SFORZA, FAMILY. - Originally from Cotignola (Ravenna), whose main branch attained the lordship of Milan. The surname of the family, well-to-do farmers, was Attendolo, but the author of its first rise to prominence, Muzio, preferred the nickname Sforza, given him by Alberico da Barbiano for his stubborn daring.
Muzio (Giacomuccio), b. at Cotignola on 18 May 1369, at the age of 13 followed the company of Boldrino da Panicale, and was later a squadron leader under Alberico da Barbiano; he served Gian Galeazzo Visconti and then Florence, for which he fought at Casalecchio (1402) and against Pisa. Setting out for the siege of Aquila against Braccio, he drowned on 4 January 1424 in the Pescara while saving a page. A soldier of great ability but with the mentality of a mercenary, he gave his name to a school opposed to the Braccesca, maneuvering with prudence rather than operating with brusque attacks. By Lucia di Marsciano, his mistress, he had Francesco and Alessandro, from whom the branches of Milan and Pesaro descended. By other women he had Bosio, progenitor of the branch of Santafiora, and Carlo (an Augustinian under the name Gabriele), archbishop of Milan (1454-57).
I. MILAN BRANCH
It owed its fortunes to FRANCESCO, b. at S. Miniato on 23 July 1401, who followed his father from Ferrara to Naples; on the latter's death, in '24, he accompanied Caldoro to L'Aquila, entered the service of the Visconti and was among the defeated at Maclodio, then with Piccinino among the victors at Soncino (1431). Waging war in the Marca, he wrested from Eugene IV the title of marquis and gonfalonier of the Church. He then went over to Florence, then to Filippo M. Visconti, whose daughter Bianca Maria he married. He became the arbiter of the peace, which he defined at Cavriana in his own camp and which was proclaimed at Cremona on 20 Nov. 1441. There followed hard years for the S., plotted against and attacked in the Marca and in the Abruzzi by the malice of his father-in-law, by King Alfonso of Naples and by Pope Eugene IV, who laid claim to the Marca. On the death of the Visconti and the end of the ephemeral Ambrosian Republic, on 26 Feb. 1460 Francesco entered Milan as duke, and after a four-year struggle against a Venetian-Neapolitan-Savoyard-imperial coalition he triumphed, inducing Venice to accept the Peace of Lodi (9 Apr. 1454). From that moment he is the true center of Italian politics, seeking to maintain peace and to keep foreigners away by renouncing the aggressive Visconti policy. In Milan he is remembered by the Castello, rebuilt for the security of the dynasty but also of the city, and by the Ospedale maggiore; he gave the State a strong military organization that disappeared after him. D. 8 March 1466.
He was succeeded in the Duchy by his firstborn GALEAZZO MARIA (b. in 1444). In 1468, on the suggestion of Louis XI, he married Bona of Savoy, against the will of her brother Duke Amedeo. He was killed on 26 Dec. 1476, in the church of S. Stefano in Milan by three young men, out of private rancor and humanistic exaltation, and his death added yet another grave cause to the disorder of Italian political life. He left, besides the boy Gian Galeazzo II, two little girls, BIANCA MARIA, married in 1493 to Emperor Maximilian I, ANNA MARIA, married to Alfonso I d'Este and, illegitimate, the famous CATERINA S., married to Riario, lord of Forlì. He was succeeded by the child GIAN GALEAZZO II, seven years old, under the regent Bona of Savoy and the effective government of Cicco Simonetta, already secretary of the two preceding dukes. In 1478, LODOVICO (commonly called the Moor), fourth-born son of Francesco S., had Simonetta arrested and beheaded, ousted Bona, and, dominating the boy, became, upon her renunciation, regent and tutor. On LODOVICO there weighs from his own time the accusation of having called Charles VIII into Italy in order to maintain the usurpation of the Duchy, which was contested by the king of Naples. As early as 1493 he procured for himself from Emperor Maximilian a diploma of investiture of the Duchy, rather than for his nephew.
Luigi Simeoni
ASCANIO, brother of the Moor, b. in 1455, followed and favored his fortunes in the Papal States. On 17 Sept. 1579 he held in commendam the bishopric of Pavia, which he kept until his death. He was created cardinal deacon of S. Vito by Sixtus IV on 17 March 1484 and after this he received from Innocent VIII in commendam the bishopric of Novara on 25 Oct. 1484 (he gave it up in 1485 and took it up again in 1503), that of Cremona, on 4 Aug. 1486, which he held until his death, and that of Pesaro (from 1488 to 1491); at the same time he was legate in the Patrimony (1484) and at Bologna (1488 and then in 1492). Having formed a friendship with Card. Roderigo Borgia, he favored by every means his election to the pontificate and from him received the archbishopric of Agria (31 Aug. 1492 - June 1497) and the office of vice-chancellor; in 1493 he arranged the ill-fated marriage of Lucrezia Borgia to Giovanni S., lord of Pesaro. Because of political events he defected from Alexander VI in June 1494, spoke of deposing the Pope and in Nov. went over to Charles VIII, king of France, and followed him on his expedition into Italy; he took part in the negotiations between the Pope and the King and with the latter entered Rome on 31 Dec., but on 19 Jan. 1495 he promptly left for Milan, because the Moor had already become alarmed at Charles's successes. He returned to Rome on 6 March and accompanied the Pope in the following months and was later even suspected of complicity in the assassination of the duke of Gandia. Following Alexander VI's break with the Moor, he left Rome on 13-14 July 1499 for Milan and was taken prisoner in Apr. 1500 by the Venetians, who handed him over to the French, and he could not return to Rome except for the Conclave of 10 Sept. 1503, with aspirations to the Papacy; he then adhered to Card. Giuliano della Rovere. D. in Rome on 27 May 1505, mourned for his generous alms. He was the true type of the worldly and ostentatious prelate wholly intent on political machinations. Julius II had a monument erected to him at S. Maria del Popolo by Andrea Sansovino.
Bibliography
Pio Paschini
Unfortunate was the fate of the sons of LODOVICO and of Beatrice d'Este: Massimiliano and Francesco II. MASSIMILIANO (1493-1530) lived in straitened circumstances at the Imperial Court. The victory of the Holy League and the will of the head of the Swiss, Card. Schinner, made him duke of Milan in 1512 for three years. His brother FRANCESCO II (b. on 4 Feb. 1495, d. on 1 Nov. 1535), dearer to the Milanese than his brother, lived in obscurity until the papal and imperial victory of 1521, driving the French from Milan, had him proclaimed, in his absence, duke through the work of Morone, who governed for him. At the new descent of King Francis I, in Oct. 1524, he left Milan, to which he returned after the imperial victory of Pavia (24 Feb. 1525). Suspected of having a part in Morone's anti-Spanish intrigues, he was besieged in the Castello of Milan and, not relieved by the Venetian-papal army, had to surrender on 20 July 1526 on terms that were not kept. He recovered the Duchy at Bologna (23 Dec. 1529) through the action of the Pope and Venice, but with very heavy burdens (little less than a million ducats) and with De Leyva in his house. In 1534 he married the young Cristiana, niece of Charles V, but already on 1 Nov. 1535 he was dead without children.
II. BRANCH OF PESARO
This branch and that of Santafiora descend directly from Muzio and not from Francesco as the others do. This one of Pesaro was founded by ALESSANDRO (b. at Cotignola to Lucia Terzani in 1409) who, by marrying in 1444 Costanza di Varano, niece of Galeazzo Malatesta, lord of Pesaro, obtained from her (supplementing the right with money) the lordship recognized for him in 1447 by Nicholas V. He fought for his brother Francesco in the Marche, at Milan, in Tuscany, and for King Ferrante against John of Anjou, whom he defeated at S. Fabiano (1460), and was victor at Troia (1462), becoming grand constable of the Kingdom like his father. He was with Colleoni at the Riccardina against the Italic League and his nephew Galeazzo M., duke of Milan (1467); he died in 1473 (April 3) in the Ferrarese. He had by his first wife the daughter BATTISTA, wife of Duke Federico of Urbino and, illegitimate, GINEVRA, wife first of Sante Bentivoglio (1454) and then of Giovanni II Bentivoglio, of whose fall she was not the sole cause; the second wife SVEVA of Montefeltro was shut up in a cloister by Alessandro (1457). He was succeeded by his son COSTANZO, a good captain and lord, and he by his illegitimate son GIOVANNI, who married Lucrezia Borgia, then, the marriage dissolved, was driven out by Valentino in 1499; having returned with Julius II, he died in 1510; in 1512 the Pope expelled his illegitimate brother Galeazzo, with whom in 1519 this branch became extinct in Milan.
III. BRANCH OF SANTAFIORA
This branch, nominally still existing, descends from BOSIO (1411-76), illegitimate son of Muzio Attendolo and half-brother (not uterine) of Duke Francesco; a good soldier, he was lord of Cotignola and Castell'Arquato (Piacenza). By marrying Cecilia Aldobrandeschi, he procured for his son GUIDO the fief of Santafiora. The family received another enlargement through the marriage of his grandson BOSIO II to Costanza, sister of Pier Luigi Farnese; their grandfather Paul III favored his nephews, two of whom, CAMILLO ASCANIO (d. 1565) and ALESSANDRO (d. 1585), were cardinals of great importance. The family divided into two branches: that of Lombardy, extinct in 1644 with SFORZINO, and that of Tuscany, which, gathering in 1575 the inheritance of the Conti family, obtained the fiefs of Valmontone and Segni, the latter with the ducal title. The greatness of the family, decayed in the 17th century, was raised again by FEDERICO through his marriage to Livia Cesarini, heiress of that and other families; Segni was reacquired and the family took the title of S. Cesarini; in 1832 it came to an end in SALVATORE, but the S. Rota attributed the title and the inheritance to his uterine brother Lorenzo Montani. The new line has divided into the two branches of the dukes of Segni and Civitavinia and of the counts of Santafiora.
IV. BRANCH OF BORGONOVO
It arose with S. SECONDO (b. 1435), illegitimate son of Francesco, who received from his father in 1451 the Castle of Borgonovo in the Piacenza area and then the title of count, which the family maintained even under the Farnese, serving them in arms and in offices. In 1607, on the death of Alessandro III, the fief was confiscated, although there existed a cadet branch of the S. of Castel S. Giovanni descended from JACOPETTO, second son of the founder of the branch.
V. BRANCH OF CARAVAGGIO
Founded by GIAMPAOLO, illegitimate son of Ludovico il Moro and Lucrezia Crivelli (1497), created marquis of Caravaggio and count of Galliate in 1532; he died a suspicious death immediately after his brother Duke Francesco II (1535); one of his sons, Muzio, died for Charles V at the siege of Metz (1552); the family continued in Milan, becoming extinct with FRANCESCO II in 1697 and with his daughter BIANCA MARIA in 1717; it had produced many priors and dignitaries of the Order of Malta. - See plates XXIV-XXV.
Bibliography
L. G. Pélissier, Louis XII et Lodovico S., 2 vols., Paris 1896; F. Malaguzzi Valeri, La corte di Lodovico il Moro, 4 vols., Milan 1913-23; cf. also N. Guastella, Tre pretesi delitti di Francesco II S., in Arch. stor. lombardo, 75-76 (1948-49), pp. 115-67.
Luigi Simeoni