Bernabò or Barnabò Visconti (1323 – 19 December 1385) was an
Italian soldier and statesman who was
Lord of Milan. Along with his brothers
Matteo and
Galeazzo II, he inherited the lordship of Milan from his uncle
Giovanni. Later in 1355, he and Galeazzo II were rumoured to have murdered their brother Matteo since he endangered the regime.[1][2] When Galeazzo II died, he shared Milan's lordship with his nephew
Gian Galeazzo. Bernabò was a ruthless despot toward his subjects and did not hesitate to face emperors and popes, including Pope
Urban V. The conflict with the Church caused him several excommunications. On 6 May 1385, his nephew Gian Galeazzo deposed him. Imprisoned in his castle,
Trezzo sull'Adda, he died a few months later, presumably from poisoning.[3]
Life
He was born in
Milan, the son of
Stefano Visconti and Valentina
Doria. From 1346 to 1349 he lived in exile, until he was called back by his uncle
Giovanni Visconti. On 27 September 1350 Bernabò married
Beatrice Regina della Scala, daughter of
Mastino II, Lord of
Verona and Taddea
da Carrara, and forged both a political and cultural alliance between the two cities. His intrigues and ambitions kept him at war almost continuously with Pope Urban V, the Florentines, Venice, and Savoy. In 1354, at the death of Giovanni, he inherited the power of Milan, together with his brothers Matteo and Galeazzo. Bernabò received the eastern lands (
Bergamo,
Brescia,
Cremona and
Crema), that bordered the Veronese territories. Milan itself was to be ruled in turn by the three brothers. Matteo died in 1355, rumoured to have been poisoned by his brothers, who divided his inheritance.[1][2]
In 1356, after having offended the emperor, he pushed back a first attack upon Milan by the imperial vicar
Markward von Randeck, imprisoning him. In 1360 he was declared heretic by
Innocent VI at Avignon and condemned by Emperor
Charles IV. The ensuing conflict ended with a dismal defeat at San Ruffillo against the imperial troops under
Galeotto I Malatesta (29 July 1361). In 1362, after the death of his sister's husband,
Ugolino Gonzaga, caused him to attack also
Mantua. Warring on several different fronts, in December of that year he sued for peace with the new pope, Urban V, through the mediation of King
John II of France. However, because Barnabò neglected to return the papal city of
Bologna and to present himself at
Avignon, on 4 March 1363 he was excommunicated once more,[4] together with his children, one of whom,
Ambrogio, was captured by the Papal commander
Gil de Albornoz. With the peace signed on 13 March 1364, Visconti left the occupied Papal lands, in exchange for the raising of the ban upon a payment of 500,000
florins.
In the spring of 1368 Visconti allied with
Cansignorio della Scala of Verona, and attacked Mantua, still ruled by Ugolino Gonzaga. The situation was settled later in the year through an agreement between him and the emperor. Two years later he besieged
Reggio, which he managed to acquire from Gonzaga in 1371. The following war against the
Este of Modena and Ferrara raised again Papal enmity against the Milanese, now on the part of
Gregory XI. In 1370, he ordered the construction of the
Trezzo Bridge, then the largest single-arch bridge in the world.
In 1373, the pope sent two papal delegates to serve Bernabò and Galeazzo their excommunication papers (consisting of a parchment bearing a leaden seal rolled in a silken cord). Bernabò, infuriated, placed the two papal delegates under arrest and refused their release until they had eaten the parchment, seal, and silken cord which they had served him.[5] He managed to resist, despite also the outbreak of a plague in Milan, whose consequences he suppressed with frantic energy.[6] In 1378 he allied with the
Republic of Venice in its
War of Chioggia against Genoa. His troops were however defeated in September 1379 in the Val Bisagno.
Bernabò, whose despotism and taxes had enraged the Milanese, is featured among the exempla of tyrants as victims of Fortune in
Chaucer's[7]Monk's Tale as "god of delit and scourge of Lumbardye". He was deposed by his nephew Gian Galeazzo Visconti in 1385. Imprisoned in the
castle of Trezzo, he died on 19 December of that year, presumably poisoned.[8][9]
Bonino da Campione sculpted the equestrian statue of Bernabò Visconti for the church of
San Giovanni in Conca around 1363. Its positioning near the church's main altar was regarded as highly problematic by contemporaries and it was commented on by poet and intellectual Petrarch among others. The equestrian statue was reused – with changes and additions carried out by the same Bonino in 1385–1386 – as Bernabò's funerary monument in the same church. It is now preserved in the Castello Sforzesco in Milan.[10] An erratic small-size male head in marble now in the storerooms of
Castello Sforzesco has recently been rediscovered and tentatively identified as a portrait of the elderly Bernabò. This work too has been attributed to Bonino da Campione.[11]
Lodovico Visconti (1355 – 7 March 1404), Governor and Lord of Parma during 1364–1404 and Governor of Lodi during 1379–1385; married in November 1381
Violante Visconti, widow of
Lionel of Antwerp and
Secondotto, Marquess of Montferrat. They had a son, Giovanni, who possibly left descendants: the family Milano-Visconti, Reichsfreiherren at Utrecht claim descent from him.
Carlo Visconti (September 1359 – August 1403), Lord of Cremona, Borgo San Donnino and Parma in 1379; married Beatrice of Armagnac, daughter of
John II, Count of Armagnac and Jeanne de Périgord, by whom he had four children.
Mastino Visconti (March 1371 – 19 June 1405), Lord of Bergamo, Valcamonica and Ghiaradadda in 1405; married in 1385 Cleofa
della Scala, by whom he had three children.
Lucia Visconti (ca. 1380 – 14 April 1424), married firstly on 28 June 1399
Frederick of Thuringia (future Elector of Saxony) but the union was dissolved on grounds of non-consummation shortly after; married secondly on 24 January 1407
Edmund Holland, 4th Earl of Kent. No issue.
His illegitimate offspring by Donnina del Porri, legitimated in a ceremony after the death of his wife in 1384,[a] were as follows:
Palamede (d. 1402).
Lancellotto (d. after 1413).
Sovrana, married Giovanni de Prato.
Ginevra, married Leonardo Malaspina, Marchese di Gragnola (d. 1441).
In addition, Bernabò had other illegitimate offspring by other mistresses:[14]
—With Beltramola Grassi:
Ambrogio (1343 – killed in battle Caprino Bergamasco, 17 August 1373), condottiero and Governor of Pavia.
Enrica (born ca. 1344), married Franchino Rusconi dei Signori di Como.
Margherita (ca. 1345 – d. after 1413), Abbess of the Convent of Santa Margherita.
Ettore (ca. 1346 – 1413), who briefly took the Lordship of Milan (16 May – 12 June 1412), married Margherita Infrascati.
—With Montanina de Lazzari:
Sagramoro (d. 1385), Lord of Brignano (1380), married Achiletta Marliani, this branch finish with two Ladies: Claudia Visconti of Brignano, married in 1581 to Lodovico Marazzani Landi, Lord of Paderna and Villa del Riglio, Lord of Castelnuovo and Fabiano, from 1602 Lodovico Marazzani Landi Visconti Lord of Paderna, from 1605 Lodovico Count Marazzani Landi Visconti, Count of Paderna and Villa del Riglio, ect., and Flerida Visconti of Brignano married with Alessandro Marazzani Landi, Lord of Paderna and Villa del Riglio and one Lord: Alessandro Visconti, Lord of Brignano, Doctor in Laws in Pavia University
Donnina (1360–1406), married in 1377 to Sir
John Hawkwood.
—With Beltameda Cassa:
Elisabetta [Isotta] (d. 1388), married in 1378 to Count Lutz I von Landau, leader of the "Grand Company" of Condottiere in Italy.
—With Giovannola Montebretto:
Bernarda (d. 1376), married Giovanni Suardi.
—With Caterina Freganeschi:
Galeotto (d. after 1413).
Riccarda, married Bernardon de la Salle.
—With unknown mistresses:
Lionello (d. after 1404).
Isabella.
Damigella.
Isotta, married (annulled 1382) Carlo Fogliani.
Daughter, married Bernardo della Sala, Lord Soriano nel Cimino.
Valentina (d. after 10 April 1414), married Antonio Visconti, Lord of Belgioioso.
^George L. Williams, Papal Genealogy: The Families and Descendants of the Popes, (McFarland and Company Inc., 1998), 34.
^For this, see Irving Wallace, David Wallechinsky and Amy Wallace, The Book of Lists 2(1980), Ealing, London, Elm Tree, 1980 and Corgi, 1981.
ISBN0-552-11681-5 ; p 147, although here it says the incident occurred in 1370.
^For his plague regulations for Milan, see Rosemary Horrox, The Black Death(1994) III.65, p 203.
^Chaucer had been sent to Lombardy in 1378 on behalf of the young King Richard II to seek the support of Bernabò and Sir John Hawkwood on behalf of the
English war effort against France. His epistola metrica III.29 was tacitly addressed to Bernabò (Ernest H. Wilkings, The 'Epistolae Metricae' of Petrarch, (Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura), p. 11).
^Vergani, Graziano (2001). L'arca di Bernabò Visconti al Castello Sforzesco di Milano (in Italian). Cinisello Balsamo, Milano: Silvana.
ISBN9788882153847.
OCLC231957454.
^Palozzi, L. (2012). "Ritratto virile (Bernabò Visconti?)". In Fiorio, Maria (ed.). Museo d'arte antica del Castello Sforzesco (in Italian). Milano: Electa.
ISBN9788837096038.
OCLC884276067.
^H.S. Ettlinger, "Visibilis et Invisibilis: The Mistress in Italian Renaissance Court Society", Renaissance Quarterly, 1994.
^Mauro Colombo, Gian Luca Lapini, Matteo Sormani Turconi, Guido Maria Ratti.
"I Visconti — Storia di Milano". www.storiadimilano.it (in Italian). Retrieved 10 September 2020.{{
cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)
Sources
Black, Jane (2009). Absolutism in Renaissance Milan. Plenitude of power under the Visconti and the Sforza 1329–1535. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
ISBN9780199565290.
Bueno de Mesquita, Daniel Meredith (1941). Giangaleazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan (1351-1402): a study in the political career of an Italian despot. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ISBN9780521234559.
OCLC837985673.
Muir, Dorothy Erskine (1924). A history of Milan under the Visconti. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd.