 September. His empire fragmented as infighting among his successors wrecked Milan, partly through the division of his lands among both legitimate and illegitimate children.[b]
Marriage and issue
His first marriage was to
, rendered in Italian as Conte di Virtù, the title by which he was known in his early career. They had:- Gian Galeazzo (b. Pavia, 4 March 1366 – d. bef. 1376).
- Azzone (b. Pavia, 1368 – d. Pavia, 4 October 1381).
- Valentina (b. Pavia, 1371 – d. Château de Blois, Loir-et-Cher, 14 December 1408), married on 17 August 1389 to Louis I, Duke of Orléans[15]
- Carlo (b. Pavia, 11 September 1372 – d. Pavia, 1374).
After Galeazzo's wife Isabelle died in childbirth in 1372, he married secondly, on 2 October 1380, his cousin Caterina Visconti,[15] daughter of Bernabò; with her he had:
- Gian Maria (7 September 1388 – 16 May 1412)
- Filippo Maria[15] (3 September 1392 – 13 August 1447).
Gallery
-
The painted figures of Caterina and Gian Galeazzo are shown kneeling in the foreground in this missal by Anovelo da Imbonate
-
The Coronation of Gian Galeazzo Visconti in the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio
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Gian Galeazzo Visconti, with his three sons, presents the Certosa di Pavia to the Virgin (Certosa di Pavia)
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Detail from Gian Galeazzo donates the Certosa to the Madonna
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Tomb of Gian Galeazzo Visconti at the Certosa di Pavia
See also
- Montechino Italian Castle Piacenza
Notes
- ^ He was also Signore di Verona, Cremona, Bergamo, Brescia, Belluno, Pieve di Cadore, Feltre, Pavia, Novara, Como, Lodi, Vercelli, Alba, Asti, Pontremoli, Tortona, Alessandria, Valenza, Piacenza, Parma, Reggio Emilia, Vicenza, Vigevano, Borgo San Donnino and of the valli del Boite.
- Giovanni Maria he assigned the title of Duke of Milan, which included Como, Lodi, Cremona, Bergamo, Brescia, Reggio Emilia, Piacenza, Parma, and claims to Perugia and Siena. To Filippo Maria, conte di Pavia, he assigned in addition Vercelli, Novara, Alessandria, Tortona, Feltre, Verona, Vicenza, Bassano and the shores of Trento. To his illegitimate son, Gabriele Maria, went Pisa and Crema.
References
- ISBN 978-0-394-40026-6.
- ISBN 0754652963.
- ^ Mueller 2019, p. 550.
- ^ John T. Paoletta and Gary M. Radke, Art in Renaissance Italy
- Barbara Tuchman A Distant MirrorA.A.Knopf, New York (1978) p.418
- ^ Bueno de Mesquita (2011), pp. 69–83.
- ^ Bueno de Mesquita (2011), pp. 122–123.
- ^ Bueno de Mesquita (2011), p. 173.
- ^ Bueno de Mesquita (2011), pp. 165–167, 276–277.
- OCLC 664406875. Retrieved 8 March 2011.
It was he who invented bureaucracy by creating a special class of paid clerks and secretaries of departments. Their duty consisted in committing to books and ledgers the minutest items of his private expenditure and the outgoings of his public purse; in noting the details of the several taxes, so as to be able to present a survey of the whole state revenue; and in recording the names and qualities and claims of his generals, captains, and officials.
- S2CID 162432200.
- ^ Bueno de Mesquita (2011), pp. 63, 158–159.
- ^ "Giangaleazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan | History Today". www.historytoday.com. Retrieved 16 March 2023.
- ^ Morelli 2015, p. 200-201.
- ^ a b c d Ward, Prothero & Leathes 1934, p. table 68.
Sources
- Bueno de Mesquita, D. M. (Daniel Meredith) (2011) [1941]. Giangaleazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan (1351-1402): A Study in the Political Career of an Italian Despot (reprint ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. OCLC 746456124.
- Morelli, Giovanni Di Paolo (2015). "Memoirs". In Branca, Vitorre (ed.). Merchant Writers: Florentine Memoirs from the Middle Ages and Renaissance. University of Toronto Press.
- Mueller, Reinhold C. (2019). The Venetian Money Market: Banks, Panics, and the Public Debt, 1200-1500. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
- Ward, A.W.; Prothero, G.W.; Leathes, Stanley, eds. (1934). The Cambridge Modern History. Vol. XIII. Cambridge at the University Press.
External links
- Portrait and family tree Archived 2013-08-23 at the Wayback Machine