Sforza

Sforza, a celebrated Italian family during the 15th and 16th centuries, the founder of which was a peasant of Cotignola, in the Romagna, by name Muzio Attendolo (1369–1424), who from a wood-cutter became a great condottiere and received from Count Alberigo de Barbiano the name of Sforza ('Stormer'—i.e. of cities). He speedily found himself the independent leader of a band of condottieri, and as constable to Queen Joanna II. was one of the main supports of the kingdom of Naples. His natural son, FRANCESCO SFORZA, then twenty-three, succeeded, and, as was the custom of the time, sold his sword to the highest bidder, fighting without the slightest scruple for or against the pope, Milan, Venice, and Florence. He invented an improved system of tactics, and it soon came to be taken for granted that victory was certain for the party which he supported. It was thus no great act of condescension in the Duke of Milan, the haughty Visconti, to confer upon him the hand of his only child Bianca and the succession to the duchy. Meantime Sforza took the march of Ancona from the pope (1434), added to it Pesaro (1443), and by a judicious combination of force and stratagem obtained his elevation to the dukedom of Milan (1450) after the decease of his father-in-law. He firmly established his authority over all Lombardy and several districts south of the Po, acquired the esteem of Louis XI., who gave up to him Savona and Genoa, and, after gaining the universal love of his subjects, died 8th March 1466. Though uninstructed he loved and protected letters. Unhappily his successors possessed neither his virtues nor his talents. His son, GALEAZZO-MARIA SFORZA (1466–76), was a tyrant and a monster of debauchery, prodigality, and ferocity, without a single redeeming feature in his character. He was assassinated at the porch of the cathedral of Milan. His son GIOVANNI-GALEAZZO SFORZA (1476–94) succeeded, under the regency of his mother, Bona of Savoy, who held the reins of government with a firm hand. But she was forced to give up (1480) her able coadjutor Simonetta to the vengeance of her brother-in-law, Lodovico Maria, surnamed 'the Moor' from his dark complexion; and three days after Simonetta's execution the ambitious Lodovico banished her, and assumed the regency. Finding the young duke in his way, Lodovico put him and his wife, Isabella of Calabria, in prison, and was immediately threatened with attack by the king of Naples, a danger which he attempted to ward off by giving his daughter Bianca, with a dowry of 400,000 ducats, to the Emperor Maximilian I. and by stirring up Charles VIII. of France to assert his claims to Naples. Soon afterwards Duke Giovanni-Galeazzo died, poisoned, as some believe, by his uncle, 20th October 1494. LODOVICO-MARIA (1494–1500) obtained his investiture as duke, and becoming alarmed at the rapid progress of the French in Italy he joined the league against them, and was rewarded for his perfidy by being driven from his duchy, which was seized by the troops of Louis XII. (1499). The following year he made an ineffectual attempt to regain possession, was made prisoner, and carried to France, where he died in 1510. Of great talents, but low morality, he valued astuteness more than everything else; yet his encouragement of letters and of the fine arts has preserved his name to posterity. His eldest son, MASSIMILIANO SFORZA (1512-15), regained the duchy of Milan after the reverses suffered by Louis XII., and with the aid of the Swiss steadily repulsed the various energetic attempts of the French to recover it; but after the battle of Marignano (1515) he abandoned his rights to the French for a pension of 30,000 ducats, glad to be free from the insolence and exactions of his allies and the attacks of his enemies. His brother FRANCESCO-MARIA SFORZA succeeded nominally to the Milanese after the battle of Pavia, but he was a mere puppet in the hands of Charles V., and on his death, 24th October 1535, and the extinction of the main line of the House of Sforza, the duchy was quietly swallowed up by Austria. The Dukes of Sforza-Cesarini descend from collateral branches of the family. See Ratti, Della Famiglia Sforza (1794).