Ferdinand I of Naples
Ferdinand I of Naples should not be confused with Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies, a king of Naples. Ferdinand I called Ferrante, was the King of Naples from 1458 to 1494, he was the son of his mistress, Giraldona Carlino. His mother was Giraldona Carlino. In order to arrange a good future for Ferdinand, King Alfonso had him married in 1444 to a feudal heiress, Isabella of Clermont, besides being the elder daughter of Tristan di Chiaramonte, Count of Copertino, Catherine of Baux Orsini, was the niece and heiress presumptive of childless prince Giovanni Antonio del Balzo Orsini of Taranto, she was a granddaughter of Mary of Enghien, queen consort of Naples between 1406 and 1414. Ferdinand's wife was the heiress presumptive of remarkable feudal possessions in Southern Italy, he used King of Naples and Jerusalem. In accordance with his father's will, Ferdinand succeeded Alfonso on the throne of Naples in 1458, when he was 35 years old. Pope Calixtus III, declared the line of Aragon extinct and the kingdom a fief of the church.
Calixtus died before he could make good his claim, the new Pope Pius II within the year publicly recognized Ferdinand's titles. In 1459, Ferdinand's rule was threatened by a long revolt of the barons. Among the leaders of revolt were Giovanni Antonio Orsini, prince of Taranto and uncle of Ferdinand's wife; the rebels joined to offer the crown to John of Anjou, a son of the former king René. With the help of the Genoese, John brought a fleet and landed taking some towns including Nocera. On July 7, 1460, Ferdinand was defeated by John in the plain beside the mouth of the Sarno River south of Mount Vesuvius. Ferdinand was nearly escaped with a guard of only twenty men; the pope and the duke of Milan sent reinforcements under the count of Urbino Federico da Montefeltro and condottiero Alessandro Sforza, but these arrived after the defeat and were themselves crushed by John's ally Piccinino at San Fabriano. Despite subsequently receiving the surrender of most of the strongholds in Campania, John did not march on Naples and Ferdinand and his wife Isabella were able to hold it and regain their position.
Isabella appears to have been responsible for dissuading Orsini from supporting John and Genoa removed its, assistance. The papacy and the Albanian chief Skanderbeg—who came to the aid of the prince whose father had aided him—provided forces which decisively defeated John's land forces at Troia on August 18, 1462, his fleet was demolished by the combined forces of Ferdinand and King Juan II of Aragon off Ischia in July 1465. By 1464, Ferdinand had re-established his authority in the kingdom, although some antipathy from the barons remained. In 1478 he allied himself with Pope Sixtus IV against Lorenzo de' Medici, but the latter journeyed alone to Naples, where he succeeded in negotiating an honorable peace with Ferdinand; the original intent of making Taranto as his and his heirs' main principality was no longer current, but still it was a strengthening of Ferdinand's resources and position that his wife in 1463 succeeded her uncle Giovanni Antonio del Balzo Orsini as possessor of the rich Taranto and other fiefs in Apulia.
Isabella became the holder of Brienne's rights to the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Ferdinand's wife Isabella had died in 1465, by 1476, Ferdinand had remarried Joanna of Aragon, his first cousin. In 1480, forces of the Ottoman Empire under orders of Mehmed II captured Otranto, massacred the majority of the inhabitants, but in the following year it was retaken by Ferdinand's son Alphonso, duke of Calabria. In 1482, abandoning his traditional position of paladin of the Papal States, he fought alongside Ferrara and Milan against the alliance of Sixtus IV and the Republic of Venice. Ferdinand's oppressive government led in 1485 to a reinvigorated rebellion of the aristocracy, known as the Conspiracy of the Barons, which included Francesco Coppola and Antonello Sanseverino of Salerno and supported by Pope Innocent VIII. Coppola and Antonello Petrucci were arrested during a wedding at Castel Nuovo, subsequently executed; this uprising was crushed, many of the nobles, notwithstanding Ferdinand's signing of a general amnesty, were afterwards jailed and executed at his command.
In December 1491 Ferdinand was visited by a group of pilgrims on their return from the Holy Land. This group was led by Landgrave of Hesse. Encouraged by Ludovico Sforza of Milan, in 1493 King Charles VIII of France was preparing to invade Italy for the conquest of Naples and starting the Italian Wars, Ferdinand realized that this was a greater danger than any he had yet faced. With prophetic instinct he warned the Italian princes of the calamities in store for them, but his negotiations with Pope Alexander VI and Ludovico Sforza failed, he died on 25 January 1494. The cause of his death was determined in 2006 to have been colorectal cancer, by examination of his mummy, his remains show levels of carbon 13 and nitrogen 15 consistent with historical reports of considerable consumption of meat. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, "Ferdinand was gifted with great courage and real political ability, but his method of government was vicious and disastrous, his financial administration was based on oppressive and dishonest monopolies, he was mercilessly severe and utterly treacherous towards his enemies."
Ferdinand had many enemies considerin
Battle of Ravenna (1512)
The Battle of Ravenna, fought on 11 April 1512, by forces of the Holy League and Ferrara was a major battle of the War of the League of Cambrai in the Italian Wars. Although the French and the Ferrarese drove the Spanish-Papal army from the field, their victory failed to help them secure northern Italy, they would be forced to withdraw from the region by August 1512. Beginning in February 1512, the French forces in Italy, newly commanded by Gaston de Foix, Duc de Nemours, had been engaged in capturing cities in the Romagna and the Veneto, in an attempt to deny control of those regions to the forces of the Holy League. Although he had been successful in a number of sieges, Nemours was aware that the impending invasion of France by Henry VIII of England would cause much of his army to be withdrawn, he was determined to force the main army of the Holy League into battle before that occurred. Thus, in late March, together with an Italian contingent under Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, marched east from Bologna and laid siege to the city of Ravenna, defended by Papal troops.
Julius II, alarmed at the prospect of losing his last stronghold in the Romagna, demanded that an army be sent to relieve the city. By 9 April, they had passed Forlì, were advancing north along the Ronco River towards the city, on the next day had reached Molinaccio, only a mile south of the French positions, but still separated from them by the Ronco. Nemours, short on supplies and anxious to give battle before he was forced to withdraw from Italy, ordered a general attack for the following day; the strengths, relative positions, commanders of the component elements of both armies are unclear, different arrangements are given by historians. The French army formed up in an arc to the east of Cardona's fortified camp. Next to this cavalry was the bulk of the infantry. According to Charles Oman, it consisted of three separate units: 3,500 Gascon crossbowmen, 5,000 landsknechts under Jacob Empser, 3,000 Picards and Gascons under Thomas Bohier, the Seneschal of Normandy. Frederick Taylor groups the infantry into only two units: 9,500 landsknechts under Empser and 8,000 "Gascon archers and Picard pikemen" under the Seigneur de Molart.
The men-at-arms of the "main-battle", consisting of 780 men, was commanded by either Bohier alone, or by Bohier together with the Vicomte de Lautrec, Louis d'Ars, the Chevalier de Bayard. This cavalry occupied one of two positions: according to Oman and Thomas Arnold, it was placed in the arc to the left of the French infantry, while Taylor has it behind the cavalry of the "vaward", next to the river. Farther to the left of the French line—beyond the cavalry of the "main-battle", according to Arnold and Oman, or directly flanking the infantry, according to Taylor—was the "rearward" corps of the army, commanded by Yves d'Alégre, it consisted of about 4,000 Italian infantry under Frederigo de Bozzolo, flanked, on the extreme left, by about 2,000 light cavalry under Gian Bernardo Caracciolo. The arrangement of the Holy League army is a matter of dispute. At the north end of the camp, near the river, was the cavalry of the "vaward", consisting of about 670 Papal men-at-arms under Fabrizio Colonna.
Farther along the river were two more bodies of men-at-arms: the "main-battle", consisting of 565 men under the Marquis of La Palude, the rearguard, consisting of 490 men under Alfonso Carvajal. Taylor divides the Holy League infantry into four blocks: three divisions of Spanish infantry, each consisting of four colunellas of 500–600 men each, one formation of Papal infantry, numbering about 2,000, all under the general command of Pedro Navarro. Oman and Arnold place the infantry in three lines running along the length of the entrenchements. Beyond the infantry—to the far side of it from the river, according to Taylor, or at the end of its line, according to Oman and Arnold—was the light cavalry, consisting of 1,500–1,700 Spanish ginetes and Italian mounted arquebusiers under the command of Fernando d'Avalos, Marquis of Pescara. In his section on war wagons Arnold avers that the Spanish "had at least thirty carts mounting scythe blades, forward-projecting spears and organ guns; the advancing French troops halted about two hundred paces from the enemy lines.
The sporadic exchange of artillery fire, taking place since the French had begun to cross the Ronco now developed into a full-scale artillery duel between the two armies that lasted more than two hours. A new tactic, the open-field exchange of artillery fire was "the most violent cannonade between armies in the field that the world had yet seen", according to Taylor, "the first of its kind in the historical record", according to Bert Hall. De Foix placed the bulk of his artillery in front of the French right wing, directing its fire into the Holy League's camp. Navarro ordered his infantry to take cover—the troops hid in the trenches, or lay prone on the slopes of the river embankments—but Colonna's men-at-arms had no shelter available, began to take heavy casualties from the cannon fire; the S
Sack of Rome (1527)
The Sack of Rome on 6 May 1527 was a military event carried out in Rome by the mutinous troops of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. It marked a crucial imperial victory in the conflict between Charles and the League of Cognac —the alliance of France, Venice and the Papacy; the growing power of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V alarmed Pope Clement VII, who perceived Charles as attempting to dominate the Catholic Church and Italy. In effort to free both from Imperial domination, Clement VII formed an alliance with Charles V's arch-enemy, King Francis I of France, which came to be known as the League of Cognac; the army of the Holy Roman Emperor defeated the French army in Italy, but funds were not available to pay the soldiers. The 34,000 Imperial troops mutinied and forced their commander, Charles III, Duke of Bourbon and Constable of France, to lead them towards Rome. Apart from some 6,000 Spaniards under the Duke, the army included some 14,000 Landsknechte under Georg von Frundsberg, some Italian infantry led by Fabrizio Maramaldo, the powerful Italian cardinal Pompeo Colonna and Luigi Gonzaga, some cavalry under command of Ferdinando Gonzaga and Philibert, Prince of Orange.
Though Martin Luther himself was not in favor of attacking Rome or the Pope, some who considered themselves followers of Luther's Protestant movement viewed the Papal capital as a target for religious reasons, shared with the soldiers a desire for the sack and pillage of a city that appeared to be an easy target. Numerous bandits, along with the League's deserters, joined the army during its march; the Duke left Arezzo on 20 April 1527, taking advantage of the chaos among the Venetians and their allies after a revolt broke out in Florence against Pope Clement VII's family, the Medici. In this way, the undisciplined troops sacked Acquapendente and San Lorenzo alle Grotte, occupied Viterbo and Ronciglione, reaching the walls of Rome on 5 May; the imperial troops were 14,000 Germans, 6,000 Spanish, an uncertain number of Italian infantry. The troops defending Rome were not at all numerous, consisting of 5,000 militiamen led by Renzo da Ceri and 189 Papal Swiss Guard; the city's fortifications included the massive walls, it possessed a good artillery force, which the Imperial army lacked.
Duke Charles needed to conquer the city swiftly, to avoid the risk of being trapped between the besieged city and the League's army. On 6 May, the Imperial army attacked the walls at the Vatican Hills. Duke Charles was fatally wounded in the assault shot by Benvenuto Cellini; the Duke was wearing his famous white cloak to mark him out to his troops, but it had the unintended consequence of pointing him out as the leader to his enemies. The death of the last respected command authority among the Imperial army caused any restraint in the soldiers to disappear, they captured the walls of Rome the same day. Philibert of Châlon took command of the armies, but he was not as popular or feared, leaving him with little authority. In the event known as the Stand of the Swiss Guard, the Swiss, alongside the garrison's remnant, made their last stand in the Teutonic Cemetery within the Vatican, their captain, Kaspar Röist, was wounded and sought refuge in his house, where he was killed by Spanish soldiers in front of his wife.
The Swiss fought bitterly, but were immensely outnumbered and annihilated. Some survivors, accompanied by a band of refugees, fell back to the Basilica steps; those who went toward the Basilica were massacred, only 42 survived. This group of 42, under the command of Hercules Goldli, managed to stave off the Habsburg troops pursuing the Pope's entourage as it made its way across the Passetto di Borgo, a secret corridor that still connects the Vatican City to Castel Sant'Angelo. After the brutal execution of some 1,000 defenders of the Papal capital and shrines, the pillage began. Churches and monasteries, as well as the palaces of prelates and cardinals, were looted and destroyed. Pro-Imperial cardinals had to pay to save their properties from the rampaging soldiers. On 8 May, a personal enemy of Clement VII, entered the city, he was followed by peasants from his fiefs, who had come to avenge the sacks they had suffered by Papal armies. However, Colonna was touched by the pitiful conditions of the city and hosted in his palace a number of Roman citizens.
The Vatican Library was saved. After three days of ravages, Philibert ordered the sack to cease. In the meantime, Clement remained a prisoner in Castel Sant'Angelo. Francesco Maria della Rovere and Michele Antonio of Saluzzo arrived with troops on 1 June in Monterosi, north of the city, their cautious behaviour prevented them from obtaining an easy victory against the now undisciplined Imperial troops. On 6 June, Clement VII surrendered, agreed to pay a ransom of 400,000 ducati in exchange for his life. At the same time Venice took advantage of this situation to capture Cervia and Ravenna, while Sigismondo Malatesta returned to Rimini. Cited as the end of the Italian Renaissance, the Sack of Rome impacted the histories of Europe and Catholicism, creating lasting ripple effects throughout world culture and politics. Prior to the Sack, Pope Clement VII opposed the ambitions of Emperor Charles V and the Spanish, whom he believed wished to dominate Italy and the Church. Attempting to spare his peopl
Pope Paul III
Pope Paul III, born Alessandro Farnese, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 13 October 1534 to his death in 1549. He came to the papal throne in an era following the sack of Rome in 1527 and rife with uncertainties in the Catholic Church following the Protestant Reformation. During his pontificate, in the spirit of the Counter-Reformation, new Catholic religious orders and societies, such as the Jesuits, the Barnabites, the Congregation of the Oratory, attracted a popular following, he convened the Council of Trent in 1545. He was a significant patron of the arts and employed nepotism to advance the power and fortunes of his family, it is to Pope Paul III. Born in 1468 at Canino, Alessandro Farnese was the oldest son of Pier Luigi I Farnese, Signore di Montalto and his wife Giovanna Caetani, a member of the Caetani family which had produced Pope Boniface VIII; the Farnese family had prospered over the centuries but it was Alessandro’s ascendency to the papacy and his dedication to family interests which brought about the most significant increase in the family’s wealth and power.
Alessandro's humanist education was at the court of Lorenzo de' Medici. Trained as an apostolic notary, he joined the Roman Curia in 1491 and in 1493 Pope Alexander VI appointed him Cardinal-Deacon of Santi Cosma e Damiano. Farnese’s sister, Giulia was reputedly a mistress of Alexander VI and might have been instrumental in securing this appointment for her brother. For this reason, he was sometimes mockingly referred to as the "Borgia brother-in-law," just as Giulia was mocked as "the Bride of Christ." More disparagingly he was referred to as "Cardinal Fregnese". As Bishop of Parma, he came under the influence of his vicar-general, Bartolomeo Guidiccioni; this led to the future pope breaking off the relationship with his mistress and committing himself to reform in his Parma diocese. Under Pope Clement VII he became Cardinal Bishop of Ostia and Dean of the College of Cardinals, on the death of Clement VII in 1534, was elected as Pope Paul III; as a young cleric, Alessandro lived a notably dissolute life, taking for himself a mistress and having three sons and two daughters with her.
By Silvia Ruffini, he fathered Pier Luigi Farnese. The elevation to the cardinalate of his grandsons, Alessandro Farnese, aged fourteen, Guido Ascanio Sforza, aged sixteen, displeased the reform party and drew a protest from the emperor, but this was forgiven when, shortly after, he introduced into the Sacred College Reginald Pole, Gasparo Contarini, Jacopo Sadoleto, Giovanni Pietro Caraffa, who became Pope Paul IV; the fourth pope during the period of the Protestant Reformation, Paul III became the first to take active reform measures in response to Protestantism. Soon after his elevation, 2 June 1536, Paul III summoned a general council to meet at Mantua in the following May. Paul III first deferred for a year and discarded the whole project. In 1536, Paul III invited nine eminent prelates, distinguished by learning and piety alike, to act in committee and to report on the reformation and rebuilding of the Church. In 1537 they turned in their celebrated Consilium de emendenda ecclesia, exposing gross abuses in the Curia, in the church administration and public worship.
This report was printed not only at Strasbourg and elsewhere. But to the Protestants it seemed far from thorough, yet the Pope was in earnest. He perceived that Emperor Charles V would not rest until the problems were grappled with in earnest, a council was an unequivocal procedure that should leave no room for doubt of his own readiness to make changes, yet it is clear that the Concilium bore no fruit in the actual situation, that in Rome no results followed from the committee's recommendations. As a consequence of the extensive campaign against "idolatry" in England, culminating with the dismantling of the shrine of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury, the Pope excommunicated Henry VIII on 17 December 1538 and issued an interdict. On the other hand, serious political complications resulted. In order to vest his grandson Ottavio Farnese with the dukedom of Camerino, Paul forcibly wrested the same from the duke of Urbino, he incurred virtual war with his own subjects and vassals by the imposition of burdensome taxes.
Perugia, renouncing its obedience, was besieged by Paul's son, Pier Luigi, forfeited its freedom on its surrender. The burghers of Colonna were duly vanquished, Ascanio was banished. After this the time seemed ripe for annihilating heresy. In 1540, the Church recognized the new society forming about Ignatius of Loyola, which became the Society of Jesus; the second visible stage in the process becomes marked by the institution, or reorganization, in 1542, of the Congregation of the Holy Office of the Inquisition. On another side, the Emperor was insisting that Rome should forward his designs towards a peaceable recovery of the German Protestants. Accordingly, the Pope despatched Giovanni Morone (not yet a cardi
Juan de Valdés
Juan de Valdés was a Spanish religious writer and Protestant reformer. He was the younger of twin sons of Fernando de Valdés, hereditary regidor of Cuenca in Castile, where Valdés was born, he has been confused with his twin brother Alfonso. Alfonso died in 1532 at Vienna. Juan, who studied at the University of Alcalá, first appears as the anonymous author of a politico-religious Diálogo de Mercurio y Carón, written and published about 1528. A passage in this work may have suggested Don Quixote's advice to Sancho Panza on appointment to his governorship; the Diálogo attacked the corruptions of the Roman Church. In 1531 he removed to Rome, where his criticisms of papal policy were condoned, since in his Diálogo he had upheld the validity of Henry VIII's marriage with Catherine of Aragon. On 12 January 1533 he writes from Bologna, in attendance upon Pope Clement VII. From the autumn of 1533 he made Naples his permanent residence, his name being Italianized as Valdésso and Val d'Esso. Confusion with his brother may account for the statement of his appointment by Charles V as secretary to the viceroy at Naples, Don Pedro de Toledo.
His house on the Chiaja was the centre of a religious circle. His first production at Naples was Diálogo de la Lengua, his works entitle him to a foremost place among Spanish prose writers. His friends urged him to seek distinction as a humanist, but his bent was towards problems of Biblical interpretation in their bearing on the devout life. Vermigli and Marcantonio Flaminio were leading spirits in his coterie, which included the marchioness of Pescara Vittoria Colonna, since 1537, her younger widower sister-in-law, Giulia Gonzaga, his influence was great for whose sermons he furnished themes. Pietro Carnesecchi, burned by the Inquisition in 1567, who had known Valdés at Rome as "a modest and well-bred courtier," found him at Naples "wholly intent upon the study of Holy Scripture," translating portions into Spanish from Hebrew and Greek, with comments and introductions. To him Carnesecchi ascribes his own adoption of the Evangelical doctrine of justification by faith, at the same time his rejection of the policy of the Lutheran schism.
Valdés died at Naples in May 1541. His death scattered his band of associates. Abandoning the hope of a regenerated Catholicism and Vermigli left Italy; some of Valdés's writings were by degrees published in Italian translations. Showing much originality and penetration, they combine a delicate vein of semi-mystical spirituality with the personal charm attributed to their author in all contemporary notices. Llorente traces in Valdés the influence of Tauler; the Aviso on the interpretation of Scripture, based on Tauler, was the work of Alfonso. Valdés was in relations with Fra Benedetto of Mantua, the anonymous author of Del Benefizio di Gesù Cristo Crocefisso, revised by Flaminio; the suggestion that Valdés departed from Catholic Orthodoxy about the Trinity was first made in 1567 by the Transylvanian bishop, Ferenc Dávid. To this view some colour is given by isolated expressions in his writings, by the subsequent course of Ochino. Gaston Bonet-Maury comments: "Valdés never discusses the Trinity, reserving it as a topic for advanced Christians.
Practical theology interested him more than speculative, his aim being the promotion of a healthy and personal piety. Diálogo de Lactancio y un Arcediano known as: Diálogo de las cosas ocurridas en Roma, ca. 1527, as well as Diálogo de Mercurio y Carón, ca. 1528, by Juan's brother: Alfonso de Valdés, are ascribed to Juan in the reprint, Dos Diálogos, 1850. An Italian translation of both works was printed in Venice as Due dialoghi. Diálogo de la Lengua, Madrid, 1873. Trataditos, Bonn, 1881, from a manuscript in the Palatine Library, Vienna. Alfabeto Christiano, c. 1535. First printing: Venice. English translation Alfabeto Christiano by Benjamin Barron Wiffen. Qual Maniera si dovrebbe tenere in formare gli figliuoli de Christiani delle Cose della Religione. English translation into Valdés' Two Catechisms. No known Spanish original. Ciento i Diez Consideraciones.
Federico da Montefeltro
Federico da Montefeltro known as Federico III da Montefeltro KG, was one of the most successful condottieri of the Italian Renaissance, lord of Urbino from 1444 until his death. A renowned intellectual Humanist and civil leader in Urbino on top of his impeccable reputation for martial skill and honor, he commissioned the construction of a great library the largest of Italy after the Vatican, with his own team of scribes in his scriptorium, assembled around him a large humanistic court in the Ducal Palace, designed by Luciano Laurana and Francesco di Giorgio Martini. Federico was born in Castello di Petroia in Gubbio, the illegitimate son of Guidantonio da Montefeltro, lord of Urbino and Casteldurante, Duke of Spoleto. Two years he was legitimized by Pope Martin V, with the consent of Guidantonio's wife, Caterina Colonna, Martin's niece. In the aftermath of the Peace of Ferrara in 1433, he lived in Mantua as a hostage. In 1437 he was knighted by Emperor Sigismund, in the same year he married Gentile Brancaleoni in Gubbio.
At sixteen he began a career as condottiero under Niccolò Piccinino. In 1441 he distinguished himself in the conquest of the castle of St. Leo, which Federico was to hold for the rest of his life. After Piccinino's resignation, he went to Pesaro to defend it against his great enemy in the Marche, Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, lord of Rimini. On 22 July 1444, his half-brother Oddantonio da Montefeltro created Duke of Urbino by Pope Eugene IV, was assassinated in a conspiracy: Federico, whose probable participation in the plot has never been established, subsequently seized the city of Urbino. However, the financial situation of the small dukedom being in disarray, he continued to wage war as a condottiero, his first condotta was for Francesco I Sforza, with 300 knights: Federico was one of the few condottieri of the time to have a reputation for inspiring loyalty among his followers. In the pay of the Sforza—for Federico never fought for free—he transferred Pesaro to their control, for 13,000 florins, received Fossombrone as his share, infuriating Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta.
Despite Federico's efforts, the Sforza sovereignty in the Marche was dismantled in the following years. When Sforza left for Lombardy, Sigismondo fomented a riot in Fossombrone, but Federico reconquered it three days later. After six years in the service of Florence, Federico was hired in 1450 by Sforza, now Duke of Milan. However, he could not perform his duties, he subsequently carried a vast and disfiguring scar for the rest of his life, so that it was necessary to portray him only on his "good" side. Malatesta profited from his injury to obtain the position under Sforza, whereupon Federico in October 1451 accepted instead a proposal by Alfonso V of Aragon, King of Naples, to fight for him against Florence. After the loss of the eye, Federico – no stranger to conspiracies and one of the leaders that inspired Niccolò Machiavelli to write Il Principe – had surgeons remove the bridge of his nose; this improved his field of vision to a considerable extent, rendered him less vulnerable to assassination attempts – and, as can be seen by his successful career thereafter, restored his merits as a field commander.
In 1453 the Neapolitan army was struck by malaria, Federico himself risked losing his healthy eye. The Peace of Lodi of the following year seemed to deprive him of occasions to exhibit his ability as a military commander. In 1458 the death of both Alfonso and of his beloved illegitimate son, did not help to raise Federico's mood, his fortunes recovered when Pius II, a man of culture like him, became Pope and made him Gonfaloniere of the Holy Roman Church. After some notable exploits in the Kingdom of Naples, he fought in the Marche against Malatesta, soundly defeating him at the Cesano river near Senigallia; the following year he captured Senigallia, taking Sigismondo Pandolfo prisoner. The Pope made him vicar of the conquered territories. In 1464 the new Pope Paul II called him to push back the Anguillara, from whom he regained much of the northern Lazio for Papal control; the following year he captured Bertinoro in Romagna. In 1466 Francesco Sforza died, Federico assisted his young son Galeazzo Sforza in the government of Milan, commanded the campaign against Bartolomeo Colleoni.
In 1467 he took part in the Battle of Molinella. In 1469, on the death of Sigismondo Pandolfo, Paul sent him to occupy Rimini: however, fearing that an excessive Papal power in the area could menace his home base of Urbino, once having entered Rimini Federico kept it for himself. After defeating the Papal forces in a great battle on 30 August 1469, he ceded it to Sigismondo's son, Roberto Malatesta; the matter was solved by the election of Pope Sixtus IV, who married his favorite nephew Giovanni Della Rovere to Federico's daughter Giovanna, gave him the title of Duke of Urbino in 1474. Now Federico fought against his former patrons the Florentines, caught in the Pope's attempt to carve out a state for his nephew Girolamo Riario. In 1478 Federico was involved in the Pazzi conspiracy. However, after the death of his beloved second wife Battista Sforza, who never recovered after giving birth to their seventh child at 25 years old, he spent much of his time in the magnificent palace in Urbino; the Duke had lost the mate he described as "the delight of my public and private hours".
In 1482 he was called to command t
Milan
Milan is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, the second-most populous city in Italy after Rome, with the city proper having a population of 1,372,810 while its metropolitan city has a population of 3,245,308. Its continuously built-up urban area has a population estimated to be about 5,270,000 over 1,891 square kilometres; the wider Milan metropolitan area, known as Greater Milan, is a polycentric metropolitan region that extends over central Lombardy and eastern Piedmont and which counts an estimated total population of 7.5 million, making it by far the largest metropolitan area in Italy and the 54th largest in the world. Milan served as capital of the Western Roman Empire from 286 to 402 and the Duchy of Milan during the medieval period and early modern age. Milan is considered a leading alpha global city, with strengths in the field of the art, design, entertainment, finance, media, services and tourism, its business district hosts Italy's stock exchange and the headquarters of national and international banks and companies.
In terms of GDP, it has the third-largest economy among European cities after Paris and London, but the fastest in growth among the three, is the wealthiest among European non-capital cities. Milan is considered part of the Blue Banana and one of the "Four Motors for Europe"; the city has been recognized as one of the world's four fashion capitals thanks to several international events and fairs, including Milan Fashion Week and the Milan Furniture Fair, which are among the world's biggest in terms of revenue and growth. It hosted the Universal Exposition in 1906 and 2015; the city hosts numerous cultural institutions and universities, with 11% of the national total enrolled students. Milan is the destination of 8 million overseas visitors every year, attracted by its museums and art galleries that boast some of the most important collections in the world, including major works by Leonardo da Vinci; the city is served by a large number of luxury hotels and is the fifth-most starred in the world by Michelin Guide.
The city is home to two of Europe's most successful football teams, A. C. Milan and F. C. Internazionale, one of Italy's main basketball teams, Olimpia Milano; the etymology of the name Milan remains uncertain. One theory holds that the Latin name Mediolanum planus. However, some scholars believe that lanum comes from the Celtic root lan, meaning an enclosure or demarcated territory in which Celtic communities used to build shrines. Hence Mediolanum could signify the central sanctuary of a Celtic tribe. Indeed, about sixty Gallo-Roman sites in France bore the name "Mediolanum", for example: Saintes and Évreux. In addition, another theory links the name to the boar sow an ancient emblem of the city, fancifully accounted for in Andrea Alciato's Emblemata, beneath a woodcut of the first raising of the city walls, where a boar is seen lifted from the excavation, the etymology of Mediolanum given as "half-wool", explained in Latin and in French; the foundation of Milan is credited to two Celtic peoples, the Bituriges and the Aedui, having as their emblems a ram and a boar.
Alciato credits Ambrose for his account. The Celtic Insubres, the inhabitants of the region of northern Italy called Insubria, appear to have founded Milan around 600 BC. According to the legend reported by Livy, the Gaulish king Ambicatus sent his nephew Bellovesus into northern Italy at the head of a party drawn from various Gaulish tribes; the Romans, led by consul Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus, fought the Insubres and captured the city in 222 BC. They conquered the entirety of the region, calling the new province "Cisalpine Gaul" – "Gaul this side of the Alps" – and may have given the site its Latinized Celtic name of Mediolanum: in Gaulish *medio- meant "middle, center" and the name element -lanon is the Celtic equivalent of Latin -planum "plain", thus *Mediolanon meant " in the midst of the plain". In 286 the Roman Emperor Diocletian moved the capital of the Western Roman Empire from Rome to Mediolanum. Diocletian himself chose to reside at Nicomedia in the Eastern Empire, leaving his colleague Maximian at Milan.
Maximian built several gigantic monuments, the large circus, the thermae or "Baths of Hercules", a large complex of imperial palaces and other services and buildings of which fewer visible traces remain. Maximian increased the city area surrounded by a new, larger stone wall encompassing an area of 375 acres with many 24-sided towers; the monumental area had twin towers. From Mediolanum the Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in 313 AD, granting tolerance to all religions within the Empire, thus paving the way for Christianity to become the dominant religion of Roman Europe. Constantine had come to Mediolanum to celebrate the wedding of his sister
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. 6 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 715.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the 
Historic Girlhoods public domain audiobook at LibriVox
