| Siege of Mirandola | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Mirandola | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Lordship of Mirandola |  Lordship of Mantua | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Francesco I Pico Bartolomeo Pico Giovanni Pico | Rinaldo dei Bonacolsi Francesco dei Bonacolsi | ||||||
The siege of Mirandolain 1321, also known as the siege of Duke Passerino, was a military conflict involving Francesco I Pico, first lord of Mirandola, against Rinaldo dei Bonacolsi, better known as Duke Passerino, lord of Mantua.
In August 1311, Francesco I Pico obtained from Emperor Henry VII, during his descent into Italy, the investiture of imperial vicar of Mirandola. However, Francesco I Pico was captured by the Bolognese Guelphs at Baggiovara on 8 July 1312. Following this, the Grasulfi faction offered the lordship to Rinaldo dei Bonacolsi the following October. [1]
Freed after nine months of imprisonment and having gone to Pisa and Verona, in June 1317 Francesco I Pico returned to Modena and, after neutralising the podestà Federico della Scala, successfully organised a revolt against the Duke Passerino at the beginning of 1318, regaining lordship over Modena. [1]
In late November and early December 1319, Francesco I Pico sent a military expedition to help the people of Carpi who had rebelled against Manfredo I Pio allied with Bonacolsi; [1] but being defeated, he had to cede the lordship of Modena to the latter again on 1 December 1319 and stipulate a truce. [2]
Shortly afterwards, Duke Passerino decided not to respect the agreements made (certis pactis in brevi male servatis) and on Friday 27 November 1321 had Francesco I Pico and his sons Tommasino and Prendiparte arrested, together with Zaccaria Tosabecchi and his brother and son. [3] On the following Wednesday, the Pico family were imprisoned in the dungeons of Castel d'Ario castle, where they were starved to death after tearing each other to pieces, as in the lugubrious affair of Count Ugolino della Gherardesca described by Dante Alighieri in the Divine Comedy and which took place 33 years earlier. [4]
Duke Passerino began the siege of the castle of the Pico on Saturday 28 November 1321 [5] and lasted just over a month. [6]
Finally, on 31 December 1321, the castle was conquered [7] and subsequently razed to the ground. [1] The moat ( vallum ) was levelled.
In 1328, Niccolò Pico, allied with the Gonzaga and Della Scala who had conquered Mantua, managed to avenge his father: he locked up the Duke Passerino's sons and grandsons in the same tower, starving them to death too. [8]
Mirandola, which had become a dominion of the Gonzaga family together with Mantua since 16 August 1328, was however only returned to the Pico family by Emperor Charles IV on 23 December 1354, when Francesco II Pico was appointed lord of the city. [9]
Mantua is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy, and capital of the province of the same name.
The House of Gonzaga was an Italian princely family that ruled Mantua in Lombardy, northern Italy from 1328 to 1708. They also ruled Monferrato in Piedmont and Nevers in France, as well as many other lesser fiefs throughout Europe. The family includes a saint, twelve cardinals and fourteen bishops. Two Gonzaga descendants became empresses of the Holy Roman Empire, and one became queen of Poland.
Cangrandedella Scala was an Italian nobleman, belonging to the della Scala family which ruled Verona from 1308 until 1387. Now perhaps best known as the leading patron of the poet Dante Alighieri, Cangrande was in his own day chiefly acclaimed as a successful warrior and autocrat. Between becoming sole ruler of Verona in 1311 and his death in 1329 he took control of several neighbouring cities, notably Vicenza, Padua and Treviso, and came to be regarded as the leader of the Ghibelline faction in northern Italy.
The Battle of Zappolino, the only battle of the War of the Oaken Bucket, was fought in November 1325 between forces representing the Italian towns of Bologna and Modena, an incident in the series of raids and reprisals between the two cities that were part of the larger conflicts of Guelphs and Ghibellines. The Modenese were victorious. Though many clashes between Guelphs and Ghibellines loomed larger to contemporaries than to historians, the unusually-large encounter involved 4000 estimated cavalry and some 35,000 foot soldiers, and 2000 men lost their lives. The location of the battle, at the foot of a hill just outside the castle walls, is now a frazione of the municipality of Castello di Serravalle, Emilia-Romagna.
Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi, called L'Antico by his contemporaries, and often Antico in English, the nickname given for the refined interpretation of the Antique they recognized in his work, was a 15th- and 16th-century North Italian Renaissance sculptor, known for his finely detailed small bronzes all'Antica—coolly classicizing, often with gilded details, and silver-inlaid eyes, a refinement that is found in some classical and Hellenistic Greek bronzes.
Alfonso III d'Este was Duke of Modena and Reggio from 1628 to 1629. He was the husband of Princess Isabella of Savoy, daughter of Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy and his wife Infanta Catherine Michelle of Spain.
The Bonacolsi were a noble family who ruled Mantua in the last quarter of the 13th century and the first quarter of the 14th.
The War of the Bucket or the War of the Oaken Bucket was fought in 1325 between the rival city-states of Bologna and Modena. It took place in the region of Emilia-Romagna, in northern Italy. The war was an episode in the over 300-year-long struggle between Guelphs and Ghibellines. Modena won the Battle of Zappolino, the only battle of the war.
The siege of Mirandola may refer to:
Ludovico I Gonzaga was an Italian lord, the founder of the Gonzaga family who was the first capitano del popolo of Mantua and imperial vicar.
The Castle of the Pico is a castle in the city center of Mirandola, in the province of Modena, Italy.
The Civic Museum of Mirandola is a museum housed in the castle of the Pico in Mirandola, in the province of Modena, Italy, dedicated to the archaeology of the territory, religious commissions, ancient furnishings and paintings, coins and medals of the ancient mint of Mirandola. The museum is also enriched by maps from the 16th to the 20th century, various items from the ancient Mount of Piety of the Franciscan friars and a collection of military relics.
The Mirandola witch trials took place in Mirandola in the Duchy of Mirandola between 1522 and 1525. It resulted in the death of ten people, who were burned alive at the stake for witchcraft on the square.
The Mirandola mint, also known as the mint of the Pico della Mirandola, was the mint of the Duchy of Mirandola.
Francesco Maria Pico, also known as Francesco Maria II Pico della Mirandola to distinguish him from his father, was an Italian nobleman, third Duke of Mirandola and fourth Marquis of Concordia.
Alessandro I Pico della Mirandola was an Italian nobleman and military man, second Marquis of Concordia (1602–1637), second and last Prince of Mirandola (1602–1617) and first Duke of Mirandola (1617–1637).
Francesco I Pico was an Italian condottiero and politician of the Pico dynasty. He was the first lord and imperial vicar of Mirandola (1311-1321), and also podestà and imperial vicar of Modena (1311-12).
The siege of Mirandola in 1355, was a military conflict involving Francesco II Pico, first lord of Mirandola, against Bernabò Visconti.
Francesco II Pico della Mirandola was an Italian condottiero and nobleman, belonging to the House of Pico, who in 1354 regained the family domains of Mirandola and Concordia, which had fallen into the hands of the Gonzagas, and was lord of them until his death (1399).
