Braccio da Montone

BRACCIO DA MONTONE. - Condottiere, son of O. Fortebracci, founder of a school of military art, b. perhaps at Montone (Perugia) on 1 July 1368, d. at L'Aquila on 5 June 1424. His father Oddo had been banished and deprived of his property when he was still a child. He learned the profession of arms under Alberico da Barbiano. After various attempts to return to his homeland, in which he distinguished himself among the other exiled Perugian nobles, he conquered territories in the Marca and sided with John XXIII against Ladislaus of Durazzo, king of Naples. But the vicissitudes of the war and of the relations between the Pope and the Durazzesque prince prevented him from achieving his aim of reconquering the whole of his native territory. Appointed by the Pope to the government of Bologna, he procured by extortion the means for the longed-for return to his homeland, which he succeeded in carrying out in 1416, after John was deposed. The following year, he already dominated most of Umbria and a vast area of the Marca. For 70 days he held Rome, taking advantage of the conspiracy in favor of the antipope Benedict XIII. From Martin V he asked for Umbria as a vicariate, but the new Pontiff instead ordered Guidantonio of Montefeltro to reconquer the entire patrimony of the Church. The struggle was bitter. The Florentines negotiated the peace, which was signed at Florence in Feb. 1420. By it B. obtained the vicariate of Umbria. At the end of that year, he subjected Bologna to the Church, and married in second nuptials Niccolina Varano, by whom his son Carlo was born to him. At the beginning of the following year, despite the Pope's prohibition, he set out on an expedition toward the kingdom of Naples, where, intervening in the struggles of the barons, he obtained money and territories. A new intervention by the Florentines brought about a second peace with the Pope, in which B. obtained the principality of Capua, renouncing Città di Castello. But he, taking advantage of the Florentines' suspicions regarding Filippo Maria Visconti, now aimed at dominating a great part of Italy. Despite the promise made to the Pope not to touch the domains of the Church, he directed himself against L'Aquila, a key position for the conquest of the Neapolitan kingdom. But the city resisted, while Martin V strove to gather the greatest possible number of allies. The very bloody battle of 2 June 1424 marked the end of B.'s fortune. Gravely wounded, he let himself die, refusing all aid, three days after the defeat. His state dissolved.

Luigi Michelini Tocci