Lucrezia Crivelli (1464-1534), was an Italian noblewoman and lady-in-waiting. She was a mistress of Ludovico Sforza "il Moro", Duke of Milan. She was the mother of Sforza's son, Giovanni Paolo I Sforza, Marquess of Caravaggio. Crivelli has been thought to be the subject of Leonardo da Vinci's painting, La belle ferronnière .
Crivelli was a lady-in-waiting to Ludovico Sforza's wife, Beatrice d'Este (29 June 1475 – 2 January 1497). During this time, she also became the mistress of Sforza. In 1497, she gave birth to his son, Giovanni Paolo. [1] Sforza's affair with Crivelli caused much distress to his wife, who was considered accomplished and cultured. Upon learning of the affair, d'Este tried without success to have Crivelli banished from court. However, after Beatrice's death in 1497, Lucrezia returned to court and bore Sforza a second child in 1500. [1]
She also had a legitimate daughter by her husband Giovanni da Monastirolo: Bona da Monastirolo, who married Giovanni Pietro Bergamini (son of Cecilia Gallerani, also a former mistress of Sforza, and her husband Ludovico Carminati of Brembilla) and died after 1520. [1]
Crivelli's son by Sforza, Giovanni Paolo I Sforza (March 1497 – December 1535), became the first Marquess of Caravaggio, as well as a celebrated condottiero. He married Violante Bentivoglio (1505–1550), a granddaughter of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, by his mistress Lucrezia Landriani. The marriage produced a son and a daughter. The fate of their second child is not known. Ludovico Sforza died in 1508.
Crivelli lived for many years, until April 12, 1534, in Rocca di Canneto in Mantua, under the protection of Isabella d'Este, the elder sister of Beatrice.
While unproven, Crivelli has long been presumed to be the subject of Leonardo da Vinci's painting La belle ferronnière, which is displayed in the Louvre. [2] The rationale for the Crivelli identification has been primarily based on da Vinci's earlier depiction of Cecilia Gallerani, in his painting, Lady with an Ermine . Gallerani had been an earlier mistress of Sforza. [2] In a 2011 exhibition at the National Gallery, London entitled, Leonardo Da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan (9 November 2011 – 5 February 2012), the gallery listed the painting as a possible portrait of Beatrice d'Este, wife of Ludovico Sforza, rather than his mistress, Crivelli. [3]
It has been initially suspected by Adolfo Venturi (1933) and then recently found that the Lucrezia Crivelli is not the Belle Ferronnière at all. In recent years, the original painting of Lucrezia Crivelli, that has been kept in the family for centuries, has been shown to the public, during an important exhibition in Speyer (Historisches Museum from June 19 to November 19, 1995) . But regardless of the enormous success of the painting amongst the general public, the striking elements of the real Crivelli painting are to be found in the examination made by Pinin Barcillon Brambilla ( the restorer of the Last Supper ) who found that some pigments are the same of the Milanese mural . [4]
Isabella d'Este was the Marchioness of Mantua and one of the leading women of the Italian Renaissance as a major cultural and political figure.
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.
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.
Cecilia Gallerani was the favourite and most celebrated of the many mistresses of Ludovico Sforza, known as Lodovico il Moro, Duke of Milan. She is best known as the subject of Leonardo da Vinci's painting Lady with an Ermine. While posing for the painting, she invited Leonardo, who at the time was working as court artist for Sforza, to meetings at which Milanese intellectuals discussed philosophy and other subjects. Gallerani herself presided over these discussions.
Galeazzo Maria Sforza was the fifth Duke of Milan from 1466 until 1476. He was notorious for being lustful, cruel, and tyrannical.
La Belle Ferronnière is a portrait painting of a lady, by Leonardo da Vinci, in the Louvre. It is also known as Portrait of an Unknown Woman. The painting's title, applied as early as the seventeenth century, identifying the sitter as the wife or daughter of an ironmonger, was said to be discreetly alluding to a reputed mistress of Francis I of France, married to a certain Le Ferron. Later she was tentatively identified as Lucretia Crivelli, a married lady-in-waiting to Duchess Beatrice of Milan, who became another of the Duke's mistresses.
The Lady with an Ermine is a portrait painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci. Dated to c. 1489–1491, the work is painted in oils on a panel of walnut wood. Its subject is Cecilia Gallerani, a mistress of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan; Leonardo was painter to the Sforza court in Milan at the time of its execution. It is the second of only four surviving portraits of women painted by Leonardo, the others being Ginevra de' Benci, La Belle Ferronnière and the Mona Lisa.
Isabella of Aragon, also known as Isabella of Naples, was by marriage Duchess of Milan and suo jure Duchess of Bari.
Alfonso d'Este was Duke of Ferrara from 1504 to 1534, during the time of the War of the League of Cambrai.
The Portrait of a Musician is an unfinished painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, dated to c. 1483–1487. Produced while Leonardo was in Milan, the work is painted in oils, and perhaps tempera, on a small panel of walnut wood. It is his only known male portrait painting, and the identity of its sitter has been closely debated among scholars.
Beatrice d'Este was Duchess of Bari and Milan by marriage to Ludovico Sforza. She was known as a woman of culture, an important patron and 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.
Giovanni Ambrogio de Predis was an Italian Renaissance painter, illuminator and designer of coins active in Milan. Ambrogio gained a reputation as a portraitist, including as a painter of miniatures, at the court of Ludovico Sforza.
Giovanni Paolo I Sforza was an Italian condottiero, the first in the Sforza family line of the Marquesses of Caravaggio.
Lucrezia Landriani was the mistress of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan, and the mother of his renowned illegitimate daughter, Caterina Sforza, Lady of Imola, Countess of Forlì. Lucrezia had three other children by the Duke, and two by her husband.
Bernardino de 'Conti was an Italian Renaissance painter, born in 1465 in Castelseprio and died around 1525.
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.
The Visconti-Sforza Castle is a mediaeval castle located in the centre of the city of Vigevano, Lombardy, Northern Italy. In the 14th and 15th centuries, members of the Visconti and Sforza houses, lords and dukes of Milan, transformed a previous fortification into a vast family resort. The castle was part of a wider plan of urban development for Vigevano, which included the erection of other buildings and the construction of the central Piazza Ducale.
Leonardo is a historical drama television series created by Frank Spotnitz and Steve Thompson. The series was produced by Italian Lux Vide in collaboration with Rai Fiction, Sony Pictures Entertainment, with Frank Spotnitz's Big Light Productions and Freddie Highmore's Alfresco Pictures in association with France Télévisions and RTVE.
Bianca Giovanna Sforza was an Italian noblewoman, she was the illegitimate daughter, then legitimized of Ludovico Sforza and his lover Bernardina de Corradis, she was wife of Galeazzo Sanseverino and favourite of Beatrice d'Este.
Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, died during childbirth on the night of January 2 to 3, 1497. Bad omens preceded the event, and many historians believe it led to the downfall of her husband, Duke Ludovico il Moro, who lost power a few years later. It had a big impact in Italy and abroad, upsetting the previously established political balance and becoming the subject of many works of art and literature.
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