FILIPPO the Good, duke of BORGOGNA. - Born at Digione on 30 June 1396, of Giovanni Senzapauca and Margherita di Baviera; died at Bruges on 15 June 1467. Founder of the Order of the Golden Fleece.
The assassination of his father at Montereau (1419) drove F. into an alliance with the English which, for sixteen years, gravely endangered the Kingdom of France. By the treaty of Arras (1435), Carlo VII recognized F.’s independence in his States, which came to include the Franca Contea, the towns of the Somme, and a large part of the territories that now constitute Belgium and Holland. The long peace he maintained and the protection he granted to the arts earned him the epithet of the Good.
BIBL.: Sources: G. Chastellain, Chronique des durs de Bourgogne, ed. K. de Lettenhove, 2 vols., Bruxelles 1865-66; Olivier de la Marche, Mémoires, ed. Beaune e d'Arbaumont, 2 vols., Parigi 1883-86. Studies: R. Van Marle, Le comté de Hollande sous Philippe le Bon, L'Aix 1908; G. Doutrepont, La Croisade projetée par Philippe le Bon contre les Turcs, in Notices et extr. de la Bibliothèque Nationale, 41 (1928), p. 1; J. Huizinga, Im. Bonn der Geschichte, Basilea 1943, pp. 340-76. Vittorio E. Giuntella