Gian Galeazzo Visconti

Gian Galeazzo Visconti (16 October 1351 – 3 September 1402), was the first

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

• 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
• 
  Gian Galeazzo Visconti, with his three sons, presents the Certosa di Pavia to the Virgin (Certosa di Pavia)
• 
  Detail from Gian Galeazzo donates the Certosa to the Madonna
• 
  Tomb of Gian Galeazzo Visconti at the Certosa di Pavia

See also

• Montechino Italian Castle Piacenza

Notes