The House of Sforza was a ruling family of Renaissance Italy, based in Milan. Sforza rule began with the family's acquisition of the Duchy of Milan following the extinction of the Visconti family in the mid-15th century and ended with the death of the last member of the family's main branch, Francesco II Sforza, in 1535.
Vigevano is a comune (municipality) in the province of Pavia, in the Italian region of Lombardy. A historic art town, it is also renowned for shoemaking and is one of the main centres of Lomellina, a rice-growing agricultural district. Vigevano received the honorary title of city with a decree of Duke Francis II Sforza on 2 February 1532. It is famed for its Renaissance Piazza Ducale in the centre of the town.
Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici, called Piero the Fatuous or Piero the Unfortunate, was the lord of Florence from 1492 until his exile in 1494.
Ludovico Maria Sforza, also known as Ludovico il Moro, and called the "arbiter of Italy" by historian Francesco Guicciardini, was an Italian nobleman who ruled as the Duke of Milan from 1494 to 1499.
Cesare Cantù was an Italian historian, writer, archivist and politician. An immensely prolific writer, Cantù was one of Italy's best-known and most important Romantic scholars.
The Duchy of Milan was a state in Northern Italy, created in 1395 by Gian Galeazzo Visconti, then the lord of Milan, and a member of the important Visconti family, which had been ruling the city since 1277.
Galeazzo Maria Sforza was the fifth Duke of Milan from 1466 until 1476. He was notorious for being lustful, cruel, and tyrannical.
The First Italian War, or Charles VIII's Italian War, was the opening phase of the Italian Wars. The war pitted Charles VIII of France, who had initial Milanese aid, against the Holy Roman Empire, Spain and an alliance of Italian powers led by Pope Alexander VI, known as the League of Venice.
The Italian Wars of 1499–1504 are divided into two connected, but distinct phases: the Second Italian War (1499–1501), sometimes known as Louis XII's Italian War, and the Third Italian War (1502–1504) or War over Naples. The first phase was fought for control of the Duchy of Milan by an alliance of Louis XII of France and the Republic of Venice against Ludovico Sforza, the second between Louis and Ferdinand II of Aragon for possession of the Kingdom of Naples.
Beatrice d'Este was Duchess of Bari and Milan by marriage to Ludovico Sforza. She was one of the most important personalities of the time and, despite her short life, she was a major player in Italian politics. A woman of culture, an important patron, a leader in fashion: alongside her illustrious husband she made Milan one of the greatest capitals of the European Renaissance. With her own determination and bellicose nature, she was the soul of the Milanese resistance against the enemy French during the first of the Italian Wars, when her intervention was able to repel the threats of the Duke of Orléans, who was on the verge of conquering Milan.
Bona of Savoy, Duchess of Milan was Duchess of Milan as the second spouse of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan. She served as regent of Milan during the minority of her son 1476–1481.
Francesco Maria Pratilli (1689–1763) was an Italian priest, scholar, antiquarian, whose name is known, from the 19th century, for being involved in a vast series of skilled forgeries.
Francesco (Cicco) Simonetta was an Italian Renaissance statesman who composed an early treatise on cryptography.
BeatriceCane, mistakenly known in much of the historiography as Beatrice Lascaris di Tenda but actually a member of the Cane family, was an Italian noblewoman who married first the condottiero Facino Cane, Count of Biandrate and a cousin once removed, and then Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan, who later had her killed.
Galeazzo da Sanseverino, known as the son of Fortuna, was an Italian-French condottiere and Grand Écuyer de France; Marquis of Bobbio, Count of Caiazzo, Castel San Giovanni, Val Tidone and Voghera. He was first the favorite of Ludovico il Moro and Beatrice d'Este, then of Louis XII and Francis I of France, as well as a sworn enemy of Gian Giacomo Trivulzio.
On the other hand the Duke of Milan
called and gave the general cane
to Maria Galeazo, and captain
did it of his people on the saddle,
who riding then from hand to hand,
with the banner in the wind of the snake,
honor and glory of Lombardy,
with many great gentlemen in company.
Roberto Sanseverino d'Aragona was an Italian condottiero, count of Colorno from 1458 to 1477 and count of Caiazzo from 1460 until his death in 1487. Highly esteemed man of arms, veteran of numerous battles, he was one of the greatest leaders of the Italian Renaissance.
Santa Maria in Brera was a church in Milan, in Lombardy in northern Italy. It was built by the Humiliati between 1180 and 1229, given a marble façade and Gothic portal by Giovanni di Balduccio in the fourteenth century, and deconsecrated and partly demolished under Napoleonic rule in the early nineteenth century. The Napoleonic rooms of the Pinacoteca di Brera occupy the upper floor of what was the nave.
The Visconti Castle, or Castello Visconteo, is a castle in the town of Cusago near Milan, Lombardy, Northern Italy. It was built in the 14th century by Bernabò Visconti and used as a hunting lodge by him and other Visconti family members. The castle underwent significant changes in the Renaissance period; today, it is in neglected conditions.
Ludovico Settala was an Italian physician who lived during the Renaissance.
Bergonzio Botta was a Milanese functionary. He served as the master of ceremonies of Ludovico Sforza from at least 1489 and, after Ludovico became Duke of Milan, as his treasurer from 1494 to 1499. During the Italian Wars after 1499, he was aligned with the French. He is most famous today for one his earliest recorded public acts. In 1489, he organized what is regarded as one of the earliest ballet performances.
