VISCONTI, FAMILY. - A feudal family of the Milanese area which from 1277 until its extinction in 1447 held, almost uninterruptedly, the lordship of Milan, even obtaining for it the ducal title. Leaving aside the courtly legends of the fourteenth century, historically it is one of those families of captains of the archbishopric that obtained from Archbishop Landolfo (978-98) the tithes of the parishes as a fief: in 1157 it indeed possessed a third of the tithes of Marliano; it must already have obtained the office of viscount, whose fiscal advantages it claimed in the thirteenth century, and certainly from its banner (derived from the bronze serpent that is in S. Ambrogio) came its coat of arms. The family divided and weakened, and branches of it are found at Cremona and at Novara: an OTTONE V. died at Rome in 1111 while saving the emperor Henry V from the rebels.
The known progenitor of the future lords is UBERTO V. (d. 1248), who had several sons: from one of them was born TEBALDO, father of Matteo I, killed by the Torriani in 1276. His uncle was OTTONE V., the future archbishop. The fortune of the house came from this election and from the political ability of his great-nephew Matteo, not from the mediocre position of the family. Ottone, canon of Desio, was sent by the exiled archbishop, Leone da Perego, to Pope Innocent IV, and, by Urban IV, in 1262, was chosen archbishop of Milan over two other candidates; but only in 1277, the expelled nobles having rallied to him and with them having defeated the Milanese at Desio and captured Napo della Torre, the de facto lord of the city, was he able to enter Milan and be elected its lord, though for many long years he sustained a stubborn war with the exiles and with the other Lombard cities. In 1287 he reduced himself almost to ecclesiastical government alone by having Matteo elected captain of the people: he died in 1295 (8 Aug.) at Chiaravalle: his tomb is in the Cathedral. We now have the first phase of the Lordship of MATTEO (1287-1302), which in 1294 was legitimized by the vicariate of Lombardy granted to him by the emperor Rudolf, and had a Ghibelline coloring or rather Ghibelline relations: although in fact the two Italian parties had a local character. Reconfirmed as captain from 1289 for 5 years at a time, and in 1298 by the emperor Albert, he could not resist the hostility of the Lombard cities and in 1302 went into exile at Nogarole in the Veronese territory. The descent of Henry VII in 1310 brought him back as a citizen to Milan, but soon the rebellion of the Guelphs of the Torriani caused him to obtain from the Emperor the vicariate of Milan, and despite the death of Henry, through his ability and that of his sons, Piacenza, Bergamo, Lodi, Como, Cremona, Alessandria, Tortona, Pavia, Vercelli, Novara were subjected to him in 1315. From 1316 Pope John XXIII opposed him, and from 1320 the legate Bertrando del Poggetto organized a veritable coalition against him. Excommunicated and then condemned as a heretic, in 1322 he left the government to his son Galeazzo: he died on 24 June at Crescenzago, and only in 1342 could he be buried in consecrated ground. By his wife, Bonacossa Borri, he had five males (Galeazzo, Marco, Giovanni, Luchino, Stefano) and various females. GALEZZO I, born in 1277, was captain of the people at Milan in 1298, an exile at Ferrara, where in 1300 he married Beatrice d'Este, imperial vicar in 1313 for Henry VII at Piacenza, of which he then became lord. He fought with his brother MARCO, a valiant captain, against the Guelph coalition, but, having succeeded his father, he had to abandon Milan in Nov. 1332, where he returned the following month and with Ghibelline and imperial aid drove off the Crusaders who had come before the city. When the emperor Louis came to Milan in 1327, by whom he had been created imperial vicar, he was imprisoned by him at Monza and released only the following year at Rome: he died on 6 Aug. 1328 at Pescia, having taken refuge with Castruccio, lord of Lucca. By Beatrice he had only the son AZZONE, who obtained from the Emperor, in need of money, the vicariate of Milan, where, having returned, he negotiated with the Pope so that the interdict on the city was lifted. Besieged by Louis for this, he drove him off with money. Having formally submitted in 1331 to King John of Bohemia, he then took part in the league against him, thus obtaining Bergamo, Vercelli, Cremona, Como, Lodi, Crema, Borgo S. Donnino and Piacenza. Finally joining the anti-Scaliger coalition in 1337, he conquered Brescia, but at the end of the war the Company of St. George, formed from the discharged mercenaries, marched on Milan and was with difficulty routed at Parabiago (19 Feb. 1339). On 16 Aug. following Azzone died without children. To him are owed the walls and the Palace next to the Cathedral, later royal. He was succeeded first of all by his brother LUCHINO who, until then devoted to arms, extended the dominion in the Ticino valley, and in Piedmont with Asti, Tortona, Alessandria, Alba, Cherasco, as well as Parma, Pavia and Pontremoli; his work, less brilliant than the subsequent work of his brother Giovanni, was its necessary preparation externally and of consolidation internally, among which was the constitution of a huge patrimony. He left only one legitimate child by his third wife Isabella Fieschi, who was excluded from the succession. When he died on 24 Jan. 1349, his troops were before Genoa. The government passed to his brother GIOVANNI, who had been associated with him in the Lordship. The latter, canon of Milan, had been created cardinal of St. Eustace by the antipope Nicholas V (19-20 Jan. 1329), but had then renounced in the hands of John XXII on 15 Sept. following. Appointed bishop of Novara on 1 August 1331, he had passed as archbishop to Milan on 17 July 1342. He recalled the sons and nephews of his brother Stefano (d. 1327) and of Valentina Doria, who had been removed by Luchino, designating them for the succession. A magnificent lord, a friend of Petrarch, he made peace with his neighbors, Genoa, Savoy, Monferrato, Gonzaga, Della Scala, in order to expand toward two vital centers of Italian politics: Bologna, made over to him by the Pepoli (1350) and of which, after having been excommunicated, he obtained the vicariate from the Pope; from here he attempted an unsuccessful invasion of Tuscany that ended with the Peace of Sarzana in 1353; Genoa, which gave itself to him (1353), since it had been beaten by Venice and was threatened by exiles. With these two acquisitions the Visconti State became predominant in Italy, and against it a League was formed by Venice, during which, on 5 Oct. 1354, Giovanni died at the age of 64: he was buried in the Cathedral in the area of his predecessor and surrounded by Ortone.
The three nephews MATTEO II, GALEAZZO II, and BERNABÒ succeeded him, dividing the Duchy into three parts, soon reduced to two by Matteo's death. Milan remained in common: Galeazzo took the western part, Bernabò the eastern. The former resided in Pavia, built there the castle of which Petrarch was a guest, and founded the University; he was less scheming than Bernabò, even though assailed by the successive anti-Visconti leagues; he sought to create a State in place of a series of still autonomous cities. Although the "Quaresima di Galeazzo" (a growing sequence of tortures and mutilations) was remembered of him, he was judged—perhaps by comparison with his brother—a gentle man; he was influenced by his wife Bianca of Savoy, sister of the Green Count, from a more refined family and court. For his only son Gian Galeazzo, still a child, he obtained the hand of Isabella, daughter of John II, King of France, and a recognition of the family's new position. He died on 4 Aug. 1378. His brother Bernabò, however, was quite different: born in 1323, he too an exile in the time of his uncle Luchino, and married in 1350 to Regina della Scala, daughter of Martino II, remembered in Milan by the name of the theater built on the site of a church she founded; a capable woman appreciated by her husband, who was nonetheless very unfaithful to her (20 natural children). Through the eccentricity of his character he offered much material to the storytellers of the time; under him the Visconti State, weakened by division, was continually aggressive and thus the occasion of many hostile leagues (1362, '67, '69, '72) almost always promoted by the popes. In vain he sought to regain Bologna, which had rebelled and ultimately remained with the Church; in compensation he occupied Reggio in 1372. He married off his many daughters with very rich dowries, several of them in Germany and Austria, and one, Caterina, even to his nephew Gian Galeazzo, who, perhaps foreseeing a move by his uncle, captured him on 6 May 1385 and seized his State: Bernabò died on 19 Dec. 1385 at Trezzo, believed to have been poisoned. His tomb, the work of Bonino da Campione, is now in the Castello Sforzesco. GIAN GALEAZZO (b. at Pavia on 16 Oct. 1351, d. at Melegnano on 3 Sept. 1406) had fought against his uncle Amedeo of Savoy in 1372, and in 1373 at Montechiari with Hawkwood; after his father's death he displayed an apparent inertia, suspicious of the greed of his uncle Bernabò.
Having reunited the State, he revealed his ambitious activity in taking advantage of every weakness of neighboring and distant States, and in securing the best Italian condottieri. With unscrupulous skill he used Padua to occupy Verona and Vicenza in 1387, and Venice to obtain Padua in 1388. In 1390-92 he resisted the league promoted by Florence and Bologna, losing only Padua in the Peace of Genoa, after having defeated (1391) at Alessandria the French mercenaries of d'Armagnac called by Florence. The peace was a truce, during which Florence and her allies worked to turn the King of France against him (the husband of a niece of Bernabò), to win whom Gian Galeazzo had given his daughter Valentina in 1387 to the King's brother, Louis, later Duke of Orléans; thus the V. was prevented from obtaining Genoa, which passed into the hands of France (1396), while Gian Galeazzo sought compensation from the Emperor Wenceslaus, who created him on 11 May 1395 Duke of Milan and in 1397 gave him the new title of Duke of Lombardy. From 1397 to 1399 he sought in vain to occupy Mantua, defended by the League and finally also by Venice. In 1399-1400 he became lord of Pisa, Siena, and Perugia.
In 1401 the League brought the new emperor Rupert down into Italy, defeated at Brescia (Oct.); the following year, on 23 June 1402, at Casalecchio near Bologna the League was defeated and Bologna became Visconti territory: Florence was threatened from close by, but Gian Galeazzo died barely two months later, leaving a State more extensive than strong, after the terrible sacrifices imposed on it, and after having almost single-handedly attended to organizing it financially. In his will he divided the State among the sons he had by Caterina, daughter of Bernabò: GIOVANNI MARIA (b. in 1388), Duke of Milan, and FILIPPO MARIA (b. in 1392), Count of Pavia. He is remembered by the reconstruction of Milan Cathedral and by the Certosa of Pavia, where he is buried. The new duke, first under the guardianship of his mother, then of various condottieri, the last being the cruel Facino Cane, was killed on 16 May 1412 and left no heirs. He was succeeded by his brother FILIPPO MARIA, who in a first phase reconstituted his father's State in Lombardy, Piedmont, and Emilia and in 1421 also acquired Genoa. In the second phase he meddled in Romagna; Florence opposed him and, though often defeated, induced Venice in 1426 to intervene for fear that Filippo was thinking of retaking Verona and Vicenza. There followed a constant struggle, though interrupted by peaces (1433 and 1441), through which Filippo lost Brescia and Bergamo, ceded to Venice. A suspicious nature, he alienated the best condottiero of his early fortunes, the Count of Carmagnola, who went over to Venice, and he alternated peaces and rancors with his son-in-law Francesco Sforza, husband of his only natural daughter, Bianca Maria. He died, without designating a true successor, on 13 Aug. 1447, until Sforza was recognized Duke of Milan (1450). Thus the direct line came to an end; the rights of Valentina's heirs, that is, of the Orléans of France, remained. Bianca Maria died on 23 Oct. 1468 at Melegnano: a cultured and intelligent woman, she had helped her husband consolidate his authority in the Duchy.
Of the other ancient branches, that of Oleggio (Novara) died out in 1366 with GIOVANNI da OLEGGIO, lord of Bologna (1355-60), which had rebelled against Matteo II, and later of Fermo. The branch of the dukes descended from Uberto, brother of Matteo I, still continues in Milan; this branch obtained in 1700 the marquisate of Modrone, created a duchy by Napoleon I.
Bibliography15 works
Luigi Simeoni
In the ecclesiastical field, a certain ROBERTO V. succeeded Giovanni as archbishop of Milan and died on 18 Aug. 1361. Later CARLO V. took part in the negotiations during the Council of Trent on behalf of Pius IV; appointed bishop of Ventimiglia on 5 Dec. 1561, then of Montefeltro on 6 July 1565, he was created cardinal on 12 March 1563 and died in the curia on the following 12 Nov.: his diplomatic letters are well known. GASPARE V., auditor of the Rota, then bishop of Novara on 5 Nov. 1584, succeeded St. Charles Borromeo as archbishop of Milan on the 28th; he died on 12 Jan. 1595. ALFONSO V., bishop of Cervia (8 Feb. 1591), then of Spoleto (10 Sept. 1606), was created cardinal on 3 March 1599; legate in the Marca and in the presidio of Ascoli (6 Oct. 1606), he died at Macerata on 19 Sept. 1608. VITALIANO V., archbishop of Ephesus (11 Aug. 1664), was nuncio in Spain, where he remained until 1669, although Alexander VII had created him cardinal as early as 15 Feb. 1666. Appointed archbishop of Monreale on 2 June 1670, he died there at the age of 53 on 7 Sept. 1671. FEDERICO V., doctor of law and auditor of the Rota, was appointed archbishop of Milan on 23 June 1681 and cardinal on the following 1 Sept. by Innocent XI; he died at the age of 73 in Milan on 7 Jan. 1693. - See plate CXLVIII.
