1.
Pisanello
–
He was acclaimed by poets such as Guarino da Verona and praised by humanists of his time who compared him to such illustrious names as Cimabue, Phidias and Praxiteles. Pisanello is known for his resplendent frescoes in large murals, elegant portraits, small easel pictures and he is the most important commemorative portrait medallist in the first half of the 15th century, and can claim to have originated this important genre. He was employed by the Doge of Venice, the Pope in the Vatican and the courts of Verona, Ferrara, Mantua, Milan, Rimini and he stood in high esteem of the Gonzaga and Este families. Pisanello had many of his works wrongly ascribed to other such as Piero della Francesca, Albrecht Dürer and Leonardo da Vinci. While most of his paintings have perished, a many of his drawings. Pisanellos life is shrouded in mystery. He was born between 1380 and 1395 and died between 1450 and 1455 and he was a native of Pisa but spent his early years in San Vigilio sul Lago in the territory of Verona. He was probably given his training by a Veronese painter as his early style is in the tradition of Veronese painting. Between 1415 and 1420, Pisanello was the assistant of the painter and illuminator Gentile da Fabriano from whom he acquired his refined, delicate. Pisanello also acquired from him a taste for precious materials and beautiful fabrics that can be found in his later paintings. The frescoes in the Doges Palace at Venice, on which they worked together, have perished as well as the frescoes in the Basilica of St. John Lateran and the palaces of Mantua and Pavia. In 1422, Pisanello was reported to be in Mantua in the service of young Ludovico Gonzaga and he continued to work for the Gonzaga family till the 1440s. He must also have known Paolo Uccello, the painter of the Battle of San Romano with its many horses. Pisanellos love of drawing horses probably finds its origin in this relationship, but as there is so much unknown of his life, Pisanellos Madonna of the Quail, now in the Museo di Castelvecchio in Verona, is signed by Antonius Pisanus. It is tentatively dated at c, the style is a blend of the styles of Gentile da Fabriano and Stefano da Verona. This might show that Pisanello was also a pupil of the latter in Verona, Pisanello stayed again in Verona in 1424. However, according to scholars, he painted frescoes about hunting and fishing. These were commissioned by the Duke of Milan Filippo Maria Visconti, there is no trace of these frescoes left
2.
Golden Ambrosian Republic
–
The Golden Ambrosian Republic was a short-lived government founded in Milan by members of the University of Pavia with popular support. With the aid of Francesco Sforza they held out against the forces of the Republic of Venice, Filippo Maria had no heir through male bloodlines, but the day before his death had written a will dedicating the Duchy to Alfonso V of Aragon. The Bracceschi, supporters of the King of Aragon, seized the Castello on the night of the 13th, almost before Filippo Maria died, despite the general support for either Alfonso or Sforza, other influential citizens believed that the old republic could be restored. Learned bodies, such as the College of Jurisprudence in Pavia, the merchants, seeing the prosperity of Republican Venice, were behind this idea. A Republic was declared behind the Palace of the Commune, the Bracceschi were driven from Milan, and the new republic was called the Golden Ambrosian Republic, named for St. Ambrose, the 4th century bishop of Milan, who was taken on as the Republics patron. Venice was already at war with Milan, and the Republic was struck a blow as previously Milanese cities including Pavia, Lodi. Besides the loss of support and defensive locations, the drop in revenue also caused a financial crisis resolved by the imposition of new taxes. Venice, now occupying Lodi and Piacenza, refused to listen to Milans pleas for peace, Milan turned to Francesco Sforza, the greatest military leader of his day, offering him the position of Captain-General and the city of Brescia. Although he wished - and indeed, planned - to succeed his father-in-law as Duke, he decided to accept the position, a draft was declared in Milan on 13 September. Sforza promised the Pavians no new taxes, respect for the old laws, payment for his hired officials and he kept these promises faithfully and so won over the people of Pavia, establishing his rulership. Pavia was previously almost a second capital to Milan, and gave Sforza his own seat of power, the city was also in a strategic location on the Po River, situated where it could block the Venetians from coming to the relief of the beleaguered Piacenza via water. Returning to the siege of Piacenza and finding the city not likely to crumble by starvation, employing cannons in an almost unheard-of manner, he opened up a breach in Piacenzas walls and sacked the city. The news of Piacenzas sack was greeted by three days rejoicing in Milan, meanwhile, Milanese Captain Bartolomeo Colleoni captured Tortona which had previously proclaimed Sforza as its lord, stealing it from the now dangerously powerful Sforza. This caused further and even greater rejoicing, for the Milanese feared Sforza, in January 1448, the terms of the previous Captains and Defenders ended, and in the following election the Guelphs rose to political prominence. Being especially adverse to Sforza, they entered negotiations with Venice. Two of the Ghibellines who helped to found the Republic, namely Lampugnano and Bossi, the Council of Nine Hundred was forced to abandon its plans for peace, and Sforza was given the go-ahead for his next campaign to seize the Adda River. Sforzas plans were voted down by the Republic in favor of more traditional tactics, while this happened, the Venetian fleet under Andrea Quirini assaulted the bridge of Cremona. However, Sforzas wife Bianca was there, and led the defense until her husband relieved the city, the Venetian fleet withdrew and entrenched while it waited for the arrival of the Venetian army
3.
Nobility
–
The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be largely honorary, and vary from country to country and era to era. There is often a variety of ranks within the noble class. g, san Marino and the Vatican City in Europe. Hereditary titles often distinguish nobles from non-nobles, although in many nations most of the nobility have been un-titled, some countries have had non-hereditary nobility, such as the Empire of Brazil. The term derives from Latin nobilitas, the noun of the adjective nobilis. In modern usage, nobility is applied to the highest social class in pre-modern societies and it rapidly came to be seen as a hereditary caste, sometimes associated with a right to bear a hereditary title and, for example in pre-revolutionary France, enjoying fiscal and other privileges. Nobility is a historical, social and often legal notion, differing from high socio-economic status in that the latter is based on income. Being wealthy or influential cannot, ipso facto, make one noble, various republics, including former Iron Curtain countries, Greece, Mexico, and Austria have expressly abolished the conferral and use of titles of nobility for their citizens. Not all of the benefits of nobility derived from noble status per se, usually privileges were granted or recognised by the monarch in association with possession of a specific title, office or estate. Most nobles wealth derived from one or more estates, large or small and it also included infrastructure such as castle, well and mill to which local peasants were allowed some access, although often at a price. Nobles were expected to live nobly, that is, from the proceeds of these possessions, work involving manual labour or subordination to those of lower rank was either forbidden or frowned upon socially. In some countries, the lord could impose restrictions on such a commoners movements. Nobles exclusively enjoyed the privilege of hunting, in France, nobles were exempt from paying the taille, the major direct tax. In some parts of Europe the right of war long remained the privilege of every noble. During the early Renaissance, duelling established the status of a respectable gentleman, Nobility came to be associated with social rather than legal privilege, expressed in a general expectation of deference from those of lower rank. By the 21st century even that deference had become increasingly minimised, in France, a seigneurie might include one or more manors surrounded by land and villages subject to a nobles prerogatives and disposition. Seigneuries could be bought, sold or mortgaged, if erected by the crown into, e. g. a barony or countship, it became legally entailed for a specific family, which could use it as their title. Yet most French nobles were untitled, in other parts of Europe, sovereign rulers arrogated to themselves the exclusive prerogative to act as fons honorum within their realms. Nobility might be inherited or conferred by a fons honorum
4.
Gian Galeazzo Visconti
–
Gian Galeazzo Visconti, son of Galeazzo II Visconti and Bianca of Savoy, was the first Duke of Milan and ruled the late-medieval city just before the dawn of the Renaissance. He was the founding patron of the Certosa di Pavia, completing the Visconti Castle at Pavia begun by his father. During his patronage of the Visconti Castle, he contributed greatly to the growth of the collection of scientific treatises, although most famous as Signore of Milan, Gian Galeazzo was the son of Galeazzo II Visconti who possessed the signoria of the city of Pavia. In 1385 Gian Galeazzo gained control of Milan by overthrowing his uncle Bernabò through treacherous means and he imprisoned his uncle who soon died, supposedly poisoned on his orders. His first marriage was to Isabelle of Valois, who brought him the title of comte de Vertus in Champagne, rendered in Italian as Conte di Virtù, the title by which he was known in his early career. A devoted father to his daughter Valentina, Gian Galeazzo reacted to gossip about Valentina at the French Court by threatening to declare war on France. The wife of King Charles VI of France was Isabeau of Bavaria, the granddaughter of Bernabò Visconti, and, thus, galeazzos role as a statesman also took other forms. He lost Padua in 1390, when it reverted to Francesco Novello da Carrara and he received the title of Duke of Milan from Wenceslaus, King of the Romans in 1395 for 100,000 florins. In 1400, Gian Galeazzo appointed a host of clerks and departments entrusted with improving the public health, for the new system of administration and bookkeeping this established, he is credited with creating the first modern bureaucracy. Gian Galeazzo had dreams of uniting all of northern Italy into one kingdom, the obstacles to his success included Bologna and especially Florence. In 1402, Gian Galeazzo launched assaults upon these cities, the warfare was extremely costly on both sides, but it was universally believed the Milanese would emerge victorious. The Florentine leaders, especially the chancellor Coluccio Salutati worked successfully to rally the people of Florence, but the Florentines were being taxed hard by famine, disease, Galeazzo won another victory over the Bolognese at the Battle of Casalecchio on 26 June 1402. Galeazzos dreams were to come to naught, however, as he succumbed to a fever at the castello of Melegnano on 10 August 1402 and his empire fragmented as infighting among his successors wrecked Milan, partly through his division of his lands among both legitimate and illegitimate heirs. His library, housed in the grandest princely dwelling in Italy, the castello in Pavia, montechino Italian Castle Piacenza Bueno de Mesquita, D. M. Giangaleazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan, A Study in the Political Career of an Italian Despot
5.
Certosa di Pavia
–
The Certosa di Pavia is a monastery and complex in Lombardy, northern Italy, situated near a small town of the same name in the Province of Pavia,8 km north of Pavia. Built in 1396-1495, it was located on the border of a large hunting park belonging to the Visconti family of Milan. It is one of the largest monasteries in Italy, Certosa is the Italian name for a house of the cloistered monastic order of Carthusians founded by St. Bruno in 1044 at Grande Chartreuse. The location was strategically chosen midway between Milan and Pavia, the city of the Duchy, where the Duke held his court. The church, the last edifice of the complex to be built, was to be the mausoleum of the Visconti. It was designed as a structure with a nave and two aisles, a type unusual for the Carthusian Order. The nave, in the Gothic style, was completed in 1465, Solari was followed as director of the works by Giovanni Antonio Amadeo. The church was consecrated on May 3,1497, the lower part of the façade was not completed until 1507. The construction contract obliged the monks to use part of the revenue of the held in benefice to the monastery to continue to improve the edifice. Consequently, the Certosa includes a collection of artworks of all centuries from the 15th to the 18th. In 1782, the Carthusians were expelled by the Emperor Joseph II of Austria, in 1810 the monastery was closed until the Carthusians reacquired it in 1843. In 1866 it was declared a National Monument and sequestrated by the Italian State, the monks currently living in the monastery are Cistercians admitted to it in the 1960s. In August 1946 the illegally exhumed body of Benito Mussolini was discovered in the complex, two Franciscan friars were charged with assisting in the concealment of the body. The church is built on a Latin cross plan, with a nave, the chancel terminates with an apse. It is covered by crossed vaults on Gothic arches and is inspired, on a reduced scale, the vaults are alternatively decorated with geometrical shapes and starry skies. The transept and the main chapel end with square-plan chapels with smaller, the façade of the church is famous for its exuberant decorations, typical of Lombard architecture, every part being decorated with reliefs, inlaid marble and statues. Sculptors who worked on it include Cristoforo Mantegazza and Giovanni Antonio Amadeo himself, the architect Giovanni Solari, in building the double row of arcades down the flanks of the church, modified its appearance. After his death he was succeeded in Pavia by his son Guiniforte Solari, in their hands the project was thoroughly redesigned
6.
Pavia
–
Pavia is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, northern Italy,35 kilometres south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It has a population of c, the city was the capital of the Kingdom of the Lombards from 572 to 774. Pavia is the capital of the province of Pavia, known for agricultural products including wine, rice, cereals. Although there are a number of industries located in the suburbs, Pavia is the episcopal seat of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Pavia. The city possesses many artistic and cultural treasures, including several important churches and museums, dating back to pre-Roman times, the town of Pavia, then known as Ticinum, was a municipality and an important military site under the Roman Empire. It was said by Pliny the Elder to have founded by the Laevi and Marici. It was at Pavia in 476 AD that the reign of Romulus Augustulus, ten months after Romulus Augustulus’s reign began, Orestes’s soldiers under the command of one of his officers named Odoacer, rebelled and killed Orestes in the city of Pavia in 476. Without his father Romulus Augustulus was powerless, instead of killing Romulus Augustulus, Odoacer pensioned him off at 6,000 solidi a year before declaring the end of the Western Roman Empire and himself king of the new Kingdom of Italy. Odoacer’s reign as king of Italy did not last long, because in 488 the Ostrogothic peoples led by their king Theoderic invaded Italy and waged war against Odoacer. After fighting for 5 years Theoderic defeated Odoacer and on March 15,493 assassinated Odoacer at a banquet meant to negotiate a peace between the two rulers, with the establishment of the Ostrogoth kingdom based in northern Italy, Theoderic began his vast program of public building. Pavia was among several cities that Theodoric chose to restore and expand and he began the construction of the vast palace complex that would eventually become the residence of Lombard monarchs several decades later. Near the end of Theoderic’s reign the Christian philosopher Boethius was imprisoned in one of Pavia’s churches from 522 to 525 before his execution for treason and it was during Boethius’s captivity in Pavia that he wrote his seminal work the Consolation of Philosophy. Pavia played an important role in the war between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Ostrogoths that began in 535, after the capitulation of the Ostrogothic leadership in 540 more than a thousand men remained garrisoned in Pavia and Verona dedicated to opposing Eastern Roman rule. The resilience of Ostrogoth strongholds like Pavia against invading forces allowed pockets of Ostrogothic rule to limp along until finally being defeated in 561, Pavia and the peninsula of Italy didn’t remain long under the rule of the Eastern Roman Empire for in 568 a new people invaded Italy. This new invading people in 568 were the Lombards, in their invasion of Italy in 568, the Lombards were led by their king Alboin, who would become the first Lombard king of Italy. Alboin captured much of northern Italy in 568 but his progress was halted in 569 by the city of Pavia. Meanwhile Alboin, after driving out the soldiers, took possession of everything as far as Tuscany except Rome and Ravenna and some other fortified places which were situated on the shore of the sea. ”The Siege of Ticinum finally ended with the Lombards capturing the city of Pavia in 572. Pavia’s strategic location and the Ostrogoth palaces located within it would make Pavia by the 620s the main capital of the Lombards’ Kingdom of Pavia, under Lombard rule many monasteries, nunneries, and churches were built at Pavia by the devout Christian Lombard monarchs
7.
Condottieri
–
Condottieri were the leaders of the professional military free companies contracted by the Italian city-states and the Papacy from the late Middle Ages and throughout the Renaissance. In Renaissance Italian, condottiero meant contractor, in contemporary Italian, condottiero acquired the broader meaning of military leader, not restricted to mercenaries. In Italian historiography, Renaissance mercenary captains are usually called capitani di ventura, thus, the word Condottiere in the English language has come to denote, in the modern sense, any hired soldier. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Italian city-states of Venice, Florence, in the event that foreign powers and envious neighbors attacked, the ruling nobles hired foreign mercenaries to fight for them. From the eleventh to the century, European soldiers led by professional officers fought against the Muslims in the Crusades. These crusading officers provided large-scale warfare combat experience in the Holy Land, on the Crusades’ conclusion, the first masnada appeared in Italy. Given the profession, some masnade were less mercenaries than bandits and these masnada were not Italian, but German, from the Duchy of Brabant, and from Catalonia and Aragon. The latter were Spanish soldiers who had followed King Peter III of Aragon in the War of the Sicilian Vespers in Italy in October 1282, by 1333 other mercenaries had arrived in Italy to fight with John of Bohemia as the Compagnia della Colomba in Perugia’s war against Arezzo. The first well organised mercenaries in Italy were the Ventura Companies of Duke Werner von Urslingen, werner’s company differed from other mercenary companies because its code of military justice imposed discipline and an equal division of the contract’s income. The Ventura Company increased in number until becoming the fearsome “Great Company” of some 3,000 barbute, the first mercenary company with an Italian condottiero as its chief was the Company of St. George formed in 1339 and led by Lodrisio Visconti. This company was defeated and destroyed by Luchino Visconti of Milan in April 1339, later, in 1377, a second Company of St. Once aware of their military power monopoly in Italy, the bands became notorious for their capriciousness. In turn, many condottieri, such as Braccio da Montone and Muzio Sforza, consequently, the condottieri fought by outmanoeuvring the opponent and fighting his ability to wage war, rather than risk uncertain fortune —defeat, capture, death— in battlefield combat. Niccolò Machiavelli even said that condottieri fought each other in grandiose, in 1347, Cola di Rienzo had Werner von Urslingen executed in Rome, and Konrad von Landau assumed command of the Great Company. Towards the end of the century the Italians began to organize armies of the same description and this ended the reign of the purely mercenary company, and began that of the semi-national mercenary army which endured in Europe till replaced by the national standing army system. In 1363, Count von Landau was betrayed by his Hungarian soldiers, strategically, the barbuta was replaced with the three-soldier, mounted lancia, five lance composed a posta, five poste composed a bandiera. If the condotta expired definitively, the condottiere could not declare war against the contracting city-state for two years. In fifteenth-century Italy, the condottieri were masterful lords of war, during the wars in Lombardy, Machiavelli observed, the others being bred to arms from their infancy, were acquainted with no other art, and pursued war for emolument, or to confer honor upon themselves
8.
Visconti-Sforza tarot deck
–
No complete deck has survived, rather, some collections boast a few face cards, while some consist of a single card. They are the oldest surviving tarot cards and date back to a period when tarot was still called Trionfi cards and they were commissioned by Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan, and by his successor and son-in-law Francesco Sforza. They had a significant impact on the composition, card numbering. Consequently, the cards also offer a glimpse of life in Renaissance Milan. The three most famous collections are discussed in detail below. This deck, also known as Colleoni-Baglioni and Francesco Sforza, was produced around 1451, originally composed of 78 cards, it now contains 74, i. e.20 trumps,15 face cards, and 39 pip cards. The Pierpont-Morgan library in New York City has 35, the Accademia Carrara has 26 in its catalogue, trumps and face cards have a gilt background, while the pip cards are cream-coloured with a flower and vine motif. The two missing trumps are the Devil and the Tower, modern published reproductions of this deck usually contain attempted reconstructions of missing cards. The figures on the suit of bastoni wear silver pleated garments and carry a long staff, a large vessel tops either end except for the King, whose staff has a finial only at the top. Those on the suit of cups wear gold garments, embellished by the device of sun and rays, each figure holds a large chalice. The suit of spades shows figures dressed in armour, carrying a large sword. Curiously, the characters represented on denari wear garments decorated with blue ribbons wound around circular suns, the Knight of this suit is the only one not wearing a ducal crown. Named after the Cary Collection of Playing Cards, absorbed into the Yale University Library in 1967, it is known as the Visconti di Modrone set. Some scholars have, conversely, suggested this may be in fact the oldest of sets, perhaps commissioned by Filippo Maria Visconti at the onset of the project. 67 cards have survived, which has led to the suggestion that, given the distribution of the Pierpont-Morgan deck, M. Visconti in 1442 and withdrawn from circulation at his death, in 1447. The Cary-Yale is the only historical Western deck with six ranks of cards, as the Damsel. Their ranks can be determined by their positions, standing, mounted on a horse, the trumps also contains the three theological virtues which appears only here and in Minchiate decks. All trump cards have a background, while the pip cards have a silver one
9.
Florence
–
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the Metropolitan City of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants, Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of the time. It is considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, and has called the Athens of the Middle Ages. A turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family, from 1865 to 1871 the city was the capital of the recently established Kingdom of Italy. The Historic Centre of Florence attracts 13 million tourists each year and it was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1982. The city is noted for its culture, Renaissance art and architecture, the city also contains numerous museums and art galleries, such as the Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Pitti, and still exerts an influence in the fields of art, culture and politics. Due to Florences artistic and architectural heritage, it has been ranked by Forbes as one of the most beautiful cities in the world, in 2008, the city had the 17th highest average income in Italy. Florence originated as a Roman city, and later, after a period as a flourishing trading and banking medieval commune. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, it was politically, economically, and culturally one of the most important cities in Europe, the language spoken in the city during the 14th century was, and still is, accepted as the Italian language. Starting from the late Middle Ages, Florentine money—in the form of the gold florin—financed the development of all over Europe, from Britain to Bruges, to Lyon. Florentine bankers financed the English kings during the Hundred Years War and they similarly financed the papacy, including the construction of their provisional capital of Avignon and, after their return to Rome, the reconstruction and Renaissance embellishment of Rome. Florence was home to the Medici, one of European historys most important noble families, Lorenzo de Medici was considered a political and cultural mastermind of Italy in the late 15th century. Two members of the family were popes in the early 16th century, Leo X, catherine de Medici married king Henry II of France and, after his death in 1559, reigned as regent in France. Marie de Medici married Henry IV of France and gave birth to the future king Louis XIII, the Medici reigned as Grand Dukes of Tuscany, starting with Cosimo I de Medici in 1569 and ending with the death of Gian Gastone de Medici in 1737. The Etruscans initially formed in 200 BC the small settlement of Fiesole and it was built in the style of an army camp with the main streets, the cardo and the decumanus, intersecting at the present Piazza della Repubblica. Situated along the Via Cassia, the route between Rome and the north, and within the fertile valley of the Arno, the settlement quickly became an important commercial centre. Peace returned under Lombard rule in the 6th century, Florence was conquered by Charlemagne in 774 and became part of the Duchy of Tuscany, with Lucca as capital. The population began to again and commerce prospered
.svg)
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Visconti". Encyclopædia Britannica. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 129.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the 