VISCONTI, FAMIGLIA. – A feudal family of the Milanese region which, from 1277 until its extinction in 1447, held, almost uninterruptedly, the lordship of Milan, indeed obtaining the ducal title. Disregarding the courtly legends of the fourteenth century, historically it was one of those families of captains of the archbishopric who, from Archbishop Landolfo (978–98), obtained the tithes of the parish churches in fief: in 1157 it possessed precisely one third of the tithes of Marliano. It must already have obtained the office of viscount, the fiscal advantages of which it claimed in the thirteenth century; and it was certainly from its banner (derived from the bronze serpent in S. Ambrogio) that its coat of arms came. The family split and weakened, and branches of it are found in Cremona and Novara: an OTTONE V. died in Rome in 1111 while saving Emperor Enrico V from the rebels.
The known progenitor of the future lords was UBERTO V. (d. 1248), who had several sons: one of them was the father of TEBALDO, father of Matteo I, killed by the Torriani in 1276. His uncle was OTTONE V., the future archbishop. The fortune of the house derived from this election and from the political ability of his great-nephew Matteo, not from the family’s mediocre position. Ottone, a 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 in preference to two other candidates. Only in 1277, however, after the expelled nobles had rallied to him and, together with them, had defeated the Milanese at Desio and captured Napo della Torre, the city’s de facto lord, was he able to enter Milan and be elected its lord; yet for many years he sustained a stubborn war with the expelled nobles and the other Lombard cities. In 1287 he restricted himself almost exclusively to ecclesiastical government by having Matteo elected captain of the people. He died in 1295 (8 Aug.) at Chiaravalle; his tomb is in the Duomo. The first phase of the lordship of MATTEO (1287–1302) now began. In 1294 it was legitimized by the vicariate of Lombardy granted to him by Emperor Rodolfo, and it had a Ghibelline coloration, or rather Ghibelline connections, although in reality the two Italian parties had a local character. Reconfirmed as captain from 1289 every five years, and in 1298 by Emperor Alberto, he was unable to withstand the hostility of the Lombard cities and in 1302 went into exile at Nogarole in the Veronese region. Enrico VII’s descent into Italy in 1310 brought him back to Milan as a citizen, but soon the rebellion of the Guelf Torriani caused the Emperor to grant him the vicariate of Milan; and, despite Enrico’s death, through his own ability and that of his sons, Piacenza, Bergamo, Lodi, Como, Cremona, Alessandria, Tortona, Pavia, Vercelli, and Novara were subject to him by 1315. From 1316 Pope Giovanni XXIII opposed him, and from 1320 the legate Bertrando del Poggetto organized a genuine 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 had five sons (Galeazzo, Marco, Giovanni, Luchino, Stefano) and several daughters. GALEZZO I, born in 1277, was captain of the people in Milan in 1298 and an exile in Ferrara, where he married Beatrice d’Este in 1300; in 1313 he was imperial vicar for Enrico VII at Piacenza, of which he later became lord. He fought with his brother MARCO, a valiant captain, against the Guelf coalition; but, succeeding his father, he was forced in Nov. 1332 to abandon Milan, where he returned the following month and, with Ghibelline and imperial aid, drove away the Crusaders who had arrived beneath the city. When Emperor Lodovico, who had created him imperial vicar, came to Milan in 1327, he had him imprisoned at Monza and released only the following year in 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; having returned there, he negotiated with the Pope so that the interdict on the city was lifted. Besieged by Lodovico for this reason, he drove him away with money. Having formally submitted in 1331 to King Giovanni of Bohemia, he subsequently took part in the league against him, thereby 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 S. Giorgio, formed by the dismissed mercenaries, marched on Milan and was defeated only with difficulty at Parabiago (19 Feb. 1339). On 16 Aug. of that year Azzone died without children. To him are owed the walls and the Palace beside the Duomo, later the royal palace. He was succeeded first by his brother LUCHINO, who until then had devoted himself to arms and extended the dominion in the Ticino valley,
and in Piedmont with Asti, Tortona, Alessandria, Alba, and Cherasco, as well as Parma, Pavia, and Pontremoli. His work, less brilliant than the subsequent work of his brother Giovanni, was its necessary preparation abroad and consolidation at home, including the establishment of a considerable 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 beneath Genoa. The government passed to his brother GIOVANNI, who was associated with him in the lordship. A canon of Milan, he had been created cardinal of S. Eustachio by the antipope Niccolò V (19–20 Jan. 1329), but had subsequently resigned into the hands of Giovanni XXII on 15 Sept. of the same year. Appointed bishop of Novara on 1 Aug. 1331, he became archbishop of Milan on 17 July 1342. He recalled the sons and nephews of his brother Stefano (d. 1327) and Valentina Doria, who had been driven away by Luchino, designating them as his successors. A magnificent lord and friend of Petrarch, he made peace with his neighbors—Genoa, Savoy, Monferrato, Gonzaga, and Della Scala—in order to expand toward two vital centers of Italian politics: Bologna, which he had made the Pepoli cede to him (1350) and whose vicariate, after he had been excommunicated, he obtained from the Pope; from there he attempted an unsuccessful invasion of Tuscany, which ended with the Peace of Sarzana in 1353; and Genoa, which gave itself to him (1353), having been defeated by Venice and harassed by the exiles. With these two acquisitions, the Visconti state became predominant in Italy, and a league was formed against it in Venice. During this conflict, on 5 Oct. 1354, Giovanni died at the age of 64; he was buried in the Duomo in the area of his predecessor and antonato Ortone.
They were succeeded by the three nephews MATTEO II, GALEAZZO II, and BERNABÒ, who divided the Duchy into three parts, soon reduced to two by Matteo’s death. Milan remained held in common: Galeazzo received the western part, Bernabò the eastern. The former resided in Pavia, where he built the castle that hosted Petrarch and founded the University; he was less scheming than Bernabò, although he was attacked by the successive anti-Visconti leagues; he sought to create a State in place of a series of still-autonomous cities. Although he was remembered for the «Quaresima di Galeazzo» (a growing sequence of tortures and mutilations), he was judged, perhaps by comparison with his brother, to be a mild man; he was influenced by his wife Bianca of Savoy, sister of the Conte Verde, who came from a more refined family and court. For his only son Gian Galeazzo, still a child, he obtained the hand of Isabella, daughter of Giovanni II, king of France, and recognition of the family’s new position. He died on 4 August 1378. His brother Bernabò, by contrast, was a very different man. Born in 1323, he too had been exiled during the time of his uncle Luchino, and in 1350 he married Regina della Scala, daughter of Martino II, remembered in Milan by the name of the theatre built in place of a church she had founded; she was a capable woman, valued by her husband, although he was very unfaithful to her (20 natural children). The eccentricity of his character provided many subjects for the novelle writers of the time; under him, the Visconti State, weakened by the division, was continually aggressive and consequently provoked many hostile leagues (1362, ’67, ’69, ’72), almost always promoted by the popes. He tried in vain to recover 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, to his nephew Gian Galeazzo, who, perhaps foreseeing a move by his uncle, captured him on 6 May 1385 and occupied his State. Bernabò died on 19 December 1385 at Trezzo, believed to have been poisoned. His tomb, the work of Bonino da Campione, is now in the Castello Sforzesco. GIAN GALEAZZO (born at Pavia on 16 October 1351, died at Melegnano on 3 September 1406) had fought against his uncle Amedeo of Savoy in 1372, and at Montechiari with Acuto in 1373; after his father’s death, he displayed an apparent inertia, suspicious of his uncle Bernabò’s greed.
Once the State had been reunited, he revealed his ambitious activity by exploiting every weakness of States near and far and 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 defeating (1391) at Alessandria the French mercenaries of d’Armagnac, summoned by Florence. The peace was a truce, during which Florence and its allies worked to set the king of France against him (the king was married to a niece of Bernabò); in order to win him over, Gian Galeazzo had given his daughter Valentina in 1387 to the king’s brother, Luigi, later duke of Orléans. This prevented the V. from obtaining Genoa, which passed into French hands (1396), while Gian Galeazzo sought compensation from the Emperor Venceslao, who created him duke of Milan on 11 May 1395 and in 1397 granted him the new title of duke of Lombardy. From 1397 to 1399 he tried 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 Roberto into Italy, and he was defeated at Brescia (October); the following year, on 23 June 1402, the League was defeated at Casalecchio near Bologna, and Bologna became Visconti territory. Florence was threatened at close quarters, but Gian Galeazzo died only two months later, leaving a State more extensive than strong, after the terrible sacrifices imposed upon it and after having devoted himself almost alone to its financial organization. In his will he divided the State between the sons born to him by Caterina, daughter of Bernabò: GIOVANNI MARIA (born in 1388), duke of Milan, and FILIPPO MARIA (born in 1392), count of Pavia. He is remembered for the rebuilding of Milan Cathedral and for the Charterhouse of Pavia, where he is buried. The new duke, first under his mother’s guardianship and then under that 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 also acquired Genoa in 1421. In the second phase he became involved in Romagna; Florence opposed him and, although often defeated, induced Venice to intervene in 1426, fearing that Filippo intended to recover Verona and Vicenza. A constant struggle followed, although interrupted by peaces (1433 and 1441), as a result of which Filippo lost Brescia and Bergamo, ceded to Venice. Suspicious by nature, he alienated the best condottiero of his early fortunes, the count of Carmagnola, who passed over to Venice, and alternated peace and resentment with his son-in-law Francesco Sforza, husband of his only natural daughter, Bianca Maria. He died, without designating a true successor, on 13 August 1447, until Sforza was recognized as duke of Milan (1450). Thus the direct line came to an end, while the rights of Valentina’s heirs remained—that is, those of the Orléans of France. Bianca Maria died on 23 October 1468 at Melegnano: an educated and intelligent woman, she had helped her husband consolidate his authority in the Duchy.
Of the other ancient branches, that of Oleggio (Novara) became extinct in 1366 with GIOVANNI da OLEGGIO, lord of Bologna (1355–60), which had rebelled against Matteo II, and later of Fermo. The branch of Uberto, brother of Matteo I, still continues in Milan; in 1700 this branch acquired the marquisate of Modrone, which Napoleon I made a duchy.
In the ecclesiastical sphere, a ROBERTO V. succeeded the archbishop of Milan Giovanni and died on 18 August 1361. Later, CARLO V. IV; appointed bishop of Ventimiglia on 5 December 1561 and subsequently of Montefeltro on 6 July 1565, he was created cardinal on 12 March 1563 and died in the Curia on 12 November of the same year: his diplomatic letters are known. GASPARE V., auditor of the Rota and subsequently bishop of Novara on 5 November 1584, succeeded on the 28th as archbishop of Milan to St. Carlo Borromeo; he died on 12 January 1595. ALFONSO V., bishop of Cervia (8 February 1591), subsequently of Spoleto (10 September 1606), was created cardinal on 3 March 1599; legate in the Marches and in the garrison of Ascoli (6 October 1606), he died at Macerata on 19 September 1608. VITALIANO V., archbishop of Ephesus (11 August 1664), was nuncio in Spain, where he remained until 1669, although Alexander VII had created him cardinal as early as 15 February 1666. Appointed archbishop of Monreale on 2 June 1670, he died there at the age of 53 on 7 September 1671. FEDERICO V., doctor of law and auditor of the Rota, was appointed archbishop of Milan on 23 June 1681 and cardinal on 1 September of the same year by Innocent XI; he died at the age of 73 in Milan on 7 January 1693. - Vedi tav. CXLVIII.