Borromeo | |
---|---|
Noble family | |
Country | Duchy of Milan Golden Ambrosian Republic Contents
|
Current region | Italy European Union |
Place of origin | Rome |
Founded | 1445 |
Founder | Vitaliano I |
Current head | Vitaliano XI |
Titles | |
Style(s) | Don or Donna |
Connected families | House of Grimaldi House of Fürstenberg Agnelli family |
Estate(s) | Rocca d'Angera Palazzo Borromeo, Milan Castel of Peschiera Borromeo Borromean Islands Villa Borromeo, Arcore |
Deposition | 1797 |
Cadet branches | Borromeo Arese |
The aristocratic House of Borromeo were merchants in San Miniato around 1300 and became bankers in Milan after 1370. Vitaliano de' Vitaliani, who acquired the name of Borromeo from his uncle Giovanni, became the count of Arona in 1445. His descendants played important roles in the politics of the Duchy of Milan and as cardinals in the Catholic Reformation. In 1916, the head of the family was granted the title Prince of Angera by the King of Italy.
The best known members of the family were the cardinals and archbishops of Milan, Carlo (1538–1584), who was canonized by Pope Paul V in 1610, and Federico (1564–1631), who founded the Ambrosian Library. The figure of the Borromean rings, which forms part of the family's coat of arms, is well known in the diverse fields of topology, psychoanalysis, and theology.
Around 1300 this was one of a number of merchant families in San Miniato to carry the name "'Buon Romei'" (or 'Borromei') because of their origins in the city of Rome. [1]
The first member of the family to come to prominence was Filippo who, backed by Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV and Gian Galeazzo Visconti (later to become duke of Milan), led the Ghibellines of San Miniato in their 1367 revolt against the Florentine Guelphs. In 1370 he was taken prisoner by the Florentines and decapitated. He left five children who had taken refuge in Milan at the time of the revolt. The sons Borromeo and Giovanni founded the Borromei Bank in Milan, with other family members running banks in Venice and Florence.
Filippo Buonromei married Talda di Tenda, sister of Beatrice di Tenda (the hero of a tragic opera by Vincenzo Bellini and wife of the Milanese duke Filippo Maria Visconti). Filippo's daughter Margherita Borromeo († 1429) married Giacobino Vitaliani († 1409), a patrician from Padua, their son Vitaliano Vitaliani (1390-1449) was adopted in 1406 by his childless uncle Giovanni Borromeo, the owner of the Milan bank. The Vitaliani family traces its origins back to Giovanni dei Vitaliani in the 11th century and had been Lords of Bosco, Bojone und Sant'Angelo since c. 1100. In 1418 Vitaliano I Borromeo became treasurer of his uncle, Duke Filippo Maria, who also made him Count of Arona in 1446. [2] [3] He acquired the fiefs and castles of Arona and in 1449 of Angera on the banks of Lago Maggiore (The castle of Angera is still today owned by the family.). Ever since, the Borromeos were the leading land owners (and at times Milanese governors) around the Lago Maggiore.
Vitaliano Borromeo († 1449) had built a castle at Peschiera Borromeo near Milan in 1437. In 1450 Francesco I Sforza was backed by the family in his struggle to become heir and successor of the Visconti dukes and used the castle as a base for his siege of Milan. When he became duke, his gratitude for the family's services overwhelmed them with rewards and honours, among which was the title of a count of Peschiera for Vitaliano's son Filippo Borromeo (1419–1464) in 1461. Filippo expanded the bank as far as Bruges and London. The business was run at least until 1455. [4]
In 1520 Ludovico Borromeo built the castle Rocca Vitaliana at Castelli di Cannero, a fortification against the Old Swiss Confederacy. Giberto II Borromeo († 1558), Milanese governor at the Lago Maggiore, married Margherita Medici di Marignano, the sister of Pope Pius IV and of condottiero Gian Giacomo Medici, Duke of Marignano. One of their sons, Carlo Borromeo (1538−1584), became a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, archbishop of Milan, and a canonized saint.
The family has owned the Borromean Islands since the 16th century. The islands have beautiful gardens. Two of the islands have grand palaces, still owned by the family. Vitaliano Borromeo built a summer palace on the Isola Bella for his wife Isabella between 1650 and 1671 which was later enlarged by Cardinal Giberto III (1615–1672) and Count Vitaliano VI (1620–1690). Count Carlo IV (1657–1734) had the garden terraces added. The family still owns the majority of the Borromean Islands.
Between the fourteenth century and the seventeenth century, the Borromeo were able to gain control of many fiefs in the Valdossola/Lake Maggiore area. They organised them as an almost independent state within the Duchy of Milan obtaining sovereignty, jurisdictions and control over the local army and fortresses. [5] The "State" was subdivided in ten podesterie: Mergozzo, Omegna, Vogogna, Val Vigezzo, Cannobio, Intra, Laveno, Lesa, Angera and Arona. The podestà of Arona was the main justice administrator for the Borromeo counts over the area and was independent of both the Novara and Milan jurisdictions, the former controllers. The "state" was quite extended, it occupied almost half of the modern Province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola with an extension of around one thousand square kilometres. The "Borromeo's State" ended in 1797 with the invasion of Milan by Napoleon Bonaparte who revoked all the Borromeo's privileges and jurisdictions over this area; so the Borromeo maintained there only their ample estates as the Borromean Islands. [6]
Seven cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church were members of the Borromeo family:
Current members include the daughters of Count Ferdinando Borromeo, a cadet son of Prince Vitaliano Borromeo. These are the four sisters:
Charles Borromeo was an Italian Catholic prelate who served as Archbishop of Milan from 1564 to 1584. He was made a cardinal in 1560.
Arona is a town and comune on Lake Maggiore, in the province of Novara. Its main economic activity is tourism, especially from Milan, France and Germany.
The Borromean Islands are a group of three small islands and two islets in the Italian part of Lago Maggiore, located in the western arm of the lake, between Verbania to the north and Stresa to the south. Together totalling just 50 acres in area, they are a major local tourist attraction for their picturesque setting.
The Golden Ambrosian Republic was a short-lived republic founded in Milan by members of the University of Pavia with popular support, during the first phase of the Milanese War of Succession. With the aid of Francesco Sforza they held out against the forces of the Republic of Venice, but after a betrayal Sforza defected and captured Milan to become Duke himself, abolishing the Republic.
Angera is a town and comune located in the province of Varese, in the Lombardy region of northern Italy. In Roman times, it was an important lake port and road station. Formerly known as Anghiera, Angera received the title of city from Duke Ludovico il Moro in 1497. The town is situated on the eastern shore of Lago Maggiore.
Peschiera Borromeo is a comune (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Milan in the Italian region Lombardy, located about 12 kilometres (7 mi) southeast of Milan. It received the honorary title of city with a presidential decree on 6 August 1988.
Isola Bella is one of the Borromean islands of Lake Maggiore in Northern Italy. The island is situated in the Borromean Gulf 400 metres from the lakeside town of Stresa. Isola Bella is 320 metres long by 400 metres wide and is divided between the Palace, its Italianate garden, and a small fishing village.
Ottone Visconti was Archbishop of Milan and Lord of Milan, the first of the Visconti line. Under his rule, the commune of Milan became a strong Ghibelline city and one of the Holy Roman Empire's seats in Italy.
Vitaliano I Borromeo was an Italian Ghibelline nobleman from Milan, first Count of Arona. His father was Giacomo Vitaliani, ambassador of Padua to Venice, and his mother Margherita was of the prosperous family of Borromeo. He married Ambrosina Fagnani, and his only son was Filippo Borromeo. Many of his descendants took his name.
Filippo Borromeo (1419–1464) was the son of Vitaliano I Borromeo and Ambrosina Fagnini. He was second Count of Arona, and greatly expanded his father's banking trade throughout Europe. He married Francesca Visconti, the daughter of Count Lancillotto Visconti of Cicognola, through whom he had three sons and two daughters.
Beatrice dei Principi Borromeo Arese Taverna is an Italian journalist and model. Born in South Tyrol into an aristocratic family, she studied law at Bocconi University in 2010 before earning a master's degree in journalism at Columbia University in 2012. Borromeo subsequently worked for il Fatto Quotidiano before becoming a columnist for Newsweek and Daily Beast in 2013. She also worked as a broadcast journalist for Anno Zero on Rai 2 and hosted a weekly show on the Radio 105 Network. Borromeo married Pierre Casiraghi, a son of Caroline, Princess of Hanover, in 2015; they have two children. She became an ambassador for the fashion brand Dior in 2021.
Palazzo Borromeo is a 14th-century building located at piazza Borromeo 12 in Milan, region of Lombardy, Italy. It was built as the home and business headquarters of the Borromeo family, merchant-bankers from Tuscany. Some of the building complex was badly damaged during World War II in Allied bombings of 1943 but was reconstructed and restored to its 15th-century appearance. It contains an important fresco cycle from the 1440s and is one of the finest examples of a Milanese patrician palace from the early Renaissance.
The San Carlone or Sancarlone or the Colossus of San Carlo Borromeo is a massive copper statue by Giovanni Battista Crespi, erected between 1614 and 1698, near Arona, Italy. It represents Charles Borromeo, a Catholic saint and former archbishop of Milan. According to sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi "The statue of St. Charles Borromeo is the first known example of a statue of repousse copper, worked with the hammer inside and outside, and freely supported on iron beams". Today, the complex is maintained by Milan's Biblioteca Ambrosiana.
Federico Visconti (1617–1693) was an Italian Cardinal and Archbishop of Milan from 1681 to 1693.
The Rocca Borromeo di Angera, or Rocca d'Angera, also called Borromeo Castle, is a rocca on a hilltop above the town of Angera in the Province of Varese on the southern shores of Lago Maggiore. It has medieval origins and initially belonged to the Milanese archbishop. It passed then to the Visconti of Milan and later to the Borromeos, who are still the owners.
Giberto Borromeo Arese was an Italian aristocrat, painter, and patron of the arts.
The Sacro Monte di Arona, devoted to Charles Borromeo, is part of the Sacri Monti built in the 16th and 17th centuries. It is located in the territory of the town of Arona, province of Novara, region of Piedmont, Italy.
Matilde Prinzessin zu Fürstenberg is an Italian equestrian and horse breeder. She is a member of the House of Borromeo, an Italian noble family with historic ties to the Catholic Church and the Duchy of Milan. Through her marriage to Prince Antonius zu Fürstenberg she is a member of the German House of Fürstenberg. Matilde Borromeo has competed in international equestrian competitions representing Italy.
The Arese are a prominent family of the Milanese nobility.
The Visconti Castle of Vogogna is a medieval stone-made castle in Vogogna, Piedmont, Northern Italy. It was built in the 14th century by the Visconti, lords and dukes of Milan.