Everything about Filippo Maria Visconti totally explained
Filippo Maria Visconti, (
September 23,
1392–
August 13,
1447) was ruler of Milan from 1412 to 1447.
Biography
Filippo Maria Visconti, who had become nominal ruler of
Pavia in
1402, succeeded his assassinated brother
Gian Maria Visconti as
Duke of Milan in 1412. They were the sons of
Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Gian Maria's predecessor. From his marriage to Beatrice Lascaris, Countess of Tenda and the unhappy widow of
Facino Cane—the
condottiere who had fomented strife between the factions of Filippo's elder brother and his mother the regent—Filippo Maria received a dowry of nearly half a million florins; but when Beatrice took too great an interest in affairs of state, he accused her of adultery and had her beheaded at the castle of
Binasco in 1418.
Cruel, paranoid and extremely sensitive about his personal ugliness, he was nevertheless a great
politician, and by employing such powerful
condottieri as
Carmagnola,
Piccinino—who unsuccessfully led his troops at the
battle of Anghiari, 1440— and
Francesco Sforza, he managed to recover the Lombard portion of his father's duchy.
At the death of
Giorgio Ordelaffi, signore of
Forlì, he took advantage of his guardianship of the boy heir, Tebaldo Ordelaffi, to attempt conquests in
Romagna (1423), provoking war with
Florence, which couldn't permit his ambitions to go uncontested.
Venice, urged on by
Francesco Bussone da Carmagnola, decided to intervene on the side of Florence (1425) and the war spread to Lombardy. In March 1426 Carmagnola fomented riots in
Brescia, which he'd conquered for Visconti just five years previously. After a long campaign, Venice conquered Brescia, extending its
terra ferma to the eastern shores of
Lake Garda. Filippo Maria unsuccessfully sought imperial aid but was constrained to accept the peace proposed by
Pope Martin V, favoring Venice and Carmagnola. The terms were grudgingly accepted in Milan and by the emperor; but hostilities were resumed at the first pretext by Filippo Maria, leading to the defeat of
Maclodio (12 October 1427), followed by a more lasting peace signed at
Ferrara with the mediation of
Niccolò III d'Este.
The following year the duke married his second wife Maria di Savoia (1411–1469), daughter of Duke
Amadeus VIII of Savoy, a potent ally. With Visconti's support, Amadeus reigned briefly as antipope Felix V from November 1439 to April 1449.
He invited the famous scholar
Gasparino Barzizza to establish a school at Milan. Barzizza also served as his court
orator.
He died in
1447, the last of the
Visconti in direct male line, and he was succeeded in the duchy, after the short-lived
Ambrosian republic, by Francesco Sforza, who had married Filippo Maria's only heir, his natural daughter
Bianca Maria in
1441.
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