Filippo Maria Visconti was duke of Milan from 1412 to 1447. Known to be cruel and paranoid, but shrewd as a ruler, he went to war in the 1420s with Romagna, Florence and Venice in the Wars in Lombardy, but was eventually forced to accept peace under Pope Martin V. He would return to the offensive again where another peace agreement was required to end the fighting. He married twice, the second in 1428 to Marie, daughter of his ally Amadeus VIII. When he died, he was the last of the Visconti male line and was succeeded by Francesco Sforza, husband to his daughter.
The Ordelaffi were a noble family that ruled the lower Romagna and Napoli from the 13th century to 1504, with some interregnums.
The Wars in Lombardy were a series of conflicts between the Republic of Venice and the Duchy of Milan and their respective allies, fought in four campaigns in a struggle for hegemony in Northern Italy that ravaged the economy of Lombardy. They lasted from 1423 until the signing of the Treaty of Lodi in 1454. During their course, the political structure of Italy was transformed: out of a competitive congeries of communes and city-states emerged the five major Italian territorial powers that would make up the map of Italy for the remainder of the 15th century and the beginning of the Italian Wars at the turn of the 16th century. They were Venice, Milan, Florence, the Papal States and Naples. Important cultural centers of Tuscany and Northern Italy—Siena, Pisa, Urbino, Mantua, Ferrara—became politically marginalized.
Pandolfo II Malatesta was an Italian condottiero.
Pandolfo III Malatesta was an Italian condottiero and lord of Fano, a member of the famous House of Malatesta. He was the father of the infamous Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta and Blessed Roberto Malatesta.
Carlo I Malatesta was an Italian condottiero during the Wars in Lombardy and lord of Rimini, Fano, Cesena and Pesaro. He was a member of the powerful House of Malatesta. Carlo's wife was Elisabetta Gonzaga; they were married in November 1386. Francesco I Gonzaga married Carlo's sister Margherita Malatesta in 1393, cementing ties between the families. Carlo was the brother of Pandolfo III and Andrea Malatesta, with whom he fought in numerous occasions.
Antonio I Ordelaffi was lord of Forlì from 1433 to 1436 and again from 1438 to 1448. He was a member of the noble family of Ordelaffi.
Francesco III Ordelaffi, also known as Cecco III, was an Italian condottiero and lord of Forlì. A member of the Ordelaffi family, he was brother to Pino I.
Giorgio Ordelaffi was lord of Forlì and Papal vicar in Romagna. He was a member of the Ordelaffi family.
Teobaldo II Ordelaffi was briefly lord of Forlì from 1422 to 1424. He was the son of Giorgio Ordelaffi.
Francesco II Ordelaffi, also known as Cecco II, was a lord of Forlì, the son of Sinibaldo Ordelaffi and Orestina Calboli, and the grandson of Teobaldo I Ordelaffi.
Azzo Alidosi was an Italian condottiero and a lord of Imola.
Roberto Alidosi was a lord of Imola in the 14th century.
Galeotto I Malatesta (1299–1385) was an Italian condottiero from the House of Malatesta who was lord of Rimini, Fano, Ascoli Piceno, Cesena and Fossombrone.
Andrea Malatesta was an Italian condottiero, a member of the Malatesta family of Romagna. He is also known as Malatesta da Cesena, a city he had inherited in 1385 from his father, Galeotto, together with Cervia and Bertinoro. In 1388 he was also recognized lord of Fossombrone.
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.
Caterina Visconti was Duchess of Milan as the second spouse of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, the first Duke of Milan, and was the mother of two succeeding Dukes of Milan, Gian Maria and Filippo Maria Visconti. Caterina served as Regent of Milan from 1402 to 1404, during her elder son's minority, but due to Gian Maria's suspicion of her alleged treason, he had his mother arrested and imprisoned in the castle of Monza, where she was presumably poisoned in 1404.
Bertrando Alidosi was an Italian condottiere and the Lord of Imola(as Papal vicar) from 1372 until 1391. He was the son of Roberto Alidosi, and succeeded in his signoria to Azzo Alidosi, to whom he had been associated by will of Pope Urban V. In 1365 he had been also made lord of Castel del Rio, Monte del Fine and Castiglione. The two brothers were jailed in Bologna two times by the papal forces, but they were permitted to return soon to Imola. In 1371 he was forced by a rebellion to flee shortly at Avignon with Pope Gregory XI.
Antonia Malatesta of Cesena, also known as Antonia Malatesta of Rimini, was a Duchess of Milan by marriage to Giovanni Maria Visconti. She was the Regent of Milan in the interim after the death of her spouse in 1412.
