Italian Castillans

Barons and Castellans
koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015|doi 10.1163/9789004282766_001
ii
History of Warfare
Editors
Kelly DeVries (Loyola University Maryland)
John France (University of Wales, Swansea)
Michael S. Neiberg (United States Army War College, Pennsylvania)
Frederick Schneid (High Point University, North Carolina)
VOLUME 102
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/hw
Barons and Castellans

The Military Nobility of Renaissance Italy
By
Christine Shaw
LEIDEN | BOSTON
iii
iv
Cover illustration: The castle of Torrechiara at Langhirano, in Emilia Romagna Region, Italy. Photography
by Fabio Macor. (License CC BY-SA 2.0)
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torrechiara#mediaviewer/File:Torrechiara_-_Castello.JPG
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Shaw, Christine (Italian Renaissance historian)
Barons and castellans : the military nobility of Renaissance Italy / by Christine Shaw.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-28275-9 (hardback : acid-free paper) -- ISBN 978-90-04-28276-6 (e-book)
1. Italy--History, Military--1268-1559. 2. Renaissance--Italy. 3. Nobility--Italy--History--To 1500. 4.
Landowners--Italy--History--To 1500. 5. Castles--Italy--History--To 1500. 6. Italy--Politics and government--1268-1559. 7. Italy--Social conditions--1268-1559. I. Title.
DG537.S42 2015
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2014033058
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Contents Contents
Contents
Acknowledgementsvii
1 Barons and Castellans in the Mid-Fifteenth Century1
2 Lands and Fortresses9
3 Barons in the City51
4 Honour, Faction and Private Wars67
5 A Life in Arms100
6 Allegiance and Rebellion I: The Fifteenth Century148
7 Allegiance and Rebellion II: The Italian Wars198
8 Conclusion249
Bibliography255
Index270
vi
Contentsv
Acknowledgementsvii
CHAPTER 1
Barons and Castellans in the Mid-Fifteenth Century1
CHAPTER 2
Lands and Fortresses9
CHAPTER 3
Barons in the City51
CHAPTER 4
Honour, Faction and Private Wars67
CHAPTER 5
A Life in Arms100
CHAPTER 6
Allegiance and Rebellion I: The Fifteenth Century148
CHAPTER 7
Allegiance and Rebellion II: The Italian Wars198
chapter 8
Conclusion249
Bibliography
Bibliography255
Index270
Contents
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements
vii
Acknowledgements
I have been collecting material for this book, and thinking about the issues addressed in it, since I wrote my doctoral thesis on the Roman barons. Much of
the concentrated research for it was undertaken during my last years as Senior
Research Fellow at the AHRC Centre for the Study of Renaissance Elites and
Court Cultures at the University of Warwick. Many conversations with friends
over the years have helped to inform and shape my ideas. Particular thanks are
due to Letizia Arcangeli, Marco Gentile and Susan Reynolds, and to Hamish
Scott, who generously read the book before it was submitted to the publisher,
for his encouragement and advice. Marcella Mulder, the editor at Brill, showed
exemplary patience and tact as more than one promised deadline for delivery
came and went over a number of years.
viii
Acknowledgements
Barons and Castellans in the Mid-Fifteenth Century
CHAPTER 1

Historians writing about the society of medieval and Renaissance Italy have
usually focused on towns and cities. Even those writing about rural society often concentrate on the district governed by a particular town. Bankers, merchants, lawyers, are generally seen as constituting the most characteristic
Italian social and political elites. The landed nobility not civic nobilities buying land, but noble clans with fortresses and men who fought for them, for
whom soldiering, not trade or the law, was the natural choice of career has
often been disregarded.
In recent years, studies of individual clans such as the Rossi of Emilia, the
Savorgnan of Friuli, the Fieschi of Liguria, the Orsini and Colonna of the Papal
States have begun to go some way in restoring them to their rightful place in
the history of the regions. Yet this will be the first comparative study of the
military nobility the signori di castelli, lords of castles, as they were known
to encompass the length of Renaissance Italy. Its foundation is comparison of
the major families of three regions in particular, Liguria, the provinces of the
Papal States around Rome, and the kingdom of Naples. Alongside them figure
families from elsewhere in Italy, from Friuli to Sicily, who feature in their own
right, and not just to provide context for the military nobility of those three
regions. The period covered is from one watershed in Italian history, the midfifteenth century, to another, the end of the Italian Wars in the mid-sixteenth
century.
The middle of the fifteenth century is a good vantage point from which to
make an introductory survey of the role of barons and lords of castles in different regions of Renaissance Italy, their place in political society and their military resources. In two of the major states, new dynasties were bedding in.
Francesco Sforza, the great mercenary captain, made himself duke of Milan in
1450 by force of arms. In Naples, Alfonso V of Aragon had won for himself recognition as king, and was based there rather than in his Spanish or Sicilian
dominions. In the Papal States, after a long period of absence followed by decades of schism, the papacy was becoming firmly re-established in Rome, and
the popes were beginning to assert control over their temporal dominions. All
three states were strongholds of the military nobility, who had to decide how
to deal with these changes. The conclusion in early 1455 of an Italian league
reaffirmed the new standing of these three rulers, and recast relations between
all the Italian states, providing a structure for the settlement of disputes by
Chapter 1
concerted diplomacy, or concerted military action if diplomacy failed. This

new system also affected the military nobility, circumscribing their freedom of
action in some ways, opening up new opportunities in others.
The barons and castellans of each region of Italy in the mid-fifteenth century, moulded by their homelands distinct political and physical geography,
had their own particular characteristics, many of which would persist until the
middle of the next century and beyond. Like dogs, whose diverse breeds are
able to recognize they belong to the same species, a great Neapolitan baron
ruling vast estates with thousands of subjects might have been able to recognize some affinity with a noble from the northern Apennines, hanging on to a
fraction of the lordship of a single castle perched on a crag but they would
have about as much in common as a Great Dane and a chihuahua.
Fragmentation was the key feature of the landscape of the military nobility
of Liguria. Much of the region was under the control of their clans. The passes
and valleys through the Apennine mountains that loom above the narrow
strips of plain along the coast were peppered with their fortresses. Many of the
inhabitants were their tenants or subjects, or both. Their partisans disputed
control of the coastal towns: clans such as the Doria and Spinola had greater
influence over some of these communities than did the government of the republic of Genoa. Not all the territory in Liguria was under the dominion of
Genoa, even nominally. There were a considerable number of Imperial fiefs,
relics of periods when the Holy Roman Emperors had directly ruled much of
northern Italy. At this period, their connections to the Empire were so tenuous
that they were, to all intents and purposes, independent statelets. Some Ligurian nobles held lands in neighbouring states the duchies of Milan or Savoy,
or the marquisate of Monferrato for which they recognized the lordship of
the princes. Nobles might also place themselves and other lands they held outside the dominion of these princes under their formal protection. It would
have been impossible to draw clear and uncontested state boundaries in Liguria: the complex and uncertain political geography of the region gave landed
nobles considerable room to manoeuvre, and to behave as more or less independent political agents.
By the mid-fifteenth century, the Ligurian noble clans were long-established.
Over the generations, each tended to split into several branches, a process encouraged by the prevailing inheritance custom of the division of lands in equal
shares among male heirs. In some families, one branch became markedly more
powerful, or at least more prominent, than the others, although this would not
necessarily make them the recognized leaders of the clan as a whole. Among
the Fieschi, one branch, the Fieschi di Torriglia, carried much the greatest political and military weight. Their wide estates in the mountains to the north
and east of Genoa extending into the duchy of Milan, together with their hold
over the Guelf faction in eastern Liguria, made the leading Fieschi of the day
the most powerful individuals of all the Ligurian nobility. In two families, the
Grimaldi and the del Carretto, such branches were distinguished by the possession of an important stronghold on the coast, a fortress overlooking a good
natural harbour. For the Grimaldi, this was Monaco, at the western extremity
of Liguria, which was not subject to Genoa or to any other state; for the del
Carretto, it was Finale to the west of Savona, which was an Imperial fief, a marquisate.
Neither of the two other major noble clans, the Doria and the Spinola, had
such a prominent single branch. Sorting out the genealogies for these much
ramified families, as for the Fieschi and Grimaldi, is complicated by their status
as alberghi in Genoa. Alberghi were formally constituted associations, taking
their name from the main family to which other family groups and individuals
had been aggregated. The Doria and Spinola were two of the largest alberghi,
both including relatively poor and obscure men as well as some of the richest
merchants in Genoa. Those Doria and Spinola who held lands and castles, including some Imperial fiefs, would not necessarily be among the leading figures. Some were, in fact, prime examples of nobles whose lands and lordship
brought them little income and a precarious status. They were historic rivals:
Spinola and Doria factions confronted one another through much of the western Riviera.
The Fieschi, Spinola, Doria and Grimaldi had dominated the city of Genoa
in the thirteenth century. The Grimaldi albergo was still influential there in the
fifteenth century, but was somewhat eclipsed by the other three; the Grimaldi
of Monaco held aloof. As nobles, no members of these clans could be elected
head of the government as doge. For contenders for the dogeship, nevertheless,
the support of prominent members of one or other of the clans was vital, especially in the fighting that was so often required to achieve that position or to
keep it. In the 1450s, the doge Pietro Campofregoso had the support of the
Doria. Many Spinola, and the most powerful Fieschi, were persistently opposed to him, making repeated assaults on the city. The opponent he most
feared was Gian Filippo Fieschi, who claimed the right to share in the income
and the government of the doge. He did not want to stay in Genoa, but to have
control over the eastern Riviera. Agreements between Gian Filippo Fieschi
and the doge soon broke down; neither really wanted peace or even a truce
with the other, but they were too evenly matched for either to achieve victory.
After Pietro Campofregoso had finally despaired of staying in power and negotiated the submission of Genoa to Charles VII of France in 1458, only to repent
Chapter 1
of his renunciation, he and Gian Filippo Fieschi fought against the French regime together; both met their deaths doing so in 1459.
The Lunigiana, the region of the Apennines where Liguria, Lombardy and
Tuscany met, was home to the Malaspina, the quintessential clan of impoverished lords of castles. All legitimate males of the family bore the personal title
of marchese, inherited along with the Imperial fiefs that formed the bulk of
their estates. Repeated subdivision of their lands over many generations meant
that by the mid-fifteenth century there were literally dozens of Malaspina
marchesi, scattered throughout the mountains of the Lunigiana. The small
mountain settlements over which they were lords yielded little revenue; their
fortresses provided bases for the imposition of tolls on routes through the
mountains, or straightforward extortion of money from travellers, or for raids
on rival branches of their family. Malaspina no longer played any role in the
political life of the surrounding states, but individuals looked to establish links
with the duke of Milan or the republic of Florence both interested in expansion into the Lunigiana to gain protection from their enemies and, for the
fortunate, military condotte to boost their income and prestige.
By contrast with the Lunigiana, the plains of the Po valley on the eastern
side of the Apennines were dominated by powerful lords of castles, sometimes
known as castellani, castellans. Leading figures amongst the most powerful
clans in the first half of the fifteenth century might still aspire to become lords
not just of castles but of cities. Such aspirations were not entirely forgotten by
the 1450s, although the princes of the region the duke of Milan, the marquis
of Ferrara would not have been prepared to tolerate their realisation. But the
princes could not prevent these clans from retaining great influence in the cities. Their influence was exercised not by holding civic offices, but through their
links to the urban factions who participated in the government; some factions
were known by the name of the noble clan to whom they looked for leadership.
If their dreams of becoming lords of cities were becoming less likely than
ever to be realized, the major landed nobles of Emilia could still aim to keep
their independence, for their lands to constitute a separate statelet. Possession
of one or more Imperial fiefs was crucial to success. It was this that enabled the
lords of Carpi and Mirandola to maintain their status as independent lords,
despite pressure from the Este of Ferrara, who wanted to subordinate them. In
the duchy of Milan, families such as the Rossi and Pallavicini who held more
lands and had greater followings than the lords of Carpi and Mirandola did,
were unable to win acceptance of independent status from the dukes of Milan.
Francesco Sforza had to come to terms with these families, as he fought to
establish himself as duke of Milan in the late 1440s. Their military resources
and the political control and influence they had over areas, especially in the
mountains, which ducal officials struggled to penetrate, made their support
indispensable to Sforzas winning the dukedom and then holding on to it. He

granted them privileges, recognizing and extending their jurisdiction, and gave
them condotte (although these would represent only a fraction of the military
resources of the clans). In return, however, he expected acknowledgement of
his superiority as duke.
In the territory held by the Venetians on the Italian mainland, there were
some long-established clans of noble landowners, but only in one province,
Friuli, were such families, the castellani, really dominant. Friuli was an impoverished region, whose only town of any size, Udine, was not to be compared to
Venetian subject cities like Verona and Vicenza, let alone to Venice itself. Until
1420, when it had been conquered by Venice, Friuli had been governed by an
ecclesiastical prince, the Patriarch of Friuli. Under the rule of the patriarchs,
much of the control over the lands, resources and strongholds of the province
had been in the hands of the castellans. The Venetians did not try to challenge
or change this, relying heavily instead on the cooperation of some castellans,
above all of the single most powerful clan, the Savorgnan. Tristano Savorgnan
had been a trusted friend to Venice before 1420, and played a significant part in
their conquest. His collaboration was important to the Venetians as they set
about consolidating their rule over their new territory. The Savorgnan claimed
the right to an influential voice in the government of Udine, and held some
of the most important fortresses in Friuli, including Savorgnan itself which
controlled a vital river in a region short of water, and Osoppo, which dominated the main route into Friuli from the Alpine passes. Many castellans maintained close relations over the Alps with Austria and with German noble
families. This could make the Venetians nervous as they suspected, not without cause, that these castellans would favour the lordship of the emperor,
rather than the rule of Venice. It was not a real problem in the 1450s, when
the emperor was the ineffectual Frederick III, but it would be under his more
ambitious son and successor, Maximilian I.
Within the territories of the Tuscan republics of Florence, Siena and Lucca,
no powerful clans of military nobility were in a position to challenge the government or bid to have a recognized share in it. There were a number of baronial families, some holding Imperial fiefs, on the fringes of Tuscany; the
Appiani, holding the coastal lordship of Piombino, the Sforza conti di Santa
Fiora, the conti di Castel Ottieri, the Farnese, and the Orsini da Pitigliano.
They were not subjects of the republics, and guarded their independence from
them. They might serve them as condottieri, or become their raccomandati,1
but would not consider themselves bound by any involuntary political ties.
1 See below, pp. 1501, 17980 n. 131.
Chapter 1
The Orsini da Pitigliano also had lands in the Papal States and were part of
one of the major clans of Roman barons. Baronial families the Colonna,
Orsini, Savelli, Caetani, Conti and Anguillara dominated the provinces
around Rome. Much of the land was held by them, and they had many fortresses. Over the centuries, baronial families had also built up networks of patronage and political alliances with the civic elites of towns, not just in the
provinces of the Patrimony, Sabina and Campagna Marittima where their
lands were situated, but in areas where they had few if any estates, especially
Umbria. In Rome itself, they had many clients and partisans. They could
threaten the security of Rome itself and put the pope in fear for his own safety.
To add to their military strength, all the baronial families had a tradition of
young men making a career as condottieri, ready to serve any state in the peninsula from Venice to Naples, if the opportunity arose.
Unable to offer employment to all Roman baronial condottieri in their own
armies, the popes could not insist that the barons must put their military resources exclusively at the service of the papacy. They struggled to prevent private wars among the barons, or to impose a solution in their disputes.
Occasionally, they mustered the resources to punish individuals or families
who had been particularly troublesome. Some barons were humbled, even dispossessed, as the once-powerful di Vico were in the 1430s. Major barons could
pass through torrid times when they were attacked by the pope, but it was difficult to crush them permanently. Usually, they just had to weather the storm
until the pope died, and then could recover their position very quickly their
resilience fostered by the deep roots their families had struck in the political
society of the Papal States.
A number of Roman barons held lands in both the Papal States and Naples;
some members of Roman baronial clans had most or all of their estates in the
kingdom. The single most powerful Neapolitan baron of the mid-fifteenth century was Giovanni Antonio Orsini, principe di Taranto, whose vast estates
dominated the south-east of the kingdom and stretched towards the city of
Naples, giving him more wealth, fortresses and men at his command than
some independent princes of northern and central Italy. He did not, however,
hold any lands in the Papal States. Some of the barons who held lands on both
sides of the border, such as Onorato Caetani, conte di Fondi, concentrated
their attention on Naples; others were based primarily in the Papal States.
Neapolitan baronial families who did not have estates outside the kingdom
as well tended to stay in it. They did not share the practice of Roman barons of
serving other states as condottieri. If a Neapolitan baron was to be found in the
service of another state, he would generally be an exile. Barons dominated provincial life throughout the kingdom. They were not grouped into cohesive,
coherent clans, although there were some numerous, much ramified families,
notably the Sanseverino, who had been prominent for centuries. While they
had clients and dependants, not even long-established families had networks
of partisans and political allies that could be identified as a faction or a party.
Many barons had quite shallow roots in their local communities. Apart from
natural wastage as families declined or disappeared for lack of heirs, the wars
and turmoil that had been the defining feature of the political life of the kingdom for centuries had frequently brought a change of lords to estates, and new
individuals and families into the ranks of the barons. Sometimes, newcomers
lasted only a generation or two before they disappeared.
Neapolitan barons were notorious for their violence, their feuds, and for
their propensity to challenge the power of the crown and to rebel. Enthusiastic
participation in the conflicts that had troubled the Angevin dynasty Alfonso of
Aragon had displaced had nourished a military culture among the barons.
Even if they held extensive lands, they were often far from rich. Few made a
reputation as patrons of the arts or learning. The major barons could raise
companies of men-at-arms from among their vassals and their clients among
the minor ones. Many estates were fiefs, held of the crown, and carrying theoretical obligations of military service. Alfonso, once he had secured the throne,
did not call on the barons to provide this military service, but those holding
lands that were part of the royal demesne by military tenure were expected to
serve in the kings armies, for payment. Some Neapolitan barons hired their
companies to the king as condottieri.
Barons and satraps was how Alfonso referred to the military nobility
whose support he needed if he was to make good his claim to the crown of
Naples.2 In order to win them over, he had to offer them not just condotte, but
lands, offices, revenues and titles. Once he had secured his throne, he still cultivated their goodwill. He also introduced another band of newcomers to the
baronage, rewarding men from Sicily and Spain who had come to fight for him.
These included two brothers, Alfonso and Iigo dAvalos, Castilian noble exiles
whose family would be conspicuously loyal, through several generations, to
the kings of Naples and would reap the rewards in lands and military commands. King Alfonsos illegitimate son Ferrante had been recognized as his
heir, but soon after his accession in June 1458, many barons rebelled against
him, and he had to face the challenge of Jean dAnjou, who came to claim the
throne for his father Ren. His experiences during the first years of his reign
before he finally prevailed in 1464 left him determined to cut the barons down
to size, and to reduce their military power.
2 Ryder, Alfonso, 212.
Chapter 1
In contrast to the kingdom of Naples, for the island kingdom of Sicily the
fifteenth century was a period of peace after the turbulence of the fourteenth
century, when the great barons had fought for control over the monarchy. Having been ruled as a separate kingdom by a cadet branch of the ruling dynasty
of Aragon, Sicily became assimilated into the Crown of Aragon when the cadet
branch came to an end in 1401. By and large, the Sicilian barons accepted this
situation, even though it meant that Sicily would no longer have its own resident monarch, but a viceroy. The barons might compete for the favour of the
viceroy, and hope to have influence with him, but they could not hope to control him, as they might a weak or minor monarch. They also had to manage
relations with a king who was generally absent, yet was still the ultimate fount
of favour and the political arbiter. The primary interest of the Sicilian barons in
the fifteenth century whether their families had been established in the island for centuries or were of Iberian origin and had only been settled in Sicily
for a generation or two was the accumulation of wealth and privileges, and
the strengthening of their power over their tenants. Military resources were of
secondary importance to them.
It is not possible to delineate a typical member of the Italian military nobility in the mid-fifteenth century, other than by a characteristic they shared with
the military nobility throughout Europe power based on the possession of
landed estates, defended by fortresses. Yet the signori di castelli who, superficially, most closely resembled those elsewhere in Europe the barons of the
kingdom of Naples were atypical in Italy.
Many not all lords of castles belonged to families which followed the
practice of dividing estates and lordships among male heirs, leading to much
ramified clans, a large proportion of whose members would be comparatively
poor. Many, including some of the most impoverished, were accustomed to a
high degree of political independence, either because of their legal status as
the holders of Imperial fiefs, or because of the weakness of their central government, whether republic or prince. Most were firmly embedded in their locality, and were the focus of local political networks that enhanced their
influence and their military strength. Some made careers as professional soldiers. If they did, as likely as not they would not be in the service of their prince
(if they had one). Few felt they owed their fortunes, or their estates, to the favour of their prince. None was really part of a political society in which they
were bound by honour and duty to the service of a prince in council or on the
field of battle. The Italian military nobility was not a service nobility or a court
nobility they were indeed, first and foremost, signori di castelli.
Lands and Fortresses
CHAPTER 2

Possession of lands and fortresses was integral to the identity of the military
nobility, to their own sense of who they were and to others sense of who they
were as well. Individuals could be accounted members of the military nobility
while holding no lands or castles, but a man would struggle to maintain that
status if all his family had lost theirs. On the other hand, ownership of a landed
estate, even one with fortifications, would not in itself qualify a family to be
considered signori di castelli. A rich merchant, a member of a civic nobility,
could buy an estate with a castle and his son could go off to be a soldier, but the
estates could be sold and the son return to take up the family business without
the family losing their status. If the lands and castles of a family of military
nobility were permanently lost to them by the fortunes of war or sale or confiscation, the family risked falling into oblivion, unless one or more of its members managed to retrieve the family fortunes and establish another base
elsewhere. Many of the estates of the military nobility might yield comparatively little income, but could still be prized because of their strategic position,
or the fighting men they could supply. The military resources of these estates
were an intrinsic part of their worth to their lords. Men who inherited only a
fraction of an estate would cling to it, and maintain their right to live there
rather than sell out and make what could well be a better living elsewhere.
Identification with, and attachment to, estates was strengthened and deepened where the family felt they were truly lords of the lands and the people,
independent of any superior, prince or republic.
The precise legal status of an estate whether it was an allod, owned outright, a long-term leasehold or a fief did not necessarily determine how
strong the sense of lordship of the individual or family who possessed it would
be. Some leaseholds had been in place for several generations, for centuries. If
they were held of a religious institution, the original lease might well have
been a disguised sale or grant or post facto legitimation of an act of usurpa-
tion in any case, in order to get round the canonical prohibition of the sale
of church lands. Fiefs generally brought with them the delegation or grant of
powers of government, of taxation and the administration of justice, that endowed the fiefholder with much greater authority over the people who lived
on them than the owner of an allod would generally have. Imperial fiefs, when
the authority of the Holy Roman Emperor in Italy was weak, were de facto independent states, however miniscule.
10
Chapter 2
Given the piecemeal way in which the patrimonies of many noble families
had been built up, sometimes over several centuries by purchase, grants, forcible seizure, inheritance from maternal kin or collateral lines of the lineage,
and dowries coming into the family confusion, genuine or contrived, over the
exact legal status of a particular estate, or the patrimony as a whole, was not
surprising. Financial or political pressures, or the fortunes of war could lead to
the loss of lands which might then be recovered on different terms. Acknowledgement of changes made under one set of circumstances might be disavowed under another, but leave grounds for legal dispute and conflicting
claims to rights over lands.
Borgo Fornari, which dominated the Valle Scrivia and hence one of the
routes between the duchy of Milan and the republic of Genoa, was an example
of the ambiguities that could arise. It had been included in the investiture with
the Valle Scrivia and much of the Val Borbera granted to Opizzino Spinola
by the Emperor Henry VII in 1313. Opizzino already possessed these lands, and
the Imperial investiture served principally to strengthen his title to them.1
In the early fifteenth century, Troilo Spinola sold Borgo Fornari to Genoa, to the
disgust of his family who ostracized him for alienating so important a place in
the middle of their lands. Shortly after it was one of the places taken by the
duke of Milan, Filippo Maria Visconti, during a war against Genoa, and in order
to have the help of the Spinola in his plans to take Genoa for himself, the duke
invested them with it in fief in 1421. After the Genoese revolt against Visconti in
late December 1435, the Spinola received a fresh grant of Borgo Fornari as part
of their agreement with the new republican government.2 By 1447, the behaviour of the Spinola who held Borgo Fornari, Caroccio di Oddone, was so disruptive that the doge, Giano Campofregoso began to lay plans to take it from him.
Getting wind of this, other Spinola agreed to buy it from Caroccio, and to forestall any dispute about this transaction, they asked the Genoese government to
ratify the sale. The Genoese wanted some recognition of their sovereignty over
the place in return, but the Spinola refused, arguing it was an Imperial fief.
Enquiries were made, and the Genoese concluded that in fact they had no
rights over Borgo Fornari, and gave their approval to the sale without any conditions.3
When there were no grounds for disputing to which state, if any, an estate
appertained, there could still be doubts about its legal status. When Girolamo
Orsini da Bracciano murdered his half-brother Napoleone in 1534, papal
1 Lorenzo Tacchella, La media ed alta Val Borbera nella Storia (Genoa, 1961), 5860.
2 Alessandra Sisto, I feudi imperiali del Tortonese (Turin, 1956), 33, 434.
3 ASGenoa, AS 537, ff. 160v-161r, 166r-168v, 175r-176r.
11
lawyers argued his estates should be confiscated, because they were allodial,
burgensatiche. The Orsini family lawyers argued they were fiefs, and should
not be confiscated but devolve to Girolamos heir, his brother Francesco, but
they struggled to find evidence to support their case.4
In fact, some at least of the Orsini estates had been formally granted to them
by the papacy, including Bracciano, over which Carlo, Francesco and Orso
Orsini had been given a vicariate for three years by Martin V in 1419. Typically,
they may well already have been in possession of it before, as their family had
been building up lands and rights in the area since the late fourteenth century.5 Typically, too, they kept it, although the grant was not formally renewed,
and did not render any payment to the popes to recognize it was held from the
papacy. The Orsini did not pay a census for any property they had already held
when it was the subject of a papal grant to them, or to which they considered
they had a claim independent of any grant. Whether in money or kind, a census was paid for only a handful of Orsini estates, sometimes sporadically. Other
baronial families were even more remiss in fulfilling obligations for estates for
which they had received some papal grant. Nor did papal officials try to chase
up payments that should have been due: memories about these obligations
were as short and as patchy on the side of the papal bureaucracy as on that of
the barons.6
King Ferrante of Naples argued that the estates of the Roman barons are
generally freely theirs, and not like the lands and estates of our kingdom and
those of other temporal princes.7 Roman barons were lords, not fiefholders or
vicars seeking confirmation or investiture from the pope, he said.8 Whatever
justification he had for such views of the relationship of Roman barons to the
pope (he had good reason to play down its significance) Ferrante was arguably
overstating the contrast with the barons of other Italian states, including his
own. For the most part, they did not feel beholden to anyone for their lands, or
feel any obligation to perform service for them.
Even in southern Italy, where there was no question that many estates were
held in fief, any sense of obligation for the grant quickly became a sense of
4 Pope Clement VII died later that year while the case was unresolved, and the College of
Cardinals decided before the election of the new pope that the Orsini should have back those
estates that were being held for the pope. (Christine Shaw, The Political Role of the Orsini Family
from Sixtus IV to Clement VII (Rome, 2007), 456.)
5 Francesca Laura Sigismondi, Lo stato degli Orsini (Rome, 2003), 1416.
6 Shaw, The Political Role, 3845.
7 Francesco Trinchera, Codice Aragonese (Naples, 186670), II, part 1, 31011: Ferrante to Antonio
de Gennaro, 7 Mar. 1493.
8 AColonna, III, BB, XXXVI/37: Ferrante to Belprato, 19 May 1491; Shaw, The Political Role, 47.
12
Chapter 2
entitlement to the estate and to the rights of lordship associated with it, to be
defended by force if need be. Prolonged political turbulence and war and a
disputed change of dynasty in the kingdom of Naples had resulted in many
fiefs being confiscated and granted to new holders or returned to former ones,
in some cases several times over. But barons still expected to leave their fiefs to
their heirs, and it became common practice for grants of fiefs to include the
right to pass them to indirect male heirs should the direct male line die out.9
The kings intervention in the proposals for the division of the inheritance
of the principe dAltamura between his two daughters, with the aim of securing the lions share for his son Francesco who was married to one of them,
brought Altamura and his other son-in-law, Pedro de Guevara, into the ranks of
the barons who rebelled against Ferrante in 1485. The declared desire of the
kings own son and heir Alfonso, duke of Calabria, to bring all the lands within
a forty-mile radius of the city of Naples into the royal demesne, was the other
major trigger of the rebellion. Antonello da Sanseverino, principe di Salerno
would have been one of the barons who would have been dispossessed by such
a move.10
For Sicilian nobles, fiefs were an essential part of their patrimony; other
lands, however profitable they might be, lacked their essential cachet. Yet fiefs
were treated much like allodial property. They were bought, sold, alienated,
given to younger or illegitimate sons, even to daughters. No homage or investiture was required to legitimate or confirm the holding of a fief.11
Fiefs in southern Italy and Imperial fiefs in northern Italy were regarded as
being more prestigious than other estates. Some Lombard lords, however, saw
acceptance of lands in fief from anyone other than the emperor as an unwanted acknowledgement of subjection, and of restrictions on what they could do
with their property. The Visconti and Sforza dukes of Milan had a policy of
trying, by force or persuasion, to make the landed nobles in their state accept
investiture as ducal fiefs of lands they already possessed.12 In some circumstances, this could be a means to regulate a situation where lands had been
seized by a noble and the duke lacked the power to recover them, rather than
an assertion of ducal power.13 When the duke was able to enforce his rights
9
10
11
12
13
Grard Delille, Famiglia e propriet nel Regno di Napoli (Turin, 1988), 45.
For the baronial rebellion in Naples in 14856, see below, pp. 1926.
Henri Bresc, Le fief dans la socit sicilienne (14101510), 32933.
Giorgio Chittolini, Infeudazioni e politica feudale nel ducato visconteo-sforzesco;
Federica Cengarle, Immagine di potere e prassi di governo. La politica feudale di Filippo
Maria Visconti (Rome, 2006).
Marco Gentile, Aristocrazia signorile e costituzione del ducato visconteo-sforzesco,
1423.
13
over a fief, there could be consolation for the lord in being freed from the bond.
Manfredo da Correggio valued the stronghold of Brescello, which he held in
fief from the duke of Milan, but when Galeazzo Maria Sforza sent troops to
take it from him in 1468, although Manfredo did not want to lose it, he felt that
he would at least have the satisfaction of being a free man and not having obligations to anyone through a fief. Holding a fief, he thought, had made him
seem a man of small account.14
The dukes also fought to establish overlordship of lands in Liguria, both
when Genoa was under them and when it was not. Between the investiture of
the Spinola with Borgo Fornari by Filippo Maria Visconti and its grant to them
by Genoa in 1435, the Spinola had agreed to cede it to the duke, so that they
would no longer have the obligations of the fief, according to Jacopo Spinola,
one of the brothers who had bought it of Caroccio in 1447. If they were to agree
that they held it in fief from Francesco Sforza, he protested, they would incur
the hatred of their fellow citizens in Genoa, and their affairs there would suffer.
They would be put to trouble and expense defending Borgo Fornari, as the Genoese could not tolerate having a castello so close to the city being in fief to the
duke.15
When Louis XII of France was lord of Genoa and Milan in the early sixteenth century, Luciano Grimaldi was put under great pressure to sell Monaco,
or exchange it for a fief in France. Luciano was arrested in 1507 and held prisoner in Milan for a year. Back in Monaco, he had a notary make a legal record
of his protest against any concessions that might be extracted from him that
would contravene his sovereign rights. Any cession of the fortress, or agreement to vassalage or to the payment of homage, diminishing his prerogatives,
he declared should be regarded as null and void. Louis had to give up the idea
of having Monaco, or of receiving feudal homage for it from the Grimaldi.16
Nor would the Grimaldi recognize Monaco to be an Imperial fief. An error by
an agent negotiating an agreement for Imperial protection of Monaco in 1524,
resulted in the insertion into it of a clause that the lord of Monaco should
recognize for himself, his heirs and successors, that he held it in fief from
the Emperor and should pay homage and swear fealty. If he had wanted to
give his envoy a mandate to concede this, Agostino Grimaldi protested, he
could not have done so: he was merely the lord of Monaco for his lifetime, and
14
15
16
Ibid., 1434.
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 409: Jacopo Spinola to Cicco Simonetta, 16 Nov. 1454, Borgo
Fornari.
Gustave Saige, Documents historiques relatifs la Principaut de Monaco (Monaco, 1888
9), II, LVI-LXIII, 925.
14
Chapter 2
could not inflict such damage and prejudice on his successors. The king of
France had tried and failed to get such terms, he recalled, but that had been
resisted, and the king of France, as ruler of Genoa and Milan at that time, had
been just as important a figure to the lord of Monaco as the emperor was now.
Agostino succeeded in getting the offending clause cancelled, with the Imperial chancery conceding that its implementation would have meant irreparable prejudice to the lord of Monaco and his successors.17 But Italian lords, like
Italian princes and republics, had to be on their guard in the sixteenth century
against attempts by the kings of France and Spain and the Emperor and their
agents in Italy to assume or impose authority over them when there were no
legal grounds for doing so.
The identification of members of the military nobility with the familys
lands, the consciousness of the status, as much as the power, that came with
holding jurisdiction over men and the possession of fortresses, was reflected in
the customs and practices that governed the transmission of estates from one
generation to the next. The predominant custom in fifteenth-century Italy
among the military nobility was for all legitimate sons to have the right to a
share, usually an equal share, of the property left by their father. Primogeniture
was exceptional, although it was becoming more common. Attempts to establish primogeniture were not always successful, despite the recognition of how
division and subdivision of estates weakened the power of the family as a
whole. Fond fathers might be unable to bring themselves to favour their eldest
son at the expense of the others. If they had no living sons, but did have one or
more daughters, they might wish to pass their estates to their girls, rather than
to the nearest male heir or heirs.
As a consequence of the prevailing inheritance customs, it was common
practice for estates to be governed by groups of lords by two or more brothers, by uncles and nephews, by a clutch of cousins rather than by a single individual. Key properties, such as the estates from which a lineage took its
name, might be held in common for generations. Frequently, brothers held
their lands in common until one or more of them had sons of their own growing to manhood. When estates could not be divided, because family tradition
or the binding provisions of a will forbade it, or because there were so many
individuals with a share that it was not feasible to split the property up, there
might be a dozen or more lords. For smaller properties where numerous cousinhoods refused to relinquish their rights, the situation became almost farcical. Some villages have so many gentlemen with a share in the lordship,
commented the sixteenth-century writer Stefano Guazzo on Monferrato, that
17
Ibid., 2338, 2437, 24952.
15
they have scarcely an inch of land each and spill out of various doors in such
numbers they seem like rabbits.18 Multiple lords might take it in turns to exercise jurisdiction over the estate and the men, as the fourteen sons of Azzone
Malaspina di Mulazzo did after his death in 1473.19 Another solution was to
elect one or more of their number as governors, as the Fieschi di Savignone
did, enshrining the role of the three deputati al governo in statutes for the
civil and criminal jurisdiction of Savignone in 1487.20
An eloquent denunciation of the dire consequences of division of property
was set out in the lengthy testament of conte Antonio da Marsciano, drawn up
in 1476. His lands, fortresses, arms and artillery, his portable altar and his library (lovingly described, book by book), and the family plate and table ornaments used for banquets were all entrusted to his eldest son Ranuccio (like his
father, a condottiere of some repute). This property and all these goods were to
be kept together for the benefit of the whole family; they were not to be sold or
pledged or divided up. He exhorted his nine sons to abide by his dispositions,
and urged them to stay united the ruins and misfortunes of our ancestors,
born out of discords and divisions [of property], proved how advantageous,
how essential, this was. He gave a detailed history of the divisions of property
and the troubles they had caused the family over several generations to reinforce his admonitions.21
Keeping up arrangements for joint lordship for one generation could be
problematic enough. Keeping them going for two or more generations would
demand a high degree of mutual forbearance and willingness to cooperate.
They were even more difficult to maintain if shares became increasingly unequal. Some biological good fortune was required as well, with enough sons living to adulthood to ensure the survival of the family but not too many for the
available resources to sustain. Sooner or later, most such arrangements would
be ended by subdividing the property, so each participant had full control over
their own share. Naturally, dividing up estates could breed new quarrels and
resentments. In some instances, there were so many lords that subdivision was
no longer an option, and they would just have to make the best of it. The Spinola of Arquata resorted to a compromise in 1523, drawing lots to decide which of
18
19
20
21
Stefano Guazzo, La civil conversazione, ed. Amedeo Quondam (Modena, 1995), 134.
Eugenio Branchi, Storia della Lunigiana feudale (Pistoia, 18978), I, 2323.
Flavia Cellerino, Gli Statuti di Savignone, 58.
Ferdinando Ughelli, Albero e Istoria della famiglia de conti di Marsciano, ed. Maria Grazia
Nico Ottaviani (Marsciano, 2003), 12875 (Latin version); Italian translation in Appendice, 70117 (quotation, 96).
16
Chapter 2
their men should obey which lord; any new resident would have to pick a lord
within six months of coming to live in Arquata.22
Aware of the danger that as estates were fragmented by subdivision, the political power and military resources of the lineage would be weakened, some
individuals sought to break with custom and introduce primogeniture. This
could require the sanction of the prince, in Lombardy, for example, the duke of
Milan.23 Gian Luigi Fieschi in 1495 obtained a grant from the emperor-elect,
Maximilian I, of the right to make his eldest son his heir, with provision of entailed estates (fedecommissi) for his other sons. In his will, he left the main
block of his fiefs to his eldest son, Gerolamo, and more detached estates to his
younger sons.24 A petition on behalf of all the Malaspina to the Emperor
Charles V in 1530 brought permission to institute primogeniture in the inheritance of their lands,25 but divisions still went on. The pull of custom was very
strong. Even in the kingdom of Naples, where primogeniture was the default in
the event of a father dying intestate, division between sons was the norm. Inheritance customs there were different according to whether lands were allods
or fiefs, whether fiefs had been inherited or granted to the testator, and whether they were considered to be subject to Frankish or Lombard laws.26 The general pattern was for lands to be divided among sons, with, in the greater
families, the major fiefs going to the eldest son. The more prestigious the family, the more unequal the division tended to be.27 Single fiefs in the kingdom
could not be subdivided.28
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
Sisto, I feudi imperiali, 83.

Letizia Arcangeli, Gentiluomini di Lombardia (Milan, 2003), XVIII.
Sisto, I feudi imperiali, 546; Riccardo De Rosa, I Fieschi (Genoa, 2004), 202.
Branchi, Storia della Lunigiana feudale, I, 2489.
That is, the customs and practices that developed from those introduced by the Norman
settlers of the kingdom (Frankish), and the body of law and customs originally based on
laws issued by Lombard, Carolingian and German kings of Italy and gathered into collections by academic lawyers (notably the Libri Feudorum), which was followed in other
areas of Italy as well (Lombard). Primogeniture in Naples came to be associated with ius
francorum (Aurelio Cernigliaro, Sovranit e feudo nel Regno di Napoli 15051557, 2 vols
(Naples, 1983), I, 2201, note 156). For a discussion of the complexities and obscurities surrounding these bodies of law and their application, see Susan Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals.
The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted (Oxford, 1994; 1996), 181257, especially 21530, 240
9.
Delille, Famiglia e propriet, 2636; Maria Antonietta Visceglia, Linee per uno studio unitario dei testamenti e dei contratti matrimoniali dellaristocrazia feudale napoletana tra
fine Quattrocento e Settecento, in Mlanges de lcole franaise de Rome, 95 (1983), 393
470.
Delille, Famiglia e propriet, 356.
17
The circumstances in which women could inherit fiefs were complicated

in the kingdom of Naples by the coexistence of Lombard and Frankish customs. A legal decision promulgated in 1418, for example, laid down that a woman living by Lombard law could not inherit fiefs if she had already been given a
dowry by her father or her brother; if she was living by Frankish law, she could
inherit a fief, but not from her brother if she had already been given a dowry by
him.29 All noble families and not just in Italy disliked lands passing to another family through a woman. As far as possible dowries would be paid in
cash; they might, if necessary, be secured on land, but dowries in land would be
exceptional. Women never seem to have been included in the groups of joint
lords. Unless they were widows, they rarely held or governed lands in their own
right. They could act as guardians for their children, or govern lands for absent
husbands or sons. On occasion, a widow might have difficulty enforcing her
authority, like the widow of Leonello Spinola who could not get either obedience or the revenues due to her and her young son from their subjects in 1453.30
Others became formidable matriarchs, ruling the affairs of their family for
many years. Costanza dAvalos, who refused to remarry after the death of her
husband, Federico del Balzo when she was aged only twenty-three, acted as the
guardian of the children of her brothers Iigo, marchese del Vasto, and Alfonso, marchese di Pescara. She gained possession of extensive lands, erected into
a duchy for her in her own right.31
If, in the absence of direct male heirs, lands were inherited by females, the
fathers family would usually try to marry the heiress to a member of their own
lineage. Testators who provided for the possibility of their inheritance passing
to a female could specify that women married within their kin should have
preference. Giancorrado Orsini da Mugnano in his will of 1526, for example,
made his legitimate sons his direct heirs, and if they died without male issue,
another, probably illegitimate, son would inherit, provided he married. Only if
he refused, or had no male issue, would Giancorrados daughters or his male
heirs daughters succeed, provided they were married to an Orsini di Mugnano
or, failing that, to an Orsini di Pitigliano, the most closely related branch of the
family.32 It could be asserted, as Ascanio Colonna would do, when Vespasiano
Colonna left his daughter Isabella as his heiress in 1528, that the rights of the
male line should be given precedence over any right of a female to inherit. I am
29
30
31
32
Nunzio Federigo Faraglia, Storia della Regina Giovanna II dAngi (Lanciano, 1904), 1067.
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 408: Bernab Adorno to Francesco Sforza, 2 Aug. 1453, Capriata.
Elena Papagna, Tra vita reale e modello teorico: le due Costanze dAvalos nella Napoli
aragonese e spagnola, 54863.
Shaw, The Political Role, 79.
18
Chapter 2
the one and only heir left in my family, he declared, all the rest are from illegitimate lines, or women.33 The dispute over Isabellas inheritance would go on
for decades. The greater the inheritance of an heiress like Isabella, the more
difficulty her fathers kin were likely to have in marrying her off to one of themselves without encountering opposition, let alone successfully assert a right to
take the lands from her. The marriage of an heiress was a boon that princes
were ready to regard as within their gift; they wanted to choose who should
have the bride, and the lands.
In disputes about female inheritance of lands, the question of how this
would affect military obligations to the prince for the estate was rarely, if ever,
an issue. An obligation on fiefholders to perform military service as a condition
of their tenure survived in the mid-fifteenth century only in Sicily and in the
area of north-western Italy which was culturally and politically strongly influenced by France. At war with Milan in 1449, Ludovico, Duke of Savoy issued a
general summons to all his vassals to muster with arms and horses to serve,
explicitly referring to their obligations under the terms of investiture with their
fiefs, with threats of penalties if they failed to comply. Many did not obey, nevertheless, for the nobles sense of obligation to perform military service had
weakened, and this was not a war of defence. Individual summonses to major
nobles, asking them to raise and bring a company of men to the army had better results, not least because they were promised they would be paid. By the
late fifteenth century, the dukes could no longer count on the military nobility
to provide significant numbers of cavalry no gentleman considered this a
moral obligation any more, except in situations of absolute emergency.34 The
military obligations of the fiefholders of the marquisate of Saluzzo were outlined by one of their number, Giovanni Andrea Saluzzo di Castellar, as being
restricted to service for one month at their own expense, longer only if they
were paid, and then only to defend the person or state of the marquis or to
go to recover lands he had lost. They did not have to go with him if he was going
to war to support an ally, and if they did accompany him would expect their
expenses to be covered: otherwise stay at home if you dont want to look mad.35
Sicilian barons were expected to serve their monarch outside Sicily, as when
fiefholders were summoned to muster at Messina in March 1503 to campaign
33
34
35
AGSimancas, Estado, leg. 1005, 95: Ascanio Colonna to Charles V, 19 Nov. 1529, camp near
Florence.
Alessandro Barbero, I soldati del principe. Guerra, Stato e societ nel Piemonte sabaudo
(14501580), 1734, 1801; quotation, 181.
Ibid., 181.
19
against the French in Calabria and Apulia.36 They would be expected to serve
largely or wholly at their own expense, and some were forced to sell or mortgage lands to meet the costs. Permission to do this could be issued with the
summons, as when Antonio Moncada, the largest fiefholder in eastern Sicily,
was summoned for military service in December 1524, with leave to raise 600
onze by selling or pledging land.37 The level of military obligations for fiefholders the provision of a man-at-arms for every 20 onze of revenue from their fief
had not changed since the fourteenth century; it is not known whether the
impositions on individual fiefs had been changed as the onze became worth
much less or fiefs changed hands, but it does appear to have become more
burdensome. As well as fighting the kings wars abroad, the barons were called
on to help defend the island of Sicily from the French, the Turks and corsairs.
Barons might be ordered to bring their vassals to strengthen the defences of a
coastal city, or to help patrol a stretch of coastline; sometimes they were given
an official position with some powers of government and paid a salary. By the
1520s, the inadequacies of such arrangements were all too obvious, and Spanish troops were deployed to man the coastal defences. Changes to the balance
of forces in field armies also made the heavy cavalry of less importance, and
there were more effective ways of recruiting and organizing men-at-arms then
the slow and uncertain feudal summons. Military service by Sicilian fiefholders
became more frequently commuted into a financial levy.38
In the kingdom of Naples, by contrast, military obligations of fiefhold-
ers had routinely been turned into a tax, the adoha, long before. In 1442,
Alfonso I had granted the barons perpetual immunity from further payments
of the adoha, but in the sixteenth century Ferdinand the Catholic and Charles
V asked for it to be paid in time of war. It became subsumed into the main direct tax, the donativo.39
Elsewhere in Italy, any clauses in investitures with fiefs that did specify military service were inoperative, if not long forgotten. New grants of fiefs in Lombardy and the Veneto did not include such clauses. When military nobles who
held fiefs from the duke of Milan or the republic of Venice fought for them,
they did so as condottieri expecting to be paid an agreed rate set by a regular
contract, not as fiefholders fulfilling a duty. Imperial fiefholders in Italy were
36
37
38
39
Carmelo Trasselli, Da Ferdinando il Cattolico a Carlo V. Lesperienza siciliana 14751525

(Soveria Mannelli, 1982), II, 497.
Ibid., 504.
Ibid., 4379, 493507.
Aurelio Cernigliaro, Sovranit e feudo nel Regno di Napoli 15051557 (Naples, 1983), I, 1436,
25860.
20
Chapter 2
not bound to serve the emperor, or to provide him with troops or money in lieu
when the German lands of the Empire agreed to do so. Those in north-west Italy did find themselves called on to accept a kind of military obligation during
Charles Vs reign, however. They could be required to provide billets and supplies for units of his army in northern Italy, unwelcome guests who could be a
heavy burden on the estates. Charless own officials, desperate as they were to
find lodgings and food for their own men, recognized that the Imperial fiefs in
the mountains, such as the marquisates of Finale and Ceva and the Malaspina
lands in the Lunigiana, were so impoverished and infertile that only infantry
who were regularly paid (as the Imperial and Spanish infantry rarely were)
could subsist on them.40
As a rule, the military resources of the estates of barons and castellans were
developed and maintained to protect and further their own interests, personal
and political, and those of their family, friends and allies. Fortresses were the
heart of their estates it was not fanciful for the military nobility to be distinguished from the civic nobilities of Italy by being designated signori di castelli,
lords of castles.41 At one end of the scale, possession of a fortress, however
small or antiquated, could have symbolic value at most; at the other end, some
families possessed fortresses of a size, strength or sophistication that enabled
them to defy the army of a prince. For those who aspired to be independent of
any prince, at least one major stronghold was an essential element of their
state. The other important military resource that the military nobility could
derive from their estates was fighting men. Those who were able to rely on the
loyalty and support of the people on their estates were not only strengthened
in good times, but had a much better chance of weathering bad times. Lands
lost in wars or political storms could be recovered more easily with the support
of the people. Lords who were on bad terms with their men would not be able
to rely on their help and might face a rebellion, which could lead to the loss of
the estate. An appeal by the people of a barons estates to his prince, complaining of oppression and injustice, provided a good pretext for the princes intervention, to assert his authority over the barons lands, even to confiscate them.
The fortifications which characterized the estates of the military nobility
ranged from defensible walls surrounding a settlement including a house for
the lord and his family, to fortified houses which could resist assault, to castles
40
41
Calendar of State Papers, Spanish, III, 1, 321: Abad de Najera to Charles V, 9 Sept. 1525,
Vercelli.
In Sicily, Alfonso I agreed in 1452 to a petition from the barons meeting in the Parlamento
that only fiefs that had castles or fortifications could be considered noble (E. Igor Mineo,
Nobilt di stato (Rome, 2001), 290).
21
whose primary function was military and which could be used as a residence
only in times of trouble, to fortresses built according to the latest principles of
military architecture and engineering which incorporated palatial living quarters. The most powerful barons would have multiple fortresses, of varying age,
complexity and utility. Pietro Maria Rossi had over twenty in Emilia in 1480,
several of which he had built or strengthened, including the fanciful Torrechiara.42 The major lineages of Roman and Neapolitan barons could probably
have matched, or surpassed that leaving aside Giovanni Antonio Orsini,
principe di Taranto, whose tally might well have risen into the hundreds, possessing as he did 400 castelli, not to mention 37 towns and cities.43 Castello
could designate anything from a walled hamlet to a mighty fortress, so unless
the fortifications or a depiction or description of them survive, it is not pos
sible to assess how effective a military asset they might have been. Even minor
barons could have a couple of towers or small fortresses on their lands, and a
small tower in the right position perched on one of the innumerable crags in
Italys mountain chains, for instance could be capable of resisting any attack.
A detailed survey of estates confiscated by the Spanish government of
Naples from barons accused of assisting the French invasion of the kingdom
in 1528 provides a glimpse of how the fortifications of the barons appeared
to the officials sent to appraise and value their lands. Melfi, the city from which
the principe di Melfi took his title, had a large castle with nine towers dominating the city (as it still does today), and is encircled by a good strong stone
wall with smaller towers [turriones]. As it stood, and stands, the castle had
been given its final form by the Angevin monarchs; the original fortress
had been built by the Norman rulers of the kingdom in the eleventh century,
and was a favourite residence of the Emperor Frederick II, who had also modified it, in the thirteenth century.44 Another town that was part of the principate of Melfi, Atella, had an old castle with four small towers and a good ditch.45
Sanfele, which had 130 households to Atellas 500, had a castle on a height
joined to the township, very strong and impregnable, if well supplied; Forenza,
with 400 households, had no castle because it is strong and high up;46 Rippa
42
43
44
45
46
Giorgio Chittolini, Il particolarismo signorile e feudale in Emilia fra Quattro e Cinque

cento, 287, n. 47.
Michele Viterbo, Aragona, Orsini del Balzo, e Acquaviva dAragona nella Contea di Conversano, 335.
Nino Cortese, Feudi e feudatari napoletani della prima met del Cinquecento (1929), 30;
photographs of the fortress as it is today in Flavio Conti, Castelli e rocche (Novara, 1999),
2901.
Cortese, Feudi e feudatari napoletani (1929), 30.
Ibid., 31.
22
Chapter 2
Candida, with 110 households, had a castle described as not very strong;47 the
uninhabited estate of Lagopesole boasted a fine, big, strong castle, worked in
diamond points (masonry whose individual blocks were shaped like the point
of a diamond, usually as much for decoration as for deflecting shot), with walls
and a ditch.48
All these places, and several more, had belonged to Giovanni Caracciolo,
principe di Melfi; the fortifications of estates confiscated from other reputed
rebels were appraised with equal care. Old and unsophisticated systems of
fortifications were assessed, such as those of Cellammare, near Bari, which had
an old wall and a ditch and an old house for the baron,49 or Milito, which
had no walls around the township of 150 households, but did have a small castle with a walled citadel to give shelter to the vassals in time of war.50 Some
formerly significant strongholds were apparently being neglected in favour of
places with more amenities. Giacomo Maria Caetani, conte di Morcone, had
taken his title from Morcone, which was perched on the crest of a mountain,
with a castle in poor repair at the highest part of the township.51 Under the
jurisdiction of Morcone were 364 households and fertile lands, but it was a less
attractive base for the count that another of his estates, San Marco de li Cavoti,
where the township was on a hill, with walls and two strong stone towers with
some artillery pieces, and a fine house for the baron, where any great lord
could stay at the entrance,52 or the nearby estate of Sangiorgio della Molinara,
another hilltop walled township, which had a beautiful house in the upper
town, new, large and fine.53 Minor barons, too, had been building or updating
fortresses, as residences for themselves and their families or as defences. San
Barbato, the sole estate listed as the former possession of Gianbattista di
San Barbato, for example, had a new and wellmade castle and walls, but only
about ten households lived by it; most of the inhabitants of the estate lived in
a separate settlement, Parolisi, which had a stone tower with a ravelin about it,
although in time of war everyone took refuge in the walled village and the
castle.54
Detailed descriptions were given of some of the more substantial fortifications. Lettere, nineteen miles from Naples and three from the sea, one of the
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
Ibid., 32.
Ibid., 32.
Ibid., 83.
Ibid., 789.
Ibid., 143.
Ibid., 142.
Ibid., 144.
Ibid., 43.
23
properties confiscated from Carlo Miroballo, had a lovely and strong castle
with four towers and a great keep; it has three gates with drawbridges, and
stands at the high part of the city; it was important, the official noted, placed
as it was on the highway between Naples and Castellammare. Quarata, near
Bari, which had belonged to Lanalao de Aquino, marchese di Quarata, as well
as good walls, towers and a ditch around it, had a good castle at one end, with
good living quarters and big stables, with two gates with drawbridges and towers, and a ravelin around it and a great ditch.55 The principal estate of Pietro
Stendardo, Arienzo in the Terra di Lavoro, had good, high walls with a great
ditch, and the entrance to it is by drawbridges and it has large towers at the
gates, and many towers along the wall, among them two big and strong ones,
and another square tower over the gate on the road to Naples; there was no
castle, but a large palace within the town, with a garden and a great cistern.56
Barons in other parts of the peninsula did not have the great urban fortresses that some Neapolitan barons possessed, but otherwise the wide range of
baronial strongholds that were described in this survey could be found
throughout Italy.
Most of the fortresses in Liguria belonging to the military nobility derived
their strength and importance from their site, such as Monaco or Finale, both
dominating a natural harbour. Often there would not be room for extensive
outworks. One of the largest baronial fortresses in Liguria was the Fieschi
stronghold of Montoggio in the Valle Scrivia. Standing on a rock which fell
steeply away on three sides, the castle was built on a square, with four circular
corner towers, enclosing a small courtyard in which rose a high circular tower.
The entrance was protected by a bastion, and there was an enclosure defended
by a curtain wall.57
In Friuli and the Lunigiana the characteristic baronial fortifications were
comparatively simple, a valid defence against the raids of a neighbour, but incapable of withstanding a fullscale siege. Edward Muirs disparaging assessment of the military worth of the fortifications of Friuli could have been
applied to many of the military nobility in the Lunigiana as well. These lumps
of stone served the decaying power of the nobles who prized them as signs of
honour and who seldom risked closing their gates and manning their towers
against attackers more dangerous than their own peasant tenants or their castellan neighbours. By the sixteenth century only a handful of the castles
55
56
57
Ibid., 78.
Ibid., 401.
Mauro Minola and Beppe Ronco, Castelli e fortezze di Liguria (Genoa, 2006), 1734; Daniele Calcagno, Il castello di Montoggio (Montoggio, 1999), 5964..
24
Chapter 2
retained any authentic military value, and most castellans quickly capitulated
before they would face a siege from a real army.58
For villages protected by a wall, or small fortresses consisting of nothing
more than a single tower, their position might be their strongest defence. On
lower ground, water could be an effective defencework. Sterpo in Friuli, a property of the Colloredo family, was situated near the junction of two streams; its
walls were surrounded by a moat connected to one of them, and a pond had
been dug out of marshy ground on one side. The only way in was by a bridge,
through a tower. The walls enclosing the modest living quarters were in part
merely earthworks, in part of rough stone, and on the other side of the moat
another circuit of walls formed an enclosure in which peasants and livestock
could take refuge. Unsophisticated as it was, this castle protected the people
and animals from several villages during an invasion of Friuli by the Turks in
1499.59 Generally, it was being sited on a height, on a ridge or an outcrop where
the natural steep contours of the rock could baffle all assault, that could render
even a modest tower a virtually impregnable fortress. The Spinola fortress fittingly called La Pietra (The Rock) was just two conjoined towers, one placed
higher than the other, wedged between two high spurs of rock on either side. It
stood alone, and produced no income; nevertheless, Filippo Spinola maintained in 1459 (when asking for Milanese help in keeping it manned and supplied), it was held in high regard, and there were several lords who coveted it.60
La Pietra was still of sufficient importance during the Napoleonic Wars for
French troops to disarm and burn it. Restored in the twentieth century, the
fortress is still a striking sight in the middle of the wilds of the Valle Scrivia.61
The rock on which stood Osoppo the Savorgnan fortress that held out
against Imperial invasions of Friuli in 1511, 1513 and 1514 when almost all the rest
of Friuli was occupied was used as a stronghold from pre-Roman times to the
twentieth century; the fortress finally succumbed to the severe earthquake
that struck Friuli in 1976. The site was described by Girolamo Savorgnan in 1510
as a marvellous natural fortress. Of the mountains three faces, two could not
be climbed, and the third had a ridge which could be used as a roadway, guarded by outcrops of rock that, he wrote, could not have been better placed for
defence by a military architect. Two great cisterns, apparently constructed by
58
59
60
61
Edward Muir, Mad Blood Stirring (Baltimore and London, 1993), 24.
Ibid., 1412.
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 413: Filippo Spinola to Cicco Simonetta, 9 June 1459.
Minola and Ronco, Castelli e fortezze di Liguria, 16971.
25
the Romans, a large pond for livestock and a wood ensured supplies of water
and fuel.62
The military nobility continued to add to the rich patrimony of fortifications they inherited, to repair and replace fortifications damaged by natural
causes such as earthquakes or lightning strikes or by an enemy, to modernize
and extend existing castles and to build completely new ones. A favoured design for those built from new or radically altered, where the site permitted, was
a rectangle or pentagon with large towers at each angle. Virginio Orsini consulted the finest military architect of his day, Francesco di Giorgio Martini,
about the fortress he intended to build at Campagnano and other works.63
Generally the names of the designers of the fortifications are not known. In
many cases, especially when the baron was himself an experienced soldier, he
might well have designed or directed the work himself. The fortress of Alviano
in Lazio, for instance, was rebuilt in the late fifteenth century, and as Bartolo
meo dAlviano was entrusted with designing major fortifications for the Venetian republic when he commanded the Venetian army, the tradition that
assigns the design of his new fortress to him is probably well-founded. Constructed as a regular rectangle, with large round towers at each angle, the same
height as the walls, and imposing escarpments, it also had an outer, lower, system of defence works. Typical of the military architecture of the day, it was also
typical of the major noble fortresses built at this time in being intended as a
lordly residence, as well as a military base, with an elegant courtyard at its
heart.64
One of the best-known of the new fortresses built in the fifteenth century
was at nearby Bracciano, built for Napoleone Orsini and his son Virginio.
A pentagonal castle with five round towers, its rooms were decorated with frescoes by Antoniazzo Romano, including one celebrating Virginio Orsinis appointment as captain-general of Naples. Fine as it was, it was not just for show;
Bracciano became the principal fortress of that line of the Orsini family.
Pitigliano, the main stronghold of that other branch of the Orsini family, owed
its reputation for being impregnable to its position on a volcanic plug. It had
another cycle of frescoes celebrating the Orsini, apparently commissioned by
Niccol Orsini in the later fifteenth century, in the old square fortress that was
later incorporated in the palace designed for his grandson Gian Francesco by
Antonio da Sangallo.65
62
63
64
65
Marino Sanuto, I diarii (Venice, 18791903), X, 3534; Muir, Mad Blood Stirring, 279.
ASSiena, Balia 545, 14: Virginio Orsini, 23 Nov. 1490, Bracciano.
Conti, Castelli e rocche, 200.
Cecilia Alessi, La saga degli Orsini a Pitigliano, 23162.
26
Chapter 2
The major castellans of the region around Parma were also building fine
fortress-palaces for themselves. The most spectacular was Torrechiara, built by
Pietro Maria Rossi between 1448 and 1460. A fascinating fresco cycle, combining homage to his beloved mistress with depictions of his estates, graces the
Camera dOro there. Its fortifications are elaborate. Four great square towers
are linked by ranges of buildings, enclosing a courtyard. Two other towers abut
this complex below on one side, and the whole is surrounded by three circuits
of curtain walls, with other defence works. Striking and beautiful as this complex is, from a military perspective it was outdated: it was almost the sublimation of the medieval castle,66 a fantasy castle. More modest, but still a complex
building designed more with an eye to its aesthetic qualities than to the latest
principles of fortress design is Rocca Sanvitale, built about the same time as
Torrechiara by Giberto Sanvitale in the middle of the township of Fontanellato.
The most notable room on the groundfloor is not a guardroom or an armoury
but a study, decorated with frescoes depicting the story of the goddess Diana
and the hunter Acteon by Parmigianino in the sixteenth century.67 Varano,
built for the Pallavicini, was rather more practical and modern as a fortress,
with the towers the same height as the curtain walls and its main entrance on
the flank of one of the corner towers, and was intended to form part of a system of fortresses.68
New fortresses were being added to the patrimony of Neapolitan barons,
such as the one built at Ortucchio in the Abruzzi by Antonio Piccolomini in
1488, or that built by Virginio Orsini at Avezzano in 1490, which was transformed into a fortified palace by Marcantonio Colonna in 1520, or the castle
completed at Fondi by Onorato Caetani in the mid-fifteenth century, linked to
a palace built at the same period.69 In 1451 Lionello Acclozamora added a second storey to complete the castle at Celano begun towards the end of the previous century. His completion kept to the original ground plan, an unusual one
for fortresses in the mountainous Abruzzi, which generally exploited the potential of an irregular site. The rectangular central fortress with four square
towers at the corners had a porticoed courtyard, and was surrounded by another lower curtain wall, with several round or square towers, and which, with
its heavily defended entrance, constituted the serious defenceworks of the
66
67
68
69
Conti, Castelli e rocche, 171.

Ibid., 1667.
Ibid., 174.
Ibid., 250; Lucio Santoro, Castelli angioini e aragonesi nel Regno di Napoli (Milan, 1982),
227, 230, 233, 236.
27
f ortress.70 At Venosa, the square fortress with four large round towers at the
corners and surrounded by a strong rampart, believed to have been constructed by Pirro del Balzo around 1470, may well also have been based on an earlier
structure.71 At Montesarchio, confiscated from Gian Vincenzo Caraffa after the
French invasion of 1528, the new fortress aroused the admiration of the official
who assessed it a large, very fine and strong new castle on top of a mountain
above the town called Montercule, which is on a site so strong it cannot be ruined or bombarded. It was entered by drawbridges and on its weakest side had
a great stone tower flanked by two other strong towers. Higher up the mountain was another large, fine stone tower, very high, with four turrets and casemates and loopholes everywhere, with large cisterns, and other defenceworks.
With thirty men in the castle, and ten in the tower, it would be impregnable.
Apparently it had cost 40,000 ducats, without reckoning the worth of the work
done by the vassals, voluntarily or not.72
That strong, strategically important fortresses should be in the hands of barons whose loyalty or goodwill was suspect, was an understandable cause for
concern to some princes or republics. Proven hostility or unreliability on the
barons part gave the governments justification for seeking to take their fortresses from them, although it would not, in the eyes of many, justify permanent confiscation. Rulers might request, or demand, that a fortress be placed in
their custody, so that they would be garrisoned by men under their command,
leaving the rest of the estate and the income from it in the hands of the lord.
They could also claim the right to control the building of new fortifications,
asserting that their permission was required. In general, lords of castles considered their fortresses to be wholly theirs, and resented and resisted any attempt
at interference by their prince or, for Imperial fiefholders, any neighbouring
power, unless circumstances make it expedient to acquiesce.
It has always been the custom of the Genoese, so Alfonso del Carretto argued in 1485, to bring nobles under their power by taking from them their
fortresses, which are their defence.73 From 1447 to 1452 Genoa had waged war
on Galeotto del Carretto, marchese di Finale. In 1449, Finale itself fell after
eighteen months of siege, and the Genoese destroyed the castle, Castel Govone.
After it was recovered with the help of the marquis of Monferrato by Galeottos
70
71
72
73
Conti, Castelli e rocche, 246; Santoro, Castelli angioini e aragonesi, 229, 232.
Santoro, Castelli angioini e aragonesi, 234, 23840.
Cortese, Feudi e feudatari napoletani (1929), 131.
riducere gentilhomini ad soa discretione togliendole le forteze quale sonno soa diffensione: ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 994: Alfonso del Carretto to Gian Galeazzo Sforza, 9 July
1485, Finale.
28
Chapter 2
brother and heir, Giovanni del Carretto in 1457, he set about rebuilding Finale
and its fortifications, including Castel Govone. Perhaps smaller than the earlier
castle, the new one was stronger, with bastions reinforcing the angle towers
and curtain walls.74 Finale and Monaco were regarded by the Genoese with
particular animosity because Genoese exiles and other enemies were received
and lodged there, and because their harbours could serve as bases for boats
that disrupted commercial shipping. In 1506 a short-lived popular government,
hostile to the nobles, justified a full-scale assault on Monaco by accusing the
lord, Luciano Grimaldi, of bringing down reprisals on Genoese merchants by
raiding the ships of other nations, and claimed that Monaco in any case rightfully belonged to Genoa.75 But Monaco held out against the siege, and after 105
days the Genoese were forced to abandon it in late March 1507.76
In the 1490s, factional hostility was behind the suspicion with which Agos
tino and Giovanni Adorno, governors of Genoa for the duke of Milan, viewed
the construction of a fortress on the western Riviera at Oneglia by Domenico
Doria. The Adorno brothers were concerned because the Doria were a mainstay of the faction opposed to them, and linked by marriage to the lord of Mon
aco, Lamberto Grimaldi. If the Doria had a fortress at Oneglia, it was argued,
they and Grimaldi could dominate the western Riviera, to the joy of their
friends there and the despair of the friends of the Adorno regime.77 But Domenico Doria was a trusted captain of Pope Innocent VIII, and until the popes
death he could ignore attempts to prohibit his building the fortress. As soon as
news that Innocent was on his deathbed reached Ludovico Sforza, regent of
Milan, in July 1492, he gave orders for the fortress to be taken by force if Doria
refused to halt the works. It had reached the stage where it could be of use, and
experience had shown what it means to leave fortresses of importance, especially on the coast, in the hands of persons who are unfriendly to the government, as the actions of the lord of Monaco can abundantly testify.78 The
uncompleted fortress was quickly surrendered.
The dukes of Milan kept a careful eye on the construction of new fortresses
by nobles in their dominions. You know well that subjects cannot build a fortress without the permission of their lord, Ludovico Sforza admonished
74
75
76
77
78
Antonino Ronco, Una guerra del Quattrocento. Il Doge di Genova contro il marchese di
Finale (Genoa, 2003), 401.
Carlo Taviani, Superba discordia. Guerra, rivolta e pacificazione nella Genova di primo
Cinquecento (Rome, 2008), 152.
Emilio Pandiani, Un anno di storia genovese (giugno 15061507), 85207, 476521.
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 998: Corrado Stanga to Gian Galeazzo Sforza, 1 June 1491, Genoa.
Ibid., b. 1210: draft instructions to Francesco da Casate, going to Oneglia, 31 July 1492,
Vigevano.
29
Giovanni Spinola in 1496. It was no excuse to say that he was building a fortress
at Carrosio solely to help exact a toll: the duke could ensure he was able to do
that or anything else, without his building a fortress.79 Nobles in the duchy of
Milan who wanted to build a fortress might ask permission, as Stefano Sanvitale did when constructing a castle at Sala Braganza near Parma in 1461. He was
building it there, he explained, because that place was the oldest of his familys
estates, and he needed somewhere to store crops safely and to take refuge during epidemics. Having inspected the works, a ducal commissioner recommended permission be granted, with a condition that no enclosure should be
erected that might serve as a base for troops.80
In the kingdom of Naples, the barons were free to fortify their lands as they
chose, according to Antonio Caldora in 1464. Ferrante, whose army was engaged in a campaign against the lands of the Caldora the final stage of the
wars that followed his accession to the throne had proposed to leave the Caldora their lands and revenues, if they would surrender their fortresses to him.
He wanted temporary custody of their fortresses to make his rule secure, he
argued.81 Refusing to agree, the Caldora ended by losing their fortresses and
their lands. After the second major baronial rebellion against him in 14856,
Ferrante set about systematically getting baronial fortresses into his hands. By
giving over all his castles and fortresses to the king, one of the principal rebels,
Antonello da Sanseverino, principe di Salerno was told, he would make Ferrante secure and induce him to put out of his mind what had happened.82
The prince handed over some, very reluctantly, but not all; he wanted to
keep at least Salerno itself, but by the end of the year had yielded that too. By
having the fortresses of the barons who had rebelled against him in his power,
as no other king of Naples had done, Ferrante boasted, he had great security
and authority, and had assured the fidelity of the people and the barons towards him.83 By holding the barons fortresses he felt secure, so the barons
could feel secure too, he argued.84 Ferrante may have felt more secure, but the
barons did not. Some, including Antonello da Sanseverino, felt safer in exile.
Carlo da Sanseverino, conte di Mileto (who was arrested before he could carry
79
80
81
82
83
84
Ibid., b. 1217: Ludovico Sforza to Giovanni Spinola da Serravalle, 24 Mar. 1496, Milan.
Nadia Covini, Le condotte dei Rossi di Parma, p. 68, n. 60.
Emilio Nunziante, I primi anni di Ferdinando dAragona e linvasione di Giovanni dAngi,
(1898), 2012.
Luigi Volpicella (ed.), Regis Ferdinandi Primi instructionum liber (Naples, 1916), 53: Ferrantes instructions to Luisa di Casalnuovo, 19 Nov. 1486.
Ibid., 66: instructions to Francesco Spinello, envoy to Venice, 2 Dec. 1486.
Ibid., 90: instructions to Joan Nauclero, envoy to Ferdinand and Isabella in Castile, 17 Feb
1487.
30
Chapter 2
out his plans to flee abroad, and would end his days in the dungeons of the
Castelnuovo of Naples), lamented that without their castles, they were considered mere bailiffs on their own lands, and had lost the obedience of their men.85
Popes too, when they were in conflict with Roman barons, might think they
would be more secure if major baronial fortresses were in their own custody, or
that of their relatives, or if the fortifications were dismantled. The fortresses of
the Colonna family, sited on routes between Rome and the Neapolitan border,
were the most subject to confiscation and destruction, as the Colonna were at
odds with several popes in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The fact that
their estates were seen as desirable endowments for the families of the popes
who most wanted to dispossess the Colonna Sixtus IV, Alexander VI, Paul IV
sometimes helped preserve their fortresses from destruction, but they did
not always escape. Not only the fortress of Palestrina but the entire town was
razed in 1437 during the war of the Colonna against Eugenius IV; Nicholas V
gave it back to them ten years later, with permission to rebuild. In retaliation
for the Colonna incursion into Rome in 1526, Clement VII ordered the walls of
several Colonna places to be dismantled, and the fortress of Cave, that was said
to be very strong, on a difficult site, demolished.86
Paliano, one of the strongest of all Colonna fortresses, became a focus of attention in the mid-sixteenth century. A dispute about the levy of a papal salt
tax on the estates of Ascanio Colonna escalated into a war in 1541. Paliano was
reputed to be very strong, situated so that it could not be effectively besieged,
and it was impossible to prevent men entering and leaving it through the valleys around it. (There were reports that Francis I had given Marcantonio
Colonna 60,000 scudi to fortify it, and twelve artillery pieces to defend it, to
facilitate the passage of French troops to the kingdom of Naples.)87 Pedro de
Toledo, the viceroy of Naples, told Charles V that he should not let Paliano or
Rocca di Papa, another of Ascanios strongholds in the area, fall into the hands
of the pope, but should get them into his own hands,88 but Charles was not
ready to go to war with the pope to support Ascanio. All Ascanios lands in the
Papal States were taken by the papal troops. The fortress of Paliano was the last
to surrender in late May; Ascanios ineptitude had compromised its defences.
Two years later, Paul III ordered the fortress of Paliano to be torn down. He had
85
86
87
88
Camillo Porzio, La Congiura de Baroni del Regno di Napoli contra il Re Ferdinando I, ed.
Stanislao dAloe (Naples, 1859), CLXXVI.
ASMantua. AGonzaga, b. 872, cc. 358: Capino de Capo to Gian Giacomo Calandra, 17,
20 Nov. 1526, Cave.
Ibid., b. 1911, c. 91, 93: Nino to Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga, 13, 14 Mar. 1541, Rome.
AGSimancas, Estado, leg. 103: Pedro de Toledo to Charles V, 18 Apr. (1541).
31
delayed doing this, he explained, so it would be evident he was acting not out
of anger against Ascanio, but with good reason, knowing it would bring quiet
to Rome.89
After Pauls death, Ascanio recovered his lands and Paliano was fortified
once again, only for his lands to be confiscated by the Caraffa pope, Paul IV.
One papal nephew was made duca di Paliano in 1556, another marchese di
Cave. Ascanios son, Marcantonio was able to get possession of his estates after
Paul IV died, but had to wait before he was given Paliano back. As part of the
settlement following a war between Paul IV and Philip II, in which the duque
de Alba had invaded the Papal States from the kingdom of Naples, Paliano had
been put in Philips custody and his officials in Italy were in no hurry to advise
him to give it back to the Colonna.90 While the fate of Paliano was being debated in Rome, the new pope, Pius IV was advised that its fortifications should
again be demolished. It was not good that a vassal of the Church should have
such a stronghold, he told the Spanish ambassador, who countered this by
pointing out that many barons, vassals of the Church, held comparable places
and there was no reason why Marcantonio should be singled out.91 Paliano was
returned to Marcantonio intact in 1562.92
The popes might argue they had the right to grant or deny permission for
barons to erect new fortifications. Whether they would succeed in enforcing
this right if they tried to exercise it, would depend on the calculations of the
baron in question as to how safely he could ignore it. The fourteenth-century
Constitutiones Egidianae, statutes for the Papal States issued by the formidable
Cardinal Albornoz as he sought to impose order there during the absence of
the papacy in Avignon, stipulated that no fortifications could be built without
a licence from the pope. Invoking these Constitutiones, Innocent VIII objected
when Virginio Orsini had work done on his fortress at Campagnano without
asking for permission.93 The outrage expressed by one of Virginios officials
that such a prohibition had never been made to any Roman baron, and Virginio would rather die than submit to be the first indicates the rarity of such
an attempt by the pope.94 Papal permission to rebuild fortresses might accompany a papal grant of lands, or papal confirmation of restitution of lands, as
89
90
91
92
93
94
ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 1913: Nino to Ercole Gonzaga, 14 Feb. 1543, Rome.

Nicoletta Bazzano, Marco Antonio Colonna (Rome, 2003), 6784; Michael Mallett and
Christine Shaw, The Italian Wars 14941559 (Harlow, 2012), 2735, 2778.
AGSimancas, Estado, leg. 886, 5: Francisco de Vargas to Philip II, 9 Jan. 1560, Rome.
Bazzano, Marco Antonio Colonna, 824, 98102.
ACapitolino, AOrsini, b. 102, c. 466: Bartolomeo da Bracciano to Virginio Orsini, 3 Feb.
1491.
Ibid., b. 102, c. 329: Santi da Curcumello to Virginio Orsini, undated.
32
Chapter 2
with Nicholas Vs return of Palestrina to the Colonna in 1447.95 Julius II gave

permission for the fortress of San Felice al Circeo to be rebuilt when confirming its recovery by the Caetani from Lucrezia Borgia (whose father Alexander
VI had confiscated it from them). In this case, the pope wanted the fortress to
be built: Julius hoped it would help to deter pirates. The Caetani did not do it,
although they did erect four towers on the shore in 1562.96
For many lords of castles, keeping their fortresses in good repair and stocked
with munitions, let alone building new ones, could be a considerable drain on
incomes which were often limited. Even those with extensive lands, who were
powerful enough to be independent actors in political and military affairs,
might derive only a limited cash income from their estates. Precise figures are
hard to come by. One exception is a detailed account, perhaps compiled in
the 1470s, of the revenues of Obietto Fieschi an important player in the politics of Genoa and a thorn in the flesh of the duke of Milan which arrived at a
total of 4,569 Genoese lire, about 1,700 ducats. The various revenues from his
principal estate in Genoese territory, Torriglia, came to just under 2,000 lire,
from which the official compiling the summary deducted 400 lire for the castellan. Paying the castellan of Roccatagliata cost half of the 500 lire he got from
that important stronghold. Borgo Valditaro in the duchy of Milan, much
coveted by other lords, yielded only 672 lire in ordinary revenues, and usually
twice that figure in extraordinary revenues; there the community paid for the
castellan.97 If these were the revenues of a major lord in the Apennines, it can
be easily imagined how poor some of the minor mountain lords might be. Two
Spinola brothers described their own estate of Tassarollo in 1454 as a sterile
place and poor, which scarcely feeds us and our families.98 In 1560, the Malas
pina marchesi joined together to obtain from Emperor Ferdinand I exemption
from the obligation to provide lodgings for Imperial troops because of their
very limited revenues and the poverty of the people on their estates.99
At the other end of the scale were the major barons of the kingdom of
Naples. Accounts compiled for the guardian of the young Ferrante da Sanseverino, principe di Salerno in 1517, showed annual revenues of 21,280 ducats,
not counting around 4,000 ducats from the sale of grain and other products of
95
96
97
98
99
Giulio Silvestrelli, Citt, castelli e terre della regione romana (Rome, 1993), 303.
G. Caetani, Regesta chartarum (Citt del Vaticano, 1922), VI, 245; Silvestrelli, Citt, castelli
e terre, 36.
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 1612, Atti e scritture camerali 14501530: Intrata dele terre dal R.
dno. Hybleto dal Fiescho.
Ibid., b. 409: Galeotto and Ettore Spinola to Francesco Sforza, 21 July 1454, Tassarollo.
33
his estates.100 Vespasiano Colonna had an estimated income of 40,000 ducats

from his Neapolitan estates in 1528, quite apart from his lands in the Papal
States.101 In the 1550s, Francesco Ferdinando dAvalos, marchese di Pescara
should have had revenues of at least 60,000 scudi a year, by the reckoning of an
old family servant. Debts and alienation of property (some caused by extravagance, some incurred in the service of Charles V) had much reduced this; nevertheless, he thought that with better management, the marchese could have
an income of 3540,000 scudi.102 The wealth of the principe di Taranto a century before would no doubt have exceeded that; his revenues could probably
have stood comparison with those of the king.
Giosia Acquaviva, whose son would marry the princes daughter, on the other hand, appeared to the Milanese ambassador to be a very poor lord.103 Great
titles did not necessarily go with great wealth. The duchy of Amalfi had an estimated income of 5,000 ducats a year in 1461, when it was given to Pius IIs
nipote, Antonio Piccolomini; by 1528 his successor Alfonso Piccolomini was estimated to have 18,000 ducats a year.104 The duca di San Pietro, on the other
hand, although he has the title of duke, has no more than 2,000 ducats income
in all, as a Spanish official in Naples remarked.105 Many barons had considerably less than that. Among the rebels whose estates were confiscated in 15289
were several whose estates yielded only 200 ducats a year, or even less.106 The
style of life even of those who had much larger revenues did not impress a
great Lombard lord. Looking for a suitable match for his niece, Ferrante Gonzaga cast a critical eye over some of the oldest baronial families in the kingdom,
concluding that these lords may call themselves dukes and marquises, yet they
are no duke of Urbino or of Mantua, but stay privately on their lands, and many
of them live worse than a gentleman of our area who has 2,000 scudi a year.107
Only the poorest lords of castles would have not been in a position to raise
at least some revenue by sales of surplus produce from their lands, either from
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
Raffaele Colapietra, I Sanseverino di Salerno (Salerno, 1985), 125.

Sanuto, I diarii, XLVII, col. 166.
ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 1927, cc. 2401: Marcantonio Ettone de Presery to Ercole Gonzaga, 1 Mar. 1555, Naples. Scudi were worth roughly the same as ducats.
Nunziante, I primi anni di Ferdinando dAragona, (1893), 15.
Sanuto, I diarii, XLVII, cols 1667.
AGSimancas, Estado, leg. 1006, 42: Bishop of Burgos to Cobos, 10 Sept. 1530, Naples; the list
in Sanuto, I diarii, XLVII, col. 167, gives the same figure.
Tommaso Pedi, Napoli e Spagna nella prima met del Cinquecento (Bari, 1971), 27489;
Pedis list was based in part on the information in the surveys published in Cortese,
Feudi e feudatari napoletani, (1929), 28150, (1930), 41102.
ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 1913: Ferrante Gonzaga to Ercole Gonzaga, 27 Dec. 1543, Molfetta.
34
Chapter 2
lands they farmed directly or from dues in kind from their tenants and vassals.
Supplies from their estates could form a significant part of the stocks of basic
foodstuffs, wine and oil on urban markets; barons who held towns themselves
were obviously best placed to make the most of this opportunity. The principe
di Taranto took a great interest in the commercial exploitation of his vast estates, to the benefit not just of his own revenues but the entire region. Great
barons like him, it has been argued, had a significant role in the fifteenth century creating markets beyond the traditional, local ones for the products of the
areas they dominated.108 Among the cities the prince controlled were the ports
of Bari and Monopoli and he traded directly with the eastern Mediterranean,
exporting agricultural products and importing arms, slaves and silver, among
other goods. He had a fleet of boats and small ships engaged in coastal trade.109
Sicilian barons were also directly concerned in trading the produce of their
lands outside the island. They liked to have their own ports through which to
export their goods, partly to avoid the regulation of exports by the central government.110
In the duchy of Milan, a ducal licence was required for the sale of some
products of the nobles estates, such as grain, salt or wood. Nevertheless, the
possession of ports on the river Po was a major asset for the fortunate lords
who had them, such as the main branch of the Pallavicini. The most powerful
member of that lineage in the fifteenth century, Rolando Pallavicini, had a
small fleet of boats to help him exploit the commercial possibilities of his river
ports. (He reckoned his income as 10,000 ducats a year in the mid-century, his
sons thought it considerably higher.)111 Some of the lords in Emilia, such as the
Pio da Carpi and the Correggio, preferred to forego the financial advantages
they would derive from linking their lands to the commercial highway of the
Po by constructing navigable waterways, in favour of the greater political security of maintaining their isolation.112 In Liguria, the harbours of the lords of
Monaco and Finale were useful not so much for trading in the produce of their
own lands as for enabling their subjects to earn a living in the coastal trade,
and providing a base for their own boats and galleys to enforce the two per
cent toll they claimed on vessels using their port or passing through its waters.113
108
109
110
111
112
113
Giuseppe Galasso, Il Regno di Napoli: Il Mezzogiorno angioino e aragonese (12661494)

(Turin, 1992), 750.
Carmela Massaro, Territorio, societ, e potere, 28997.
Bresc, Le fief dans la socit sicilienne, 3389.
Letizia Arcangeli, Un lignaggio padano tra autonomia signorile e corte principesca: i Pallavicini, 358.
Chittolini, Il particolarismo signorile, 2634.
Saige, Documents historiques, II, pp. XXI-XXII, CLI.
35
Lords of castles on inland routes could also exploit the opportunities presented by the travellers and goods passing through their lands, by imposing
tolls, or providing facilities and protection for markets. For those whose lands
lay in the mountains and were not very productive, these could be important
assets. Varese, situated where trade routes between the Po valley and the Ligurian coast met, was fostered by the Fieschi, who built the village on a circular
plan, with continuous porticoes that provided shelter for the market, and surrounded it with a wall and a ditch.114 It became a keypoint of the Fieschi estates. Osoppo was important to the Savorgnan, not just because of its strength,
but because of its position on a route between Austria and Friuli. Among the
privileges of Imperial fiefholders was the right to impose tolls; how much advantage they could take of this would depend on where their fief was situated,
and whether they had the strength to enforce payments. Another economic
opportunity was presented to those who could provide seasonal pasture for
large transhumant flocks, as some of the lords in the mountains of the territory
of Parma could.115 The major seasonal migration routes for livestock were in
southern Tuscany, the Papal States and the kingdom of Naples, giving Roman
and Neapolitan barons whose lands were traversed by the flocks and had pasture to offer the chance to raise some revenues and, in time of war, an economic weapon.
If they wanted to continue to enjoy this source of revenue in peacetime,
they would evidently have to use some discretion in how they might threaten
to sequester flocks or interrupt their migration in time of war. Similarly, those
who levied tolls would do well to keep them at a level that would not be so
vexatious as to drive merchants and travellers to seek other routes. Such prudential considerations did not stop some barons turning to robbery or piracy,
or if they did not do this themselves, allowing the men from their estates to do
so. This could be dangerous; nothing was more likely to arouse protests and
threats of retribution from governments, princely or republican. Quite apart
from the harm to their own economic interests, it was a touchstone of any
governments authority that the roads and waterways of their state should be
safe for travellers. Robbery and piracy unless they could be presented as an
act of war or a reprisal were generally the recourse of the desperate or the
reckless.
A common element of the revenues of lords of castles throughout Italy
would be income derived from their powers of jurisdiction over the people on
114
115
Description, plans and an aerial photograph in Paolo Marchi, Immagine dei borghi
medievali, 1235, 1323.
Angelo Pezzana, Storia della Citt di Parma (Bologna, 1971), II, 528.
36
Chapter 2
their estates, from fees for the use of the tribunals they provided, from fines
and from forfeitures of property. Many had powers to deal with even the most
serious crimes such as murder, and could execute those found guilty of them.
Having powers of jurisdiction was not only a source of income, but also, in an
important sense, characterized the relationship of the lords to those who lived
on their estates, who were often referred to as their vassals (although few
would formally hold fiefs from them) or their subjects. The relationship that
mattered most was that between lord and man, rather than lord and tenant.
Being subject to a baron need not mean being subject to arbitrary oppression and exploitation; it might well be preferable to being a countrydweller
subject to the jurisdiction of a civic government or the tenant of a landholding
townsman. It could mean a lighter tax burden, a greater tolerance of everyday
violence, less harsh punishments of those found guilty by the courts. Contempt for peasants, the idea that they were stupid yet cunning, ever ready to
cheat and evade their obligations, brutes who needed to be kept in their place
with a firm hand, ran deep in the culture of Italian towns and cities. Among the
rural nobility, too, there would always be the greedy, the stupid, the vicious,
who overburdened those subject to them. But they were not the norm throughout Italy. Many lords of castles saw their men as an asset to be nurtured, seeing
their loyalty and willingness to fight for them as worth the sacrifice of some
additional income that might have been squeezed from them. There was
some regional variation in the pattern of relations between the military nobility and their men. In some areas, the prevailing ethos was one of mutual support; in others, lords gave priority to the revenues and services they could get
from their men.
Roman barons had a long tradition of fostering the goodwill of their men.
Back in the thirteenth century, all the men who lived on their estates had to
take an oath to them, on reaching the age of legal majority or if they came as
adults to live there. The oath was modelled on that of a vassal to an ecclesiastical lord, stressing fidelity, the duty to give aid and counsel and support against
the enemies of his lord, and to help him vindicate his honour or recover property lost to him, rather than dues and labour services.116 No records of such
oaths in the fifteenth century have come to light, but the nature of the bond
between the Roman barons and their vassals seems to have been the same. The
value barons placed on the support of their subjects is illustrated by Virginio
Orsini, retaining his superiorit (overlordship) over the people of the estates
of Viano, Rota and Ischia when he gave these lands, the fortress of Viano and
all the dues and jurisdiction to a Roman partisan and captain in his service,
116
Sandro Carocci, Baroni di Roma (Rome, 1993), 2056, 255.
37
Giorgio Santacroce, in 1493. The inhabitants would still be obliged to be loyal

to Virginio and his heirs, to follow them [prestare sequellam] as their other
vassals and subjects are bound to do. Virginios enemies were to be their enemies, his friends their friends, they were to receive his troops, to support whatever tended to the honour and utility of him and his heirs.117
Support and aid rendered to the barons by their vassals could take the form
of standing surety for them, giving them counsel, even acting as arbiters in
family disputes, but above all it meant being prepared to take up arms for
them. Occasionally, this might mean following their lords in attacks on rivals,
or going to Rome if trouble was brewing there between the baronial factions
after the death of a pope. In September 1526, Colonna vassals took part with
Spanish troops in the incursion into Rome led by Cardinal Pompeo and Ascanio Colonna and Charles Vs envoy, Ugo de Moncada; they were included,
with the Colonna, in the pardon Moncada negotiated with Pope Clement.118
The Orsini and Colonna could raise thousands of men from their lands, but
these men would only be available for a few days, and would probably expect
their lords to feed them, and perhaps pay them something. Some might have
served as professional soldiers under the command of baronial condottieri, and
others might have received some training in handling weapons. Colonna peasants trained in the use of the crossbow were among the forces engaged in a
private war between the Colonna and the Conti families in 1493.119 Untrained
peasants could be useful pioneers, digging trenches and siegeworks. Nevertheless, although many of the Roman barons were themselves condottieri, they did
not try to make their men into a private army.
Raids and ambushes and defence of the villages and fields that were their
homes as well as being the barons estates, were the real forte of barons subjects as fighting men. If professional soldiers were preferred or needed to man
some fortresses, they might still be recruited from among the vassals: the castellan of the Orsini stronghold of Bracciano was ordered in 1520 to pay only
vassals, as had always been the practice.120 Barons placed great reliance on the
fidelity of their subjects in time of war. This did not always mean they would
expect them to fight to the last. In some circumstances, rather than hold out at
all costs, they would surrender their lands and fortresses to prevent the ruin of
117
118
119
120
ASRome, Archivio del Collegio de Notari Capitolini, b. 176 (Camillo Beneimbene),

ff. 820r-823r; Shaw, The Political Role, 645.
Calendar of State Papers, Spanish, IIIi, 9278.
ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 849, c. 334: Gian Lucido Cattaneo to Francesco Gonzaga, 27 Sept.
1493, Rome.
ACapitolino, AOrsini, b. 93, c. 274: Jo. da Colli to Felice Orsini, 26 July 1520, Bracciano.
38
Chapter 2
their vassals, as well as their estates. Explaining to the Colonnas supporters in

Rome why they had let their lands be occupied by the troops of Alexander VI
in 1501, Prospero Colonna said that he and his cousin Fabrizio had not judged
it expedient to have war at home, to the undoing of their vassals, while they
were fighting in the kingdom of Naples.121 Roman barons could do this, in the
confidence that, when the opportunity arose, they would be welcomed back
by their vassals and thus easily recover their lands as indeed the Colonna
were, and did, when Alexander died in 1503.
The bonds between the long-established families of Roman barons and
their men could be very strong. After the death of Marcello Colonna in
1482, their subjects assured his brothers of their devotion to the family, saying
(it was reported) that if only a cat of the family remained, they were ready to
follow that.122 But it could not be taken for granted. Goodwill did not automatically extend to all members of the family. Niccol Orsini da Pitigliano
feared that the men of Fiano, which had come to him as the collateral heir of
Orso Orsini, duca dAscoli, might rebel if the illegitimate sons of Orso, to whom
they were very attached, should be freed from their imprisonment by Ferrante
of Naples and claim the estates.123 During the feud among the sons of Giangiordano Orsini di Bracciano that split the family in the 1520s and 1530s, the
eldest son Napoleone, wild and unpredictable as he was, had a greater care for
their vassals than did his half-brother Francesco, who acquired a reputation for
mistreating them. In consequence Napoleone had the sympathies of the men
of Vicovaro, who loved him and hated his brothers.124 In the course of a family
quarrel among the Caetani in 1516, Guglielmo Caetani di Sermoneta was said to
be so unpopular with his vassals that no one would make a move to support
him.125 A generation later, as the family feud persisted, Bonifacio Caetani felt
he could no longer trust the people of Sermoneta, because of the punishments
121
122
123
124
125
ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 854: Gian Lucido Cattaneo to Francesco Gonzaga, 3 June [for
July?] 1501, Rome.
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 91: Bishop of Como and Antonio Trivulzio to Gian Galeazzo
Sforza, 4 May 1452, Rome.
ASModena, Cancelleria ducale, Carteggio, Ambasciatori, Firenze, b. 6: Aldobrandino Guidoni to Ercole dEste, 23 Oct. 1488, Florence.
ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 881, c. 562: Fabrizio Peregrino to Federico Gonzaga, 17 Sept. 1532,
Rome. For Francescos reputation for maltreatment of his vassals, ibid., b. 1907: Nino to
Ercole Gonzaga, 19 Nov. 1538, Rome. Napoleone could treat the vassals harshly too, as
when he imprisoned some men of Bracciano in 1522 for selling grain on the orders of his
stepmother Felice (Shaw, The Political Role, 668).
Maria Antonietta Visceglia, Farsi imperiale: faide familiari e identit politiche a Roma
nel primo Cinquecento, 496.
39
he had meted out to those involved in a plot against him a plot incited by
Imperial agents, he told the French ambassador as he appealed for military
aid, but the main agents had been the Caetani di Maenza, Imperial sym
pathizers.126 The eccentricities of Ascanio Colonna in the 1530s and 1540s
severely tested the loyalty of his vassals, but they were ready to welcome his
son, Marcantonio, when he came with the duke of Albas troops in 1556, and to
take up arms to help him recover his estates from the Caraffa in 1559.127
Castellans in southern Lombardy and Emilia also valued the willingness of
their men to follow them and to fight for them, and were conscious that their
side of the bargain was to offer protection in return. Protection in this region
included helping their subjects to ward off the fiscal demands and judicial
claims of the cities, whose governments were frustrated by the immunities
from civic jurisdiction that the inhabitants of the castellans estates could enjoy, and which attracted men to live there.128 A proposed tax reform when
Parma was under papal government in the sixteenth century, that would have
ended the fiscal immunity of citizens of Parma living on the estates of the castellans, aroused determined resistance from the lords. They stressed how these
men could help preserve them and their lands, and how the company, as well
as the services, of gentlemen and other citizens who lived on their estates
made their own lives more pleasant.129 Paolo Torelli, conte di Montechiarugolo, even pledged in 1540 that if the reforms were adopted he would pay the
money that would be claimed himself, because it means more to me to have
men in this castello than any kind of revenue, still more when they are as
faithful and loving to me and my family as they are.130
Men who had chosen to live on the castellans estates could be expected to
serve them in arms, just like those who had been born and bred there. So at
least the sons of Rolando Pallavicini reckoned, as they discussed the division of
these lands around 1457. A list had been drawn up of 4,773 men on their estates,
to which they agreed should be added the incomers (forestieri), because they
too obeyed them, and their judicial officials, and like the others who are called
126
127
128
129
130
Ibid., 5023.
AGSimancas, Estado, leg. 1049, 166: Giovanbernardo Carbone to ?, 19 Aug. 1559, Paliano.
Giorgio Chittolini, Il luogo di Mercato, il comune di Parma e i marchesi Pallavicini di Pellegrino, 13842; idem, La signoria degli Anguissola su Riva, Grazzano e Montesanto fra
Tre e Quattrocento, 20018; idem, Il particolarismo signorile, 2645; Marco Gentile, La
formazione del dominio dei Rossi tra XIV e XV secolo, 35; Francesco Somaini, Una storia
spezzata: la carriera ecclesiastica di Bernardo Rossi, 1334.
Letizia Arcangeli, Principi, homines e partesani nel ritorno dei Rossi, 298300.
Letizia Arcangeli, Conflitti, paci, giustizia: feudatari padane tra Quattro e Cinquecento,
58.
40
Chapter 2
terrieri take up arms at our request.131 Like the Roman barons, the military
nobility of Lombardy were often professional soldiers, condottieri, who would
have trained troops under their command, some of them their subjects, some
of them not. Many of their subjects would be principally useful as auxiliaries,
but in the kind of local wars and faction fighting for which they would be called
upon they could be very useful indeed, constructing siegeworks or manning
fortifications, raiding and laying waste crops.132
The Fieschi, according to a Milanese envoy in July 1477, had very few subjects, deriving their strength from their following on the coast of the eastern
Riviera.133 Perhaps he meant few subjects compared to the numbers of their
partisans, for they could probably raise thousands of men from their lands.
Nervous Milanese castellans holding the Fieschi fortress of Savignone at that
time reckoned the Fieschi di Savignone, who were not the major branch, could
put together three to four hundred men from the lands under their jurisdiction.134 The Fieschi had occasion to call on their men to fight for them quite
frequently in the fifteenth century, and it appears the men were generally
ready to do so. Gian Filippo Fieschi in 1448 was warned against asking too
much of them: he had made use of them a lot in the past and might well have
to call on them again in the future; he should hold them in reserve for when he
needed them.135
The loyalty of their men was tested in the fifteenth century, as the Fieschi for
much of the time were at odds with the doge of Genoa or the duke of Milan, or
were riven by family disputes. What spirit they could show in fighting for the
Fieschi was illustrated by the efforts of the men of Varese and the territory
around to help Gian Luigi Fieschi recover these lands from Manfredo Landi,
the widower of Antonia Fieschi, in 1478.136 While they attacked the fortress
Landi had built at Varese and spread out to take possession of the surrounding
villages, those who could not fight, together with women and children, were
on the heights around Varese, lighting fires and shouting battle cries, including
the Fieschi rallying-cry of Gatto, gatto. Rumours that Gian Luigi Fieschi was
on his way spurred them on, and encouraged the garrison of the fortress to
131
132
133
134
135
136
Arcangeli, Un lignaggio padano, 83.

Nadia Covini, Lesercito del duca. Organizzazione militare e istituzioni al tempo degli Sforza
(14501480) (Rome, 1998), 1212.
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 1572: Gian Pietro Panigarola, 11 July 1477, Genoa.
Ibid., b. 971: Giangiorgio Capello and Pietro Crivelli to the Duchi, 4 June 1477, Savignone.
ASGenoa, AS1790, f. 230r: Giano Campofregoso to Gian Filippo Fieschi, 6 Apr. 1448. The
doge was dissuading him from responding to a call for aid from that marchese, your relative.
See below, p. 82, for this family dispute.
41
surrender. A crowd of men and women, waving sheets to look like banners and
making as much noise as they could in the woodland around a company of
Milanese soldiers, put them to flight in 1479, leading to the fall of the stronghold of Monte Tanno to Fieschi.137 Their subjects devotion to the family held
firm until the end, when the failure of a conspiracy by Gian Luigi Fieschis
grandson, also called Gian Luigi, against Andrea Doria in 1547 led to the final
loss of the family lands, and the end of their power in Liguria.138 Most of the
defenders of the last Fieschi stronghold, Montoggio, who were captured when
it fell in June 1547, were from their lands, from Borgo Valditaro, Torriglia, Santo
Stefano, Roccatagliata, Varese and other places as well as from Montoggio itself.139
The loyalty of the men of Monaco, Menton and Roquebrune to the Grimaldi
was also tested by family quarrels, on whose outcomes their views and interventions could have a decisive influence. When Pomellina, the widowed mother of Catalano Grimaldi was given the right to govern Monaco until her death
by the terms of her sons will, pressure from the men of the estates helped to
force her to relinquish this uncustomary extension of the common widows
position as guardian of her childs interests. They supported the claims of
Lamberto Grimaldi, who was betrothed to Catalanos young daughter, Claudine, to a share of the government in right of his future wife. Their proctors
swore to observe the terms agreed in October 1457 between Pomellina and
Lamberto, which included a stipulation that he was to have charge of all matters to do with soldiers or with arming galleys.140 The men of Monaco, Menton
and Roquebrune helped to repel the force sent to assassinate Lamberto in
March 1458, as Pomellina plotted against him with another line of the family,
the Grimaldi di Beuil. In solemn ceremonies, they swore homage to him as the
legitimate administrator of Claudine, promising to be liege [ligios] and faithful men to the couple and their heirs. In return, Lamberto promised to observe
their privileges, to govern them with justice and to keep them at peace with
Genoa so far as he can.141 Living at Menton, Pomellina did manage to incite a
rebellion against Lamberto there and at Roquebrune in 1466, and he had difficulty recovering and holding on to these places.
137
138
139
140
141
Barbara Bernab, Fieschi e Landi fra Val di Vara e Val di Taro nel XV secolo, 36871.
See below, pp. 94, 2267.
List of those captured in Massimiliano Spinola, L.T. Belgrano and Francesco Podest
(eds), Documenti ispano-genovesi dellArchivio di Simancas, 1579.
Saige, Documents historiques, I, CLXIII-CLXVII, 26886.
Ibid., CLXVII-CLXIX, 28894.
42
Chapter 2
But the people of Monaco were consistently loyal to Lamberto and his heirs,
recognizing Luciano Grimaldi as their lord after he had killed his elder brother
Giovanni, accepting his claim he had acted in self-defence, and standing by
him when Monaco was besieged by the Genoese in 15067. Following Lucianos
assassination by his nephew, Bartolomeo Doria in August 1523, the people of
Monaco helped to surround Bartolomeo and his followers, negotiate the release of Lucianos wife and children, and drive off hundreds of Doria supporters who came by land and sea to occupy Monaco.142
A decade later, on the orders of Charles V, a Spanish envoy tried to persuade
Stefano Grimaldi, the guardian of Lucianos heir, Onorato, to replace the vassals who guarded the fortress of Monaco with outsiders. Stefano replied that
he could not be better served than by vassals, for he was sure of their loyalty to
their lord. There were a number of reasons, the envoy observed, why the vassals would resent being replaced by troops from Spain and other parts of Italy,
as the emperor wanted. They would not want to lose the money they were
paid, and they would not like to feel they were not trusted; there was rivalry
between the men from Monaco and those from Menton and Roquebrune, and
competition as to who could serve best; and above all, he had never seen vassals who loved their lord so well.143 Eventually Stefano turned the envoy out of
Monaco, having secured an oath of loyalty from the people to himself as governor for Onorato, and refused to allow the envoy to address an assembly of the
people on behalf of Charles V.144
Loyal as the subjects and vassals of the castellans in Liguria could be, prepared as they might be to identify with their lords interests, they expected to
be treated with a measure of consideration and respect in return, and needed
to be handled carefully. Centuries of devotion of the people of Finale to the del
Carretto were vitiated by the avarice and oppression of Alfonso II, and they
rose up against him in 1558, considering even the government of Genoa preferable to his. In the end, the Spanish established a governor there, and Finale was
lost to the del Carretto.145
Neither the Doria nor the Spinola possessed any individual stronghold as
important as Monaco or Finale. Their political weight in the Riviere and in
Genoa was founded rather on the numbers of fighting men they could rally. As
with the Fieschi, many of these men would be partisans, members of their
142
143
144
145
Ibid., II, CIX-CXVI.

Ibid., II, 62732: Francesco Valenzuela to Charles V, 31 August 1533, Monaco.
Ibid., 71623: Stefano Grimaldi to Niccol Grimaldi, 29 Apr. 1534, Monaco.
Emilio Marengo, Alfonso II o del Carretto, marchese di Finale e la Repubblica di Genova,
1141.
43
f action, rather than their vassals and subjects. They expected their men to be
prepared to fight for them, but they seem to have had more difficulty than the
other major families in keeping on good terms with them.
The Doria had particular trouble with the men of the Valle dOneglia. Two
thousand men could be raised in the valley, according to a Milanese commissioner writing in 1492.146 Each household that had at least one man was obliged
by the Doria statutes for the valley to keep a sword and a shield of wood and
leather, and some men were also obliged to equip themselves with a helmet
and some body armour, and a dagger as well.147 But the men of the valley, as
the commissioner noted, were very free, their dues to their lords from the
whole valley amounting to no more than 40 ducats a year.148 From the perspective of a friend of the Doria, the men could appear not so much independent
as volatile and of ill-will and disobedient to their lords because they dont
want to submit to the law There is not a peasant in this valley who will obey
them any more than they feel inclined.149 At times, the Doria lost control. In
1445 they asked the Genoese to help them assert their rights.150 The Genoese
government then was ready to exhort the men to obey their lords, as Doge
Pietro Campofregoso also did more than once in the 1450s.151 But letters alone
would not have much effect, and the Genoese do not seem to have been willing
to send troops to help the Doria enforce their authority. At least once the Doria
tried taking hostages, who were held in Genoa, to quell their rebellious men,152
but they do not seem to have tried using force against them. It was probably
not a realistic option.
None of the Spinola had such consistent problems with their men as the
Doria of the Valle dOneglia did, but there were some rebellions against them.
Eliano Spinola complained in 1451 that the peasants of the Val Borbera have
always been riotous and rebels.153 In 1485 a bitter conflict between Francesco
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 1210: Giovanni Pietro Raymondo to Gian Galeazzo Sforza,

26 December 1492, Oneglia.
Francesco Biga, La Valle dOneglia negli Statuti dei Doria (Imperia, 1991), 57.
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 1210: Giovanni Pietro Raymondo to Gian Galeazzo Sforza,
26 December 1492, Oneglia.
Ibid., b. 992: Tommaso Campofregoso to the Duchi of Milan, 13 July 1480, Portomaurizio.
ASGenoa, AS 536, f. 47r-v: 21 June 1445.
Ibid., AS 1791, f. 293r: Pietro Campofregoso to men of upper Valle dOneglia, 11 Feb. 1451;
AS 1794, ff. 485v-486r: Pietro Campofregoso to men of Valle dOneglia who are contumacious or rebels against the noble Niccol Doria, 19 Jan. 1454.
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 992: the Duchi of Milan to the Doria of Valle dOneglia superiore,
28 July 1480, Milan.
Ibid., b. 407: Eliano Spinola to Francesco Sforza, 16 Feb. 1451, Genoa.
44
Chapter 2
Spinola and the men of Campo reached such a pitch that he concluded there
was no hope of any agreement, for such is their insolence that everyone wants
to behave just as he chooses, with no regard for anything, not even their honour, and he felt he would have to leave.154 The Spinola themselves suggested
they had difficulty controlling their men because of how subdivided their castelli were, so that their subjects were split up, if united in not letting themselves be punished for the highway robbery the Spinola were being asked to
control.155 A dilemma the Spinola shared with other lords whose estates lay on
the routes through the mountains between Liguria and Lombardy was that if
they tried to discipline their men to prevent them from supplementing their
earnings by robbery or smuggling, they would lose their goodwill and
their men would not be ready to follow their lords when they were needed. On
the other hand, if the lords could not keep the roads through their lands secure, they were liable to annoy the governments of both Genoa and Milan. And
there was always the temptation for the more reckless to supplement their
own income by joining their men in preying on travellers. There were simply
too many Spinola lords, many of them poor, competing for a share of the revenues from lands and men who were not themselves prosperous.
The Malaspina in Lunigiana were in the same position. Assessments of liability to dues levied on their Imperial fiefs in 1554 indicated how small some of
the much-divided Malaspina marquisates had become: 140 households
(hearths) for the marchese di Madrignano, 90 for Morello, marchese di Monti, 110 for Leonardo, marchese di Podenzana, 180 for Floramonte, marchese di
Bastia.156 With such reduced domains, individual Malaspina marchesi could
not muster from their lands enough men to make them a military power in the
Lunigiana, let alone beyond.
The most substantial Malaspina marquisate in the sixteenth century had
been founded when the Florentines ceded Massa to Antonio Alberico Malaspina di Fosdinovo in 1442. So assiduous was his son Jacopo in buying up fiefs that
the Florentines suspected him of nursing the ambition to become lord of
all the Lunigiana.157 Despite fierce family quarrels in each generation, the bulk
of the lands was kept together, and in 1568 Jacopos great-grandson, Alberico,
was made a prince of the Holy Roman Empire by the emperor with Massa being elevated to a principate and Carrara a marquisate.158 Albericos elder
154
155
156
157
158
Ibid., b. 994: copy Francesco Spinola to Paolo Campofregoso, 22 Aug. 1485, Campo.
Ibid., b. 410: Familia Spinulorum de L[uccul]o to Francesco Sforza, 22 Aug. 1455, Genoa.
Branchi, Storia della Lunigiana feudale, I, 569, II, 469, 571, 704.
Ibid., III, 75961, 766.
Ibid., 800.
45
brother Giulio (who had quarrelled with their mother, Ricciarda, the heiress to
the estates, and taken control of them in 1546) raised a thousand men in 1547,
when he ordered every man between the ages of 15 and 60, on pain of death, to
muster in arms to go with him to support Andrea Doria against the Fieschi.
Other Malaspina marchesi raised a total of around another thousand men.
Only 300 were selected by Giulio to go with him to Genoa, and the others were
sent home.159
Such a foray outside Lunigiana by a Malaspina marchese at the head of a
force of their subjects was exceptional. Most of the fighting the Malaspina
called on their men to do was in support of the familys private quarrels, more
often than not inheritance disputes with other Malaspina. A favourite gambit
in the prosecution of such quarrels was to try to induce the men of a rival to
rebel against him. When the marchesi di Santo Stefano plotted in 1520 against
their cousin, Ghisello, a legitimated son who had inherited his fathers fief of
Gambaro in the Piacentino, they wanted his vassals to kill him. They planned
then to come to claim the lands as the legitimate heirs, promising they would
pardon those who took part in the murder and halve the exactions from the
fief. Unpopular as Ghisellos behaviour had made him, the vassals hung back
from taking the initiative, but two hundred of them, armed with swords and
arquebuses did join Leonardo Malaspina in attacking the castle of Gambaro,
after he renewed the promise to alleviate the burdens on them. He let them
sack the castle, and they swore fidelity to him. Ghisello was killed, and his wife
left for dead; his son Gaspare Vincenzo, who had not been there, managed to
recover Gambaro, but took no reprisals against the vassals.160
The episode at Gambaro was only one of several instances in the first half
of the sixteenth century of Malaspina vassals rebelling against their lords.161
Were relations between the Malaspina lords and their men deteriorating, because of the ever-increasing pressure on the men caused by the repeated subdivision of the fiefs? Did they feel, as the men of another family of Apennine
lords, the Vallisnera, did, that the impoverishment of some of their lords
because of the subdivision of their fief had led to misgovernment and
oppression?162 What effect did the hardships caused by the overspill into the
159
160
161
162
See below, p. 79, for the family feud; Luigi Staffetti, Giulio Cybo-Malaspina, marchese di
Massa, 2 (1892), 14.
Giorgio Fiori, I Malaspina (Piacenza, 1995), 1436.
Branchi, Storia della Lunigiana feudale, I, 51822, II, 2567, 277, 3534.
The men were petitioning the captain of Reggio that the fief should be confiscated
from the Vallisnera. One of the lords maintained that the men had been treated too well
so that they had become proud and did not want to be governed. (Marco Folin, Feudatari,
cittadini, gentiluomini. Forme di nobilt negli Stati estensi fra Quattro e Cinquecento,
456.)
46
Chapter 2
Lunigiana of the campaigns in Lombardy in the 1520s have on the attitude of

the Malaspina vassals to their lords? Information about the internal affairs
of the fiefs is too sparse to enable any judgement to be made. But a comparison
between the attitude of the men of one, Ponzano, to the Malaspina in the midfifteenth and mid-sixteenth centuries is suggestive. Ponzano and other estates
had been taken from the Malaspina by Ludovico Campofregoso in 1449, when
he was doge of Genoa. He claimed they had submitted voluntarily to him and
his mother after the Malaspina had left them free to do so; the men said their
submission had been forced. In 1463 the man of Ponzano rebelled against him,
and welcomed the Malaspina marchesi di Lusuolo back. Ludovico was said to
have treated the men badly, and they protested they would rather burn the
place down than return to his lordship. But they liked their Malaspina lords,
especially Jacomo Ambrogio, because the men behave as though they were his
brothers, and to make them his partisans, he allowed them to rob and to commit other misdeeds.163 In 1540, by contrast, the men of Ponzano drove out their
lord, the marchese Antonio, demolishing his castle, except for one high tower.
Rather than try to recover it, he sold it to the Casa di San Giorgio of Genoa.164
The castellans of Friuli in general were not on good terms with their tenants.
A form of serfdom, masnada, disappeared only in the mid-fifteenth century,
and the peasants of Friuli still feared two or three generations later that the
castellans wished to restore it. Political loyalties among the peasants were focused on their own communities, rather than their lords. Many villages were
split among more than one castellan family, as the castellans estates were typically dispersed parcels, not coherent blocks of land. There does not seem to
have been any expectation that the men of most lords would willingly support
them in their feuds, or identify with their cause.
The notable exception to this pattern was the Savorgnan, especially the Savorgnan del Monte. Disputes with their tenants were resolved by discussions
with the community, respecting established usages and codes of practice. Individual Savorgnan were called upon to arbitrate disputes in villages where they
had no lands, and Savorgnan family lawyers would defend groups of peasants
accused of violence. Venice appointed Savorgnan to command the militia of
the province, enabling them to forge links with the peasants of other castellans, who understandably resented the fact that their men would readily fight
163
164
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 315: Antonio da Dexio to Francesco Sforza, 24 July 1463, Ponzano;
there are a number of other letters about this affair in this file, including Antonio da Dexio
to Francesco Sforza, 4, 12, 29, 31 July, Ponzano and Giangiorgio and Jacomo Ambrogio
Malaspina to Francesco Sforza, 5 July 1463.
Branchi, Storia della Lunigiana feudale, II, 2567.
47
under the leadership of the Savorgnan. Training given to the militia in handling weapons and the experience of fighting as a unit could be put to use by
the peasants in their own cause against their lords.165
Violence by peasants against castellans reached a peak in 1511, in the most
serious rebellion of rural communities against their lords in Renaissance Italy.
Castellans had been aware trouble was brewing for some time. In 1508 one of
them, Francesco Strassoldo, in the Parlamento of Friuli warned of gatherings
of up to two thousand peasants in various parts of the provinces in which, he
claimed, threats had been made about cutting to pieces prelates, gentlemen,
castellans and citizens.166 An uprising in 1509 by the tenants of the Colloredo
family at Sterpo, reinforced by hundreds of militiamen, resulted in the capture
and destruction of the Colloredo fortress there.167 The wave of attacks on the
castellans in 1511 followed faction-fighting in Udine, in which castellans and
their families were massacred by supporters of the Savorgnan.168 Militia units
had taken part in the fighting.
The attacks on castellan property in the countryside were not directed or
led by the Savorgnan, although they were nearly all directed against their rivals. Many were the work of tenants, attacking the castles and fortified houses
where they paid their rents and dues. Estate records and the castellans property were the targets; no castellans were killed by their men. Some peasants
joined in attacks on other fortresses as well.169 A contemporary historian of the
events of 1511, Gregorio Amaseo, wrote of a force numbering thousands of
peasants, armed as if for battle with the artillery to storm fortresses, followed
by the throng of their families in carts, for easier looting.170 In most places, the
fighting was over within a week; in some, it lasted for months. Retaliation by
castellans who joined forces resulted in the deaths of dozens of peasants, but
they were held back by Venetian officials conscious of the political credit enjoyed by the Savorgnan in Venice, and of the Imperial sympathies of many of
the castellans who had been attacked.171 Other troubles an earthquake, a
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
Furio Bianco, Mihi vindictam: aristocratic clans and rural communities in a feud in Friuli
in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, 25863; Giuseppe Trebbi, Il Friuli dal 1420 al
1797. La storia politica e sociale (Udine, 1998), 846; Muir, Mad Blood Stirring, 1213.
Bianco, Mihi vindictam, 265; Angelo Ventura, Nobilt e popolo nella societ veneta del
Quattrocento e Cinquecento (Milan, 1993), 140, n. 51, dates this speech to 1503.
Muir, Mad Blood Stirring, 1467.
For the factions in Friuli, see below, pp. 978.
Muir, Mad Blood Stirring, 16988; Sergio Gobet, La rivolta contadina del 1511: le cause e gli
avvenimenti, 1289.
Bianco, Mihi vindictam, 250.
Ventura, Nobilt e popolo, 1468.
48
Chapter 2
plague, an invasion by Imperial troops diverted attention from repressing

and punishing participants in the uprisings.
Neapolitan barons were not renowned for enjoying close ties to their subjects and vassals. They could not win their gratitude by offering them a refuge
from taxation, as the lords of Emilia could do. Indeed, many of the barons had
been granted the privilege of taking the proceeds of certain taxes of the crown
for themselves. Baronial estates in Naples changed hands more often than in
other areas of Italy, in the wake of rebellion and dynastic change, and the process accelerated in the first decades of the sixteenth century. New barons, particularly those who had bought their estates from the profits of office-holding
or trade, might well have little interest in cultivating the loyalty of their subjects.172 One of the best-known instances of a baron being killed by his men
was that of Gian Carlo Tramontano, who had made his fortune in the service of
the crown and bought the town of Matera from a Frenchman who had been
granted it two years before. Tramontano built up huge debts trying to be the
grand seigneur, including the construction of a castle modelled on the Castelnuovo of Naples, and his attempts to extract the money from his vassals provoked the rebellion against him in December 1514.173
How vexatious the barons could be to their men was outlined by a report on
the kingdom prepared by an official in 1521: forcing them to pay unjust tolls;
taking most of the profits their subjects made from sales of produce; forcing
them, if they wanted to sell their land, to sell it to the lord at a price below the
market value; placing restrictions on what livestock they could keep, or what
trade they might engage in; directing who their sons and daughters should
marry.174 Evidence of what the barons vassals and subjects thought of their
lords is to be found mainly in records of their complaints, and the requests of
communities to be taken into the crown demesne and not granted to another
baron. Some of the evidence of such requests like King Ferrantes assertion
that the people of the county of Ariano, weary of being robbed by Pedro de
Guevara, had declared they did not want a lord any more (non volere pi
signore),175 could be viewed as tendentious. But there were too many testimonies from different sources to what a Florentine ambassador to Naples described in 1485 as the common desire of the estates of the barons to come into
172
173
174
175
Carlo De Frede, Rivolte antifeudali nel Mezzogiorno dItalia durante il Cinquecento, 47.
Ibid., 1417; Santoro, Castelli angioini e aragonesi, 235, 237.
Ped, Napoli e Spagna, 4612; see Ernesto Pontieri, Dinastia, regno e capitale nel Mezzogiorno aragonese, 559, for an account of the barons powers over their vassals.
Volpicella, Regis Ferdinandi primi instructionum liber, 636.
49
the demesne, to doubt that the vassals of many Neapolitan barons had little
love for their lords.176
Barons from long-established families in the fifteenth century might, however, think of their relations with their vassals as good and feel they could
count on their support.177 The Sanseverino involved or implicated in the rebellion of 14856 were confident that, so long as they were personally safe, the
loyalty of their subjects was such that they could recover their lands sometime,
as they had done before.178 When Antonello da Sanseverino, principe di Salerno, was surrendering his fortresses to King Federico in 1498, some of his subjects were reported to have wept and kissed his garments, crying that they
wanted no other lord but him.179 Ferrante da Sanseverino could raise 60 menat-arms from among his vassals in 1525.180 But how many of his other tenants
would have fought for him if he had wanted to lead them in rebellion against
the king, like his grandfather Antonello?
The strength of the attachment of barons and castellans to their estates was
not determined by the legal status of the lands, be they fief, allod or leasehold;
in any case, the exact legal status was often unclear. Only a minority perhaps
quite a small minority derived great wealth from their estates, but the worth
of their lands to them was not measured only in terms of revenue. Fortresses
and jurisdiction, control over men and the claim to their loyalty that the estates brought were valued as highly. In some regions, the loyalty of their men
and their military capabilities were assets that merited the sacrifice of some
potential income to maintain. Not all barons felt this way. Those of the kingdom of Naples and of Friuli were not usually known for their benevolence to
the men on their estates, although there were exceptions even among these
groups. Possession of fortresses generally brought expense rather than income
(unless they could be used to enforce the exaction of tolls), but they added
greatly to the importance barons attached to the possession of particular estates. In estimates of the power of a baron or in a familys estimate of the assets
to be shared when inheritances were divided, estates with fortresses were the
key assets. Fortresses varied widely in size, sophistication and strength. Some
fortifications incorporated palatial residences with elegant courtyards or gardens; a stout, plain tower in the right position might ultimately offer a stronger
176
177
178
179
180
Corrispondenza degli ambasciatori fiorentini a Napoli, II, Corrispondenza di Giovanni Lanfredini 14851486 (Naples, 2002), 455: G. Lanfredini to X di Balia, 28 Dec. 1485, Naples.
Ernesto Pontieri, La Calabria del sceolo XV e la rivolta di Antonio Centeglia, 834.
Porzio, La Congiura de Baroni, ed. dAloe, CCXII, CCXV.
Sanuto, I diarii, I, cols 8556.
G. de Blasiis, Processo contro Cesare Carrafa inquisito di fellonia, 767.
50
Chapter 2
defence. New fortresses were being built, old ones enlarged and updated.
Princes and republican governments alike could assert the right to grant or
withhold permission to do this. They might also assert the right to take custody
of fortresses they felt constituted a threat to their security. Barons and castellans built and maintained their fortresses and other military resources to serve
their own interests, not those of any superior they might acknowledge. Even
fiefholders had no obligation to perform military service for them, except in
north-western Italy, where the tradition was weakening and in Sicily, where
in the sixteenth century the duty to serve with a specific number of men was
often commuted.
It may be that by the mid-sixteenth century, barons and castellans tended to
have less occasion to call on their men to fight for them, and were increasingly
tempted to see them primarily as a source of income; that some fortresses used
as residences would have more of the character of a palace than of a military
installation, that primogeniture was undermining the structure of some castellan families but these were as yet merely changes in degree. The fundamental
nature of the relation of the military nobility to their lands and their fortresses
remained unchanged.
Barons in the City
51
CHAPTER 3
Barons in the City

Traditionally, the landed, military nobility of medieval and Renaissance Italy
was seen by historians as standing apart from urban and civic life as disruptive, oppressive forces that had to be kept out, controlled and repressed if the
urban economy and civic society and culture were to flourish. Many local studies of Italian towns and cities are now presenting a rather different picture, one
of members of the landed nobility lords of castles, not just families of the
civic elite who had become landowners having an influential, sometimes
dominant voice in the affairs of Italian urban communities. In some cases, the
question arises whether, rather than urban communities taming the landed
nobility of the surrounding countryside, it would not be nearer the mark to
think of the landed nobility controlling the town. It would be an exaggeration
to suggest this was the general pattern, and it is far from being established as
the new prevailing paradigm. In fact, it is no great exaggeration to say that
general interpretations of the relations between the landed nobility and the
city in Renaissance Italy still tend to start from Machiavellis condemnation of
gentlemen who live idly on their revenues as being pernicious in every republic and every province, with those who also have castles at their command,
and subjects who obey them being more pernicious still. Because the kingdom
of Naples, the lands around Rome, the Romagna and Lombardy were full of
such men, Machiavelli argued, there had never been any republic or vivere
politico (fully-fledged civic government) in those regions, because these kinds
of men are wholly enemies to all civic life (civilt).1
This line of interpretation has long held sway among historians of southern
Italy, preoccupied with explaining the problem of the Mezzogiorno: why for so
long the region has been poorer and more backward than the rest of Italy. For
the period from the late thirteenth to the sixteenth century (when the blame
could begin to be laid on the Spanish) the favoured explanation has been the
dominance of the barons who have been regarded as hostile to towns just as
they were hostile to the monarchy, or to anything that might curb their power
or conflict with their interests. Southern Italy was poor and backward because
there was no strong local bourgeoisie that could have allied with the monarchy
against the barons. That towns were natural allies of the crown against the
1 Niccol Machiavelli, Discorsi sopra la prima Deca di Tito Livio, Book I, Chap. 55.
52
Chapter 3
landed nobility is an idea familiar from the historiography of much of medieval Europe, although not one that still prevails, at least in such a stark form.
The role of the military nobility in the development of the communes in
medieval Italy is one of the most debated aspects of Italian urban history.
In broad outline, the long-standing picture could be described like this.
With the revival of trade in the eleventh and twelfth centuries came the revival of towns, most notably in northern and central Italy. Townsmen took on
the government of their own communities, establishing communes, and communal governments asserted their control over the surrounding countryside.
Towns grew and prospered in part through conquering and taming the landed
nobility around them. Some rural nobles migrated into the towns, often being
compelled to live there by the communal governments for at least part of the
year, so they could be more effectively controlled. But they brought with them
their violent ways, their feuds with other families, their contests for power.
They built imposing houses, with lofty towers that could be used for defence,
as a refuge during fighting and as visible symbols of the familys power and
prestige.
In the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, the political and judicial
institutions of the communes developed and changed in efforts to contain the
threat to public order from unruly nobles. The citizens, notably merchants and
tradesmen, coalesced into associations generically known as the popolo, the
people. The institutions of the popolo attained increasing prominence in
the government of the city, and formed militias which could take on the violent noble clans. The fortified houses of the nobles, with the tall towers asso
ciated with them, could be demolished if their owners caused too much
trouble; sometimes the towers were just cut down to size, so that they no longer
stood high above the rooftops, as symbols of noble power. In many towns,
there was legislation against the magnates, directed against those powerful
clans who vied for dominance and disdained the popolo; their exclusion from
government curbed their political influence. In some urban communities,
however, particularly in Lombardy and the Romagna, the nobles were either
not repressed or they contained the challenge of the popolo, and they continued to be a disruptive presence. Unable to break their power, the popolo in
these communities acquiesced in the rise of signori, lords sometimes known
as tyranni, despots surrendering the possibility of being their own political
masters in the hope of greater security and public order.
Challenges to various aspects of this classic picture have been gathering impetus over the last thirty years or so.2 The economic basis of the revival of
2 Philip Jones, The Italian City-State from Commune to Signoria (Oxford, 1997), brings together
evidence and arguments from a myriad of studies; for the nobility in particular, see Renato
Barons in the City
53
towns, it is argued, was not connected to the revival of long-distance trade, but
to the revival of agriculture and the growth of the rural population. This implies that the rural nobility and their lands must have been of more integral
importance to the development of the towns, and that rural nobles would have
had a much more direct interest in the urban economy not just parasitically
exacting tolls on trade. Some members of noble families from the countryside
engaged in trade, while some men who had made their wealth in trade bought
land and some bought or built fortresses. Where this happened, were they still
recognizably distinct social groups? The term nobles as it was used in contemporary sources in relation to towns was generally just shorthand for socially prominent families, who might have lands, fortresses and jurisdiction
over men in the district around the town, but by no means always did. Even if
they did not, the men from such families were often trained in the use of weapons, and able to fight on horseback as milites.3
On the other hand, rural families that had migrated to the towns, even if
they engaged in trade and banking, kept the social customs and attitudes
forged in the fierce competition for land and power in the countryside, including habits of violence and feud. Typically, they built enclaves, with their houses
clustered together and the houses of their dependents grouped around them,
positioned so that there would be limited access to the complex from outside
and it was easily defensible. These enclaves would be like so many private fortresses within a town; often they would be situated in the part of the town
nearest to the routes to their lands.4 They did not become absentee landlords,
interested only in the revenues their lands might yield; the military strength
and potential of their estates was valued, and nurtured.
Interpretations of the relation between the popolo and the nobles have also
become more nuanced. Opposition to noble violence was indisputably one
spur to the formation of an organized popolo in many towns. But a variety of
social organizations might come together to form the political entity of the
popolo, including bodies regulating the affairs of neighbourhoods, craft and
Bordone, Guido Castelnuovo and Gian Maria Varanini, Le aristocrazie dai signori rurali al
patriziato (Rome and Bari, 2004).
3 It has been argued that in the twelfth century the milites were a relatively open social group:
once a man could afford a horse and the equipment to fight on horseback (probably from the
second or later generation of an affluent family, not the first), he could be regarded as belonging to the milites. By the late twelfth century, they were becoming a more exclusive group,
and to be described as nobles; the leading milites would be liable to be classed as magnates.
(Jean-Claude Maire Vigueur, Cavalieri e cittadini. Guerra, conflitti e societ nellItalia comunale
(Bologna, 2004).
4 Jacques Heers, La citt nel medioevo in Occidente. Paesaggi, poteri e conflitti (Milan, 1995),
22732.
54
Chapter 3
trade associations (arti), and religious confraternities. Nobles could be members of any or all of these. The popolo was not hostile to nobles as a class. Antimagnate legislation was directed against those who threatened to disrupt the
community, whether old-established families that had been powerful for generations or new families, who had used their wealth to build up a following of
clients and dependents, and had assimilated socially to the old nobility. If
magnate families behaved with restraint, they could maintain their prestige
and social position and would just be excluded from institutions derived from
the organization of the popolo, while remaining eligible for other public offices. It was those families and individuals who refused to adapt to the mores of
an orderly urban society that would be persecuted under anti-magnate legislation.5
The great majority of signori came from noble families with extensive lands,
and they retained strong links to the countryside after they had established
dominion over their towns.6 Their background, their way of life, their values
were closer to those of the rural nobility than to those of the citizens they
ruled, although generally they also had property and connections in the towns
before they made their bids for power. Usually, they were leaders of noble factions not of nobles ranged against the popolo, but of factions within the nobility, divided by disputes over property and by personal quarrels as well as by
contests for power. Those factions, even if they were centred on one or more
noble clans, might involve many members of the popolo as well. Not only
wealthy popolari who had assimilated the values of the nobles would be attracted into their orbit: there would also be clients, dependents and servants of
the noble clans, perhaps neighbours who had been drawn under their protection.
The ambivalent position of the rural, military nobility in towns and cities
that can be observed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was still evident in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Even in states such as Genoa,
where members of the oldest, most prestigious noble families engaged in trade
and banking, there remained a sense that nobles were different from merchants and other citizens. They might have extensive property in a town, many
clients and dependents and friends, they might want to share in its government, perhaps nurse ambitions to be signori over it, yet there was still a sense
that such families stood apart from the urban community. Roman barons, for
instance, called themselves baroni romani, and were seen as Roman by the
5 See Carol Lansing, Magnate violence revisited, for a consideration of the recent literature.
6 Philip Jones, Communes and despots. The city-state in late medieval Italy remains the classic
analysis of these processes.
Barons in the City
55
people of Rome, but they never wholly identified themselves with the city and
they remained clearly separate from the civic nobility of Rome. The intricacy
of the ties that could bind landed nobles to urban communities, and the sense
that nevertheless they were distinct from them that they were integral, but
not intrinsic, elements of urban society that had developed during the thirteenth century, continued to characterize relations between the landed nobility and the towns.
In the first half of the fifteenth century, lords of castles might still aspire to
become signori of towns and cities. In the collapse of Visconti power in the
duchy of Milan after the death of Gian Galeazzo Visconti in 1402, Pietro Rossi
saw an opportunity to make himself lord of Parma. His ambition would be
thwarted by another member of the local landed nobility, Ottobuono Terzi.
They agreed to share the dominion over Parma, and in early March 1404 Rossi
brought several hundred of his followers, and Terzi six hundred horse (probably of his condottiere company) into the city, to cries of Viva la parte Guelfa,
Long live the Guelf party. It was as faction leaders that they took over the city,
and one of their first acts was to order members of rival squadre (as the urban
factions in Parma were called) to disarm. They were formally invested as joint
signori by the citizens, but their condominium was brief. Terzi had the stronger
forces and Pietro Rossi felt it prudent to leave in late May. His followers were
violently persecuted; many were expelled, their property destroyed. In the
countryside, the Rossi fought on, raiding and burning Terzis estates. Terzi
would have liked to have Piacenza as well, but only had the forces to sack it, not
hold it. He did succeed in taking Reggio, which Giovanni Maria Visconti granted him, with other lands, as a county. His progress brought him into direct
competition with another, well-established, lord, Niccol III dEste, Marquis of
Ferrara, who arranged a meeting with him in May 1409, at which Terzi was assassinated. Niccol dEste took over Parma himself, ruling it until Duke Filippo
Maria Visconti recovered it in 1420.7
Only in conditions of exceptional political turbulence, such as afflicted
Lombardy after the death of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, could such aspirations by
a noble from the countryside to seize power over a city be realized in the fifteenth century, and then only temporarily. If a city or town was susceptible to
the assumption of power by a local landed noble, there would be other, more
powerful, already established signori ready to move in, as Niccol dEste did at
Parma, or a prince or republic with a claim to sovereignty over the place who
would be unwilling to sanction a coup. As the system of regional states, seeking
7 Marco Gentile, Terra e poteri (Milan, 2001), 2831, 99102; Pezzana, Storia della Citt di Parma,
II, 43119; Andrea Gamberini, Principi in guerra: Ottobuono Terzi e i suoi nemici.
56
Chapter 3
firmer control over the areas they sought to govern, became better defined in
the fifteenth century, there was less and less room for newcomers to the ranks
of signori.
The best chance for a member of a noble family to become lord of a city
in the fifteenth century was as a condottiere. Powerful condottieri could attain
this status by conquest, or by more or less voluntary grant from employers as a
reward, or to cover arrears of pay. Ottobuono Terzis rule over Parma was recognized by the unwilling duke of Milan, and his conquest of Reggio sanctioned,
because he was owed so much back pay for his service to the Visconti as a condottiere. But they rarely held on to the prize for long. If a condottiere retired
from his profession to concentrate on governing, he would be unable to sustain
the mercenary company on which his power was based; if he continued to lead
his company on campaigns, he would have difficulty keeping hold over his
state.8
The case of Perugia illustrates the problems. Braccio Fortebracci, lord of
Montana near Perugia, one of the most renowned condottieri of his time, took
Perugia, from which he was formally exiled along with other nobles, by force in
1416; it was only part of the extensive signoria he was carving out for himself
in Umbria. He managed to keep his hold over Perugia until his death in
battle in 1424, but his rule was challenged by rebellions there and in the rest of
his Umbrian dominions.9 A threat from his son Carlo, after thirty years serving
Venice as a condottiere, to enter Perugia in 1477 and make himself head of the
government aroused some disquiet. But he had nothing like the military
strength of his father, and did not attempt to take the city by force; the temporal government of the papacy was much more effective than it had been in his
fathers lifetime.10
Another noble family, the Baglioni, did succeed in establishing a kind of
dominance over Perugia, sealed when they drove their main rivals, the degli
Oddi, into exile in 1488. They were never acknowledged as signori of the city,
and there was still a papal governor. Their position was founded on leadership
of a faction, supported by the extensive lands and fortresses in Perugian territory that gave them greater reserves of fighting men to draw on than their rivals. Their dominance was also supported by the wealth and reputation several
8
9
10
For a discussion of the role of condottieri in the Italian state system in the first half of the
fifteenth century, see Ann Katherine Isaacs, Condottieri, stati e territori nellItalia centrale, 2360.
R. Valentini, Braccio da Montone e il comune di Orvieto, 25 (1922), 65157; 26 (1923),
1199.
Lorenzo de Medici, Lettere (Florence, 1977-), II, 37681, 3867, 38992, 398401, 41620.
Barons in the City
57
members of the family earned as condottieri, most notably Gianpaolo and his
son Malatesta. Their prowess as soldiers and the political connections they
made with other powers helped maintain their power, despite murderous
quarrels that split the family and sent one or other group into exile, and increasing hostility from the popes. Gianpaolo Baglioni managed by timely submission to ward off the threat of expulsion from Perugia when Pope Julius II
himself led his army to assert control of the city in 1506. But he would meet his
death in Rome in 1520, where he had gone in response to a summons from Leo
X, only to be arrested, imprisoned, tortured and then executed. Nevertheless, it
was not until the end of 1534 that a pope, Paul III, was finally able to order the
Baglioni to quit Perugia, and they were no longer able to defy him.11
A late exception to the rule of the vanishing chances of a condottiere setting
himself up as the lord of a city was, of course, Francesco Sforza, who was not a
member of an established baronial family. His father, Muzio Attendolo (whose
nickname, Sforza, became the family name of his descendants), from relatively humble origins became a powerful condottiere. On his fathers death in
1424, Francesco succeeded to the captaincy of his company, and proved himself to be as great a soldier as his father had been. To secure his support in 1431
Filippo Maria Visconti betrothed his young, legitimated daughter, Bianca Maria, to Francesco and granted him some lands in the duchy of Milan near Alessandria. On their marriage ten years later, Bianca brought to Francesco as her
dowry lordship over the city of Cremona. In 1444 he conquered much of the
province of the Marche in the Papal States for himself, but Filippo Maria was
as unhappy at the formation of this incipient condottiere state as was the pope,
and Sforza could not hold it for long against their combined forces. When
Filippo Maria died in 1447 and the citizens of Milan formed their Ambrosian
Republic named after the patron saint of Milan, Sforza first served it and then
fought it, bidding to become the new duke. He succeeded in 1450, and was
acclaimed as duke by the Milanese. His rule was founded on military conquest,
although he and his successors would present themselves as heirs to the
Visconti. His abilities as a politician were as formidable as his abilities as a
military leader; it was this combination which enabled him to pass on the
duchy to his heirs.12
Andrea Doria was accused by his enemies of acting like the lord of Genoa in
the new republic established there under his aegis in 1528; he was the minence grise in the government and political life of the city for three decades.
But he was never doge, although under the new constitution members of old
11
12
C.F. Black, The Baglioni as tyrants of Perugia, 14881540, 24581.

Franco Catalano, Francesco Sforza (Varese, 1984), 143.
58
Chapter 3
noble families like the Doria, formerly excluded from the dogeship, were eligible to serve a two-year term. The title of prince that he bore came from his estates in Naples; Charles V had made him principe di Melfi for his services as
admiral. It was from his position as Charles Vs admiral, and as the intermediary between the emperor and Genoa, that his influence derived.13 The branch
of the Doria from which he came were lords of the Valle dOneglia, but his father Ceva had held only a minor share in this signory. After his death, Andrea
had sold his share in 1488, as other Doria who were joint lords of the valley did,
to the most powerful of their cousins, Domenico Doria, then captain of the
papal guard.14 Andrea Dorias galleys, not lands and fortresses in Genoese territory, underpinned his power in the city.
If they could not become lords of a town, barons and castellans would generally not be interested in holding office in the civic government themselves,
even if they were eligible (for in many towns they were still not). Generally,
they preferred to exercise political influence in cities indirectly, through their
factions and clients. In Parma, for example, the squadre, the factions who had
set shares in the civic government, took their names from major families of
rural nobles such as the Rossi and Sanvitale, and those families and their allies
and agents had a decisive voice in appointments to offices, committees and
councils, but the men of the families could not themselves hold any of the offices or sit on any of the committees. Where no such prohibition barred their
way, the prospect of being closeted for months on end in the government palace and in some places members of the major executive committees even
had to reside in the palace throughout their term of office does not seem to
have appealed to them. Hearing petitions, sorting out disputes, dispensing political patronage to the men of the town, was one thing; sitting side by side with
them, dealing with the routine business of civic government quite another.15
Nevertheless, the families of the military nobility took pride in their association with the factions that bore their names, which were seen as part of their
inheritance. Discussions about whether to do away with the name of the Doria
13
14
15
Arturo Pacini, La Genova di Andrea Doria nellImpero di Carlo V (Florence, 1999).

Biga, La Valle dOneglia, 2134.
Civic governments could cause rural nobles much vexation, by challenging their jurisdiction over their lands and those who lived in them, or seeking to impose on them taxes and
tolls from which the nobles might claim exemption, or trying to restrict their freedom to
sell the produce from their lands or the prices at which it could be sold. In order to have
some influence over such matters, rural nobility did not need to sit on the councils and
committees of urban governments themselves: it would be enough for them to have men
they could trust friends, relatives, clients, dependents, partisans who could help to
protect their interests.
Barons in the City
59
party and the Spinola party in Savona, so that they should no longer be mentioned in offices or in anything else, brought protests from the Doria against
the threat that in our time their name, which they have had for three hundred
years, should be extinguished.16
The Savorgnan were unusual in becoming personally involved in the routine government of a town, Udine, of which they were not lords (although the
family did originate there, before they acquired lands). Not content with exerting influence by proxy, the most powerful members of the clan, Antonio and
then Girolamo Savorgnan, would sit on committees they claimed the right to
have a member of the family sit with the major executive committee, the Seven
Deputies and make proposals to councils. Antonio used his interventions as
a way of building up a following among the artisans and poor of Udine, championing their interests, in particular, by proposing measures to ensure there
were adequate supplies of wholesome food available for them to buy.17
The importance the Savorgnan attached to their role in Udine was shown
by the protests Girolamo Savorgnan made about reforms to the civic government introduced and encouraged by the Venetians. The popular assembly, the
arengo, where the votes of the artisans had helped the Savorgnan to sway the
decisions, was abolished in 1513; in 1518 the introduction of secret ballots, in
place of spoken votes, into the city council further reduced their capacity to
influence affairs; and their right to nominate the chancellor of the commune
was nullified. Their right to sit with the Seven Deputies was also challenged. In
a long memorandum drawn up by Girolamo Savorgnan in 1519 and presented
to the Venetian Council of Ten, he asserted that our family has always had and
still has a very close connection and union with the town of Udine which, in
truth, is the head of all the Patria [of Friuli]. This connection is public and
manifest to all in three ways. Firstly, their coat of arms was placed with that of
the commune on all the public buildings of Udine; secondly, they paid their
extraordinary taxes with the community of Udine, rather than with the other
castellans; and thirdly always and openly we have had this position of sitting
with the Deputies of the town.18 Girolamo continued to try to defend his familys privileges in Udine, but to no avail.19
16
17
18
19
ASGenoa, AS1793, f. 914, no. 428: Lodovico Campofregoso to Tommaso Campofregoso,

16 Apr. 1449.
Laura Casella, I Savorgnan (Rome, 2003), 285; the whole document is printed there, 279
317.
Ibid., 8597, for a discussion of Girolamos defence of his familys position.
60
Chapter 3
Udine was a small city, poor, a market and administrative centre for an impoverished rural province. Genoa was a great commercial city, its economy
based on international maritime trade, but there, too, powerful families of
landed nobility claimed political privileges and took part in routine civic government. Members of the Doria, Spinola, Fieschi and Grimaldi families served
on the major executive committee, the Anziani, on the financial committee,
the Ufficio della Moneta, and on extraordinary (but time-consuming) commissions dealing with particular problems. They also took part in the governance
of the major public financial institution, the Casa di San Giorgio. Apparently,
though, there was a division of labour within these clans. Some members were
based in Genoa, working as lawyers, bankers and merchants and took part in
the civic government, while others stayed in the Riviere and the mountains. Of
course, some of the individuals who appeared with these surnames in the government registers would not be members of the clans, but of other families
who had joined the alberghi, and taken their surname. But not all: the major
families were not participating in the civic government at arms length. Rather
than sit on committees, some preferred to hold offices in Genoese territory.
Appointments to positions as castellans or vicars of subject places, and especially as captains of the Riviere, always appealed to them.
Politically, the Doria and Spinola clans had established a significant role for
themselves in the contests among aspiring doges. Individuals who hoped to
become doge in the fifteenth century would struggle to realise their ambition
unless they secured the backing of at least a substantial part of one or other of
these clans. The Doria tended to be associated with Campofregoso doges, the
Spinola with the Adorno. Once in office, a doge could continue to be reliant on
the continued support of his backers, with some individuals acting as close
advisers, while the backers of his rivals would often absent themselves from
the city. Spinola rarely appear in lists of officeholders under Campofregoso
doges or Doria under Adorno doges. Should the doge try to emancipate himself
from what might at times feel like tutelage rather than support, as Pietro Campofregoso did when he experimented with basing his power on an alliance
with the artisans in 1454,20 he risked undermining his own position. The office
of doge brought command of few military resources a palace guard, some
garrison troops for the fortresses of the commune, perhaps a galley or two to
guard against pirates. Anything more than that would not be under his personal control; he would always be flanked by a committee, whose members he
20
Christine Shaw, Popular Government and Oligarchy in Renaissance Italy (Leiden, 2006),
1567; Antonia Borlandi, Ragione politica e ragione di famiglia nel dogato di Pietro
Fregoso, 35860, 37784.
Barons in the City
61
could not choose. Doges sometimes made great efforts to persuade other powers to pay for extra troops to support their position a few hundred infantry
under their command could make all the difference but rarely succeeded.
The military resources of the Doria and the Spinola could not be left out of the
equations of Genoese politics in the fifteenth century.21
Those equations changed radically during the Italian Wars. With Genoa being claimed for the French crown, the question of who should rule in Genoa
became a matter of concern for the enemies and rivals of France as well. For
Campofregoso or Adorno looking for backing for an attempt to overthrow the
government of Genoa, and become doge or governor for another power themselves, securing the support of the king of France or Spain, or perhaps the pope
or the Swiss, was the crucial matter; Doria and Spinola support could still be
useful but was not as essential as it had been before the Wars. No mention was
made of the Spinola, for example, in the agreement made between Antoniotto
and Girolamo Adorno and Cardinal Schinner, who was acting on behalf of the
Holy League, in October 1513.22 After 1528, Andrea Dorias dominance brought
a prominent role for his nearest relatives, but not for the whole Doria clan.
Under the new constitution, with doges elected for two-year terms from among
all the families eligible for political office, the Doria and the Spinola were no
longer dogemakers.
In the fifteenth century, the Fieschi also had appreciable weight in determining who would be doge. They were more inclined to side with the Campofregoso, but would on occasion back an Adorno. The leading Fieschi claimed a
right to a share in the power of a doge to whom they gave support, but on
a rather different basis from the Spinola and Doria who acted as advisers to the
doge. The head of the Fieschi would generally not care to be resident in Genoa,
to be at the doges side. What they valued was a share in the patronage of the
doge, and being given command of the territories of the commune of Genoa in
the eastern Riviera, such as Recco, Chiavari and Portofino. This would give
them and their partisans control of the coast by the mountains in which the
Fieschi lands were concentrated. What their share would be was a matter for
negotiation, which would be recorded in written agreements; it was a personal,
political arrangement between the Fieschi and the doge, not an institutional
one.
21
22
For the particular ethos of Genoese political life in the fifteenth century, see Christine
Shaw, Principles and practice in the civic government of fifteenth-century Genoa.
Albert Bchi (ed.), Korrespondenzen und Akten zur Geschichte des Kardinals Matth.
Schiner, (Basel, 1920, 1925), I, 5048.
62
Chapter 3
Gian Luigi Fieschis role in the government of Genoa from 1488 to 1499 was
unusual, in that he spent quite a lot of his time in Genoa, regularly participating in discussions and decision-making with Agostino and Giovanni Adorno.
Lodovico Sforza and his representative in Genoa treated them as though they
were virtually a triumvirate, although well aware of the jealousies and rivalry
between Gian Luigi and the Adorno brothers. When Louis XII became lord of
Genoa in 1499, the Adorno brothers were forced to leave Genoa, but Gian Luigi
enjoyed great favour from the French, and was made governor of eastern Liguria. The extent of his privileges caused resentment in Genoa, and was one of
the underlying causes of the revolt against the French in 1506. After his death
in 1510, his sons did not enjoy the same power and influence as their father had
had. The constitutional changes of 1528 sealed the loss of the traditional Fieschi role in Genoese politics and government.23
Genoa was the only independent republic in which the military nobility had
such an important political role. In the other surviving republics Florence
(until 1530), Venice, Lucca and Siena the rural nobility had no distinct influence in the affairs of the capital city, no factions or partisans to project their
power or protect their interests. In the capital city of a princely state, how a
noble stood with the prince, rather than the contacts he had among the population of the city, would generally be what counted most. This consideration
did not turn the military nobility of the princely states into courtiers. Princes
were more inclined to wish to see the major barons and castellans of their state
living in the capital city than the military nobility were inclined to do so, certainly on a regular basis, even for part of the year.
Only Rome, of all the princely seats of government in Italy, was the political
centre of an important constellation of barons. The Roman barons were as
concerned with their relations with the people of Rome, especially with the
civic nobility, as they were with their relations with the pope. For much of
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Rome had been governed by senators
chosen from a restricted group of baronial families, usually serving in pairs. No
baron tried to make himself lord of Rome. The only lord could be the pope,
however ineffectual his power might be. By the mid-fourteenth century, the
barons seem to have lost interest in the task of governing the city, but not
in the affairs of Rome, and they maintained links of friendship and clientage
with the citizen families who took over the government. By the mid-fifteenth
century, with the popes once again resident in Rome, and a papal gover-
nor exercising more power in the city than the civic government, there was
no sufficiently prestigious role to tempt the barons to participate in the
23
See below, pp. 2256.
Barons in the City
63
administration of the city as it grew and flourished once more. There seems to
have been an informal arrangement that civic offices should be evenly divided
between partisans of the Colonna and the Orsini.24 The barons kept on good
terms with the civic nobility, and would on occasion join with them in defending the interests of the Romans against the ecclesiastical government. Most
famously, in 1511 when Julius II lay gravely ill, some Orsini, Colonna, Savelli and
Anguillara took part in meetings with the officials of the commune and many
citizens. They swore to put aside the quarrels between their families, and unite
in defence of the Roman Republic and the rights and privileges that had been
granted to it by the pope.25
By contrast, the city of Naples had no tradition of strong municipal government, and the barons of the kingdom had never competed to control it. In the
fifteenth century they did not spend much time in the city of Naples, unless
they were among the monarchs closest advisors and companions. Those who
did have houses there often let them out. In the sixteenth century, encouraged
by the Spanish viceroys, more major barons began to build fine palaces in Naples, or to put a fine facade on an existing building.26 But they still had no interest in participating in the civic government of Naples. Under the viceroys,
minor barons became more inclined to seek admission to the seggi, the associations of nobles whose delegated representatives formed the major committee of the civic government. Their primary motive for doing so was probably to
enhance their social standing in the capital, rather than to have a direct voice
in its government.27
This trend was also evident in provincial towns that had seggi, too. Barons
already had a close association with towns throughout the kingdom of Naples.
In the second city of the kingdom, LAquila, the citizens seemed readier to defer to the conti di Montorio than to officials sent there by the king. Whatever
captain or magistrate he sent there, Ferrante complained, would have to do as
the count wished in matters of justice or it would be the worse for him; and
whoever committed a crime could find sanctuary in the counts house. Taxes
24
25
26
27
Corporals were being elected for the Roman militia, and in accordance with the provisions for other officials, they should be two Colonna and two Orsini. (ASMantua,
AGonzaga, b. 841, c. 62: Bartolomeo Bonatto to Ludovico Gonzaga, 1 May 1461, Rome.)
C. Gennaro, La Pax Romana del 1511, 53.
Grard Labrot, Baroni in citt. Residenze e comportamenti dellaristocrazia napoletana
15301734 (Naples, 1979), 3651.
Giuseppe Galasso, La feudalit nel secolo XVI, 119; Maria Antonietta Visceglia, Identit
sociali. La nobilt napoletana nella prima et moderna (Milan, 1998), 2939, 90103.
64
Chapter 3
could only be exacted in full if the count was willing.28 Many towns were governed directly by barons, as a constituent part of their estates. Some were baronial foundations, others were held as grants from the crown. Giovanni Antonio
Orsini, principe di Taranto, was reputed to be lord of seven archiepiscopal cities and 30 episcopal cities.29 Given the frequency with which estates were forfeit or confiscated and granted out again, some towns such as Teramo and Atri
found themselves alternating between subjection to a baron and direct subjection to the crown. Towns might petition the king that they should not be placed
under baronial rule, although once they were dealing with royal tax collectors
and judicial officials, their preference for regal over baronial lords might
change. Civic government seems to have gone on under the barons and under
the crown in much the same way, with the same kinds of civic councils and
executive commissions as could be found in northern Italian towns.30
Unless they owned the towns, barons did not have fortresses in them (as
Roman barons, for example, had had in earlier centuries).31 But town houses or
palaces might be constructed in such a way that they could easily be held
against an attack, or used as a base for considerable numbers of armed men.
Particularly where clans of rural nobility had a long association with a town,
the houses of the different lineages still tended to be grouped together, sometimes around a piazza that was regarded as their common space, one that
could be barricaded and defended if need be. Where the medieval street plan
and much of the fabric survives, some sense of how such family enclaves could
project the image of family power, defining and dominating the neighbourhood, can still be felt: the Doria houses in Genoa grouped around the piazza
before the family parish church of San Matteo, one of them with a fifteenth
century carved relief of a triumphal procession, The Triumph of the Doria
over its portal;32 the dour Orsini palace on Monte Giordano in Rome, surrounded by narrow twisting streets.
Often, like the palace of Monte Giordano, these family palazzi would be
more imposing for their bulk and the impression of strength they gave than for
any architectural merit. Some buildings, on the other hand, were designed to
impress by their splendour rather than their strength, such as the Fieschi
28
29
30
31
32
Giuseppe Paladino, Per la storia della congiura de Baroni; documenti inediti dellArchivio
Estense, 14851487, 44 (1919), 355: Battista Bendedei to Ercole dEste, 2 July 1485, Naples.
Viterbo, Aragona, Orsino del Balzo, 335.
Galasso, Il Regno di Napoli. Il Mezzogiorno angioino e aragonese, 847908.
Built into and onto the remains of ancient Roman monuments.
A Spinola palace has a similar relief. The Spinola area of Genoa was larger; one focal point
has been changed by the creation of the piazza Fontane Marose, on one side of which is
the Palazzo Spinola dei Marmi, built in the mid-fifteenth century by Jacopo Spinola,
with five statues of illustrious members of the family in niches on the facade.
Barons in the City
65
alace at Via Lata on the edge of Genoa, famous for its beauty, its luxury and its
p
gardens, a contrast to the Fieschi family palaces grouped in the dark streets
near the cathedral. The palace in Naples of the Sanseverino principi di Salerno,
built in 1470, was intended to surpass the residences of other barons, and to vye
with the royal residences in the city, by the richness of its furnishings rather
than its scale.33 The more typical townhouses of the rural nobility would be an
agglomeration of different buildings acquired or constructed over a number of
generations, often held in common by several members of the family. When
estates were divided, the townhouse would frequently be something in which
all would want to keep a share, and there could be legal restrictions on its disposal, with testators binding later generations to keep it undivided in the family. Nobles who spent little time in the town might still want to have a house or
part of a house there, for convenience and for prestige. A share in a family palace might be no more than a couple of rooms, but that share was a symbol of a
nobles part in the past glories and the present power of his family. The more
insignificant the individual, perhaps, the more importance he might attach to
keeping those rooms.
A town house or palace could also be an important symbol of the political
weight and influence of a family in the town. If they tended to be occasional,
rather than the primary, residences of their owners, they could still be a centre
for the nobles partisans and clients in the town, for agents and officials of the
family might be resident there or transact business there. When political conflict turned violent, the houses would be the natural base, refuge and rallyingpoint for the familys soldiers, servants and supporters, and, conversely, a prime
object for attack by their enemies. Surviving medieval towers could be called
into use, as during fighting in Piacenza in 1514.34 Hundreds, thousands of men
could be brought in from outside, from the estates of the nobles, soldiers they
had hired or who were already in their service, men sent by friends and allies.
Men brought in from outside the towns would have outnumbered the townsmen taking part in some of these conflicts. Urban partisans could be an important element in them, but it is generally impossible to isolate in descriptions of
street battles what, if any, distinctive part they would play.
When barons and their supporters fought in city streets, it was rarely, if ever,
because of a quarrel sparked by trivial incidents, an insulting word or gesture.
There was usually an underlying political reason, often one linked to factional
loyalties and rivalries. Even when the Spinola, Doria and Fieschi fought in Genoa to overthrow a doge, it was as much a battle between their factions, as a
battle over the dogeship. With the partial exception of Genoa, it was much
33
34
Roberto Pane, Architettura e urbanistica del Rinascimento, 37581.

Daniele Andreozzi, Piacenza 14021545 (Piacenza, 1997), 145.
66
Chapter 3
rarer for the barons and their men to fight against government troops in
city streets. As Colonna partisans defended the Colonna palace at Santi Apostoli in Rome against papal troops and Orsini forces in 1484, they were trying to
prevent Oddone Colonna being arrested, just as Orsini partisans were defending Monte Giordano and its neighbourhood when they resisted the papal
troops and Colonna partisans sent against them in 1485.35 In both instances,
partisans would have been fighting their rivals as much as fighting against
the soldiers of the pope. But when the Roman barons were fighting against the
pope as condottieri serving his enemies, they generally did not try to encourage
their urban supporters to rebel against him. The Romans were taken aback
when the Colonna led their men into Rome in 1526, accompanied by the Imperial ambassador, to threaten Clement VII and attacked the Vatican: they did
not expect the barons to attack the pope in Rome, and they did not join in.36
The street battles in which the barons and castellans became engaged are best
seen and understood in the context of their wider political aims and interests.
The violence that barons and castellans could bring to the streets of the
towns and cities of Italy was not a proof of Machiavellis dictum that they were
enemies of all civic life. Although they usually did not live in towns or cities,
they had multiple, peaceful connections to them, ties of property, of political
and personal contacts and alliances and influence. In many towns, the factions
that played so prominent a role in society and public life took their names from
families of military nobility and looked to them for support, if not leadership.
The political influence of barons and castellans in civic life was usually exercised through allies, clients and dependents, not directly. Some townsmen still
saw the local rural nobility as competitors for control of economic resources
and jurisdiction in the surrounding territory. This did not necessarily mean
that they would not still be susceptible to the attraction of their social prestige.
The sight of a great baron, riding with his retinue through the streets to his
ancestral townhouse, might not be a familiar one to citydwellers, but it was
more likely to arouse admiration than fear.
35
36
Paolo Cherubini, Tra violenza e crimine di stato. La morte di Lorenzo Oddone Colonna,
35961; Stefano Infessura, Diario della citt di Roma (Rome, 1890), 11118; Gaspare Pontani,
Il diario romano (Citt di Castello, 19078), 301; Antonio di Vascho, Il diario della citt di
Roma (Citt di Castello, 1911), 5079, 531; Shaw, The Political Role, 143.
Honour, Faction and Private Wars
67
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Barons and lords of castles did not maintain their fortresses and arm their subjects and vassals in order to make them available to their political superiors,
whatever they might tell princes or republican governments when they were
asking for support or subsidies. The primary purpose of their military resour
ces was to defend themselves, their friends and allies, and to advance their interests. Keeping weapons to hand and being prepared to use them to attain
personal ends was, of course, hardly a distinctive characteristic of the military
nobility men at all social levels did so. Attempts by authorities to restrict the
possession and carrying of personal weapons to privileged groups were difficult to sustain. Brawls, violent quarrels, personal feuds that resulted in injury
and death were not the preserve of the military nobility and their followers.
What was distinctive, was the scale of the resources they could bring to conflict, including those of a wide range of allies, from other families of military
nobility to partisans from urban factions or mountain valleys, to the governments of other states. When their disputes turned violent they could escalate
into veritable private wars. Sometimes such private wars were part of a wider
war between states, sometimes they arose and ran their course alone.
Whether at the level of assaults on individuals or the deployment of small
armies with cavalry, infantry and artillery, the use of violence by members of
the military nobility to pursue their private conflicts and rivalries was not an
everyday occurrence. Those who gained a reputation for turning too readily to
personal assaults were liable to be regarded as troublesome and unreliable by
their own families, let alone their families friends and allies. At the other end
of the scale, very few barons would have the resources to engage in private
wars with any degree of intensity for prolonged periods. Subjects and tenants
who fought for them could not be kept away from their usual occupations indefinitely; neither could the partisans who came to fight for them. At the least,
whether volunteers or conscripts, such men would have to be provided with
food and wine, some with arms and munitions, perhaps clothing too. Even volunteers might well expect to be paid for their services. Professional troops, cavalry and skilled infantry would certainly have to be paid, unless they were
supplied by an ally prepared to bear the cost. Waging private wars was an expensive business, even when most of the fighting took the form of raids and
skirmishes, and attempts to take strongholds by surprise or a short investment.
Encounters that might properly be called battles like that between the Orsini
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and Colonna near Palombara in April 1498, which was the climax of a war between them that lasted for several months1 were very rare.
Violence by individuals against other members of the military nobility was
more likely to be directed against their own relatives than against rivals. Generally, the root of the quarrel that led to violence was a dispute over inheritance
or the associated problem of how property should be divided among co-heirs.
Jeronimo Malaspina, who had apparently only been assigned a house in Mulazzo, the village from which his branch of the family took its name, while his
lands were in the territory of Piacenza, in 1508 took the drastic step of attempting to wipe out his uncles and cousins who held Mulazzo, along with their
women and children. Some children at least escaped the slaughter by Jeronimos men (whether he took part himself is not clear from the brief surviving
record of the massacre in a local chronicle), and he was not to enjoy being lord
of Mulazzo for long.2 An earlier attempt, some time before 1506, against this
same group of Malaspina was made by two of their co-lords of Mulazzo, Antonio and Alessandro, who thought that, as their father had been the first-born
son of the founder of the branch, Azzone, they should have all or most of the
lands; how many of their relatives they killed is not known.3
These were exceptionally ruthless attempts to stake a preferential claim to
family property. These Malaspina were not unique among the military nobility
in being prepared to kill several members of their own family Giulio Spinola,
for example, murdered Gilberto Spinola and his brothers in 1559, seizing their
lands, and on an earlier occasion he had killed another relative, Antonio Spinola4 but such acts went well beyond what any of their peers would consider
a reasonable or justified use of force. For inheritance disputes to result in the
murder of even a single family member was rare, and scandalous. Girolamo
Orsini might have claimed he had been provoked into his murderous assault
on his half-brother Napoleone in 1534, that it was revenge for when Napoleone
had kidnapped him and held him prisoner two years before as a bargaining
chip in a dispute over the division of their inheritance from their father
Giangiordano Orsini di Bracciano.5 In life, Napoleone Orsini had been a vexatious nuisance, and few would have mourned him if he had died of natural
1 Shaw, The Political Role, 1089.
2 His ultimate fate is unknown; his own lands came into the hands of his brother. Branchi, Storia
della Lunigiana feudale, I, 5156.
3 Ibid., 236.
4 Tacchella, La media ed alta Val Borbera, 734.
5 Shaw, The exemplary career of a rogue elephant: Napoleone Orsini, abate di Farfa, 359
60; Shaw, The Political Role, 1967.
69
causes or fighting an enemy. That he should have met his death at the hand of
his brother made him an object of pity. Not all fratricides were considered inexcusable, however. When Luciano Grimaldi killed his brother Giovanni in
Monaco in October 1505 he claimed he had acted in self-defence, after the hottempered Giovanni attacked him when Luciano reproached him for negotiating to sell Monaco to Venice. His family accepted Lucianos version of events,
and he governed Monaco until he was himself assassinated by his nephew,
Bartolomeo Doria. Not in the line of succession to Monaco, the unstable and
dissolute Doria had little or no chance of becoming lord there himself. It was
suspected that he had been set on by Andrea Doria, who would have liked to
have Monaco as a base for his galleys.6
The assassination by Galeotto Pico della Mirandola of his uncle Gian Francesco and his cousin in 1533 was the culmination of over thirty years of bitter,
sometimes violent disputes, during which Mirandola changed hands several
times, following the institution of primogeniture by Gian Francescos father.
Galeottos father, Lodovico, had been one of Gian Francescos two aggrieved
younger brothers, and after Lodovicos death in 1509 his widow Francesca Trivulzio had kept the family feud alive, inciting her son against his uncle.7 Members of other families of military nobility in Lombardy excluded from what
they saw as their rightful inheritance by the institution of primogeniture often
responded with violence.8
In the sixteenth century there were a number of notorious murders of women of the military nobility by their male relatives, in what could be seen as
honour killings. Vindication of the familys honour was not the only reason
why women might be murdered by their menfolk. Fears for their inheritances
were probably mixed with desire for vengeance when Niccol Orsini da Pitigliano killed his fathers mistress, Penella in 1466 after she had had his elder
brother, Ludovico, poisoned, and when two sons of Giuliano degli Anguillara
killed their stepmother, Girolama Farnese in 1504, excusing their act by accusing her of adultery, but in fact, it was said, concerned that the child she was
carrying might be a son.9 Honour was more clearly the primary motive behind
the murder of the widowed Giovanna, duchessa di Amalfi and her lover,
6 Saige, Documents historiques, II, XL-XLII, CIX-CXVI.
7 Angelantonio Spagnoletti, Donne di governo tra sventura, fermezza e rassegnazione nellItalia
della prima met del 500, 3258; Angelantonio Spagnoletti, Le dinastie italiane nella prima
et moderna (Bologna, 2003), 201; Felice Ceretti, Francesca Trivulzio, 10376.
8 Gentile, Aristocrazia signorile, 146.
9 Giuseppe Bruscalupi, Monografia storica della Contea di Pitigliano (Florence, 1906), 2524;
Alessandro Luzio and Rodolfo Renier, Mantova e Urbino (Rome, 1893), 1612; Emilia Pia to
Isabella dEste, 21 Dec. 1504, Urbino.
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possibly her clandestine husband, Antonio Bologna, a Neapolitan gentleman

in her service, by her brothers around 1510. She was the daughter of Enrico
dAragona, an illegitimate son of King Ferrante, and her brothers, Carlo, marchese di Gerace and Cardinal Luigi dAragona, were outraged when they
learned of the affair and that she had borne children by him. Seized with two
of those children, Giovanna was taken to one of her brothers castles, where
they were all killed; Antonio, who had escaped the ambush, was tracked down
to Milan and assassinated there.10 Isabella de Morra, whose poetry expressed
her longing to escape from her familys isolated castle of Favale in the Neapolitan province of Basilicata, was killed by three of her brothers in 1545 or 1546,
together with the man who was giving her letters from a Spanish nobleman,
Diego Sandoval de Castro, who himself wrote poetry in Italian. The letters were
probably innocent, but the brothers believed them to be evidence of a guilty
liaison; the family pursued their vendetta by killing Sandoval too some months
later.11
Among the accusations levelled against Giovanni Caraffa, duca di Paliano
after the death of his uncle Pope Paul IV (who had given him some confiscated
Colonna estates with this title), was the killing of Marcello Capace, his wifes
lover, stabbed repeatedly by the duke after confessing to the adulterous affair
under torture, and of his wife Violante, strangled by her own brother some
weeks later in the presence of two Capuchin friars, who had been brought to
give her the consolations of religion.12 Some months earlier, Sciarra Colonna
had strangled his widowed sister, Isabella, because she had been sleeping with
one of her servants. Her lover had been killed a few days before, as had his father, a chamberlain of the Colonna, who knew of the affair, and another accomplice, a female servant. The body of the father was suspended upside down
from the gallows at the gate of the castle, with a placard nearby reading Per
traditore (As a traitor).13 These were no spontaneous crimes of passion; in
the minds of the nobles who performed or ordered them, they were judicial
acts. Like Giovanni Caraffa, however, Sciarra Colonna would be called to account by papal justice. Six years later, the court of the papal governor of Rome
heard the case and sentenced him to exile and the confiscation of his property.14
10
11
12
13
14
De Frede, Rivolte antifeudali, 7; Matteo Bandello, Le Novelle, ed. Delmo Maestri (Alessandria, 19926), I, 26.
Benedetto Croce, Vite di avventure, di fede e di passione (Milan, 1989), 299334.
Ottavia Niccoli, Rinascimento anticlericale. Infamia, propaganda e satira in Italia tra Quattro e Cinquecento (Rome and Bari, 2005), 1346, 1449; Stendhal wrote a novella, La
Duchesse de Paliano, about this episode.
Niccoli, Rinascimento anticlericale, 13941.
Ibid., 150.
71
Another famous case, that became the basis for John Websters play of 1612,
The White Devil, and other later dramas,15 was the murder of Isabella de Medici by her husband, Paolo Giordano Orsini di Bracciano in 1576. Her liaison with
another Orsini, Troilo, had gone on for a decade. Rather than live on her husbands estates, she stayed in Florence at the court of her father, Duke Cosimo I,
and her fathers love protected her during his lifetime; he had tried to put a
stop to the affair by sending her lover away on diplomatic missions. It was the
anger of her brothers, Duke Ferdinando and Cardinal Francesco, at the scandal
she caused that seems to have finally prompted Paolo Giordano to strangle his
wife. This took place in a Medici villa, and her brothers colluded in the official
explanation of her death as the result of an epileptic seizure.16 Their honour, as
much as Paolo Giordanos, was vindicated by her death.
In the kingdom of Naples in the sixteenth century, argued Carlo De Frede,
the barons, living idly in their fortresses because they had lost their political
strength, became harsh, vindictive and inclined to violence, including violence
against members of their own family.17 Certainly, Spanish viceroys and their
officials commented on the violent proclivities of Neapolitan barons and nobles, but whether these were worse than before is open to question. Very little
is known about the domestic relations of the Neapolitan or other military nobilities of Italy in the fifteenth century or before, but it is unlikely that women
suspected of adultery were treated with much greater forbearance than in the
sixteenth century. Far more records survive from the sixteenth century, including much more private correspondence. It could be that barons would be more
liable to be called to account for domestic murders by the courts, or that judicial records have been better kept, preserving accounts of proceedings against
them that would have been lost for earlier periods. Such considerations need
to be brought into play before the full weight of explanation is placed on putative changes in social mores or cultural norms, such as the enhancement of a
sense of personal honour that had to be defended and vindicated. The military
nobility had no need of humanist treatises on the importance of personal honour and the need to defend it, by violence if need be, to vindicate the right to
be considered a gentleman. They had no doubts of their status, or that of their
family.
This may be part of the explanation for why the military nobility were not
early exponents of the practice of duelling, as it burgeoned in the mid-six-
15
16
17
Gabrielle Langdon, Medici Women. Portraits of Power, Love and Betrayal (Toronto, 2006),
194.
Ibid., 1656, 291.
De Frede, Rivolte antifeudali, 67.
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teenth century in Italy. Or rather, were not early exponents of duelling in civilian life,18 for those who fought as professional soldiers would have been
familiar with the duel as an aspect of the military code of honour. Two episodes in which Virginio Orsini was challenged to duels in the later fifteenth
century show how much of the ethos and practice of the code of duelling was
already current. The first began with a protest by the papal condottiere, Agostino Campofregoso, over two mounted crossbowmen whom he claimed had
left his company without leave to join Virginio. After Virginio suggested the
matter should be referred to Agostinos commander, it turned into a dispute
about whether the Prefect of Rome could be regarded as Virginios commander
as well. In denying this, it was said that Virginio gave him the lie,19 and that
Agostino wanted to refute his words with his person, as the custom or practice
of arms allowed.20 Enquiries were to be made whether military practice allows
that these words can be upheld by a duel or not,21 but apparently Virginio did
not accept the challenge. Indeed, he was reported to have threatened that if
Agostino did not mind his own business, he would arrange to have his legs cut
from under him in the Campo de Fiori (an Orsini area of Rome), and have him
thrown in the river.22 A year later, an argument about a horse taken from an
envoy Virginio had sent to the enemy commander, Roberto da Sanseverino,23
18
19
20
21
22
23
Sicilian barons might have been an exception. Duelling was of sufficient concern to the
government of the island in the mid-fifteenth century for it to be forbidden by a decree,
and technically it constituted an offence of lse-majest. But the barons still fought duels,
as did Alfonso Ventimiglia with Pietro de Benedictis, after Pietro had insulted him; Alfonsos brothers were prosecuted in 1475 for revenging his death in the duel by assassinating
Pietros father. One of those brothers, Enrico Ventimiglia, marchese di Gerace, fought a
duel with Pietro Cardona, conte di Golisano, around 1481, in a dispute about the restitution of a dowry. In 1485, Ferdinand of Aragon ordered the prammatica against duelling to
be re-issued. (Simona Giurato, La Sicilia di Ferdinando il Cattolico. Tradizioni politiche e
conflitto tra Quattrocento e Cinquecento (14681523) (Soveria Mannelli, 2003), 6971, 1012,
117.)
ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 847, c. 288: Gian Pietro Arrivabene to Francesco Gonzaga,
18 June 1485, Rome (responda che el se mente per la gola).
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 97: Ascanio Sforza to Gian Galeazzo Sforza, 24 June 1485, Rome
(comportandosi cosi el mestero de la Arme voleva aprovare cum la persona sua, non
essere ben dicte).
Ibid. (La cosa pende hora in vedere sel exercitio militare vol che per duellum si possi
iustificare dicte parole).
24 June 1485, Rome.
Virginio was captain-general of the men-at-arms of the league of Milan, Florence and
Naples, Roberto da Sanseverino the commander of the pope, Innocent VIII, with whom
73
resulted in Robertos son, Antonio Maria, challenging Virginio, threatening

that if he had not received a response within four days, he would have defamatory paintings of him displayed in the shameful areas of his camp and in
Rome. In Virginios estimation, the only person in the enemy camp of equivalent status to himself was Roberto. He could fight Roberto, but if Antonio Maria persisted in his challenge, Virginio would put up Paolo Orsini a younger
man, the natural son of Cardinal Latino Orsini to fight him. If defamatory
pictures of Virginio were displayed in Rome, he would retaliate with defamatory pictures of Roberto.24
By the turn of the century, members of the military nobility were issuing
challenges to each other that did not involve alleged breaches of the military
code. During a private war among the Roman barons, Gianbattista Conti and
Fabrizio Colonna agreed in March 1498 to meet in single combat, but it would
be staged as a duel, rather than as a fight between champions of the opposing
families. The duke of Milan was to be asked to provide a secure ground for the
duel, which probably never took place.25 A letter written in 1528 by the wife of
Prospero Colonna da Cave to Luigi Gonzaga, sharply criticizing his intervention in the dispute over the inheritance of Vespasiano Colonna (Gonzagas sister was Vespasianos widow), brought a challenge from Luigi to her husband.
He was writing to Prospero, he explained, because the matter was not his wifes
business, it was his. If Prospero had instigated the writing of the letter, he was
responsible for the lies it contained; if it had been written without his knowledge but he had not rebuked his wife for her presumption, that was an insult.
As Prospero might not be ready to accept the challenge in person because he
was too old and not a professional soldier, as Luigi was, then he could propose
someone to fight in his stead, provided the substitute would be of sufficient
status for Luigi to be able to fight him with honour.26 Again, no duel is known
to have resulted from this.
Nor was there a duel after a general challenge issued on placards in 1533 by
Gianpaolo degli Anguillara da Ceri to any gentleman or Ghibelline lord who
would maintain that Gianpaolo had wanted to have Camillo Colonna or Pirro
Baglioni da Sipicciano (known as Pirro Colonna because of his devotion to that
family) killed. A choice of four types of combat was offered, two on foot, two
24
25
26
the league was at war because of his support for the rebellious Neapolitan barons.
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 99: Gian Francesco Oliva to Gian Galeazzo Sforza, 10 May 1486,
Bracciano.
Ibid., b. 1303: Niccol Orsini to Ludovico Sforza, 13 Mar. 1498, Ghedi.
ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 877, cc. 634: Francesco Gonzaga to Federico Gonzaga, 3 Apr.
1528, Orvieto.
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on horseback. Accepting the challenge, Pirro chose to fight on foot, in a shirt

(that is, without body armour), with sword, dagger and cape. Gianpaolos
agreement to this, and stipulation that the duel would take place at Bomarzo
or Stigliano (both Orsini estates) was signed by three witnesses as well as
Gianpaolo.27 These elaborate preliminaries, with published exchanges, were in
accordance with the developing rituals of the duel; typical, too, was the apparently justified general scepticism that any fight would take place.
Not all exchanges of written defiances and challenges between members of
the military nobility failed to end in a duel. A fatal duel in 1568 in which both
participants, Federico Savorgnan and Troiano dArcano, were killed, was the
final act of violence in the feud among Friulani castellans that had been running for over half a century, since the supporters of Antonio Savorgnan had
massacred members of the Colloredo and Della Torre clans during the Carnival in Udine in 1511. Federico had been a signatory of a published tract setting
out the Savorgnan version of the history of the feud, including the accusation
that it was Troiano dArcano (a relative by marriage of the Colloredo) who had
killed Federicos uncle Francesco Savorgnan in an encounter in a street in
Udine in 1561. Federico had already fought another duel, against Marzio Colloredo in June 1564, on a beach in Liguria, while the witnesses they had brought
with them watched from the boat that had brought them all from Genoa. After
both had been wounded, their seconds landed to separate them and persuaded them to make peace. As they could not agree on how their reconciliation
was to be made public, however, their quarrel persisted.
Originally, Marzio Colloredo had issued a challenge to another Savorgnan,
Niccol, and Federico had put himself forward to defend the family honour
after Niccol had refused to accept it. His refusal had been grounded on the
claim that Marzio had been pursuing the vendetta by dishonourable means,
including sending explosive devices in the boxes protecting the seals of letters
to Urbano and Tristano Savorgnan. Federicos death in the duel, and the death
from natural causes of Niccol and Tristano Savorgnan, who had been the other principals involved in the exchanges of written defiances, helped to prepare
the ground for the lasting pacification of the feud by the intervention of the
Venetian authorities in 1568.28
27
28
Ibid., b. 882, cc. 523, 578: Fabrizio Peregrino to Federico Gonzaga, 23, 25 May 1533, Rome
(at c. 57 there is a copy of Gianpaolos reply to Pirro); c. 56: Acceptance of the challenge by
Pirro.
Casella, I Savorgnan, 12230; Muir, Mad Blood Stirring, 26272.
75
In one of the tracts he published, Marzio Colloredo had listed seventeen

separate epsiodes of violence between his family and the Savorgnan.29 The
vendetta that began in 1511 had died down for a couple of decades before being
revived in the 1540s. Marzios father, Gianbattista was killed in 1549, together
with Alvise Della Torre, in one of the most notorious of the attacks that propelled the vendetta, when the gondola in which they were travelling on the
Canal Grande in Venice was assailed by a group of men led by Tristano Savorgnan. They were in Venice to bid farewell to Girolamo Della Torre, who had been
sentenced to ten years exile in Crete for his part in a street fight in Padua, in
which Giovanni Savorgnan had been gravely wounded, and Tristano had escaped with his life only by taking refuge in a house. The assault on the Canal
Grande was Tristanos revenge. Amid the confusion on the canal, he and his
men managed to flee, but the outrage earned him a sentence of perpetual exile
from Venetian territory and the ritual destruction of his house in Udine as a
mark of infamy.30
Ambushes and street fights such as these punctuated the feud between the
Savorgnan and their castellan enemies, but such episodes, especially the street
fights, were an untypical expression of rivalries among the military nobility.
This behaviour was more characteristic of rival urban factions, whose enmities
could sometimes be vented in vicious and vindictive attacks. Sharing the same
streets and squares and public buildings on a daily basis brought members of
opposing factions into frequent contact with each other, making it easy for
casual remarks or insulting gestures to stoke the fires of enmity. Barons and
castellans who lived on their estates would rarely meet their rivals face to face,
and there would be fewer opportunities for the kind of personal encounters
that could easily foster hatreds. The blood feud between the Savorgnan and the
Colloredo and Della Torre families of Friuli was exceptional. Pietro Maria Rossi
was reputed to have preserved the head of a formidable enemy of his family,
Ottobuono Terzi, as a trophy four decades after Terzis death and shown it off
to visitors, but it is doubtful whether this macabre tale was true.31 Few lords of
castles would feel that they had to be on perpetual guard against their rivals.
Nor did lords of castles living on their estates tend to spend their time in a
state of permanent conflict with their neighbours. Boundary disputes between
neighbouring lords might become violent if the neighbours were already rivals;
being neighbours would not necessarily be sufficient in itself to create rival29
30
31

Ibid., 24850.
Terzi had not been killed by a Rossi, but by Muzio Attendolo, the father of Francesco
Sforza (Somaini, Una storia spezzata, 126).
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ries. Their subjects and tenants were more likely to take up arms over rights to
woodlands or water or straying livestock. Roman barons habitually settled
such disputes by agreement or arbitration rather than by fighting.32 Judging by
the paucity of evidence for violent disputes over this kind of problem between
neighbouring lords in other areas, the military nobility elsewhere in Italy were
no more inclined to expend their forces on them. Boundary disputes between
their subjects fed into the wars among the lords of Emilia in the 1450s,33 because several important estates in the region had recently changed hands, and
there were other causes of tension among them. In other regions of Italy where
castellan families were divided by rivalries centuries old, they did not fight
over such matters. The lands of historic rivals could be largely or wholly in different areas; they might well have few, if any, mutual boundaries over which
their lords could quarrel, as in the case of the Orsini and Colonna estates
around Rome, and those of the Doria and Spinola in Liguria. The military nobility were not in a constant state of armed alert. Even in remote areas where
no prince or republic had the power or felt the obligation to maintain order,
private wars between lords of castles were not endemic.
The eclipse of the strong central authority in the duchy of Milan after Filippo Maria Viscontis death in 1447 encouraged a spate of small wars around
Parma, involving the castellan families pursuing their own private interests.
These were played out in the context of the wider wars between the Ambrosian Republic that had been formed in the city of Milan and the republic of
Venice, bent on expansion of its mainland territories, with the condottiere
Francesco Sforza complicating the picture by switching from captain of the
Ambrosian Republic to aspirant to the dukedom. Another spate of fighting by
castellan families accompanied the wars between Sforza and Venice that recommenced in 1452. The Correggio attacked lands of the Rossi, defying Francesco Sforza, as well as those of the Gonzaga; the Rossi and Pallavicini organized
military operations against the Correggio, for their own benefit as well as in
support of Milanese forces, while Pietro Maria Rossi also took the opportunity
to pursue in arms disputes with other lords over boundaries and rights of jurisdiction. Public and private wars became inextricably mixed.34
32
33
34
Shaw, The Political Role, 99, 105. One exception to this was fighting among the Caetani
family over issues such as fishing rights in the early sixteenth century, but this was in a
context in which there was already bad blood between the Sermoneta and Maenza
branches because of disputes over the division of property (Visceglia, Farsi imperiale,
493).
Covini, Le condotte dei Rossi. 645.
Ibid., 6376; Giorgio Chittolini, Guerre, guerricciole, riassetti terrioriali in una provincia
lombarda di confine: Parma e il Parmense, agosto 1447 febbraio 1449, 22149.
77
A similar situation arose in the Papal States as the civil war in the king-
dom of Naples during the early years of Ferrantes reign spilled over there,
because of Pius IIs support for Ferrante. The most turbulent of all the Roman
barons of the mid-fifteenth century, Everso degli Anguillara, fought on the side
of the Angevin challengers to Ferrante in the kingdom, and the pope claimed
he plotted against his life. Everso was in conflict with Napoleone Orsini, as
both laid claim to the inheritance of Napoleones uncle, Gian Antonio Orsini,
conte di Tagliacozzo. He also used force in disputes over the possession of
lands with the heirs of the once powerful di Vico family, and with his own
nephews, from whom he took Anguillara itself in 1460.35 The Colonna had
their sights on Tagliacozzo as well, having been promised it by Ferrante in a bid
for their support, and had another feud on the boil, with the Conti. Mixed in
with the raids and skirmishes among the baronial families was a campaign by
papal troops against the Savelli, considered rebels by Pius.36 Attempts to negotiate peace among the barons were scuppered by this multiplicity of conflicts.
These barons are like the hydra, commented a Mantuan envoy; if one head is
cut off, seven are created, and if one difference between them is settled, two
more emerge.37
As a rule, barons and castellans engaged in private wars over the possession
of lands and castles, either in disputes over the inheritance or division of estates, or in efforts to recover by force lands that had formerly been held by the
aggressors family. Both parties generally had at least a semblance of a legal
claim to the disputed lands, and neither would be indulging in a straightforward land grab of property to which they had no kind of title at all. Pietro
Maria Rossi came near to it when his men took the township of Noceto from
the Sanvitale in 1448, on the pretext that his half-brother Rolando, a knight
of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, claimed it belonged to the order.
He managed to hold on to this prize, which was a significant addition to his
estates.38 Cristiano Malaspina di Bagnones only claim to Virgoletta, which he
took from his neighbour Galeotto Campofregoso in 1471, was that Galeotto
had taken it in 1449, with other lands, from another branch of the family, the
35
36
37
38
V. Sora, I conti di Anguillara dalla loro origine al 1465: Everso di Anguillara, 7087, 76.
Gian Antonio Orsini died in 1456; his only daughter, Maria, was married to Eversos son,
Deifebo (Ibid., 76).
See below, p. 181.
ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 841, c. 198: Bartolomeo Bonatto to Lodovico Gonzaga, 30 Sept.
1461, Tivoli.
Pezzana, Storia della Citt di Parma, II, 6704, 678.
78
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Malaspina di Villafranca.39 By killing Galeotto, a raccomandato of the duke of

Milan, Cristiano Malaspina made a grave error of judgement, for the duke sent
troops to occupy his lands as well as Virgoletta. When the duchess-regent of
Milan, Bona, returned Virgoletta to the Malaspina in 1478, she handed it over to
the Malaspina di Villafranca.40
Among the families most determined to recover lands they felt were rightfully theirs were the Colonna. They could not forget that estates that had been
granted to them during the pontificate of the Colonna pope, Martin V, and
then taken from them by his successor, were held by the Conti, and they fought
the Conti on several occasions in their efforts to recover them during the
pontificate of Pius II, thirty years later in 1493, and again in 1497 to 1498 and yet
again in 1522. In 1498, the conflict between the Colonna and the Conti became
subsumed into a war between the Colonna and the Orsini, as did a violent dispute among the Savelli, with the Orsini helping Troiano Savelli di Aricia besiege Troilo and Giovanni Savelli in their fortress of Palombara. The battle in
which this war culminated was fought near Palombara in April 1498, ending
in the defeat of the Orsini.41
Both the Orsini and the Colonna had claims to the counties of Tagliacozzo
and Albi based on grants by the king. Having been granted the counties by Ferrante in 1480, the Colonna refused to surrender them a few years later when the
king asked them to, refusing all his offers of compensation because they knew
he wanted to give them back to the Orsini the king wants to take our estate to
give it to our enemies, protested Giovanni Colonna.42 Virginio Orsini, nephew
of the former Orsini count, claimed to be the heir and he had the backing of
Girolamo Riario, the powerful nephew of Pope Sixtus IV. Not until the Colonna
were fighting for survival against the onslaught of the papal troops in 1484 did
Virginio Orsini get the counties, occupying them by force. Fabrizio Colonna,
accompanying King Charles VIII of France on his conquest of the kingdom of
Naples in 1495, won possession of the counties, and kept them. A later French
invasion of the kingdom in 1528, when it had come under the rule of the Spanish king, provided Virginios grandson, Napoleone Orsini with an opportunity
to seize the counties, which the Orsini still considered should be theirs, but the
39
40
41
42
The Campofregoso were aspiring to become a dynasty of lords of castles as well as a

dynasty of doges of Genoa, and had been encroaching on Malaspina lands in the Lunigiana for decades.
Branchi, Storia della Lunigiana feudale, II, 66, 769.
Giovanni Albini, De gestis Regum Neapolitanum ab Aragonia (Naples, 1589), 2505:
Giovanni Colonna to Giovanni Albino, 15 Mar. 1483, Albi.
79
defeat of Lautrecs expedition meant the Orsini had to relinquish them to the
Colonna again.43
Disputes within families over property, over the inheritance and division of
lands, could also lead to fighting, to raids and skirmishes and assaults on fortresses. Such fighting tended to involve more modest forces than fights between rival families, unless one or both parties could draw in outside support.
If they had to rely on their own resources, lords of castles would have the backing of their servants, clients and dependents closest to them, and what men
they could afford to pay. Their subjects, partisans of the family, their factional
allies apparently preferred to avoid becoming involved or take sides in quarrels
within the families of the military nobility, unless an individual had made himself so unpopular with his own men that they were ready to turn against him.
When Giulio Cibo Malaspina challenged his mother Ricciardas determination to keep the government of the estates in the Lunigiana inherited from her
father in her own hands for her lifetime (even though she preferred to live in
Rome), his first attempt to force the issue failed because their subjects hesitated to become mixed up in the quarrel between mother and son. With the
help of twenty arquebusiers lent by Galeotto Malaspina di Olivola, he tried to
detain his mother when she was visiting one of the estates, Carrara, in 1545, but
she retired to the keep of the fortress and Giulio gave up and left. Ricciarda,
who was no saint, declared both Giulio and her estranged husband rebels and
outlaws, commanding her subjects to kill them, but this decree only increased
her own unpopularity. Giulio had some right on his side the Imperial investiture his mother had obtained in her own name in 1529 contradicted the terms
of her fathers will which made Giulio his heir under Ricciardas tutelage. He
got the support of Cosimo de Medici, who was always alert to opportunities to
extend his influence in the Lunigiana. With the help of Florentine militia sent
by Cosimo he quickly won control of all the estates, except for the fortress of
Massa, in September 1546. To set siege to it, Giulio began with 1,800 infantry
and four pieces of artillery. The militia began to drift away, but with the help of
additional artillery sent by Andrea Doria, he was able to force the surrender
of Massa in a fortnight.44
By contrast, in a dispute among the Malaspina over the fortress of Malgrate
in 1490, only the familys own forces were involved in the fighting. The dispute
began when Malgrato Malaspina reneged on a deal for an exchange of lands
with Ludovico Malaspina di Fosdinovo. Together with his uncle Gabriele and
Tommaso Malaspina di Villafranca, Ludovico attacked Malgrate with a
43
44
Shaw, The Roman barons and the popes, 1158; Shaw, The Political Role, 1101.
Staffetti, Giulio Cybo-Malaspina, 1 (1892), 147, 1736, 1968, 21640.
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s ubstantial force, taking control of the village and investing the fortress, to
which the inhabitants had retreated. Rather than choose between Malgrato
and Ludovico, the people decided to raise the banners of Florence.45 The people of the Pallavicini stronghold of Zibello were less fortunate when they became caught up in a family quarrel in 1515. The sixteen-year-old Gian Francesco
Pallavicini di Zibello, dying in 1514, left a will nominating his sisters as his heiresses, or should they be considered unable to inherit land, his brother-in-law
Gian Ludovico Pallavicini di Cortemaggiore, but his paternal uncles claimed
the right of succession. Gian Ludovico took possession of Zibello and defended it against the uncles forces, who besieged it from May to July 1515, ravaging
the inhabitants crops. When Zibello fell, they sacked it, wrecking the fortress
and the family palace there. The uncles Rolando and Bernardino held on to
Zibello, and Gian Ludovico, his wife and her sisters were unable to reclaim it.46
Generations of the Pico della Mirandola were divided by feuds that resulted
in episodes of fighting. At issue was not so much the division of the property as
the practice of sharing in the lordship. Personal connections with neighbouring princely families, and the strategic importance of Mirandola in the region
meant other powers took an active interest in their quarrels, and at times became involved militarily. An amicable division of property among three brothers, Galeotto, Antonio Maria and Giovanni in 1469, was soon followed by a
dispute between Galeotto, who wanted to govern Mirandola alone, and Antonio Maria (Giovanni, the youngest, destined for an ecclesiastical career, concentrated on the philosophical studies that won him lasting fame). Accusing
Antonio Maria of conspiracy against him, Galeotto imprisoned him, releasing
him in 1472. During the War of Ferrara, Antonio Maria, who was a papal condottiere, helped to bring a family stronghold, Concordia, under the control of the
league in 1483, while Galeotto fought on the opposite side for Venice. Antonio
Maria held on to Concordia after the war, with the help of artillery lent by the
Marquis of Mantua. In January 1488, Galeotto tried to take it by surprise while
Antonio Maria was away, but was driven off with the loss of 25 men.47
Having secured Imperial investiture with Mirandola for himself alone, together with a stipulation that only his eldest son, Gian Francesco, should
45
46
47
The Florentines held Malgrate for a month or two, before ceding it to the duke of Milan,
who had Malgrato in his protection and after a year and a half gave the fortress back to
him (Branchi, Storia della Lunigiana feudale, III, 3034).
Letizia Arcangeli, Unaristocrazia territoriale al femminile. Due o tre cose su Laura Pallavicini Sanvitale e le contesse vedove del parmense, 602, 6124; Umberto Benassi, Storia
di Parma (Bologna, 1971), II, 1367.
Felice Ceretti, Il conte Antonmaria Pico della Mirandola: memorie e documenti, 23948.
81
s ucceed him, Galeotto forced his younger son, Lodovico, by threats and beatings to renounce his right to share in the lordship, but his wife, Bianca Maria
dEste refused to make such a renunciation in the name of their youngest son,
Federico. On the death of Galeotto, in 1499, Gian Francesco got confirmation
from Maximilian of his investiture, with an injunction to his younger brothers
to acquiesce in this. But they refused to do so, and in June 1502, supported by
the dEste, the Gonzaga and exiles, attacked the estates with around 3,000 men;
they were also sent troops by Lodovicos father-in-law, Gian Giacomo Trivulzio.
A fifty-day siege of Mirandola ended on 6 August with the fall of the fortress
and the capture of Gian Francesco. He was released, leaving his sons as hostages. In October 1503, his attempt to enter Mirandola was foiled with the help
of Mantuan cavalry and bombardiers. Francesco Gonzaga switched his support to Gian Francesco the following year, but Lodovico. through his connection to Trivulzio, had French protection, and kept hold of Mirandola until his
death in 1509.48
Three generations of the main branch of the Fieschi were also divided in the
mid-fifteenth century by intractable quarrels over the inheritance and division
of family lands and power. A complicated dispute over shares in earlier inheritances set Gian Antonio Fieschi against his uncle Gian Luigi.49 On the death in
1447 of Gian Antonio, in which Gian Luigi and his son Gian Filippo may have
had a hand, Gian Filippo seized his estates aided by the fact that Gian Antonio had been an enemy of the incumbent doge, and that his son and heir, Nicolosino, was only about eight years old. As the boy grew up he was perceived to
be a threat to Gian Filippo (the head of the family after his fathers death in
1451), for he was bold and intelligent and there was much sympathy for him
among the subjects and partisans of the Fieschi.50 By the time Nicolosino was
aged around sixteen, the doge Pietro Campofregoso saw him as a useful instrument against Gian Filippo. The sympathy felt for him by many associates of the
Fieschi did not mean they were necessarily willing to take up arms for him
against Gian Filippo. Nicolosino was dependent on the doge to provide
him with military backing, and the doge also offered a sweetener of a ducat
and a pair of stockings with the badge of Nicolosino to any man who would
switch sides.51 Saying that he wanted Nicolosino to take Gian Filippos place in
48
49
50
51
Felice Ceretti, Lodovico I Pico, 95109, 1219, 14763, 1812.

The points at issue were set out by Gian Luigi in a petition to the Doge and Anziani of
22 October 1440 (ASGenoa, AS 3032, 234).
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 408: Sveva da Curte to Francesco Sforza, 14 Mar. 1453, Genoa.
Ibid., b. 411: Giovanni della Guardia to Francesco Sforza, 16 Feb. 1456, Genoa.
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the eastern Riviera,52 Campofregoso sent him there with galleys and troops
and the captain of Genoa, Pietros brother Pandolfo (who was betrothed to
Nicolosinos sister). They had some success in driving Gian Filippo into the
mountains, capturing his brother Rolando, who was imprisoned in chains in
Genoa. But soon, with the help of the Adorno and of the captain of the Neapolitan galleys, Bernat Vilamari, Gian Filippo began to recover lost ground, and
Nicolosinos challenge faded.
After Gian Filippos death in 1459, another quarrel developed between his
brothers Obietto and Rolando (who died later that year) and their nephew Jacopone, with Gian Filippos widow, Antonia Maria, an heiress in her own right
of her father Antonio Fieschis lands, becoming involved. She gave custody of
her lands to Jacopone, and then married him in 1460. The fighting was on a
lesser scale than during Nicolosinos challenge to Gian Filippo, because no outside forces took part. It largely took the form of violent seizures of fortresses
and villages, by stratagems or surprise assaults; neither side could mount a fullscale siege. The Fieschi were unable to muster anything like the forces that the
family could rally to attack the doge or defend them against external aggressors; their many partisans seem to have kept out of the quarrel. It ended with
the death of Jacopone; he was said to have been killed when Obietto brought
fifty men to Varese to seize him, and Jacopone was cut down as he escaped his
would-be captors, having wounded Obietto.53
Barons and castellans who had strong connections to factions54 could draw
on greater resources to fight with; they could also become engaged in another
kind of semi-private, semi-public warfare, in support of their factional allies.
Some of the most powerful families of military nobility, including the Fieschi,
Orsini and Colonna, owed a good proportion of their power to their being at
the head of factions. In much of Italy, notably in the Papal States, Liguria and
much of Lombardy from the Alpine passes to Emilia, factional networks were
one of the most significant elements in political society. It is only in recent
years that historians have ceased to see them primarily as sources of disorder
52
53
54
ASGenoa, AS 1794: Pietro Campofregoso to Pandolfo and Galeotto Campofregoso, 21 Feb.

1456.
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 412: Galeazzo de Coconate[?] to Sacramoro Visconti, 24 June 1467,
Chiavari. A local chronicle gave a different account of the circumstances of his death,
placing it in 1469, in an ambush by partisans of Obiettos brother, Gian Luigi Fieschi (Bernab, Fieschi e Landi, 362).
The term faction is used here to cover a broad range of entities, to avoid confusion in the
comparisons; historians studying specific situations sometimes distinguish between, for
example, faction and party (as I have done myself: see Shaw, The Political Role, 126), but
there are no agreed definitions.
83
and violence, survivals of an age when governments were less powerful and
secure, that needed to be eliminated if a stable, orderly state was to be formed.
Now it has been recognized widely, if not yet generally, that at a local level the
factions had become the basis of political order, indeed of political authority,
and governments would find it far easier and simpler to work with them than
to try to eliminate them.55 Families of military nobility were often the focal
point of local networks, and could link the factions of different regions, sometimes straddling state boundaries.
In many areas, factions were identified as either Guelf or Ghibelline labels
that could be of great import at local level, and could also be invoked to identify connections, natural or historic alliances, between groups or families
from different regions. They had lost the connection to the confrontation between pope and emperor that had introduced the terms into the political vocabulary of Italy in the thirteenth century.56 Local power struggles, jealousies,
personal grievances might lead to individuals or families switching factions,
but this was not always possible. For baronial and castellan families with historic associations with a particular faction, identification as Guelf or Ghibelline was so long-established that for them it was virtually impossible to change
sides. Some families, such as the Malaspina, had both Guelf and Ghibelline
branches, but individuals had no choice, any more than they had a choice as to
which branch they belonged to. There had been Ghibelline branches of the
Orsini, but by the mid-fifteenth century the Orsini were firmly identified as
Guelf and the Colonna as Ghibelline. In Liguria, the Fieschi and Grimaldi
were Guelfs, the Doria and Spinola Ghibellines. In the case of the Doria and
Spinola their shared Ghibelline identity was expressed in rivalry for leadership
of the local Ghibellines.
The long-standing associations between families of military nobility and local factions were strong and resilient: these were not opportunistic or temporary associations. A new family, or one new to a particular area, however
well-connected they might be, would not automatically become leaders of the
local factions, as the branch of the Guelf Sanseverino implanted in the Val Lugano by Filippo Maria Visconti found, while the family they were intended to
55
56
See, for example, the essays in Marco Gentile (ed.), Guelfi e ghibellini nellItalia del Rina
scimento (Rome, 2005), especially those by Letizia Arcangeli, Marco Gentile, Massimo
Della Misericordia, and Christine Shaw.
During the Italian Wars, the kings of France and the emperor revived this sense of a connection between Ghibellines and the emperor, and Guelfs and the French king (as heir
to the Angevins, who had been brought to Italy to help the thirteenth century popes
against the emperor).
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replace, the Ghibelline Rusca, who kept the title conte di Lugano, maintained
their association with their faction there.57 Typically, the factions that looked
to barons and castellans were constituted in large part of the clients and dependants of local notables, rural and urban, including minor families of military nobility. Having a powerful baronial family at the head of a faction helped
to give it cohesion, checking competition among the local notables to become
the leaders themselves. Families, rather than individuals, were the focus of loyalty. The head of a baronial family might also ipso facto be regarded as the head
of the faction, but all members of the baronial family would be treated with
respect, as to some degree participating in the leadership, and could feel aggrieved if they were not.58
The families at the head of the factions were expected to give jobs to members of their faction in their estate administrations, in their households or their
military companies, if they had any, and they were expected to use their influence to get them appointments to other jobs or to ecclesiastical benefices.
They might be called on to help faction members embroiled in judicial proceedings, and give refuge on their estates to outlaws, or those who had fled into
exile after being defeated in faction-fighting. They could be called upon to act
as intermediaries between central government and its officials and the individuals and communities in their faction, to persuade faction members to do
as the government ordered or desired, or to persuade the prince or republican
government or their officials to mitigate or forgo their demands.
Such a role as intermediary was one that, if fulfilled successfully, enhanced
the standing, status and power of the barons and castellans, and was one of the
major benefits they received from leadership of a faction. The goodwill of
the faction, of their amici, was as much a part of the family inheritance as lands
and fortresses, and valued accordingly. If he could not protect his friends from
vexatious claims to jurisdiction over them, it would be to the eternal shame of
him and his family and diminish their status and reputation, Pietro Maria Rossi declared in 1454. No other treasure on earth was so valuable as the treasure
of friendship acquired over many years by his forebears, to the great honour of
his house.59 All the Orsini of earlier generations have esteemed the friends
57
58
59
Massimo Della Misericordia, La coda dei gentiluomini. Fazioni, mediazione politica,

clientelismo nello stato territoriale: il caso della montagna lombarda durante il dominio
sforzesco (XV secolo), 32658.
For example, Christine Shaw, The Roman barons and the Guelf and Ghibelline factions in
the Papal States, 479.
Marco Gentile, Fazioni al governo. Politica e societ a Parma nel Quattrocento (Rome,
2009), 2347.
85
and partisans of their house no less than the estate of the family itself, one of
Virginio Orsinis chancellors reminded him in 1488.60 The friends of the Fieschi
were described as the glory of my house by Gian Filippo Fieschi.61
Intrinsic to the reputation, the honour, the glory that barons and castellans
felt they derived from their leadership of factions was the understanding that,
if need be, their friends would take up arms to fight for them; they were an
important part of the perceived military resources of the family. Ultimately,
this was what the factions could do for the barons in return for the favours and
protection they provided. If the patronage and affection of our father and of all
my house has ever been of use to you, and if in the future you hope, as you
should, to receive the same from us, now is the time to show what you will do
for us in exchange, Ascanio Colonna exhorted the Ghibelline communal government of Terni when he was asking them to gather all the men they could.62
The military aid the factions could supply was usually only available for short
periods weeks rather than months unless the men were to be formally recruited and paid as serving soldiers, but cumulatively could amount to thousands of men. The military aid the lords might lend to their factional allies was
less substantial, and only lent when important issues were at stake. In general,
they would not become involved in petty, everyday skirmishes between local
rivals. But if the control of a town was at stake, if there was a question of a faction being forced into exile, or of exiles seeking to force their way back home,
then the military nobles might well send a couple of hundred men to support
their side.
Roman barons were especially ready to provide such support. Quite apart
from the cities ruled by signori, towns and cities throughout the Papal States,
even those near Rome, were governed by local notables and factions as though
they were more or less independent political entities. Factions had much
greater weight in their political lives than papal officials did. Roman barons
had connections with a wide swathe of towns in the western, central and
southern Papal States, from Orvieto and Viterbo to Perugia, Spoleto and Rieti
in Umbria, to Tivoli and Anagni near Rome. There was no question of their trying to take over such towns themselves, but they were quick to respond to calls
for aid, or to offer help before they were asked for it. When Guelf exiles made a
60
61
62
ACapitolino, AOrsini, b. 101, c. 235: Antonello Sinibaldo to Virginio Orsini, 20 Dec. 1488,
Naples.
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 407: Gian Filippo Fieschi to Francesco Sforza, 6 Aug. 1452, Recco.
ASTerni, Riformanze 1665, f. 7v: Ascanio Colonna to Consoli, Priori and Banderarii of
Terni, 9 Jan. 1522, Rome; see Shaw, The Roman barons and the Guelf and Ghibelline factions, 481, for the original quotation.
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violent incursion into Rieti in January 1505, briefly gaining control of the city,
the Ghibellines were able to drive them out again (killing over a hundred)
with the help of allies from Terni and local lords, the Poiani of Piediluco. Muzio
Colonna was sent by Fabrizio and Cardinal Giovanni Colonna to offer troops,
money and advice on security. Asked to stay until all danger had passed, and to
see to the guarding of the stronghold of Rocca Sinibalda, he made fifty mounted troops available to help defend the city against a renewed assault by the
Guelfs.63
As in this instance, it was usually younger barons, or those from minor
branches of the family or from lesser baronial families in the faction, rather
than the heads of the greater families and the major condottieri, who became
directly involved in faction-fighting in the towns. Even if no barons were personally involved as commanders, they might lend troops to their allies, such as
the light horse the Orsini sent in 1499 to help exiles from Viterbo in their raiding.64
Before Bartolomeo dAlviano established his reputation as one of the best
and boldest condottieri of his generation, he was an enthusiastic participant in
faction-fighting in the Papal States. Sometimes he came up against Antonello
Savelli, who was also making a name for himself as a military commander before he died of wounds sustained in the battle between the Orsini and Colonna
in April 1498. He arrived too late in February 1489 to join in the rout of Antonello Savelli and two of his brothers at Orte, where they had brought about
40 horse and 400 infantry, including men from the Ghibelline town of Amelia,
to attack the Guelfs who had expelled the Ghibellines from Orte the year before. Ulisse Orsini di Mugnano, whose estates were nearby, had already come
to the aid of the Guelfs with men from his own lands and 200 men sent from
the Guelf town of Narni at his request.65
Both were involved in an outbreak of faction-fighting in 1497. In May
dAlviano responded to a call for help by the exiled Guelfs of Todi, leading a
massacre of the Ghibellines there and restoring the Guelfs.66 He undertook to
fight for Guelf Spoleto against Ghibelline Terni, which the Spoletans were bent
on crushing. Leaders of the Colonna faction, Prospero and Fabrizio Colonna
63
64
65
66
Michele Michaeli, Memorie storiche della citt di Rieti (Rieti, 18979), IV, 413.
ASFlorence, Signoria, Carteggi, Resp., b. 18, c. 8: Antonio Malegonnelli, 31 Oct. 1499, Rome.
Shaw, The Roman barons and the Guelf and Ghibelline factions, 489; ACapitolino,
AOrsini, b. 102, c. 145: Santi da Curcumello to Virginio Orsini, 23 Feb. 1489, Florence.
Achille Sansi, Saggio di documenti storici tratti dallArchivio del comune di Spoleto (Foligno,
1861), 6471; ASFlorence, X di Balia, Carteggi, Resp., b. 56, c. 30: Alessandro Braccio, 27 May
1497, Rome; c. 36: Riccardo Becchi, 29 May 1497, Rome..
87
and Cardinal Savelli, sent Antonello Savelli and Giulio Colonna to ask Ghi
belline Rieti to help Terni and the Ghibelline party against Spoleto and
dAlviano, and Rieti agreed to send all the men that could be raised.67 While
Antonello and Troiano Savelli saw to putting Terni into a state of defence, the
Orsini saw to strengthening Todi and Spoleto.68 A report that Antonello Savelli
had gone to Todi proved false; instead, he intervened with 600 Colonna horse
in faction-fighting in Viterbo, and the slaughter of Guelfs there.69 This put the
Orsini on the defensive, as the presence of Colonna troops in Viterbo posed a
threat to their estates in the area.70 Another Orsini town, Norcia, warned by a
letter from dAlviano, asked for assurance that he would come to them if the
Ghibelline forces made another move;71 he also wrote to Narni and Orte to
prepare troops.72 Reports reached Rieti that dAlviano planned to attack with
3,000 foot and 2300 horse, saying he wanted to treat Rieti as Antonello Savelli
had Viterbo; the Spoletans were told that Antonello in Terni was planning an
attack on them.73 This standoff was brought to an end by a truce in September.
In return for such military assistance to their urban allies, Roman barons
enjoyed reserves of large numbers of loyal men, probably mostly infantry, on
whom they could draw at short notice. Sixteen hundred infantry came to Rome
to support the Colonna from Norcia, Cascia and LAquila after the death of Sixtus IV, in addition to men that the Colonna and Savelli raised from Terni, Amelia and Rieti.74 Spoleto provided Napoleone Orsini with 2,000 men in 1528,
while Sciarra Colonna raised around a thousand from Norcia and other places
later that year.75 If need be, these men could fight for the barons against the
pope, as did the many partisans who helped defend the lands of Virginio
Orsini against papal troops in 14967.76
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
Michaeli, Memorie storiche della citt di Rieti, IV, 245.

ASFlorence, X di Balia, Carteggi, Resp., b. 56, cc. 42, 53: Alessandro Braccio, 30 May, 5 June
1497, Rome.
Cesare Pinzi, Storia della citt di Viterbo (Rome, 18871913), IV, 376.
ASFlorence, X di Balia, Carteggi, Resp., b. 56, cc. 73, 76: Alessandro Braccio, 14 June 1497,
Rome.
ASSpoleto, Lettere al comune, b. 1/Norcia: Consuls of Norcia, 14 June 1497.
Sansi, Saggio di documenti storici, 76.
Michaeli, Memorie storiche della citt di Rieti, IV, 26; ASSpoleto, Lettere al comune, b. 1/
Montefranco: Pier Lorenzo and Jacomo, 20 July 1497.
Pontani, Il diario romano, 42; di Vascho, Il diario, 5145.
ASSpoleto, Lettere al Comune, b. 16/1528C: Napoleone Orsini, 28 May 1528, Vicovaro;
G. Molini, Documenti di storia italiana (Florence, 18367), II, 113: Camillo Pardo Orsini,
30 Oct. 1528, Ascoli.
Sanuto, I diarii, I, col. 472.
88
Chapter 4
The Colonna and Orsini factions were constituted of baronial families and
urban factions; rural communities seem to have been principally involved either as subjects and tenants of the barons or as subjects of the towns, or tenants of families involved in the urban factions. By and large, the factions were
bipolar, in the towns and at a regional level: there was a Guelf, Orsini network
and a Ghibelline, Colonna one. In Liguria, the situation was more complicated.
There were a multiplicity of factions, in which the inhabitants of independentminded rural communities were as important as those of towns. Each of the
major castellan families aimed to head their own faction, and Guelfs and Ghibellines were not organized into two recognized networks, within which there
were lasting alliances with acknowledged reciprocal obligations and common
interests. Factional networks were multipolar, and the factions of individual
communities would decide for themselves which allegiances would take priority in any given circumstances. If, for example, the Spinola or Doria switched
alliances from one dogal candidate to another, or decided to support the claim
to lordship over Genoa of the duke of Milan or the king of France, the families
and groups who in their own communities would be identified as members of
a Spinola or Doria faction would not necessarily follow their lead.
Factional allegiances were becoming more calculating in another sense too,
during the second half of the fifteenth century. As the Campofregoso and
Adorno set about building up their own followings in the Riviere, cutting
across and competing with the factions headed by the castellan families, they
used money and gifts to win support. The men of the Riviere became accustomed to being treated with food and barrels of wine, as well as stockings, perhaps in the colours of the family courting their support, or, especially for the
notables, outright gifts of money. By the late 1470s, Prospero Adorno could not
raise his friends and partisans unless he paid them.77 This mercenary attitude
carried over into their relations with the castellan families, who also began to
find that their partisans expected payment if they turned out to fight for them.
The involvement of the castellan families of Liguria with the towns on the
Riviere was rather different in nature from that of the Roman baronial families
with the towns of Umbria and around Rome. By the mid-fifteenth century, Roman barons were not appointed to hold either papal or communal offices in
those towns as they had sometimes been in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.78 In Liguria, members of the castellan families competed to hold posts
as Genoese officials in the towns of the Riviere, particularly positions that
77
78
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 968: governors of the Milanese army to Bona Sforza, 28 Mar. 1477,
Serravalle.
Shaw, The Political Role, p. 127.
89
would bring control of a fortress or other military resources, such as that of

captain of the eastern or western Riviere. Some of the more powerful castellans nursed ambitions to have neighbouring towns under their domination,
either directly or governing them nominally for Genoa. At Ventimiglia, for instance, Lamberto Grimaldi of Monaco was recognized as their lord by the people of the town in a solemn ceremony in September 1463. When Francesco
Sforza took over Genoa and his troops came to take possession of the Riviere
the following year, Grimaldi had to surrender the signory, but as compensation
was appointed governor of Ventimighia for five years. At the end of this term,
having strengthened its defences, he refused to surrender it, and Ventimiglia
had to be taken from him by Milanese troops in September 1469, with the fortress holding out until November; his brother Luigi died defending it.79
The intricacy and mutability of factional associations, and how they were
affected by changes of regime in Genoa can be shown by considering just one
part of the western Riviera, Porto Maurizio and its hinterland, over one decade
from the end of the French dominion over Genoa in 1512 to the seizure of power by the Adorno in Genoa with the help of the Spanish in 1522. There were
three main factions in Porto Maurizio, the Black, Guelf, and two White, Ghibelline, factions. The two Ghibilline factions were the Spinola and the Doria;
members of both families at times governed Porto Maurizio, depending on the
alignment of their alberghi with whatever might be the current regime in Gen
oa. By 1512 both had become estranged from the French. Luca Spinola, the
most prominent representative of his family in the region, had been disappointed by the failure of the French to fulfil a promise to give him secure title
to the stronghold of Pieve di Teco, a focus for the Spinola family and faction. It
was a blow to the faction when Pieve was taken from him by the French in
March 1512.
When Giano Campofregoso was installed as doge in Genoa in June, Luca
seized Pieve and in Porto Maurizio the Spinola faction took over the town. But
the leader of the Spinola faction there, the lawyer Francesco Ramoino, came to
terms with Giano, and apparently sent no aid to Luca when the Genoese took
Pieve back. To maintain their dominance in the town, the Spinola faction there
had to weaken their links with other Spinola partisans in the Riviera, and become close to the Campofregoso. During the brief Adorno regime in Genoa in
May to June 1513, they kept Porto Maurizio faithful to the Campofregoso until
they recovered power in Genoa. The new doge, however, was not Giano but
Ottaviano Campofregoso, who was not on good terms with Giano, and both
79
Saige, Documents historiques, I, CLXXXIII, CCXVI-XXIV; 3226, 3302, 4414, 45570, 479
81.
90
Chapter 4
Ramoino and Bernardo Doria, the lieutenant in Porto Maurizio of the captain
of the Riviera, lost their offices. A new Doria official, Gerolamo, was sent to be
vicar and podest of Porto Maurizio, and the Doria faction there, together with
the reviving Guelf faction, became dominant. Discomfited, the Spinola faction
returned to alliance with the Spinola family, although Lucas resentment at
their failure to help him in 1512 kept them at a distance for a while.
In November 1513 he had taken part, allied with the Guelf Gian Giacomo del
Carretto di Zuccarello, in an unsuccessful uprising against Ottaviano Campofregoso. The focus for exiles and opponents of the doge in that area of the Riviera had become the Imperial fief of Lingueglia. To put a stop to their disruptive
raiding, Gerolamo Dorias lieutenant, Paolo Gerolamo Doria, in November 1514
led around eighty men, including Doria partisans and exiles from Lingueglia,
to take and sack the stronghold; the lord, Gian Battista della Lingueglia, escaped.
Then, as rumours circulated that the Adorno or the Fieschi were to return to
Genoa, there was another shift in the factional alignments. Some Guelf families in Porto Maurizio changed sides, and Guelfs from the town, allied with
Adorno partisans from Oneglia, raided Doria property in Valle Impero; men of
the del Carretto and the Lingueglia joined in. Exiles from Oneglia and elsewhere on the Riviera were gatherng at Maro, a stronghold of the Lascaris di
Tenda, exiles from Albenga at the del Carretto stronghold of Onzo. Still loyal to
Luca Spinola, the Ghibelline faction of Pieve was troubling the Genoese
authorities there. With his sons Pantaleo and Niccol, Luca was gathering partisans at Finale; he had the open support of the French. Ottaviano Campofregoso turned the tables by coming to terms with Francis I, and agreed in
October 1515 to become French governor in Genoa rather than doge. Francis I
left all his supporters in the Riviera in the lurch, and the Spinola and Adorno
faction came under greater pressure.
In Porto Maurizio, the Spinola faction had already been under the surveill
ance of Paolo Gerolamo Doria. When his replacement, Sebastiano Doria, ordered all the faction heads to appear before him, many apprehensive leading
Spinola fled, and Sebastiano replaced those of them who had held civic offices
with Doria partisans. The Spinola faction split: those hostile to Ottaviano Campofregoso, Ramoino at their head, left for exile; those who were left declared
their loyalty to the new government, some joining the Doria faction. A number
of Ramoinos followers based themselves at the Spinola fief of Castellaro, and
from there fought Sebastiano Dorias men. In late August 1516, exiles from Porto
Maurizio gathered at Prel, which belonged to the Lascaris di Tenda, under
Ramoino and Niccol Spinola. As they advanced on Porto Maurizio in September, they were opposed by the lieutenants men, supported by 50 crossbowmen
91
and halbardiers from Oneglia, sent by Gerolamo and Stefano Doria. The exiles
were worsted in an encounter outside Porto Maurizio; their leaders fled as the
men were cut down. Nevertheless, the exiles managed to keep control over
part of the town, and the skirmishes and raids continued. Within the town, the
remainder of the Spinola faction splintered, and the Doria faction became
dominant.
By late 1517, Gerolamo Doria had general oversight of the western Riviera as
commissioner, while Sebastiano Doria was captain of the Riviera. This brought
a new lieutenant to Porto Maurizio, Bartolomeo De Magellis, and under his
more conciliatory governance, the Spinola exiles, Ramoino among them, returned. Economic difficulties (caused in large part by Genoese efforts to tighten restrictions on the maritime commerce of the Riviera ports) caused a muted
response among their partisans to calls from Luca Spinola and his sons and
from the Adorno in 1521; nor were the Doria of Oneglia and Dolceacqua able to
enthuse their partisans to support Ottaviano Campofregoso. After Antoniotto
Adorno took power in Genoa with Spanish support in 1522, the Doria opposed
the new regime, and some of the heads of the Doria faction in Porto Maurizio
took refuge with their families in Oneglia, which became the centre for exiles
from the whole of the western Riviera. The Spinola family and faction were
divided and ambiguous in their attitude to the Adorno regime. The new podest and vicar of Porto Maurizio was Stefano Spinola; Ramoino and his followers behaved more like adherents of the Adorno than partisans of the
Spinola; while Giorgio Spinola led a force of partisans and paid infantry in
raids and attacks on Pieve and Albenga.80
As this simplified account of events in part of the western Riviera over a
period of just ten years exemplifies, it is extraordinarily difficult to form a clear
picture of the labyrinthine factional politics of this Riviera as a whole. On the
eastern Riviera, the situation was less complicated, largely because of the Fieschis dominance there. The main challenge to that dominance came from the
Campofregoso, as they sought to build up their own faction. Despite being
originally Ghibelline (only Ghibellines could become doges of Genoa, according to the statutes), the Campofregoso were aiming to displace the Fieschi as
leaders of the Guelf faction. It was the Spinola who headed the Ghibellines of
the eastern Riviera, although some Ghibellines were partisans of the Fieschi.81
80
81
Gianni De Moro, Porto Maurizio in Et rinascimentale (14991599), II, Verso lEt moderna
(14991542) (Imperia, 1989), 91149.
Riccardo Musso, I colori delle Riviere: fazioni politiche e familiari a Genova e nel suo
dominio tra XV e XVI secolo, 536, 546.
92
Chapter 4
While the Guelf faction was the stronger, the Ghibellines had a solid presence
there; they were not a persecuted minority.
The Fieschi, it was said, could raise far more men from their faction than
from among their own subjects82 (the same could well have been true of the
Roman barons). From their estates in the Apennines, they had links to both
sides of the mountains, and sometimes were able to bring assistance from their
amici in the duchy of Milan. In the summer of 1453, for instance, men from the
bishopric of Tortona, directed by the bishops steward, a priest, came to help
Gian Filippo Fieschi, as did over a hundred men of conte Manfredo Landi.83
But the bulk of the forces that the Fieschi could call upon were on the coast.
For the Fieschi, the test of their power in the republic of Genoa was the extent
to which the government of the eastern Riviera was delegated to them. The
heads of the family wanted to be captains of the Riviera, to have the right to
appoint officials there, to govern important towns such as Recco, Rapallo and
Chiavari, and to hold the republics fortresses there.
Their principal justification for demanding such control over the Riviera
was the obligation to protect their partisans, their amici. That was the reason
Gian Filippo Fieschi gave for building fortifications, on land that belonged not
to him but to the republic, at Recco and Camogli in 1452.84 He rebuffed the
doges insistence that the fortifications should be torn down, saying without
them his friends would not be secure.85 In negotiations for a settlement between him and the doge, he demanded that all those who had taken up arms
for him should remain under his protection, to guard against reprisals by the
doge.86 For the Fieschi to have to withdraw from the coast to their estates in
the mountains was seen as a defeat, a sign of weakness, and they would run the
risk of their amici being forced to provide for their own security by seeking
other patrons. If he or his brother Gian Luigi did not come to the coast to hearten and support their partisans, Matteo Fieschi warned Obietto Fieschi in
March 1483, the next time they wanted to fight on the Riviera they would need
to bring a good number of paid infantry, because their friends would no longer
have it in their power to help them. His presence there now preferably
82
83
84
85
86
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 1572: Gian Pietro Panigarola to Bona and Gian Galeazzo Sforza,
11 July 1477, Genoa.
Ibid., b. 408: Leonardo da Pietrasanta to Francesco Sforza, 30 July 1453, Milan.
Ibid., b. 407: Giovanni Ferufino to Francesco Sforza, 26 July 1452, Genoa.
Ibid., Giovanni Ferufino and Antonio Guidobono to Francesco Sforza, 2 Aug. 1452, Genoa.
Ibid., Gian Filippo Fieschi to Francesco Sforza, 23 Oct. 1453, Morazana.
93
bringing with him some money to hearten their friends would be worth a
thousand infantry.87
The friends whom it was most crucial to reassure and keep on side were the
families of notables who were the real power-brokers in the coastal towns and
valley communities; some of them could, like the Fieschi, boast descent from
the ancient counts of Lavagna.88 (Similarly, Fieschi influence in the Piacentino
in the sixteenth century depended on their relations with the Nicelli family,
who were kingpins in the Val Nure.)89 Such men had minds of their own, and
would not blindly follow the Fieschi or any other faction leader. As with their
counterparts in the western Riviera, they would not necessarily join the castellans in tactical alliances with rival factions. Partisans of the Fieschi were perhaps more liable than those of any other Ligurian castellan family to be asked
to back them against the current regime in Genoa, and might weigh the odds
of success carefully before deciding if they would. Gian Luigi Fieschi was reported to have held a meeting with his partisans in June 1477, at which many
had told him that they did not intend to follow him, because they did not think
him strong enough to take on the forces of Milan and Genoa without the aid of
another Italian state. Arguing he could not reveal what contacts he had with
other powers to so many, Gian Luigi asked them to appoint representatives
whom he could meet privately, who would have delegated powers to commit
the rest; but the decision of the delegates, it was said, still went against him.90
Whatever the outcome of this meeting, some support was forthcoming from
his partisans at this time, enough to encourage him to approach Genoa in the
hope of provoking an uprising against Prospero Adorno, then governor for
the Milanese.
If the Fieschi managed to win the support of the notables, thousands of
men could be raised quickly, as recruiting parties rallied men by ringing bells
and blowing great sea shells which were used as horns in the region.91 For the
Fieschi, who were not rich in cash, the numbers of men prepared to answer
their call could soon become a problem. These partisans undoubtedly cost less
than hiring professional infantry, but they did not come entirely for free. This
was already a problem for Gian Filippo Fieschi in the 1450s, and expectations
87
88
89
90
91
Ibid., b. 994: Matteo Fieschi to Obietto Fieschi, 27 Mar. 1483, Rapallo.

Musso, I colori delle Riviere, 5467.
Riccardo De Rosa, Lo Stato Landi (12571682) (Piacenza, 2008), 40; for the Nicelli, see
Daniele Andreozzi, Nascita di un disordine. Una famiglia signorile e una valle piacentina
tra XV e XVI secolo (Milan, 1993).
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 972: Gian Angelo de Talenti to Bona and Gian Galeazzo Sforza,
1 July 1477, Genoa.
Musso, I colori delle Riviere, 549.
94
Chapter 4
of reward may well have grown, as the efforts of the Campofregoso and Adorno
to attract followers raised the price. Local notables came to look for subsidies
from the Fieschi even in peacetime, as their own men became more demanding. As you know, Francesco della Torre carries quite a burden of expense for us
to sustain the amici, Gian Luigi Fieschi reminded Obietto in August 1482. You
should think of making some fitting provision for him, for both war and peace,
to satisfy his needs and our duty to support him, and think of others who might
merit similar payments.92
Payments to their amici was one of the reasons Gian Luigi and the Adorno
brothers gave in 1494 for their unwillingness to give up the pensions they received from Ludovico Sforza; if they did not make these payments, they would
lose their friends and their reputation.93 At that time, they were still able to
raise 3,000 amici from around Genoa (paying their expenses, of course) to defend the city from a threatened attack by exiles backed by the French; 1,500
men were to be held in readiness on the eastern Riviera to come if need be.94
But in the sixteenth century such levies seem no longer to have been possible.
Changes in the nature of Genoese politics, and in the position of Genoa within
the Italian state system as the republic became caught up in the contest between the European powers brought changes to the role of the Riviera factions
in the life of the republic. When Gian Luigi Fieschis grandson and namesake
made his bid to change the regime in Genoa in 1547, he did so by a conspiracy,
trying to enthuse a few hundred men meeting in his palace on the outskirts to
follow him through the city, not by advancing on Genoa at the head of thousands of men as his forebears had done.95 Some partisans were among the defenders of Montoggio as his brother Gerolamo led the Fieschis last stand after
the conspiracy failed, but they were numbered in tens, not hundreds.96 There
were still Fieschi partisans in the Riviera after 1547, but they could not help the
family hold on to their lands.
For the castellans of Lombardy, potential military support was a much less
significant factor in their relations with their factional allies, at least those in
92
93
94
95
96
ASMi, ASforzesco, b. 993: Gian Luigi Fieschi to Obietto Fieschi, 12 Aug. 1482, Montoggio.
Ibid., b. 1217: Corrado Stanga to Ludovico Sforza, 11 Mar. 1496, Genoa.
Ibid., b.1221: Corrado Stanga to Ludovico Sforza, 20 Jan. 1497, Genoa.
Pacini, La Genova di Andrea Doria, 6067. Among the most useful collections of documents concerning this famous conspiracy long viewed as a romantic, heroic failure
rather than a fiasco are Edoardo Bernab Brea (ed.), Sulla congiura del Conte Gio Luigi
Fieschi, documenti inediti (Genoa, 1863), and Lorenzo Capelloni, La congiura di Gio
Luigi Fiesco, ed. Agostino Olivieri (Genoa, 1858), and Spinola et al., Documenti ispanogenovesi.
Spinola et al., Documenti ispano-genovesi, 1579.
95
the cities. Castellans looking for military assistance would appeal to other castellans, or neighbouring princes to whom they might well be linked by long
association as Guelfs or Ghibellines. But at this level of political society, other
networks of association and interest, some of long standing, some arising out
of current circumstances, cut across the traditional factions. The Rossi of Parma, for example, were Guelfs, but were rivals of the Sanvitale, who had a long
attachment to the dEste of Ferrara, who were also Guelfs. Pietro Maria Rossi
opposed dEste ambitions to take Parma, choosing rather to adhere to the Sforza, who were Ghibellines. The castellans connections with the urban factions
that bore their names were essentially political, rather than military. Neither
the Sforza dukes nor the Venetian republic were prepared to tolerate factionfighting in the streets of their towns and cities, or to countenance urban factions sending columns of infantry to support the castellans, or the castellans
leading or sending troops to intervene in the quarrels of their urban allies.
In periods of unrest, rebellion or war, however, the military aspect of the
factions became more apparent. An outbreak of violence in Parma in early
March 1477 that resulted in the sack and destruction of much property of
members of the Rossi squadre, was a repercussion of the power struggle taking
place in the Milanese court following the assassination of Duke Galeazzo
Maria Sforza, between his widow, Bona, who was regent for their son Gian
Galeazzo, and the late dukes brothers. Had it not been for the events in Milan,
it is unlikely that the Rossi, Pallavicini, Sanvitale and other castellan families
would have risked sending large numbers of armed men from their estates to
strengthen the forces of the squadre, men who were responsible for some of
the worst of the violence.97
During the Italian Wars, the factions in Lombardy became a military force to
be reckoned with. Garrisons and occupation contingents could be kept to a
minimum where a friendly faction held sway, but this meant that if the faction
turned against the occupying power, a city could be lost in a day.98 In the countryside, too, the factions were revitalized. Influxes of exiles from the towns and
cities, taking refuge on the estates of castellans, had a part in this, as bands of
men brought from the countryside by castellan faction leaders could decide a
change of allegiance. A force of friends and partisans led by the Ghibellines
Federico Dal Verme and Matteo Beccaria took Voghera from 300 infantry and
150 horse holding it for the French in 1515. Everything shows that rebellions of
97
98
Pezzana, Storia della Citt di Parma, IV, 1422; Gentile, Fazioni al governo, 2169.
Letizia Arcangeli, Appunti su guelfi e ghibellini in Lombardia nelle guerre dItalia (1494
1530), 42131.
96
Chapter 4
partisans have more effect than the strength of the enemy, was the conclusion
drawn by one observer from this episode.99
Events in Piacenza and the Piacentino illustrate how the castellans and the
factions they headed responded to the crises and political uncertainties caused
by the wars, combining efforts to determine which of the contending powers
should have Piacenza, with the settling of old scores and personal quarrels.
Four squadre or classi, headed by castellans the Ghibelline Landi and Anguissola, the Guelf Scotti and Fontana dominated the political life and civic government; the leaders of the castellan clans were more personally involved in
the government of the city that were their counterparts in Parma.100 Not all
citizens were content with their dominance, but the squadre were too firmly
rooted to be dislodged. All four squadre agreed in submitting to the French after their conquest of the duchy of Milan in 1499, but during Ludovico Sforzas
brief recovery of the duchy in early 1500, the Piacentine Ghibellines led by
the Landi and Anguissola families went over to his side. Some, including
Corrado Landi, fled the city, having suggested that Piacenza should submit to
Ludovico, while the Guelfs were said to have proposed bringing back the
French garrison which had left. When Venetian soldiers arrived to take possession of Piacenza for the French king, Venices ally, the Guelfs accepted them,
while the Ghibellines gathered a thousand strong by the cathedral, together
with the Landi and their followers, who were drawn up ready to give battle.
Rather than stand and fight, however, they left for the castellans estates.
As the French were driven out of the duchy in 1512, the Guelfs with a show
of force were instrumental in Piacenza accepting the pope, Julius II, as their
new lord. Following his death, the Landi and Anguissola invited Massimiliano
Sforza, who had been installed as duke of Milan by the Holy League, to claim
Piacenza for his own; he came, backed by the troops of his sponsors, and the
papal governor fled, together with many Guelfs. The new pope, Leo X, succeeded through political pressure in recovering Piacenza, the self-exiled Guelfs
returned, but the Ghibellines continued to support the Sforza duke. Factionfighting broke out in and around the city. In the country, Pietro Maria Scotti
who had abandoned the Guelf heritage of his father to align himself with the
Ghibelline relatives of his mother, a Pallavicino led the Ghibelline forces resisting the papal government. An attempt by the papal vice-governor to capture him ended in an ignominious retreat to the city, pursued by Scotti.
99
100
Lettere di monsignore Goro Gheri, 119: Goro Gheri to Cardinal Giulio de Medici, 25 Aug.
1515, Piacenza.
Letizia Arcangeli, Aggregazioni fazionarie e identit cittadina nello stato di Milano (fine
XV-inizio XVI secolo), 4045.
97
Faction-fighting in the city reached a new pitch with, it was said, 6,000 men
from outside Piacenza taking part. After a truce had been negotiated in Piacenza (which did not last), the focus of the fighting shifted to the countryside.
In 1514, the Ghibellines had help from the Dal Verme and Massimiliano Sforza
sent 500 Spanish infantry while the Guelfs had a French captain, his company,
and 300 men from the Rossi, as well as men from Liguria. Pietro Maria Scottis
activities ranged from assaulting the vice-governor and his escort to occupying
the lands of marchese Ghisello Malaspina, against whom he may have had a
personal grudge, as well as sundry homicides. He continued for a while to take
lands and fortresses belonging to Guelfs, notwithstanding a general peace had
been agreed in March 1515.
After Leo X ceded Piacenza to Francis I in October 1515 (following the new
kings rapid conquest of the duchy of Milan and his victory at the epic battle of
Marignano), Piacenza became the base for a substantial contingent of French
troops, and the factions in the city were stilled. Not so in the countryside,
where the Ghibellines remained actively hostile, and it took the French a few
years to establish firm control. When the war in Lombardy was rekindled in
1521, with the armies of Leo X and the young emperor Charles V seeking to expel the French, the Ghibellines of Piacenza were partisans of the emperor, the
Guelfs of the French king. The Guelfs guarded the walls and gates of Piacenza
while Pietro Maria Scotti with 200 horse and 300 infantry raided the country
round. In June, Giacomo and Giovanni Anguissola advanced on the city with a
force of their subjects and partisans, but their accomplices in Piacenza were
discovered, and the Anguissola had to retreat. Another attempt in August, this
time with Pietro Maria Scotti, was beaten back after they had succeeded in
burning one of the city gates. The French troops in the city launched a counterattack, but Pietro Maria escaped them and took several centres in the countryside, before he was killed in the course of an attack, in a quarrel over booty. In
October, Giacomo Anguissola made a third attempt on Piacenza, this time
with Giacomo Dal Verme, at the head of 2,000 men, but retired when there was
no sign of an uprising, pursued by the French. It was not the efforts of the local
Ghibellines, but the defeat of the French in the contest for the duchy that
caused the French garrison to leave Piacenza and the city to be recovered by
the pope.101
In Friuli there were no historic rural or urban factions to look to castellan
families for leadership, bound together by joint action and loyalties fostered
over generations. Historians have tended to concentrate on the violence in
Udine in 1511, and trace the factions back from that point, paying most
101
Andreozzi, Piacenza, 13857; Arcangeli, Appunti sui guelfi e ghibellini, 430, n. 126.
98
Chapter 4
attention to the Savorgnan-led Zamberlani. Membership in the factions was

so transitory, according to Edward Muir, that their composition can usually be
discerned only at moments of confrontation when participants revealed allegiances by attacking members of the other side. One knows the factions by
discovering who killed whom.102 Nevertheless, he argues, the factions provided shadow institutions that often substituted for the formal institutions of government at all levels, providing more coherence and strength than any
alternative form of organization.103 But little is known about how the factions
operated, or how cohesive they were, particularly the Strumieri.
The Zamberlani and Strumieri factions as they developed in the later fifteenth century were seen as the local equivalent of Guelfs and Ghibellines,
with the pro-Imperial Strumieri the Ghibellines, and the pro-Venetian Zamberlani the Guelfs.104 Essentially, the Friulan factions were pro- or anti-Savorgnan groupings. Originally, the Strumieri were followers of the Della Torre
family, whose feud with the Savorgnan can be traced back to 1339.105 The influence of the Della Torre declined after the Venetians took over Friuli, and there
was a prolonged lull in the conflict between the factions. It revived in the 1470s
and 1480s, as resentment grew among the other castellan families of the privileged position the Venetians granted the Savorgnan, especially in making first
Nicol and then Antonio Savorgnan head of the militia. The Zamberlani faction became the Savorgnan clan, their urban allies in Udine and the peasants,
including the subjects of other castellans, who looked to them for protection.
By contrast, the Strumieri appeared to be an alliance of castellan families, with
no significant links to different social groups, other than their own retainers.
The blood feud that developed between the factions after the massacre of
Strumieri in Udine in 1511 did not escalate into a private war. It was not the
business of anyone but the families and their servants, and the Venetian authorities who punished the more egregious acts of violence that were perpetrated within their jurisdiction.106
After the Italian Wars and the opportunities they had occasionally provided
for the revival of factions and the prosecution of family feuds, there was less
scope for barons and castellans to wage war on their own account. Private wars
had not been commonplace before the wars and were still rarer in the later
sixteenth century. They were expensive for barons and castellans, who had to
102
103
104
105
106
Muir, Mad Blood Rising, xxiv-v.

Ibid., xxv.
Ibid., 89.
Ibid., 90.
See above, pp. 745.
99
draw heavily on other resources too, especially the goodwill of allies and partisans, which was not inexhaustible. There was a limit to the tolerance of the
disruption barons and castellans might cause before they would be considered
a serious nuisance and a threat to public order, which their family and their
allies would hesitate to support. The bonds binding factions together and linking them to the military nobility seemed to be weakening by the mid-sixteenth
century, and this, with the changes in the structure of armies, above all the
decline in the system of condotte, meant that barons and castellans had fewer
military resources at their disposal, or with which they could go to the aid of
relatives and friends or political allies.
Governments in the new state system that was an outcome of the Italian
Wars were less tolerant of private wars, or perhaps it would be more accurate
to say, were in a better position to repress them. More than ever, they were
viewed as an affront to the authority of the government, especially if fighting
was an escalation of a dispute during which one or more participants had appealed for a judicial ruling or been prepared (or said they were prepared) to
accept arbitration. Barons and castellans might still be inclined to consider
they had the right to use violence to defend or assert their private interests,
their claims to an inheritance or their honour. As before, violence within the
families of the military nobility was perhaps more common than violence between them, but inheritance disputes and honour killings were apparently
more likely to be considered the concern of the judicial authorities. Even in
regulating the affairs of their own family, or vindicating their personal honour,
it was increasingly difficult for barons and castellans to play by the rules they
chose for themselves.
100
Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5
A Life in Arms
For barons and castellans, the military traditions of their families were a fundamental aspect of their collective identity. Their estates were incomplete without at least one fortress or at the very least a defensible house; their power was
estimated in terms of the numbers of men from their lands, and of their amici
and partisans who would come to fight for them and under their command.
The men of the families even, sometimes, the clerics were expected to be
able to fight, and to lead men into action.
That did not mean that they would necessarily be expected to have, or
would want, a military career. The peculiar configuration of Italian states made
it exceptional for the military nobility to be in the position of French or English
barons, whose natural military career would be to serve in the kings armies,
fighting his wars (unless they were in rebellion against him). Many did make
careers as condottieri, professional mercenary soldiers and commanders, an
honourable profession in Renaissance Italy. For others, their military organization would be limited to private wars and faction-fighting. The options available changed during the Italian Wars. The French and Spanish armies were
organized differently from those of the Italian states, and there were fewer opportunities for condottieri, transferring freely with their own companies from
one employer to another. But there were openings for Italian lords in the
French, Spanish and Imperial armies, and they could reach the highest positions of command.
Of all the military nobilities of Italy, the Roman barons were the most inclined to become condottieri. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
the popes, absent or weakened by schism, were in no position to assert prior
rights, let alone exclusive rights, to the military services of the barons, who
owed no military obligations to the papacy for their lands. Roman barons were
drawn into the dynastic wars in Naples, attracted by the prospect of grants of
estates there, as well as condotte. They also fought in the wars in northern Italy.
Paolo Savelli, for example, died commanding the Venetian army engaged in
the conquest of Padua in 1405; his equestrian statue on his tomb still stands
in the Venetian church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. Dolce dell Anguillara,
after fighting for Alfonso of Aragon in Naples, joined the company of Francesco Sforza, dying in Lombardy in 1449.1 Those barons who made a profession of
1 Sora, I conti di Anguillara, 67.
A Life in Arms
101
soldiering in the early fifteenth century tended to be the less wealthy or members of of the secondary lineages of their families.2 But as the system of condotte became an established pillar of the military organization of the Italian
states, offering the prospect of regular, lucrative employment in honourable
posts, members of the major branches of the families came to the fore. By the
time the popes were seeking to strengthen their government over the Papal
States, Roman barons had come to consider themselves professional soldiers
with the right to serve other powers, even if they were attacking the pope.
Even when the popes had consolidated the position of the papacy among
the five major temporal powers in Italy, fully engaged in their wars, the baronial condottieri still did not come to see the pope as their natural employer, or
their first choice as employer. Occasionally, the pope might try to claim the
right to block the negotiation of condotte of Roman barons with other powers,
and might succeed in doing so, as when Julius II prevented Savelli and Orsini
condottieri from taking up condotte with Venice just as he was launching an attack on Venice with his allies in the League of Cambrai in 1509.3 Generally, the
popes aim, as in this instance, was to deny his enemies the services of the Roman barons, not to reserve those services for himself; generally, too, the barons
and their potential employer would disregard the objections of the pope.
The papal army could never accommodate all the baronial condottieri in
time of war, let alone in peacetime when the popes hastened to reduce the
numbers of their troops. In the later fifteenth century, it became the norm for
popes to give their nephews (or their sons, if they had sons), however inexperienced they might be militarily, the highest command in the papal army, as
Gonfaloniere della Chiesa (Standard-bearer of the Church). Acting as lieutenant to a papal nipote was not necessarily an attractive proposition for a baron
who had worked hard to build a reputation as a soldier and commander, and
the best baronial condottieri usually had other options. On the other hand,
there were political advantages to close association with the popes favoured
relations, and some barons usually including at least one Orsini were generally to be found serving under them. Virginio Orsini, for example, put up
with subordination to Girolamo Riario, the nephew of Sixtus IV, using Riarios
dependence on him to get his political and diplomatic backing for Virginios
efforts to recover the Neapolitan counties of Tagliacozzo and Albi. Satisfaction
2 Franca Allegrezza, Organizzazione del potere e dinamiche familiari. Gli Orsini dal Duecento agli
inizi del Quattrocento (Rome, 1998), 201.
3 Christine Shaw, The Roman barons and the security of the Papal States, 3156.
102
Chapter 5
for Virginio was a major problem during the later stages of the War of Ferrara
in 1484, because of Riarios insistence on his behalf.4
Careers as condottieri were not so much a matter of individual choice for
Roman barons, as a family business. Senior condottieri would, as was normal
practice for condottieri from any region of Italy, bring their sons and other
younger relatives into their companies to train them, and negotiate separate
condotte and commands for them as part of their own contracts. As he was ill
and did not know how long he would be able to carry on, Virginio Orsini insisted when renegotiating his condotta as Neapolitan captain-general in 1491,
the king must agree to substantial condotte for his legitimate son, Giangiordano and his illegitimate son Carlo, as he wanted them to become known before
he died or could no longer serve in person. If the king esteemed him as much
as he said he did, he should give them some standing, and not leave them to
have to look for it elsewhere.5 In the event, Giangiordano would never make
his mark as a soldier: he owed his condotte to his position as heir to, and then
head of, the leading branch of the Orsini family. Carlo made more of a reputation, but did not reach the first rank of his profession. The star among those
formed under Virginios tutelage was not an Orsini but a member of a minor
baronial family closely allied with them, Bartolomeo dAlviano. Lesser barons
had to set their sights at a more modest level for their protgs, like Giacomo
Conti trying to place his nineteen-year-old son in the service of Siena with ten
coraze (cuirassiers), promising to send him in good order.6
Cardinals and other prominent baronial clerics could also be involved in
negotiating condotte for their lay relatives. The protonotary Gianbattista Savelli asked Galeazzo Maria Sforza to take his brother Mariano into his service in
1474; twenty years later, then a cardinal, he asked Ludovico Sforza to transfer a
condotta he had given to one of Marianos sons, Paolo, to another, Troilo, because he was more inclined to the military life.7 Cardinal Giovanni Colonna
handled the negotiations in Rome in early 1494 that resulted in his brother
Prospero accepting a joint condotta from Pope Alexander and Milan.8 For Giu
lio Orsini, the close supervision and control that his brother, Cardinal Gianbattista Orsini exercised over his career was not always to his advantage. It seems
4
5
6
7
8
Shaw, The Roman barons and the popes, 1157.

Corrispondenza degli ambasciatori fiorentini a Napoli, VI (Naples, 2004), 106.
ASSiena, Balia 522, 33: Guidantonio Buoninsegni, 28 Apr. 1485, Rome.
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 77: Protonotary Savelli to Galeazzo Maria Sforza, 6 Oct. 1474,
Rome; b. 109: Ascanio Sforza to Ludovico Sforza, 19 Apr. 1494, Rome.
Ibid., b. 108: Ascanio Sforza to Ludovico Sforza, 28 Jan., 14 Feb. 1494, Rome; Stefano Taverna
to Ludovico Sforza, 14 Feb. 1494, Rome; Bartolomeo Zambeccari to Nestore Pallioti, 27 Feb.
1494, Rome.
A Life in Arms
103
to have been Gianbattistas idea that Giulio should accept the command of an
ill-fated attempt by Sienese exiles to force their return to Siena in May 1485.
When Virginio objected, the cardinal defended his brothers involvement by
arguing that if an Orsini soldier was asked to do something that could bring
him honour and profit, it was not wrong for him to accept; the men of the family would be esteemed for undertaking important ventures.9 Napoleone Orsini
grew tired of the intervention of his brother, the powerful Cardinal Latino Orsini. Towards the end of his career in 1472, he and Latino disagreed over the
expediency of Napoleone leaving the service of the pope as Gonfaloniere, he
was commander of the papal army for that of the duke of Milan; he was not
twenty years old, and could look after himself, he grumbled.10
If they built up their own companies of men-at-arms, and perhaps some
infantry too, who would transfer with them from one employer to another, barons faced the problem common to condottieri of how to maintain their company between contracts. Billets could be found on their estates, but that would
still leave the problem of finding money to pay them. The more successful the
condottiere, the bigger his company, the greater the problem. Refusing to accept the Prefect of Rome, Giovanni della Rovere, the nephew of Sixtus IV, as his
commander in June 1485, Virginio Orsini was holding back from renewing
his condotta with Pope Innocent VIII, but it was observed that he could no
longer bear the great expense of the men-at-arms11 for which he was not being
paid. A month later, a condotta was agreed for him, with the question of whether he would be subordinate to the Prefect left open.12 Giacomo Contis wish to
have found another position before the end of his condotta with Florence in
March 1494, so as not to have to look for one after, was typical of condottieri, as
was his expectation that Ludovico and Ascanio Sforza should not take it amiss
that if they did not want him, he would take service with the king of Naples,
their enemy.13
Every major Italian state employed Roman baronial condottieri. So numerous were they, so ready to serve anywhere in Italy, that it would arguably have
been more significant if a deliberate decision had been made by a prince or a
9
10
11
12
13
ACapitolino, AOrsini, b. 101, c. 74: Antonello Sinibaldo to Virginio Orsini, 7 May 1485,
Rome.
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 70: Archbishop of Novara to Galeazzo Maria Sforza, 15 Aug. 1472,
Rome.
ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 847, cc. 2912: Gian Pietro Arrivabene to Francesco Gonzaga, 24
June 1485, Rome.
ASFlorence, X di Balia, Carteggi, Resp., b.34, c. 287: Guidantonio Vespucci, 30 July 1485,
Rome.
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 108: Ascanio Sforza to Ludovico Sforza, 2 Mar. 1494, Rome.
104
Chapter 5
republic not to employ them. It was the popes who sometimes came nearest to
doing that, because of the political implications of their giving condotte to men
from one or other of the leading clans. There was also the threat that the military strength of the barons nourished by papal condotte could be turned against
the pope, as Julius II claimed the experience of his predecessors had shown,
when they had been oppressed by means of the money of the Church, so that
he was inclined never to have either Orsini or Colonna in his pay, but to use
captains from outside the Papal States.14 In practice, he and other popes were
unable to avoid using them. Pius II set out in his memoirs the conflicting considerations behind his decision to give the command of the papal army to Napoleone Orsini in 1461. Napoleone had already fought to considerable acclaim
for Alfonso and the Venetians, and had already commanded large armies. The
only obstacle was the envy of other Roman barons who could not bear
the Orsinis glory, and it seemed imprudent to augment the power of that family, already so strong around Rome. Naturally arrogant, the Orsini could become intolerable. But necessity prevailed, and Napoleone was appointed
captain.15
Political considerations often entered into the calculations of other powers
in deciding whether to employ Roman barons. Prospective employers frequently bore in mind the potential the barons had for putting pressure on the
pope. This would not always be the case: the military reputation alone of some
Roman barons would have been enough to gain them the highest commands
in Italy. Niccol Orsinis most important estates those on the borders of Tuscany, including Pitigliano and the county of Nola in the kingdom of Naples
were too far from Rome to figure large in such an equation. What won him his
position as captain-general for Florence in 1485, then the papacy in 1489 and
finally governor-general for Venice in 1495 was primarily the reputation he
built up. Already by 1484, in the estimation of Alfonso, duke of Calabria, he was
on the way to becoming the best condottiere in Italy after Roberto da Sanseverino, and the Venetians esteemed him just as highly, Calabria believed.16 One
factor in his jealousy of Virginio Orsini was apparently a sense that Virginio
had an unfair advantage over him because of his position as head of the major
branch of the Orsini. All he had acquired himself, Niccol complained to
Lorenzo de Medici, had been by his own talents not like some other members
14
15
16
ASFlorence, X di Balia, Carteggi, Resp., b. 81, c. 217: Alessandro Nasi, 3 Feb. 1505(6), Rome.
Enea Silvio Piccolomini, Pope Pius II, I commentarii, ed Luigi Totaro (Milan, 1984), I,
10145.
Corrispondenza degli ambasciatori fiorentini a Napoli (Naples, 2005), I, 440, 471.
A Life in Arms
105
of his family.17 Virginios military repute was respectable enough, but whether
he would have become governor-general of the army of the league of Naples,
Milan and Florence in November 1485, or captain-general of Naples in 1489
(and Great Constable in 1494) if he had not been seen as the key figure in the
Orsini family and faction is open to question.
What factors that might enter into the equation when condotte for Roman
barons were under discussion were illustrated in the correspondence of Galeazzo Maria Sforza with his envoys in Rome in 14712, when the duke was engaged in expanding his army and looking to hire some of them. One condottiere
he enquired about was Andrea Conti, who had spent most of his career in the
service of the pope, and had also served Ferrante. Aged forty-six, Andrea was
described as being small in stature, physically fit, with a good reputation
among soldiers. He and his two brothers had seven castelle near the lands of
the conte di Fondi (to the south of Rome), and other lands without fortresses;
he wanted a condotta for 50 lances. Giovanni Conti had had larger condotte
than Andrea with the papacy and Venice, and so his reputation stood higher,
but he was ten years older.18
It was Giovanni that the duke decided he was interested in. If he was not as
physically strong as he had been, he looked well, and was known for his fidelity
and obedience to his employers, and was experienced and a gentleman.19 The
duke offered a condotta for 80 men-at-arms in peacetime, and 120, with 100 infantry, in time of war; Giovanni asked for 200 infantry, apparently to keep on
his estates, to give him some guarantee that they would not be attacked when
he was not there, but he did not get them.20 No mention was made of his estates in the condotta; Giovannis lands were held jointly with his nephews Andrea and Giacomo and it would be difficult for him to put the lands under any
obligation without them, the dukes envoy warned.21 Andrea and Giacomo
might also be willing to serve the duke, however, and Galeazzo Maria was told
of the advantages of having all the Conti: they had a following and standing in
and around Rome, and their estates included places of importance.22 It seems
17
18
19
20
21
22
ACapitolino, AOrsini, b. 102, c. 777: Santi to Virginio Orsini, 25 Aug. [1487?], Florence; for
Niccols jealousy of Virginio, see Christine Shaw, Lorenzo de Medici and Niccol Orsini,
26070, 2789.
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 68: Nicodemo to Galeazzo Maria Sforza, 2 Aug. 1471, Rome.
Ibid., b. 70: Nicodemo to G.M.Sforza, 18 May 1472, Rome.
Ibid., b. 69: G.M.Sforza to Nicodemo, 27 Apr. 1472; b. 70: Archbishop of Novara to
G.M.Sforza, 6 May 1472, Rome.
Ibid., b. 70: Nicodemo to G.M.Sforza, 2 June 1472, Rome.
Ibid.: Nicodemo to G.M.Sforza, 2 June 1472; Archbishop of Novara to G.M. Sforza, 11 July
1472, Rome.
106
Chapter 5
the duke did ask Giovanni to commit his estates. Giovanni replied he was happy to do this, and offered those of his relations and friends as well, promising
he had the means to provide good billets for his company in locations between
Rome and the Neapolitan border, from which they could cover an extensive
swathe of territory, and that he could draw over to the duke many local leaders,
most by love, the remainder by fear, and put his party and followers at the
dukes disposal.23 In the event, Giovanni was required to serve in Lombardy,
Emilia and Tuscany, and in 1474 he actually refused to lodge his company on his
own estates. The duke thought highly of him, nevertheless, and Giovanni Conti was to have been portrayed in a fresco depicting the duke studying maps and
muster rolls with his commanders and military advisers, in a decorative
scheme for the fortress of Milan which was never realized.24
Political considerations were to the fore in proposals for the duke to take on
some Orsini condottieri. Niccol Orsini, then in the early stages of his career,
offered his own services and those of Virginio (not yet his rival, and staying on
Niccols lands after quarrelling with his father), asking for thirty men-at-arms
each, ten more each if they would be required to go far from the Papal States,
for 10,000 ducats a year between them. He justified requesting more than the
usual rate by his being prepared to commit his stato in war or peace as the duke
required, and needing to provide for its protection. His proposition was that of
the lord of a minor independent state, and the dukes envoy noted that the
state of this count is impregnable, and so situated that attacks can be made on
the Papal States, and those of the Florentines and the Sienese.25
Galeazzo Maria was more interested in the possibility of hiring Napoleone
Orsini, who had continued as captain of the papal army under Pius IIs successor, Paul II. Soon after Pauls death, the duke wrote that he was ready to make
Napoleone his own captain-general. Before Napoleone had time to respond,
his brother Cardinal Latino was arguing that he could be more use to Galeazzo
Maria if he stayed around Rome, to support the new pope, Sixtus IV, against
Ferrante of Naples if need be.26 A rapprochement between Sixtus and Ferrante
early the next year made Napoleone think about transferring to the service of
the duke, offering the use of his estates as well as his military company. Ar
guing that Ferrante would have no respect for the pope if he lost Napoleone,
the soldier of the best repute that he had and one with a great following of
23
24
25
26
Ibid.: Archbishop of Novara to G.M.Sforza, 20 July 1472.

Covini, Lesercito del duca, 299300, 3227.
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 69: Nicodemo to G.M.Sforza, 26 Feb. 1472, Rome.
Ibid., b. 68: G.M.Sforza to Nicodemo, 14 Sept. 1471; Nicodemo to G.M.Sforza, 26 Sept. 1471,
Rome.
A Life in Arms
107
partisans, Cardinal Latino tried to dish the negotiations.27 His brother persisted, however, on the premise that he would be employed around Rome as a
check on Ferrante, giving assurance of his willingness to serve for up to ten
years with his person, his men-at-arms and his estates.28 Warned that Sixtus
had grumbled the duke was trying to take all his soldiers from him,29 Galeazzo
Maria decided against concluding a contract with Napoleone. In any case, Napoleone was known to be nearing the end of his career. Age, and gout, were
taking their toll. Soon the pope was feeling he needed a captain-general who
was physically able to lead his men in person. Napoleones political importance, however, inhibited the pope from terminating his contract.30 Although
he had to accept a reduction in his condotta,31 in 1477 he was appointed captain-general of the papal troops for life.32
On Napoleones death in 1480, Virginio Orsini inherited his fathers lands
and his position as head of the Orsini faction, giving political weight to his
condotte. When he became captain-general of the league of Milan, Florence
and Naples in November 1485, the utility of his estates and those of the other
Orsini condottieri with the league was emphasized by Lorenzo de Medici. In
them consists in large part the safety of the king, he argued; if they are with us,
there is free passage from Lombardy to Naples.33 Without them, troops could
not be sent to Naples; with them, not only was victory certain in the imminent war of the league against Pope Innocent who was backing the Neapolitan
rebels but in future we shall have the bit in the popes mouth.34
Innocent asserted that by the terms of Virginios condotta with the papacy,
renewed only a month before, he could not accept one from anybody else.35
He did not argue on this occasion that Virginio, as a Roman baron, could not
accept a condotta without his approval, but he did complain that the league
had given the Orsini condotte without their being released from their condotte
with him. The ambassadors of the league replied that the Orsini had made
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
Ibid., b. 69: Nicodemo to G.M.Sforza, 19 Mar., 13 Apr. 1472, Rome.

Ibid., b. 70: Nicodemo to G.M.Sforza, 18 May 1472, Rome; Archbishop of Novara to
G.M.Sforza, 15 Aug. 1472, Rome.
Ibid.: Archbishop of Novara to G.M.Sforza, 3 July 1472, Rome.
Ibid., b. 74: Sacromoro to G.M.Sforza, 25 Feb. 1474, Rome; b. 75: Sacromoro to G.M.Sforza,
5 Mar. 1474, Rome.
Ibid., b. 81: Sacromoro to G.M.Sforza, 4 Apr. 1476, Rome.
AVaticano, Reg. Vat. 657, ff. 125r-126v.
Lorenzo de Medici, Lettere, VIII, 305.
Ibid., IX, 16.
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 99: Ascanio Sforza to Giangaleazzo Sforza, 12 Nov. 1485.
108
Chapter 5
manifest that they were at liberty.36 Virginio assured the pope he had no intention of using his estates against the Church, provided they were not threatened. Asking for guarantees, Innocent suggested an exchange of hostages, or
that Virginios principal fortress, Bracciano, should be put into papal custody
or that of a third party.37 Virginio would not agree to either; he urged the duke
of Calabria to bring his troops north, offering to contrive his entry into Rome.38
Orsini estates would be a base and a refuge for Calabria and the leagues troops
throughout the campaign they waged against Innocents forces until the conclusion of peace between the pope and king in August 1486.
When Ludovico and Cardinal Ascanio Sforza were arranging condotte with
Roman barons to aid Charles VIIIs preparations for his expedition to claim the
kingdom of Naples in 1494, they paid close attention to the barons estates as
they weighed up who would be most useful.39 Top of their wishlist were Prospero and Fabrizio Colonna, above all Prospero, whose estates in Lazio were
more extensive and richer. Fabrizios lands in Lazio, it was noted, were not suitable to lodge men-at-arms and could not supply victuals, and were surrounded
by the lands of Prospero, Cardinal Savelli and the pope.40 To the displeasure of
the other Colonna and their partisans, Fabrizio chose to accept a condotta with
Alfonso of Naples for 160 men-at-arms, for which he would be paid 22,000 ducats a year, and he was promised estates in the kingdom worth 2,000 ducats a
year.41 Prospero agreed to a joint condotta with Milan and Pope Alexander for
150 men-at-arms and 50 mounted crossbowmen, for 24,000 ducats a year.42
Ascanio had been anxious at that time to bring the pope into this contract,
fearful that if he lost too many baronial condottieri to other powers, he might
go over to Alfonso.43 Soon after Alexander did align himself with Alfonso,
opening up the question of whether Prospero should serve the pope, allied
with Alfonso, or Milan allied with France. The Sforza were confident he would
side with them, and Ascanio recommended that condotte should be negotiated
with other Roman barons whose estates could accommodate men-at-arms un36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
ASFlorence, X di Balia, Carteggi, Resp., b. 35, c. 131: Guidantonio Vespucci, 9 Nov. 1485,
Rome.
ASFlorence, X di Balia, Carteggi, Resp., b. 35, c. 148: Guidantonio Vespucci, 15 Nov. 1485,
Rome.
Albini, De gestis Regum Neapolitanum, 3246: Alfonso, Duke of Calabria to Giovanni
Albino, 22 Nov 1485.
Christine Shaw, The Roman barons and the French descent into Italy, 2517.
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 108: Stefano Taverna to Ludovico Sforza, 8 Mar. 1494, Rome.
Ibid.: Bartolomeo Zambeccari to Nestore Pallioti, 27 Feb. 1494, Rome.
Ibid.: Ascanio Sforza to Ludovico Sforza, 1 Mar. 1494, Rome.
Ibid.: Stefano Taverna to L. Sforza, 2 Mar. 1494, Rome.
A Life in Arms
109
til they were needed, and were adjacent, so they could help one another.44 The
French agents in Rome took the same line when they found that they had undertaken condotte exceeding the 500 men-at-arms they had been ordered to
raise, and decided to conclude those with the barons whose estates were most
adjacent.45 Only those whose estates were capable of withstanding an attack
should be given condotte, otherwise money spent on them would be wasted,
Ludovico reckoned.46 Ascanio assured him that the barons estates would be
strong enough to hold up Alfonso, preventing him from advancing north or
sending more than a weak force to confront the French expedition.47 The problem was that neither Prospero nor Fabrizio (who they were still trying to woo),
nor Antonello Savelli and the other barons who had agreed condotte with
Milan, were willing to demonstrate open support for the French until Charless
forces were close to Rome. In any case, they wanted their condotte to be with
Milan, not France, even if the French would be paying.48
Neapolitan barons were much less conspicuous than Roman barons among
the ranks of professional captains in Italy, at least until the later stages of the
Italian Wars. During the reigns of the last Angevin monarchs, some Neapolitan
barons had become condottieri, fighting in the wars in northern Italy as well as
in the dynastic wars in the kingdom of Naples. Piergiampaolo Orsini di Manupello, for example, whose branch of the family had been established in the
kingdom since the early fourteenth century learned his trade under Braccio da
Montone, before holding condotte from Filippo Maria Visconti, duke of Milan,
Pope Eugenius IV and Florence. As commander of 1,000 Florentine men-atarms he had a conspicuous role in the Florentine victory at Anghiari over the
Milanese troops under Niccol Piccinino in 1440.49 One baron, Jacopo Caldora,
was a condottiere whose military reputation and company of troops rivalled
those of Braccio or Muzio Attendolo Sforza. After his death in 1439, his son
Antonio inherited his company, but not his military skills. Alfonsos victory in
June 1442 over Antonio Caldora who was fighting for Ren dAnjou, as his father had done sealed his triumph over the Angevins. Caldora was captured,
his company disbanded. Other Neapolitan barons were among the soldiers
trained by Caldora who transferred to the service of the Aragonese king.50
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
Ibid., b. 109: A. Sforza to L. Sforza, 12 May 1494, Rome.

Ibid.: A. Sforza to L. Sforza, 28 May 1494, Rome.
Ibid.: L. Sforza to A. Sforza, 22 May 1494, Vigevano.
Ibid.: A. Sforza to L. Sforza, 28 May 1494, Rome.
Ibid.: postscript A. Sforza to L. Sforza, 26 (or 28) May 1494, Rome.
Gustavo Brigante Colonna, Gli Orsini (Milan, 1955), 112.
Francesco Storti, Lesercito napoletano nella seconda met del Quattrocento (Salerno,
2007), 224. For both Caldora, see DBI, XVI, 63341.
110
Chapter 5
Alfonso would not permit any subject to emulate Caldora and build up such a
private army.51
He did not forbid them from serving other powers as condottieri. A number
of Neapolitan barons fought in the wars in Lombardy in the late 1440s. They
included Carlo di Monforte da Campobasso, who had a considerable military
reputation; he fought for Francesco Sforza for a year or so before returning to
Naples.52 Antonio Centelles, marchese di Cotrone, having rebelled against
Alfonso and consequently lost his estates in 1445, left the kingdom (rather then
kick his heels in Naples, as Alfonso wished him to do), and was given a condotta by Venice before transferring to the service of the Ambrosian Republic in
Milan. He did not get on well with Francesco Sforza after he became duke of
Milan and returned to Naples.53 From the 1450s, if Neapolitan barons were to
be found in the service of another power they were generally exiles, such as
Cola di Monforte (the nephew of Carlo) who chose to leave Naples with his
family after Ferrantes victory in 1464, and take service with the Angevins for
whom he had fought. He then went to serve the duke of Burgundy, Charles the
Bold, who had a high opinion of Italian soldiers.54 A long but erroneous tradition attributed to him a plot to kill the duke; some historians said he set on
another exiled Neapolitan baron in Charless service, Ruggerone Accrocciamuro, conte di Celano, to finish off the duke at the battle of Nancy in January 1477.
This sinister reputation was fostered by the fact he did leave the Burgundian
camp a few days before the battle, taking 180 men-at-arms with him, and followed by his sons Angelo and Giovanni with 120 more: he believed the haughty
and ever more wayward duke (who had publicly struck him in the face as he
was pleading for the life of a prisoner) was heading for disaster.55 Approached
by the Venetians, he accepted a condotta from them for 500 horse, and the
Venetians also took on four infantry constables and five artillerymen he had
with him. On his death the following year, the Venetians gave his company to
his two sons.56 Angelo, having made his peace with the king in 1480 after the
war in Tuscany, as some other Neapolitan exiles also did, went to Naples and
was given the county of Campobasso and other lands that his father had lost.
From then on, he fought for the king.57
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
Ryder, Alfonso, 248.

Croce, Vite di avventure, 712.
Pontieri, La Calabria, 11820; and see below, p. 187.
R.J.Walsh, Charles the Bold and Italy (14671477). Politics and Personnel (Liverpool, 2005),
341405.
Ibid., 36579; Croce, Vite di avventure, 13059.
Croce, Vite di avventure, 1616.
Ibid., 1689.
A Life in Arms
111
Both Alfonso and Ferrante much preferred not to give condotte to Neapolitan barons, unless they were military professionals. They did not regard condotte as a routine means of binding the barons, great or small, to the crown. If
they gave a condotta to a baron, they expected him and the troops they were
paying for to be ready to serve wherever they required, not for him to keep the
men on his estates as a military force to boost his local standing and strengthen
his hand in his private disputes, which is what many of the barons, especially
the major ones, seem to have hankered after. Sometimes, the king had little
option. Giovanni Antonio Orsini, principe di Taranto was sufficiently powerful
in his own right to be able to obtain a condotta for 500 lances, and the position
of Great Constable from Alfonso. Once Alfonso had secured the throne, the
prince did not lead his men in person to fight for the king, but sent contingents, such as the 200 lances he despatched for the campaigns of the Neapolitan army in Tuscany in 14523.58
The prince was one of the seven Neapolitan barons who figured in a list of
Alfonsos commanders drawn up in 1444. Among them, they commanded 1,600
lances, so his contingent accounted for nearly a third of them. All the others
were professional condottieri, most of them trained in the school of Caldora,
including Troiano Caracciolo, duca di Melfi, who had 300 lances and Paolo di
Sangro, reputed among the best condottieri of the day, who had 200. These men
were given commands because of their military skills, not their social position
or political standing.59 The Caldora veterans remained in Alfonsos service, and
by the early 1450s more barons had joined them, some expert soldiers, such as
Nicola Cantelmo, duca di Sora. Other barons fought with the Neapolitan army
in the Tuscan wars not as condottieri but at their own expense, including Antonio Caldora, and Carlo da Campobasso, because they received a life pension
from the king of 3,000 ducats a year (4,000 in the case of Caldora) for which
they were obliged to serve in time of war with 100 horse each.60
At the beginning of his reign, Ferrante was faced with many requests for
condotte from barons. Within a year of his accession, a quarter of his cavalry
was under baronial commanders, but in the autumn of 1459 less than a quarter
only 190 of 880 of the barons lances were fighting for the king. The rest
were on the barons estates, or with the rebels and Angevins.61 Ferrante had to
continue to give condotte to barons throughout this war, or to agree, as with
Giulio Antonio dAcquaviva in 1462, that they could retain men-at-arms to be
58
59
60
61
Storti, Lesercito napoletano, 278.

Ibid., 1928, Dispacci sforzeschi da Napoli, II (Salerno, 1997), 1719 (for the list).
Dispacci sforzeschi da Napoli, I, 101.
Storti, Lesercito napoletano, 6470.
112
Chapter 5
paid for from royal taxes due from their estates.62 Understandably, after Ferrante finally overcame the rebellion and Jean dAnjou had left the kingdom in
1464, he initiated a reform of the organization of his military forces that would
ensure, as the Milanese ambassador put it, that in the kingdom there will be
no other troops than those of His Majesty. No distinction was made between
barons who had been loyal and those who had been disloyal to Ferrante: all
were ordered to hand their companies over to the king. By taking their men-atarms from them, the king would feel more secure.63 Professional captains who
had built up their own companies in Ferrantes service, however well they
might have served, were also required to give up their men to the king.
They, and the barons, if they took up positions as captains in the royal army,
could be given a command that was the equivalent of a substantial condotta.
Orso Orsini (from the Pitigliano branch of the family) made a good career for
himself serving Alfonso (commanding 200 lances in 1439), then Milan and
Venice, before coming south again to fight first against and then for Ferrante,
then stayed with Ferrantes army until his death in 1479. He was given estates,
including the strategically important Nola and created duca dAscoli, placing
him among the front ranks of Neapolitan barons. Given charge of the lanze
spezzate, the men-at-arms from the crown lands, he was an adviser and mentor
to Ferrantes heir, Alfonso. He had written a treatise on military organization
which he later dedicated to the king.64 Members of long-established baronial
families could also adapt to the new military order. Giulio Antonio dAcquaviva,
duca dAtri, a nephew of Jacopo Caldora and son-in-law of the principe di
Taranto, served the king faithfully once he was reconciled to him following the
death of his father-in-law, eventually dying a heros death outside the walls of
Otranto in 1481 at the hands of the Turks who had captured the city the year
before.
Some barons, notably some of the major barons, found it galling not to have
their own companies of men-at-arms, preferably paid for by the king. According to the published evidence from the interrogations of the principe di Bisignano and principe dAltamura following the rebellion against Ferrante in
14856,65 the barons had sent to Innocent to argue that, just as the king used
the Colonna and Orsini to restrain the pope, so it was in the popes interests
62
63
64
65
Viterbo, Aragona, Orsini del Balzo e Acquaviva dAragona, p. 355.

Storti, Lesercito napoletano, 119: A. da Trezzo to Francesco Sforza, 19 Sept. 1464.
Ibid., 1634; and see below, p. 188. For his treatise see Piero Pieri, Il Governo et exercitio
de la militia di Orso degli Orsini e i Memoriali di Diomede Carafa, 12679; for the date
of the treatise, see Covini, Lesercito del duca, 52.
See below, p. 196.
A Life in Arms
113
that the barons could keep men-at-arms.66 Ferrante was determined they
should not; it was, he argued, contrary to custom and to right that vas-
sals should have men-at-arms; the kingdom could never be truly peaceful if
they did.67 One of the demands they made during the rebellion was that the
principe dAltamura, as Great Constable, should have 70 men-at-arms paid by
the king, and the principe di Salerno, as Great Admiral, six galleys paid by the
king. According to the sixteenth-century historian of the rebellion, Camillo
Porzio, the barons also wanted leave to take condotte from other powers, provided they would not be used to attack the kingdom.68 Giovanni Caracciolo,
duca di Melfi, while ostensibly loyal to Ferrante, refused to attack the rebel
barons unless he was given a condotta from the league.69 Anxious to content
him because of the position and strength of his estates and because he was
reputed to be the only baron at that time with any military talent70 Ferrante
supported his demand. But he was not given a condotta with the league and
during the final throes of the rebellion in August 1486 he signed a condotta to
be captain-general of the papal and baronial troops. He did not have the resources to raise more than a hundred of the 200 men-at-arms he was supposed
to have, and was unable to pay even those.71
If only a minority and a decreasing minority of Neapolitan barons chose
a career in arms, for a young and enterprising Emilian lord it was the almost
obligatory profession.72 Soldiers from families holding Imperial fiefs would be
free to look for condotte wherever they chose, and find someone ready to hire
them on acceptable terms. Milan or Venice were the obvious first choices: the
nearest powerful states with large armies, able to offer effective political protection as well as military contracts. Ideally, a condotta with either of these
states would provide a lord with money to maintain a band of professional
soldiers that could be used to defend his lands, and diplomatic support, without requiring him to serve far away, leaving his territory exposed to attack from
rivals and enemies. The marquis of Mantua or the duke of Ferrara not only
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
Porzio, La Congiura de Baroni, ed. dAloe, CCXXII-III, CCXL.

Paladino, Per la storia della Congiura dei Baroni, 48 (1923), 258: Battista Bendedei to
Ercole dEste, 23 Oct. 1486, Naples.
Porzio, La Congiura de Baroni, ed. dAloe, 734.
Corrispondenza degli ambasciatori fiorentini a Napoli, II, 561: Giovanni Lanfredini to X di
Balia, 24/29 May 1486, Naples.
Ibid., 5734: Giovanni Lanfredini to X di Balia, 4/8 June 1486, Naples.
Giuliana Vitale, Le rivolte di Giovanni Caracciolo, duca di Melfi, e di Giacomo Caracciolo,
conte di Avellino, contro Ferrante I dAragona, 3940, 513.
114
Chapter 5
would have far fewer and smaller condotte to offer, but might themselves have
designs on the lands of the independent lordships.
Galeotto Pico della Mirandola, for instance, held Venetian condotte for several years, becoming one of their leading second-rank commanders. He was
dismissed in 1486, under suspicion of trying to find out state secrets.73 Perhaps
he had been passing information to Ludovico Sforza, for he was soon given a
condotta with Milan. In 1487, Ludovico lent him to Florence with a company of
100 men-at-arms, and 40 mounted crossbowmen to fight in the war the Florentines were waging against Genoa in the Lunigiana.74 Galeottos brother Antonio Maria began his career as a condottiere about 1468 with Venice, but the bulk
of his condotte were with the papacy. He served three popes, Sixtus IV, Innocent VIII and Alexander VI.75 During the War of Ferrara in the early 1480s the
brothers fought on opposing sides, Antonio Maria for the pope, Galeotto for
the Venetians. Sixtuss protection of Antonio Maria, and the expectation that
he should be supported by the popes allies in his dispute with Galeotto over
the lordship of Mirandola,76 was embodied in a clause of the peace treaty of
December 1482 that brought Sixtus over to the side of the league of Naples,
Florence and Milan against Venice.77 Once Galeotto had transferred to the service of Milan he enjoyed the backing of Ludovico Sforza. Pope Innocent expressed concern at the end of the war in Lunigiana that Galeotto would take
his troops to attack the fortress of Concordia, which was held for his brother.
Ludovico declared he could not forbid Galeotto to do this; the Florentines
sought to defuse the situation by giving Galeotto leave to go while holding his
troops back.78
The problem with the political protection that came as an adjunct to a condotta was that it could well end when the contract did. Giberto da Correggio
made hay while the sun shone during the wars in Lombardy after the death of
Filippo Maria Visconti and Francesco Sforza becoming duke of Milan to take
over lands his family claimed, including the important stronghold of Brescello
near Parma. He served the Venetians from 1447 to 1449 then switched to the
service of Sforza. In his new capacity of duke of Milan, however, Sforza ordered
Giberto to give up all the territory he had occupied since Filippo Marias death.
73
74
75
76
77
78
Michael Mallett and John Hale, The Military Organization of a Renaissance State: Venice c.
1400 to 1617 (Cambridge, 1984), 184.
Lorenzo de Medici, Lettere, X, 182.
Felice Ceretti, Il conte Antonmaria Pico della Mirandola: memorie e documenti, 239.
See above, p. 80.
Lorenzo de Medici, Lettere, VII, 491.
Ibid., X, 235, 404, 450.
A Life in Arms
115
Refusing to do this, Giberto took a condotta with Alfonso of Naples, who was at
war with Sforza, and took over more land in the area of Parma. He sent his
brother Manfredo to the Emperor Frederick III (who was at that time in
Venice) to get a renewal of the Imperial investiture for Correggio. The investiture they obtained comprised many places long lost to the Correggio, and the
elevation of Correggio itself to a county; henceforth Giberto and his brothers
and nephews could bear the title of count.
Impressive as this document may have sounded, it was no defence against
the stipulation of the Peace of Lodi, included at Sforzas insistence, that Giberto
had to relinquish all the lands he had seized in the territory of Parma and of
Mantua, and that Sforza could force him to do so if need be. Faced by the threat
of Sforzas troops, and no longer able to call on the protection of Venice or of
Naples, Giberto had to submit. Sforza granted him the investiture with Brescello and some other lands, in return for an oath of fidelity that made no mention of the Imperial investiture.79 A month before this grant, in September
1454, Giberto had agreed a condotta with the republic of Siena for 1,200 horse
and 300 infantry, but Siena was not a strong enough state to offer political protection to its condottieri, certainly not against the duke of Milan. Although
Giberto was soon promoted to be Sienas captain-general, he entered into intrigues with Jacopo Piccinino, the powerful condottiere whose attack on Siena
he was supposed to ward off. Alerted to these exchanges, the Sienese government summoned him to see them, and he was assassinated in the chamber of
the Balia, the committee directing their military effort. A contemporary inscription that can still be seen scratched into the wall, apparently with a dagger, recorded the death of the traitor in this place.80
Unlike the Imperial fiefholders of Emilia, those in the Lunigiana did not
generally become condottieri. The exceptions in the fifteenth century were a
few individuals from branches of the family that were aderenti of Florence.81
Spinetta Malaspina di Verrucola, who had been brought up from the age of two
under Florentine protection after most of his close relations had been killed in
a family feud, served as a Florentine infantry captain in the mid-century.82 The
most prominent of the Malaspina condottieri was Gabriele, marchese di Fosdinovo. He held condotte from Florence for 24 years; in 1487 he was appointed
79
80
81
82
DBI, 29, 4467.

Luciano Banchi, Il Piccinino nello Stato di Siena e la Lega italica (14551456), 2268;
G. Pardi, Il processo postumo di Giberto da Correggio.
Branchi, Storia della Lunigiana feudale, III, 48892.
116
Chapter 5
captain-general of the Florentine infantry.83 Resentment about the Florentine

takeover of Spinettas estates, which had been bequeathed to Florence but
which Gabriele considered should have gone to him and his nephew Leonardo,
eventually caused a breach, and in 1494 Gabriele went over to Charles VIII as
the French army passed through the Lunigiana. He took his men to join the
French attack on the stronghold of Fivizzano, one of the places taken by
the Florentines that Gabriele believed to be rightfully his. In 1498 he served the
Pisans, who were in rebellion against Florence.84 His nephew Leonardo followed his uncle into the service of Florence in 1476, and then followed him out
of it in 1494.85 Leonardos son Galeotto, however, having begun his career under his father, was given a condotta from the Florentines for a small company
of men-at-arms (fifteen, later increased to 20), and fought for Florence in the
Pisan war.86 Gabrieles illegitimate brother, Simone, had a more varied career,
mostly serving Ercole dEste, Duke of Ferrara, but also Charles the Bold of Burgundy, as well as holding a Florentine condotta for a few years.87
Nobles whose lands lay within the boundaries of the duchy of Milan did not
have as much freedom of choice in seeking condotte as the holders of Imperial
fiefs had. If they wanted a military career, they would be expected to pursue it
in the service of the duke, unless they had his approval to take up a condotta
with another power. Exiles from the duchy tended to gravitate to the service of
Venice, which would be very unlikely to meet with the approval of the duke.
Those who did serve in the armies of the Sforza would not be fulfilling any
obligations due from fiefholders; they would have condotte, as all the Sforza
captains did, and even individual members of the lanze spezzate. Great lords
like the Rossi or the Pallavicini would not see a condotta as compromising their
assertion of their political status and juridical independence, but rather as a
kind of contract of aderenza.88 Prompt obedience to orders was difficult to
enforce, especially if payments due under the condotte were in arrears, and
from the perspective of the lords, their troops might be more urgently required
to defend their own lands or pursue some private dispute. The troops maintained, in whole or in part, by a condotta could easily take on the character of a
small private army.89
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
Ibid., 56776.
Ibid., 5768.
Ibid., 6845.
Ibid., 6878.
Ibid., 5513; Lorenzo de Medici, Lettere, I, 1734.
Covini, Lesercito del duca, 10122.
A Life in Arms
117
To some extent, the semi-political nature of the condotte that the Sforza
dukes gave to the major families of the military nobility of the duchy was an
outcome of the agreements Francesco Sforza made with some of them before
he became duke. A promise to give condotte for 200 horse to sons of Rolando
Pallavicini was only part of a treaty made with this powerful lord in February
1448, by which Sforza promised to maintain Rolando and his sons in all their
lands and jurisdictions. Rolandos undertakings in return included a promise
to ensure that he would see his sons served faithfully and readily, as men-atarms should.90 The condotta for 200 horse that Pietro Maria Rossi accepted
from Sforza in late October 1447 had political clauses, and five weeks later
Sforza signed an undertaking to defend and favour him, all his estates and subjects, his privileges, jurisdictions and dignities, and to protect Rossis own adherents and allies. In early 1449, as part of a new pact between Rossi and Sforza,
his condotta was increased to 500 horse.91
Pallavicinis sons lost their condotte from the duke when their dispute over
their inheritance meant there was no political advantage for the duke in continuing them.92 Pietro Maria Rossi also had to accept a diminution of the condotte he had hoped would be given to his sons: after the Peace of Lodi, Sforza
cut the size of his army and only one condotta, for his son Giacomo, was allotted to Pietro Marias family. Giacomo wanted a military career, but could not
accept military discipline. He fell into disgrace after arranging the assassination of one of Sforzas most valued veteran captains, who commanded a squadron of lanze spezzate, with the complicity of the mans wife, who was his lover
and whom he married soon after. His father disinherited him, and Giacomo
went to serve the Venetians briefly, for he quickly deserted. The family condotta went to another of Pietro Marias sons, Guido, until after Giacomo had
made his peace with the family of the murdered man, and his father gave him
back the command of the company.93 Evidently, the Rossi condotta, which was
only for 100150 horse (2030 lances) in the 1460s and 1470s, was of little military consequence to the dukes, and formed only a part of the military resources of the Rossi. When it was increased to 300 horse by the regency council in
1477 after the death of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Pietro Maria took it over himself
90
91
92
93
Pezzana, Storia della Citt di Parma, II, 6202.

Covini, Le condotte dei Rossi, 61, 66; for a list of Rossi condotte from 1446 to 1481, see ibid.,
979.
Ibid., 77.
Ibid., 7682.
118
Chapter 5
again.94 The loss of his condotta, when Ludovico Sforza took it from him, was
one of the reasons adduced by Rossi in 1481 for his rebellion.95
Among the host of Francesco Sforzas relatives (brothers, sons and nephews,
legitimate and illegitimate) who were given lands in Lombardy and held condotte in the Milanese army, one, Roberto da Sanseverino, stood out. He became
the premier condottiere of his generation. Close family ties to the new ducal
dynasty he was the son of Francesco Sforzas sister Elisa and Leonetto, a
member of the Sanseverino clan in the kingdom of Naples and the estates in
the duchy he inherited from his mother or was granted in his own right, made
Lombardy rather than Naples his base, but he did not lose touch with the kingdom. The title of conte di Caiazzo that he bore and passed on to his descendants was a Neapolitan one: Ferrante granted him the county of Caiazzo for his
services fighting for the king, as a Milanese condottiere, in the wars during the
early years of his reign. The lands Roberto was granted in Lombardy also came
to him not because he was related to the duke, but rather as an adjunct to or
partial payment of his condotte. The principal one, Castelnuovo in the territory
of Tortona, was made into a marquisate when it was given to him in 1474.96 He
was primarily a condottiere, whose goal was greatness in his profession;97 like
others of Francesco Sforzas relatives, he identified himself with a kind of interregional elite sharing military traditions98 rather than the ducal dynasty. He
had aspirations to an independent state of his own, having an eye on the city
of Imola, or perhaps, more ambitiously, Bologna, where he and his troops were
stationed for several years in the 1470s.99
Roberto did not get on well with Duke Galeazzo Maria; their temperaments
were incompatible, and he was vexed by his exclusion from important consultations about military affairs. Galeazzo Maria arranged a condotta for him with
Florence in 1467, and a year later he was appointed Florentine captain-general.
He was not happy in the service of Florence, resenting a cut imposed on the
numbers of his troops (from 800 to 600 horse, and of the 300 infantry it had
been agreed he should have),100 and what he considered to be excessive interference from Florentine officials, but he maintained contact with Lorenzo de
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
Ibid., 92.
Lorenzo de Medici, Lettere, I, 111, note 5: G. Cerruto to Galeazzo Maria Sforza, 25 June 1470.
Milanese troops were stationed there, really to maintain Milanese influence over the
dukes aderenti in the region, although the pope and the Florentines were told they were
there to provide prompt support to them if need be.
Lorenzo de Medici, Lettere, I, 45, 110.
A Life in Arms
119
Medici after he returned to the service of the duke of Milan in 1471. Galeazzo
Maria was no fonder of him than before but Robertos reputation now stood so
high that the duke did not like the idea of his serving anyone else, and sought
to bind him to Milan by giving him a condotta worth 30,000 ducats a year for
life, as well as granting him more lands.101 Roberto still kept contacts with other potential employers Florence, Venice, the pope, the king of France.
After Galeazzo Marias assassination Roberto conspired with the dukes
brothers against the regency of his widow, Bona, and fled into exile as they did;
he led the campaign that brought them back in 1479. But Ludovico, who took
over the regency, did not give Roberto the prominent role he felt he should
have, and Roberto stayed at Castelnuovo, ignoring Ludovicos demands he
should go to Milan. When troops were sent against Castelnuovo in early 1482,
he left the duchy for Venice.102 Roberto had already been sounding out the
Venetians, and without delay they took him on as their lieutenant-general, giving him the fief of Cittadella near Padua and a palace in Venice.103 The prospect of having him as their commander had decided them to attack the duke
of Ferrara, with whom they had a number of disputes. At the end of the war of
Ferrara in 1484, they kept him on. He was given permission to take his company
to fight on the side of the pope and the rebels in the Neapolitan Barons War in
1485, but he did not go as a Venetian commander. Returning to the Veneto
in 1486, he based himself at Cittadella, but was only reinstated as lieutenantgeneral the following year when he was called on to command the Venetian
forces who were faring badly in a war against Austria. He met his death on this
campaign, drowned as he was trying to ford the Adige to confront an Austrian
attack.104
When the rebellion of the Rossi ended in the loss of their lands in 1482,
Roberto da Sanseverinos son-in-law Guido and Guidos son Filippo fled to Venice, where potentially useful Milanese exiles generally had good hopes of a
welcome, and they were given condotte. Guido Rossi earned himself a reputation as a worthy soldier. He helped to prevent the heavy defeat of the Venetian
army by the Austrians at Calliano in 1487, in which Roberto da Sanseverino was
killed, from turning into a rout.105 Filippo was not considered so impressive or
valuable, and on his fathers death in 1490 the Venetians debated whether
or not to honour their commitment to continue his sons condotta. Despite
101
102
103
104
105
Ibid., II, 176.

Christine Shaw, The Politics of Exile in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge, 2000), 89.
Mallett and Hale, The Military Organization, 51.
Ibid., 53.
Ibid., 534.
120
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being described as inexpert and worthless, and having admitted he had tried to
get a condotta elsewhere, Filippo was given a new contract: considerations of
the influence he could still wield in and around Parma carried the day. To
his disappointment, he was not given the whole of his fathers condotta, which
was reduced to 400 horse, and divided equally between him and his younger
brother, Beltramo, who was considered a better soldier.106
Long-term relationships with condottieri became a characteristic element of
Venetian military organization. The Venetians liked to keep on soldiers who
had proved their loyalty and worth, and to reward good service. As an inducement to stay on, they might grant lands in fief to favoured commanders, although they were readier to do this in the first than in the second half of the
fifteenth century. So long as they stayed loyal, the soldiers could keep these
fiefs for life; whether they could pass them on to their heirs depended on the
size and strategic importance of the place, and whether or not the heirs were
capable of exercising military commands themselves. The exceptionally large
grants centred on Bergamo given to the Venetian captain-general Bartolomeo
Colleoni, for example, were nearly all taken back after his death in 1475, and
only two, Malpaga and Cavernago, of the ten fiefs he had been granted were
left to his heirs. Grants in perpetuity of places of the importance of Bergamo
and the strongholds of Martinengo and Romano, were not likely to be honoured, unless perhaps Colleoni had left sons who had inherited their fathers
military skills. Colleonis designated heirs to his estates were the sons of one of
his daughters, Orsino and Gerardo Martinengo. They were given small condotte, with command over some of the men-at-arms of Colleonis company left
leaderless by his death.107
More permanent were the grants of fiefs, or the extension of privileges and
jurisdiction over existing fiefs, granted to members of the military nobility of
the Veneto in recompense for military service to the republic. In some cases,
specific military obligations were attached to such fiefs. Parisio da Lodrone,
who held lands in the Bresciano, in return for continuing to enjoy his privileges
over his lands undertook in 1439 to raise 600 infantry for Venice when required.108
His sons Pietro and Giorgio held condotte from Venice after his death.109 As
Venetian rule became firmly established over the Terraferma, members of the
military nobility were more inclined to seek a career in Venices army which
may well have been the only option open to those who wanted to be soldiers,
106
107
108
109
Ibid., 94.
Ibid., 68, 1879, 1934; Sergio Zamperetti, I piccoli principi (Venice, 1991), 1816.
Zamperetti, I piccoli principi, 173, n. 61.
A Life in Arms
121
unless they were prepared to risk being regarded as politically suspect. From
the standpoint of the Venetians, providing opportunities for members of the
powerful and influential mainland families to pursue a military calling was one
way of binding the families to them. Troops maintained through these condotte would certainly be regarded as Venetian troops, expected to serve where
they were needed and not as companies in the service of the nobility, paid for
by the Venetians. When Caterina Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus could be accompanied on her formal entry into Brescia in September 1497 by Marco Martinengo,
Luigi Avogadro and Gian Francesco Gambara with their men-at-arms, they
were there as Venetian captains as well as prominent members of the Brescian
nobility.110 All had seen action under Venetian banners, not least against the
French at the battle of Fornovo two years before.111
The castellans of Friuli were not, in general, inclined to seek condotte from
Venice in the fifteenth century. Venice looked to them to defend Friuli but they
were not much inclined to do that either, even when, as in 1479, the threat
came from the Turks.112 Such obligations as they had to provide cavalry forces
had fallen into desuetude, and the habitual response of the castellans was to
wait out invasions behind their fortifications.113 Local peasant militias were
much more active in defence of their province. A Venetian decision in 1487 to
give a head of the Savorgnan clan, Nicol, permanent responsibility for organizing, training and commanding the Friulan militia, annoyed rival castellans
but their protests were in vain.114 Leadership of the militia gave the Savorgnan
a hold over the peasants of other castellans, and they seized the opportunity.
They made the militia into a more effective fighting force, and led it not just in
defence of the province but on campaigns outside Friuli during the Italian
Wars.
By contrast with the military strength developed by Venice over the fifteenth
century, the republic of Genoa had no permanent army. The only military establishment of the Genoese state was the guard of the doge or the governor
and the garrisons of the major fortresses. Nor was there a permanent Genoese
state fleet until the later sixteenth century. Only occasionally would the
Genoese councils vote the funds for a galley or two to guard the coasts of Liguria from attacks by corsairs. The Genoese rarely became involved in wars in
Italy on their own account, and usually contrived to make only limited
110
111
112
113
114

Ibid., 56.
Zamperetti, I piccoli principi, 217.
Trebbi, Il Friuli, 81.
Ibid., 813; Muir, Mad Blood Stirring, 923.
122
Chapter 5
contributions of a modest fleet or a few thousand infantry when called upon to

take part in wars on behalf of a French or Milanese overlord.
The height of military aspiration for the most ambitious doge would be a
standing force of a few hundred infantry, paid for by other powers. The Genoese themselves would be loath to pay for such a force, let alone to agree to hiring condottieri in peacetime. For wars in Liguria, the Genoese relied on local
levies supplemented by professional soldiers if the money to pay them could
be raised. Members of the military nobility of Liguria were more likely to be
the targets than the commanders of such campaigns. If a doge was at the head
of the republic, the command was likely to go to one of his relatives; if a Milanese or French governor was in the city Milanese or French troops under their
own commanders would generally do any fighting there was to be done. The
endemic wars in the Genoese dependency of Corsica were unglamorous and
unrewarding, and there was little incentive for the military nobles of Liguria to
look for glory there.
When the Genoese were projecting their power beyond Liguria, they usually
did so by a fleet of galleys and ships put together by hiring vessels that belonged to individuals or private consortia. The captains of the vessels were as
likely to be popolari as nobles, men who were primarily traders, not specialists
in naval warfare. The post of admiral of such fleets was supposed to be subject
to the rules of alternation in office of Blacks and Whites, nobles and popolari.
If a Fieschi was prominent in the regime, however, he would be inclined to
think he should be appointed.
In January 1443 Gian Antonio Fieschi was elected admiral for life, the price,
perhaps, of his acceptance of the election to the dogeship of Raffaele Adorno
the day before, but he never took command of a Genoese fleet.115 When Gian
Filippo Fieschi was appointed admiral in January 1454, following a reconciliation with Doge Pietro Campofregoso, there was a task for him.116 Preparations
were being made to attack the fleet of Alfonso of Aragon, and the doge would
have been glad to see Fieschi well away from Genoa. There was some doubt
about whether he would go in person or send his brother Rolando as his
lieutenant,117 but he did take command himself. Planning to burn Alfonsos
ships in the harbour of Naples, Fieschi asked for more galleys,118 but the fleet
was dispersed by a storm off Corsica in late August before anything of note was
115
116
117
118
ASGenoa, AS 529, ff. 17v-18r.

He was elected prefectus seu capitaneus on 22 January (Ibid., AS 555, f. 11r-v).
Ibid., AS 1794, f. 488r: Pietro Campofregoso to Gian Filippo Fieschi, 22 Jan. 1454.
Ibid., f. 595r: Pietro Campofregoso to Gian Filippo Fieschi, 15 Aug. 1454; AS 557, ff. 23v-25r.
A Life in Arms
123
accomplished, and the enterprise was soon called off. Fieschi kept the title of
admiral, nevertheless.
Gian Luigi Fieschi was also admiral, during his uneasy alliance with Giovanni and Agostino Adorno in governing Genoa under Milanese lordship. He took
umbrage when his hopes of being appointed admiral of a fleet Ludovico Sforza
was preparing to be sent against the French in 1496 were thwarted; the Adorno
brothers were primed with arguments that the admiral should not embark on
a fleet to take personal command unless it consisted of at least ten large vessels.119 The following year Fieschi was reluctant to command a small fleet to be
sent against pirates. He would not go if there were to be only two galleys when
he had been promised six, and suspected the Adorno brothers were reluctant
to see him gain some personal glory.120 Pleading illness, he returned to Genoa,
after putting the fleet in order; Bernardo Fieschi became his lieutenant.121 Gian
Luigi was signing letters as ducal and Genoese admiral in 1499,122 but he also
tried, unsuccessfully, to get a military condotta from Ludovico that year.123
Gian Luigi declared his readiness to serve Ludovico anywhere, describing
himself as brought up in the saddle.124 For most of the military nobility of Italy,
that would scarcely be worth mentioning, it would be so normal. But the Ligurian nobility in the fifteenth century had no tradition of seeking a career as a
commander of military forces on land. Even those who had estates in the
duchy of Milan would not generally try to get military condotte from the duke.
If they needed to earn their living, as many of them did, their natural course
was to be a merchant or banker. If adventure was what they were after, the life
of a merchant travelling with his goods through the Mediterranean, running
the gauntlet of pirates, could provide plenty or they could take to piracy
themselves.
The circumstances and structures that shaped the military careers open to
the landed nobility of Italy were transformed in the sixteenth century, chiefly
as a consequence of the Italian Wars and the political changes they brought.
Changes to the composition of armies, to the balance between cavalry
119
120
121
122
123
124
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 1219: Corrado Stanga to Ludovico Sforza, 9 June 1496, Genoa.
Ibid., b. 1225: Corrado Stanga to L. Sforza, 2 June 1497, Genoa.
Ibid.: Gian Luigi Fieschi to L. Sforza, 29 July, 4 Aug. 1497, Genoa; C. Stanga to L. Sforza,
5 Aug. 1497, Genoa.
ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 757, c. 436: Gian Luigi Fieschi to Francesco Gonzaga, 28 Mar.
1499.
Lon-G. Plissier, Documents pour lhistoire de ltablissement de la domination franaise Gnes (14981500), 423: Francesco Fontana to Ludovico Sforza, 12 Aug. 1499,
Genoa.
Ibid.
124
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and infantry also affected them. The strength of Italian armies in the fifteenth
century tended to be measured by the numbers of men-at-arms or corazze they
composed. By the 1520s, the strength of armies fighting in Italy was more likely
to be assessed by reference to the numbers of infantry, of pikemen and arquebusiers, who were seen as the key to victory in battle. Among the cavalry, menat-arms were flanked by increasing numbers of light horse. Men-at-arms, the
heavy cavalry, still had an important role and still had greater social prestige:
service in that arm continued to be the first choice for many nobles. The growing significance of infantry and light horse, however, made taking command of
them come to be a more attractive proposition for nobles who saw soldiering
as a profession. Italian infantry did not acquire much of a reputation as pikemen but they were more respected as handgunners, and Italians also became
to some degree specialists as light horsemen.125
The most powerful armies that fought the wars were not Italian, they were
French, Spanish and Swiss. Each was organized differently from the others, and
from the armies of the Italian states. There was no room for outsiders in the
Swiss forces, and finding a position and a role among the French and the Spanish commanders could be problematic for Italian soldiers, whatever their social status or military experience and reputation. In the early phases of the
wars, the French and Spanish kings were ready to give Italian commanders
condotte, but as they became established in Italy, they preferred Italians to fit
in with the organization of their armies. They would take on companies of Italian infantry or light horse often the first to be dismissed at the end of a campaign or when cuts needed to be made but would rather give commands over
existing companies of men-at-arms to Italian captains than hire a captain with
his own men. Italian princes and republics who maintained their own armies
continued to hire condottieri, so the choices and career paths open to nobles
who were pursuing a military career were not completely changed. But the
adjustment of expectations to the new realities took time, particularly, perhaps, for those who had begun their careers under the old dispensation. For
many of the Italian military nobility who fought in the wars, moreover, it would
be a misconception to regard their participation as the exercise of a profession.
Some fought only in campaigns that affected their own region, some as exiles,
taking to a soldiers life because that was a way to earn a living, or because their
patron expected it of them in return for the support he gave, like the exiles
125
For the campaigns of the Italian Wars, and these changes in military organization and
tactics, see Mallett and Shaw, The Italian Wars, and the references given there.
A Life in Arms
125
from Naples, Lombardy and Florence at the court of Henry II of France, who
were all ordered to join in the French defence of Siena in 1553.126
Lombard nobles who wished to pursue a military career faced repeated tests
of their political judgement. It was impossible to trim to every change of regime, and still be trusted. If they became too closely associated with one
prince, exile might be the only option when he lost the duchy of Milan. For the
nobility around Parma and Piacenza, the situation was still more complicated.
Not only did they have to weigh the relative advantages of siding with the
French or the Sforza dukes or the emperor, but also to deal with the popes who
claimed Parma and Piacenza for the papacy or planned to endow their own
families with them.127
The French kings were prepared to take Lombard nobles into their army, but
there were only limited numbers of positions available. There was no shortage
of French nobles eager to serve at every level from man-at-arms to kings lieutenant, and there were Italian nobles and princes from outside Lombardy willing to serve the king of France. Even when the king held the duchy of Milan,
Lombards could not apparently expect to benefit much from preferential
treatment in the competition. Some individuals did become firmly established
in the French army. One, Gian Giacomo Trivulzio whose family were from
the city of Milan, courtiers and officials rather than military nobility led the
first French invasion of Milan in 1499. After the rapid conquest he governed
the duchy as the kings lieutenant until Ludovico Sforzas brief return to power
in 1500. He was never given so much power again, but he did hold senior commands on a number of campaigns. He had been in the service of France since
1495, and owed his command of the invasion in 1499 not just to his repute as a
condottiere, trained in the army of the Sforza dukes, but to his status as an exile,
hostile to Ludovico Sforza, and with valuable political contacts in the duchy.
But when the French army retreated out of Lombardy in 1512, he had to go with
them, losing all his lands in the duchy until Francis I reconquered it in 1515.128
Among those who sooner or later threw in their lot with the French after
their conquest of Milan were sons of Roberto da Sanseverino. Two of them,
Galeazzo and Gian Francesco, had gone over to Milan from Venice in 1483 during the War of Ferrara and became prominent figures at the court of Ludovico
Sforza; Galeazzo became a particular favourite and married a natural daughter
of Ludovico. Both were given substantial condotte. As the French invasion of
126
127
128
Lucien Romier, Les origines politiques des Guerres de Religion (Paris, 191314), I, 393.
Letizia Arcangeli, Gian Giacomo Trivulzio marchese di Vigevano e il governo francese
nello Stato di Milano; and see below, pp. 2112.
126
Chapter 5
Milan loomed in 1499, Galeazzo was put in charge of the duchys defences. His
flight in late August from Alessandria, which was to have been the bastion of
the duchy, leaving the Milanese army in disarray to fall captive to the French,
earned him scorn and derision from the French as much as anyone. While Galeazzo went into exile with the Sforza, Gian Francesco piqued, it was said, at
his younger brother having been given the command129 had already come to
terms with the French, and was given a company of 100 lances.130 He was one
of the captains of the French army sent to Naples in 1501, and died there that
year.
Meanwhile, Galeazzo and two other brothers, Antonio Maria and Gaspare,
had joined Ludovico Sforza in his short-lived recovery of the duchy in early
1500, and been captured with him at Novara. Having ransomed themselves,
Galeazzo and Antonio Maria made their way to join the Milanese exiles given
refuge by the emperor-elect Maximilian. In 1502, they began attempting to
make their peace with Louis XII. With the ground well-prepared, Antonio Maria was given a company of 50 lances in July 1503 within weeks of arriving at the
French court, and kept this command until his death in January 1509. It took
longer for Galeazzo to win favour with the king, but at length his gifts as a
courtier, and above all his skills in the arts of combat in tournaments, earned
him the office of Grand cuyer and the command of 50 lances, later increased
to 100. He lived mostly in France, at the court, but took part in several French
campaigns in Italy, and died fighting among Francis Is household troops at the
Battle of Pavia in 1525. His command of 100 lances passed to his brother Giulio,
who had been his lieutenant.131 Gaspare was also given a command of 50 lances by Louis in 1503, but for him, the king was only one of a number of employers he served after 1500. Before Louis, there was Cesare Borgia, and after Louis,
Maximilian and then Venice. Employers were willing to take him on, despite
his notoriously volatile temperament (which earned him the nickname Fracassa), because of his military expertise; in the end, his luck and the series of
contracts ran out, and he died in poverty in 1519.132
Gian Francescos son, Roberto carried on the familys military tradition. Of
the generation that began their military careers during the Italian Wars (he
was born around 1500), like Gaspare he was first and foremost a professional
129
130
131
132
Stefano Meschini, La Francia nel ducato di Milano: La politica di Luigi XII (14991512)
(Milan, 2006), I, 5960.
Arcangeli, Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, 40.
Meschini, La Francia nel ducato di Milano, 5961, 801, 103, 1534, 207, 248, 2824, 326, 552,
561; Letizia Arcangeli, Carriere militari dellaristocrazia padana nelle guerre dItalia, 398.
Meschini, La Francia nel ducato di Milano, 14950.
A Life in Arms
127
soldier. He was at home with the tactics of skirmishes, raids and ambushes that
characterized much of the fighting between the famous series of battles in
Lombardy in the 1520s. By the end of that decade, he was usually contracted to
command at least 1,200 infantry and 150 light horse, although like all commanders he struggled to keep numbers up when pay was in arrears or armies
were being reduced in the lulls between campaigns. Known for the good quality of his company who were his men, and moved with him when he changed
employer he would pay extra out of his own resources to retain men he
prized. His career moves were motivated by the search for good contracts, not
political considerations, or the desire to preserve his estates in Lombardy or
Naples, where he had inherited the county of Caiazzo. He made his name fighting with the Imperial army, before accepting a joint condotta with Clement VII
and Florence in February 1527. This was a bad moment to make the move in
May the pope would be a prisoner of the Imperial army in Rome and the Florentines would expel his family from their city. In August 1527 Roberto transferred to the service of Venice, staying with the Venetians until they dismissed
him in 1530 after the Peace of Bologna brought the war in Lombardy to an end.
He may have had a condotta from the pope, and then in 1531 was reported to
have concluded a contract with Francis I for 3,000 infantry and 200 light horse,
only to die early the next year.133
As this reported contract of Roberto da Sanseverino illustrates, even after
1530 the king of France could still be interested in taking Lombard nobles into
his service; it would be many years before all hopes of recovering Milan finally
died at the French court. The last Sforza dukes had comparatively little to offer.
During the three years of Massimilianos reign, from 1512 to 1515, what money
he had for soldiers went mostly to the Swiss, who had done much to make him
duke and took it upon themselves to keep him in Milan. He was also more or
less compelled by the Spanish to appoint Prospero Colonna his captain-general. Francesco II Sforza had even less money to spare after he became duke in
1521, as the duchy was ravaged by year after year of war and he was faced by
demands to pay huge indemnities to the Imperial army for the expenses of the
war against the French when he was not having to resist the efforts of
the Imperial army to take his duchy from him. When Charles V took the duchy
into his own hands, after the death of Sforza in 1535, and finally decided to keep
it and pass it on to his son Philip, the military nobility of Lombardy could not
expect to receive preferential treatment in the competition for positions and
commands in the armies of their new masters. If they wanted to make a career
in the service of Charles or Philip, they would have to compete with nobles
133
Arcangeli, Carriere militari, 396404.
128
Chapter 5
from other parts of Europe, not just other regions of Italy, and they could not
expect to serve only in Lombardy.
Few opportunities for a military career in the service of the pope were
opened up to the nobility around Parma and Piacenza when those cities came
under papal government, for the popes were not anxious to enhance the military standing of the local nobility. After Paul III installed his own family, the
Farnese, as dukes of Parma and Piacenza in 1545, the new dynasty struggled to
establish control over the nobility, and had fewer resources in lands and money than some of their own nobles.
For some years Guido Rangoni held an exceptional position among the military nobility of the areas of southern Lombardy that came under papal rule.
At a time when the popes were seeking to hold on to Modena, which had been
taken by Julius II from the duke of Ferrara in 1510, it made political sense to
make use of him to gain the support of his family and faction in Modena and
its territory. Transferring from the service of Venice to that of Leo X in 1514, he
was given command of 100 lances. He was called on to reinforce papal rule over
Parma, where he acquired lands, and in 1526 became governor of the papal
army. Once Modena had been definitively lost to the papacy, Rangonis relations with the pope soured. In 1532 he was offered a contract as colonello of
3,000 infantry by the commander of the Imperial army in Italy, the marchese
del Vasto. In the end he rejected it, believing he should be captain of all the
Italian infantry, not just one of a number of colonelli.134 He went to serve Francis I instead, recruiting thousands of men whom he led to Piedmont in 1536 to
fight for the French in their campaign of conquest there. In Piedmont he held
the command of all the Italian troops with the French until he took umbrage
at the authority a new French lieutenant-general, Jean de Humires, was given
over him, and left.
Rangonis great rival, not to say enemy, was Pietro Maria Rossi, conte di San
Secondo, whose father, Troilo, had been able to retrieve some of the estates
around Parma lost by the Rossi in the 1480s. Rossi spent little of his career in
the service of his papal prince, and none in that of the Sforza duke. He started
out with the French, commanding 200 light horse in 1522. For some years he
was closely associated with his maternal uncle, Giovanni de Medici, and transferred with him to the papal army in the autumn of 1526. Unpaid by the pope
after the Sack of Rome, he moved to the Imperial army as colonello of 2,000
Italian infantry. During his decade under the Imperial banner, he fought in
various theatres of war, including the siege of Florence, the conquest of Tunis
134
Ibid., 3934, 400, 409, 4112; V.L. Bourrilly, Guillaume du Bellay, seigneur de Langey, 1491
1543 (Paris, 1905), 237, 240, 251.
A Life in Arms
129
by Charles V in 1535 and the emperors invasion of Provence the following year,
and against the Turks. But his independent political connections, especially
with the son of Giovanni de Medici, Cosimo, when he became duke of Florence, made him lose favour with the emperors men, and in 1541 he ended up
back in the service of Francis I, for whom he became captain of the Italian infantry.135
The choices confronting Neapolitan barons pursuing a career in arms in the
sixteenth century were not so complicated. After Ferdinand of Aragon had
ousted the cadet line of his dynasty from the throne of Naples and the army of
Louis XII in Naples had been defeated, barons who wanted to stay in the kingdom and hold on to their estates, and wanted a life in arms, had little option
but to serve in the forces of their monarch. The principal obstacle was finding
a role in those forces. Once his commander, Gonzalo Fernndez de Crdoba
had eliminated the French challenge for the throne, Ferdinand gave instructions in late 1504 that no further condotte were to be given. Any barons who
held a command, including Roman barons with estates in Naples, were to have
captaincies, as his Spanish nobles did, not condotte.136 Captaincies were usually for less than an hundred men-at-arms, which would be a medium-range
condotta, not the size of personal company eminent Italian condottieri would
be accustomed to having, and it was not intended that they should make the
holders fortune. The king ordered that only 1,200 men-at-arms, mostly Spanish, should be kept on, and 600 light horsemen, who should all be Spanish, as
should the 3,000 infantry to be retained.137
The military establishment in Naples in peacetime was generally rather
smaller than this, with fewer cavalry.138 In 1514, there were 508 Spanish heavy
cavalry, and 243 Italians (who were paid 90 ducats a year, while the Spanish
were paid 110).139 The proportion may have altered later in 1530 there were
eleven Neapolitan companies of heavy cavalry to five Spanish but Spanish
135
136
137
138
139
Arcangeli, Carriere militari, 4056; J. Lestocquoy (ed.), Correspondance des Nonces en

France Capodiferro, Dandino et Guidiccione 15411546 (Rome, 1963), 112, 186.
L.J.Serano y Pineda, Correspondencia de los Reyes Catlicos con el Gran Capitn durante
las campaas de Italia, 27 (1912), 5145: Ferdinand to Gonzalo Fernndez de Crdoba,
3 Nov. 1504.
Ibid., 515.
Raffaele Ajello, Una societ anomala: Il programma e la sconfitta della nobilt napoletana
in due memoriali conquecenteschi (Naples, 1996), 31820.
Roberto Mantelli, Il pubblico impiego nelleconomia del Regno di Napoli: retribuzioni, reclutamento e ricambio sociale nellepoca spagnuola (secc. XVI-XVII) (Naples, 1986), 421.
130
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commanders were still preferred.140 The infantry forces continued to be predominantly, if not exclusively, Spanish, becoming the tercio of Naples. This was
not so much a Neapolitan army, as a Spanish army based in Naples. There
would be some room in the ranks of the cavalry for Neapolitan barons, but few
commands of any substance or honour. Places and commands in other Spanish armies, particularly the one in Lombardy, could be open to them too, but
they would have to face even more competition there.
Captaincies in the cavalry held by Neapolitan barons would be analogous to
commands over units of lances in the French army held by Italian princes and
nobles. While the monarch expected the troops maintained at his expense to
be functional units of his army, available for service as and when required,
there was an element of political patronage, of recognition of the special status of some individuals or families behind appointments to captaincies of Neapolitan barons. On the death of the holder, a captaincy could be given to his
heir, whatever his age and military experience or inexperience. Thus in 1516
Ferrante di Capua, duca di Termoli, along with confirmation of the estates and
titles of his father Andrea was granted his fathers company of men-at-arms,
and in 1520 Ascanio Colonna was given the captaincy of men-at-arms his father
Fabrizio had held, together with the office of Great Constable.141 In general it
was members of families of proven loyalty to the new dynasty that were given
such grants, with service in the wars by the former holder cited as the reason
for the company to be passed on to his heir. Some such families were recent
additions to the Neapolitan baronage. Luis de Leyva, principe dAscoli, in 1536
was granted the captaincy of men-at-arms vacated by the death of his father,
the eminent general Antonio de Leyva, who had been granted his estates in
Naples for his services in the Italian Wars; Luis was still a minor in 1539.142 Military prowess elevated the Spanish soldier Fernando de Alarcn to be marchese di Valle Siciliano; his other rewards included the right, granted in 1526, to
leave his captaincy of 75 men-at-arms to his son-in-law as an inheritance.143
Whether or not they held an official position in the Spanish army, Neapolitan barons could be called upon to demonstrate their loyalty to the monarch
by going, partly or wholly at their own expense, to fight in his wars outside the
kingdom. Those who responded to Charles Vs appeal for help to defend
140
141
142
143
Carlos Jos Hernando Snchez, Castilla y Npoles en el siglo XVI. El Virrey Pedro de Toledo:
linaje, estado y cultura (15321553) (Salmanca, 1994), 3901.
J. Ernesto Martnez Ferrando, Privilegios otorgados por el Emperador Carlos V en el Reino de
Npoles (Barcelona, 1943), 49, 80.
Ibid., 149.
Ibid, 10.
A Life in Arms
131
Vienna against the Turks in 1532 included Ferrante da Sanseverino, principe di

Salerno, and Alfonso dAvalos, marchese del Vasto (although the campaign was
over before Salerno for one could get there).144 Among the Spanish commanders and officials in Naples, however, there was a level of suspicion about the
reliability of Italian soldiers, including barons who were subjects of their king.
Notably distrustful of them was Pedro de Toledo, the long-serving viceroy, and
his arrogance fostered anti-Spanish sentiments which, with persisting Angevin
sympathies, deterred many barons from competing for settled positions in the
Spanish armies.145 Nevertheless, barons were asked to perform an important
role in the defence of the kingdom, especially against the frequent attacks by
Turkish and corsair fleets on the long coastline. The viceroys were the first to
call for the intervention of the barons and to laud their aid and military force
when the Turkish fleet arrived.146 The barons were being encouraged to see
military service, when it was requested of them, as an attribute of their status,
as a duty not as a profession or a way of life. Except for a favoured few, they
were not being offered military commands in the army of the monarch as a
right or a privilege of their status.
Outstanding among those favoured few were the dAvalos, who held the
highest military commands in the Spanish and Imperial army in Italy. Not only
did the family have a tradition of loyal service to the Aragonese dynasty of
Naples which they transferred to the senior line when Ferdinand took the
throne, but one of them, Ferrante Francesco, marchese di Pescara, was a talented military leader.147 In his early twenties he commanded a company of
light horse against the French and the duke of Ferrara in 1511, and he fought at
the battle of Ravenna the following year, falling prisoner there. In 1513 he was a
captain of Spanish infantry in Lombardy and the Veneto, commanding a pike
square of 4,000 Spanish at the battle of Vicenza. It is a measure of the trust
placed in him that he was given command of Spanish infantry and a measure
of the growing status of infantry commands that this haughty Neapolitan
noble came to specialize in that. Nevertheless, he also retained a captaincy of
60 men-at-arms first given to him by Ferdinand, confirmed by Charles in 1516,
and increased by 30 in 1524.148
His great services to the crown in war and peace were cited as the reason for
his appointment as captain-general of all the infantry in the Spanish army in
144
145
146
147
148
Hernando Snchez, Castilla y Npoles, 385.

Ajello, Una societ anomala, 153.
For an outline of his career, see DBI, IV, 6237.
Martnez Ferrando, Privilegios, 256.
132
Chapter 5
Italy in 1516,149 and he shared command of the campaigns in Lombardy and

Provence in the first half of the 1520s. Innovative and imaginative deployment
of the infantry in the field of battle, especially his positioning of arquebusiers,
brought him an enduring reputation and the devotion of his men. He appre
ciated their achievements, too. While the other Spanish generals praised his
contribution to the victory at Pavia over Francis I in 1525, he wrote to Charles V
that the emperor owed as much to the least of his soldiers for their energy and
determination.150 In November 1525 he was appointed captain-general of the
Imperial army in Italy.151
Before he died, he nominated his cousin Alfonso dAvalos, marchese del
Vasto, captain-general of the Spanish and Italian infantry in the Imperial army
in Italy, and Charles V confirmed this appointment.152 As well as his uncles
wishes, Alfonsos own military services, especially at the battle of Pavia, were
cited. He was also given Pescaras captaincy over 90 men-at-arms, but had to
resign the one he already held over 50 men-at-arms.153 Trained by his cousin, at
the age of twenty-two he had commanded the Italian infantry on the futile invasion of Provence by the Imperial army in Italy in 1524. Ambitious, but not
gifted with such outstanding military skills as Pescara, he could be a difficult
colleague, and he became known as much for his personal extravagance and
almost effeminate ways as for his abilities as a soldier. When he felt humiliated
by his failure to take the small town of Volterra in 1530 during the siege of Florence by the Imperial army, he left and withdrew to Naples. But he could also be
a committed and hardworking soldier, earning the respect of his troops and
was entrusted with the command (under the emperor) of the attack on Tunis
in 1535, and accompanied Charles as commander of the infantry on the 1536
invasion of Provence. After the death of Antonio de Leyva in Provence, he was
given overall command of the army, and led the campaign in Piedmont. In 1538
he was appointed governor of Milan as well as Imperial commander in Italy,
and in those capacities he headed the war against the French in Piedmont in
15424, being defeated at the battle of Ceresole in 1544. By the time of his death
in 1546 he had lost the favour of the emperor and was subject to an enquiry
into his government of Milan. His son, Francesco Ferdinando, marchese di
Pescara, continued the family tradition, holding his first command in the
war of Parma in 1551, aged about twenty-one. Three years later he was made
149
150
151
152
153
Ibid., 25.
Sanuto, I diarii, XXXVIII, col. 23.
A Life in Arms
133
captain of the cavalry of the Spanish army in Lombardy and Piedmont. He was
left in 1556 by the duke of Alba (who had been appointed Philip IIs lieutenantgeneral in Italy) to undertake the difficult task of trying to contain the French
in Piedmont and Monferrato.154
Ferrante da Sanseverino, principe di Salerno, fought with the Spanish-Imperial army on several campaigns before he went over to the French in 1551, but
less as a professional soldier, more as a baron serving his monarch in a way appropriate to his rank; he spent much more time at Charles Vs court, on private
and public business, than did the dAvalos. Like other major Neapolitan barons,
including Pietro Antonio da Sanseverino, principe di Bisignano, he equipped a
galley at his own expense for Charless expedition against Tunis in 1535, and he
commanded Italian infantry there. Both the Sanseverino also accompanied
Charles on his foray into Provence in 1536, Salerno again in command of Italian
infantry, Bisignano with the cavalry (he had been granted a captaincy of menat-arms in 1530),155 and Salerno went with him on his disastrous expedition
against Algiers in 1541. Three years later, he commanded the Italian infantry in
Piedmont under his friend del Vasto, judging the 4,000 men under his command good troops, if badly disciplined and ill-equipped for battle, because
they were short of pikes. His failure to deploy these troops, lacking precise orders from del Vasto, was blamed for the defeat at Ceresole, and was redeemed
only in part by his leading a rout at Serravalle later that year of reinforcements
Piero Strozzi was bringing the French from Lombardy.156
Among the many new entrants to the ranks of the Neapolitan barons during
the Italian Wars was Andrea Doria, Charles Vs captain-general on the Mediterranean Sea, who was created principe di Melfi in 1531.157 His role in the Italian
Wars was by far the most prominent of any of the Ligurian military nobility.
Andrea did not want to stay in Liguria, but his pursuit of a military career outside Italy achieved only modest success. Not until he was in his late forties did
he begin his career as a galley commander, first for Genoa, under the doges
Giano and Ottaviano Campofregoso. When Ottaviano Campofregoso was ousted by Imperial troops in 1522, Doria transferred the four galleys he had had
with him to serve Francis I. By the time he left the service of France, after payments to him dwindled following the capture of Francis at Pavia, Doria had six
galleys of his own. He was building up his personal fleet like a condottiere
154
155
156
157

Colapietra, I Sanseverino, 1469, 163, 1802; Carlo De Frede, Ferrante Sanseverino contro
la Spagna, 20911.
134
Chapter 5
captain building up his company for hire. Having become captain-general of

the papal galleys, after the pope became a prisoner in the Sack of Rome in 1527
he returned to the service of Francis, before settling in the service of Charles V
from 1528. Throughout the 1520s, his principal tasks, apart from transporting
troops and munitions, had been interventions in Liguria. His galleys harassed
the Adorno regime, and helped to install the French in Genoa again in 1527.
A year later, by then under contract to Charles V, his intervention was decisive
in ousting the French and facilitating the inauguration of a new republic under a radically changed constitution.
Andrea Doria became the most influential men in Genoa, as well as the
trusted admiral of the Mediterranean fleet of Charles V.158 His dual role helped
protect Genoese independence. The reliance of Charles V on his galleys to supplement the Imperial fleet and secure the sea routes between Spain and Italy
gave Doria the leverage to ward off the designs of the emperors men in Italy to
establish control over Genoa. In his other major task, combatting the growing
threat from the fleets of the Turks and corsairs, Doria had mixed success and
his reputation suffered accordingly, but he kept the confidence of the emperor.
After Charless abdication, he retained his position under Philip II until his
death. He was still taking personal command of his galleys in the 1550s, when
he was in his eighties, even when he was too physically frail to leave his cabin.
His fleet became a family business, with several other Doria among his captains. His nephew Filippino commanded his galleys in the major naval battle of
the Italian Wars, at Capo dOrso in the bay of Naples in 1528, defeating the
Spanish-Imperial galleys defending Naples against the French siege. (Among
the prisoners taken to Genoa were Alfonso dAvalos and Ascanio Colonna, who
helped negotiate Dorias transfer to the service of Charles when his contract
with France expired.) On his death in 1560 Doria left his galleys to the grandson
of a cousin, Giovanni Andrea Doria. He did not inherit Andreas office he was
aged only twenty but he would become Philip IIs admiral in the Mediterranean in 1583.159
Some members of the Ligurian nobility were beginning to forge careers as
soldiers in the service of other powers, such as Giulio Spinola, who was given a
colonelcy of 1,500 infantry by Philip in 1559.160 No soldiers of any eminence
came from Liguria during the Italian Wars, however, and in general the Ligurian military nobility still confined their martial exploits on land to their home
158
159
160
DBI, XLI, 26474.

Vilma Borghesi (ed.), Vita del Principe Giovanni Andrea Doria scritta da lui medesimo
incompleta (Genoa, 1997), LI.
Ibid., 67.
A Life in Arms
135
turf. There was still no standing army of the republic of Genoa in which they
could seek positions; a few hundred infantry were the only permanent troops.
Other than in their own defence, the Genoese took little part in the mainland
campaigns of the Italian Wars. Genoas main military effort of the wars was the
defence of Corsica from 1553 to 1559 against the attempted conquest of the island by the French, and in this they relied heavily on the aid of Imperial troops
and forces sent by Duke Cosimo of Florence. Andrea Doria was elected Captain-General of the Genoese forces, and the campaigns in Corsica were the last
he commanded in person, as indomitable as ever despite his physical weakness. The new republic had brought no innovations to Genoas military organization, or lack of it.
The far superior military organization of the republic of Venice also remained substantially the same during the Italian Wars. There was a significant
change in strategy after the peace the Venetians negotiated with Charles V in
Bologna in late 1529 brought an end to their active engagement in the wars.
Less reliance would be placed on maintaining a strong field army to defend
Venice and the Veneto, more reliance on extending and strengthening a system
of fortresses and fortified towns.
But this did not mean a reduction in the opportunities for the military nobility of the Veneto to serve in the Venetian army. If anything, they might have
had a better chance of holding a Venetian condotta. In 1554 seven of the twelve
condottieri commanding units of men-at-arms in the Veneto were Venetian
subjects.161 The great majority of the men-at-arms were also Venetian subjects:
around the middle of the sixteenth century, only four of a total establishment
of 480 men-at-arms were not.162 Families such as the da Porto of Vicenza and
the Pompei of Verona joined others with an established tradition of holding
military commands, such as the Martinengo of Brescia. Commands came to be
passed on to relatives. The Venetians were content to do this because they had
already accepted the fact that the retention of heavy cavalry was primarily an
exercise in maintaining good relations with powerful Terraferma families and
a diversion of their chivalrous pretensions into a form of public service.163
Commands over light horse were much less sought after, perhaps because of
the traditional reliance of Venice on stradiots from the Balkans for their light
cavalry.
161
162
163
Luciano Pezzolo, Nobilt militare e potere nello Stato veneziano fra Cinque e Seicento,
399.
Ibid., 413.
136
Chapter 5
Political considerations were operative on both sides. For the nobles, a command enhanced their prestige and influence in their locality, not least because
they could provide positions as men-at-arms to their own followers. For the
Venetians, condotte were a way to secure the political loyalty of powerful families who had sometimes shown during the Lombardy campaigns of the Italian
Wars that they felt more at home in the service of the king of France or the
emperor than in that of the Venetian patricians. Once the Italian Wars had
ended, the Venetians became more comfortable with the idea of their subjects
serving other powers indeed, experience in the wars in Flanders, say, could
be seen as an asset.164 But dedication to the service of Venice could be used as
a means to stake a claim to privileged treatment from the government, or to get
indulgence for behaviour that might otherwise have merited rebuke. Conte
Alessandro Pompei stipulated in his will drawn up in 1546 that any of his sons
who served any other power would be excluded from their share in the family
fief; their adherence to this injunction apparently earned them impunity for
offences, such as exceeding their powers of jurisdiction, that would normally
not be taken lightly by Venice.165
In Friuli, the castellans did not share in this development in the relations
between the Venetians and their military nobility. There, the Savorgnan continued to have a privileged relation to Venice. Girolamo Savorgnan and the militia were instrumental in Bartolomeo dAlvianos victory over the German
troops who had occupied part of the Cadore and Friuli in 1508.166 It was Antonio and Girolamo Savorgnan at the head of the militia who led the resistance
to the invasions of Friuli by Imperial troops during the first years of the War of
the League of Cambrai, receiving little help from Venice. To spare the province
further destruction, Antonio made terms with the Imperial troops in 1511. This
cost him dear: he was regarded as a traitor by the Venetians, but was not rewarded by Maximilian, and was assassinated in exile by his enemies from Friuli the following year.167 His cousin Girolamo kept the trust of the Venetians,
and continued to defend Friuli. He consciously directed his sons into military
careers, to strengthen the familys position. They became best noted as military engineers, particularly Giulio, who had a prominent role in the design of
Venices fortifications on the mainland and in her overseas empire, while Mario
wrote an important treatise on artillery. Another brother with a talent for military engineering, Germanico, having been exiled in 1547 for assassinating some
164
165
166
167
Pezzolo, Nobilt militare, 4089.

Zamperetti, I piccoli principi, 268.
Piero Pieri, Il Rinascimento e la crisi militare italiana (Turin, 1952), 44951.
Trebbi, Il Friuli, 95100; Muir, Mad Blood Stirring, 21620.
A Life in Arms
137
personal enemies entered the service of the king of France.168 This generation
took great care with the education of the next, to continue the familys expertise.169
For the top commanders of their army, the Venetians were still inclined to
choose men who were not their subjects, a tendency that could breed a meas
ure of resentment. It is true that I was not born in the kingdom of Naples
or the lands of Rome but nevertheless I hope that though simply a humble
Friulan, I can do honourable service, remarked Girolamo Savorgnan, as he was
left short of supplies he needed to besiege Imperial troops in Marano in 1514.170
His reference to Neapolitans of whom there were few in the service of Venice
was more than likely prompted by Gianbattista Caracciolo having been captain of the Venetian infantry from 1499 to 1508.171 Roman barons (and other
condottieri from the Papal States)172 were much more conspicuous in the high
command of the Venetian army, especially members of the Orsini family and
faction.
The Venetians had already had their eyes on Niccol Orsini da Pitigliano for
a decade when they finally were able to net him, after he escaped from his
French captors at the battle of Fornovo in 1495. He was appointed governorgeneral of the Venetian army, and in that capacity led the Venetian invasion of
Milan in 1499 that supported the French conquest of the duchy. He grew impatient at not holding the more prestigious position of captain-general, which
was vacant, before being appointed to it in 1504. His cautious style of command was one of the attributes for which he was valued by the Venetians but it
contributed to the traumatic defeat at Agnadello in 1509, when he failed to
come to the aid of the Venetian forces engaged in battle with the French. Nevertheless, his contract was renewed but he died in January 1510.173
This created problems for the Venetians, because their governor-general,
Bartolomeo dAlviano, had been captured at Agnadello and was a prisoner
whom the French king did not wish to release or agree to ransom. He was valued for the opposite qualities to Pitigliano, for his dash and daring and energy.
He first entered the service of Venice in 1498 with Carlo Orsini, Virginios natu168
169
170
171
172
173
Casella, I Savorgnan, p. 115; Conzato, Dai castelli alle corti, pp. 369.
Casella, I Savorgnan, 1679.
Ibid., 81.
Including, about the time of Savorgnans remonstrance, Gianpaolo Baglioni and Lucio
Malvezzi, who each served a brief term as governor-general, and Dionigio di Naldo, a valued Romagnol infantry captain.
Mallett and Hale, The Military Organization, 612, 1589, 2845.
138
Chapter 5
ral son; both were given condotte for 150 men-at-arms.174 Carlo Orsini left in
1501, while dAlviano stayed until late 1503, when he went to Rome to join the
Orsini in recovering their position there after the death of Alexander VI. Taken
back by the Venetians in 1506 after a spell in the service of Spain, two years
later he was made their governor-general. His defeat of the German troops
who had occupied the Cadore region at Pieve di Cadore in 1508 was regarded
by the Venetians as a victory to be proud of, and he was rewarded with the
grant of the town of Pordenone in Friuli in fief. Although some blamed his
impetuosity for the defeat at Agnadello the following year, the Venetian government was keen to bring him back from his captivity in France to lead the
army. On his release in 1513, when Venice entered into an alliance with Louis
XII, dAlviano was appointed captain-general, a position he held until his death
in 1515. This came shortly after his characteristically courageous intervention at
the head of a charge of Venetian cavalry helped to swing the battle of Marignano to victory for the French over the Swiss. During his years in command of
the Venetian army he had sometimes chafed at the restraint the Venetians
demanded of him, but they trusted his loyalty and respected his skills as a commander and in the design of fortifications. His death was marked by a day of
public mourning.175
One of the potential candidates to take dAlvianos place was another minor
Roman baron and member of the Orsini faction who had started out under
Orsini tutelage, Lorenzo degli Anguillara da Ceri, usually known as Renzo da
Ceri. Having made his reputation as an infantry commander, in August 1510 he
was appointed captain of the Venetian infantry with a personal command of
800 infantry and 100 light horse.176 Resourceful and resilient when he had sole
command, he apparently disliked being subordinate to men he considered his
equals. He was given a secret dispensation in 1512 from obeying Gianpaolo Baglioni as governor-general, and his relations with dAlviano became fractious.177
In 1515 he made it known that he wanted to leave, and contacted Francis I, but
the king urged him to serve out his contract with Venice, saying the Venetians
174
175
176
177
Sanuto, I diarii, II, cols 910.

Mallett and Hale, The Military Organization, 63, 64, 188, 191, 223, 2868, 293, 295, 381, 384
5. An extensive collection of documents, relating particularly to dAlvianos service of
Venice, is printed as an appendix to Lorenzo Lenij, Vita di Bartolomeo di Alviano (Todi,
1858), 133375; for dAlvianos report to Venice on the battle of Marignano, see Sanuto, I
diarii, XXI, cols 1002.
Sanuto, XI, I diarii, cols 43, 62, 223.
A Life in Arms
139
were not responsible for his differences with dAlviano.178 He left to take up a
condotta from Pope Leo X for 200 men-at-arms and 200 light horse.179
The succession of Orsini condottieri in Venetian service continued into the
mid-sixteenth century and beyond. In June 1515 Giancorrado Orsini from
the minor Mugnano branch of the family was given a condotta for 1,000
infantry,180 but only stayed a year before leaving to join Renzo da Ceri. The next
to serve Venice was Camillo Orsini di Lamentana, who came to be considered
the best Orsini condottiere of his generation; he was taken on in 1522 with a
command of 100 lances.181 He stayed with Venice for over twenty years, apart
from a period in 15289 when, with Venetian permission, he fought for the
French in the kingdom of Naples. A reported promise of a condotta for 3,000
infantry and 200 light horse from Francis182 may have come to nothing, as the
kings thoughts turned to peace following his armys defeat in Lombardy.
During the Venetians war against the Turks in the late 1530s, Camillo command
ed their forces on land in Dalmatia, while another Orsini, Valerio, commanded
their fleet.183 (On his death in 1550, Valerio was described as the Venetians best
soldier.)184 Although Camillos contract was renewed after the war for 100
men-at-arms, 100 light cavalry and 10 infantry captains185 he was passed over
for promotion to general command of the Venetian army, and left to take service with the pope.
Roman barons during the Italian Wars were still the most inclined of all the
Italian military nobilities to make a career of soldiering, and still had the most
freedom of choice of prospective employers. Initially, those who had grown up
with the system of condotte had some difficulty adjusting to the new types of
command available. The frequent changes of regime in the kingdom of Naples
during the first decade of the wars confronted them with some risky decisions.
For some, it was not only military commands but also valuable estates that
were at stake if they found themselves on the losing side. Compounding their
problems was the attitude of Pope Alexander VI, who exploited opportunities
presented when baronial condottieri on the losing side in the Neapolitan wars
were deprived of effective political protection, in order to seize their estates
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
Sanuto, I diarii, XXI, cols 62, 72.

Francesco Guicciardini, Carteggi, ed. Roberto Palmarocchi (Bologna, 193872), I, 263:
F. Guicciardini to Luigi Guicciardini, 12 Sept. 1515; Francesco Guicciardini, Storia dItalia,
Book XII, Chap. 14.
Sanuto, I diarii, XX, col. 330
Ibid., XXXIII, col. 356.
Ibid., L, col. 97.
AGSimancas, Estado, leg. 1319, 1201: Juan Hurtado de Mendoza, 9 Mar. 1550, Venice.
140
Chapter 5
around Rome. Virginio Orsini was the most notable casualty of these dilemmas. Having admitted the French king Charles VIII and his army into his estates in Lazio in 1494, Virginio left to fight for Alfonso in Naples, but was caught
up in the collapse of resistance to the invaders following Alfonsos abdication
and flight. Captured with Niccol Orsini by the French in February 1495, and
taken north as a prisoner, he was finally released when Charles VIII reached
Asti. His Neapolitan counties of Tagliacozzo and Albi, confiscated by the
French, had been lost to the Colonna, and it may have been hopes of recovering them that swayed his choice of accepting a command from Charles VIII,
rather than a condotta from the league of Alexander, Venice and Milan.186 As a
consequence of this decision, he found himself once again on the losing side in
Naples in 1496, and once again a prisoner, this time of Alfonsos son Ferrandino. Alexander launched an attack on his estates, which his family and partisans were able to defeat, but Virginio died in prison in January 1497, before he
knew his lands had been saved.187
Prospero and Fabrizio Colonna were ultimately more successful in their
choices. By the time Charles VIII reached Rome in 1494, Fabrizio had joined
Prospero in holding a condotta from the French king, and then accompanied
him on his rapid conquest of Naples. After Charles left to return to France, they
switched sides, to serve Alfonsos son Ferrandino as he recovered his kingdom,
and remained in the service of his successor, Federico. This meant they could
get confirmation of the grants of lands Charles had made to them, but also
meant they were in a vulnerable position when Federico was threatened in
1501 with a joint invasion of Naples by French and Spanish armies. Alexander
seized his chance to take their estates between Rome and the Neapolitan borders. Once Federico had surrendered and left for exile in France, Prospero and
Fabrizio contrived to enter the good graces of the Spanish commander, Gonzalo Fernndez de Crdoba. For a while, it looked as though they might have
backed the wrong side, as the French seemed to have the advantage when conflict over the division of the kingdom became open war. But the notable part
they played as Gonzalos captains and advisers in the war and in Gonzalos
eventual victory gave them strong claims to the favour of Ferdinand of Aragon,
the new king of Naples.188
Prospero and Fabrizio became closely identified with the Spanish in Italy,
but not so single-mindedly as the dAvalos. They did not forget they were
186
187
188
Sanuto, I diarii. II, cols 334.

Shaw, The Roman barons and the French descent, 2536; Alessandro Serio, Una gloriosa
sconfitta. I Colonna tra papato e impero nella prima et moderna (14311530) (Rome, 2008),
12033; Mallett and Shaw, The Italian Wars, 23, 33, 55960, 62, 64.
A Life in Arms
141
Roman barons and condottieri as well as Neapolitan barons, and did not feel
bound to serve the king of Naples alone. In August 1503, Prospero complained
that he had had enough of being with barbari.189 He refused to accept subordinate commands, including under the viceroy of Naples, maintaining he had
a clause in his contract with Ferdinand that he should not be obliged to go on
campaign unless he was the commander, and that only the king could command him.190 If he could have had the title of Gonfaloniere della Chiesa or of
captain-general of the papal army, he might have accepted a condotta from
Julius II in 1512, but those positions were already held by others. Overall command of the forces against France would have been even better, but while the
pope was ready to consent, the Spanish ambassador said he had no mandate to
agree.191
Then from 1513 a command was found for him that he would accept, as captain-general of the new duke of Milan, Massimiliano Sforza. Not only was he
overall commander of the dukes army (such as it was), he could recruit his
own men-at-arms.192 This appointment meant that when the Milanese and
Venetian armies confronted one another in Lombardy in 1514, both were under
the command of Roman barons: Prospero Colonna (with Silvio Savelli as one
of his senior captains) on one side, Renzo da Ceri and Bartolomeo dAlviano on
the other. But when Prospero led his men into Saluzzo to meet the French
army advancing over the Alps to invade the duchy of Milan in 1515, he was
taken unawares and captured, and his fine company of men-at-arms stripped
of their weapons and their prized Neapolitan horses and dispersed. By the
time he had paid his ransom and returned from captivity in France, Milan was
under French rule and Prospero was again without a command.193
The renewal of the contest for possession of the duchy of Milan in 1521
brought Prospero to the forefront again. He was given charge of the papal and
Imperial forces mustered near Parma to fight the French. He threatened to
leave the camp immediately if the viceroy came to take command (which he
did not), or if the marchese di Pescara who was captain of the Spanish-
Imperial men-at-arms refused to accept his authority.194 When Pescara arrived
in the camp, they managed to establish a working relationship so Prospero remained in command. He successfully petitioned Charles V for appointment to
189
190
191
192
193
194
Antonio Giustinian, Dispacci, ed. Pasquale Villari (Florence, 1876), II, 162: 27 Aug. 1503.
Sanuto, I diarii, XII, cols 1767; XIII, cols 1267.
Ibid., XIV, col. 314.
Serio, Una gloriosa sconfitta, 2045.
For Prospero Colonnas role in the Lombard campaigna, see Mallett and Shaw, The Italian
Wars, 122, 1245, 1278.
Guicciardini, Carteggi, IV, 1424, 148, 1547, 17980: F. Guicciardini to Cardinal Giulio de
Medici, 30 July, 4, 9, 18 Aug. 1521, from the camp.
142
Chapter 5
be his captain-general in Lombardy,195 and kept that position until his death
on 30 December 1523 in Milan.196
Fabrizio Colonna was not quite so exigent, and was prepared to settle for
something other than the supreme command of an army. He led the troops
sent from Naples to support Julius II in his war on the duke of Ferrara in 1510,
and in 1511 accepted a condotta for 300 men-at-arms under the command of the
viceroy Ramon de Cardona, and the title of governor and lieutenant-general of
Ferdinands army in Italy.197 It was in this capacity that he fought under Cardonas command at the Battle of Ravenna in 1512, where he was captured.198
Fabrizio may have grown restive being subordinate to the incompetent Cardona. Although Cardona and the Spanish army was still campaigning in Lombardy in the summer and autumn of 1513, Fabrizio obtained leave from
Ferdinand to take the position of captain-general of any Christian power, provided they were not attacking the lands of Ferdinand or those of the pope. His
captaincy of 100 men-at-arms was to be passed to his son Federico.199 In the
event, Fabrizio did not hold another command before his death in 1520, and
Federico was killed fighting in Lombardy in 1516.200
Neither the surviving son of Fabrizio, Ascanio, nor Prosperos son Vespasiano achieved the military importance of their fathers. On Fabrizios death, Ascanio was granted the captaincy of his company of men-at-arms and his office
of Great Constable of Naples,201 which seems to have inspired Ascanio to claim
a level of command for which his lack of experience did not qualify him. Disappointed in his aspirations to overall command of the Spanish-Imperial menat-arms being sent from Naples, he disobeyed direct orders from Charles V to
go to Lombardy in 1521.202 He also ignored orders from Charles to put himself
under Prosperos command, sent in November 1522 with the admonition that,
young as he was, he had much to learn from Prosperos wisdom and experience.203 Ascanio does not seem to have taken any part in the wars in Lombardy. Nor does Vespasiano, who was much older than Ascanio but had not
apparently been trained to follow in his fathers footsteps. He was granted the
captaincy of his fathers personal company of men-at-arms on Prosperos
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203

DBI, XXVII, 41826.
Serio, Una gloriosa sconfitta, 181,194.
Fabrizio Colonnas account of the Battle of Ravenna is in Sanuto, I diarii, XIV, cols 17680.
Ibid., 228.
Ibid, 2667.
A Life in Arms
143
death, but the appointment mentioned his fathers military merits, not any of
the by then middle-aged Vespasiano.204 Ascanio did take part in the defence
of Naples against the French in 1528, and was taken prisoner in the naval battle
off Capo dOrso. Vespasiano took no part in this war; he was ailing and died
that year. Ascanio had military responsibilities as governor of the Abruzzi, a
position he owed to his being the head of the Colonna family, with extensive
estates in that province, not his limited capacities as a soldier.
The close association that the major branch of the family developed
with the Spanish regime in Naples meant that for Colonna condottieri serving
the king of Spain and the emperor became the norm, serving the king of
France the exception, something of an anomaly. Two prominent Colonna condottieri did take the step. One was Marcantonio di Pierantonio Colonna, Prosperos nephew, who died fighting with the French army besieging Milan in
March 1522, when Prospero was commanding the defence of the city. He pursued a career which set him apart from the other heads of the main branches
of the family, in part because he wished to assert his independence from them.
Beginning his career with Prospero and Fabrizio in the service of Spain, his
first major condotta was with Florence from 1504 to 1510, and he then served
popes Julius (whose niece, Lucrezia Gara della Rovere, he married) and Leo. In
1515 he was sent to support the Imperial defence of Verona and with the popes
permission transferred to the service of Maximilian. Unable to secure the established substantial Imperial command he hoped for, in 1517 he accepted a
contract from Francis I.205
Another prominent Colonna condottiere who served the French was Stefano
Colonna da Palestrina. He followed several earlier generations of his Palestrina
branch of the family in adopting a political stance contrary to that of the
main branches. But he began his career fighting with Imperial and Milanese
forces in Lombardy in the early 1520s, commanding 1,000 infantry in the Imperial army by December 1523.206 He spent some years in the service of Clement
VII leading the resistance to the incursion into Rome by troops brought by
Cardinal Pompeo and Ascanio Colonna in September 1526207 before joining
the French. By that time he had acquired a good reputation as an infantry commander, and in late 1528 was given a condotta of 2,000 infantry and 200 light
horse. He stayed in the service of Francis I for several years, with one interval
204 Martnez Ferrando, Privilegios, 84.
205 Serio, Una gloriosa sconfitta, 161, 174, 181, 233, 238, 273; DBI, XXVII, 3658.
206 Enruque Pacheco y de Leyva (ed.), La politica espaola en Italia: correspondencia de Don
Fernando Marn, Abad de Njera, con Carlos I (Madrid, 1919) , 487.
207 Sanuto, I diarii, XLII, cols 700, 727.
144
Chapter 5
when, with the kings permission, he was one of the commanders defending
Florence during the siege by Imperial troops in 1529. He fought for the French
in Lombardy in 1529 and Piedmont in 1536, and took part in the defence of
Provence against the invasion by Charles V that year. But he was dissatisfied by
Franciss attitude to his Italian infantry and moved on in early 1537 to serve
Pope Paul III, becoming captain-general of the papal infantry in 1538. Then,
after a spell with Venice, he was appointed lieutenant-general of Duke Cosimo
de Medicis troops in 1542. Because of his association with France, there was
some attempt by Charles V to dissuade the duke from taking him on, but Cosimo resented this interference and went ahead with the appointment.208 To
demonstrate he had cut his ties with France, Stefano returned the insignia of
the French royal chivalric order of Saint-Michel to Francis. He stayed with
Cosimo until his death in 1548.209
For the Orsini, on the other hand, service in the Spanish and Imperial armies
became the exception. They were much more likely to hold commands in the
French, Venetian and papal armies, and in the Florentine army when the Medici were in power. It was the members of the second-rank lineages of the family
that carried on the military tradition; none of the men of the main branch, the
Orsini di Bracciano, made much of a military reputation for themselves after
Virginio. His illegitimate son Carlo was a better soldier than his legitimate son
and heir, Giangiordano. Carlos son, Gentil Virginio, conte dAnguillara became
a commander of galleys, first for Pope Paul III, then in 1542 for Charles V under
Andrea Doria, and then for Francis I.210 Camillo di Lamentana and Valerio di
Monterotondo were probably the best-reputed Orsini soldiers of the later decades of the wars. Camillos sons Paolo and Latino, and Valerios son, Giordano
continued the family tradition.
Roman barons were to be found in every theatre of the Italian Wars, and in
some theatres of war outside Italy, too. They held commands, not only in Lombardy, Naples and the Veneto, and in the Papal States, but also in Tuscany, in
Piedmont and Corsica. In the war of Siena in 15525, in which troops in the
service of France helped defend Siena, under siege by the armies of Charles V
and Duke Cosimo, Valerio Orsinis son Giordano distinguished himself in the
defence of the Sienese hill town of Montalcino against Spanish-Imperial troops
in 1553, Carlo Orsini (perhaps the natural son of Gentil Virginio), one of
208 ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 1912, cc 1345: Nino to Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga, 30 Apr. 1542,
Rome.
209 DBI, XXVII, 4435.
210 ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 883, c. 242: Fabrizio Peregrino to Federico Gonzaga, 17 Dec. 1534,
Rome; b. 1912, c. 220: Nino to Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga, 23 Aug. 1542, Rome.
A Life in Arms
145
Cosimos captains of horse, met his death defending Foiano the year after, and
Federico Savelli was killed attacking the defensive outworks of Siena in 1554.
Francesco di Ottavio Orsini and Flaminio degli Anguillara were among the defenders of the city and territory of Siena, as was Paolo Orsini, who was one of
the captains taken prisoner in the defeat of the French forces at the battle
at the Fosso di Scannagallo in 1554. The nineteen-year-old son of Ascanio Colonna, Marcantonio, commanded the heavy cavalry on the side of the victors in
the battle, while Camillo Colonna was at the head of 3,000 infantry he had
raised for the Spanish around Rome.211 The grandson of an illegitimate brother
of Prospero, Camillo was described in 1551 as being the only soldier of note in
the family at that time.212
During the war in Piedmont, Renzo da Ceris son Gianpaolo commanded
Italian infantry fighting for the French there during the first phase of the war,
before his death in 1542. He was held in high regard at the French court, but did
not always feel that he was treated as his services merited.213 Federico Savelli
fought for Charles V in Piedmont in the third phase of the wars, but came under a cloud in 1553, accused of maltreating the people of Volpiano when he was
governor there.214 When the wars spread to Corsica in the 1550s, as the French
tried to take the island from the Genoese, Roman barons became engaged on
that front, too. Francesco and Giordano Orsini were among the troops that the
French marshal Termes took from Tuscany to Corsica in 1553. Giordano would
become the commander of the French forces in Corsica and the kings lieutenant there, battling on until the peace of Cateau-Cambrsis in 1559.215 During
the war of Parma in 1551, Camillo Orsini commanded the papal army besieging
Mirandola, and Giulio and Carlo Orsini, Antimo Savelli and Alessandro Colonna di Palestrina were papal captains and subordinate commanders.216
211
212
213
214
215
216
Roberto Cantagalli, La Guerra di Siena (15521559) (Siena, 1962), 48, 1023, 199, 204, 293,
2957, 3026; AGSimancas, Estado, leg. 1444, 80: Avvisi del campo, May 1554.
ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 1921, c. 531: Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga to Natale, 16 Oct. 1551.
J. Lestocquoy (ed.), Correspondance des Nonces en France Carpi et Ferrerio 15351540
(Rome, 1961), 144, 178, 181, 199, 276; ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 1912, c. 291: Nino to Ercole
Gonzaga, 2 Nov. 1542, Rome.
AGSimancas, Estado, leg. 879, 61: complaint by the community of Volpiano to Federico
Savelli, 22 May 1553; 62: copy of the accusations against Federico Savelli and his replies.
Marc Antonio Ceccaldi, Histoire de la Corse 14641560 (Ajaccio, 2006), 264 ff; Michel VergFranceschi, Sampiero Corso 14981567: un mercenaire europen au XVI e sicle (Ajaccio,
2000), 245, 27980, 2856, 30631.
Giampiero Brunelli, Soldati del Papa. Politica militare e nobilt nello Stato della Chiesa
(15601644) (Rome, 2003), 54.
146
Chapter 5
Camillo Orsini only took command when the popes nephew Gianbattista
del Monte, who had been in charge of the papal forces, fell ill. Roman barons
who served the pope still generally had to accept that the highest position, that
of Gonfaloniere della Chiesa, would go to a relative of the pope, however inexperienced, however incompetent he might be. Camillo Orsini had been governor-general of the papal army since 1548. In 1553 Pope Julius III thought of
dismissing him, suggesting Venice might take him on again, but when the
Venetians declined, he appointed Camillo custode di Roma.217 He agreed to
devise the defences of Rome for Paul IV, when the duque de Alba brought
Spanish troops from Naples into the Papal States in 1556, but it was the popes
Caraffa nephews who were in command. Another Orsini, Giulio, did play a
prominent role in the war, including the defence of Paliano, which the pope
had taken from Marcantonio Colonna and given to his nephew Giovanni.218
Marcantonio Colonna came with Alba to reclaim his estates and harried the
papal forces in the Campagna.219
The ability of Roman barons to raise infantry by drawing on local loyalties
could still be regarded as an asset to employers, but the utility of such in
fantry could be limited if they were to be pitted against specialist, professional
infantry. The potential utility of the barons lands could also still be a consideration, although it was of less significance than it had been. As in the fifteenth
century, it was of most interest to the king of Naples, now the king of Spain.
How useful the estates of the Colonna in particular could be in projecting
Spanish-Imperial military power within the Papal States, and in bringing pressure to bear on the pope, was part of the calculations of the viceroys of Naples
and of the Spanish-Imperial representatives in Rome. But they did not expect
access to such lands, if needed, to be conditional on the agreement of a substantial condotta for the baron concerned.
On the whole, by the mid-sixteenth century less weight was given to the
potential political assets of Roman barons when they were being given military contracts, and the question of who they might serve was one of less concern to the popes. The threat they might pose to the popes without the backing
of another power had diminished. The military strength of the Guelf and Ghibelline factions had waned, and the sorts of command available gave barons
less scope for independent action, as they could no longer use condotte to
maintain their own independent companies that could move with them from
217
218
219
AGSimancas, Estado, leg. 1321, 8: Francisco de Vargas to Charles V, 13 Oct. 1553, Venice.
CSPVenetian, VI i, 583, 671; VI ii, 7536, 775, 901, 1092, 1225, 1235, 1236.
See above, pp. 31, 39.
A Life in Arms
147
one employer to another, and be deployed to enhance their power in the Papal
States.
With the end of the Italian Wars, the military nobility of Italy in general
became less distinctively military as a group. They could no longer make a profession of soldiering as condottieri, as they had in the fifteenth century. In the
more peaceful Italy of the later sixteenth century the main options available
were service in the militia (where there was one), or going to fight abroad. The
development of larger, more organized militia forces in Tuscany, the Veneto,
the Papal States and the duchy of Savoy brought some new positions and commands suitable for nobles, but did not create such opportunities that they
could provide a new type of career for the military nobility. A proposal made in
1567 by Marcantonio Colonna, that the pope should give permanent commands of companies of cavalry to at least twenty nobles from the leading families of the Papal States backed by the argument that as other princes made
use of their vassals, so the pope should trust in his was not taken up by Pius
V.220
Those who wanted to see some military action in order to prove their mettle, would head for the wars in northern Europe, in Flanders or France, or go to
fight the Turks on land or sea. Italian soldiers in the service of France, Spain or
the Emperor earlier in the century had already been employed in these arenas.
Military careers could still be made by those prepared to spend much or all of
their time outside Italy. Latino Orsini, for instance, having begun his career at
the age of sixteen in the last decade of the Italian Wars, alternated between
service of the pope and of Venice, but this took him to France, Hungary and the
Eastern Mediterranean, as well as suppressing bandits in the Papal States.221 It
was the right of every noble, he asserted, to exercise that talent that God has
given him, to honour himself and his family, and to do something to serve others.222 To spend a lifetime exercising that talent, however, became an exceptional matter of individual choice, not the expected path of the young men of
the military nobility. By the later sixteenth century, even Roman barons were
more likely to seek honour by spending some time serving abroad as volunteers, than by making a profession of soldiering. Many Italian nobles would
have some experience of warfare if only in voluntary service in a single campaign but far fewer would spend a life in arms.
220
221
222
Brunelli, Soldati del Papa, 412.

Ibid, 38, 43, 468, 57; Giampiero Brunelli, Prima maestro, che scolare. Nobilt romana e
carriere militari nel Cinque e Seicento, 93.
Brunelli, Soldati del Papa, 42, 59.
148
Chapter 6
CHAPTER 6
Allegiance and Rebellion I: The Fifteenth Century

For many members of the military nobility, allegiance was not a straightforward matter. Because of the complexities of the political geography of Italy, it
would very often not be so simple as a subject, however powerful a subject,
owing undivided allegiance as a primary duty to one sovereign prince. Many
barons and lords of castles felt they had a choice, at least in theory, whether to
give their allegiance at all, and if they did, to whom, and on what terms. Apart
from private loyalties to family and faction (which in some circumstances
might override all others), the military nobility could owe allegiance to employers as condottieri, or to protectors be they prince, republic, even a more
powerful noble as an aderente or raccomandato, or as vassals or subjects.
They could be accused of treachery in all of these relationships, but only as
vassals or subjects could they be charged with rebellion.
Condottieri might be considered traitors if they connived with the enemy,
entered unauthorized negotiations with them to protect their own interests, or
held back from fighting when necessity or opportunity urged that they should
take action. Such accusations could, of course, have serious consequences. At
best, a reputation for disloyalty would hinder a commanders chances of finding another contract; at worst, he might be arrested and executed, or summarily killed, as Giberto da Correggio was in Siena in 1455.1 For barons and lords of
castles, loyal service to their employer as condottieri could, in some circumstances, expose them to accusations of treachery by the enemy, if that enemy
happened to be a prince or republic that claimed their allegiance as vassals or
subjects.2 If a soldier found himself in that position, he might well put his military honour before his obligations as a subject if he acknowledged he had
any such obligations.
Recognition of the threat of reprisals against members of the military nobility who were entering into condotte with employers who were not their princes,
and perhaps against the wishes of their prince, was one reason for the clauses
promising protection of the commanders and their lands inserted into some
contracts. Roman barons preparing to commit their estates to the service of an
employer, potentially in hostilities against the pope, would certainly expect a
pledge of protection if they were in consequence to come under attack, for
1 See above, p. 115.
2 For example, see below, pp. 1789.
149
example. At the least, barons and castellans holding condotte would expect (as
did second-rank princes such as the marquis of Mantua or the duke of Urbino
when they held military condotte from other powers) to be able to use the
troops paid for by their employer to defend their own lands. Some condotte,
from the employers point of view, were primarily an excuse to place troops on,
or within, the borders of another state, and to interfere in its internal politics;
the value of any military service to be expected from the condottiere was a secondary consideration. There was no clear dividing line between military condotte with a clause promising political protection, and political agreements
promising military protection, whether the condottiere was a prince or a minor
castellan, a marquis of Mantua or one of the plethora of Malaspina marquises.
There was, rather, a spectrum of arrangements ranging from the purely political to the purely military.
Consequently, it is not always easy to distinguish contracts of military condotte from contracts of political aderenza or accomandigia. The agreements
made by Francesco Sforza with Pietro Maria Rossi and Rolando Pallavicini in
the late 1440s contained elements of both. A condotta for 200 horse, with a
promise to defend Rossis lands against any aggressor was agreed at the end of
October 1447. This was followed in early December by a more extensive formal
promise to defend and favour Rossi, his lands and fortresses, his privileges and
jurisdictions, his men, his subjects, and his own aderenti and raccomandati,
against anyone making war on them, attacking them or usurping their lands.
Sforza commanded his own troops to treat them with care and respect, so long
as the said Pietro Maria follows our path, as he has promised.3 Reaffirming
these pledges in February 1449, Sforza increased Rossis condotta to 500 horse.4
Terms he agreed with Rolando Pallavicini in February 1448 were linked to a
condotta of 200 horse for some of Rolandos sons. Sforza promised to maintain
Rolando and his sons in the possession of their estates and jurisdictions, to
help him recover lands taken from him by the condottiere Niccol Piccinino,
and to give him and his sons secure access to Sforzas own lands. Pallavicini
promised in return that those of his sons who held the condotte would serve
well and faithfully; that Sforzas friends would be his friends, and Sforzas enemies his enemies; that he would make war, peace or truce as Sforza asked; and
that he would give transit, victuals and lodgings to Sforzas men, including his
troops.5
3 Covini, Le condotte dei Rossi, 612.

4 Ibid., 66.
5 Pezzana, Storia della Citt di Parma, II, 6212.
150
Chapter 6
When these agreements were made, Francesco Sforza was not yet duke of
Milan, only a powerful condottiere holding large swathes of the duchy. Although
the terms were those of aderenze, Sforza, his eyes on the dukedom, did not list
Rossi or Pallavicini among his aderenti in his treaty with Venice in December
1448.6 Nor did he, or his successors, ever acknowledge them as aderenti, as
they and other Lombard nobles preferred to be regarded, rather than as the
vassals and subjects that the dukes held them to be.7 To recognize them as
aderenti would be to recognize the essential autonomy of their estates from
the dominion of the dukes.8
Legal doctrine drew a clear distinction between fiefholders, feudatari, who
were under the jurisdiction (sub iurisdictione) of a prince, and aderenti
who were under his protection (sub protectione).9 Governments sometimes
tended to overlook the distinction, and claim authority over their aderenti and
their lands and subjects that the contracts of aderenza did not mention. Barons
and castellans, however, were well aware of the distinction, and keen to maintain it. When a ducal commissioner was sent to intervene in a legal dispute
involving marchese Antonio Malaspina in 1487, Antonio was quick to object.
Doubtless, there had been some mistake, he said, and Ludovico Sforza perhaps
believed that he was a subject, but he was an aderente and raccomandato, if
still a faithful servant of the Sforza.10 It was a mistake that the dukes of Milan
and their officials made repeatedly, but the dukes could be obliged to back
down and their officials be obliged to back off as in 1474, when Galeazzo
Maria Sforza admonished the office in charge of collecting extraordinary revenues that our adherentes and colligatos are not our subjects, but equals.11
Nobles who were aderenti would be the equal of the prince from whom they
received protection in the sense that they were politically autonomous, subject
to no one, except perhaps the emperor. Aderenze and accomandigie were voluntary arrangements, at least in theory. In practice, the weaker party, the aderente or raccomandato, might have little option about whether or not they
entered into the arrangement, or agreed to its renewal. The combination of
legal independence and political and military vulnerability explains why so
many aderenti were holders of small Imperial fiefs. Typically, formal aderenze
and accomandigie were arrangements between unequals; to put oneself and
6
7
8
9
10
11
Somaini, Una storia spezzata, 153.

Chittolini, Infeudazioni e politica feudale, 61; Chittolini, Il particolarismo signorile, 269.
Chittolini, Guerre, guerricciole, 246.
Letizia Arcangeli, Piccoli signori lombardi e potenze grosse, 412.
Chittolini, Infeudazioni e politica feudale, 61.
Ibid., 91, note 101.
151
ones lands under the protection of another was an acknowledgment of being

the weaker party. The promise of protection, political and generally military,
was made in exchange for the promise of fidelity and often some form of military service, including making lands and fortresses available for the use of the
protector.
Written contracts set out all the obligations of either party, sometimes in
broad terms, sometimes in considerable detail. Depending on the circumstances in which they were agreed, contracts could be for a few years or a longer fixed term (ten years, fifty years), for the lifetime of one of the parties, even
in perpetuity, committing the heirs and successors of the aderente to continue
the arrangement. Contracts might be made for the duration of a war, or specify
different terms and conditions for wartime and peacetime. All the lands of the
aderente could be covered by and committed to the arrangement, or only
some.
The terms of Florentine accomandigie were elaborated with particular care.
If they were continued for several generations, the same terms could be repeated time after time. Those agreed with Florence in 1513 by Giovan Lorenzo
Malaspina di Filattiera, in perpetuity, were the same agreed by his ancestors
Niccol and Bernab in 1417. First agreed in 1404, the accomandigia was repeatedly renewed throughout the fifteenth century.12 As set out in 1417, it was to be
for ten years. The marchesi were to regard Florences friends and enemies as
their friends and enemies; the enemies of Florence were not to be given victuals, help or favour, or passage through their territory. In time of war, Florence
could call on them for counsel and aid, with their men, if necessary. Infantry
and archers from among their subjects were to be sent, as many as they could
raise, for thirty days at their expense when Florence needed them; after thirty
days, Florence must pay for them, at the same wages given to their other troops.
In their defence, the marchesi could fly the standard of Florence over their
fortresses, and Florence had to support, defend and protect them. Should the
marchesi fight alongside the Florentines in a war in the Lunigiana, any lands or
castles that were taken to which they had a claim should be assigned to them,
even if they had been captured by Florentine forces. In any war waged by the
marchesi on their own account, the Florentines were not bound to support
them unless they had agreed to it beforehand. When the marchesi were engaged in a war together with Florence, they had to observe any truce or peace
the Florentines might make. In recognition of their accomandigia, the marchesi were obliged to provide transit, lodgings and victuals (which would be
paid for) to Florentine troops. On the feast of St John the Baptist, they were to
12
Branchi, Storia della Lunigiana feudale, III, 40, 613.
152
Chapter 6
send a horseman, with a silken banner worth at least twenty florins, to take
part in the ceremonies held that day in Florence.13 Contracts of accomandigia
between Florence and other branches of the Malaspina were on much the
same general lines.14 Some stipulated that the Florentines would garrison one
or more of the Malaspina fortresses. For instance, the contract agreed in 1424
with marchesi Gabriele and Fioramonte Malaspina di Villafranca specified
that the Florentines, if they were at war with Filippo Maria Visconti, would
guard the fortress of Santa Caterina, handing it back to the lords at the end,
and, in the event, this is what happened.15
Terms made with Gian Luigi Fieschi, in the same context in 1424, reflected
the much greater power of the main branch of the Fieschi than of any of the
Malaspina. This was framed as a league, for the exaltation of the Guelf party
and its followers and aderenti. Nevertheless, the first clause recounted that
Gian Luigi Fieschi requested la adherentia et accomandigia generale of Florence for all his lands, fortresses and men; the Florentines were bound to defend them as though they were their own. In time of war, he was to have a
condotta of 30 lances and 200 infantry; a quarter of the infantry could be raised
from among his own men. This condotta was for the defence of his lands, although the troops could be used in offensive operations by the Florentines as
well. In peacetime, he was to have a condotta of 15 lances and 100 infantry,
which was to continue for at least five years after the end of the war. At the request of the Florentines, Gian Luigi was to make war on any of their enemies,
except the Empire or Genoa, unless Genoa was ruled by the duke of Milan or
another enemy of Florence. He was to be included in any peace or truce with
the duke of Milan as the raccomandato and aderente of Florence, and to
13
14
15
Ibid., III, 412.

For example, the accomandigia with the marchesi di Lusuolo of the same year stipulated
that they should take two lances, each of three men and three horses, with 25 infantry,
including 16 crossbowmen, to defend Florentine territory, and would be paid as condottieri at the customary rate for the duration of the war with Visconti. If, because of this
accomandigia, they were to lose their lands so that they could no longer support themselves, the Florentines would be obliged not only to try to reinstate them, but to provide
for them by giving them a condotta or in some other way. This five-year accomandigia was
renewed for ten years in 1429, with some variation reflecting changing circumstances.
This time, if Florence went to war with the duke of Milan or with Genoa (then under
Milanese rule), the marchesi should have a condotta of three lances and 25 infantry, to
guard their own lands. (Ibid., II, 21820, 2234).
Ibid., II, 634.
153
a cknowledge his link to Florence by sending a silken banner to the city every
year for the feast of St John the Baptist.16
Requirements that aderenti should send a horseman with a banner to take
part in the civic processions and celebrations on the feastday of Florences patron saint, together with representatives of Florences subject towns, would be
read as tokens of dependence, of subordination, not alliance. The Fieschi were
too powerful, too conscious of their own grandeur, to accept subordination,
and could drop the link if and when it suited them to do so. Lesser lords of
castles who were Florentine aderenti might find it more difficult. If the continuation of an accomandigia suited the Florentines, they expected it to
continue. Accomandigie for some Malaspina branches, repeatedly renewed,
looked less and less like voluntary agreements. Underlying Florentine insistence these accomandigie should be continued was the desire to incorporate
directly into their dominions the lands of their raccomandati whose estates
were close to Florentine territory. Clauses were sometimes inserted into the
contracts, stipulating that in certain circumstances lands should be sold, or
even bequeathed, to Florence.
When the accomandigia of the Malaspina di Treschietto was renewed in
1477, a clause was added that if the male line of the eight joint lords entering
into it should die out, Treschietto should be ceded to Florence. This clause
never came into effect.17 In the case of the Malaspina di Bagnone, the Florentines forced the issue, beginning by fomenting rebellion amongst their subjects in the late 1460s, and stirring up trouble among other branches of the
family who were also their raccomandati. To be rid of the problems, marchese
Cristiano da Bagnone and his brothers offered in August 1469 to sell their lands
to Florence, but they went back on the deal after the duke of Milan objected.
Orders from the Florentine government sent to Cristiano, addressing him as a
vassal and enjoining him not to make any moves without an express commission from them,18 may well have contributed to the decision of the marchesi
not to go through with it. Pressure from Florence to complete the sale was
fruitless, and in 1471 the Florentines had recourse to intrigue and force to take
Bagnone and capture Cristiano and two of his brothers. After two years imprisonment in Florence they were released, but failed to recover Bagnone.19
16
17
18
19
Giovanni Sforza, Memorie e documenti per servire alla storia di Pontremoli (Florence, 1904),
I, 3358.
Branchi, Storia della Lunigiana feudale, III, 1878.
Ibid., 155.
Ibid., 15660.
154
Chapter 6
In getting hold of Fivizzano, the Florentines played a longer game. Marchese

Spinetta Malaspina di Verrucola had been a ward of Florence as a child after
his closest relatives were massacred in a family feud. As well as being a raccomandato of Florence, he was given Florentine citizenship in 1447, several contracts as an infantry captain, a pension of 1,200 ducats a year in 1467, and a
property in Empoli. All the while, the Florentines had the aim of taking over
his lands, and obtained a promise from him to cede his property to them
after his death, if not before. On several occasions when he was ill, envoys were
sent to his estates to prepare the ground for the transfer, and when he eventually died in 1478, the Florentines immediately took possession. His illegitimate
sons (he had no legitimate children) were bought off with pensions, and the
two closest relatives from other Malaspina branches were ceded some of his
castles, as perpetual governors for Florence, in return for the renunciation of
their claims to inherit the estates.20
The dukes of Milan had less interest than the Florentines in forming bonds
of aderenza with the lords of castles in the Lunigiana. The Ghibelline marchesi
Malaspina di Mulazzo seem to have been exceptional in having an aderenza
from the Visconti and then the Sforza over several generations.21 Other individual Malaspina held aderenze with the duke from time to time.22 For the
dukes of Milan, aderenze as an expedient for extending their influence over
the Imperial fiefholders in areas bordering the duchy were perhaps secondbest to the rights they claimed to exercise over those fiefs as Imperial vicars, by
virtue of the grants to Gian Galeazzo Visconti by the Emperor Wenceslas in
1395 and 1396.23 The question of what rights the duke of Milan might claim
over Imperial fiefholders in Emilia, the Lunigiana and Le Langhe, the ill-defined area of the mountains to the north of Genoa, would give rise to disputes
and controversies for centuries. In the fifteenth century, the Imperial grants
provided the dukes and their officials with grounds to exercise the powers of
the emperor to decide disputed successions, for example. But at that time the
emperors powers over Imperial fiefs in Italy, other than the power to grant investiture, were vague, and in any case were practically dormant.
How wide-ranging Filippo Maria Visconti would have liked his superiority
over Imperial fiefs to be is revealed by a draft of a grant from the Emperor Sigismund prepared by the Visconti chancery, apparently after Filippo Maria had
received confirmation of the Imperial investiture in 1426. All Imperial
20
21
22
23
Ibid., 4909, 5078.

Ibid., I, 2212, 225, 228.
E.g. ibid., II, 723.
Chittolini, Infeudazioni e politica feudale, 501; Sisto, I feudi imperiali, 878.
155
fiefholders between the River Adda to the east and the River Magra (which
marked the border with Tuscany, as agreed with Florence), the sea and the
Alps, in the territories of Genoa, Monferrato and Parma but not those of
the duke of Savoy, were to be ordered to obey Visconti, whether they recognized only the emperor as their superior or were the vassals of others. Among
those explicitly named as being included in this were the Malaspina, the Fieschi, Spinola, Doria, Grimaldi and del Carretto. The emperor would annul all
aderenze and other pacts which were in contradiction to this grant; all those
who rebelled against it could be subject to the ban of the Empire, making them
effectively outlaws.24
This draft does not seem to have been adopted by Sigismund. Had it been, it
is doubtful whether it would have had much effect, at least outside the borders
of the duchy of Milan. Beyond those borders, only some of the weaker Imperial fiefholders were ready to acknowledge submission to the duke of Milan as
the representative of the emperor, and to turn to the duke for investiture with
their fiefs. Most holders of Imperial fiefs, particularly the more powerful, were
too appreciative of the advantages of their position of independence, and of
the status and the bargaining power it gave, to be prepared to acknowledge an
exclusive and irrevocable link to the duke of Milan.
Aderenze were another matter. For Filippo Maria Visconti, aderenze with the
castellans of Liguria and Le Langhe who were Imperial fiefholders were a useful tool in his efforts to establish, maintain, or, once lost, recover dominion
over the republic of Genoa, and in his contest with the marquis of Monferrato
for influence over these lords. If the duke of Milan wanted the military aid of
the castellans of Liguria and Le Langhe, aderenze, with their implicit, if not
explicit, acknowledgement of the castellans freedom of choice as to whom
they might support, would be far more effective than assertions of authority
over them by virtue of an Imperial grant. Before he became the raccomandato
of Florence, Gian Luigi Fieschi had been an aderente of Filippo Maria Visconti
in April 1421 with other members of the family. They promised aderenza to him
with all their lands, in Lombardy as well as Liguria; he promised them protection and, if he were to become lord of Genoa, to preserve all their rights and
prerogatives.25 Of more long-term consequence was the pact Visconti entered
into with the Spinola. He gained free transit for his troops through their fiefs,
promised them freedom from all Genoese tolls and taxes, and returned to
24
25

Ibid., 32.
156
Chapter 6
them the important fief of Borgo dei Fornari in the Valle Scrivia, sold by Troilo
Spinola to Genoa a few years before.26
A decade after he had lost control of Genoa, Visconti, in making a truce with
the Genoese, still maintained that many Ligurian castellans were under his
protection as his recommandati, adherentes et feudatarii, including several
Spinola and Doria, the nobiles de Carretto as a group, Giovanni Grimaldi of
Monaco and Gian Antonio Fieschi.27 Whether all those he named would have
regarded themselves as his aderenti is doubtful. Giovanni Grimaldi, for one,
objected to being included in the truce with Genoa.28 In letters Visconti wrote
to him in the mid-1440s, the duke addressed him as a friend, but did not
refer to any obligations on either side arising out of an aderenza.29
Records in the Milanese ducal chancery of aderenze in Liguria in the early
1450s were inaccurate, as is evident from the response of castellans there when
they were asked to ratify their nomination as aderenti of Francesco Sforza in
his league with Florence and Genoa in late 1451 and the peace with Venice
in 1454. Some allowance should be made for destruction and dispersion of
records during the interregnum between Viscontis death in 1447 and Sforzas
accession in 1450, the period of the Ambrosian Republic in Milan. Chancery
officials ferreted out documents which yielded names of men who were dead,
or who had never accepted they were aderenti of the duke of Milan. Others
acknowledged they had been aderenti of Visconti, but claimed the pact had
lapsed and they had subsequently entered into obligations with other lords.
The replies of the castellans throw light on their attitudes to the obligations
they entered into, on the options available to them and the reasons why they
might choose one rather than another.
In 1451, a number of Spinola were happy to accept nomination as aderenti of
Francesco Sforza, but Giovanni Antonio Spinola wrote from his fortress
of Lerma to say that he could not honourably do so. Since the troubles following the death of Filippo Maria Visconti, he explained, he had felt it necessary
for my safety (per mia salute) to enter into certain obligations with the
26
27
28
29
Ibid., 323; see above, p. 10.

ASGenoa, AS 536, ff. 49v-50r, 55r-v: copies of letters from Filippo Maria Visconti to the
Doge, Anziani and Officio provisionis of Genoa, 8, 15 July 1445. Several Malaspina marchesi
from the Lunigiana were also on the list.
Saige, Documents historiques, I, 1689: Filippo Maria Visconti to Giovanni Grimaldi, 8 July
1445. In order to recover possession of Monaco, which had been held for Visconti since
1428, Grimaldi had been obliged to accept investiture with it as a fief in November 1436,
but this recognition was annulled by a treaty between Visconti, Venice and Florence five
years later. (Ibid., LXXVII-LXXXII, XCV-VI, CXI, 6777, 1039.
E.g., ibid., 1645: Filippo Maria Visconti to Giovanni Grimaldi, 14 Apr. 1445.
157
marquis of Monferrato. Having been a faithful servant of Filippo Maria, he was

disposed to continue that bond with Francesco Sforza, but a little gentleman
like me is worth nothing without fidelity.30 Some del Carretto also replied that
they were bound by other obligations. Those of the Zuccarello branch had
bonds of fidelity to the duke of Savoy, because of certain events which have
happened in the past, as well as having ties to the community of Genoa in respect of some of their estates.31 Giovanni del Carretto da Finale had also been
obliged to enter into obligations to Genoa (following the Genoese war against
Finale),32 and he believed he would be included in a treaty as a dependent of
Genoa. Nevertheless, in spirit I am numbered among your men, and so I should
be by inheritance. If he could be free of his obligations to Genoa, I would be
happy to be what I ought to be.33
In 1454, the dukes officials seem to have compiled a longer list of putative
aderenti. Again, some readily accepted nomination, including many Spinola
and Doria. The wife, brother and cousin of the absent Gian Filippo Fieschi,
ratifying in his name as well as theirs, were confident he would have accepted
as an adherent and ally (coligato) of the duke if he had been there.34 Giovanni
del Carretto da Finale again refused, this time citing obligations to Genoa for
one-third of Finale, and an aderenza with the marquis of Monferrato; without
their leave it would not be licit for him to enter into any other obligation.35 The
del Carretto di Zuccarello did ratify this time, though reserving their ties to
other lords. They had only been obligato to Filippo Maria Visconti for onethird of Bardineto and one-third of Stellanello, and then only for his lifetime,
they explained.36 Francesco del Carretto refused, however, saying he could not,
in honour, ratify without the permission of the duke of Savoy, because of fidelity pledged to him for his lands. He had been devoted to the Visconti, he said,
and had offered himself to the city of Milan when it was governed as a republic
(but before the Milanese came to be at war with Francesco Sforza). They had
replied that, due to the distance of his lands from the city, they would not be
able to help him if needed, and he should make arrangements with whom he
chose. Fearing he would not be able to withstand an attack unaided, he had
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 407: Giovanni Antonio Spinola to Francesco Sforza, 20 Nov. 1451,
Lerma.
Ibid.: Giorgio del Carretto to F. Sforza, 20 Nov. 1451, Zuccarello.
See above, pp. 278.
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 407: Giovanni del Carretto to F. Sforza, 19 Nov. 1451, Finale.
Ibid., b. 409: Antonia Maria, Rolando and Jacopone Fieschi to F. Sforza, 9 June 1454, Recco.
Ibid.: Giovanni del Carretto to F. Sforza, 10 June 1454, Finale.
Ibid., Giorgio and Carlo del Carretto to F. Sforza, 23 June 1454, Zuccarello; 13 July 1454,
Bardineto.
158
Chapter 6
made terms with the duke of Savoy.37 Sforza would not take no for an answer
in this instance, asserting that the del Carretto were his recommandati de
jure and could not have entered into an aderenza with the duke of Savoy or
others,38 and Francesco del Carretto eventually ratified.
The Spinola of Tassarolo declined to ratify the peace as aderenti of the duke
of Milan on the grounds that they were feudatari and raccomandati of the
commune of Genoa, and had to ratify with Genoa. Supporting Filippo Maria
after the Genoese rebelled against him had already once made them outlaws
and rebels of Genoa, and they had only received confirmation of their fiefs and
been restored to the good graces of the Genoese government through his intercession. But, they assured Sforza, in their hearts and with their friends, they
were and would be more than subjects and raccomandati of the duke.39 Clearly, Sforza had not accepted their excuses and a month later the Spinola brothers gave a rather different account of their relation to Genoa and Milan. They
had never had any aderenza with Filippo Maria Visconti, for neither he nor any
other lord had deigned to try to interfere with their connection to Genoa. Tassarolo, impoverished and sterile, had been bought from Genoa nearly a century before, with a kind of aderenza attached. Since Filippo Marias death, they
had agreed no other aderenza with any other lords or communes. To satisfy
Sforza, however, they sent a formal acceptance of the peace.40
The Doge and Anziani of Genoa protested against Sforzas insistence that
Galeotto and Ettore Spinola, Giovanni del Carretto and Stefano Doria were his
aderenti, as the successor of Filippo Maria Visconti, asserting that none of
them had had any special obligation to Visconti.41 Sforza tried to get Stefano
Doria to enter into an aderenza with him for Ovada, but Doria responded that
he and that estate were part of the commune of Genoa, and that he had been
advised by lawyers that he would run the risk of losing it, by the terms of his
agreement with Genoa.42 Sforza accepted, with an apology, a blunt letter refusing ratification from a branch of the Fieschi, in reply to one addressed to
Jacomo and his brothers and Giorgio and his brothers. The only Giorgio in
the family was Cardinal Fieschi, and there were several named Jacomo, they
objected; in any case, they knew of no bond to the duke of Milan, through a fief
37
38
39
40
41
42
Ibid., Francesco del Carretto to F. Sforza, 29 June 1454, Spigno; Francesco del Carretto to
Giorgio de Annono, 1 July 1454, Novello.
Ibid.: F. Sforza to Giorgio de Annono, 7 July 1454, Milan.
Ibid.: Galeotto and Ettore Spinola to F. Sforza, 15 June 1454, Tassarolo.
Ibid.: Galeotto and Ettore Spinola to F. Sforza, 21 July 1454, Tassarolo.
Ibid.: Doge and Anziani of Genoa to F. Sforza, 26 July 1454, Genoa.
Ibid. Stefano Doria to F. Sforza, 20 June 1454, Genoa; Giovanni della Guardia to F. Sforza,
17 Sept. 1454, Genoa.
159
or an aderenza or anything else, and there were no grounds on which they

could be called upon to ratify the peace.43 Acknowledging that there had been
an error in the address, for the names had been taken from an old document,
Sforza assured them he wanted nothing from them but their long-standing
friendship.44
Before he finally made up his mind to take over Genoa himself, requests to
Sforza to intervene in Genoese politics were generally politely turned aside,
and he was reluctant to commit himself wholeheartedly to supporting any one
faction or group. He did, however, acknowledge a duty to defend his aderenti.
By virtue of the raccomandigia he had over some lands of Gian Filippo Fieschi, he was bound to defend him from anyone who wishes to attack him in
those lands, Sforza warned in 1456.45 He reacted more vigorously when a number of his raccomandati and aderenti were attacked or threatened by the Duke
of Savoy in 1458, informing the duke that if he did not withdraw, troops would
be sent from Milan to defend them. To one, conte Onorato di Tenda, he sent 25
handgunners (schioppettieri), paid for two months, with the assurance that
he was ready to do whatever was needed to preserve the estates.46 News of the
threat had come from Giovanni del Carretto, who had urged Sforza to help,
advising him that many lords in the region were watching to see what support
they would get, and that effective support at such a time encouraged them to
put their lives and property at the service of the lords who gave it.47 Uncertainty in the region as the submission of the republic of Genoa to the French
crown was being concluded in 1458, probably stirred Sforza to declare his willingness to stand up for his raccomandati (and may well have stirred the duke
of Savoys attacks). And when his Spinola aderenti were called upon to raise the
French royal standard over their castles, his chancery provided them with a
carefully-drafted, elaborate reply, to the effect that their family had long been
43
44
45
46
47
Ibid.: Jacomo Fieschi and his brothers to F. Sforza, 24 July 1454, Genoa.
Ibid.: F. Sforza to Jacomo Fieschi and his brothers, 10 Aug. 1454, Milan. Another embar
rassing error occurred in a letter addressed to Giovanni and Boruel Grimaldi, admonishing them to send their ratification of the peace. There was no Giovanni in the whole
Grimaldi family, was the response on behalf of the albergo (the Milanese officials may
have had in mind Giovanni Grimaldi of Monaco, who had died some months before);
Boruel was in Caffa, and his procurator, Francesco Grimaldi, had ratified in his name.
(Ibid.: Servitores albergus Grimaldorum to F. Sforza, 5 Sept. 1454, Genoa.)
Ibid., b. 410: F. Sforza to Lodovico Campofregoso, 13 Jan. 1456, Milan.
Ibid., b. 412: F. Sforza to Onorato, conte di Tenda, 9 Apr. 1458, Milan.
Ibid.: Giovanni del Carretto to F. Sforza, 1 Apr. 1458, Finale. Del Carretto described himself
as Sforzas faithful servant, not his raccomandato. (Ibid., b. 411: Giovanni del Carretto,
instructions to Otto del Carretto, 11 Feb. 1456, Finale.)
160
Chapter 6
aderenti of the dukes of Milan, that this connection had kept them and their
people secure in the fluctuations of Genoese politics, some owed him fidelity
for fiefs, and they intended to maintain these ties in future. After much discussion for there were many Spinola, with various opinions as to what they
should do, and not all were hostile to the new regime in Genoa the Spinola of
the Valle Scrivia and the Val Borbera agreed to adopt the Milanese reply.48
Once Francesco Sforza and his heirs were lords of Genoa, or claimed to be
lords of Genoa, they were not inclined to agree aderenze with castellans whose
lands lay within Genoese territory. The Doria di Valle dOneglia had been regarded as aderenti of the duke of Milan in 1454;49 in 1482, at a time when Milan
did not control Genoa, they were described as our feudatari and vassals and
subjects.50 The Sforza might still agree aderenze with lords in the region whose
lands lay, at least in part, outside Genoese territory. Margherita, contessa di
Tenda (Onoratos widow, who was governing the family estates) was recognized as an aderente of Milan in 1475.51 The del Carretto di Zuccarello ratified
the peace of Bagnolo in 1484 and a league in 1493 as aderenti of the duke of
Milan.52 But when the marchesi di Ceva claimed to be the dukes aderenti in
1485, the Milanese chancery could not find a copy of the agreement and asked
if the marchesi could produce theirs. In any case, they were to be warned that
the duke could not back them in their conflict with the duc dOrlans and his
officials, because marchese Luca, who was complaining of oppression by them,
was a feudatary of Orlans.53 Lamberto Grimaldi of Monaco agreed a five-year
aderenza with the regency government in Milan in July 1477. For him,
this aderenza was a tactical ploy, balancing obligations he had just entered into
with the regent duchess of Savoy for Menton, which he had only recently recovered from Milanese troops,54 and constituting recognition by the Milanese
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
Ibid., b. 412: copy of letter from Jean dAnjou and Balia of Genoa to the Spinola of Valle
Scrivia and Val Borbera, 24 May 1458, with a draft of a reply; Orfeo to F. Sforza, 4 June 1458,
Buzalla; Franco da Assereto to F. Sforza, 5 June 1458, Serravalle.
Ibid., b.409: Sceva Doria cum dominii Vallis Unelie to F. Sforza, 12 June 1454, Genoa.
Ibid., b. 993: Gian Galeazzo Sforza to Battista Campofregoso, 30 Jan. 1482, Milan.
Saige, Documents historiques, I, 504.
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 994: Giorgio and Carlo del Carretto to Gian Galeazzo Sforza,
16 Oct. 1484, Zuccarello; b. 1211: Giorgio and Antonio del Carretto to Gian Galeazzo
Sforza, 15 June 1493, Zuccarello.
Presumably, he held a fief dependent on the city of Asti, which belonged to the duc
dOrlans. Ibid., b. 994: Instructions to Bernardino Valerio, going to marchese Luca di
Ceva, 14 May 1485, Milan.
In order to have support for his efforts to recover possession of Menton, Lamberto had
agreed to recognize the portion of Menton he owned as a fief from the duke of Savoy
(Saige, Documents historiques, I, CCXL-I).
161
regime of his independence, which Galeazzo Maria Sforza had been trying to
undermine.55
Grimaldi was told that Gian Luigi Fieschi was included among the rebels
and enemies of Milan that he undertook not to receive in his lands. The Sforza
would have preferred to regard the Fieschi as their subjects, rather than their
aderenti. In 1481 (or so he would later claim) Gian Luigi Fieschi offered to become an aderente of Milan, but was refused.56 An aderenza was agreed two
years later, but in 1484 Gian Luigi baulked at ratifying the peace of Bagnolo,
arguing promises made to him the year before had not been kept.57 As a central figure of the regime governing Genoa under Milanese overlordship in 1493,
he did ratify the league between Milan, Venice and the pope as an aderente of
the duke.58 Holding lands within the bounds of the duchy of Milan as well as
those of the territory of Genoa, the Fieschi, in the eyes of the Sforza dukes and
their officials, were in some respects of an equivalent status to the Rossi or Pallavicini families. Yet their peculiar position in Genoese political life made it
difficult to treat them as just another powerful clan of Lombard lords whose
pretensions to independence were to be checked. The Fieschi managed to survive the period of Sforza dominance over Genoa without succumbing to relegation to the ranks of subjects of the dukes of Milan, as the Rossi and Pallavicini
had to do if they wished to keep their lands.
Other princes and the republics were just as unwilling as the Sforza to make
aderenze with lords they regarded as their subjects, and they did not want other states making aderenze with them, either. Not that this would hold anyone
back from forming such associations with the subjects of other states, if a suitable opportunity arose. The popes subjects in particular were regarded as fair
game by other powers in the fifteenth century. The duke of Milan, the king of
Naples and the republics of Florence and Venice were happy to make arrangements with subjects of the papacy that they would not have tolerated if the
pope or another power had tried to make them with theirs. Aderenti could be
jealously guarded, too. Poaching of aderenti could be much resented, to the
point of being regarded as a hostile act. Major powers might attempt to delimit
spheres of influence by treaty. Florence and Filippo Maria Visconti agreed in
1419 that the river Magra would be the dividing line in the Lunigiana: to
the north, Visconti could make aderenze with the Malaspina, to the south,
Florence. The Malaspina were not party to this agreement, and did not con-
55
56
57
58
Ibid., CCXLIV-VII, 54450.

ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 993: Gian Luigi Fieschi to Costanzo Sforza, 6 Feb. 1482, Genoa.
Ibid., b. 994: Gian Luigi Fieschi to Ser Jo. Jac.o, 15 Oct. 1484, Montoggio.
Ibid., b. 1211: Gian Luigi Fieschi to Gian Galeazzo Sforza, 11 June 1493, Torriglia.
162
Chapter 6
sider themselves bound by it.59 In 1454 Francesco Sforza claimed that the Venetians had agreed in the peace they made with him that all subjects, aderenti,
and racommandati of Filippo Maria Visconti should revert to the status they
had held during his reign. These were the grounds on which he insisted that
some Ligurian castellans should accept nomination as his aderenti.60 Again
those concerned would not have considered themselves bound to observe
such a clause which ignored the reciprocal, voluntary nature of aderenze.
Claims to a putative exclusive right to the aderenze of the lords of castles of
a specific region could only be enforced in certain circumstances. The effective
power that a prince or republic could project at a given time in a given area,
and the absence of an equally attractive, or more attractive, alternative, were
only parts of the equation. The wishes of the nobles, where they perceived
their best interests to be which might be alignment with a weaker power
against the overweening claims of a stronger came into play as well. So might
personal rivalries and jealousies within and between noble families. If a personal enemy was the aderente of one power, a noble might feel that he had
better opt for an aderenza with a different one, if another would be interested
in offering him protection.
The two main poles of attraction for castellans in Emilia in the first half
of the fifteenth century were the Visconti and the Este. A long contest between
the dukes of Milan and the lords of Ferrara for the control of Emilia was only
just reaching its definitive solution by the mid-fifteenth century, as Parma and
Piacenza were bound into the duchy of Milan, and Reggio and Modena to the
Este of Ferrara. There was still a contest for the loyalties of the Imperial fiefholders of the region. In the early 1450s, Borso dEste and Francesco Sforza disputed whether the Correggio, whom the duke of Milan regarded as his vassals,
could be Borsos aderenti.61 It was the possession of the stronghold of Brescello,
held in fief from the duke of Milan, that gave him grounds to view the Correggio as vassals, whose primary loyalty should be to him. Losing the fortress in
1468 was a blow to Manfredo da Correggio, but he consoled himself with the
reflection that he would now be a free man.62 Demanding reimbursement of
the expenses of taking Brescello, Galeazzo Maria Sforza threatened to send
59
60
61
62

ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 409: Francesco del Carretto to F. Sforza, 11 Sept. 1454, Spigna. Such
terms do not appear in the text of the treaties between Francesco Sforza and Venice in
1454, or in the lists of aderenti associated with them: J. Dumont, Corps universel diplomatique du droit des gens (Amsterdam, 172631), III, part 1, 2026, 2089, 228
Arcangeli, Piccoli signori lombardi, 414.
Gentile, Fazioni al governo, 162; see above, p. 13.
163
troops to take Correggio itself in 1470, but the matter was settled in a conference at Parma between Sforza, Borso dEste and Ludovico Gonzaga, Marquis of
Mantua, in which Borso defended the Correggio.63 Galeazzo Maria interfered
in family quarrels that split the Pio da Carpi and the Pico della Mirandola, as
well as the Correggio.64 Their disputes caused him more trouble than the major powers did, he complained, and Borso let them do it. Borso, he grumbled,
was vying with those who were greater than he was, and should recognize his
limitations.65
Galeazzo Marias irritation at Borso dEste appearing to consider himself the
equal of the duke of Milan, and at the fact that important Imperial fiefholders
in Emilia gravitated towards Ferrara rather than Milan, seems to have led him
to exaggerate, perhaps unwittingly, the degree of control that the Este had over
such lords. Rule over Modena and Reggio did not necessarily bring with it authority over the military nobility holding lands within the territories of those
cities, because many nobles had not been subordinated to the civic governments. Some of the grants of privileges negotiated by families such as the Pio,
Pico and Correggio, giving their lands the status of Imperial fiefs, were quite
recent. Thus the Pico, who had been granted Imperial privileges for Mirandola
in 1311, obtained them for their other major stronghold, Concordia, in 1432, becoming counts of Concordia as well as of Mirandola. The Correggio had received Imperial investiture in 1350, and this was confirmed and Correggio
elevated into a county in 1452.66 Such grants gave legitimacy to the autonomy
these families had already enjoyed. When Filippo Maria Visconti recognized
Niccol dEstes lordship over Reggio in 1421, he reserved to himself direct dominion over castles held by several families, the Pico and Correggio among
them.67 He was claiming something he did not have and could not exercise.
More effective were the contracts of accomandigia agreed by the castellans of
the Modenese and Reggiano with the Este. Even after the Imperial grant of the
title of duke of Modena in 1452 was accompanied by the grant to the Este of
authority over the Imperial fiefs in the Modenese and Reggiano, they continued to prefer to base their relations with the military nobility of this region on
ties of accomandigia.
63
64
65
66
67
Gentile, Fazioni al governo, 163.

Lorenzo de Medici, Lettere, I, 203.
Carteggio degli oratori mantovani alla Corte Sforzesca (14501500), VIII, 14691471 (Rome,
2000), 254, 271: Zaccaria Saggi to Ludovico Gonzaga, 3, 15 Aug. 1470, Milan.
Trevor Dean, Land and Power in Late Medieval Ferrara. The Rule of the Este, 13501450
(Cambridge, 1988), 176; Gentile, Fazioni al governo, 110.
Dean, Land and Power, 1667, note 79.
164
Chapter 6
A variety of forms of accomandigia were used by the Este in the fourteenth

and fifteenth centuries, depending on the family concerned and the circumstances in which they were made. Some involved the surrender, temporary or
permanent, of fortresses into the custody of Este troops, some stipulated that
the lord could build new fortresses or repair existing ones. Sometimes the lord
was to be allowed to serve other powers as a condottiere, provided Este permission was given. There were also political arrangements, including grants of
powers of government on behalf of the prince over lands where the Este had
not had direct legal authority.68 The Este liked their raccomandati to reside in
Ferrara rather than on their estates. For those castellans who were content to
gravitate to Ferrara and the Este entourage there were rewards to be had, in the
form of condotte, offices, pensions and grants of lands. On the other hand, it
could be risky to become closely associated with the court, because it gave the
prince more pretexts to become involved in the family affairs of the castellans.
The Este coveted the strongholds of the Imperial fiefholders situated within
their dominions, and quarrels among the joint lords provided opportunities
for intervention, possibly the despatch of troops. Disputes among the Pio cousins who shared the lordship of Carpi eventually led to Ercole dEste obtaining
half of it, ceded to him in July 1499 by Giberto Pio in exchange for the fief of
Sassuolo.69 Giberto had agreed to the exchange two years before, when the
duke was preparing an expedition against Carpi. Putting a stop to the damage
caused to the Pio family and the people of Carpi caused by the chronic dispute
between the cousins, was Ercoles official justification for his taking over Gibertos share.70 Family disputes also stimulated the quest for other patrons,
however. The Gonzaga of Mantua maintained close ties with several of the
noble families in the Modenese and Reggiano, and welcomed them in their
court, on occasion providing military and diplomatic support to them. Giberto
Pios rival, Alberto Pio, turned to Francesco Gonzaga for help, for example, and
Mantuan troops took part in the fighting that broke out in Carpi in 1496. Troops
were also sent there from Modena, Mirandola (Albertos maternal uncle was
Galeotto Pico della Mirandola) and Bologna (Giberto was the son-in-law
of Giovanni Bentivoglio of Bologna). Ludovico Sforza and the Venetians were
68
69
70
Ibid., 1706.
Alberto Sabattini, Alberto III Pio. Politica, diplomazia e guerra del conte di Carpi (Carpi,
1994), 15.
Anna Laura Trombetti Budriesi, Sui rapporti tra i Pio e gli Estensi: lo scambio Carpi-Sassuolo, 396405.
165
interested in Carpi, too.71 After Ercole had sent his soldiers and officials to Carpi, Alberto hoped for Imperial support, but Maximilian delegated authority to
settle the affairs of this Imperial fief to Ercole.72 Other castellans in the Modenese and Reggiano managed to avoid losing their lands to the Este, although the
Pico struggled to hold on to Mirandola, losing control of it to the French for
many years during the Italian Wars.73
Castellans whose lands lay to the west around Parma, who in the early fifteenth century had enjoyed a similar degree of autonomy to that of the Imperial fiefholders of the Modenese and Reggiano, were not able to maintain it.
They came under greater pressure from Filippo Maria Visconti and his Sforza
successors to acknowledge subordination to the duke of Milan as their prince.
Not only were the dukes not prepared to treat them as aderenti, they wanted
castellans to hold their lands from them in fief. From when Gian Galeazzo Visconti received Imperial investiture as duke of Milan in 1395, the dukes had used
grants of fiefs as a means of consolidating control over the border regions of
the duchy, or of extending their authority over the lands of nobles who had
been exercising wide powers of government over their lands and the people on
them. Men granted fiefs in the frontier areas, often in the mountains, were generally new to the area, and had served as condottieri. They might come from
families of military nobility in other regions, like the Dal Verme, originally
from Verona, who were granted the important centre of Bobbio and lands in
the territories of Piacenza and Pavia, in and near the Apennines, or the Sanseverino from the kingdom of Naples, given lands in the footholds of the Alps in
the Val Lugano.74 Fiefholders planted in areas where their family had few, if
any, historic ties, could struggle to displace or establish links with existing local
networks of power and influence. In the eyes of the dukes, the primary role of
such feudatari was keeping order, transmitting and sometimes enforcing, the
dukes orders and wishes.75
Doubtless the dukes would have liked to have this kind of relationship with
the established independent castellans, but there was another important motive behind the drive to make such castellans accept that their lands should
71
72
73
74
75
Some of Gibertos brothers were in the service of Ludovico Sforza, while Albertos brother
Leonello was married to a daughter of Bernardino Martinengo of Brescia, and through
him was soliciting the assistance of Venice. (Riccardo Bacchelli, La congiura di Don Giulio
dEste (Milan, 1931), I, 216.)
Ibid., 218.
Pierre Savy, Les feudataires et le contrle territorial dans le duch de Milan lpoque des
Sforza, 1747; Covini, Lesercito del duca, 1045.
For the Val Lugano, see Della Misericordia, La coda dei gentiluomini, 32743.
166
Chapter 6
henceforth be regarded as ducal fiefs. The independent jurisdiction exercised

by these lords was an affront to the conception of princely authority being
developed by the dukes lawyers. It was not practical to hope to eliminate all
the separate jurisdictions but, through the grant of a fief that involved jurisdiction (a form of delegated authority that lawyers could recognize), the dukes
could assert their authority and a right to intervene if they were not satisfied
with how the delegated powers of justice were being exercised.76 Such fiefs
could legitimize, in the eyes of the prince and his officials, powers of government that castellans had already been exercising and which would be left, to
all effects, the same. But the castellans would be recognizing the superiority of
the prince, that those powers of jurisdiction merum et mixtum imperium
that were the essence of civil lordship were delegated by the prince.
Among the privileges granted to Gian Galeazzo Visconti by the emperor in
1395 and 1396 was one that obliged Imperial fiefholders to submit to the authority of dukes of Milan as Imperial vicars and to swear fidelity to them. In
general the castellans of Lombardy were not ready to accept that because the
ruler of Milan was now a duke and an Imperial vicar, the nature of their relations with him had been fundamentally changed. Attempts to make them
recognize ducal authority over their lands and subjects or their family arrange
ments (the marriages of family members, the inheritance or division of property) met with mixed success. The dukes, even the imperious Filippo Maria
Visconti, frequently had to back down or order their officials to back off, in the
face of protest and resistance from castellans.77
Usually, castellans would only agree to receive in fief from the duke lands
they or their families had previously held without obligation to him, if the estates had been lost or were in danger of being lost through war or confiscation
or family disputes. It was in such circumstances that Gian Antonio Fieschi was
granted the castles of Calestano and Marzolara in 1443 by Filippo Maria Visconti, lands that the Fieschi had held as Imperial fiefs in the fourteenth century but subsequently lost.78 Family crises also presented opportunities to the
dukes to coerce castellans into recognizing their lands as ducal fiefs. Apparently it was the quarrels among the seven sons of Rolando Pallavicini after his
death in 1458 that led to the recognition of the Pallavicini estates as ducal
fiefs.79 In normal circumstances, minor castellans might be pressured into
76
77
78
79
Chittolini, Infeudazioni e politica feudale, 656.

Gentile, Aristocrazia signorile, 1513.
Chittolini, Infeudazioni e politica feudale, 523, 88.
Ibid., 63; Arcangeli, Un lignaggio padano, 689. A ducal chancery note claiming that
Rolando had recognized his lands in fief from the duke after a reconciliation with Filippo
167
a ccepting as fiefs lands or jurisdiction they already held, but more powerful
lords would be resistant to the idea of compromising the independence of
their position, especially those who could rest their case on Imperial investitures confirming their immediate dependence on the emperor, without the
mediation of the duke of Milan as Imperial vicar.80
Such investitures might constitute a defence, but could not stop the war of
attrition waged by the dukes, their officials and their lawyers. Even if at some
point there had been an explicit recognition of the independence of a castellans lands, attempts might still be made to treat them as though they were
ducal fiefs. Privileges associated with grants of lands or jurisdiction in fief
were not safe from challenge or inroads being made on them. Galeazzo Maria
Sforzas own ducal council (which included some feudatari) reminded him
that feudatari whose privileges were infringed had just cause for complaint.81
But the dukes and their officials tended to treat all castellans as being subject
to the same rules, and to the same overriding ducal authority and superiority.
Those who wished to preserve their privileges or their independence intact
had to be on their guard.
Another way in which the dukes tried to make major castellans recognize
their subordination was by insisting that they should reside in Milan and attend the ducal court. Galeazzo Maria Sforza in particular wanted them to play
a role in ceremonies celebrating and manifesting the splendour and power of
the duke.82 Some castellans did acquire fine houses in Milan and live in them
at least part of the time; some were made members of the ducal council. Military condotte might be used to attract the nobility into the service of the duke,
although these were of more significance for younger and minor nobles.83
Close association with the court and the dukes could bring substantial rewards.
Nevertheless, the dukes did not succeed in turning the military nobility of
Lombardy into a court nobility, or in building up real loyalty and a tradition
of service to the duke among them. There were not enough condotte, let alone
seats in the ducal council, to satisfy the ambitions of them all. Nor were the
ducal offices available in the provinces sufficiently prestigious or influential to
attract any but minor nobles or those whose families were in financial difficulties. The hiatus in ducal rule between the death of Filippo Maria Visconti in
1447 and the seizure of power by Francesco Sforza in 1450 was a setback to the
80
81
82
83
Maria Visconti in 1445 appears dubious (Chittolini, Infeudazioni e politica feudale, 923).
Ibid., 5962.
Lubkin, A Renaissance Court, 667.
Covini, Lesercito del duca, 913, 1013.
168
Chapter 6
dukes authority. A decree of 1454 charged feudatari with behaving as though

they were monarchs, not recognizing any superiority in the duke.84 Numerous
Lombard lords would be conscious that their families had been powerful for
several generations, far longer than the Sforza. They might think of themselves
as being superior in nobility and dignity to the Sforza; they would not see
themselves as the dukes inferiors.
The castellans of Lombardy in general saw their relations with the dukes as
personal and political, not constitutional or institutional. They had no concept
of the nobility as being collectively an estate of the duchy; the duchy of Milan
was too recent an entity, not sufficiently well-established for such a concept to
develop. There was no assembly, no parliament, where a sense of common interest and purpose could be generated and formulated. If one family came into
conflict with the dukes over a matter that might also be of more general concern, such as an encroachment on their privileges, they would receive little
support from other noble families not linked to them by close ties of family or
faction. Such conflicts would not turn into a concerted challenge to ducal
authority, or an attempt to force some general concession from the duke.
When the disputes of Lombard castellans with the government of the fifteenth-century Sforza dukes reached the stage at which they became a military
conflict, and ducal troops would be sent against them, the castellans would be
branded as rebels. Because they did not really think of themselves as being
subjects, however, they would not have seen themselves as rebels. Fighting
against the forces of the duke would not be regarded by them as an act of rebellion, but as the legitimate defence of their interests and rights.
Dissatisfied with their treatment by Francesco Sforza, including unsuccessful negotiations for a condotta, the Correggio resorted to military action in
14523. Their campaigns were an unwelcome distraction for Sforza from his
war against Venice, and from his point of view constituted rebellion, not least
because the Correggio had contacts with the Venetians. But they were directed
against the lands of their local rivals the Correggio aimed to seize lands they
claimed, such as their former possession of Poviglio, strategically placed on the
route between their recent acquisition of Brescello and Correggio. The Rossi,
whose lands were among their principal targets, and the Pallavicini supported
the ducal troops, with their men taking part in the fighting, garrisoning fortresses and providing intelligence. Borso dEste suggested that it should be left
to the Rossi to combat the Correggio: in effect, that the conflict in Emilia should
be treated as a private war among the castellans.85
84
85
Catalano, Francesco Sforza, 523.

Covini, Le condotte dei Rossi, 702.
169
The pretext for the ducal army being sent against Brescello in 1468 was
that the Correggio had not obeyed injunctions to renew their oath of fidelity,
and had refused to accept a ducal castellan for the fortress. In the background,
there was the question of the contacts of Manfredo da Correggio in particular
with Venice and his aderenza with Borso dEste as well the desire to curb his
disruptive influence in Parma through the Correggio squadra there. The duke
also needed to find some compensatory action for his army, which had been
gearing up for an attack on Piedmont that had been called off, and was disgruntled at being deprived of the opportunity for booty. This was why a far
more powerful force than was needed was sent against Brescello, including
boats to attack the fortress from the river. Brescello was surrendered; Manfredo
declared himself glad to be rid of the tie to the duke of Milan, but his brother
Antonio maintained relations with the duke. Galeazzo Maria intended to continue the campaign against other fractious feudatari, but his troops were too
numerous, too anxious for loot, to be kept under control and his commander,
Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, advised against it.86
An ambition to become lord of Piacenza was said to be behind the association of Onofrio Anguissola with a peasant uprising against taxation in 1462;
other members of the Anguissola clan did not join him. Pietro Dal Verme, a
local rival of the Anguissola and a ducal condottiere, besieged his fortress of
Masserata with 2,000 men; defended by Onofrios peasants, armed with handguns and crossbows, it fell after several hours of fierce combat.87 The main
force of the peasants was routed in battle, and Onofrio fled and was captured;
he spent the rest of his days in a ducal prison.88
The most significant military action against castellans in Lombardy
under the Sforza dukes was that directed against the Rossi in 14823, which
took place during the War of Ferrara. The diversion of effort from the defence
of Ferrara against the Venetians concerned Milans allies, but Ludovico Sforza
accorded his war against the Rossi higher priority. Pietro Maria Rossi made an
agreement with Venice, but only after Sforza troops had been sent to attack
him.89 He was declared a rebel, and all who helped him were to be treated as
rebels too.90
Pietro Maria maintained his acts were a justified reaction to repeated offences. There were multiple causes for his disaffection, with an intensification
86
87
88
89
90
Covini, Lesercito del duca, 2246; Gentile, Fazioni al governo, 1602.

Savy, Les feudataires, 1845; Covini, Lesercito del duca, 78, n. 93.
Pezzana, Storia della Citt di Parma, III, 220.
Lorenzo deMedici, Lettere, VII, 1112.
Pezzana, Storia della Citt di Parma, IV, 271.
170
Chapter 6
of his rivalry with the Pallavicini underlying many of them. In Parma, the Rossi
squadra was under great pressure; at the ducal court, the Pallavicini were highly influential, especially since Ludovico Sforza had established control over the
regency government in 1480. Rossi blamed their influence for vexatious orders
from the court, including cancellation of his privilege to keep the tax levied to
support the ducal cavalry, and a command to restore the stronghold of Noceto
to the rival Sanvitale.91 The most patient man in the world would not have put
up with so many insults and outrages, he protested, the best servant the Sforza
had ever had was being undone to satisfy the illicit appetites of others.92 In attacking the Pallavicini, he was only responding to provocation, and he intended to keep faith with the government (stato), he claimed.93 But he began to
draw a distinction between the duke who was, he said, the only one who
could command him, and whose commands he would obey, when the duke
reached years of discretion94 and the regime of Ludovico Sforza, in which the
Pallavicini had too great an influence.
The campaign by the ducal troops in the spring of 1482, concentrating on
sacking unfortified villages, did not bring about the mass desertion of Pietro
Marias men or the quick surrender of his castles that Ludovico Sforza had
hoped for. The fortresses had to be fought for and taken one by one. Noceto fell
after a weeks siege by 400 men-at-arms, 3,000 infantry and four bombards.95
San Secondo only capitulated after the death of Pietro Maria on 1 September
1482, having resisted a siege lasting a month, when Guido Rossi decided he had
to withdraw and take refuge with the Venetians.96 Guido continued his fathers
fight with the support of the Venetians, was declared a rebel and lost his lands.
His illegitimate half-brother Bertrando, who said Guido was preparing to take
from him the lands that had been left to him by their father, promised to be
faithful to the regime in Milan and kept his estates.97 Neither Bertrando nor
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
Ibid., 2435; Lorenzo deMedici, Lettere, VI, 3001.

Lorenzo deMedici, Lettere, VI, 3045: Pietro Maria Rossi to Lorenzo, 4 Apr. 1482, San
Secondo.
Carteggio degli oratori mantovani alla Corte Sforzesca (14501500), XII, 14801482, 278:
Zaccaria Saggi to Federico Gonzaga, 30 Jan. 1482, Milan.
Ibid., 302: Zaccaria Saggi to Federico Gonzaga, 22 Feb. 1482, Milan.
Arcangeli, Principi, homines e partesani, 236, note 24.
Ibid., 237.
A large part of the vast estates of Pietro Maria, once they had finally been taken, were
divided amongst those who had fought against him: Noceto went to the Sanvitale, Roccabianca to Gian Francesco Pallavicini. Three of the major strongholds Felino, Torrechiara and San Secondo were assigned in fief to a young son of Ludovico Sforza (Ibid., 253).
171
any other of the Rossi remaining in the duchy could fill the role Pietro Maria
had played for so many years.
The distinction Pietro Maria Rossi made between the duke to whom he professed some loyalty and the regime that was directing the ducal government,
between the legitimate holders of power and those abusing, if not usurping
that power, was one that was familiar, mutatis mutandis, to Ligurian castellans
in their relation to the government of the republic of Genoa. Few would be
described as subjects of Genoa. Many of them were citizens of Genoa, some
were Imperial fiefholders, a few were both. Even if they held a fief of the commune of Genoa, that did not necessarily make them Genoese subjects. When
the term was used of castellans, it would not be a neutral one. Foreigners could
say that the republic had not been able to subdue one of its own subjects, a
council called to discuss the prosecution of a war against Galeotto del Carretto
was warned in June 1448.98
For castellans who were citizens, Genoa was their patria, their homeland.
Any allegiance they felt was to their patria, rather than to any particular form
of government or regime, whether of a doge or a prince. This doge is the destruction of the patria, Pietro Spinola wrote to Spinetta Campofregoso, urging
him to join Ludovico Campofregoso in framing a way to depose the present
regime, and put in place in the city some good and upright government,
through which our patria can be set right again. He appealed to them to do it
for your duty and honour, both being lovers of the republic, and also for your
comfort and security.99
Only the invocation of love of the republic was unusual in this compendium
of reasons for joining in the deposition of a regime. Fifteenth-century Genoese
were not given, as fifteenth-century Florentines or Venetians were, to lauding
the superiority of republican government over the rule of princes. This did not
mean they were not attached to the idea of civic self-government, yet they
could in certain circumstances see an advantage in having an outside prince,
rather than a native doge, as the head of their state. Approaches to outside
powers were common moves in the internal politics of Genoa. Like other
Genoese citizens, castellans were ready to invite a prince to become lord of
Genoa, in order to oust their enemies or prevent them from taking power, and
would not regard this as treachery to Genoa.
Nor was resistance to the regime of a rival faction or efforts to overturn it by
force, even if that meant the castellans leading a small army to Genoa, perceived as rebellion. Given how often castellans took arms against the regime in
98
99
ASGenoa, AS 537, f. 235v (27 June 1448).

ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 158: Pietro Spinola to Spinetta Campofregoso, 6 Apr. 1454, Acqui.
172
Chapter 6
power, it is striking that the term rebellion was rarely, if ever, used in the rec
ords of Genoese councils and committees about these episodes perhaps because it was recognized that they were fighting against the regime of the doge
or prince, not the republic. Resistance to them would be left to the doge and
his own men and supporters, or to the garrison troops of the prince. When
castellans and their allies appeared beneath the walls of the city, it was never
to attack the city itself, or to attempt to take it and hold it by force of arms. At
worst there would be some fighting in the streets, attacks on areas dominated
by a rival faction, never indiscriminate slaughter and looting. Nor were they
attacking the civic government, the officials and institutions of the commune.
None of the sitting members of government committees unless they were
prominent members of the faction in power need fear assault. This is not to
say that the resort to violence by contenders for the dogeship and their castellan backers was seen as an unavoidable nuisance, part of the normal rhythm of
Genoese political life. It was a major reason why so many Genoese could on
occasion reconcile themselves to the submission of their republic to a prince.
Opposition to a doge, even in arms, was not described even by the doges
themselves as rebellion. Having an elevated conception of his own dignity as
doge, Pietro Campofregoso did on occasion accuse his castellan opponents of
lse-majest. Thus in September 1453 he ordered his judicial officer, the vicar,
to enquire about the Spinola who had taken up arms against his government
[stato] and the peace of the city, committing the offence of lse-majest, only
to change his mind two months later, deciding the times urged clemency, and
order his vicar to absolve them.100 Opposition to the rule of a prince who was
lord of Genoa, on the other hand, might be called rebellion, at least by the
prince and his representatives. Gian Luigi Fieschi was described as a rebel by
the regency government in Milan in 1477.101 His brother Obietto was proclaimed a rebel in Genoa in February 1493, but he was called a rebel against the
duke of Milan, not against Genoa.102
Doges of Genoa were not princes, and their office was not such as to inspire
much reverence for the incumbent. Although the Campofregoso and Adorno
saw themselves as having virtually an hereditary claim to the office of doge, to
the established castellan clans of Liguria they were still social inferiors. Looking for support, doges would sometimes try to present themselves as the champions of the popolo against the nobles of Genoa. When the popolo was incited
100
101
102
ASGenoa, AS 3040: orders to vicar from doge, 20 Sept., 23 Nov. 1453.

ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 972: Bona and Gian Galeazzo Sforza to Galeotto del Carretto,
17 July 1477, Milan.
Ibid., b. 1211: Corrado Stanga to Gian Galeazzo Sforza, 7 Feb. 1493, Genoa.
173
against them, the castellans might appeal to a prince as the refuge of

gentlemen.103 It could be easier for them to respect a prince than a doge.
Other things being equal, would the castellans of Liguria have necessarily
preferred the lordship of a prince over Genoa to government headed by a
doge? Apparently, they had no expectations of enjoying a greater role in the
government of the city under a prince. Like other citizens, they did not anticipate or hope for any change to the institutions of government, other than the
dogeship. Aiding the prince to gain control over the Riviere could reap rewards
in grants or confirmation of custody of fortresses. All the fortresses of the western Riviera and many of those on the eastern, were in the possession of the
Ligurian military nobility in the early years of Sforza domination.104 It was impossible, however, for princes to satisfy every one of them, resolving all conflicts and claims, nor were they content to leave the government or the security
of the Riviere to the castellans.105
In some ways, castellans may have found having a prince as head of the
Genoese state more congenial than dealing with a popolare doge. Both
the Doria and the Spinola left Genoa when the French were being ousted
from the city in 1461, and there were Doria among the Genoese nobles who
fought for the French when they unsuccessfully tried to reestablish their rule
in July of that year.106 Spinola and Doria exiles advised Francesco Sforza how
to take over Genoa in 1464, and the Spinola had a prominent role in supporting
the attempts of the Milanese regency government in 1477 to recover control of
Genoa after the city had been lost to them. The Spinola again, and the Fieschi,
helped to bring about the restoration of Sforza overlordship in 1488. Castellans
would not always support princely regimes in Genoa, however. Giovanni del
Carretto da Finale, Gian Filippo Fieschi and the Spinola opposed the installation of the French in Genoa in 1458; Gian Filippo Fieschi died leading an assault on the city in January 1459. His brothers Obietto and Gian Luigi had a very
uneasy relationship with the regime of Galeazzo Maria Sforza and the regency
government that succeeded it. The political stance of the castellans was generally determined by practical concerns, rather than by any ideological or instinctive sympathy for princely rule rather than republican government.
103
104
105
106
Ibid., b. 411: Benedetto Doria to Francesco Sforza, 30 May 1456, Pieve.

Riccardo Musso, El Stato nostro de Zenoa. Aspetti istituzionali della prima domina
zione sforzesca su Genova (146478), 228.
For the Sforza and Visconti lords of Genoa, see ibid., 2289, 232, 2346; Riccardo Musso,
Le istituzioni ducali dello Stato di Genova durante la signoria di Filippo Maria Visconti
(14211485), 802, 1046, 1101.
Christine Shaw, The French signoria over Genoa, 14581461, 523.
174
Chapter 6
Spinola support for the dukes of Milan was a fairly consistent element in
Genoese politics. Some Spinola held lands in the duchy of Milan and individuals, sometimes with the formal backing of their albergo, occasionally sought
offices in the duchy or a place at the Milanese court. They were looking for ducal patronage to help them make a living, not for positions from which they
might exercise political influence in the duchy. Politically, the Spinola, like the
other Ligurian castellan families, were focused on Genoa and the Riviere. Their
hostility to the Campofregoso, who were more successful than the Adorno at
keeping a grip on the dogeship during the fifteenth century, meant that the
Spinola spent much time in exile (usually self-imposed) from the city.
Luca Spinolas declaration in 1485 of his intention to keep the banners of the
duke of Milan flying in Genoese territory specifically over his fortress of Pieve
during the dogeship of Paolo Campofregoso,107 was not made from disinterested loyalty to the duke. As he explained, maintaining this place [Pieve] in
devotion to the duke, with the government of Genoa in the hands of the Fregosi would be expensive, he was in exile for political reasons, and was spending
his own money so that the duke could recover Genoa and he could go home,
and he wanted a subsidy from Milan.108 The Doria found themselves in that
position when Prospero Adorno was doge in 1478, and proffered advice to the
Milanese government on how to recover Genoa. Backing Battista Campofregoso and making him governor, was their suggestion, citing among the other advantages that they themselves would be freed from exile.109
Relations between the major branches of the Fieschi and the dukes of Milan
in the second half of the fifteenth century covered the gamut from extravagant
expressions of devotion Gian Filippo Fieschi assured Francesco Sforza that
he was my god in this world110 to war as Milanese troops fought to take all
their lands. In the 1450s Gian Filippo devoted much effort to persuading Francesco Sforza that he was the best guarantor of Milanese influence in Genoa.
What he wanted from the duke was backing against doge Pietro Campofregoso
(who was arguing much the same case for Sforza helping him defeat Gian
Filippo). The doge asked Sforza to bring pressure to bear on Gian Filippo
through his lands in Milan, asking him to take custody of Borgo Valditaro and
Varese in order to force Fieschi to accept arbitration.111 Not wishing to antago-
107
108
109
110
111
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 994: Luca Spinola to Gian Galeazzo Sforza, 24 Mar. 1485, Lerma.
Ibid.: Luca Spinola to Bartolomeo Calco, 14 July 1485, Pieve.
Ibid., b. 984: Familia de Auria to Pierfrancesco Visconti, 12 Aug. 1478, Sassello.
Ibid., b. 407: Gian Filippo Fieschi to Francesco Sforza, 17 Dec. 1451, Montoggio.
Ibid., b. 408: Pietro Cotta to Francesco Sforza, 12 Sept. 1453, Genoa.
175
nize either party, Sforza avoided taking sides, exhorting them to come to a
peaceful compromise.
Once he became lord of Genoa, the terms of the equation changed. The
Fieschi were no longer a potentially useful means of intervention in Genoese
politics: they were a potential challenge to the authority of the duke over Gen
oa. Gian Filippos brother Obietto was especially difficult to control, and during the periods of Sforza rule was generally forced to stay in exile out of
Genoese territory, sometimes in detention in Milan. It was his younger brother
Gian Luigi who led the Fieschi forces that joined in the rebellion against the
Sforza in 1477 and who had to confront the might of the Milanese army that
was sent to suppress it. In 1478 Obietto was released from prison in Milan, at
the behest of Genoese nobles who argued he could have the siege of the Milanese garrison holding out in the fortress in Genoa lifted. He promised he would,
but when he reached Genoa concentrated on replacing the Adorno doge with
a Campofregoso one. Although he had come to Genoa to act in the interests of
Milan, he was reported to have said publicly, once he arrived he had decided to
be a good Genoese and do as the others were doing.112
Having fallen out with doge Battista Campofregoso in 1481, Obietto claimed
he could recover Genoa for Milan if he were given 30 mounted crossbowmen,
25 men-at-arms, 300 infantry and 1,000 ducats.113 From the Milanese perspective, the Fieschi had again become potential counterweights to the doge. Understandably, Obietto was still regarded as untrustworthy, and best kept away
from Genoa. Gian Luigi, however, did come to inspire enough confidence in his
fidelity for him to be given a prominent role in the regime after Genoa again
submitted to Sforza dominion, with Agostino Adorno as governor, in 1488.
When Obietto became involved in plots against the regime and took part in
Neapolitan-backed attempts to overthrow it in 1494,114 Gian Luigi remained
loyal. All Obiettos property and the pension he had been given was transferred
to his brother because of the fidelity he had shown in combatting the Neapolitan fleet.115
Gian Luigis role at the heart of the government of Genoa, while he also held
sway over most of the eastern Riviera, was the pinnacle of Fieschi influence in
Genoa during the fifteenth century. Obietto would have liked to hold such a
112
113
114
115
Ibid., b. 996: Giovanni Giapanno to Bona and Gian Galeazzo Sforza, 29 Aug. 1478, Ovada.
Ibid., b. 992: Gian Galeazzo Sforza to Filippo Sacromoro, 4 July 1481, Milan.
Alfonso II was trying to prevent Genoa being used as a port for the French fleet preparing
for Charles VIIIs invasion of the kingdom of Naples.
ASMilan, ASforzesco, Registri ducali, 50, p. 346: letters patent of Ludovico Sforza, 5 Jan.
1485.
176
Chapter 6
position, but even if he had managed to attain it, was too volatile to have maintained it. The Adorno brothers resented any implication that Gian Luigi had an
official share in the authority of the government of Genoa,116 and there was
often considerable tension between them and him. Difficult as it was to keep
the three men working together amicably, the Milanese commissioner who
kept a watchful eye on them felt it was better that Gian Luigi should be in Gen
oa than live outside it, which might embolden enemies of the regime.117
The doges could not have tolerated the head of the Fieschi clan residing in
Genoa, and having a direct voice in all important discussions and decisions. Yet
they all, Campofregoso or Adorno, had to deal with the pretensions of the Fieschi to a special position within the republic. Citizens the Fieschi might be, and
were sometimes called, but the leading Fieschi might also be referred to as a
limb (membro) of the republic. Not even the Spinola or the Doria were referred to in that way. It was because of their claim to a special status that they
might be included separately in treaties, as a principal limb of the community
of Genoa.118 Naturally, the doges and Genoese hostile to the Fieschi or wearied
by the unrest they caused, preferred to see them as citizens. You should know
what every citizen owes his patria, Raffaele Adorno admonished Gian Antonio
Fieschi; the Fieschi owed more than most, because of the honours and dignities they had received over the generations.119
The Fieschi considered the honours and dignities they received as their due,
their right; the heads of the family thought of themselves as the partners of the
doge in government. And to their chagrin, several of the doges had to come to
terms with the Fieschi, promising them a share in their patronage, and a pension.120 These agreements are an indication of both the strength and the weakness of the Fieschi. The doges had to accept them, because the Fieschi could
make it so difficult for them to maintain power. The Fieschi needed them, because they were unable to sustain the role to which they aspired in Genoa and
particularly in the eastern Riviera from their own resources: they needed the
pension as much as they needed a share in the doges patronage. They could
not afford to stand apart from the politics of the Genoese republic and assume
the role of fully independent lords of castles. Had they done so, their influence
and prestige would have been much diminished. Yet their involvement in
116
117
118
119
120
Ibid., b. 1220: Corrado Stanga to Ludovico Sforza, 30 Oct. 1496, Genoa.

Ibid., b. 1221: Corrado Stanga to Ludovico Sforza, 16 Dec. 1496, Genoa.
Ibid., b. 410: Gian Filippo Fieschi to Francesco Sforza, 3 Feb. 1455, Recco.
ASGenoa, AS 1788 bis, f. 177r: Raffaele Adorno to Gian Antonio Fieschi, 2 Sept. 1444.
For example, ASMilan, Registri ducali, 18, pp. 500504 (Pietro Campofregoso and Gian
Filippo Fieschi, 21 Oct. 1452).
177
enoese politics brought them many troubles, and in the end led to the deG
struction of the family.
The Roman barons, by contrast, were able to take a far more detached attitude to the popes and to the government of the Papal States. There was little to
bind the Roman barons to the pope, or to induce them to regard him as their
prince, with an overriding call on their service and their loyalty. There was no
role for the lay barons at the papal court, and they were not expected to spend
their time there. No offices in the Papal States were reserved for them, or customarily given to them. Popes turned to members of their own families and
households and to favoured cardinals for counsel and companionship. Only
Roman barons who were cardinals sat in Consistory, and they did so as cardinals, not as barons. When lay barons participated in some papal ceremonies,
such as the procession to the Lateran of a newly-crowned pope, they did so
because of their association with the city of Rome, not because they were in
any sense a papal nobility.
There were no opportunities to form bonds of hereditary loyalty to a dynasty, even during this period, when several popes were related to a predecessor on the papal throne. Popes came and went more quickly than secular
princes tended to do, their pontificates generally lasting about a decade, if that.
Lay papal nipoti, who the popes tried to insert into the ranks of barons or lords
in the Papal States, were tolerated at best, usually resented as intruders. Conscious of the precariousness of their position, papal nipoti did sometimes try to
establish links with Roman baronial families generally with the Orsini hoping for their support when the pope died. Barons, however, showed little or no
inclination to prop up papal nipoti after association with them ceased to offer
the prospect of condotte and favours.121 It was common knowledge that papal
families came and went, but baronial families endured: it was precisely because they endured that papal nipoti wanted to forge lasting bonds with them.
Those who tried to break this pattern by seeking to eject the barons and replace them by their own families as Sixtus IV did and, on a spectacular scale,
Alexander VI did failed. Ferrante of Naples prophetically warned Alexander
what would happen if he tried to give the barons lands to his children: he
should bear in mind that once he was dead, his children would be alone, outsiders, and unlikely to be supported by his successors; he should try to give
them beds of their own, not place them in the beds of others.122
Rather than express submission to an individual or to the papacy as an institution, the barons would be more likely to acknowledge a duty of obedience to
121
122

Trinchera (ed.), Codice Aragonese, II, ii, 424: Ferrante to Luigi de Paladinis, 17 Jan. 1494.
178
Chapter 6
la Chiesa, the Church, as their temporal sovereign. In periods of sede vacante,

between the death of one pope and the election of his successor, in assuring
the cardinals that they would not try to interfere with the conclave in any
way, the barons would stress their loyalty to the Church. The whole Orsini family would be good and faithful subjects of Holy Church, Virginio Orsini assured
the College of Cardinals after the death of Innocent, and were ready to defend
its state and its liberty with their lives and their estates, being bound to do this
for the sake of their patria, and because the Orsini had received so many benefits from the Church.123 A baron might call himself the popes servant, or even
his subject, if it was expedient to do so, but such expressions were often coupled with a declaration of fidelity to the Church, and could be accompanied by
a caveat. He wanted to be a good and faithful servant of Sixtus and the Church,
Mariano Savelli wrote to Sixtus IV, and would do whatever the pope wanted
except return to the papal prison from which he had just escaped.124
Roman barons were far from alone in having slight regard for the pope as a
temporal prince: the pope aroused little reverence among his subjects. Nor did
the pope as a prince arouse much respect from other Italian powers. They encouraged the barons to put their commitments as condottieri before any duty
to the pope, an order of priorities which came quite naturally to the barons. A
reputation as a reliable soldier was of more lasting value to a baron than the
goodwill of any pope, was the calculation. Commending the reply given by
Girolamo Conti to Sixtuss demands that he should ensure his father Giovanni,
who was in the service of Milan, came to Rome that the pope should not believe that Giovanni would breach his faith the Milanese ambassador argued
that even if the pope confiscated his lands (as he was threatening to do) this
could not be anything but temporary, because another pope would restore
them to him later.125
Occasionally, a pope would assert the right to approve or veto the condotte
of Roman barons with other powers generally in reaction to particular circumstances rather than in an effort steadfastly to uphold a legal principle. How
much weight was given to his approval or veto would also depend on the circumstances. Giacomo Conti had to turn down a Florentine condotta he wanted
to accept, because Innocent was so keen to keep him that when Giacomo deliberately asked for conditions he believed would be unacceptable to the pope,
123
124
125
Johannes Burckhardt, Diarium sive rerum Urbanarum commentarii (14831506), ed. L.

huasne, I, 5756; Filippo Valori to Otto di Pratica, 1 Aug. 1492, Rome.
T
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 93: Antonio Trivulzio and Branda da Castiglione to Gian Galeazzo
Sforza, 30 July 1483, Rome.
Ibid., b. 86: Gian Angelo Talenti to Bona and Gian Galeazzo Sforza, 27 Apr. 1479, Rome.
179
he agreed to everything, and clearly would not give Giacomo permission to

leave. In this case, Giacomo was bound by the terms of his contract that specified an optional year which Innocent was determined to enforce. Giacomo felt
bound by the obligations of a condottiere, rather than those of a subject.126 At
the same time, Innocent tried to prevent Virginio Orsini having a condotta with
Ferrante, maintaining that being a subject of the Church, Virginio cannot
commit himself personally to the king without the permission and consent of
the pope.127 Virginio did not let Innocents objections stand in his way, but did
what suited his own interests best; by the end of the year he was governorgeneral of the men-at-arms of the league of which Ferrante was a member,
which was at war with the pope. At the end of the war, Innocent wanted a
clause inserted in the peace terms to the effect that neither side could renew
any condotte with the vassals of the other a clause clearly aimed at the Orsini
condottieri of the league and one that Milan and Florence did not want to accept.128
The pope could also object to other powers nominating Roman barons
among their raccomandati in treaties. Paul II was furious that the king wanted
to defend the Orsini as though they were not his [the popes] subjects.129 When
a renewal of the general league supposedly uniting the Italian powers was being discussed in 1475, Sixtus wanted a clause that none of the parties to it might
nominate the vassals or subjects of another as aderenti or raccomandati.130 In
fact, except insofar as clauses in condotte promising protection were analogous
to raccomandazioni, Roman barons did not, in general, formally become raccomandati or aderenti of other powers.131
126
127
128
129
130
131
ASFlorence, X di Balia, Carteggi, Resp., b. 30, c.144: Guidantonio Vespucci to X, 13 Jan

1484(5), Rome.
ACapitolino, AOrsini, b. 101, c. 10: Francesco da Castello to Virginio Orsini, 13 Jan. 1484(5),
Rome.
Paladino, Per la storia della Congiura de Baroni, 48 (1913), 248: Battista Bendedei to
Ercole dEste, 8 Sept. 1486.
ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 843, c. 465: Bartolomeo Marasca to Barbara Gonzaga, 27 Aug.
1467, Rome.
Ibid., b. 845, c. 347: Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga to Ludovico Gonzaga, 24 Feb. 1475, Rome.
The Orsini di Pitigliano were an exception to this rule, as they had some contracts of
accomandigia with the republic of Siena. The conti di Pitigliano had long been territorial
rivals of their Sienese neighbours, and occasionally went to war against them. The accomandigie Aldobrandino Orsini agreed with the Sienese in 1442 and 1455 were part of
peace settlements after such a war; the first included a modest condotta. (Giugurta Tommasi, DellHistorie di Siena (Siena, 20026), I, 400402; II, 768, 8290; Luciano Banchi, La
guerra de Senesi col conte di Pitigliano (14541455)) For the Sienese, these accomandigie
may have appeared to be recognition by Aldobrandino of subordination to the republic,
180
Chapter 6
Of all the relationships formed by the barons with other powers, the one
that popes watched most jealously, and most wanted to control, was that with
the king of Naples. It was not only that they had to compete for the loyalties of
those barons who held lands in both the Papal States and the kingdom of Naples, but that the kings of Naples were fully aware of how useful an instrument
Roman barons could be in putting pressure on the pope. Give condotte to the
Orsini and Colonna, take them and their estates under protection, for there
can be no more secure or honourable way to force this or any other pope to live
as a universal pastor should, Ferrante urged his allies in September 1485.132 If
the barons would unite and stay on the side of the king and the league, it would
be to their advantage too, he argued, because every pope was bent on undoing
the barons.133 The popes might wish that, as Sixtus wrote to Ferrante, the king
would leave his barons alone as the pope leaves his vassals in the kingdom
alone.134 Sometimes they had to acknowledge that for some Roman barons the
king was their sovereign too, but they wanted the obligation to them to be given priority, or at least that the king should not treat the resources of the barons
in the Papal States as though they were at his disposal. Innocents proposed
solution to Virginio Orsinis dual loyalties was that Virginio should hold a papal
condotta, with his lands in the Papal States freed of any obligation to other
powers, and one of his sons could serve Ferrante, for his estates in the kingdom.135
Acknowledging, however reluctantly, that the barons might have commitments to other rulers that affected their commitments to the Roman Church as
a temporal power, was one thing; accepting the barons reservations about having a duty of obedience to the commands of the pope as their prince was another. Clerics in general, not only the popes, had ready recourse to the weapons
of excommunication and interdict against anyone who crossed them even
over trivial matters that had nothing to do with the spiritual functions of the
Church. Similarly, the popes were ready to label as rebellion any challenge to
their secular authority by their subjects. In their efforts to enforce their author-
132
133
134
135
but there was no indication that he thought of them in that way. Niccol Orsinis agreement with the Sienese in 1470 was as much a condotta as an accomandigia; they paid him,
nominally for a cavalry command, for several years (Angelo Biondi, Il lungo feudalesimo
di un territorio di confine,1256), but he was actually in the service of Ferrante during at
least part of this period.
Corrispondenza degli ambasciatori fiorentini a Napoli, II, 3245: G. Lanfredini to X di Balia,
30 Sept. 1485, Foggia.
Ibid., 558: G. Lanfredini to X di Balia, 17 May 1486, Naples.
ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 76: Sacromoro to Galeazzo Maria Sforza, 1 May 1474.
ACapitolino, AOrsini, b. 102, c. 20: Obietto Fieschi to Virginio Orsini, 15 Jan. 1485.
181
ity in the Papal States where it had been weak for so long, the popes might describe as rebellion behaviour that the barons regarded as customary or
legitimate giving refuge to outlaws and exiles on their estates, conducting
private wars, fighting as condottieri against the pope. Thus Innocent and the
College of Cardinals warned the Colonna and the Orsini who were fighting
over lands the Colonna claimed that were held by a brother-in-law of Virginio
Orsini, to lay down their arms or be declared rebels.136 But the barons would
not call themselves rebels: if they were at open war with the pope, they could
still fall back on the position that they were loyal to the Church.
In the 1430s, the Colonna and other barons had openly defied the rule of
Eugenius IV over Rome and the Papal States, taking and holding lands, even
towns, to which they had no claim, helping create a situation in which the
pope felt compelled to flee from Rome for his own safety, and it took a major
military effort to recover control.137 Two decades later, Jacopo Savelli and Everso degli Aguillara were associated with the condottiere Jacopo Piccinino, who
brought his troops to the Papal States as the civil war in Naples spilled over into
papal territory. Jacopo Savelli also received rebellious Romans at his stronghold of Palombara, although he refused to send troops with them when they
made a foolhardy attempt to rouse the Romans against the pope. Everso was
accused of plotting against the popes life.138 Pius wanted the punishment
meted out to Savelli, as papal troops were sent to devastate his lands and take
Palombara, to be exemplary, to cow all the other Roman barons.139 Savelli submitted to the pope, and kept his estates. Everso also managed to pass on his
lands to his heirs, his sons Deifebo and Francesco, but they were excommunicated by Paul II after refusing the terms he offered when they tried to recover
an estate, Caprarola, over which they claimed rights, and Paul did not give
them back after his troops had taken them.140
By the last decades of the fifteenth century, although the barons were still
considered capable of posing a threat to the pope, particularly if backed by the
troops of another power, there were indications of a perception that the popes
were in a position to be a threat to the barons, that these priests are continu-
136
137
138
139
140

18 July 1485, Rome. For this dispute, see Shaw, The Political Role, 1756.
Pio Paschini, Roma nel Rinascimento (Bologna, 1940), 12448.
Piccolomini, I commentarii, I, 27783, 771, 813, 8257, 843, 871, 95167; II, 222531.
ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 841, c. 64: Bartolomeo Bonatto to Ludovico Gonzaga, 6 May 1461,
Rome.
Sora, I conti di Anguillara, 8792.
182
Chapter 6
ally trying to bring you all down.141 Sympathetic as they were to the desire of
the Romans to have a greater role in the government of their city, the barons
were not challenging the legitimacy of the papal government in Rome or in the
wider Papal States. But if they became more circumspect in opposing the pope,
were more inclined to feel they had to offer some justification if they did oppose him, their sense of allegiance to the pope as their prince does not seem to
have increased.
The best-known and least equivocal instances of rebellion by the military
nobility in Italy in the second half of the fifteenth century were those in the
kingdom of Naples.
In a sense, the rebellion and civil war in the early years of Ferrantes reign
from 1459 to 1464 was just business as usual for the barons of the kingdom, a
resumption of the turmoil that characterized the reigns of the last Angevin
monarchs of Naples. Support from Neapolitan barons had been crucial in
Alfonso of Aragons conquest, and he made concessions to them in order to
keep it. Perhaps he was hoping to replicate the settlement that had fostered
peace in the kingdom of Sicily during his reign. After the reaffirmation of Aragonese rule in the island following the civil wars of the fourteenth century, the
composition of the Sicilian military nobility had been transformed. New families, some from the Spanish kingdoms, replaced the mighty clans that had
fought to dominate the island. The key to survival and prosperity for Sicilian
barons became cooperation with the crown.142 In Naples, although there were
sufficient grants of baronial estates to men from Alfonsos Spanish and Sicilian
realms to arouse a sense of grievance among Neapolitan barons, there was not
the wholesale transformation of the baronage that there had been in Sicily.
Alfonsos confirmation of baronial rights and privileges brought over a decade
of comparative peace but had not won the allegiance of the barons to his dynasty. The formal recognition of Ferrante as heir to the kingdom by the barons
assembled at a Parlamento in 1443 could not guarantee their fealty to him on
his succession.
Ostensibly, at least some of the barons who rebelled against Ferrante soon
after he came to the throne were fighting to replace him with an Angevin king.
Loyalty to the Angevin dynasty was never cited, however, either by the barons
or by others as the prime motive for rebellion. The Angevins had not even been
the first choice of the disaffected barons as an alternative to Ferrante: their
141
142
ACapitolino, AOrsini, b. 102, c. 172: Santi da Curcumello to Virginio Orsini, 13 Oct. 1487,
Florence.
Pietro Corrao, Governare un regno. Potere, societ e istituzioni in Sicilia fra Trecento e Quattrocento (Naples, 1991), 20360.
183
initial approach had been to another, legitimate Aragonese prince, Carlos de

Viana.143 Increased taxation under Alfonso had generated some popular nostalgia for Angevin rule, and a need to lighten the burden of taxes and correct
the injustices of Alfonsos reign were cited by one of the first barons to rebel,
Giosia Acquaviva, when explaining his own discontent in the early stages of
Ferrantes reign.144 Nevertheless, neither he nor the other barons were rebelling to defend the people of the kingdom against abuse of the power of the
crown. Neapolitan barons, by and large, accepted they were subjects, and
none, not even the principe di Taranto, aspired to take the crown himself. Yet
the crown had no mystique for them, and they had little sense of the sacrality
even of a consecrated king. Neapolitan barons were habituated to a weak
crown and dynastic conflicts. They did not seem to feel that rebellion required
ideological or ethical or legal justification.
Although it could hardly be expected of Neapolitan barons that they should
be naturally loyal to the monarch, there seems to have been no curiosity about
what motivated those who consistently stood by Ferrante throughout the war.
Enquiries were made of his most prominent opponents, by various interme
diaries, about their motives. Mainly diplomatic envoys, the intermediaries
were concerned with finding out on what terms the individuals they spoke to
might be brought over to the king. Personal and family grievances and feuds
and ambitions figured large, and no discussion or statements of general principle about the relation of the barons to the crown emerge from the reports of
these negotiations.145 It has always been assumed that they had no general
principles, and were entirely concerned with their personal affairs, and that
might well be the case. Nor does it seem that the Sicilian and Spanish nobles
who had joined the ranks of Neapolitan barons had brought a new perspective
on the relations between the barons and the crown. If the Sicilian barons in
this period were quiescent, those of the Spanish kingdoms rivalled the Neapolitans for recourse to rebellion and civil war and exploitation of dynastic
conflicts.
The kingpin of the rebellion, the baron the king feared the most, was the
principe di Taranto, Giovanni Antonio Orsini. This was not because of his qualities as a military leader or political strategist, which were uninspiring. Rather
than looking to him for leadership, other barons turned to him for support
because of his wealth and power. He had the resources not only to raise his
own army and hire condottieri, but to pay for the troops of others. Jean dAnjou
143
144
145
Nunziante, I primi anni, 17 (1892), 5717, 7323.

Dispacci sforzeschi da Napoli, II, 54: Orfeo Cenni to Francesco Sforza, 28 July 1458, Capua.
For example, ibid., 539; ibid., 97102; Giovanni Caimi to F. Sforza, 29 Aug. 1458, Teano.
184
Chapter 6
was heavily reliant on him for financial as well as military support. No one was
more aware than Orsini himself of the influence he could have on the course
of the war: he claimed it was in his power to send the Angevins packing.146 He
had the arrogance to propose that the king should reject the help Francesco
Sforza was sending him, and instead join him in paying the condottiere Jacopo
Piccinino, the Angevin captain-general, and that the king should have no more
troops than he did himself.147 If the princes deeds had been as bold as his demands, had he been a better soldier, a more open-handed ally, the outcome of
the war might have been very different.
As it was, although his attitude to Ferrante was hostile from the start, and
although he was instrumental in bringing Jean dAnjou to the kingdom, he delayed rebelling openly until dAnjou arrived. So grudging was his attitude to
providing the resources the Angevins required from him, that Ferrante felt he
could rely on that for his own ultimate victory.148 After the heavy defeat of
dAnjou at the battle of Troia in August 1461, the prince was among the barons
who opened negotiations with the king. The terms he agreed in September
secured his own interests, and did not include either dAnjou or Piccinino. The
war continued, as dAnjou stayed in the kingdom and some barons persisted in
their rebellion. In the spring and summer of 1463, Orsini was stirring again
in Puglia, but news in August that Piccinino had come to terms discouraged
him and the other remaining rebels. Papal and Milanese envoys reinforced the
efforts of Ferrante to make a fresh agreement with him. Complaining that the
king had not observed the terms agreed the year before, he rejected the offer of
a son of Ferrante as a hostage and pledge that the king would fulfil his promises when he could, and asked for some lands as a guarantee instead.149 His
violent death (at the hands of conspirators) in November 1463 was considered
the salvation of Ferrante.150 Soon all his vast estates and treasure were in the
kings hands, and nearly all his cavalry 21 squadrons went over to the service
of the king.151
Changes of side by barons during the war, even repeated changes of side,
occasioned little surprise. They cannot be relied on from one day to the next,
146
147
148
149
150
151
Nunziante, I primi anni, 21 (1896), 274.

Dispacci sforzeschi da Napoli, IV (Salerno, 1998), 50: Antonio da Trezzo to F. Sforza, 27 Jan.
1461, Somma.
Ibid., 23 (1898), 173.
Ibid., 176. For the obscurity surrounding the exact circumstances of his death, see
Giovanni Papuli, Documenti editi ed inediti sui rapporti tra le universit di Puglia e Ferdinando I alla morte di Giovanni Antonio del Balzo Orsini, 3756.
185
wrote a Milanese ambassador, Antonio da Trezzo, although he believed they

did not do this out of malice; with that ease with which they rebel, so
they return every time they see the king strong in the field.152
These comments were made with particular reference to the Sanseverino
after Ferrantes defeat at the battle of Sarno on 7 July 1460, which lost him the
support of a considerable number of barons, among them Roberto, conte di
Sanseverino. He sent a message to Ferrante, saying he was only going over to
the Angevin side to save himself, and would change allegiance again as soon as
circumstances allowed.153 Within a few months, he judged the time was ripe,
and came back to the king. Delighted by this reconciliation, considering it a
great boost to his cause because of the counts estates and his following among
the Sanseverino and other barons, the king displayed his trust by sharing a bed
with him when the count came to see him in January 1461.154 Becoming one of
Ferrantes most trusted commanders, the conte di Sanseverino played a major
role in the recovery of Calabria and other territory for the king. Luca da Sanseverino, duca di San Marco, had defected to the Angevin side shortly after the
battle of Sarno, returning to Ferrante at the same time as Roberto did. Putting
a higher price on his allegiance than the count did, he wanted a promise in
writing of lands in Calabria, among other things. Ferrante was prepared to give
this promise; the count himself advised him to make it but not keep it, because
he thought it unscrupulous of the duke to make such demands.155 Services to
the king brought important territorial gains to both. In 1463, Roberto was permitted to buy the principality of Salerno for 50,000 ducats, and Luca to buy
Bisignano for 10,000 ducats, being granted the title of prince two years later.156
The city of Salerno had been held against the king after the rebellion of the
former principe di Salerno, Felice Orsini. The young prince (he was aged about
seventeen) and his brothers Daniele, conte di Sarno and Giordano, conte di
Atripalda, had vacillated for months before they came out in open rebellion.
After Daniele and Giordano had done so in May 1460, Felice sent to Ferrante to
say that unless he was helped to defend his lands, he would be forced to make
terms with the enemy.157 Although he did rebel in June, he swiftly retracted
when papal troops arrived to support Ferrante, only to switch again after the
152
153
154
155
156
157
Ibid., 20 (1895), 479: Antonio da Trezzo to Francesco Sforza, 16, 23 July 1460.
Ibid., 479.
Dispacci sforzeschi da Napoli, IV, 14: A. da Trezzo to F. Sforza, 12 Jan. 1461; 18, Ferrante to
F. Sforza, 12 Jan. 1461.
Nunziante, I primi anni, 20 (1895), 21: A. da Trezzo to F. Sforza, 12 Jan. 1461, Naples.
Colapietra, I Sanseverino, 35.
186
Chapter 6
battle of Sarno.158 Felices lands, and apparently Felice himself, came under the
control of the principe di Taranto, his uncle; he was thought a fool for having
put himself in the princes hands.159 He may have had no choice but to remain
a rebel, losing all his lands and living out his life in exile.160 Daniele was forced
to agree terms in March 1462 after Sarno was besieged; he kept Sarno but
had to cede other estates. The estates of the third brother, Giordano, were confiscated.161
Ferrante had not expected Felice Orsini and his brothers to rebel. He had
allowed them to succeed to the fiefs of their father, Raimondo Orsini, despite
their illegitimacy, and Felice was betrothed to Ferrantes natural daughter,
Maria. An even more personal blow to Ferrante was the rebellion of Marino
Marzano, principe di Rossano, who was married to his sister Eleonora.162 Rossano was suspected of colluding with the principe di Taranto, before he openly
rebelled on the arrival of Jean dAnjou, who disembarked on Rossanos estates
in the Terra di Lavoro in November 1459.163 In an agreement with dAnjou, he
was promised the confirmation of all his lands and privileges and important
estates he coveted in that region, including the counties of Fondi and Traetto,
and in Calabria.164 In May 1460, when the king was attacking his lands, he
asked for terms, proposing a meeting with Ferrante. As Rossano took his leave
after the meeting, the men who were with him tried to assassinate the king,
who was saved by his armour. Ferrante pretended to believe that his brotherin-law was not complicit in the assault, but few gave credence to that.165 One of
the last barons to fight on, Rossano eventually came to terms with Ferrante in
August 1463. Even then he continued to give Jean dAnjou refuge on his estates.
Only after dAnjou finally left the kingdom in April 1464 did he go to see Ferrante, who received him with feigned cordiality. Rossano did not trust the king,
or want to provide the guarantee the king sought, and when he returned to
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
Dispacci sforzeschi da Napoli, IV, 62, note 3.

From 1470 he became a condottiere of the duke of Milan (Covini, Lesercito del duca, 309
10).
Nunziante, I primi anni, 22 (1897), 206; Colapietra, I Sanseverino, 32.
Marzanos father, Giovanni Antonio, duca di Sessa, had fought for Alfonso in his wars to
conquer the kingdom, although towards the end Alfonso had suspected him of being
among the barons he felt were holding back and not pressing on to secure an Aragonese
victory, because they were profiting too much by the war (Ryder, Alfonso, 232).
Dispacci sforzeschi da Napoli, II, 404.
187
Ferrantes camp in June, he was arrested. He would be a prisoner for the rest of
his days.166
Another rebellious baron to die as a prisoner of the king was Antonio Centelles, marchese di Cotrone. Of Catalan origin, Antonio and his two brothers
had come from Sicily to Naples with Alfonso. He played a major role in winning
Calabria for Alfonso, but when he married Enrichetta Ruffo, a rich heiress
there, instead of persuading her to marry Iigo dAvalos as the king had ordered him to do, he lost Alfonsos confidence. Warned that Alfonso was planning to detain him, he rebelled.167 Alfonso pardoned him in February 1445, but
confiscated all his fiefs, and insisted he should stay in Naples.168 After Alfonsos
death Centelles posed as a victim of injustice. In September 1458, he went to
join the principe di Taranto, who championed his cause and added restoration
of Centelles estates to his list of demands of Ferrante, justifying this by the
betrothal of his daughter to Centelles eldest son.169 Centelles, fomenting rebellion in Calabria, protested that he did not want to recover his lands through
the good graces of the king, but to take them himself.170 By agreeing that the
principe di Taranto should have custody of the estates, Ferrante fostered dissension between him and Centelles. When Ferrante went to Calabria in September 1459, Centelles came to his camp to seek his pardon; Ferrante promised
clemency, then arrested him. Contriving to escape from prison in April 1460,
Centelles returned to Calabria with a few men, but did not get the welcome he
had hoped for. Having again sued for pardon, he and his wife had all their lands
restored in June 1462. For the remainder of the war, Centelles fought for the
king in Calabria, being rewarded with the title of principe di Squillace. In
October 1465, his daughter was married to a natural son of the king, Enrico, but
a few months later, Centelles was arrested by his son-in-law, imprisoned, and
all his estates confiscated. Whether there was a specific motive for his deten-
166
167
168
169
170
Ibid., 23 (1898), 1935; Volpicella (ed.), Regis Ferdinandi Primi Instructionum liber, 363.
Pontieri, La Calabria, 112.
Growing restless, Centelles went to northern Italy, where he served Venice and the
Ambrosian Republic of Milan, before falling foul of Francesco Sforza who imprisoned
him. Escaping from incarceration, he returned to Naples where he was given a pension
and a position at court (Ibid., 11820).
Dispacci sforzeschi da Napoli, II, 163: Pietro Beccaria and Antonio da Trezzo to Francesco
Sforza, 18 Nov. 1458, Andria.
Arm.-Ad. Messer (ed.), Le Codice Aragonese (Paris, 1912), 120: Ferrante to Juan II of Aragon,
4 Oct. 1458, Andria.
188
Chapter 6
tion (other than Ferrantes desire for revenge), and when and how he died, are
all unknown.171
Ferrante struggled throughout the war to pay for his own troops. Some of
the condottieri who fought for him had to be paid, at least in part, with estates
or the promises of estates. A large part of the lands of Felice Orsini and his
brothers was given to another Orsini, Orso, as the price of his going over to Ferrante. Orsos origins are obscure; he was probably not from one of the Neapolitan branches of the family.172 He had been brought into the war as a condottiere
by the principe di Taranto in late 1458, and had spent much time campaigning
in the Terra di Lavoro, using Nola, one of Giordano Orsinis estates as a base.
One of the most troublesome commanders fighting against Ferrante the Angevin victory at the battle of Sarno owed much to him the king was glad to
have him when he changed sides in December 1461. For the remainder of the
war, he was a mainstay of Ferrantes military efforts and his services were rewarded by the grant of the duchy of Ascoli in 1464. Having become a Neapolitan baron, he would be one of the select few trusted by Ferrante.173 Francesco
Sforzas nephew, Roberto da Sanseverino (not to be confused with Roberto,
conte di Sanseverino) had come to the kingdom before the war to claim the
lands that his father Leonetto had held; he had recovered most of them but
not the county of Caiazzo. Sent again in late 1460 by Francesco Sforza to support the king, he was used by Ferrante both as a military commander and in
negotiations, particularly with his Sanseverino relations. He was rewarded
with the county of Caiazzo in April 1461. Roberto Orsini, brother of Napoleone,
was brought into Ferrantes service with the promise of the counties of Tagliacozzo and Albi.174 Napoleone stayed in the Papal States and on the frontiers of
171
172
173
174
Pontieri, La Calabria, 10053; Volpicella (ed.), Regis Ferdinandi Primi Instructionum liber,
3157.
He has sometimes been confused with other individuals bearing the same name. It is
most likely that he was the son of Gentile Orsini da Pitigliano. If he was of the line of
the conti di Pitigliano, it might explain why he was known as the conte Orso; Niccol
Orsini, conte di Pitigliano, would claim to be his heir.
Volpicella (ed.), Regis Ferdinandi Primi Instructionum liber, 3845; Francesco Storti, Il
principe condottiero. Le campagne militare di Alfonso duca di Calabria, 338; and see
above, p. 112.
These counties had reverted to the crown on the death of Gian Antonio Orsini, conte di
Tagliacozzo, in 1458. For the explicit association of the grant of the county of Tagliacozzo
with military service to be rendered by the brothers, see Messer (ed.), Le Codice Aragonese, 41926: instructions of Ferrante to Antonio Cazo, 31 Jan. 1460, Naples. Ferrante
held back on the grant of Albi, hoping to use it to appease the Colonna, who also claimed
the counties, but the Orsini would not be content until he granted them that as well.
189
the kingdom, while Roberto Orsini became one of Ferrantes most reliable
commanders throughout the war. Pope Pius IIs support had to be paid for by
the marriage in May 1461 of his nephew Antonio Todeschini Piccolomini to
Maria, the natural daughter of Ferrante and the couples endowment with substantial estates. Pius hoped for the duchy of Sessa, but had to be content for his
nephew to be made duca dAmalfi, and later be given the county of Celano as
well. Antonio did not prove ungrateful, fighting well for Ferrante in the war,
and remaining faithful to him thereafter.
Fortunately for Ferrante, some barons who were already established in the
kingdom were loyal to him throughout the war. Prominent among them was
Onorato Caetani, conte di Fondi. He guarded the northern frontier of the Terra
di Lavoro, where his estates were concentrated, and was made governor of the
city of Naples a clear indication of the kings confidence in him when Ferrante took the field again after his defeat at Sarno in 1460. His fidelity earned
gifts of more lands, including the county of Alife, and permission to buy others,
including Traetto.175 Also steadily loyal to the king were Francesco del Balzo,
duca dAndria, brother-in-law of Ferrantes queen, Isabella, and his son Pirro.
Andria was near the estates of the principe di Taranto, and del Balzos lands
were attacked by the prince. Forced to surrender after Andria was besieged for
forty days, Francesco was held prisoner until the prince made terms with Ferrante after the battle of Troia.176 Pirro was married to the daughter and heiress
of the principe di Tarantos brother, Gabriele, which made him an enemy of the
prince rather than a friend, because of an inheritance dispute.177 Both Francesco and Pirro del Balzo were key figures in the military efforts to contain the
prince; their interests and the kings were clearly connected.
The brothers Iigo and Alfonso dAvalos and their half-brothers Iigo
and Fernando de Guevara had been Alfonsos trusted companions in arms and
courtiers, and Ferrante had confidence in them too. All fought for him in the
war. After Ferrantes defeat at Sarno, at which Fernando de Guevara was captured, Iigo de Guevara and the dAvalos helped the king to rally by providing
him with six squadrons of cavalry and hundreds of infantry, around 2,000 men
in all.178 Iigo de Guevara did most of his fighting in the Abruzzi where the
bulk of his estates lay, and campaigning with the king (he died from natural
causes in September 1462). Alfonso dAvalos fought the rebellion in Calabria in
175
176
177
178
Volpicella (ed.), Regis Ferdinandi Primi Instructionum liber, 3345.

Ibid., 2745; Carteggio degli oratori mantovani, IV, 243, note 2.
Dispacci sforzeschi da Napoli, II, 349: declaration of envoys of the principe di Taranto to
Ferrante and the kings response, 20 Aug. 1459.
Ibid., IV, 48, note 7.
190
Chapter 6
1458 and 1459, defeating Antonio Centelles, and showing great ruthlessness in
the massacre of peasants who had joined the rebellion, and then campaigned
mainly in his home province of the Abruzzi and in the Terra di Lavoro.179
Faithful servants of the crown as they were, the Guevara and dAvalos were
also part of the problem that Ferrante had from the start in finding a modus
vivendi with his Italian barons. Although many of the Catalans (as the Aragonese, Castilians and Sicilians as well as Catalans who had come to Naples in
Alfonsos time to serve the king or try their fortune tended to be indiscriminately labelled) had left after Alfonsos death, Ferrantes reliance on those who
stayed on caused much resentment. Some barons had more personal grievances, when estates to which they felt they had a right had come into the hands
of Catalans. Having waited sixteen years for Ferrante to become king and
right the wrongs they had suffered, Antonio Caldora and his son Restaino
warned, they would be very disappointed if Ferrante chose to uphold their rivals. They could bear patiently what might be done at the instance of native
Neapolitans, but could not tolerate what might be done at the instance of an
unknown barbarian, the enemy of the king (meaning Iigo de Guevara).180
Ferrante did not deny he favoured the Catalans. If he made use of them, it was
because they were experienced and served willingly and faithfully, he said.181
None of the Italian lords were of any use to him, he argued, because Alfonso
had not employed any.182
He did claim that he wanted to live as an Italian, with the counsel, aid and
support of Italians, but in saying that he seemed to have Italian states, rather
than Neapolitan barons, in mind.183 Barons who flocked to the city of Naples at
the beginning of the reign, dreaming of places of honour around the king and
military commands, left disillusioned. Unquestionably, their aspirations had
been exaggerated; ten kingdoms would not have sufficed to satisfy them all, it
was said. If none of the Italians were given cause to envy one another, they
could all share in envy of the Catalans Ferrante favoured, especially Iigo
dAvalos.184
179
180
181
182
183
184
Ibid., IV, 9, note 8.

Ibid., II, 57: report of Orfeo Cenni to Francesco Sforza, [28 July] 1458. Guevara had apparently been given some Caldora lands in the Abruzzi.
Ibid., 126: A. da Trezzo to F. Sforza, 22 Sept. 1458, Venafro.
Ibid., 102: Giovanni Caimi to F. Sforza, 29 Aug. 1458, Teano.
Ibid., 14950: A. da Trezzo to F. Sforza, 17 Oct. 1458, Sulmona. He made these remarks in
the context of a discussion of his relations with the Florentines, and an assurance that he
did not intend to be dependent on the king of Aragon.
Ibid., 10910: B. Antici da Recanati to F. Sforza, 30 Aug. 1458.
191
Ferrante maintained that the barons wanted to stay at home on their estates
and expected him to send to them for advice, which he was not prepared to do.
If they would come to stay at court with him, then he would consult them
more than others.185 But once their initial hopes for honours and offices and
positions of influence had been dashed, there was little to attract the barons to
the court, and Ferrante would not try very hard to bring them there, except
to constrain those he did not trust to reside in Naples, where he could keep an
eye on them. Few barons became his counsellors or coadjutors in governing
the affairs of the kingdom, or companions in his leisure. Ferrantes military reforms after the war, his intent to prevent the barons from having their own
companies of men-at-arms, manifested his lack of confidence in them.186 The
chivalric order of the Ermine, founded by Ferrante in 1465, could be viewed as
a means of forging bonds of loyalty with at least a select group of barons, but
to have his own chivalric order was perhaps primarily a matter of international
prestige.187
The war left a legacy of mutual distrust and suspicion. It was thought
that the arrest of Antonio Centelles in 1466 might mark the start of Ferrante
taking revenge, one by one, on the barons who had fought against him.188 The
barons he had imprisoned were not pardoned or released; indeed the son of
the principe di Rossano, Giovan Battista Marzano was incarcerated with his
father when he was still a child. But Ferrante did not take piecemeal revenge
on those who had managed to keep their liberty and stayed in the kingdom,
and was prepared to pardon exiled barons and restore their lands. He would
cite his welcoming back to the kingdom in 1480 Angelo di Monforte, son of
Cola, conte di Campobasso, and the restoration to him of his fathers county, as
proof of his willingness to reward those who would serve him.189 More to the
point, perhaps, was his admonition to his son Alfonso to keep a curb on his
tongue: Alfonso should take example from him, for he had never threatened to
punish the barons who had rebelled against him; much has to be feigned.190
185
186
187
188
189
190
Ibid., 148: Tommaso Moroni, Pietro Beccaria and A. da Trezzo to F. Sforza, 16 Oct. 1458,
Sulmona.
See above, p. 112.
Giuliana Vitale, Araldica e politica. Statuti di Ordini cavallereschi curiali nella Napoli aragonese (Salerno, 1999), 5564.
ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 805: Gian Francesco Gonzaga to Ludovico Gonzaga, 1 Feb. 1466,
Naples.
Volpicella (ed.), Regis Ferdinandi Primi Instructionum liber, 164: Ferrante to Antonio Phiodo, 20 Sept. 1487.
Albini, De Gestis Regum Neapo. ab Aragonia, 2812: Ferrante to Giovanni Albini, 22 Dec.
1483, Naples.
192
Chapter 6
Harsh, arrogant, as suspicious as his father, Alfonso was not suited to providing
an alternative focus of loyalty to his dynasty or to the crown. His fathers advice
did not restrain him from uttering threats against the barons. He spoke openly
of his wish that all the land for thirty miles around the city of Naples should be
brought into the royal demesne.191 Reports also reached the barons that his
declared intention was to reduce the income and authority of the Neapolitan
barons to that of the Lombard castellans with the example of the destruction
of the power of the Rossi in mind.192
This remark was particularly alarming for the barons who held lands in the
Terra di Lavoro, not least Antonello da Sanseverino, principe di Salerno, who
became a central figure in the second major rebellion against Ferrante in the
Barons War of 14856. Other episodes reinforced concern that Ferrante and
Alfonso were seeking to weaken the barons. One was the imprisonment in 1485
of the two young sons and heirs of Orso Orsini, duca dAscoli (who on his
deathbed had commended them to Alfonso, whose military mentor he had
been), and the confiscation of their estates, on the grounds that the boys were
spurious, not really Orsos sons.193 Another was the arrest of the conte di Montorio, who had great influence over the city of LAquila; Ferrante accused him
of behaving as though LAquila were his city rather than the kings, interfering
in the administration of justice and hindering the collection of royal revenues.194
Ill-feeling was also being generated by a dispute over the prospective inheritance of the two daughters of Pirro del Balzo, principe dAltamura, who had no
sons surviving.195 One of the daughters was married to Pedro de Guevara (son
of Iigo), the other betrothed to Ferrantes son, Francesco. Ferrante wanted his
daughter-in-law to inherit all her fathers estates. In August Guevara sent to the
king signifying his agreement to the renunciation of his wifes inheritance, in
return for compensation in grants of other lands and revenues, which the king
agreed. But by then rumours had already reached the king of a conspiracy
191
192
193
194
195
Corrispondenza degli ambasciatori fiorentini a Napoli, II, 208: Giovanni Lanfredini to

Lorenzo de Medici, 23 July 1485, Naples. The remarks were made while he was still in
Lombardy after the War of Ferrara, but became known in the kingdom.
Ercole dEste, 24 May 1485, Naples.
Ibid., 355: Battista Bendedei to Ercole dEste, 2 July 1485, Naples. He would be released in
late October on his promise to use his influence there on behalf of the king (Corrispondenza degli ambasciatori fiorentini a Napoli, II, 3789: Giovanni Lanfredini to X di Balia,
28 Oct. 1485, Naples).
Ercole dEste, 4 Aug. 1485, Naples.
193
among the barons, involving Guevara, the princes of Altamura, Salerno and
Bisignano, Andrea Matteo Acquaviva, marchese di Bitonto, and Giovanni Caracciolo, duca di Melfi, and that they had appealed to the pope as overlord of
the kingdom for help.196
This rebellion was much less general in its extent than the previous one Ferrante had faced, and far fewer barons joined in it. Nevertheless, the leading
figures in it were among the greatest barons of the kingdom. Clear personal
motives, fears, disappointments, grievances, can be found that could explain
their revolt. But this time the rebels also invoked some more general principles
than their own interests, and they did make some attempt to act together, not
just fight and negotiate each on his own individual account. At the beginning,
it was reported that they were to rise up invoking Liberty and the Church
(Libert e chiesa).197 Towards the end, in September 1486, the principal barons took an oath on a consecrated host, committing themselves and their heirs
to remain united. They had been acting throughout, they declared, for the
public good and the common benefit of ourselves and of the kingdom, with
the authority of the pope. Their common purpose was just and honest, useful
and fruitful not just for themselves and their adherents, followers and subjects,
but to the whole commonwealth of this kingdom.198
Nevertheless, the terms they asked of the king soon after related to the usual
range of personal interests: restitution of all lands and offices they had lost
during the war; that the daughter of Pedro de Guevara (he had died in September 1486) should inherit her fathers lands as he had left them to her in his will;
that the marriage of Francesco dAragona to Altamuras daughter be annulled,
or that the dowry should be in cash not lands; and that the barons should never have to come to Naples.199 Ferrante expressed concern that if he agreed to
such terms, they would only make it easier for the barons to rise up again
whenever there was a crisis in Italian affairs, or at the death of the king. He had
to defeat them, or at least bring down some of them, as an example to the others and a warning to stay obedient in future.200
196
Corrispondenza degli ambasciatori fiorentini a Napoli, II, 263: Giovanni Lanfredini to X di

Balia, 28 Aug. 1485, Naples.
197 Ibid.
198 Porzio, La congiura de Baroni del Regno di Napoli, ed. dAloe, CXLIV-CXLV: text of the oath,
11 Sept. 1486.
199 Corrispondenza degli ambasciatori fiorentini a Napoli, II, 7134: Giovanni Lanfredini to
Lorenzo de Medici, 8 Oct. 1486, Naples; Paladino, Per la storia della Congiura dei Baroni,
46 (1921), 241: Battista Bendedei to Ercole dEste, 30 Nov. 1485.
200 Corrispondenza degli ambasciatori fiorentini a Napoli, II, 465: Giovanni Lanfredini to
Lorenzo de Medici, 11 Jan. 1486, Naples.
194
Chapter 6
If the barons acted together in negotiating and formulating their demands,

they did not coordinate their military efforts. Each fought in their own provinces to defend their own estates or to grab other places they claimed or coveted if they saw an opportunity, or to raid nearby places in the royal demesne
Altamura, Bitonto and Guevara in the Abruzzi and Puglia, Bisignano and his
brother Carlo, conte di Mileto in Calabria, the principe di Salerno in the Terra
di Lavoro. This time no claimant to the throne came to give some semblance of
broader strategic aims. The heir to the Angevin claims, Ren dAnjou, Duke
of Lorraine was called on to come to Naples in the spring and summer of 1486,
but this was an initiative of the pope, or rather of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, who was the driving force behind Innocents support for the rebellious
barons. At an earlier stage, as negotiations between the king and the barons
were giving way to fighting, they detained Ferrantes second son Federico and
tried to suborn him, offering to accept him as king in place of Ferrante or
Alfonso, but he turned them down.201
It was reckoned that the rebels held 800 of an estimated 2,000 or so terre
murate, walled towns, townships and villages in the kingdom.202 But they did
not have many troops, and could not even by a combined effort have put together a field army to match that raised by the principe di Taranto twenty-five
years before. Ferrante had anticipated that the war would have to be fought on
multiple fronts, and had to send much of his army to the Papal States, so he
could not muster overwhelming force to put down the rebels. Nor could he afford to send troops or money to defend his demesne lands or assist loyal barons, and had to allow them to use royal revenues collected locally to provide
for their own defences.203 At least in this war there were no major defections
of barons who were not rebels from the start, although the Florentine ambassador for one suspected their loyalty and that of the demesne lands would
vacillate if the rebels received reinforcements from outside the kingdom.204
Giovanni Caracciolo, duca di Melfi, while sending his brother Giacomo off to
seize the county of Avellino (that Giacomo had lost as a rebel in the early
1460s), did not declare for either side until August 1486 when he finally accepted a condotta from the pope.205 Had Ferrante been prepared to offer him a
condotta of the size Caracciolo believed he merited, he would have sided with
201
202
203
204
205
Ibid., 412: G. Lanfredini to X di Balia, 22 Nov. 1485, Naples.

Ibid., 4412: G. Lanfredini to X di Balia, 14 Dec. 1485, Naples.
Vitale, Le rivolte di Giovanni Caracciolo, 2941.
195
the king.206 Ferrante did not hire condottieri this time to command the campaigns against the rebels; he used his sons Francesco, Federico and Cesare, and
his grandson Ferrandino as commanders instead.
Most of the forces engaged in the Barons War were not in Naples, but in the
Papal States. It was there that the armies of Ferrante and his allies, Florence
and Milan, confronted the papal troops led by Roberto da Sanseverino. According to him, there was a scheme to divide Naples among the pope, who would
be lord of the whole kingdom, with direct rule over Capua and some surrounding territories, Roberto himself, who would have estates where he chose worth
50,000 ducats a year and the port of Manfredonia on the Adriatic coast, and the
barons, who would share the rest of the kingdom, according to their respective
rights of inheritance.207 Although the plan was for him to lead the papal troops
to the kingdom he did not get that far, as the leagues armies kept him engaged
in the defence of Rome until the pope began to run out of money and resolution. Some papal troops under Giovanni della Rovere Cardinal Giuliano della
Roveres brother and himself a Neapolitan baron as he held the duchy of Sora208
did enter the kingdom, but there were not enough to compensate for the
weakness of the barons forces.
The higher allegiance the barons could say they owed to the pope as overlord of the kingdom, was a matter of concern for Ferrante, as it sanctioned
their rebellion; the barons were primarily subjects of the pope, Cardinal della
Rovere argued.209 When Ferrante came to the throne, Pope Calixtus III had
been hostile and would not recognize him as the legitimate ruler. Fortunately
for Ferrante, Calixtus had soon died and the succeeding pope, Pius II, had accepted him. Appeals from the barons to Pius to support the Angevins were rejected.210 Innocents support for the barons arguably did them more harm than
good, for it encouraged them to rebel but did not result in the military aid they
had expected, and it heightened Ferrantes suspicions, making him more determined to show himself master in his own realm. Innocent continued to assume the role of protector of the barons after he had made peace with the
league in August 1486, and Ferrantes vengeful treatment of them bedevilled
his relations with the king for the rest of his pontificate. Other than protect and
207 Paladino, Per la storia della Congiura dei Baroni, 45 (1920), 3434: Ercole dEste to Battista
Bendedei, 10 Oct. 1485, Ferrara.
208 Granted to him in 1475, during the papacy of his uncle, Sixtus IV.
209 ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 995: frate Bernardo da Milano to Ludovico Sforza, 24 Apr. 1486,
Genoa.
210 Nunziante, I primi anni, 20 (1895), 481.
196
Chapter 6
give refuge to those who sought exile, notably the principe di Salerno, there
was little he could do for them.
Ferrante justified his revenge on the rebels by their oath to act together in
September 1486 which, he argued, was contrary to their oath of homage to him;
they could not be faithful or obedient vassals, if when he gave a command to
one of them, the response was that the baron would only obey if the others
agreed.211 His reprisals began immediately after the signature of the peace,
with the arrest of two of his ministers, Antonio Petrucci and Francesco Coppola, who had conspired with the rebels, but not been in open rebellion themselves. Fearing for their safety if they all came to renew their oath of homage to
Ferrante, as he wished them to do, the rebels sent one of their number, the
conte di Mileto, to take the oath on their behalf.212 They were unable to resist
Ferrantes insistence that they should surrender their major fortresses into the
custody of his men: for their peace and security, as well as his, he maintained.213
But they did not feel safe. In January 1487 the principe di Salerno fled to
Rome, to exile; his young son Roberto and the conte di Mileto were detained in
June to prevent their following him. On 4 July, when the barons had gathered
for a tournament in the Castelnuovo of Naples, other former rebels were
rounded up Altamura and his brother Angilberto, conte dUgento, Bisignano,
another Sanseverino, Barnab, conte di Lauria (and his mother Giovanna, a
Sanseverino matriarch who had considerable influence within the clan), and
the duca di Melfi. Ferrante claimed they were plotting again, with Salerno, Cardinal della Rovere and the duke of Lorraine.214 Transcripts of the interrogations of the prisoners and other witnesses were printed and published, to
justify their detention.215 None of the prisoners were ever released, except for
the boy Roberto da Sanseverino, who was finally given his freedom during the
French invasion of Naples in 1495. By then all the others were dead, the circumstances of their deaths as mysterious as those of their predecessors imprisoned
after the first rebellion. Their deaths did not bring ruin to their families, however. Ferrante emphasized that he did not intend to take all their lands; he was
not acting for revenge, he said, or to confiscate the barons property, but to
211
212
213
214
215
Ercole dEste, 23 Oct. 1486.
Ibid., 2534: Battista Bendedei to Ercole dEste, 3 Oct. 1486.
See above, p. 29.
Lorenzo de Medici, Lettere, X, 411.
Porzio, La Congiura de Baroni, ed. dAloe, I-CCLXXIII.
197
make sure that the barons could not do the same again.216 Although some estates were granted away, the bulk of them were recovered by their heirs.
Italian barons and castellans were not unique among the military nobilities
of Europe in being reluctant to call themselves, or think of themselves, as rebels. In their case, this was not because of any contumely attached to rebellion
in itself, to the implied breach of faith to a sovereign lord, but because many
would not recognize that they had a duty of loyalty and obedience to a sovereign prince or republic, let alone a duty of unconditional loyalty and obedience. Many could, with justification, deny they had any sovereign other than
the emperor who in the fifteenth century was a source of legal validation
rather than a political power in Italy. As part of the efforts that princes and republics were making in the second half of the century to consolidate their control over their territories, there was more pressure on barons and castellans to
acknowledge that they were subjects or vassals.Even if they would acknowledge this in certain circumstances, they still resisted the concomitant idea of
subordination, of a duty of obedience, especially if obedience to the sovereign
conflicted with other obligations, or with what they perceived to be the honour
or interests of themselves and their families. Aderenze or accomandigie, or the
contract between a condottiere and his employer, could constitute as strong a
bond, whose obligations might be given as much weight as that of a subject to
a sovereign. When an aderenza included a condotta, or a condotta a promise of
protection, it could be difficult to distinguish one from the other. Barons and
castellans preferred such voluntary associations, and were inclined to give
them precedence, if they could, over commands posited on the power of a
sovereign over a subject. It was with these attitudes and ideas that barons and
castellans confronted the challenges and opportunities of the Italian Wars.
216
Paladino, Per la storia della Congiura dei Baroni, 48 (1923), 2889; Volpicella (ed.), Regis
Ferdinandi Primi Instructionum Liber, 1312: Ferrantes instructions to his envoy to the
King of Hungary, 7 Aug. 1487.
198
Chapter 7
CHAPTER 7
Allegiance and Rebellion II: The Italian Wars

The Italian Wars, with the irruption of the kings of France and Spain and the
emperor into the state system of the peninsula, complicated questions of allegiance for the military nobility throughout Italy. Many were faced with unavoidable choices, on which could hang grave consequences for themselves
and their families. These choices weighed most heavily on the barons of the
kingdom of Naples and the castellans of Lombardy, the main areas of contention among the ultramontane powers. The bulk of the military nobility in these
regions harboured no great affection or loyalty towards the Sforza dukes of Milan, Aragonese kings of Naples or Venetian patricians whose rule was challenged. Accepting an ultramontane prince as their lord instead need not have
occasioned them much moral anguish, provided they were left in possession of
their lands. They might, indeed, hope that a non-resident prince would allow
them a greater degree of autonomy. But there could be no guarantee that those
who pledged their loyalty to an ultramontane prince would receive the benefits and the recognition they might have hoped for. Although the ideas, expectations and way of life of the Italian rural nobility had much in common with
their German, French and Spanish counterparts who came to Italy as soldiers
and officials, the ultramontanes generally assumed the air of conquerors, of
superiority to Italians of whatever social rank. Members of different nations
were often more conscious of their differences in language and customs than
of any similarities in their values, and relations between the nobilities of the
various nations were frequently imbued with mutual disparagement, rather
than mutual respect.
One of the characteristics associated with Italians in general by other nations was mutability, seen as infidelity. When the Spanish and French kings
were at war, for a subject of one king to switch allegiance to the other was
viewed as treachery. Italian nobles were not accustomed to seeing changes of
allegiance in this light. Choices of allegiance were usually made on the basis
of local politics, factions, family feuds and loyalties, as well as personal interests, in the light of current political circumstances and the fortunes of war, not
on the basis of which prince had the best right. These were the forces in play
when families had divided allegiances, with some members serving one prince
and some another; such divisions were rarely the outcome of calculated family
strategies, a hedging of bets. Those who had pledged allegiance or service to
one prince, but then changed their minds when circumstances changed could
199
consider they were making a rational choice, which might require some justification but could be understood and accepted. Not that it always would be,
particularly by the prince whose service they were leaving but ultramontanes
were more likely to condemn such behaviour, and to treat it as treachery or
rebellion.
What would prove to be the opening campaign of the Italian Wars was the
expedition led by Charles VIII of France in 14945 to conquer the kingdom of
Naples, which he claimed as the heir of the Angevins. Exiled Neapolitan barons, including Antonello da Sanseverino, were prominent among the small
group encouraging the king to launch this expedition. Letters Antonello wrote
to barons in Naples, urging them to serve Charles, provided Alfonso II with a
pretext to arrest several barons, including Guglielmo da Sanseverino, conte di
Capaccio and his son, and Luigi Gesualdo, conte di Conza, and his sons and
brother.1 Few Neapolitan barons fought for Ferrandino (who had succeeded to
the throne abandoned to him by his father Alfonso); one of those who did was
Alfonso dAvalos, marchese di Pescara.2 His fortress of Monte San Giovanni refused to surrender to the invading French army and its defenders were massacred; Pescara himself defended the fortress of Castelnuovo in the city of Naples
for Ferrandino. Charles was only in the kingdom for a few months and Ferrandino soon recovered it; the French army left behind surrendered just over a
year later. The second French conquest of Naples in 1501 or rather of that half
of the kingdom assigned to Louis XII in the agreement he had made with Ferdinand of Aragon to divide it between them lasted a little over two years,
before the army was decisively defeated by the Spanish army commanded by
Gonzalo da Crdoba.
The Neapolitan exiles who had accompanied Charles had been eager to recover their estates, and the French barons with him avidly sought grants of
lands from the king. But there was no influx of French barons, under Charles or
during the later conquest under Louis XII, that permanently altered the composition of the Neapolitan baronage. In general, the French who were granted
baronial estates had no intention of settling in the kingdom, and were more
than willing to convert their lands into cash, when they could find a buyer. The
Angevin barons, as those who fought on the side of the French were known,
were another matter: the problem they posed persisted for decades.
Antonello da Sanseverino fought for the French holding out in the kingdom
against Ferrandinos reconquest, only making his own peace with the king, in
1 Carlo De Frede, Limpresa di Napoli di Carlo VIII. Commento ai primi due libri della Storia
dItalia del Guicciardini (Naples, 1982), 2624.
2 The son of Iigo dAvalos.
200
Chapter 7
August 1496, shortly after the surrender of the French commander Montpensier and his army. He came to terms reluctantly, at one stage saying he would
do so only if he received assurance that Charles VIII had no intention of
launching a new expedition, that his estates and castles were all restored to
him freely, that he would not be obliged to pay dues as a vassal of the king, or
be obliged to go to him.3 Bernardino da Sanseverino, now principe di Bisignano in place of his father Girolamo, who had never emerged from Ferrantes
prison, had been reconciled to the king a few months before.
Ferrandinos death in early October 1496 meant that the sincerity of Antonellos submission to him was scarcely tested. Both he, as principe di Salerno,
and Bernardino acknowledged the new king, Federico, but soon doubts and
suspicions grew between them and the king. Neither attended his coronation
in August 1497. Antonello kept up contacts with the French and Federico knew
it. Having determined he must move against the principe di Salerno, the king
went to great lengths to justify his actions beforehand, summoning two assemblies of the Parlamento and publishing a lengthy manifesto explaining how the
prince had shown himself to be a French partisan, our enemy and rebel, and
how it was his duty not to allow a disobedient subject to bring war to the kingdom.4 If the king wanted his estates, the prince replied, he would have to come
to take them sword in hand. This Federigo did, leading a campaign that took
most of Salernos estates within a few weeks. Holding out in his fortress of Diano, where the inhabitants put up a fierce resistance to the siege, the prince
finally surrendered on 17 December, negotiating a safeconduct for all those in
the fortress with him, and safe passage for himself, his son Roberto, and his following to Senigallia.5 The principe di Bisignano was not with them; he had
stayed loyal to the king, and was in his camp during the campaign.6 But he
would be arrested some time later with others, including his brother Giacomo,
conte di Mileto, accused of corresponding with Louis XII.7
Roberto da Sanseverino, a prisoner of the Crown since his detention in 1487
at the age of two, had finally been released in 1495 by Ferrandino. After his fathers death in exile in Senigallia in January 1499, Roberto made his way to
France, returning to Naples in 1501 with the invading French forces. In May
1502, Louis XII granted him all the estates his father had held and the title of
3
4
5
6
7
Sanuto, I diarii, I, cols 275, 277.

Porzio, La congiura de Baroni, ed. dAloe, 20714.
Ibid., 2167. His brother-in-law Giovanni della Rovere was lord of Senigallia.
Giuseppe Galasso, Il Regno di Napoli: Il Mezzogiorno spagnolo (14941622) (Turin, 2005),
146.
201
principe di Salerno.8 Both he and Bisignano fought for the French as they battled with the Spanish, when their accord over the division of the kingdom collapsed. Roberto was present at the decisive French defeat on the Garigliano in
December 1503, and was with the survivors who surrendered to the Spanish
general, Gonzalo da Crdoba, a few days later.
In their negotiations for the surrender the French showed scant concern for
the Italians who had fought for them. Their indifference alienated the Angevin
Neapolitan barons who had made their way into exile, who felt free to make
terms with Gonzalo if they could. Some of those who found their way to France
were reported to be asking the king for absolution from their oath of allegiance.9 Attempting to keep the principe di Salerno loyal, Louis XII wrote to
assure him that preparations were under way to recover the kingdom and restore him to his lands and lordships. If he made peace with Ferdinand and Isabella, Louis promised, he would have a care for Roberto and the services he had
rendered.10 Roberto, however, wrote to ask Louis for permission to settle his
own affairs with Gonzalo.11 Both he and Bisignano made their peace with the
new regime in Naples, accepting Ferdinand of Aragon as their king. Roberto
travelled to Spain to marry a niece of Ferdinand. After his death in November
1508, their son, Ferrante, was brought up in Naples by a Spanish guardian, Bernat Vilamar, who married his ward to one of his own daughters.
Louis did have some care for the Angevin Neapolitan barons in a treaty he
concluded with Ferdinand in October 1505, which contained provisions for
their repatriation and the liberation of those who were still prisoners in Naples.12 These captives were only freed by Gonzalo in September 1506, as he realized that a long-heralded visit to Naples by Ferdinand would finally happen.
Gonzalo had made numerous grants of the property of rebels who had fought
for the French, exiled barons among them, adding further complications to the
already difficult problem of the restitution of lands claimed by returning
Angevin barons. It would be impossible to satisfy everyone whose interests
were involved, and the process diminished the loyalty of some of those who
had taken part in the conquest of the kingdom.13 On Ferdinands arrival in
Naples in late October 1506 he was accompanied by a number of Angevin
8
9
10
11
12
13

Sanuto, I diarii, IV, cols 8178.
Ibid., col. 845: copy letter Louis XII to Roberto da Sanseverino, 27 Jan. 1504, Lyon.
Giustinian, Dispacci, III, 1334: 4 June 1504.
Galasso, Il Regno di Napoli: Il Mezzogiorno spagnolo, 171.
Carlos Jos Hernando Snchez, El reino de Npoles en el Imperio de Carlos V. La consolidacin de la conquista (Madrid, 2001), 62.
202
Chapter 7
barons who had gone from France to Spain, and in his formal entry into the
city, Angevin and Aragonese barons were placed together in symbolic reconciliation.14 The king had already been promoting marriages to bring Angevin
and Aragonese families together. Whatever Ferdinands desire to reintegrate
the Angevin barons, the process of restitution, involving as it did judicial proceedings to examine and prove title to disputed lands, was long and slow and
still not complete a decade later at Ferdinands death.
His grandson and successor, Charles, under the influence of his Flemish advisers, made a treaty in August 1516 with Louis XIIs successor, Francis I, who
called himself King of Naples. In connection with this treaty, Charles issued a
decree ordering all barons who had been granted lands of Angevins who were
still in exile to give them back.15 A group of barons, including Ferrante Francesco dAvalos, marchese di Pescara and Fabrizio Colonna, as duca di Tagliacozzo, declaring they would rather die than return disputed lands to rebel
Angevin barons, sent Pescara to protest to Charles. In reply, Charles spoke
guardedly of his appreciation of the services rendered by the barons to his
grandfather, and his determination not to do anything to their prejudice as a
consequence of his treaty with the French king, but postponed any detailed
response until he should come to Naples himself (which he would not do until
1535).16
Pescaras uncle, Iigo dAvalos, marchese del Vasto, had been one of the last
barons to hold out for Federico as the kingdom was overrun by the French and
Spanish forces in 1501. He had been given custody of the strategically important island of Ischia in the bay of Naples, which fell within the French share of
the kingdom. Disobeying orders from Federico, who had sailed from Ischia for
exile in France, to hand over the island to the French, Vasto defended it against
them. He transferred his allegiance to the Spanish instead, making terms with
Gonzalo de Crdoba and participating in the expulsion of the French until his
death in September 1503. No adult male dAvalos was left and the guardianship
of his children and of his brother Alfonsos son was assumed by their sister
Costanza. She brought up their sons to be soldiers, and to be faithful to the new
Spanish dynasty of kings of Naples.17 Ferrante Francesco, marchese di Pescara
and Alfonso, marchese del Vasto, would be among the most loyal Italian commanders of Charles V.
14
15
16
17
Ibid., 1156.
Hernando Snchez, El reino, 22933.
Papagna, Tra vita reale e modello teorico, 55763.
203
Just before his death in 1525, Pescaras fidelity was tested when he was offered the crown of Naples by Gerolamo Morone, chancellor of Francesco II
Sforza, Duke of Milan. Morone was involved in trying to organize an Italian
league against Charles V. Pescaras pretence of considering joining the conspiracy, his revelation of it to the emperor and his arrest of Morone would be seen
as treacherous by Italian patriots for centuries to come. In his confession, Morone said that the idea of offering Pescara the throne had come from the pope;
Pescaras response, he said, had been that his honour mattered to him more
than anything else and, although he could think of nothing more glorious than
to be king of his homeland, he doubted whether, as the vassal, subject and
captain of Charles, he could in honour do as the pope wished.18
Far from having a Neapolitan king, the barons had to adjust to a non-resident king, who sent viceroys from outside Italy, let alone outside Naples, to
govern the kingdom. If they wanted direct access to the sovereign, they had
to travel to Spain or, under Charles V, Flanders or Germany, wherever in his
wide dominions the emperor might be at the time. Once at court, they would
be just another provincial noble, who would have to join a queue of those waiting for an audience. Officials in Naples, the Spanish and sometimes the Italians
too, were inclined to distrust the barons, particularly the Angevins. There was
a school of thought, especially in Castile, that Naples should be treated like a
conquered kingdom.19 Viceroys, themselves of the military nobility, could be
more sympathetic to the barons. Ramon de Cardona was criticized for being
too close to them, in a memorandum by a Spanish official in Naples addressed
to Charles V in 1521, of allowing them too much influence, above all in the administration of justice.20
The question of how reliable the Neapolitan barons might be came to a
head with the invasion of the kingdom in 1528 by a French army under the
command of Odet de Foix, vicomte de Lautrec.21 According to later accounts of
the war, the lieutenant-general of the kingdom,22 the Sicilian Ugo de Moncada,
struck a bargain with the barons. If they agreed to pay a levy for the upkeep of
the army, they could have leave to raise the French standard over their strongholds if that was necessary to prevent their destruction, but not to fight for the
18
19
20
21
22
Tullio Dandolo, Ricordi inediti di Gerolamo Morone (Milan, 1859), 1612.

Ibid., 2623.
Mallett and Shaw, The Italian Wars, 1669.
Charles had not yet appointed a replacement for the viceroy Charles de Lannoy, who died
in 1527.
204
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French.23 A chronicler who lived through the war, Leonardo Santoro, a noble
from Caserta, made no mention of such a bargain in his history. The motives he
attributed to the many barons who went over to the French were more generic:
seeing an opportunity to put into effect long-standing discontent with Charles
V, that had been repressed by fear of the strength of Imperial arms, volatility,
hope for better things, greed, weariness with and hatred of Spanish dominion.
Andrea Matteo Acquaviva, duca dAtri, who was aged about sixty, felt it hard,
being accustomed to minor kings who could be easily shaken by baronial revolt, to be constrained to inactivity under so powerful an emperor. Santoro
claimed to have been present when Acquaviva spoke of his plans to send his
grandson Giulio Antonio to the French camp, so that if the French won, he
hoped he could be rewarded with lands that had belonged to the family in the
past, but if the Spanish won, their lands would not be confiscated because Andrea Matteo would stay in the service of the emperor.24 In fact, both he and
Giulio Antonio went over to the French. Whatever their motives, substantial
numbers of barons (and others) did help the French, although most were as
quick to turn back to the Spanish as it became clear the French would be defeated.25
To the emperors officials in Naples, this seemed a golden opportunity to cut
the barons down to size, using their confiscated estates to provide a muchneeded boost to the revenues of the crown, or to satisfy those who had fought
for Charles and were clamouring for reward. The sheer numbers of barons involved made the question of the treatment of the rebels and their property a
difficult one to resolve, as was reflected in the plans the new viceroy, the Prince
of Orange, submitted in late January 1529 for Charless approval. Great numbers of barons of all ranks had fled to evade the rigours of the law, he wrote, but
it would not serve the emperor well to multiply the number of exiles, and thus
multiply the supporters of the enemy. They should be invited to return, assured
that they would be allowed to stay on their estates or in Naples while their
cases were being decided. Meanwhile, Orange had been forced to dispose of
some of the rebels property to pay the troops who were owed much money,
and to reward those who had remained faithful to the emperor and served him
well. He suggested that Charles should revoke some or all of these grants,
23
24
25

Leonardo Santoro, La spedizione di Lautrec nel Regno di Napoli, ed. Tommaso Pedo (Galatina, 1972), 802.
205
which Orange had been careful to stipulate were subject to the emperors approval.26
Charles V responded in April by authorizing a general pardon, leaving Orange discretion to decide whether it should extend to those who had been
most closely associated with the French. Orange decided it should not, and he
also excluded all feudatari.27 This did not mean he intended to dispossess every
baron that had gone over to the French, but that their fate should be decided
individually, case by case, and those who were pardoned should have to pay.
A few barons who had been unfortunate enough to be captured were executed
publicly in Naples, the most prominent being Enrico Pandone, duca di Boiano,
who had been among the first to go over to the French and had been with them
at the siege of Naples.28 Their fate would not have been an encouragement to
others to appear in person to sue for pardon.
Exile seemed a safer option. Many went to France, where they were dependent on the charity of the king.29 The most prominent of those who took this
option were Alfonso da Sanseverino, duca di Somma, and Giovanni Caracciolo,
principe di Melfi (who had taken part in the defence of the Abruzzi against
Lautrec, but having fallen prisoner, indignant that the viceroy had made no
effort to ransom him, went over to the French). Others stayed in Italy, some
going to see Charles when he passed through Italy in 152930. He issued a second general pardon in late April 1530, giving those who had been condemned
in their absence three months to appear before five commissioners appointed
to deal with proceedings concerning the rebels.30 But the exiles were afraid to
return, fearing they would be detained and that no lawyers would defend
them.31
For those who did engage with the authorities in Naples, it could be a long,
tortuous and expensive process before they could secure the possession of
some or all of their lands, especially when property had already been sold or
granted to others. There was some reluctance among the officials to make
agreements with the rebels at all. On the other hand, the barons would know
of the difficulties the officials could have in finding buyers at the price they set,
and were aware of the administrators desperation to find money to pay the
26
27
28
29
30
31
Ibid., 3689.
Ibid., 370.
Pedo, Napoli e Spagna, 2867.
Molini, Documenti di storia italiana, II, 3234: principe di Melfi to the Grand Matre
[Montmorency], 27 July 1530, Angoulme; 336: principe di Melfi and duca di Somma
to Montmorency, 18 Oct. 1530, Anvers.
AGSimancas, Estado, leg. 849, 41: Gianantonio Musetula, 6 June 1530, Rome.
206
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restless troops.32 If they were dissatified with their treatment by the commissioners, the barons could make a direct appeal to Charles, who regarded matters concerning fiefs, certainly the most important ones, as his business, and
could take a personal interest.
The struggles of Ferdinando Orsini, duca di Gravina, to recover his lands
exemplify the obstacles that might have to be overcome. He had aided the
French cause with men and money, continuing to do so after Lautrecs death
and the defeat of what was left of the French army at Naples, as Renzo da
Ceri and Giovanni Caracciolo held out in Barletta until August 1529. Holding
estates in the Papal States as well as in the kingdom, he could be counted as a
Roman baron as well as a Neapolitan one, and the fact that the Orsini of the
Papal States were fighting for the French or their Venetian allies might have
influenced him (although in 1523 an Orsini partisan had numbered him among
the Imperial Orsini).33 He would claim that his actions had been justifiable,
that circumstances had forced his hand and that he had always wanted to be a
devoted, faithful vassal of Charles. As he prepared to leave Rome to plead his
cause in Naples, he was conscious that the authority of the viceroy, the Prince
of Orange, the current holder of the duchy of Gravina, would weigh against
him.34 Orange was killed shortly after, and Orsini immediately wrote to ask
Charles not to grant his estates to anyone else before he had a chance to put his
case in Naples.35
The only exiled baron to present himself in Naples within the time set in the
emperors second general pardon, he was swiftly arrested on the orders of
the commissioners dealing with the property of rebels, because, they said, he
had been condemned to death in his absence.36 He was kept in prison for
about eighteen months before sentence was pronounced against him; he was
released, but his estates remained sequestered. His hope was that Charles
would allow him at least to buy back his estates, being prepared to offer 50,000
scudi, a sum that it was said no other baron in the kingdom could disburse.37
Despite advice from Naples that the duchy should be kept in the crown demesne, the emperor agreed in April 1533 to restore his estates.38 This privilege
had to be paid for: Orsinis subjects collected over 50,000 ducats to help him
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
Ibid., leg. 1006, 28: Bishop of Burgos to Commendador mayor, 26 July 1530, Naples.
ASSpoleto, Lettere al comune, b. 11, filza 1523B: Fabio Vigil, 29 Sept. 1523, Rome.
AGSimancas, Estado, leg. 850, 142: Duca di Gravina to Charles V, 27 July 1530, Rome.
Ibid., leg. 849, 10: Duca di Gravina to Charles V, 6 Aug. 1530, Rome.
Ibid., leg. 1006, 35: Commissarios to Charles V, 27 Aug. 1530, Naples.
ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 881, cc. 4801: Fabrizio Peregrino to Federico Gonzaga, 6 Apr.
1532, Rome.
207
buy his lands back, in what was seen as an impressive display of devotion.39
Apparently, the payment was made in their name, as Orsini still maintained
his innocence.40
Not all his estates were restored to him. Charles had already detached some
lands to be given to Onorato Grimaldi of Monaco, and created him marchese
di Campagna. Orsini offered Grimaldi an exchange of lands, to try to recover
these estates.41 Grimaldi kept the marquisate, as Andrea Doria kept the city of
Melfi with the title of principe (which had also originally gone to the Prince
of Orange), granted to him in late 1531. Charles V and his successors on the
throne of Spain would continue to grant lands and titles in Naples to nobles
from outside the kingdom who would not come to settle there. Even when
such grants might be made to reward loyal service elsewhere, this was not a
deliberate policy of diminishing the influence of the Neapolitan barons, or of
trying to insert trusted men into their ranks. The fiefs were being treated as
properties, as sources of revenue, as an available resource that could be dispensed as patronage, rather than elements of military and political power.
For all the upheavals they caused, the executions, exiles, dispossessions,
temporary or permanent, were not on such a scale that they transformed the
baronage. On the whole, the cities that had rebelled during Lautrecs invasion,
notably LAquila, were perhaps treated more harshly than the barons. Yet the
aftermath of the invasion, as it affected the barons and their lands, came to be
seen as a turning-point in the political history of the kingdom.42 Henceforth,
those barons who stayed in the kingdom, even when they would have much
preferred to have a king of their own, accepted with whatever degree of resignation that the king of Spain was their monarch. Angevin traditions, memories
of Angevin loyalties, persisted among the barons and the urban nobilities, but
were not manifest in active conspiracies against the Spanish or the maintenance of contacts with the king of France. They became more of a basis for
local factions, an element in local rather than national politics. Suspicions lingered on among the Spanish that families of Angevin origin, established in the
kingdom under the Angevin monarch, could not be as faithful, as wholly committed to the Spanish king, as were those of Spanish origin. Some families,
such as the Acquaviva, were divided between Angevin and Spanish
39
40
41
42
ASSpoleto, Lettere al comune, b. 24, filza 1533B: Sempronio Amaranto, 26 Apr. 1533, Rome.
Domenico Nardone, Notizie storiche sulla citt di Gravina (Gravina, 1990), 2167. According to Nardone, the payment made was 40,000 scudi.
Saige, Documents historiques, II, 6589: Francisco Valenzuela to Charles V, 27 Nov. 1533,
Monaco.
208
Chapter 7
identities. In such cases, more often than not it was the cadet lines of the family who chose to identify most firmly with the Spanish, out of political calculation or rivalry with the main branches.43
However overt, however sincere their devotion to the Spanish king might
be, many barons were not reconciled to being treated as subordinates by his
viceroy, especially one who could be as arrogant and overbearing as Pedro de
Toledo, who governed Naples from 1532 until his death in 1553. Some barons
did manage to be on amicable terms with Toledo, among them Pietro Antonio
da Sanseverino, principe di Bisignano (whose father Bernardino had not rebelled during the French invasion). Others he irritated and offended, not least
Alfonso dAvalos, marchese del Vasto (since Pescaras death the head of the
family). As commander of the Spanish infantry in Italy, Vasto resented Toledos
insistence on exercising sole authority over the defence of the kingdom and
public order. Eventually Charles V had to intervene to quiet their conflict over
who controlled the infantry, deciding in favour of the viceroy, whom dAvalos
was commanded to obey.44 Measures to intervene in the administration of
fiefs and in the relations of barons to their vassals, and calling barons to account before the courts for their behaviour, caused much resentment. Opposition to the viceroy and his policies was expressed in Parlamenti and delegations
sent to the emperor, not baronial rebellions.
An uprising against Toledos government did break out in 1547, initially in
response to his proposal to introduce a Spanish style of Inquisition. The Neapolitans chose two delegates to go to the emperor, one of them Ferrante da
Sanseverino, principe di Salerno. Until then he had not been on bad terms with
Toledo, but his agreeing to act as the Neapolitans representative in their appeal to Charles caused a breach between them which was never healed. Just
after Salerno and his colleague Placido di Sangro left on their mission, the unrest in Naples escalated into violent rejection of Toledos government. Toledos
own envoy got to the emperor first, and Charles refused to give Salerno an audience. While di Sangro was sent back to Naples, he was obliged to remain with
the court until the spring of 1549.
On his return to Naples he was fted by the people, but estranged beyond
remedy from the viceroy. Salerno hoped he could recover the good graces of
the emperor but there was no sign of that. In the spring of 1551, some of his
servants were arrested, and in June an assassination attempt that left him
wounded was traced back to the instigation of the viceroys son, Garca. As
proceedings were in preparation against him, with accusations of heresy and
43
44
Visceglia, Identit sociali, 1229.

Hernando Snchez, Castilla y Npoles, 2789.
209
sodomy as well as rebellion, Salerno left the kingdom in November and went to
the Veneto. Having ordered him to come to court in February 1552, Charles
scornfully rejected his request for a safeconduct, expressing disdain that Salerno should presume to try to make terms. Salerno began negotiating with the
French instead, and left for France in May. Before his departure, he published a
manifesto setting out his services to Charles and the mistreatment he felt he
had received in return. He told the Venetian government that he did not want
to substitute French power for Spanish power in Italy; he wanted Naples to
have a king of its own and Milan its own duke, I am not French or Spanish or
German, but a good Italian. Back in Naples, Toledo got the Consiglio Collaterale (whose members included the principe di Bisignano) to declare him a rebel; he was sentenced to death and the confiscation of his estates.45 He had no
heir to petition to be allowed to keep the lands, and this branch of the Sanseverino family ended with the death of Ferrante in impoverished exile in 1568.
Salernos rebellion and his attempts to provoke uprisings in the kingdom,
appearing off the coast with French and Turkish fleets in 1552 and 1553,46 did
not arouse the support he hoped for, but reinforced Spanish prejudices about
the untrustworthiness of Neapolitan barons. Cardinal Pacheco, Toledos successor as viceroy, alarmed by news that he was in Italy, recommended that the
estates of barons in the Abruzzi, the customary gateway to the kingdom for
invasions by land, should be appropriated (giving the barons some compensation) and all their fortresses dismantled.47 (When a French army under Franois, duc de Guise, did attempt to invade via the Abruzzi in 1557, there was in
fact no uprising in their favour.) Pachecos successor, the duque de Alba, told
Philip II that there is nothing so prejudicial to the service of Your Majesty in
that kingdom as to give great authority to any of the natives.48
The castellans of Lombardy did not experience such great upheavals as the
Neapolitan barons did, despite the fact that for thirty years Lombardy was
the main battleground in the Italian Wars and they had to deal with decades of
instability and several changes of regime.
There was no wholesale seizure and redistribution of lands after the French
conquest of the duchy, as Louis XII presented himself as the rightful heir to
Milan in contrast to the tyrant Ludovico Sforza. Only the property of rebels
who had supported Ludovico to the end was liable to confiscation, and there
45
46
47
48
De Frede, Ferrante Sanseverino contro la Spagna, 20954; quotation, 2501.

Ibid., 2602, 26470; Mallett and Shaw, The Italian Wars, 2656.
AGSimancas, Estado, leg. 1046, 39: Cardinal Pacheco to Philip, 7 Mar. 1554, Naples.
Duque de Alba (ed.), Epistolario del III Duque de Alba Don Fernando Alvarez de Toledo
(Madrid, 1952), I, 2801: Alba to Philip, 4 Aug. 1555, Livorno.
210
Chapter 7
were not many castellans among them. Most of the property that was confiscated was granted to French nobles who had fought in the campaigns and officials who came to administer the duchy, who in general wanted to sell off
what they were given as soon as they could, and had no desire to settle in Italy.
There was no lasting recruitment of Frenchmen into the military nobility of
Lombardy.49 Accustomed in France to the military nobility having an important role in the government of the provinces, Louis looked for the cooperation
of the castellans in the government of the duchy, not to curb and restrict their
local influence.
When the French were driven out in 1512, there was widespread goodwill
towards Massimiliano Sforza, who was installed as duke. This was soon dissipated by his obvious incapacity and lack of interest in the business of government. He was forced to rely on the Swiss who had had a large part in making
him duke; they wanted money, trading privileges and territorial cessions in the
Alps, not grants of estates to individuals, so no Swiss joined the ranks of Lombard castellans. The Swiss, not the people of the duchy, were Massimilianos
chief defenders against the conquest of the duchy by Francis I in 1515. In the
1520s, the question of who should be the duke of Milan became an issue in
the contest between Francis and Charles V, who claimed the right as emperor
to determine this. Charles and his advisers had to reckon with the strong preference of the Italian powers for an independent duchy, and when the French
were expelled from Milan in 1521, Francesco Sforza was made duke. At the end
of a decade of warfare and misery for Lombardy, he was confirmed as duke by
Charles V, but by then was in such ill-health, he was obviously unlikely to live
long or father an heir before he died. At his death in 1535, the emperors men
took charge of the duchy, which for years was a diplomatic bargaining counter.
When Charles invested his own son, Philip, with the duchy in 1540 he did not
allow him to assume even nominal rule there; not until 1555 could Philip take
control.
Decades of uncertainty about who was the rightful ruler of the duchy of
Milan had weakened bonds of allegiance of castellans to the prince that had
not been strong to begin with. The question would be settled by the armies and
diplomacy of the powers engaged in the Italian Wars, not by the castellans. Yet
the conflicts of the powers created conditions and opportunities for castellans
to have more freedom of action than they had enjoyed since the mid-fifteenth
century, whether it was the choice of who they might serve in arms,50 or whose
cause, if any, they would support in their own locality.
49
50
Meschini, La Francia nel Ducato di Milano, I, 1735, 249, n. 90.

See above, pp. 11620.
211
Even the initial choice between the Sforza and the French was not entirely
straightforward, not least because of the swift, if short-lived, restoration of
Ludovico Sforza from February to early April 1500. The nephews of Pietro Dal
Verme, who had been prevented by Ludovico Sforza from inheriting his lands
after Pietros death in 1485,51 hoped the French conquest of 1499 would help
them to recover these estates, but Louis gave them to the comte de Ligny. On
the return of Ludovico they supported him, and occupied all the former family
fiefs, but when the French returned, lost them again. Pietro Antonio Dal Verme
(who held out in the fortress of Bobbio until September 1500), his brother and
cousins were exiled. Federico Dal Verme and his brother Marcantonio, who
remained in exile throughout the period of French rule from 1500, returned to
the duchy with the Swiss in 1512. They recovered their lands, including Bobbio
and Voghera, and were favoured by Massimiliano Sforza.52 During the second
period of French rule from 1515 to 1521, they campaigned against the French in
the territory of Piacenza.53 Having obtained confirmation of the Imperial status of their lands in the late 1530s, for the Dal Verme the Italian Wars ultimately resulted in the consolidation of their position among the castellans of
Lombardy which had been lost to them before the wars began.
Opposition to the French ultimately worked to the advantage of the Dal
Verme. For Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, allegiance to the French brought great rewards, which did not endure. The Trivulzio were a prominent Milanese family,
some of whom took to soldiering. Gian Giacomo made his reputation in the
service of the dukes of Milan before accepting the offer of a command in
the Neapolitan army, and then in 1495 transferring to the French. Before leaving Lombardy he had built up a substantial group of estates, including family
lands between Parma and Reggio, but mainly north of the duchys border, in
the territory of the Grisons.54 For these lands he was an aderente of the duke of
Milan, and at the same time a member of the League of the Grisons; he also
had fiefs in the duchy of Milan, title to lands in the kingdom of Naples, and was
given lands in France, becoming a vassal of the French king. When Charles VIII
returned to France in 1495, Trivulzio was left as governor of Asti for Louis
dOrlans (soon to become Louis XII), and lieutenant of the French troops in
51
52
53
54
Daniel Bueno de Mesquita, Ludovico Sforza and his vassals, 202.

Meschini, La Francia nel Ducato di Milano, I, 81, 99, 199, 329, 522, II, 1045, 1073, 1074.
Andreozzi, Piacenza, 155, 157.
Beginning with the purchase of the fortress of Mesocco in 1480 (for which he procured an
Imperial investiture in 1487), he then acquired the Theinwald and Safienthal, which he
held in fief from the bishop of Coira, giving him control of access to the San Bernardino
and Spluga passes over the Alps.
212
Chapter 7
the area.55 Given his military reputation, his connections with the duchy and
city of Milan and his possession of strategically significant lands to the north of
the duchy, his qualifications to lead the French invasion of Milan in 1499 were
obvious.
When the conquest was accomplished, he was appointed the kings lieutenant, holding supreme political as well as military authority there. His use of his
Guelf associations to reinforce his authority alienated Ghibellines, who would
excuse their support for Ludovico Sforzas return in 1500 by arguing their opposition was to Trivulzio, not Louis.56 After the re-establishment of the French,
Trivulzio was no longer lieutenant, and although he held the prestigious rank
of marshal of France, no longer had command of the military forces in Milan.
He did retain estates he had been given in 1499, Vigevano, granted to him as a
marquisate, and Chiavenna, a key node on the route network for the Grisons,
and he continued to acquire lands. Although he still had independent status as
a member of the Grison league, his fortunes and his position were now bound
to those of the French in Milan. When the Swiss drove the French from Milan,
they and the Grisons occupied his strongholds on the frontier, Chiavenna,
Musso and Mesocco. He handed over Vigevano to the government of Milan,
trying to persuade the Milanese to form a republic allied to the Swiss rather
than accept a Sforza duke.57 Still a member of the Grison league, he negotiated
with them and the Swiss for Louis XII in the years when they held the whiphand
in Milan. He would recover Musso and Mesocco, but lost Chiavenna. Vigevano
he recovered when Francis I reconquered Milan in 1515. Trivulzio did not enjoy
such favour with Francis I as he had with Louis. He died in France in 1518, leaving as his heir his grandson Gian Francesco, designating as the boys guardians,
not just a Trivulzio cousin, but also the king of France, the Swiss and the
Grisons.58
Another family of Milanese citizens turned castellans, the Borromeo, kept
their estates and their position, helped by various family members choosing
different allegiances. Vitaliano Borromeo, who served Filippo Maria Visconti
as his treasurer, established what became known as the stato Borromeo on
the Lago Maggiore, built up by purchase and grants. Among the grants was the
town of Arona, from which the family took the title of conti dArona. Strategically important as a defence of the duchy against incursions by the Swiss, the
Borromeo estates enjoyed extensive privileges and exemptions which fostered
55
56
57
58

Ibid., 48.
Ibid., 567. Cardinal Schinner took Vigevano for himself.
Ibid., 61.
213
in the family an attitude towards their lands analogous to that of Imperial fiefholders. Relations between the Borromeo counts and the Sforza dukes became
uneasy. In 1495 when Louis dOrlans, who was supposed to be guarding the
route for Charles VIII to return to France, turned his attention instead to asserting his own claim to the dukedom of Milan, the Borromeo offered him the
use of Arona.59 Ludovico Sforza confiscated Arona, Angera, another important
stronghold, and other places from them, restoring them only as he was about
to flee to Germany in 1499. Conte Giberto Borromeo was made a member of
the Senate the French established in Milan, but went over to the Sforza as soon
as they returned.60 With his brother Filippo, he was fined 3,000 scudi for lsemajest against Louis when the French recovered Milan, and the fortresses of
Arona and Angera had to be surrendered to the French for some months.61 Yet
Giberto retained his seat in the Senate, until his brother Ludovico, a warmer
supporter of Louis, took his place in 1505.62
The Borromeo were prominent Ghibellines, and when Maximilian, King of
the Romans, was planning an invasion of the duchy in 1507, two other brothers
of Giberto, Lancilotto (a financial official) and Filippo were among those suspected of collusion with Maximilian and ordered to go to exile in France or
Asti. Neither seems to have gone, and in September 1507 they were arrested, as
was Giberto, and their fortresses sequestered; Ludovico was not detained,
and was permitted to keep Angera. In justification of the arrests, the lieutenant
Chaumont accused the brothers of offering their fortresses to Maximilian, and
of telling him that the lake, with a substantial fleet of boats they would gather
together, and the valley around it would be at his command. But Chaumonts
motive may have been the brothers refusal of repeated requests to put their
fortresses in the custody of the French, at a time when he was concerned to
secure the duchys northern frontier. Giberto was soon adjudged innocent and
released, Filippo and Lancilotto freed the following year. In early July 1508 the
sequestered lands and fortresses were restored to the Borromeo, placed in
the custody of Ludovico.63
French confidence in Ludovicos reliability had helped preserve the familys
estates on this occasion, and he remained faithful to them until their expulsion
from Milan in 1512. His only surviving brother, Lancillotto,64 assisted the Swiss
59
60
61
62
63
64
Letizia Arcangeli, Ludovico tiranno?, 131.

Meschini, La Francia nel Ducato di Milano, I, 64, 96.
Ibid., 152; Sanuto, I Diarii, III, cols 306, 425.
Meschini, La Francia nel Ducato di Milano, I, 64.
Ibid., 44650.
Giberto and Filippo both died in 1508.
214
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invasion, being instrumental in the surrender of the important fortress of

Domodossola to them.65 During the second period of French rule, Ludovico
was less inclined to the French, and was protected by the Swiss.66 In 1519, he
began to reconstruct fortifications, the castles of Cnnero on rocky islands in
the Lago Maggiore; he was again aided by the Swiss when he was besieged
there in 1527 by the troops of Francesco II Sforza, who were forced to abandon
their attack.67 He became a citizen of some Swiss cantons before his death in
1527.68 Again, the choice of other allegiances by other Borromei helped protect
the familys interests. Conte Giberto was loyal to Francesco Sforza;69 conte
Camillo and others were quick to offer their services to the new regime when
Charles V took direct control of the duchy in 1535.70
For castellans with estates around Parma and Piacenza the situation was
complicated by the popes assertion of lordship over them, raising the question
whether the cities were to be part of the duchy of Milan or of the Papal States,
or form a separate state altogether. Julius II first took possession of them in 1512
when the French were expelled from Milan, and Leo X kept them as the price
of his support for Massimiliano Sforza. Leo had to give them up to Francis I in
1515, but they were recovered for the papacy in 1521. Charles V, Francesco II
Sforza and the Milanese still felt that they were part of the duchy, and that
whoever ruled Milan should rule there too. In 1545 Pope Paul III granted the
cities and their territories to his son, Pier Luigi Farnese, as dukedoms. Charless
governor of Milan, Ferrante Gonzaga encouraged, if not instigated, the conspiracy by a group of Piacentine nobles to assassinate Pier Luigi Farnese in
September 1547, and seized Piacenza and much of the territory of Parma. With
French assistance, Pier Luigis son Ottavio managed to hold on to Parma, defying the forces of the emperor and Pope Julius III in 15512. Piacenza (except for
its fortress) was restored to Ottavio by Philip II in 1556.
While Parma and Piacenza were under their government, the popes failed
to attract the allegiance of the castellans. The two Medici popes, Leo X and
Clement VII, and their Florentine officials were not sympathetic to the castellans as a group, and the territories were treated as a reserve of estates for their
relatives and clients. Paul III was himself a member of a baronial family, but
65
66
67
68
69
70
Ibid., II, 1046.

Conti, Castelli e Rocche, 55.
Meschini, La Francia nel Ducato di Milano, I, 171.
Flavio Rurale, Lascesa dei fratelli Medici tra protagonismo militare e pratica cortigiana,
2868.
Federico Chabod, Lo Stato di Milano e limpero di Carlo V, 42, note 3.
215
that did not make the graceless Pier Luigi any more attractive as a focus of loyalty. Paul had intended to set up his son as a papal vicar, not an independent
prince, and was conscious of the perils of alienating the military nobility. Pier
Luigi had different ideas, and set about trying to dominate them.71 Few castellans mourned Pier Luigis death, but few welcomed the idea of Parma and Piacenza being fully incorporated into the duchy of Milan again, as Ferrante
Gonzaga and Charles V desired. Ottavios struggle to hold on to Parma in the
teeth of the opposition of Julius III and the emperor gave the feudatari scope
to justify their refusal to obey him, reinforced by clauses in the truce he agreed
with the emperor that they should enjoy their own unmolested. Faced by castellans who had more private resources than he had (for the duke had no estates), and who had long-established networks of partisans and clients, Ottavio
laboured to assert his authority over them. Some were linked by marriage to
other princely families, the Medici or the Gonzaga, some looked to Philip II for
patronage and protection. He could not constrain them to live in the city, or to
become his courtiers; only minor nobles wished for a career in the Farnese
court.72
The Pallavicini kept their position as one of the major families of the region
by, it might be said, spreading their bets, although whether their divided loyalties were the outcome of a concerted family policy is open to doubt. Having
been instrumental in the submission of Parma to Louis XII, Galeazzo Pallavicini di Busseto played an important role in the control of Parma for the French.
Granted important estates, including Borgo San Donnino and the former Rossi
strongholds of Torrechiara and Felino, with privileges that gave these places a
measure of independence of ducal government, he was one of the few Lombard castellans to be given command of a French company of men-at-arms.
His younger brother, Antonio Maria, lived mostly in Milan and was close to
Chaumont.73 During the reign of Massimiliano Sforza Galeazzo stayed on his
estates, uncommitted to any power, including the new lord of Parma, the pope.
In 1513, the Pallavicini obtained recognition from Massimiliano of the status of
their lands as Imperial fiefs, which previous Sforza dukes had denied.74 As
Francis I was preparing to reconquer the duchy in 1515, the Pallavicini, paying
no attention to the commands of the popes officials, welcomed Teodoro
71
72
73
74
Gian Luca Podest, Dal delitto politico alla politica del delitto. Finanza pubblica e congiure
contro i Farnese nel Ducato di Parma e Piacenza dal 1545 al 1622 (Milan, 1995), 132, 135.
Ibid., 186, 193; Letizia Arcangeli, Feudatari e duca negli stati farnesiani (15451587), 828.
Arcangeli, Carriere militari, 375, 37980.
Arcangeli, Feudatari e duca, 81, note 14.
216
Chapter 7
rivulzio, who was in the service of the French king, to their lands and began
T
raising troops themselves.75
Francis I was not, however, as tolerant of the independent attitude of Lombard castellans as Louis had been. Although Antonio Maria Pallavicini was
employed as a French envoy to the pope, Galeazzo was not given a role in Parma comparable to the one he had had under the first French regime. By the
time that Franciss rule over the duchy came under threat in 1521, Galeazzo was
dead, but his brother Cristoforo, who had been consistently anti-French and
pro-Sforza, gave refuge in Busseto to Milanese exiles who were plotting against
the French, and resisted a troop of soldiers sent to detain them. The lieutenantgeneral, the vicomte de Lautrec sent a larger force to arrest Cristoforo. Interro
gated, even under torture, he denied conspiring with the emperor. Nevertheless,
he was sentenced to perpetual exile in France; Lautrec chose to interpret this
as life imprisonment, and then, as the French were being pushed out of the
duchy in November, had him executed.76 Another Pallavicini, Manfredo from
the Cortemaggiore branch, was also executed, publicly quartered in Milan,
having been captured taking part with German infantry in an unsuccessful assault on Como. He was an exile, a partisan of Massimiliano Sforza whose property had been confiscated by Francis I.77
In the next generation, when the Pallavicini, like several other powerful
Lombard families, were short of adult males,78 they found protection under
the Farnese papacy and then Farnese dukes through their relationship to the
Sforza di Santa Fiora. This minor branch of the extensive Sforza clan was settled on modest estates on the southern borders of Tuscany near to the Farnese
family lands. Bosio Sforza had married Costanza, daughter of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, before her father became pope. Consequently, when in the
early 1540s Bosios son Sforza married Luisa Pallavicini, the heiress of the Busseto branch and his daughter Giulia married Sforza Pallavicini di Cortemaggiore (Manfredos son, his Christian name a sign of his fathers allegiance), the
Pallavicini were marrying grandchildren of the pope, and their uncle by marriage was shortly to become duke of Parma and Piacenza. Sforza Pallavicini
75
76
77
78
Cesare Guasti (ed.), I Manoscritti Torrigiani donati al R. Archivio centrale di Stato di

Firenze, 19 (1874), 244: Pietro Ardinghelli to Giuliano de Medici, 29 July 1515.
Benassi, Storia di Parma, III, 1819.
Guicciardini, Storia dItalia, Book XIV, Chapters 2,3.
Arcangeli, Unaristocrazia territoriale, 600, 602.
217
was one of the few feudatari who stayed faithful to Pier Luigi and was not sympathetic to the conspiracy against him.79
Association with the French was the key to the revival of the fortunes in and
around Parma of the Rossi. While the favoured sons of Pietro Maria Rossi, Guido and Giacomo, had gone into exile in Venice after the loss of their inheritance to Ludovico Sforza, his disinherited eldest son Giovanni stayed in the
duchy, living in poverty. In 1494, as Charles VIII passed through the territory of
Parma, Giovanni and his half-brother Bertrando made contact with the king.
In the treaty he made with Ludovico Sforza in October 1495, Charles inserted a
clause that what Giovanni and his sons had before they went with the king
should be restored to them by Ludovico Sforza and he should do justice by
them.80 Bertrando, however, who had given supplies to the French army, was
imprisoned for two years by Ludovico, and one of his estates, Segalara,
was confiscated. He recovered it after the French conquest of the duchy. On the
orders of Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, Giovannis son, Troilo was given the former
Rossi stronghold of San Secondo. In February 1500, Filippo Rossi, son of the
exiled Guido and himself a Venetian condottiere, declared for the Sforza and
took other former Rossi places, including Torrechiara, but soon had to return
to exile. Troilo, who stayed loyal to Louis, was rewarded by the confirmation of
his possession of San Secondo, which the king erected into a marquisate. He
was also made the heir of his uncle Bertrando, although he had to pay the king
8,000 scudi for the fiefs; he agreed to this payment, on condition that neither
Louis nor his successors would ever pardon Filippo for his rebellion.81
With these lands and further acquisitions he made, Troilo built up one of
the largest groups of estates in the territory of Parma.82 More or less obedient
during the papal government of Parma from 1512 to 1515, nevertheless, Troilo
was one of the castellans in the area who made contact with the French in
advance of Francis Is conquest.83 He died in 1521, about the time that the
French were expelled. Once the French had left, Filippo was able to seize and
keep Corneglio, but could never take other Rossi lands from the San Secondo
branch. They enjoyed the protection of their maternal uncle, the renowned
79
80
81
82
83
Arcangeli, Feudatari e duca, 823, note 21. After Paul IIIs death he went to serve Ferdinand, King of the Romans, Charles Vs brother, while his brother-in-law, Sforza Sforza,
served Charles V.
Arcangeli, Principi, homines e partesani, 261, note 145.
Ibid., 275, note 215.
Ibid., 27677.
Benassi, Storia di Parma, II, 138.
218
Chapter 7
captain Giovanni de Medici.84 The eldest son, Pietro Maria, made a career as a
condottiere.85 From 1537, the Medici connection became even more significant,
when Giovannis son, Cosimo, became duke of Florence. This connection, together with the trouble caused by Pietro Marias hot-headed younger brother
Giulio, both in the city of Parma and its territory, as he looked for opportunities
to extend his estates, soured relations between the Rossi and the Farnese pope.
Assistance lent by Pietro Maria to Giulios occupation of Colorno brought military reprisals against the Rossi by papal troops. Pietro Marias wife, Camilla
Gonzaga successfully defended her husbands lands, but Giulio lost his in 1539
and was exiled.86
When called upon to swear fealty to Pier Luigi Farnese, Pietro Maria, then in
the service of Francis I, made a formal protest, although a few months later he
sent assurances of his submission to the new duke.87 Not surprisingly, the Rossi favoured Imperialist efforts to take Parma after the assassination of Pier Luigi. When the War of Parma was ended in 1552 by a truce, Troilo Rossi (the son
of Pietro Maria) asked for a condotta from Charles V of light horse and infantry
to guard San Secondo.88 The Rossi kept their estates, but although Troilo, having resigned himself to submitting to the Farnese, lived at San Secondo in some
style, other Rossi felt safer at the Medici court.89 On the basis of papal investitures and confirmation of privileges obtained from the popes in the 1520s and
1530s, and Imperial investitures obtained from Charles V, the Rossi would later
claim they were not subjects of the duke of Parma.90
The Italian Wars broadened the horizons of the military nobility of the
Veneto, many of whom were attracted by the idea of serving a great prince on
an international stage, attracted by the life of the court as well as by the prospect of winning military honour and glory and achieving a high command.91
The wars also forced the Venetians to think hard about their relations with
their subjects on the Terraferma. The worst shock came in 1509, when nearly all
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
Troilo had married Bianca Riario, daughter of Girolamo Riario and Caterina Sforza;
Giovanni de Medici was Caterinas son by her second marriage.
Arcangeli, Unaristocrazia territoriale, 639.
Arcangeli, Carriere militari, 40515; Arcangeli, Feudatari e duca, 812; Podest, Dal delitto politico, 1445.
Podest, Dal delitto politico, 194.
Arcangeli, Feudatari e duca, 86.
Letizia Arcangeli, Giurisdizioni feudali e organizzazione territoriale nel ducato di Parma
(15451587), 161, note 42.
Pezzolo, Nobilt militare e potere, 4012; the Venetians preferred to give the higher commands in the army to men from outside their subject lands (see above, p. 137).
219
of the Terraferma was overrun in a matter of weeks as Venice was attacked by

the armies of the League of Cambrai, and the Venetians realised how disaffected many of their subjects were, how ready to accept, even to welcome, the
lordship of the king of France or the emperor. For the rural military nobility,
Venetian rule was probably less irksome than for the civic nobilities who resented the constraints and limitations imposed by the Venetians on the control of their cities and the territories they thought should be directly subject to
them. Castellans who caused no trouble to Venice would be left undisturbed in
the possession of their lands and jurisdictions, and arguably had less cause to
feel disempowered.
Some nobles who had initially accepted the French or Imperial forces soon
had a change of heart, or of mind; often the trigger would be disappointed
personal ambitions or jealousy at the favour shown to a rival family or faction.
There would be no nostalgia for the period of French rule, but some continued
to feel that the Empire would be a more congenial political framework than
the Venetian state. Something amounting to a cult of Charles V was cherished
among noble families, particularly of Verona and Vicenza, long after his death.92
Castellans had great influence in the surrender to the French in 1509
of Brescia, one of the major cities on the Venetian Terraferma.93 Not wish-
ing their city to be put in a state of defence and risk a siege, the Brescians
closed their gates to Venetian troops retreating after their defeat at the battle of
Agnadello. Among those who procured the capitulation of the city were promi
nent castellans, including conte Luigi Avogadro and conte Gian Francesco
Gambara, both of whom were Venetian captains (Gambara had fought at
Agnadello). Before the French troops arrived to take possession, the Gambara
and Avogadro had already secured the fortress and imprisoned the Venetian
officials.94
Louis and his representatives favoured the nobility in the reform of the civic
government and in the distribution of favours. Privileges were granted to Luigi
Avogadro, recognized as lord of Lumezzane and the Val Trompia, and to some
Martinengo. But it was the Gambara who were given the most generous rewards, not just the extension of their privileges over their estates but for Gian
Francesco a command of 50 lances in the ordonnance, and for his brother
Nicol, membership of the French royal chivalric order of Saint-Michel and
92
93
94
Uta Barbara Ullrich, Der Kaiser im giardino dellImpero. Zur Rezeption Karls V. in ita
lienischen Bildprogrammen des 16. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 2006), 191268.
For the history of Brescia in these years and the role of the castellans, see Storia di Brescia,
II, La dominazione veneta (14261575) (Brescia, 1963), 233 ff.
Meschini, La Francia nel Ducato di Milano, II, 5902.
220
Chapter 7
appointment to the office of chamberlain to the king.95 Gian Francesco Gambara, as a captain of French men-at-arms, took part in the campaigns in Lombardy until his death in November 1511. Jealousies among the nobles fuelled
discontent in those, Luigi Avogadro among them, who felt they had not had
their just rewards. The behaviour of the French troops, all too ready to act like
an army of occupation, aroused great resentment. Gian Galeazzo Gambara
was imprisoned for his involvement in a fight with some Gascon soldiers, and
sent to France. Conte Giovanni Maria Martinengo, an enthusiastic supporter of
the French in 1509, a year later was gathering followers to restore the city to the
Venetians when his plans came to light. He was executed in September 1510,
arousing a desire for revenge among the Martinengo and their relatives.
There were three conspiracies against the French in 1511, one headed by
Luigi Avogadro, who also led another unsuccessful conspiracy to admit the
Venetians in January 1512. He and others who had left Brescia urged the Venetians to try again, raising 10,000 men from their own subjects and partisans.
Co-ordinating their efforts with a Venetian force, the conspirators and their
men entered the city during the night of 2 to 3 February, securing it before the
Venetians entered. The French forces and the Brescians most closely associated with them took refuge in the fortress. With startling speed, the kings lieutenant, Gaston de Foix, brought troops to retake the city, which then suffered
one of the worst sacks of the Italian Wars. Luigi Avogadro was executed, as
were his sons Pietro and Francesco a few months later. The Gambara and those
Martinengo who had remained loyal to the French were rewarded; Nicol
Gambara was given his brothers command of 50 lances.96 Castellans did not
have such an influential role in subsequent events before the Venetians finally
recovered the city in May 1516. When the French surrendered Brescia to the
League in October 1512, they chose to capitulate to the Spanish troops rather
than to the Venetians. Maximilian claimed the city as Imperial territory, and
the Gambara, among others, were sympathetic to this. Gian Galeazzo Gambara was nominated Maximilians representative there, but it was the Spanish
military governor who was really in control.97
At this stage of the wars, when Venices hold on the Terraferma provinces
was under the greatest challenge the Venetian republic ever faced, the ambivalent allegiance of many Friulan castellans became all too apparent. Before they
took over Friuli in 1420, the Venetians had had aderenti and raccomandati
among the castellans; when the castellans became subjects of Venice, the
95
96
97
Ibid., 6467.
Storia di Brescia, II, 24859, 2727.
For the Gambara, see ibid., II, 279, 285.
221
Venetians had largely accepted the powers and jurisdiction they exercised, and
did not give the castellans reason to rebel. Ties of family and friendship that
linked many Friulan castellans to the German aristocracy did not necessarily
result in a sense of allegiance to the emperor, but when Maximilians troops
invaded Friuli, many castellans felt no obligation to oppose them. Antonio Savorgnan in June 1509 gave the Venetian lieutenant a long list of individuals and
entire families (admittedly, all belonging to his factional opponents) that he
alleged had contacts with the Imperialists and argued should be sent to Venice
for the security of Friuli.98 The greater part of the castellans, according to Savorgnan, were open rebels against the Venetian state.99 In fact, only a handful,
including Alberico Colloredo and his son Odorico, and Enrico di Spilimbergo,
are known to have served with the Imperial troops.100
Concentrating their efforts on their wealthier territories nearer to Venice,
the Venetians left much of the burden of defending Friuli to Antonio Savorgnan and the militia he commanded, which did not encourage his rival castellans
to change their stance. In 1511, with the region tormented by faction-fighting,
peasant rebellion against the castellans, and natural disasters (an earthquake
and an epidemic) and the Venetians still not devoting enough troops to its defence, some castellans began to switch their allegiance to the emperor. In September 1511 Antonio Savorgnan became one of them. His partisans among the
people of Udine sent to Venice to say he had acted for a good motive, to prevent
Udine and the rest of Friuli being torched.101 To the Venetians, he was a rebel.
A price was put on his head and his property, with that of his brother Giovanni
and his nephews, Giovannis sons (also treated as rebels, because they were in
Imperial territory) was confiscated.102
Within a few weeks, however, the Imperial troops were forced to withdraw
from Friuli because as was so often the reason for the failure of Maximilians
military efforts he could not pay his troops. Their efforts to take what they
needed from the impoverished Friulans lost Maximilian support among the
castellans as well as the rest of the population. Antonio Savorgnan tried to repair his links with the Venetians, but they rejected all his pleas and offers of
help. After they made a truce with Maximilian in April 1512, Antonio was forced
to go into exile in Austria. A month later, he was assassinated in the town of
98
99
100
101
102

Casella, I Savorgnan, 1001.
Antonio Conzato, Dai castelli alle corti. Castellani friulani tra gli Asburgo e Venezia 1545
1620 (Verona, 2005), 1920.
Trebbi, Il Friuli, 105.
222
Chapter 7
Villach by a group of his castellan enemies, who were aided by Maximilians

representative there, an exiled castellan from Friuli, Federico Strassoldo.103
The Savorgnan did not lose their position as the major support of the Venetian state among the castellans; Antonios cousin Girolamo took his place. Girolamo had already rendered valuable military services to Venice, commanding
the militia that supported Bartolomeo dAlvianos troops in repulsing an incursion into Venetian territory in 1508. In the summer of 1511, he was in Osoppo,
the Savorgnan fortress which was one of only two castles to hold out for the
Venetians, although he had made contact with Maximilian.104 Girolamo distanced himself from Antonio, denouncing his treachery, emphasizing the
long-standing rivalry between them, and the fidelity of the rest of the family to
Venice. The Savorgnan, he wrote to the doge in 1513, had been primarily friends
of Venice, and nobles rather than subjects.105 His loyalty to Venice, he claimed,
had earned him the hatred of many Friulans as well as Germans, and castellans
were plotting against his life.106 Girolamos services during the wars were rewarded by, among other things, the stronghold of Belgrado, the estates confiscated from his cousin Antonio, the title of count, and the exceptional extension
of jurisdiction of his three major fiefs, Belgrado, Castelnuovo and Osoppo, so
that the lieutenant of Friuli no longer had any authority over them.107
But the defection of Antonio had caused the Venetians to reconsider their
political strategy in Friuli, and they decided they should no longer be so reliant
on the Savorgnan. Treat all the castellans equally, the Council of Ten ordered
the commissioner charged with re-establishing Venetian rule in the province
in November 1511; giving too much authority and favour to Antonio Savorgnan
had produced a thousand troubles and problems.108 Yet the Savorgnan continued to get more than their share of what incentives the Venetians had to offer,
and many castellans still felt more affinity to the German lords and felt more at
home in the service and the courts of the Habsburgs than in Venice. There
were recurrent concerns about the security of the frontiers, about the possibility of exiled and outlawed castellans (there was no shortage of them as personal and factional vendette flourished) coming to seize a fortress and hold it
for the Habsburgs. Clearly the Austrians would like to have Friuli, Giulio
103
104
105
106
107
108
Ibid., 2189.
Ibid., 217.
Casella, I Savorgnan, 1038, quotation p.107: la mia famiglia prima fu amica che nobile,
prima nobile che suddita.
Ibid., 110.
Ibid., 1313.
Ventura, Nobilt e popolo, 1489.
223
Savorgnan warned in a report on the fortifications there, and there is no shortage of people here to encourage them, to suggest how they might attract further support.109
In Liguria, the Italian Wars directly and indirectly brought about fundamental change to the role of castellans in the political life of Genoa. Directly, because the assertion of the claims of the French king to Genoa and then the
efforts of the enemies of France to compete with him for control of Liguria,
resulted in a diminution of the significance of support from the Spinola, Doria
or Fieschi in determining who would be at the head of the government there.
Indirectly, because the way the Campofregoso and Adorno courted the aid of
the powers involved in the wars reinforced the conviction of many Genoese
that factions had a pernicious influence on the republic and that it would be
better if they were eliminated. For aspiring doges, external support in money
and troops became crucial; factional support, while certainly desirable, was no
longer the key to success. Traditional associations of the Doria with the Campofregoso, and the Spinola with the Adorno persisted. Thus the Doria backed
the Campofregoso doges, Giano and Ottaviano, from 1512 to 1522, and Spinola
backed Antoniotto Adorno during his few weeks in power in 1513, and his time
as doge from 1522 to 1527. For the Fieschi, their traditional, if troubled, association with the Campofregoso was definitively breached by the assassination of
Gerolamo Fieschi on the steps of the dogal palace at their hands in May 1513.
His brothers Sinibaldo and Ottobono, who escaped, had a taste of revenge
when they helped Antoniotto Adorno depose Giano Campofregoso a few days
later.110 The Fieschi also supported Adornos return to Genoa in 1522 (with
thousands of Imperial troops who sacked the city).111 These associations became enmeshed with alignments for or against the French or, from the 1520s,
the emperor.
During the period of direct French rule over Genoa from 1499 to 1512, they
did not discriminate between the factions of the military nobility; the king was
prepared to give favour to all. The Doria were won over more completely than
the Spinola, who had been favoured under the previous regime and now lost
ground in the western Riviera.112 The Fieschi benefited most, with Gian Luigi
109
110
111
112
Conzato, Dai castelli alle corti, 3448; quotation from Giulio Savorgnan, 45.
ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 758, c. 43: Ottobono Fieschi to Francesco Gonzaga, 3 June 1513,
Genoa.
Arturo Pacini, I presupposti politici del secolo dei genovesi. La riforma del 1528 (Genoa,
1990), 789, 901, 100; Pacini, La Genova di Andrea Doria, 196.
224
Chapter 7
Fieschi being appointed governor of the eastern Riviera from 1499.113 Fieschi
seems to have taken the privileges he received more or less as his due, and not
felt that they put him under any special obligation to the king. In the codicil to
his will, drawn up in June 1508, he commended his sons to the Most Christian
King of the Franks, describing himself as the kings stipendiato (that is, as being in his pay), and a member of the royal order of Saint-Michel, not as his
subject or vassal.114
In June 1512, as Giano Campofregoso was heading for Genoa accompanied
by the forces of the League that was driving the French from Italy, the Doria
declared for him.115 The Fieschi did not openly oppose him, but maintained
contacts with the French, acting as intermediaries for Giano with them.116
Gerolamo Fieschi was assassinated as a French army invaded Milan, and a
French fleet supported the deposition of Giano Campofregoso by Antoniotto
Adorno and the Fieschi. Both the Fieschi and the Spinola opposed Ottaviano
Campofregoso after he became doge. When Francis I came to terms with Ottaviano to gain at least some control over Genoa, Sinibaldo Fieschi got a promise of political and military protection from the French king for the familys
fiefs, and confirmation of their privileges and exemptions in the duchy of Milan.117 But he did not enjoy the prominent position that his father had had under Louis XII. Sinibaldos support for the return of the Adorno in 1522 marked
a switch in the alignment of the Fieschi from the French to the emperor. Initially, Sinibaldo was suspected by the Imperial ambassador in Genoa of keeping contact with the French,118 but when Genoa was taken by the French in
1527 he left the city, where he no longer felt secure. Nor did Agostino Spinola, a
soldier by calling, who had been captain of the guard (capitano della piazza);
he went into exile.119
While the Spinola supported the Adorno regime, the Doria were active opponents in contact with the French. In the western Riviera they had been driven from their main estates of Oneglia and Dolceacqua. When the French
occupied the Riviera in 1524, Bartolomeo Doria was appointed captain and
kings commissioner there and Oneglia was recovered for Stefano Doria. When
the French left following their disastrous defeat at the battle of Pavia in
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
Pacini, I presupposti politici, 55.

Fiorenzo Debattisti, I Fieschi a Varzi, Appendix II, 480.
De Moro, Porto Maurizio, 92.
ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 758, c. 43: Ottobono Fieschi to Francesco Gonzaga, 3 June 1513,
Genoa.
De Rosa, I Fieschi, 64.
Pacini, La Genova di Andrea Doria, 196.
Pacini, I presupposti politici, 263, 2678.
225
February 1525, Stefano Spinola became vicar of the Riviera for Adorno, and in
August Spanish troops at Adornos request took and sacked Oneglia.120 The
alternation between Spinola and Doria predominance continued in 1527, when
Sebastiano Doria was given wide powers as captain and vicar of the Riviera for
the French regime in Genoa.121 The reaction of the Doria family to Andrea
Dorias switch to the service of Charles V in 1528 was to dissociate themselves
from his action, protesting their fidelity to Francis I (whom they addressed as
Our Sovereign Lord), urging that the king should not suspect them, or permit
that the errors of one should harm all of us, and our relatives and friends.122
But they did not oppose the change of regime brought about by Andrea a
month later, and only one member of the family, Niccol, was recorded as leaving with the French.123
Andrea Doria had helped the French to take Genoa in 1527 as a hired commander of galleys, not as a partisan. Under Giano and Ottaviano Campofregoso he had been admiral of Genoa.124 Like many other Genoese, however, he
had become convinced that Genoa would be better off without the Campofregoso and Adorno factions.125 The factions were losing their potency, as the
Genoese wearied of Adorno and Campofregoso forcing their way to the head
of the government with the aid of other powers and expecting them to pick up
the bill and pay the subsidies that had been promised in return for the military
support that had been given. Antoniotto Adorno had been unable to block the
pressure for reform, or to prevent the elaboration of detailed programmes for
union, for a new form of government designed to exclude the factions. The
Fieschi and many Spinola had refused to swear an oath to support such union
that all citizens were asked to take in May 1527. Lope de Soria, the Imperial
ambassador, who opposed reform because he thought it would make Genoa
more independent as indeed it would recommended that Charles V should
reward them for this. If the emperor came to an understanding with Sinibaldo
Fieschi, he suggested, he would be able to dominate the city.126
In this Soria was almost certainly mistaken, as the desire for a new form of
government in Genoa was too widespread and profound. Andrea Dorias support for reform after he expelled the French in 1528 was of critical importance,
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
De Moro, Porto Maurizio, 1601, 166, 168.

Ibid., 17980.
Molini, Documenti di storia italiana, II, 545: la familia Doria to Francis I, 18 Aug. 1528,
Genoa.
See above, p. 133.
Pacini, I presupposti politici, 260.
Pacini, La Genova di Andrea Doria, 1967; Pacini, I presupposti, 256.
226
Chapter 7
because he was able to bargain with Charles, giving his pledge to serve as the
emperors admiral in exchange for an assurance from the emperor that he
would respect the independence of the Genoese republic. The emperors reliance on the services of Andrea Doria and his galleys for the rest of his reign
continued to provide protection, enabling Doria to fend off suggestions from
Charles and his officials that Genoa should become directly subject to the emperor.
The prominence of Andrea Doria in the new regime did not equate to the
dominance of the Doria family and faction, nor did it lead to sanctions against
the Spinola. Agostino Spinola was made captain-general of the Genoese forces
raised to aid the Imperial army in Lombardy in 1529, but he did not get back the
position of captain of the guard that he wanted; that went to Filippino Doria.127
He found Andreas preeminence hard to bear, could not submit, as he saw it, to
those who had always been his enemies and his equals. The Spinola, he told
the emperor, had long been devoted to him, while Genoa was now governed by
those who had always been enemies of the Imperial Crown, who served him
not for love, but because it suited their personal interests.128 From 1530, Agostino chose to stay out of Genoa, making a career as an infantry captain in the
service of Charles V. How to reconcile recognition of the superiority of Andrea
Doria with the need for the support of the Spinola remained a problem for the
Imperial ambassador.129
Sinibaldo Fieschi was given special honour in the new regime, second only
to that given to Andrea Doria, and he served as Genoese ambassador to Charles
V. But he was not entirely easy with Andrea Dorias role, and his death in 1532,
leaving four small boys as his heirs, helped to defuse the opposition to that
role. There were rumours that Sinibaldos widow, Maria Grosso della Rovere,
had contacts with the French. When asked to provide supplies and transit
through the family lands for troops in the service of Francis I, and assured that
the king was ready to renew the association with the Fieschi, she was said to
have replied that it was her duty to raise her sons to be faithful to Charles. But
French troops who launched an unsuccessful attack on Genoa in 1536 did get
some logistical support from the Fieschi estates, nonetheless.130
As the eldest son, Gian Luigi, grew to manhood there were suspicions that
he was sympathetic to France, suspicions that were heightened by his plot
127
128
129
130
Pacini, La Genova di Andrea Doria, 257, 264.

Ibid., 25960.
Ibid., 628.
Ibid., 599600.
227
against Andrea Doria in 1547.131 Fighting to hold on to the familys estates after
his death, his brothers were reported to have asked for help from the French
forces based at Mirandola.132 It was in France that the surviving brother, Scipione, would find refuge when all the lands and fortresses had been lost, and
where he would establish anew the fortunes of his branch of the family. The
Fieschi brothers were condemned as rebels against the republic, and sentenced to perpetual exile as well as the confiscation of their estates and the
destruction of the fine palace at Via Lata in Genoa.133
Charles V considered the Fieschi to be rebels against him, too, and he was
concerned that the stronghold of Montoggio should not become another nest
for the French, like Mirandola.134 The Fieschi conspiracy furnished a welcome
excuse to Charles and his ministers, foremost among them Ferrante Gonzaga,
to insist that Genoa would be more secure with a Spanish garrison and a fortress manned by them (and paid for by the Genoese). Agostino Spinola was
their preferred candidate to be captain. Immediately after the conspiracy he
had approached Genoa with 3,000 infantry, but the Genoese government ordered him to dismiss the troops before he entered the city. He was given command of the expedition that besieged and took Montoggio, the last Fieschi
stronghold to fall. A pretext for Andrea Doria to refuse to have him as captain
of any garrison in Genoa was provided by an accusation from a Fieschi associate, that Stefano Spinola had mooted the idea of instituting an Adorno regime,
saying Agostino would support it.135 Figueroa, the Imperial ambassador, dismissed these reports, yet had to accept that the rivalry between the Spinola
and the Doria made the candidacy of Agostino for captain untenable.136 There
would be no Spanish garrison, and no Spanish fortress in Genoa. Charles V and
Philip II had to rely on less tangible guarantees that Genoa would continue to
be a reliable ally, foremost among them the massive financial interests Genoese
bankers had in the Spanish monarchy.
For the Roman barons, in fundamental ways, patterns of allegiance and the
principles on which conflicts of allegiance were resolved were not changed by
the Italian Wars. They were still inclined to put their obligations to the pope
below those they might have as professional soldiers; they still felt they had a
131
132
133
134
135
136
See above. pp. 41, 94.

Spinola et al., Documenti ispano-genovesi, 734: Montesa to Ferrante Gonzaga, 21 Jan.
1547, Venice.
Ibid., 78: Figueroa to Charles V, 25 Jan. 1547, Genoa.
Ibid., 123: Charles V to Ferrante Gonzaga, 11 Feb. 1547.
Ibid., 630.
228
Chapter 7
right to put their lands and fortresses in the Papal States at the service of their
employers. Integrated as they were into the Italian state system, however, they
could not avoid being affected by upheavals in that system brought about by
the wars, or having to adjust to them. Not only did they have to find their place
in the transformed military order,137 but also in the new political order, shaped
and dominated by the ultramontane powers.
Adjustment was made easier by the French and Spanish in Italy adopting
the policies of the Italian powers in dealing with the papacy as a temporal
power, and cultivating the allegiance of the Roman barons, mainly the Orsini
and Colonna, with a view to using them as a curb on the pope. As before, the
popes response was to assert the priority of the barons duty of allegiance to
the papacy, with, as before, limited success. On the other hand, with Italy only
one of the battlegrounds between the major European powers, and with the
fate of the largest states in Italy at stake in the campaigns, if the pope chose to
confiscate the estates of an important Roman baron, this would not seem so
momentous to other princes as it would have done to the Italian powers of the
fifteenth century, ever attentive to subtle shifts in the balance of forces among
them. The temporal ambitions of the popes, for the papacy and for their own
families, were given new scope by the wars beginning with Alexander VI,
whose plans virtually to eradicate the barons from around Rome to the benefit
of his own family (not to mention his lavish endowment of Cesare Borgia with
papal territory) were unthinkable without the absorption of the other powers
in the determination of the fate of Naples and Milan.
The loyalty of Roman barons to the kings of France or Spain or the emperor,
and their readiness to identify with their interests, were apparently greater
than they had been towards Italian secular princes in the fifteenth century. It
would be difficult to find any Roman barons referring with such respect to an
Italian prince as Giangiordano Orsini was observed doing to the king of France
at the English court in 1499, never speaking of him without calling him his
lord,138 or proferring the kind of advice that Prospero Colonna gave to Charles
V, on how he could become lord of all Italy,139 let alone affirming that he had
given himself body and soul to the service of the prince, the sole aim of all his
thoughts and actions, on which his very life and being depended, as Cardinal
137
138
139

CSPSpanish, I, 207: Pedro de Ayala to Ferdinand and Isabella, 26 Mar. 1499, London
(assuming master, the term given there, to be a translation of seor in the Spanish despatch).
Ibid., II, 4889: Prospero Colonnas instructions to Gian Vincenzo Cosso, his envoy to
Charles V, 2 Oct. 1522.
229
Pompeo Colonna did of Charles V.140 No baron, cardinal or layman, would ever
refer to a pope in such terms of devotion.
While the Colonna di Marino and Paliano became linked to the Spanish,
and hence to Charles V, in Italy, the Colonna di Palestrina did not, preferring
the service of the king of France. This was an instance of divided allegiances in
a family not reflecting a deliberate family strategy, a hedging of bets, but rather
the continuation of a long-standing breach between different branches. Nor
was it the wish of his uncle Prospero that Marcantonio Colonna di Paliano
entered the service of Francis I.141 The French king sent him to Rome to help
the French ambassador there.142 Confident that Francis would be elected emperor in 1519, and having planned public celebrations in great style, Marcantonio left Rome when it seemed certain that the election would go to Charles; it
was said he could not bear to see the celebrations of the Spanish kings triumph staged by other Colonna.143 Fabrizios nephew, another Prospero, also
had his differences with his relatives, and was not committed to the Spanish
either: this was attributed to his not having estates in Naples.144
The association of the Colonna with the Spanish was forged in Naples at a
time when they were condemned as rebels by the pope. In Charles VIIIs campaign in the kingdom in 1495, Prospero and Fabrizio had fought for the French,
and then switched to serve Ferrandino and his successor Federico.145 As their
relations with Alexander VI deteriorated, Federico tried to protect them by mediating. Cesare Borgias reliance on condottieri of the Orsini party put the Colonna and their Ghibelline allies at a disadvantage. The Colonna protested
about attacks on the Ghibellines, threatening reprisals against the Orsini rather than Alexander.146 Alexander said he would leave the Colonna alone if they
did not interfere with what he wanted to do in the Papal States, but that he
could not guarantee them against the French, so long as they were with Federico.147 The Spanish ambassador in Rome became involved in negotiations for a
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
AGSimancas, Estado, leg. 1006, 136: Cardinal Colonna to Francisco de los Cobos, 30 June
1530, Naples.
See above, p. 143.
Sanuto, I diarii, XXIV, col. 613.
ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 864, c. 160: Alessandro de Gabbioneta to Isabella dEste, 17 June
1519, Rome.
ASFlorence, Otto di Pratica, Carteggio, Responsive, b. 41, c. 201: Galeotto de Medici,
30 June 1526, Rome; Shaw, The Political Role, 945.
See above, p. 140.
ASFlorence, Signoria, Carteggio, Resp., b. 19, c. 71: Francesco Cappelli, 22 Sept. 1500, Rome.
ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 854: Gian Lucido Cattaneo to Francesco Gonzaga, 14 Sept. 1500,
Rome.
230
Chapter 7
truce between the Colonna and the pope, acting with Federico rather than for
the Colonna. He was a guarantor of the four-month truce that was agreed in
late September 1500: the Colonna were not to attack the lands of the Church or
the Orsini; the pope and the Orsini were not to molest the Colonna and their
allies.148 At its expiry, the truce was not renewed, and as the French army made
its way south to invade Naples in June 1501, and the agreement between the
French and Spanish monarchs to divide the kingdom of Naples was revealed,
Alexander demanded the surrender of the Colonnas estates. Fabrizio declared
that, if Federico was ready to defend his realm, he was ready to die fighting in
his own estates, but soon the Colonna decided it would be better to surrender
their lands to the pope, rather than have them ravaged and taken by the French,
reckoning they could be recovered in time from the pope or his son.149 The
Colonna (and the Savelli) were declared rebels by Alexander and all their property confiscate.
Following Federicos defeat, Prospero and Fabrizio perhaps had little option
but to turn to the Spanish, for the French were Alexanders allies. Fortunately
for them, their military skills won Gonzalo de Crdobas esteem. In the autumn
of 1502, when the fortunes of the Spanish in their war against the French for
control of the kingdom were at a low ebb, Gonzalo agreed very favourable
terms with them, pledging they should have all the estates they had held in
Federicos reign. If Ferdinand and Isabella had to agree to a definitive division
of the kingdom with Louis, the Colonna were to receive equivalent recompense for any estates still lost to them, until their eventual recovery. If the
Spanish were driven from the kingdom entirely, Gonzalo gave his word he
would still help them get their lands back. There was no mention of any obligations of the Colonna towards Ferdinand and Isabella, as subjects or vassals.150
The Colonna were thinking of themselves as condottieri in the service of Spain,
not subjects fighting for their king. At this time, Ferdinand was also thinking of
them as condottieri, rather than as Neapolitan barons. Once his hold on the
kingdom was established, he began to think of them as his barons, as well as
Roman barons. As a vassal of the Church and mine, Prospero should go to
Rome to sort out the problems Bishop Pompeo Colonna was causing Julius II,
Ferdinand ordered in April 1512.151
148
149
150
151
ASFlorence, Signoria, Carteggio, Resp., b. 19, c. 98: Francesco Cappelli, 26 Sept. 1500, Rome.
ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 854: Gian Lucido Cattaneo to Francesco Gonzaga, 17, 23 June
1501, Rome.
Barn de Terrateig, Politica en Italia del Rey Catlico 15071516. Correspondencia indita con
el embajador Vich (Madrid, 1963), II, 2045.
231
Relations between the Colonna and Juliuss successor, Leo X, were uneasy
from the start, because of the long association of Leos family, the Medici, with
the Orsini.152 But Leo did not accuse them of complicity with the cardinals
prosecuted for plotting against the popes life in 1517, despite their friendship
with two of the main alleged conspirators, Cardinals Petrucci and Soderini.
Pompeo Colonna was included in the subsequent mass promotion of cardinals
intended to make the College more obedient to Leo. The pope appeared to
want to win over Prospero Colonna in particular, proposing to give into his care
a natural son of his brother, Giuliano de Medici (who had died in 1516), who
was to be married to Prosperos granddaughter and given lands in Naples. Prospero evaded the suggestion by replying that he was a servant of the pope but a
subject of the Spanish king, and could do nothing without his leave.153 In the
summer of 1521, when Leo had switched alliances from Francis I to the Emperor, there were reports he would appoint Prospero or Marcantonio Colonna
to command his army.154 Prospero was put in overall command of the papal,
Florentine and Imperial troops for the impending war in Lombardy. Unwilling
to accept any appointment that would place him in opposition to the French
king, Marcantonio was with the French army that besieged Prosperos troops
in Milan. After he was killed there in March 1522, Prospero commissioned a
eulogy of him.155
During the pontificate of the second Medici pope, Clement VII, the Colonna
became more than ever identified with the Spanish and the emperor, in large
part because of the enmity between Cardinal Pompeo Colonna and the pope.
This came to a head in 1526. Charles V would rather that Cardinal Colonna had
stayed in Rome, representing his interests there, but the cardinal was not on
good terms with the Imperial ambassador, and the pope bridled at the idea
that he should be involved in negotiations. He did not feel safe in Rome, the
cardinal said, but would go there if it was necessary to serve Charles.156 An
edict that no subject of the pope even if he were a cardinal should take
service with any prince, be he emperor, king or duke, on pain of excommunication, rebellion and lse-majest, was obviously aimed at the Colonna as much
as anyone.157 Before its publication, Cardinal Colonna had already sent to tell
152
153
154
155
156
157
See below, p. 237.

Sanuto, I diarii, XXVI, col. 368.
Ibid., XXX, cols 4678; XXXI, cols 19, 21.
Serio, Una gloriosa sconfitta, 274, 290.
CSPSpanish, III, part 1, 5678: Charles V to duca di Sessa, 8 Feb. 1526, Toledo; 6024: Miguel
de Herrera to Charles V, 16 Mar. 1526, Rome; 609: duca di Sessa to Charles V, 16 Mar. 1526,
Rome.
ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 871, 464: printed edict of Clement VII, 11 June 1526.
232
Chapter 7
Charles he was prepared to drive the pope from Rome and to raise rebellion in
some parts of the Papal States, as well as cause Florence and Siena to rise
against his domination; Charles ordered he should be encouraged to do this, if
negotiations with the pope failed.158 Less belligerent than his cousin the cardinal, the leading layman of the family, Prosperos son Vespasiano, did not want
to fight the pope, and went to Rome to make an agreement with him. On behalf
of all the Colonna, he promised they would be faithful vassals of the pope for
the lands they held in the Papal States, and would not aid any Imperial attack
on him from Roman territory, but also stipulated that, as vassals of Charles,
they were obliged to defend the kingdom of Naples.159
Nevertheless, Vespasiano and Fabrizios son, Ascanio were with Cardinal
Colonna and the Imperial envoy Ugo de Moncada, when they entered Rome
with several thousand infantry and horse, and sacked the Vatican on 20 September, while the pope retreated to the Castel SantAngelo. Moncada signed a
truce with Clement, with a full pardon for all the Colonna and their men.160
According to the pope, Cardinal Colonna had said he had come to free his
homeland (patria) from a tyrant, but the Colonna, who quickly withdrew their
men from Rome, denied they had ordered the sack, blaming the troops who
could not be held back when the palace was undefended. Mortified by how
weak and ill-prepared he had been shown to be in time of war, Clement was
particularly bitter about Vespasianos part in it.161 He took his revenge by sending papal troops brought from Lombardy to occupy their estates after the Colonna had left for Naples, in accordance with the terms of the truce arguing
that the lands were being laid waste as punishment of his rebellious vassals162
and enlisted the help of the Orsini to counter the troops sent from Naples to
support the Colonna.
The scandal of their incursion into Rome faded in the face of the far greater
outrage of the sack of Rome by Imperial troops in May 1527, in which they did
not participate. They had been waiting with their men to join Bourbon, the
Imperial commander but when they brought them to Rome a few days later
and the men fell to looting, Cardinal Colonna called them off, and he did what
158
159
160
161
162
Karl Lanz (ed.), Correspondenz des Kaisers Karl V (Leipzig, 1846), I, 216: Charles V to Ugo de
Moncada, 11 June 1526.
ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 871, c. 619: Francesco Gonzaga to Federico Gonzaga, 25 Aug.
1526, Rome.
CSPSpanish, III, part 1, 9278.
ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 871, cc. 6967, 6989, 7046: extracts Francesco Gonzaga
to Gian Giacomo Calandra(?), 21, 22, 13 Sept. 1526, Rome; cc. 7001: Francesco Gonzaga to
Federico Gonzaga, 23 Sept. 1526, Rome.
CSPSpanish, III, part 1, 1007: Perez to Charles V, 16 Nov. 1526, Rome.
233
little he could to restrain the Imperial troops. Full restoration of all the Colonna estates, and of the cardinals dignities and benefices were among the terms
agreed between the pope and the Imperial representatives on 5 June. Clement
did consider appointing Cardinal Colonna legate in Rome, thinking he could
use the authority of the Colonna to restore peace in the city and its environs,
but the pope and the cardinal were never really reconciled.163 The cardinal
ended his career not in Rome, but as Charless lieutenant in Naples.
There was potential for another major confrontation between Clement and
the Colonna in 1528, when Vespasiano died, leaving his only daughter, Isabella
as his heiress and stipulating Ippolito de Medici as his choice of husband for
her, but the Colonna asserted the lands should rightfully go to Ascanio, as the
nearest male heir. Clement took Isabella and the lands under his protection
but the Colonna fought to take possession. The dispute did not turn into a full
scale rebellion, partly because the Colonna deflected their anger onto the Orsini who became involved, and partly because Clements personal interest was
diminished, as Isabella was married off to her stepmothers brother and then
Ippolito made a cardinal in January 1529.164 Ascanio managed to secure Vespasianos inheritance in the Papal States, but the Neapolitan estates went to Isabella, who was eventually married to the son of a former viceroy, Philippe de
Lannoy. Ascanio was never reconciled to the loss of these lands, and this tempered his loyalty to Charles V. The support his estranged wife received from
Charles and the viceroy Pedro de Toledo fanned Ascanios discontent.
Nevertheless, he was on better terms with the emperor than he was with the
pope. When he went to war with Paul III in 1541 over the imposition of a salt
tax on his lands, he appealed to the viceroy for help in my just and necessary
defence, against the unjust and tyrannous action of the pope, as the emperors
protection and the service of the Colonna required. I will always be prepared
to obey His Imperial Majesty as my only lord and master and true superior.165
Paul took precautions in Rome to avoid a repeat of Clements humiliation in
1526, increasing the palace guard and blocking up some of the entrances to the
Vatican.166 But Ascanio had alienated his own men, who would not have followed him into Rome if he had mustered the resolution to lead them there,
and he was not sent any support by the viceroy. Paul told the cardinals that the
163
164
165
166
ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 877, c. 530: extracts Francesco Gonzaga to ?Gian Giacomo

Calandra, 10 Sept. 1528, Rome.
AGSimancas, Estado, leg. 1033, 16: copy Ascanio Colonna to viceroy, 28 Feb. 1541, Marino;
17: la substancia scritta al orator Cesareo et al vice Re.
ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 1911, c. 83: Nino to Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga, 5 Mar. 1541, Rome.
234
Chapter 7
war was only against Ascanio, not the Colonna family; he wanted the world to
know that the pope had a right to punish his vassals. For his part, Ascanio was
hoping that Charles would command him to make an agreement with the
pope, as he felt his honour would thereby be saved because he could say he was
obeying the emperor, not the pope.167 Yet when the Imperial ambassador concluded terms for him, as he had wished, Ascanio rejected them as dishonourable.168 All his lands in the Papal States were quickly taken by the papal troops,
and he did not recover them until after Pauls death.
The eccentricities and unreliability of Ascanio exhausted the patience
of the emperor and the viceroy. Reports that he had been in contact with the
French were the last straw, and in 1554 he was arrested and imprisoned in Naples, where he would be held, protesting his loyalty to Charles and to Philip,
until his death. His only surviving son, Marcantonio, was treated sympathetically by the emperor and his officials and by Pope Julius III, and no objection
was raised when Marcantonio took over his fathers estates before Ascanio
died. Julius IIIs successor, Paul IV, however, confiscated the lands in the Papal
States in September 1555. Not anticipating this, Marcantonio had made no
preparations to defend them and put up no resistance. His dispossession of his
father was one of the accusations against him, but his real crime in the eyes of
Paul IV was his allegiance to Charles and Philip. The pope (who was given to
passionate rages if anyone crossed him) denounced the entire Colonna family
as always being enemies of the popes, always traitors and rebels against the
Holy See, recalling their part in attacks on Pope Boniface VIII two and a half
centuries before.169 In May 1556, Paul granted the Colonna estates to his own
nephews. Marcantonio had a prominent role in the campaigns waged against
the pope from the kingdom of Naples by the duke of Alba in 1556 and 1557; the
support he received from the men of the Colonna estates contributed much to
their success.170
In negotiations between Alba and Cardinal Caraffa in November 1556, the
question of Marcantonios estates was one of the trickiest points, not least because of the determination of the pope not to restore the Colonna lands.171
Alba argued that Philip (now king of Naples) could not agree to anything less
167
168
169
170
171
Ibid., cc. 856: Nino to Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga, 9 Mar. 1541, Rome.
Ibid., c. 115: Nino to Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga, 16 Apr. 1541, Rome.
Bernardo Navagero, Dispacci al Senato, ed. Daniele Santarelli, 43, 114: 11 Jan., 25 July 1556.
Camillo Colonna, his wife and his brother Ascanio were imprisoned in Rome, among
others accused of favouring the invading forces.
CSPVenetian, VI ii; 8167, 823, 8256, 828, 8324; Shaw, The Roman barons and the security of the Papal States, 322.
235
than full restitution to Marcantonio, because the lands had been confiscated
from him as Philips servant, and otherwise there could be no lasting peace.172
But when it came to negotiating peace with Paul in 1557, Alba had to concede
that rebels against the pope, including Marcantonio, should be excluded,173
and make a secret deal about Paliano. As usual when a Roman barons estates
had been confiscated by a pope, Marcantonio only had to wait for the pope to
die, in 1559, to take them back except for Paliano, which was in Philips custody, and not restored to him until 1562.174
In general, the Orsini once they had come through the travails of the Borgia pontificate were on better terms with the popes than were the Colonna
during the Italian Wars. They might have anticipated problems during the pontificate of Julius II, for as a cardinal he had been an ally of the Colonna, but as
pope he was fairly even-handed in his relations with the Roman barons, not
really favouring either faction. Under the Medici and Farnese popes, from families with long Guelf traditions, the Orsini had more reason than the Colonna
to give their primary allegiance to the papacy. Several did hold papal condotte,
but there was still greater attraction in serving other powers, especially Venice
or France.175 Orsini condottieri, like other Roman baronial condottieri, made
more of a mark in the wars in the service of others than the pope; if they did
serve the pope it was still just a condotta, like any other, with no greater sense
of allegiance attached to it.
No Orsini was able to take on the political as well as military role that Virginio Orsini had before the wars, when he had not only been one of the top
condottieri in Italy, and the authoritative head of the Guelf faction in the Papal
States, but also a key intermediary between the pope, the king of Naples and
Lorenzo de Medici in Florence.176 His connections with the Medici and Ferrante caused trouble in the first months of Alexander VIs pontificate when
Piero de Medici helped Virginio buy Cerveteri and Anguillara from Pieros
brother-in-law Franceschetto Cibo, who had been granted these estates by his
father Innocent VIII. Alexander insisted that Ferrante was behind the transaction, that Virginios ownership of these lands would increase the potential
threat to Rome from the Orsini estates in time of war, and that Ferrante and
172
173
174
175
176
Donata Chiomenti Vassalli, Giovanna dAragona tra baroni, principi e sovrani del Rinascimento (Milan, 1987), 141.
Pietro Nores, Storia della guerra degli Spagnuoli contro Papa Paolo IV, 2157; the Colonna
held in Rome were, however, released.
See above, p. 31.
See above, pp. 1379, 1445.
Christine Shaw, Lorenzo de Medici and Virginio Orsini; Shaw, The Political Role, 1589.
236
Chapter 7
Piero were plotting to make these barons around Rome great and put pressure
on the Holy See and us to bend us to their will.177 He ordered Virginio not to
buy the lands, on pain of rebellion,178 and the affair was only settled after
months of diplomatic effort by Ferrante lending Virginio the money, 35,000
ducats, to pay the pope for pardon and confirmation of his possession of the
lands.179
The second major quarrel between Alexander and the Orsini followed the
vanquishing of the French forces in Naples in 1496, because Virginio, his son
Giangiordano and cousin Paolo had been fighting for the French while Alexander was a member of the League opposed to them. The three Orsini, prisoners
of Federico in Naples, had been declared rebels by the pope and their property
confiscate. Having refused to cede Cerveteri and Anguillara to the pope, the
Orsini family and party successfully defended Virginios lands, and defeated
the papal army in open battle in January 1497, capturing the papal com-
mander, the duke of Urbino. They were able to negotiate terms without relinquishing any lands, with Urbinos ransom covering much of the indemnity
they agreed to pay the pope.180
Virginio had died in prison before his familys victory, and the other Orsini
condottiere of comparable status, Niccol da Pitigliano, was by then in the service of Venice. So when Alexander switched to an alliance with France, and
changed his attitude to the Orsini, it was men from the next, less capable, generation of Orsini condottieri, Paolo, Giulio, Carlo, and Francesco, duca di Gravina, who were given condotte in the army Alexander recuited for his son Cesare.
It became an uncomfortable association when prominent Guelf allies such as
the Bentivoglio of Bologna came into the sights of the Borgia as targets for
Cesares campaigns of conquest. By the summer of 1502 Alexander was contemplating an attack on Giangiordano Orsini, and made enquiries of the
French as to how Louis XII would react, because Giangiordano (like the Bentivoglio) was under the kings protection. Hearing of this, the Orsini and their
allies laid plans to defend themselves, but Paolo Orsini in negotiations with
Cesare agreed terms that did not really guarantee the security of those Guelfs
whom Cesare still planned to attack. The ground was prepared for Cesares famous trap at Senigallia on 31 December 1502, when Paolo and Francesco Orsini
were arrested, together with two of their allied condottieri, Vitellozzo Vitelli
177
178
179
180
Paolo Negri, Studi sulla crisi italiana, 51 (1924), 122: Stefano Taverna to Ludovico Sforza,
16 Feb. 1493, Rome.
ACapitolino, AOrsini, b. 102, c. 573: Sante Vittorino to Virginio Orsini, 14 Nov. 1492, Rome.
Shaw, The Political Role, 534, 17980.
Ibid., 1823.
237
and Oliverotto da Fermo, who were killed within hours. Paolo and Francesco
were kept alive for nearly three weeks, for Cesare apparently still had hopes of
keeping the support of the Orsini family, believing that he needed the support
of one of the parties around Rome. Alexander wanted to root them out entirely, as he had done with the Colonna. He did not like Cesares reluctance to
attack Giangiordanos fortresses and willingness to accept the French kings
attempt to negotiate a settlement. Breathtakingly ambitious and greedy as
both Cesare and Alexander were, Cesare showed a greater grasp of political
realities by at least perceiving that it was impossible entirely to sweep away all
the baronial families from around Rome, substitute the Borgia for them and
expect such arrangements to endure after the death of the pope. Within weeks
of the popes death in August 1503, the barons had all recovered their lands.181
The Orsini were linked to the Medici family by two marriages, of Lorenzo de
Medici to Clarice Orsini from the Monterotondo branch, and of his son Piero
to Virginios cousin Alfonsina. These marriages had not turned out entirely to
the advantage of the Medici one of the reasons Piero had failed to win the
respect of the Medici party in Florence was that he behaved more like an
Orsini.182 The Orsini had stood by the Medici after their exile from Florence in
1494, although some of the family disapproved of backing Pieros attempts to
return by force, as Virginio did in 1495. Some favoured not abandoning the
Medici, but trying to maintain relations with the Florentines. The Medici connections made the Florentines wary of employing Orsini condottieri; only one,
Ludovico da Pitigliano whose family estates bordered on Florentine territory
held a condotta from Florence for several years.183 Under Leo X the son of
an Orsini mother several Orsini held condotte under the Medici commanders
of the papal army, Paolos son Camillo under Leos brother, Giuliano, and then
under Piero de Medicis son Lorenzo, together with Mario di Monterotondo,
Orsino di Mugnano and Gentil Virginio, conte dAnguillara.184 Renzo da Ceri
also held a condotta from Leo from 1515.
Under Clement, who had no Orsini blood, the connection between the families was not so close. Only Gentil Virginio held a papal command. When Renzo da Ceri came to defend Rome in 1527, he was sent by Francis I, not hired by
Clement. When the Medici were again expelled from Florence in 1527, the Orsini did not support them. Renzos son, Gianpaolo, and Mario and Napoleone
Orsini were among the condottieri who defended Florence against the Imperial
181
182
183
184
Christine Shaw, Alexander VI, Cesare Borgia and the Orsini, 1319.
Francesco Guicciardini, Storie fiorentine, Chap. XVII.
Ibid., 191, and Appendix 3.
238
Chapter 7
army which besieged the city in 152930 and restored the Medici.185 Under the
Medici dukes of Florence, Alessandro and then Cosimo, Orsini condottieri were
again able to reconcile the familys tradition of holding commands in the Florentine army and their connection with the Medici.
Before he took service with the Florentine republicans, Napoleone Orsini
had already fallen foul of Clement.186 In February 1527, he had been detained
in the Castel Sant Angelo for interrogation about allegations he was conspiring with the Colonna and the viceroy to make another incursion into Rome.
Napoleone was to bring his men, crying Orso and Colonna, pretending to
come to the defence of the pope against troops led by Ascanio Colonna, who
would enter by another city gate, crying Colonna and Impero. Once his men
had control of the Vatican, Napoleone was to kill the pope and eight cardinals.187
Napoleone was sufficiently headstrong to have thought up such a scheme, but
Clement apparently concluded he was not much of a threat, and released him
after two months. Stringent conditions were attached, with huge securities required that he would stay out of the Papal States, agree to a division of the
family lands with his half-brothers and not use force against them.188 He did
not abide by these conditions, continued to annoy Clement by using the Orsini
fortresses he held as bases for raids on travellers, and gave the pope excuse to
back his stepmother and half-brothers in the dispute over their lands, sending
papal troops to besiege and occupy major family strongholds such as Bracciano and Vicovaro. In June 1530, as Clements troops were taking his strongholds,
Napoleone was declared a public enemy and a rebel against the Church, a
plotter against the person of the pope, but a French cardinal, Gramont, helped
to arrange a pardon for him.189 In November 1533, when Clement was at Marseilles with Francis I, the kings intercession obtained a pardon for him and his
followers for all the highway robberies, murders, kidnaps and other crimes
they had committed.190 Clement was reported to have told Napoleone that he
185
186
187
188
189
190
Ibid., 164.
See Shaw, The exemplary career of a rogue elephant, 34860, for his relations with
Clement.
ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 873, cc. 979: Francesco Gonzaga to Federico Gonzaga, 6 Feb.
1527, Rome; cc. 1167: extract from Francesco Gonzaga to Gian Giacomo Calandra?,
10 Feb. 1527, Rome.
Ibid., cc. 2312: Francesco Gonzaga to Federico Gonzaga, 23 Mar. 1527, Rome; see above,
pp. 38, 68.
C. De Cupis, Regesto degli Orsini e dei Conti Anguillara, Ser. 4, 4 (1934), 344; AGSimancas,
Estado, leg. 850, 99: transcription coded passage, Mai to Charles V, 15 Sept. 1530, Rome.
De Cupis, Regesto degli Orsini, Ser. 4, 4 (1934), 3589.
239
would be given his lands if he lived peacefully and was a good and faithful subject of the Church, with the kings guarantee that he would be.191
Napoleone had no particular claim on the support of the French king, other
than that he was an Orsini. The Orsini had become associated with the French
in Italy, as the Colonna were with the Spanish. As Guelfs, it could be seen as
only fitting that they should be drawn towards the heirs of the Angevins. Such
sentiment did not stop some Orsini serving the enemies of France, on occasion. In the first campaign of the wars, they were opposed to Charles VIIIs
conquest of Naples. Virginio and Niccol Orsini were captured and the king
took them with him on his return journey through Italy in 1495. Niccol escaped at the battle of Fornovo (and spent the rest of his life serving Venice),
Virginio was released when Charles reached Asti. A few months later, in January 1496, he accepted the command of the Italian forces recruited to fight for
the French in Naples, only to fall captive again, this time of Ferrandino.192 His
son Giangiordano, who had also been imprisoned in Naples, became devoted
to the French king after he went to France with Cesare Borgia in 1498. When
other Orsini were agreeing papal condotte in April 1500, he chose not to participate, and was said to be preparing 100 men-at-arms from his own resources
to serve the French.193
Louis XIIs protection of Giangiordano was an obstacle to Alexanders wish
to destroy the Orsini; the pope had to agree to Giangiordano going to France to
discuss the exchange of his lands in the Papal States against Cesare Borgias
estates in Naples. Giangiordano, who was confident the king would take his
side, undertook to abide by whatever Louis should decide, as every good servant and vassal should do towards his supreme lord, not only of his estates and
property, but of his life, his wife and his children.194 But Louis wanted the
popes support in Naples, where the war was not going well for the French, and
Alexander was ready to switch his support to Spain; the cession of Giangiordanos estates to the pope was a price the king was prepared to pay. In July his
envoys detained Giangiordano on the ship on which he had embarked to go to
France, and he remained in their detention until the popes death.195 In spite of
this, and in spite of all the Orsini had suffered at the hands of the Borgia,
191
192
193
194
195
ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 882, c. 153: Fabrizio Peregrino to Federico Gonzaga, 9 Nov. 1533,
Rome.
See above, p. 140.
ASFlorence, Signoria, Carteggi, Resp., b. 14, c. 203: Antonio Malegonnelle, 11 Apr. 1500,
Rome.
De Cupis, Regesto degli Orsini, Ser. III, 17 (1926), 18992.
Giustinian, Dispacci, II, 634, 845, 93, 989, 106: 8, 9, 27 July, 2, 7, 13 Aug. 1503.
240
Chapter 7
Giangiordano was still willing to obey French orders to escort Cesare Borgia
from Rome, where he was no longer safe, to Bracciano. Amazed and appalled,
his family managed to talk him out of this, and to abandon Cesare, but not
the French.196 For the other Orsini, the protection extended to Cesare by the
French at this juncture impelled them to reject offers from them and accept
condotte offered by the Spanish. Five Orsini,197 with several condottieri from
their faction, Bartolomeo d Alviano and Renzo da Ceri among them, fought for
the Spanish in the final campaign that decided the fate of Naples in 1503.198
Not the least of the reasons for the Orsini not settling in the service of Spain,
was that the Colonna had got there first. Cuts in troop numbers and changes to
the conditions of employment of the Italian captains ordered by Ferdinand in
1504199 affected the Colonna as well as the Orsini, but they had preceded the
Orsini into Spanish service and they had secured possession of the disputed
counties of Tagliacozzo and Albi and other estates there. Orsini ties to the
kingdom of Naples were further weakened in 1528 by the confiscation of estates held there by the Pitigliano branch of the family, because Enrico Orsini,
conte di Nola, had taken a condotta for a troop of light horse from Lautrec.200
That left the duca di Gravina as the only prominent Orsini baron in the kingdom and he had had to struggle to redeem his estates after they had been
confiscated.
Had the French succeeded in holding on to part or all of the kingdom at the
beginning of the century or in conquering it in 1528, then the Orsini might have
become as closely identified with them as the Colonna were with the Spanish.
No other Orsini displayed such devotion to the French king as did Giangiordano. Orsini condottieri served the French, and the French court became more
familiar to some of them than the papal court, but the kings had less to offer in
the way of estates in Italy than the Spanish kings. Orsini condottieri were not
subjects and vassals of the king of France. Their association with the French
had less impact and was of much less direct consequence for the pope, than
the association of the Colonna with the Spanish.
The French would probably have liked the Orsini connection with them to
have been more evident in Rome. A proposal that Gianpaolo da Ceri should
accompany Cardinal Ippolito de Medici to Hungary left the French
196
197
198
Ibid., 2434: 15 Oct. 1503.

Giulio, Fabio, Franciotto, Ludovico and Roberto.
N.F.Faraglia, Gli Orsini al soldo di Spagna (1503), 55762; Mallett and Shaw, The Italian
Wars, 689.
200 Guicciardini, Storia dItalia, Book XIX, Chap. 4.
241
ambassador in Rome desperate because he was the only member of the Orsini
faction that the ambassador could make use of there.201 Persuaded by the ambassador that he could not in honour do that while he was waiting for a longdelayed reply from France about a condotta he had been negotiating, Gianpaolo
at last got generous terms from the king.202 As the heir of the main branch of
the Orsini, Paolo Giordano (he had been born two months after his father Girolamo died) grew to manhood in the 1550s, Henry II tried to win him over,
giving him a pension and making him a member of the order of Saint-Michel.
Pope Paul IV, keen to cement the links of his own family to the French king,
encouraged the connection, threatening that if Paolo Giordano did not accompany Cardinal Caraffa to France, he would be imprisoned and his estates would
be treated like those of Marcantonio Colonna, and forcing him to renounce his
engagement to the daughter of Duke Cosimo de Medici, of which Henry did
not approve.203 Paolo Giordano obeyed, but preferred the Florentine connection to the French, sending back the collar of the Order in 1558,204 and marrying Cosimos daughter Isabella.
It was not a foregone conclusion that the French would lose the Italian
Wars, and be left with the marquisate of Saluzzo and temporary custody of a
handful of fortresses in Piedmont as all they had to show for six decades of
military and diplomatic effort. In the 1550s, the Spanish in Italy had come under real pressure from the French, and Charles V himself felt his position in Italy was insecure. The terms to which Henry II agreed in the Treaty of
Cateau-Cambrsis came as an agreeable surprise to the Spanish.205 Francis I
had never relinquished the idea that Milan and Naples were rightfully his.
These claims meant less to Henry II, yet he still offered refuge, protection and
military commands to Milanese and Neapolitan exiles, as his predecessors had
done. Nobles from other Italian states who might be useful could also find a
place in the service of the French kings. In Italy, the French were always on the
lookout for allies, great and small, from the pope or Venice to holders of little
Imperial fiefs. Imperial fiefholders who chose to associate with the French
201
ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 881: Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga to Gian Giacomo Calandra,

20 June 1532, Rome.
202 Ibid., 157, 187: Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga to Gian Giacomo Calandra, 10 July, 8 Aug. 1532,
Rome. The king gave him a condotta for 3,000 infantry and 150 horse, and a pension of
1,500 scudi a year.
203 Ibid., b. 1928: transcription of coded despatches from Rome, 5, 17 May 1556; AGSimancas,
Estado, leg. 1323, 155: transcribed code Francisco de Vargas to Philip II, 7 June 1556, Venice.
204 Michel Franois (ed.), Correspondance du Cardinal Franois de Tournon (Paris, 1946), 368:
Tournon to Henri II, 19 Aug. 1558, Conegliano.
205 Mallett and Shaw, The Italian Wars, 25085.
242
Chapter 7
could be taking a risky option, in those phases of the war when it laid them
open to charges of treachery to the emperor.
That was how Carpi was lost to the Pio, and Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara was
able to realise his long-standing ambition to annex it. The process began under
Alfonsos father Ercole, who had exploited a family quarrel between the cousins Giberto and Alberto Pio to induce Giberto to exchange his share of Carpi
with him. In 1496 Giberto had procured investiture with Carpi from Maximilian, who gave Ercole a commission to settle the dispute between the Pio. When
Alberto protested that Ercole was just trying to get Carpi for himself, Maximilian sent two envoys to ask Ercole for Carpi, to no avail. Alberto hung on to his
share of Carpi while making a career as a diplomat. A mission to France in 1506
on behalf of Francesco Gonzaga resulted in his acceptance of an invitation
from Louis XII the next year to enter his service. When French troops occupied
Alfonso dEstes half of Carpi in 1511, Alberto decided to turn to Maximilian for
protection. He was Imperial ambassador to Rome during Leos pontificate, until, following the death of Maximilian, his appointment was not renewed by
Charles V. At Leos insistence, Alberto put himself, informally, at the service of
Francis in late 1519; he refused the grant of a military command and a pension.
Before his role in negotiating a treaty between Leo and Francis was known, he
had had a renewal of the Imperial investiture of Carpi in 1521, but once it came
to light, he became suspect to the emperor, although he had sided with Leo
when the pope turned against his French ally.
Leos death left him in a quandary. He was in disgrace with the French king,
whom he had served faithfully, refusing all reward, Alberto complained, and he
was hated by the emperor and his council, because he had negotiated for the
French.206 Charles ordered Carpi to be taken from Alberto as a traitor; Prospero Colonna sent a detachment of Spanish troops to occupy it in January 1523.
Colonna had asked Charles to grant Carpi to him as a reward for his services; he
was told that no decision could be made until there had been a proper judicial
hearing to decide whether the fief had devolved to the Imperial Chamber.207
Alberto lost any chance of a decision in his favour by becoming French ambassador in Rome. Taking advantage of the reduction of the Spanish garrison as a
fresh French army arrived in Italy, he recovered Carpi in September 1523, expecting his men, led by his brother Leonello, to be reinforced by French troops.
Only a few came under Renzo da Ceri, who soon moved on. Diplomatic support from the new pope, Clement VII, helped Alberto keep possession of Carpi
206 Delle lettere di principi, le quali o si scrivono da principi o a principi o ragionano di principi
(Venice, 1581), 98100: Alberto Pio to Gian Matteo Giberti, 25 Apr. 1522, Carpi.
207 Serio, Una gloriosa sconfitta, 1689.
243
when the French were pushed out of Milan. Charles was advised that he had to
choose whether to buy Albertos favour or decide to destroy him.208 When
Francis Is attempt to recover Milan ended in defeat at Pavia, Carpi was swiftly
occupied by Spanish troops sent by Pescara in March 1525. Like Prospero
Colonna, Pescara hoped to be given Carpi by a grateful emperor for services
rendered, but like Colonna, he was to be disappointed. Carpi was held for the
emperor until Alfonso dEste in March 1527 negotiated its cession to him by
the Imperial general, Charles de Bourbon. The Pio never got it back, and Alfonso dEste obtained its investiture from Charles in 1530. The dispossessed
Alberto Pio went to France in the autumn of 1527, dying there in 1531.209
Mirandola came under French control following the assassination by
Galeotto Pico of his uncle Gian Francesco in 1533. It had come under French
influence earlier, when Galeottos father Lodovico, a younger son, refused to
accept the validity of the Imperial privilege that instituted primogeniture in
the succession to Mirandola.210 Lodovicos marriage to Francesca Trivulzio
brought him the help of his father-in-law Gian Giacomos troops in besieging
and taking Mirandola for him from his elder brother Gian Francesco in 1502.
Lodovico paid homage to Louis and was protected by him; Gian Francesco
went to Germany and got the support of Maximilian, who renewed the investiture of Mirandola to him, excluding Lodovico and their younger brother Federico.211
After Galeotto seized Mirandola, this Imperial fief became an important
base for French forces in the centre of Italy, a centre for recruitment and mustering of troops, a real thorn in the flank of the Imperial and Spanish governors
of Milan. In 1536 there were reports that the French wanted to take over Mirandola, giving Galeotto some compensation; then, in March 1537, it was reported
that Galeotto wanted to complete the exchange but the king was unwilling to
alienate any Crown lands.212 He continued to hold military commands of the
king, and in 1548 his two daughters and young son arrived at the French court
as guarantors of his continued allegiance and that Mirandola would continue
to be at the disposal of the French.213 Galeottos son, Lodovico did indeed follow his father in fighting for the French. In 15512 Mirandola was successfully
208
209
210
211
212
213
Ibid., 288.
Sabattini, Alberto III Pio, 1082.
See above, p. 69.
Ceretti, Lodovico I Pico, 10810, 121. For the period between 1509 and 1533, see Ceretti,
Francesca Trivulzio, 10376.
Lestocquoy (ed.), Correspondance des Nonces en France 153540, 221, 246, 251.
J. Lestocquoy (ed.), Correspondance des Nonces en France Dandino, Della Torre et Trivultio
15461551 (Rome, 1966), 326.
244
Chapter 7
defended by the French against a siege by papal and Imperial troops, and the
French stayed there until after the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrsis. Lodovico Pico
remained loyal to Henry II, when other Italian princes who had been his allies
made their peace with Philip II as the final peace talks began, but he was able
to hold on to Mirandola.
The question of the allegiance of the Orsini da Pitigliano the only branch
of the family to hold an Imperial fief became a matter of concern to the
French and Spanish in Italy in the 1540s as the agents of Charles V were trying
to tighten their grip on the republic of Siena, and the allegiance to the French
king of conte Gian Francesco heightened awareness of the strategic position of
Pitigliano. Gian Francesco had held minor condotte from Venice and the papacy in the 1520s. His sister Girolama had married Pier Luigi Farnese before
Farneses father became pope, but the family connection to the pope did not
give Gian Francesco a position of influence in Rome or a boost to his military
career. He became more closely identified with the French in Italy than with
the Farnese, and was associated with Piero Strozzi, the most vigorous and capable of Florentine exiles fighting for the French; he commanded infantry during Strozzis raid from Mirandola into the Milanese and Piedmont in 1546.214 In
1543 he was made a member of the order of Saint-Michel. That year he and
other Orsini, Gentil Virginio and Camillo, were said to be plotting to bring Siena over to France.215 The only perceptible threat to Imperial interests in Siena
came from Pitigliano, Charles Vs agent there wrote in September 1546, because
of the counts connection with France and his consequent association with
Strozzi and other French adherents.216
Three months later, the rebellion of the men of Pitigliano against Gian Francesco217 tempted the Sienese government into arguing the advantages for
Charles if Siena took Pitigliano, a place of as much and perhaps more importance for the affairs of Tuscany as Mirandola is for Lombardy, from the hands
of someone suspect to the emperor.218 Gian Francescos son, Niccol, who had
been in Germany fighting for the emperor against the Protestants, came to take
214
215
216
217
218
AGSimancas, Estado, leg. 1464, 656: Francesco Crasso to Charles V, 20 Dec. 1546, Siena.
Ibid., leg. 1461, 567: Record of interrogation of Giulio Salvi, 26 Sept. 1543.
Ibid., leg. 1464, 73: Francesco Crasso to Charles V, 13 Sept. 1546, Siena.
He had made himself hated by his despotic ways.
AGSimancas, Estado, leg. 1464, 634: Francesco Crasso to Charles V, 22 Dec. 1546, Siena.
The Sienese had attacked Pitigliano in 1527, after the Sack of Rome had removed Medici
protection from Ludovico Orsini. An Imperial envoy persuaded them to make peace with
Ludovico, who agreed a fifty-year accomandigia with Siena, which probably never became
operative. (Giovanni Antonio Pecci, Memorie storico-critiche della citt di Siena fino
aglanni MDLII (Siena, 175560; 1997), I, part 2, 204, 2559; II, part 3, 22.)
245
possession of Pitigliano. The arrogance of Charles Vs representative in Siena

drove the Sienese to rise against the Spanish and to welcome French troops
into the city in July 1552, and Niccol Orsini, too, went over to the French. I
have only had words from the emperor, he explained, and I have always considered myself free to do as I choose, so I have decided to accept the offers that the
king of France has made and the world will know that I am my own master.219
Earlier that month, Charles had given orders that Niccol be accepted into his
service but it was too late.220 Throughout the subsequent war of Siena, he supported the French. After Siena had surrendered, he was given a cavalry command by Paul IV, but soon fell foul of the pope and was imprisoned in the
Castel SantAngelo, accused of excesses and of heresy.221 On the grounds that
he was in the service of France and not a subject of the pope, Niccol maintained that he should be sent to France to be judged by the king, and Henry
backed this request.222 His status as a French protg did probably facilitate his
eventual pardon, after fourteen months of imprisonment.
News of his sons change of allegiance caused his father, who had hitherto
hoped for help from the French, to offer his services to the emperor. The king
of France had deserted him, he said; he would rather perish with Charles than
go to Paradise with the French.223 If Charles would take him into his protection
and give him justice against Niccol, he would put both his fortresses of Pitigliano and Sorano into the emperors hands, he promised.224 All his efforts to
win the support of the emperor were fruitless. Cosimo de Medici was more
sympathetic but only because he planned to use Gian Francesco to help him
achieve his ambition to get Pitigliano for himself engineering Niccols expulsion from Pitigliano in 1562, and installing Gian Francesco there.
Pitigliano became one of the political conundrums that, once the king of
Spain was no longer also the emperor, became proving-grounds of the relative
strength of the legal claims of the emperor to jurisdiction over Imperial fiefs in
Italy, and the political influence of the king of Spain in areas of Italy that were
219
AGSimancas, Estado, leg. 1319, 380: copy Niccol Orsini to Diego de Mendoza, 26 July 1552,
Pitigliano.
220 Ibid., leg. 1042, 26: Pedro de Toledo to Charles V, 5 July 1552, Naples.
221 Irene Fosi, Niccol Orsini ribelle al Papa e a Cosimo I (15611568), 278.
222 CSPVenetian, VI ii, 850, 878.
223 AGSimancas, Estado, leg. 1320, 44: copy Gian Francesco Orsini to Antonio da Siena, 17 Aug
1552, Carpineto.
224 Ibid., 63: Gian Francesco Orsini to ?, 6 Sept. 1552, Venice; leg. 1321, 85: Gian Francesco
Orsini to Francisco de Vargas [? Nov. 1552].
246
Chapter 7
not under his direct dominion.225 Charles V and his officials and agents in Italy
had conflated Imperial rights and Spanish political and military power, using
claims to Imperial jurisdiction to bring Italian states under Spanish dominion.
For Imperial fiefholders, what had been a status affording protection against
absorption into the dominions of more powerful neighbours became one that
made them vulnerable to interference that curbed their independence, from
peremptory instructions as to who they or their children should marry, to requirements that they should provide billets and supplies for Imperial troops.
For those whose fiefs bordered the duchy of Milan, there was a further complication, as Milanese lawyers and officials carried on the Sforza tradition of
claiming these fiefs were subject to the duchy because of the Imperial investiture of the Visconti dukes.226 The Senate of Milan became a zealous guardian
of these pretensions, more zealous than was sometimes politically expedient
for the Spanish. Layer upon layer of conflicting investitures, of dukes of Milan
(including Philip as duke of Milan) with powers over the Imperial fiefs, and of
the Imperial fiefholders with privileges confirming they were dependent
on the emperor alone, furnished an inexhaustible store of legal arguments that
could be brought before the Senate or the Imperial courts.
Fortunately for the Imperial fiefholders, the emperors took their role as lord
of these fiefs seriously, and were not prepared to let them be subsumed into
Philip IIs dominions. In 1574, for example, Maximilian II took into his protection all the Malaspina marchesi, their wives and children and successors, declaring that they were all subject to Imperial jurisdiction alone.227 A similar
privilege was attached to Maximilians investiture in 1575 of Giovanni Andrea
Doria with the fiefs that his brother Pagano had inherited from Andrea Doria.
Since Andreas death in 1560 these fiefs granted to him by Charles V after being confiscated from the Fieschi had been an important test case for the status of Imperial fiefs between Liguria and Lombardy. The Milanese lawyers
declared them all devolved to the ducal chamber (because Pagano was the adopted heir, not the direct heir of Andrea), irrespective of whether they were
within the borders of the duchy or not, and irrespective of the Imperial investitures Andrea had received from Charles V and from Ferdinand I. Philip II and
225
The Spanish wanted to take over Pitigliano to connect it to the Tuscan ports, the Presidi,
held by Philip (Angelo Biondi, Tentativi di unire ai Presidi Spagnoli la Contea di Piti
gliano). But the Medici played a long game, until in the early seventeenth century the
Medicis exploitation of the continuing family feuds dividing the Pitigliano Orsini, and
their misgovernment of their subjects, resulted in the Grand Duke being granted Imperial
investiture with Pitigliano.
227 Branchi, Storia della Lunigiana feudale, III, 309.
247
his advisers in Madrid were more cautious and questioned the confident assertions sent from Milan, for there were other considerations to be taken into account including the fact that Giovanni Andrea had inherited Andreas galleys
and this Doria fleet still had a significant role in the naval war against cor-
sairs and the Ottomans in the Mediterranean. In the end, the Doria got possession of all the fiefs, and the Imperial jurisdiction prevailed against the
Milanese.228 Similarly, Philips need for Genoese finance, as well as the support
of the emperor, was behind the success of the Spinola in rebuffing Milanese
attempts to subject their Imperial fiefs to taxes, and to billet troops on them.229
Yet there were pressing military reasons why the Spanish should want to
have control over some of the Imperial fiefs, especially in Le Langhe, situated
as they were on the Spanish road, forming a corridor between Lombardy and
the coast, with the French-held marquisate of Saluzzo close by. These considerations were behind a concerted attempt by the Senate to have the feudatari
of Le Langhe renew aderenze that their predecessors had held with the
dukes of Milan.230 Finale, with its harbour, was a place of special interest to
Genoa as well as to Spain. The rebellion in 1558 of the Finalesi against Alfonso
del Carretto (oppressed by his attempts to exact from them the income required to maintain him in the style he had learned at the Imperial court) gave
the Genoese the excuse to intervene and take it over, rejecting the Imperial
claim to jurisdiction when the decision went against them. They finally handed Finale back to Alfonso in 1564. When the Finalesi rebelled against him again
in 1567 the Genoese held back, and Maximilian sent commissioners to govern
Finale in his name. Alfonso turned to the French, offering to give them custody
of the fortress of Finale if they would help him recover his lands. This prompted the governor of Milan to send troops to occupy Finale for Philip in 1571.
Maximilian was outraged, and the episode became a major diplomatic dispute
between the emperor and the king. At length, a compromise was reached, with
Finale being held for the emperor but with custody shared with Spain.231 The
emperors interests were not confined to Finale; in 1572, Maximilian had taken
other feudatari of the region under his protection, stipulating they should be
228
229
230
231

Ibid., 857, 935.
Riccardo Musso, I feudi imperiali delle Langhe tra Impero e Stato di Milano (XV-XVII
secolo), 102.
Riccardo Musso, Finale e lo Stato di Milano (XV-XVII secolo), 13340; Marengo, Alfonso
II o del Carretto, 1858; Friedrich Edelmayer, Maximilian II., Philipp II. und Reichsitalien:
Die Auseinandersetzungen um das Reichslehen Finale in Ligurien (Stuttgart, 1988).
248
Chapter 7
subject only to Imperial jurisdiction, and the Imperial governor of Finale upheld Imperial rights throughout Le Langhe.232
The Italian Wars accustomed the military nobility of Italy especially those
who wanted a military career to look to the rulers of Spain, France and the
Empire. The attraction of the ultramontane powers as foci of allegiance and
loyalty remained after the wars ended, and was no longer confined to exiles
and malcontents. The barons of Naples and castellans of the duchy of Milan
had little choice in reality: they were compelled to look to the Spanish king.
For others, being under the protection of the kings of Spain or France or of
the emperor was analagous to having an aderenza from an Italian power in the
fifteenth century, an assertion of a degree of autonomy, and of resistance to
the idea of being subsumed under the dominion of a single state. That remained the aspiration of many of the military nobility of Italy. The rules of the
game had changed, but the stakes were much the same.
232
Musso, I feudi imperiali delle Langhe, 1048.
Conclusion
249
chapter 8
Conclusion
Italy at the end of the Italian Wars was very different from the Italy of the 1450s.
How did the military nobility of the various regions in the mid-sixteenth century compare with their ancestors and predecessors of a century earlier? All, to
some degree, had been affected by fundamental changes to the state system of
Italy, and the concomitant developments in political society and military organization, yet the barons and castellans of each region had retained much of
their distinctive character.
Least affected by the sea changes in political and military society were
the castellans of Lunigiana. Seemingly against the odds, most branches of the
Malaspina had managed to hold on to their miniature marquisates, some of
which were even tinier than a century before. A few had surrendered to the
pressure from the Florentine republic and then the Medici duke, but their status as Imperial fiefholders had helped protect them from being absorbed into
the duchy of Milan. Their lands were too small, too poor, too remote, to be
subject to the covetousness of soldiers and officials in the service of Charles V
looking for the rewards they might suggest should come their way for services
rendered during the Wars. One branch of the family had increased their holdings and would enhance their status the Malaspina-Cibo of Massa and Carrara would join the ranks of petty Italian princes.
Not much had changed for the military nobility of the Veneto, either, once
the wars in Lombardy were over and they had settled back under the rule of
Venice. If anything, they were paid more regard by the Venetians, who had
been chastened by the readiness of the nobility of the Terraferma to serve the
emperor or the king of France, and it was easier than before for them to find a
congenial role in the Venetian forces among the men-at-arms. In Friuli, the
Venetians were paying more attention to the defence of the province, beginning to rely on new fortifications rather than the assistance of the Savorgnan.
No longer such privileged interlocutors and auxiliaries, the Savorgnan were establishing a role for themselves as skilled and innovative military engineers (if
not always in the service of Venice). The Venetians continued to be concerned
about the contacts of many Friulan castellans with the Imperial lands over the
Alps. There was concern, too, about the blood feud that had flared up again
during the castellans, and the disregard shown for the efforts of the Venetian
authorities to repress it, but at least it was pursued through ambushes and duels rather than private warfare.
250
Chapter 8
The position and role of the military nobility of Liguria, by contrast, were
greatly different in the 1550s to what they had been in the 1450s. These changes
could only be attributed indirectly to the Italian Wars. Genoas involvement in
the wars primarily through the French claims to dominion over the republic
and the opposition among the Genoese, and other powers, to that had
brought to a head exasperation with the political factions and their disruptive
role in Genoa, and paved the way for the radical revision of the constitution.
The new republic successfully eliminated the role of the Campofregoso and
Adorno factions, and hence the crucial role that the major clans of the military
nobility had had in determining which regime should prevail. Those clans had
not been cowed, or defeated, except for those Fieschi who had been unable
to adjust to the new order. But the military strength of families such as the
Spinola, or the del Carretto even the Doria, despite the prominence of Andrea Doria in the new republic became irrelevant in Genoese politics, and
could not be used to impose their will. Andrea Doria held on to his special
position to his death, but could not hand it on to his heirs with the fleet of galleys on which his influence rested.
The political and military weight of the castellans of Emilia was also diminished. At times, the Italian Wars had created opportunities for them to act independently, using their own military resources. In the 1550s, however, their
role in determining the fate of Parma and Piacenza was unquestionably subordinate to that of the French and Spanish and the popes. Once Ottavio Farnese
managed to consolidate his position as duke of Parma and Piacenza, the castellans had to decide how to deal with their new prince; the most powerful among
them were disinclined to treat him as their sovereign lord, and he could not
force them to do so. Further west, the castellans in the territories of Modena
and Reggio were no longer able to vye with the Este for regional influence; resisting Este designs on their estates was as much as they could hope to achieve.
The Este had already swallowed Carpi. The Pico had lost control over Mirandola to the French for the last two decades of the Italian Wars, yet in the end
they succeeded in holding on to it. Nevertheless, retaining their status as Imperial fiefholders was not enough to give them scope within the new state system
in northern Italy to play an independent political role.
The position of the Roman barons had been affected by the political changes throughout Italy, with the consequent eclipse of the system of military condotte. Their military power, derived from their own forces and from their role
as faction leaders, and hence their ability to pose a threat to the pope, was appreciably reduced. Many Roman barons still chose a military career, and still
felt at liberty indeed, preferred to serve with the forces of powers other
than the papacy. They had not yet been sucked into the luxurious, ruinously
Conclusion
251
expensive ostentation of life in Rome, where the pace would be set by papal
nipoti with the resources of the papacy to draw on, as would happen in the
later sixteenth century. Then the debts of one baron after another would get
out of hand, and they would be forced to sell estates that their families had
striven for centuries to acquire and preserve. In the mid-sixteenth century, the
two major families, the Orsini and Colonna, lacked mature, powerful heads of
the family to reinforce their position in the new order. The Orsini had lost
ground because of the internecine quarrels of the Bracciano and Pitigliano
branches. While the family as a whole kept up its tradition of producing good
soldiers, they came from the minor branches. They also kept their long-standing association with Venice, and with Florence, and had developed a new one,
with the king of France, who looked to the Orsini as allies in the diplomacy and
intrigues at the papal court. The Colonna were enduring difficult times in the
1550s. Two branches of the family had died out in the previous generation, and
the natural leader of the family, the guardian of its fortunes, Ascanio, was an
eccentric who had done his best to ruin his own children out of spite. Fortunately for the Colonna, in the first three decades of the sixteenth century, the
condottieri Prospero and Fabrizio, and Cardinal Pompeo had established their
family as principal allies of the Spanish in Rome. It was in Spanish interests to
support Ascanios heir, Marcantonio, who recovered the family estates, and became one of the select band of Italians appointed viceroys of the Spanish king,
serving as viceroy in Sicily from 1577 to 1584. Neither of the major families, nor
the other Roman barons, felt constrained to focus on the pope as the source of
honour, or employment.
Neapolitan barons at the end of the Italian Wars had much less political and
military power than their predecessors of a century before. For the politically
ambitious, and for those who wanted a military career, service of the Spanish
monarchy was the only viable option. But they might well find better opportunities outside the kingdom of Naples. Individual Neapolitan barons could attain high office under the monarchy, and be the governor of Milan or the
viceroy of Sicily (Francesco Ferdinando dAvalos, marchese di Pescara, held
both those positions, governing Milan from 1560 to 1563 and Sicily from 1568 to
his death in 1571). Within the kingdom of Naples, the distrust of Spanish officials for the native barons was a hindrance to their achieving a position from
which they could exert real influence on the government. There was no prospect of any baron becoming an official coadjutor of the viceroy in the central
administration. In the provinces, the barons kept their economic and social
power and prestige, if little independent military strength. They might be
called upon to help defend the kingdom against attacks by corsairs or the
Turks, but they were not given a role in the permanent military establishment
252
Chapter 8
of the kingdom. They lacked the means to pose a military threat to the monarchy, to stage the kinds of rebellion which had challenged Ferrante in the fifteenth century. Although they were not trusted when the French army under
the duc de Guise threatened in 1557, they did not rebel or try to exploit the situation. Ferrante da Sanseverinos hopes for support when he appeared off the
coasts with the French and the Turks in 1552 and 1553 assuming that they
were genuine, and not just the desperate illusions of a ruined man proved
illusory.
By the time the Italian Wars were ended, as a whole the Sicilian nobility had
ceased to be a military class.1 Although individual Sicilian barons fought in the
armies of the king of Spain, they were no longer called on to perform military
service for their fiefs. A petition to Charles V in 1535 that the viceroy should be
obliged to consult the principal barons on military matters had no result.2 Sicily was defended by Spanish troops, a chain of coastal fortresses and a militia
instituted by the viceroy Juan De Vega. He had a policy of bearing down on the
barons, and they did not like the militia; in 1562 the Sicilian Parlamento asked,
unsuccessfully, that it be abolished.3 The barons also lost what remained of
their role in the central government of the island. Judicial and administrative
reforms under Philip II excluded them completely from the central administration; any influence they might have on the viceroys could only be through
advice given in private. They had been given some compensation in grants of
judicial powers over the people on their estates. Under Ferdinand of Aragon,
the judicial system had been used to reduce their power and keep them in
line.4 Discontent with Ferdinands way of ruling, which was not confined to the
barons, was expressed in violent protests bordering on rebellion after his
death, but very few barons took part. Under Charles V the policy was changed.
Viceroys granted, or sold, powers of high justice (mero et misto imperio) to the
barons, restoring their authority over the people living on their fiefs which had
been compromised during Ferdinands reign. Policing of the interior of the island was largely left to the barons. Philip II refused further concessions of mero
et misto imperio, but could not revoke them wholesale. The barons were left
with great authority over their estates and the areas around them, and they
themselves were brought before the royal courts only in the most serious cases.
1 Helmut Koenigsberger, The Government of Sicily under Philip II of Spain. A Study in the Practice
of Empire (London, 1951), 88; Trasselli, Da Ferdinando il Cattolico a Carlo V, II, 507.
2 Koenigsberger, The Government of Sicily, 85.
3 Orazio Cancila, Filippo II e la Sicilia, 1334, 143.
4 Giurato, La Sicilia di Ferdinando il Cattolico.
Conclusion
253
The circumstances in which Sicilian barons found themselves in the midsixteenth century were an extreme version of changes experienced by barons
and castellans elsewhere in Italy. In general, the military nobility were having
to adjust to the elimination of their scope and their capacity for independent
political and military action. As a group, their ways of thinking, their values,
their instincts were still martial; they would feel peculiarly justified (more than
any other social group) in having recourse to violence to settle their private
affairs. Some were still able to raise small armies to fight for them, enough to
take a township or lay siege to a fortress. If they were no longer able to maintain their own permanent military companies, paid for by condotte, there were
contracts as free lance commanders to be had, in the service of Italian and ultramontane powers (with the nobility of some regions having greater freedom
than others in deciding whom they might serve). Positions were also to be had
as commanders of the militias that in the second half of the sixteenth century
were becoming a prominent element in the military forces in Italy but few
would be permanent, and they were not the way to make much of a living, or,
by and large, much of a reputation. A military career in professional armies,
fighting in wars between states, remained a primary way for a noble to enhance his rank and standing. For the fortunate, estates and titles could be their
reward, although after the end of the Italian Wars, these were probably harder
to come by in Italy.
Barons and castellans who wanted military commands or a political role,
would be well advised to learn how to navigate the society, bureaucracy and
factions of princely courts, either in person or instructing agents to act for
them. This had not been a skill that the military nobility of the mid-fifteenth
century had felt it essential to master. Italian barons and castellans were becoming fixed features of the Spanish, French and Imperial courts. Individuals
came and went, but there would generally be some there. These ultramontane
courts were much more attractive, especially for major nobles, than the courts
of Italian princes; there was much more to be gained there. Some were seduced
by the society and entertainments to be enjoyed at court, expensive though it
was to participate in them for any length of time in the proper style. Others
would go to court only if it were necessary to settle pressing, important business, chafing at having to dance attendance on powerful officials, and join the
queue of petitioners seeking an audience with the prince.
Italian princes as well as the king of Spain and the emperor expected to have
more say in what had been regarded by barons and castellans as their private
concerns in who acquired or inherited their estates, and in their marriages,
particularly of heiresses or minor heirs. Families accustomed to making their
own arrangements might have to struggle to keep estates within their lineage.
254
Chapter 8
Princes were ready to sanction primogeniture where equal division among

male heirs was the historic norm. A more general acceptance of primogeniture
would have led to a very different profile of the Italian military nobility, with
estates concentrated in the hands of fewer individuals and many more landless nobles. But in the mid-sixteenth century, primogeniture was arguably of
more significance in provoking family quarrels than in safeguarding the wealth
and power of barons and castellans.
Whatever the challenge they faced in the wider world, in the provinces of
the states of Italy the military nobility remained, and would continue to be for
centuries to come, powers to be reckoned with. They had their lands, their fortresses, their powers of jurisdiction, and the social status that went with them.
Their social status was, if anything, increasing rather than diminishing, as
more members of the civic nobilities that were increasingly affirming their
own status in the sixteenth century adopted some of the values of the military
nobility and sought to emulate their way of life. The military and civic nobilities of Italy would not merge, but there would be a greater overlap. The powerful landed noble of an ancient family, serving with his own retinue in the wars
of northern Europe, who could aspire to be made a grandee of Spain or a member of the order of the Golden Fleece, would not recognize as a member of the
same species a lawyer who was a member of the civic nobility of his small
town, even if the lawyer owned land that was technically a fief, with a fortified
house on it. But if the son of the lawyer, having perhaps been educated in one
of the academies teaching the arts of horsemanship and the handling of weapons that were to be founded throughout Italy, was drawn to soldiering and
made a reputation for himself on the battlefields of Europe, than a scion of the
military nobility might be prepared to recognize him as sharing in the European culture of the gentleman soldier. It was above all as part of that culture
that the barons and castellans of Italy would continue to a greater or lesser
degree to be a military nobility.
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ASFlorence
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ASMantua, AGonzaga
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Index
Index
Index
Acclozamura, Lionello26
accomandigia see military nobility:
aderenza, aderenti
Accrocciamuro, Ruggerone, conte di
Celano110
Acquaviva, Andrea Matteo, marchese di
Bitonto, duca dAtri193, 194, 204
Acquaviva, Giosia (d) 33, 183
Acquaviva, Giulio Antonio (d), duca
dAtri111-112, 204
aderenza, aderenti- see military nobility:
aderenza, aderenti
Adorno, family and faction60, 61, 82, 88,
89, 90, 91, 94, 172, 174, 223, 225, 227, 250
Adorno, Agostino28, 62, 123, 175, 176
Adorno, Antoniotto, Doge of Genoa61,
91, 134, 223, 224, 225
Adorno, Giovanni28, 62, 123, 176
Adorno, Girolamo61
Adorno, Prospero, Doge of Genoa88, 93,
174
Adorno, Raffaele, Doge of Genoa122,176
Alarcn, Fernando (de), marchese di Valle
Siciliano130
Alba, duque de see also Toledo, Ferrando
lvarez (de)
Albenga90, 91
Albi78, 101, 140, 188, 240
Albornoz, Gil, cardinal31
Alexander VI, Pope (Rodrigo Borgia) 30, 32,
38, 102, 108-109, 114, 138, 139-140, 161, 177,
228, 229-230, 235-237, 239
Alfonso II, King of Naples12, 103, 104, 108109, 112, 140, 175n114, 191-192, 194, 199
Alfonso V, King of Aragon and Sicily, Alfonso I
of Naples1, 7, 19, 20n41, 100, 104,
109-111, 112, 115, 122, 182, 186n162, 187,
189, 190
Alife189
Alviano25
Alviano, Bartolomeo (d),25, 86-87, 102,
136, 137-139, 141, 222, 240
Amalfi33
Amaseo, Gregorio47
Ambrosian Republic, Milan57, 76, 110,

156, 157, 187n168
Amelia86, 87
Anagni85
Andria189
Angera213
Angevins in Italy7, 77, 83n56, 109, 110, 111,
131, 182-186, 188, 194, 195, 199-205,
207-208, 239 - see also Anjou, Jean (d);
Anjou , Ren (d), Duke of Lorraine;
Anjou, Ren (d), King
Anguillara77, 235, 236
Anguillara (degli), family6, 63, 69, 202
Anguillara, Deifebo (degli)77n35, 181
Anguillara, Dolce (degli)100
Anguillara, Everso (degli)77,181
Anguillara, Flaminio (degli)145
Anguillara, Francesco (degli)181
Anguillara, Gianpaolo (degli) (da
Ceri)73-74, 145, 237, 240-241, 241
n203
Anguillara, Girolama (degli) see Farnese,
Girolama
Anguillara, Giuliano (degli)69
Anguillara, Lorenzo (degli) (Renzo da
Ceri)138-139, 141, 145, 206, 237, 240,
242
Anguillara, Maria (degli) see Orsini, Maria
Anguissola, family,96, 169
Anguissola, Giacomo (d)97
Anguissola, Giovanni97
Anguissola, Onofrio169
Anjou, Jean (d)7, 112, 183-184, 186
Anjou, Ren (d), Duke of Lorraine194,
196
Anjou, Ren (d), King7, 109
Antoniazzo Romano25
Appiani, family5
Aquino, Lanalao (d), marchese di Quarata
23
Aragona, Carlo (d), marchese di
Gerace70
Aragona, Cesare (d)195
Aragona, Eleonora (d)186
Aragona, Enrico (d)70, 187
271
Aragona, Francesco (d)12, 192, 193, 195

Balzo, Pirro (del), principe dAltamura12,
Aragona, Giovanna (d),233
27, 112, 113, 189, 192, 193, 194, 196
Aragona, Giovanna (d), duchessa di Amalfi Bardineto157
69-70
Bari34
Aragona, Luigi (d), cardinal70
Beccaria, Matteo95
Aragona, Maria186, 189
Belgrado, 222
Arcano, Troiano (d)74
Benedictis, Pietro (de)72n18
Ariano48
Bentivoglio, family236
Arienzo23
Bentivoglio, Giovanni164
Arona212, 213
Bergamo120
Arquata86, 87
Bisignano185
Atella21
Bobbio165, 211
Atri64
Bologna118, 164, 236
Attendolo Sforza, Muzio57, 75n31, 109
Bologna, Antonio70
Avalos (d), family7, 140
Bomarzo74
Avalos, Alfonso (d)7, 189-190
Boniface VIII, Pope (Benedict Caetani)
Avalos, Alfonso (d), marchese di Pes234
cara17,199
Borgia, Cesare126, 228, 229, 236-237,
Avalos, Alfonso (d) marchese del Vas239-240
to128, 131, 132, 133, 134, 202, 208
Borgia, Lucrezia32
Avalos, Costanza (d)17, 202
Borgo Fornari10, 13, 156
Avalos, Ferrante Francesco (d), marchese di
Borgo San Donnino215
Pescara131-132, 141, 202-203, 243
Borgo Valditaro32, 41, 174
Avalos, Francesco Ferdinando (d), marchese
Borromeo, family212-214
di Pescara33, 132-133, 251
Borromeo, Camillo214
Avalos, Iigo (d)7, 187, 189, 190, 199n2
Borromeo, Filippo213, 213n64
Avalos, Iigo (d), marchese del Vasto17,
Borromeo, Giberto (d.1508)213, 213n64
202
Borromeo, Giberto (fl. 1520s)214
Avellino194
Borromeo, Lancilotto213-214
Avezzano26
Borromeo, Ludovico213-214
Avogadro family219
Borromeo, Vitaliano212
Avogadro, Francesco220
Bourbon, Charles, duc (de)232, 243
Avogadro, Luigi, conte121, 219, 220
Bourbon, Gilbert (de), comte de Montpensier
Avogadro, Pietro220
200
Bracciano11, 25, 37, 38n124, 108, 238, 240
Baglioni, family56-57
Brescello13, 114, 115, 162-163, 168, 169
Baglioni, Gianpaolo57, 137n172, 138
Brescia121, 135, 165n71, 219-20
Baglioni, Malatesta57
Busseto216
Baglioni da Sipicciano, Pirro73-74
Bagnone153
Caetani, family32, 38, 39, 76n32
Balzo, Angilberto (del), conte
Caetani, Benedict see Boniface VIII, Pope
dUgento196
Caetani, Bonifacio38-9
Balzo, Federico (del)17
Caetani, Giacomo Maria, conte di Morcone
Balzo, Francesco (del), duca dAndria189
22
Balzo, Gisotta Ginevra (del)192
Caetani, Guglielmo38
Balzo, Isabella (del)192, 193
Caetani, Onorato, conte di Fondi6, 26,
Balzo, Maria Donata (del) see Orsini, Maria
189
Donata
Caiazzo118, 127, 188
272
Index
Calabria, Alfonso, duca (di) see Alfonso II,

Caraffa, Carlo, cardinal234, 241
King of Naples
Caraffa, Diomede, marchese di Cave31,
Caldora, Antonio29, 109, 111, 190
39, 146, 234
Caldora, Jacopo109-110, 112
Caraffa, Gianpietro see Paul IV, Pope
Caldora, Restaino190
Caraffa, Gian Vincenzo27
Calestano166
Caraffa, Giovanni, duca di Paliano31, 39,
Calixtus III, Pope (Alonso Borja)195
70, 146, 234
Camogli92
Caraffa, Violante70
Campagnano25, 31
Cardona, Pietro, conte di Golisano72n18
Campo44
Cardona, Ramon (de), viceroy of Naples
Campobasso110
142, 203
Campofregoso, family and faction60, 61,
Carpi4, 164-165, 242-243, 250
78, 88, 89, 91, 94, 172, 174, 223, 225, 250
Carrara44, 79, 249
Campofregoso, Agostino72
Carretto (del), family3, 42, 90, 155, 156,
Campofregoso, Battista, Doge of Ge157-158, 169, 250
noa174, 175
Carretto, Alfonso (del)27
Campofregoso, Galeotto77-8
Carretto, Alfonso II (del)42, 247
Campofregoso, Giano, Doge of Genoa
Carretto, Antonio (del)160
(1447-1448)10
Carretto, Carlo (del)157, 160
Campofregoso, Giano, Doge of Genoa
Carretto, Francesco (del)157-158
(1512-1513)89, 133, 223, 224, 225
Carretto, Galeotto (del)27, 171
Campofregoso, Ludovico, Doge of GeCarretto, Gian Giacomo (del)90
noa46, 171
Carretto, Giorgio (del)157, 160
Campofregoso, Ottaviano, Doge of GeCarretto, Giovanni (del)28, 157, 158, 159,
noa89-91, 133, 223, 224, 225
173
Campofregoso, Pandolfo82
Carrosio, 29
Campofregoso, Paolo, Doge of Genoa,
Cascia87
Archbishop of Genoa, cardinal174
Castellaro90
Campofregoso, Pietro, Doge of GeCastelnuovo (duchy of Milan)118, 119
noa3-4, 43, 60, 81-82, 122, 171, 172,
Castelnuovo (Friuli)222
174-175
CastelOttieri, conti (di)5
Campofregoso, Pomellina41
Cave30
Campofregoso, Spinetta171
Camponesco, Pietro Lalle, conte di MontorioCavernago120
Celano26, 189
63-4, 192
Cellammare22
Cnnero214
Centelles, Antonio, marchese di Cotrone
Cantelmo, Nicola, duca di Sora111
110, 187-188, 190, 191
Capace, Marcello70
Centelles,
Enrichetta see Ruffo, Enrichetta
Caprarola181
Centelles,
Polissena, 187
Capua195
Ceri, Renzo (da) see Anguillara, Lorenzo
Capua, Andrea (di)130
(degli)
Capua, Ferrante (di), duca di Termoli130
Cerveteri235, 236
Caracciolo, Giacomo194
Ceva20
Caracciolo, Gianbattista137
Ceva, Luca, marchese (di)
Caracciolo, Giovanni, duca di Melfi113,
Ceva, marchesi (di)160
193, 194, 196
Charles, Duke of Burgundy110, 116
Caracciolo, Giovanni, principe di
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor14, 16,
Melfi22, 205, 206
19, 20, 30, 33, 37, 42, 58, 97, 127, 129-135,
Caracciolo, Troiano, duca di Melfi111
273
141-142, 144, 145, 202-210, 214-219,

223-229, 231-234, 241-246, 249, 252
Charles VII, King of France3
Charles VIII, King of France78, 108, 116,
140, 175n114, 199, 200, 211, 213, 217, 229,
239
Chaumont dAmboise, Charles (de)213,
215
Chiavari61,92
Chiavenna212
Cibo, Franceschetto235
Cibo Malaspina, Alberico, principe di
Massa44
Cibo Malaspina, Giulio44-45, 79
Cibo Malaspina, Ricciarda see Malaspina,
Ricciarda
Cittadella119
Clement VII, Pope (Giulio de Medici)
11n4, 37, 66, 127, 134, 143, 203, 214, 231,
232-233, 235, 236-239, 242
Colleoni, Bartolomeo120
Colloredo, family24, 47, 74-75
Colloredo, Gianbattista75
Colloredo, Marzio74-75
Colloredo, Odorico221
Colonna, family1, 6, 17-18, 30, 32, 37, 38,
63, 66, 68, 70, 76, 77, 78-79, 82, 83, 85-88,
104, 112, 140, 180, 181, 188n74, 228-235,
237, 238, 239, 240, 251
Colonna, Alessandro145
Colonna, Ascanio di Fabrizio17-18, 30-31,
37, 39, 85, 130, 134, 142-143, 232, 233-234,
238, 251
Colonna, Ascanio di Marcello234n170
Colonna, Camillo73, 145, 234n170
Colonna, Fabrizio38, 73, 78, 86-87,
108-109, 130, 140-142, 143, 202, 229-230,
251
Colonna, Federico142
Colonna, Giovanna see Aragona, Giovanna
(d)
Colonna, Giovanni78
Colonna, Giovanni, cardinal86, 102
Colonna, Giulia see Gonzaga, Giulia
Colonna, Giulio87
Colonna, Isabella70
Colonna, Isabella di Vespasiano17-18, 233
Colonna, Marcantonio di Ascanio31, 39,
145, 146, 147, 234-235, 241, 251
Colonna, Marcantonio di Pierantonio26,

30, 143, 229, 231
Colonna, Marcello38
Colonna, Muzio86
Colonna, Oddone see Martin V, Pope
Colonna, Pirro see Baglioni da Sipicciano,
Pirro
Colonna, Pompeo, cardinal37, 143,
228-229, 230, 231-233, 251
Colonna, Prospero38, 86-87, 102, 108-109,
127, 140-142, 143, 228, 229-231, 242, 243,
251
Colonna, Prospero (da Cave)73, 229
Colonna, Sciarra70, 87
Colonna, Stefano143-144
Colonna, Vespasiano17, 33, 73, 142-3, 232,
233
Colorno218
Concordia80, 114, 163
Conti, family6, 37, 77, 78, 106
Conti, Andrea105
Conti, Giacomo102, 103, 105, 178-179
Conti, Gianbattista, 73
Conti, Giovanni105-106, 178
Conti, Girolamo178
Coppola, Francesco196
Crdoba, Gonzalo (de) see Fernndez de
Crdoba, Gonzalo
Cornaro, Caterina, Queen of Cyprus121
Corneglio217
Correggio115, 163, 168
Correggio (da), family34, 76, 115, 162-163,
168, 169
Correggio, Antonio (da)169
Correggio, Giberto (da)114-115, 148
Correggio, Manfredo (da)13, 115, 162-163,
169
Cremona57
Dal Verme, family97, 165, 211
Dal Verme, Federico95, 211
Dal Verme, Giacomo97
Dal Verme, Marcantonio211
Dal Verme, Pietro169, 211
Dal Verme, Pietro Antonio211
De Frede, Carlo71
Della Torre, family74, 75, 98
Della Torre, Alvise75
Della Torre, Girolamo75
274
De Magellis, Bartolomeo91
De Vega, Juan252
Diano200
Dolceacqua224
Doria, family2, 3, 28, 42-43, 58-59, 60-61,
64, 65, 76, 83, 88-91, 155, 156, 157, 173,
174, 176, 223-227, 250
Doria, Andrea, principe di Melfi41, 45,
57-58, 61, 69, 79, 133-134, 135, 144, 207,
225-227, 246, 247, 250
Doria, Bartolomeo42, 69, 224
Doria, Bernardo90
Doria, Ceva58
Doria, Domenico28,58
Doria, Filippino134, 226
Doria, Gerolamo90-91
Doria, Giovanni Andrea134, 246, 247
Doria, Niccol225
Doria, Pagano246
Doria, Paolo Gerolamo90
Doria, Sebastiano90, 225
Doria, Stefano (fl. 1454)158
Doria, Stefano (fl. 1515)91, 224
Emilia1, 4-5, 21, 26, 34, 35, 39, 48, 69, 76,
77, 80-81, 82, 84, 94-97, 113-115, 128,
149-150, 154, 162-165, 168-171, 211, 214-218,
250
Emperor, Holy Roman2, 5, 9, 13-14, 44,
83, 167, 197, 210, 219, 221, 226, 228, 242,
245-248, 249, 253 see also Charles V,
Ferdinand I, Frederick II, Frederick III,
Henry VII, Maximilian I, Maximilian II,
Sigismund, Wenceslas
Empire, Holy Roman2, 20, 152, 154, 155,
219, 245-8
Este (d), family,4, 95, 113-114,162-165, 250
Este, Alfonso I (d), Duke of Ferrara128,
131, 142, 242, 243
Este, Bianca Maria (d)81
Este, Borso (d), Marquis, then Duke of
Ferrara162-163, 168, 169
Este, Ercole I (d), Duke of Ferrara81, 116,
119, 164-165, 242
Este, Niccol III (d), Marquis of Ferrara
55, 163
Eugenius IV, Pope (Gabriele Condulmer)
30, 78, 109, 181
Index
Farnese, family5, 128
Farnese, Alessandro see Paul III, Pope
Farnese, Costanza,216
Farnese, Girolama69
Farnese, Girolama see Orsini, Girolama
Farnese, Ottavio, Duke of Parma and
Piacenza214, 215, 250
Farnese, Pier Luigi, Duke of Parma and
Piacenza214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 244
Favale70
Federico, King of Naples49, 140, 194, 195,
200, 202, 229-230
Felino170n97, 215
Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor32,
217n79, 246
Ferdinand, King of Aragon, Sicily and
Naples19, 72n18, 129, 131, 140, 141,
142, 199, 201-202, 230, 231, 240, 252
Fermo, Oliverotto (da)237
Fernndez de Crdoba, Gonzalo129, 140,
199, 201, 202, 230
Ferrandino, King of Naples140, 195,
199-200, 229, 239
Ferrante, King of Naples7, 11, 12, 29-38,
48, 63-64, 70, 77, 78, 102, 105, 106-107,
110-113, 118, 177, 179, 180, 182-197, 235-6,
252
Ferrara163, 164
Ferrara, Marquis, then Duke of4, 113-4
see also Este, Alfonso I (d); Este,
Borso (d); Este, Ercole I (d); Este,
Niccol III (d)
Fiano,38
Fieschi, family1, 2-3, 15, 23, 35, 40, 42, 45,
60-62, 64-65, 81-82, 83, 85, 90, 91-94, 122,
153, 155, 158, 161, 166, 173, 174, 176-177,
223-224, 246, 250
Fieschi, Antonia Maria40, 82, 157
Fieschi, Bernardo123
Fieschi, Gerolamo di Gian Luigi16, 223,
224
Fieschi, Gerolamo di Sinibaldo94, 227
Fieschi, Gian Antonio122, 156, 166, 176
Fieschi, Gian Filippo3-4, 40, 81-2, 85, 92,
93, 122-123, 157, 159, 173, 174-175
Fieschi, Gian Luigi (d. 1451)81, 152-153,
155

Fieschi, Gian Luigi (d. 1510),16, 40-41, 62,
82n53, 93, 94, 123, 161, 172, 173, 175-176,
223-224
Fieschi, Gian Luigi (d. 1547)41, 94, 226-7
Fieschi, Giorgio, cardinal158
Fieschi, Jacomo158-159
Fieschi, Jacopone82, 157
Fieschi, Maria see Grosso della Rovere,
Maria
Fieschi, Matteo92-93
Fieschi, Nicolosino81-82
Fieschi, Obietto,32, 82, 92-93, 94, 172, 173,
175
Fieschi, Ottobono223
Fieschi, Rolando82, 122, 157
Fieschi, Scipione227
Fieschi, Sinibaldo223, 224, 225, 226
Figueroa, Gmez Surez (de)227
Finale3, 20, 23, 27-28, 34, 42, 90, 157,
247-248
Fivizzano116, 154
Florence, Republic of4, 44, 62, 80, 103,
104, 105, 106, 107, 109, 114, 115-116, 118, 119,
125, 127, 143, 144, 151-156, 161, 171, 178, 179,
195, 231, 232, 237-8, 249, 253
Fondi26, 186
Fontana, family96
Fontanellato26
Foix, Gaston (de)220
Foix, Odet (de), vicomte de Lautrec203,
205, 206, 216, 240
Forenza21
Fortebracci, Braccio56, 109
Fortebracci, Carlo56
France, Kings of83n56, 88, 124, 125, 143,
147, 198, 219, 223, 228, 229, 239, 240, 241,
248, 249 see also Charles VII; Charles
VIII; Francis I; Henry II; Louis XI; Louis
XII; and French in Italy
Francis I, King of France30, 90, 97, 125,
126, 127, 128, 132, 133, 134, 138-139,
143-144, 202, 210, 212, 214-218, 224, 225,
226, 229, 231, 237, 238, 241, 242, 243, 244,
251
Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor21
Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor5, 115
French in Italy3-4, 13-14, 19, 21, 24, 39, 61,
62, 78, 81, 83n56, 89-90, 94, 95-97, 100,
275
108, 121-145, 159-160, 165, 173, 175n114,
196, 198-207, 209-217, 219-220, 223-231,
234-245, 247-248, 250, 252
Friuli1, 5, 23-25, 35, 46-48, 49, 59-60,
74-75, 97-98, 121, 136, 220-223, 249
Gambara, family219, 220
Gambara, Gian Francesco121, 219-20
Gambara, Gian Galeazzo220
Gambara, Nicol219, 220
Gambaro45
Genoa, city of3, 60-62, 64-65, 94, 172-176,
223-227
Genoa, Doge of3, 40, 57-58, 60-61, 65, 91,
121-122, 171-173, 176 see also Adorno,
Antoniotto; Adorno, Prospero; Adorno,
Raffaele; Campofregoso, Battista;
Campofregoso, Giano (1447-1448);
Campofregoso, Giano (1512-1513);
Campofregoso, Ludovico; Campofregoso, Ottaviano; Campofregoso, Paolo;
Campofregoso, Pietro
Genoa, Republic of2, 3-4, 10, 13, 14, 27-28,
32, 41, 42, 43, 44, 54, 57-58, 60-62, 88-94,
114, 121-123, 133, 134, 135, 152, 155-161,
171-177, 223-227, 247, 250
Gesualdo, Luigi, conte di Conza199
Ghibellines and Guelfs3, 55, 83-84, 85-98,
146, 152, 154, 212, 213, 229, 235, 236, 239
see also military nobility: factions
Gonzaga, family76, 215
Gonzaga, Camilla218
Gonzaga, Ferrante33, 214, 215, 227
Gonzaga, Francesco, Marquis of Mantua
80, 81, 164, 242
Gonzaga, Giulia73, 233
Gonzaga, Luigi73, 233
Gonzaga, Ludovico, Marquis of Mantua,
163
Gramont, Gabriel, cardinal238
Gravina206
Grimaldi, family3,13, 41-42, 60, 69, 83,
155, 159n44
Grimaldi, Agostino13-14
Grimaldi, Boruel159n44
Grimaldi, Catalano41
Grimaldi, Claudine41
Grimaldi, Francesco159n44
276
Grimaldi, Giovanni (d. 1454)156, 159n44
Grimaldi, Giovanni (d. 1505)42, 69
Grimaldi, Lamberto28, 41-42, 89, 160-161
Grimaldi, Luciano13, 28, 42, 69
Grimaldi, Luigi89
Grimaldi, Onorato42, 207
Grimaldi, Pomellina see Campofregoso,
Pomellina
Grimaldi, Stefano42
Grisons211, 212
Grosso della Rovere, Maria226
Guazzo, Stefano14-15
Guelfs see Ghibellines and Guelfs
Guevara, Fernando (de)189, 190
Guevara, Gisotta Ginevra see Balzo, Gisotta
Ginevra (del)
Guevara, Iigo (de), 189, 190, 190n180, 192
Guevara, Pedro (de), marchese del Vasto
12, 48, 192-3, 194
Guise, Franois, duc (de)209, 252
Henry II, King of France125, 241, 244, 245
Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor10
Humires, Jean (de)128
Imola118
Imperial fiefs see military nobility:Imperial
fiefs
Imperial forces in Italy20, 24, 32, 100, 127138, 141-146, 198, 202-204, 213, 219,
221-223, 231-233, 237-238, 243, 244 see
also Charles V; Emperor, Holy Roman;
Maximilian I
Innocent VIII, Pope (Gianbattista Cibo)
28, 31,72-73n23, 103, 107-108, 112, 114, 119,
178-179, 181, 193, 194, 195-196, 235
Isabella, Queen of Castile230
Isabella, Queen of Naples189
Ischia (Naples)202
Ischia (Papal States)36
Index
Landi, family96
Landi, Corrado96
Landi, Manfredo40, 92
Lannoy, Charles (de), viceroy of Naples
203
Lannoy, Philippe (de)233
La Pietra24
LAquila63, 87, 192, 207
Lascaris di Tenda, family90
Lautrec, vicomte de see Foix, Odet (de)
Leo X, Pope (Giovanni de Medici)57, 96,
97, 128, 139, 143, 214, 215, 230, 235, 237,
242
Lerma156
Lettere22-23
Leyva, Antonio (de), principe dAscoli
130, 132
Leyva, Luis (de), principe dAscoli130
Ligny, Louis de Luxembourg, comte (de)
211
Liguria1, 2-4, 13-14, 15-16, 20, 23, 27-29, 32,
34, 35, 40-44, 58-59, 60-62, 68, 69, 74, 76,
81, 82, 83, 88-94, 121-123, 133-134, 154,
155-162, 171-177, 223-227, 246-248, 250
Lingueglia90
Lingueglia, family90
Lingueglia, Gian Battista (della)90
Lodrone, Giorgio (da)120
Lodrone, Parisio (da)120
Lodrone, Pietro (da)120
Louis XI, King of France119
Louis XII, King of France13, 14, 62, 126,
129, 137, 138, 160, 199-202, 209-213,
215-217, 223-224, 230, 236, 237, 239, 242,
243
Lucca, Republic of5, 62
Ludovico, Duke of Savoy18, 157, 158, 159
Lumezzane219
Lunigiana4, 15, 16, 20, 23, 44-46, 68,
77-83, 114-116, 150-156, 161-162, 249
Julius II, Pope (Giuliano della Rovere)32,

Machiavelli, Niccol51, 66
57, 63, 96, 101, 104, 128, 141, 142, 143, 194,
Malaspina, family4, 16, 20, 32, 44-46, 68,
196, 214, 230, 235
77-80, 83, 149, 152-155,156n27, 161-162,
Julius III, Pope (Giovanna Maria del Monte)
246, 249 (note - all legitimate
146, 214, 215, 234
Malaspina males had the right to the
title of marchese; branches of the
Lagopesole22

family are given here only to distinguish individuals with the same name)
Malaspina, Alberico see Cibo Malaspina,
Alberico
Malaspina, Alessandro68
Malaspina, Antonio150
Malaspina, Antonio (Lusuolo?)46
Malaspina, Antonio (Mulazzo)68
Malaspina, Antonio Alberico44
Malaspina, Azzone15, 68
Malaspina, Bernab151
Malaspina, Cristiano77-78, 153
Malaspina, Fioramonte152
Malaspina, Floramonte44
Malaspina, Gabriele (Fosdinovo?)79-80,
115-116
Malaspina, Gabriele (Villafranca)152
Malaspina, Galeotto (Fosdinovo)116
Malaspina, Galeotto (Olivola)79
Malaspina, Gaspare Vincenzo, 45
Malaspina, Ghisello45, 97
Malaspina, Giovan Lorenzo151
Malaspina, Giulio see Cibo Malaspina,
Giulio
Malaspina, Jacomo Ambrogio46
Malaspina, Jacopo44
Malaspina, Jeronimo68
Malaspina, Leonardo (Fosdinovo)116
Malaspina, Leonardo (Podenzana)44
Malaspina, Leonardo (Santo Stefano)45
Malaspina, Ludovico79-80
Malaspina, Malgrato79-80
Malaspina, Morello44
Malaspina, Niccol151
Malaspina, Ricciarda45, 79
Malaspina, Simone116
Malaspina, Spinetta115, 116, 154
Malaspina, Tommaso79-80
Malgrate79-80
Malpaga120
Malvezzi, Lucio137n172
Manfredonia195
Mantua115
Mantua, Marquis of33, 113-114, 149, 164
see also Gonzaga, Francesco;
Gonzaga, Ludovico
Maro90
Marsciano, Antonio, conte (di)15
277
Marsciano, Ranuccio, conte (di)15
Martin V, Pope (Oddone Colonna)11, 78
Martinengo120
Martinengo, family135, 219, 220, 231
Martinengo, Bernardino165n71
Martinengo, Gerardo120
Martinengo, Giovanni Maria220
Martinengo, Marco121
Martinengo, Orsino120
Martini, Francesco di Giorgio25
Marzano, Giovan Battista191
Marzano, Giovanni Antonio, duca di Sessa
186n162
Marzano, Marino, principe di Rossano
186-187, 191
Marzolara166
Massa44, 79, 249
Masserata169
Matera48
Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor5, 16,
81, 126, 136, 143, 165, 213, 220, 221, 222,
242, 243
Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor246,
247-248
Medici (de), family144, 215, 237-8
Medici, Alessandro (de), Duke of Florence238
Medici, Alfonsina (de) see Orsini, Alfonsina
Medici, Clarice (de) see Orsini, Clarice
Medici, Cosimo I (de), Duke of Florence71, 79, 129, 135, 144, 145, 218,
238, 241, 245, 249
Medici, Ferdinando (de), Grand Duke of
Tuscany71
Medici, Francesco (de), cardinal71
Medici, Giovanni (de) (military commander)
128, 218, 218n84
Medici, Giovanni (de) see Leo X, Pope
Medici, Giuliano (de)231, 237
Medici, Giulio (de) see Clement VII, Pope
Medici, Ippolito (de), cardinal233, 240
Medici, Isabella (de)71, 241
Medici, Lorenzo (de) (d. 1492)104, 107,
118-119, 235, 237
Medici, Lorenzo (de) (d. 1519)237
Medici, Piero (de)235-6, 237
Melfi21, 207
Menton41, 42, 160
278
Mesocco211, 212
Milan, city of57, 76, 110, 119, 125, 156, 157,
167, 211, 212, 214 see also Ambrosian
Republic, Milan
Milan, duchy of (territory and state)1-4,
10, 12-14, 18, 19, 29, 32, 44, 55-57, 76,
92-97, 102, 105, 107-109, 112-114, 116-120,
122, 123, 125-128, 137, 140, 141, 143,
149-150, 161, 166-171, 174, 179, 195, 198,
209-217, 224, 228, 241, 243, 246-247, 248,
249, 251
Milan, duke of2, 4, 12-13, 16, 19, 28, 31, 34,
40, 80, 88, 95, 115-117, 150, 152, 154, 155,
161, 162, 166-168, 170-172, 174, 186, 198,
210, 213, 215, 246, 247 see also Sforza,
Francesco; Sforza, Francesco II; Sforza,
Galeazzo Maria; Sforza, Gian Galeazzo
Maria; Sforza, Ludovico; Sforza,
Massimiliano; Visconti, Francesco
Maria; Visconti, Gian Galeazzo;
Visconti, Giovanni Maria
military nobility:
aderenza, aderenti5, 78, 115, 116, 117,
118n99, 148, 149-165, 179, 193, 197, 211,
220, 244n219, 247, 248
estates2-50, 53, 55, 61, 68-69, 75-82,
84, 86, 87, 90, 92, 95, 96, 100, 103,
105-120, 139-140, 143, 146, 148-174, 177,
180-254 passim
and factions2-4, 6, 7, 28, 37- 40, 42-3,
47, 54- 56, 58-63, 65-67, 74-75, 79, 81-99,
100, 106, 107, 137, 138, 140, 148, 152,
168-70, 172, 174, 198, 200, 206, 207, 215,
219-225, 229, 230, 235-237, 240-241, 250
fiefs and feudatari7, 9-13, 16, 18-19, 36,
50, 120, 138, 150, 156, 158, 160, 162-171,
182-197, 205-208, 211-213, 215, 217, 222,
224, 236, 247-8, 252, 254
fortresses2- 6, 8, 9-11, 13-15, 20-32,
35- 37, 40- 42, 45, 47, 48-50, 53, 56, 64,
67, 70, 79-82, 86, 89, 90, 94, 100, 105, 108,
114-116, 120, 121, 146, 149, 151, 152, 154-156,
159, 162-164, 168-170, 173, 181, 196, 200,
203, 209, 211, 211n54, 212-215, 217, 222,
228, 235, 237, 238, 241-245, 253, 254
Imperial fiefs2-5, 8, 9, 12, 13, 19-20, 27,
35, 44-45, 80-81, 90, 113-116, 150, 154-155,
Index
160, 162-167, 171, 197, 211, 211n54, 213, 215,
218, 241-250
inheritance customs and practices2,
4, 8, 9-18, 38, 41, 45, 50, 65, 68-69, 76n32,
77-82, 99, 120, 166, 186, 192, 195, 211, 233,
238, 243, 246, 253-4
military contracts and commands4,
5, 6, 7, 15, 18-19, 25, 28, 33, 37, 40, 55-58,
66, 72-73, 76, 80, 86, 100-149, 151, 152,
154, 164, 165, 167-169, 177-191, 194-195,
197, 199, 202, 203, 206, 208, 211, 212, 215,
217-222, 224, 226-231, 235-245, 249-253
naval commands122-3, 133-4, 139, 144,
209, 225, 226, 247
tenants, subjects and vassals2, 6- 9,
14, 15, 20- 24, 27, 32, 34-50, 56, 65, 67, 76,
79, 80, 86, 88, 92, 95, 97, 98, 100, 117, 121,
149, 151-153, 164, 166, 168-70, 193, 200,
206-208, 220, 234, 244, 246n226, 247,
252
and towns and cities2-6, 21, 23, 34,
37- 39, 47, 48, 51-66, 72, 74, 75, 84-98, 119,
164, 167, 169-172, 174-177, 181, 182, 189, 191,
193-195, 207, 208, 211, 212, 214, 215-221,
223-227, 229, 231-233, 236, 238, 240-241,
250, 254
Milito22
Mirandola4, 69, 80-81, 114, 145, 163, 164,
165, 227, 243-244, 250
Miroballo, Carlo23
Modena128, 162, 163, 164
Monaco3, 13, 23, 28, 34, 41-42, 69, 156, 160
Moncada, Antonio19
Moncada, Ugo (de)37, 203-204, 232
Monferrato, Marquis of2, 27, 155, 156-157
Monferrato, Marquisate of2, 14-15, 155
Monforte, Angelo (di), conte di Campobasso
110, 191
Monforte, Cola (di), conte di Campobasso
110, 191
Monforte, Carlo (di)110, 111
Monforte, Giovanni (di), 110
Monopoli34
Montana56
Monte, Gianbattista (del)146
Montefeltro, Federico (da), Duke of Urbino
169, 236
Montercule27

Monte San Giovanni199
Montesarchio27
Monte Tanno41
Montoggio23, 41, 227
Morcone22
Morone, Gerolamo203
Morra, Isabella (de)70
Muir, Edward23, 98
Mulazzo68
Musso
Naldi, Dionigio (di)137n172
Naples, city of6, 12, 22-23, 63, 65, 110, 122,
187n168, 189-191, 193, 199, 204, 206, 208
Naples, king of1, 21, 63-64, 146, 161, 180,
198, 230-232, 252 see also Alfonso II;
Alfonso V of Aragon (I of Naples);
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor;
Federico; Ferrandino; Ferrante; Philip
II, King of Spain
Naples, kingdom of, territory and state1,
6-7, 8, 11-12, 16-17, 19, 21-23, 26, 29-35,
48-49, 51, 63-64, 69-71, 77, 78, 100, 101,
104, 105, 107-115, 118, 125, 126, 129-133,
139-140, 143, 165, 175n114, 180-209, 211,
228-33, 235, 239-241, 248, 251-252
Narni86, 87
Nicelli, family93
Nicholas V, Pope (Tommaso Parentucelli)
30, 32
Noceto77, 170, 170n97
Nola104, 112, 188
Norcia87
Oddi (degli), family56
Oneglia28, 90, 91, 224, 225
Onzo90
Orange, Philibert de Chlons, Prince of
204-207
Orlans, Louis, duc (d) see Louis XII, King
of France
Orsini, family1, 5, 6, 10, 11, 17, 25, 37, 38,
63, 64, 66-69, 76, 78-79, 82-88, 101,
104-105, 107-108, 112, 137-140, 144, 177-181,
188n172, 188n 174, 228-233, 235-241,
244-245, 246n226, 251
Orsini, Aldobrandino, conte di Pitigliano
69,179-180n131
279
Orsini, Alfonsina237
Orsini, Camillo139, 144-146, 237, 244
Orsini, Carlo (fl. 1550s)144, 145
Orsini, Carlo di Giovanni11
Orsini, Carlo di Virginio102, 137-138, 144,
236
Orsini, Clarice237
Orsini, Daniele, conte di Sarno185, 186,
188
Orsini, Enrico, conte di Nola240
Orsini, Fabio240n198
Orsini, Felice see Rovere (della), Felice
Orsini, Felice, principe di Salerno185186, 188
Orsini, Ferdinando, duca di Gravina206207, 240
Orsini, Francesco, duca di Gravina236237
Orsini, Francesco di Giangiordano11, 38,
38n124, 238
Orsini, Francesco di Giovanni11
Orsini, Francesco di Ottavio145
Orsini, Franciotto140n198
Orsini, Gabriele, duca di Venosa189
Orsini, Gentile188n172
Orsini, Gentil Virginio, conte
dAnguillara144, 237, 244
Orsini, Gian Antonio, conte di Tagliacozzo77, 188n174
Orsini, Gianbattista, cardinal102-103
Orsini, Giancorrado17, 139
Orsini, Gian Francesco, conte di Pitigliano
25, 244, 245
Orsini, Giangiordano38, 68, 102, 144, 228,
236, 239-240
Orsini, Giordano di Valerio144, 145
Orsini, Giordano, conte di Atripalda185,
186, 188
Orsini, Giovanni Antonio, principe di
Taranto6, 21, 33, 34, 64, 111, 112,
183-184, 186-189, 194
Orsini, Girolama244
Orsini, Girolamo10, 68-9, 238, 241
Orsini, Giulio (fl. 1550s)145, 146
Orsini, Giulio di Lorenzo102-103, 236, 240n198
Orsini, Isabella Medici (de), Isabella
Orsini, Latino, cardinal73, 103, 106-107
Orsini, Latino di Camillo144, 145
280
Orsini, Ludovico di Aldobrandino69
Orsini, Ludovico di Niccol, conte di
Pitigliano237, 240n198, 244n219
Orsini, Maria77n35
Orsini, Maria Donata189
Orsini, Mario237
Orsini, Napoleone di Carlo25, 77, 103,
104, 106-107, 188-189
Orsini, Napoleone di Giangiordano10,
38, 38n124, 68-69, 78, 87, 237-239
Orsini, Niccol di Aldobrandino, conte di
Pitigliano25, 38, 69, 104-106, 137,
140, 180n131, 188n172, 236, 239
Orsini, Niccol di Gian Francesco, conte di
Pitigliano 244-245
Orsini, Orsino237
Orsini, Orso, duca dAscoli38, 112, 188,
188n172, 192
Orsini, Orso di Giovanni11
Orsini, Paolo di Camillo144, 145
Orsini, Paolo di Latino73, 236-237
Orsini, Paolo Giordano71, 241
Orsini, Piergiampaolo109
Orsini, Raimondo, principe di Salerno
186
Orsini, Raimondo di Orso38, 192
Orsini, Roberto di Carlo188-189
Orsini, Roberto di Orso38, 192, 240n198
Orsini, Troilo71
Orsini, Ulisse86
Orsini, Valerio139, 144
Orsini, Virginio25, 26, 31, 36-37, 72-73, 78,
85, 87, 101-108, 140, 144, 178-181, 235-237,
239
Orte86, 87
Ortucchio26
Orvieto85
Osoppo5, 24-25, 35, 225
Ovada158
Pacheco, Pedro, cardinal209
Padua75
Palestrina30, 32
Paliano30-31, 235
Pallavicini, family4-5, 26, 34, 76, 80, 95,
96, 116, 161, 168, 170, 215-216
Pallavicini, Antonio Maria215, 216
Pallavicini, Bernardino80
Index
Pallavicini,Cristoforo216
Pallavicini, Galeazzo215, 216
Pallavicini, Gian Francesco80, 170
Pallavicini, Gian Ludovico80
Pallavicini, Giulia see Sforza di Santa Fiora,
Giulia
Pallavicini, Luisa216
Pallavicini, Manfredo216
Pallavicini, Rolando (fl. 1450)34, 39, 117,
149-50, 166
Pallavicini, Rolando (fl. 1515)80
Pallavicini, Sforza216-217, 217n79
Pallavicini, sons of Rolando (fl. 1450)3940, 117, 149, 166
Palombara181
Pandone, Enrico, duca di Boiano205
papacy, popes1, 6, 11, 30-31, 37, 61-63, 66,
83, 87, 100-105, 114, 128, 139, 141, 145-147,
161, 177-182, 195, 214, 218, 227-241, 244,
250-251 see also Alexander VI;
Boniface VIII; Calixtus III; Clement VII;
Eugenius IV; Innocent VIII; Julius II;
Julius III; Leo X; Martin V; Nicholas V;
Paul II; Paul III; Paul IV; Pius II; Pius IV;
Pius V; Sixtus IV
Papal States1, 6, 11, 17-18, 21, 30-33, 35-39,
51, 56-57, 62-63, 68-71, 76-79, 82-88, 101,
105-109, 146-147, 177-182, 193, 195, 206,
214, 227-241, 250-251
Parma26, 39, 55, 56, 58, 76, 95, 96, 114-115,
120, 128, 155, 162, 165, 170, 214-218, 250
Parmigianino26
Parolisi22
Paul II, Pope (Pietro Barbo)106, 179, 181
Paul III, Pope (Alessandro Farnese)30-31,
57, 128, 144, 214-216, 218, 233-235, 244
Paul IV, Pope (Gianpietro Caraffa),30, 31,
70, 146, 234-235, 241, 245
Pavia165
Perugia56-57, 85
Petrucci, Alfonso, cardinal231
Petrucci, Antonio196
Philip II, King of Spain31, 127, 133, 134,
209, 210, 214, 215, 227, 234-235, 244,
246-247, 252
Piacenza55, 65, 68, 96-97, 128, 162, 165,
169, 211, 214-215, 250
Piccinino, Jacopo115, 181, 184
281
Piccinino, Niccol109
Piccolomini, Alfonso, duca dAmalfi33
Piccolomini, Antonio, duca dAmalfi26,
33, 189
Pico della Mirandola, family4, 69, 80,
163, 165, 243-244, 250
Pico della Mirandola, Antonio Maria80,
114
Pico della Mirandola, Bianca Maria see Este,
Bianca Maria (d)
Pico della Mirandola, Federico81, 243
Pico della Mirandola, Francesca see
Trivulzio, Francesca
Pico della Mirandola, Galeotto,80-81, 114,
164
Pico della Mirandola, Galeotto di Lodovico
69, 80-81, 243
Pico della Mirandola, Gian Francesco69,
243
Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni80
Pico della Mirandola, Lodovico (d.
1509)69, 81, 243
Pico della Mirandola, Lodovico (fl. 1550)
243-244
Piediluco86
Pieve di Teco89, 91, 174
Pio da Carpi, family4, 34, 163, 164,
242-243
Pio da Carpi, Alberto164-165, 242-243
Pio da Carpi, Giberto164, 242
Pio da Carpi, Leonello165n71, 242
Piombino5
Pisa116
Pitigliano5, 25, 104, 244-245, 246n226
Pius II, Pope (Enea Silvio Piccolomini)
77, 181, 189, 195
Pius IV, Pope (Giovan Angelo de Medici)
31
Pius V, Pope (Antonio Michele Ghislieri)
147
Poiani, family86
Pompei, family135
Pompei, Alessandro136
Ponzano46
Pordenone138
Porto (da), family135
Portofino61
Porto Maurizio89-91
Porzio, Camillo113
Poviglio168
Prel90
Quarata23
raccomandigia, raccomandati see military
nobility: aderenza, aderenti
Ramoino, Francesco89-91
Rangone, Guido128
Rapallo92
Recco61, 92
Reggio55, 162, 163
Riario, Bianca218n84
Riario, Caterina - see Sforza, Caterina
Riario, Girolamo78, 101-102, 218n84
Rieti85-6, 87
Rippa Candida21-22
Roccabianca170n97
Rocca di Papa30
Rocca Sanvitale26
Rocca Sinibalda86
Roccatagliata32, 41
Romano (Veneto)120
Rome1, 6, 30, 37, 38, 54-55, 57, 62-64, 66,
70, 72, 73, 79, 85, 87, 106-108, 138, 143,
177, 178, 181, 182, 229, 231-233, 237, 238,
240-241, 251
Roquebrune41, 42
Rossi, family1, 4-5, 58, 76, 84, 95, 97, 116,
119, 161, 169-71, 192, 215-218
Rossi, Beltramo120
Rossi, Bertrando170-171, 217
Rossi, Bianca see Riario, Bianca
Rossi, Camilla see Gonzaga, Camilla
Rossi, Filippo119-120, 217
Rossi, Giacomo117, 217
Rossi, Giovanni217
Rossi, Giulio218
Rossi, Guido117, 119, 170, 217
Rossi, Pietro55
Rossi, Pietro Maria di Pietro21, 26, 75-77,
84, 95, 117-118, 149-150, 169-171, 217
Rossi, Pietro Maria di Troilo128-129, 218
Rossi, Rolando77
Rossi, Troilo di Giovanni128, 217
Rossi, Troilo di Pietro Maria218
Rota36
282
Rovere (della), Felice38n124, 238
Rovere (della), Francesco see Sixtus IV
Rovere (della), Giovanni103, 195
Rovere (della) Giuliano, cardinal see Julius
II, Pope
Ruffo, Enrichetta187
Rusca, family83-84
Index
Sanseverino, Giovanna (da)196

Sanseverino, Girolamo (da), principe di
Bisignano112, 193, 194, 196, 200
Sanseverino, Giulio (da)126
Sanseverino, Guglielmo (da), conte di
Capaccio199
Sanseverino, Leonello (da)118, 188
Sanseverino, Luca (da), duca di San Marco
Safienthal211n54
185
Sala Braganza29
Sanseverino, Pietro Antonio (da), principe di
Salerno29, 185
Bisignano133, 208, 209
Saluzzo, Marquis of18
Sanseverino, Roberto (da), conte di Caiazzo
Saluzzo, Marquisate of18, 241, 247
72-73, 104, 118-119, 188, 195
Saluzzo di Castellar, Giovanni Andrea18
Sanseverino, Roberto (da), conte di SanseSanbarbato22
verino185, 188
Sanbarbato, Gianbattista (di)22
Sanseverino, Roberto (da), principe di Salerno
Sandoval de Castro, Diego70
196, 200-201
Sanfele21
Sanseverino, Roberto di Gian Francesco (da),
San Felice al Circeo32
conte di Caiazzo126-127
Sangallo, Antonio (da)25
Santa Caterina152
Sangiorgio della Molinara22
Santacroce, Giorgio36-37
Sangro, Paolo (di)111
Santa Fiora5
Sangro, Placido (di)208
Santoro, Leonardo204
San Marco de li Cavoti22
Santo Stefano41
San Pietro, duca di33
Sanvitale, family58, 77, 95, 170, 170n97
San Secondo170, 170n97, 217, 218
Sanvitale, Giberto26
Sanseverino (da), family7, 49, 65, 83-84,
Sanvitale, Stefano29
165, 185, 209
Sarno186
Sanseverino, Alfonso (da), duca di Somma Sassuolo164
205
Savelli, family6, 63, 77, 78, 87, 101, 230
Sanseverino, Antonello (da), principe di
Savelli, Antimo145
Salerno12, 29, 49, 113, 136, 192-194,
Savelli, Antonello86-87, 109
196, 199-200
Savelli, Federico145
Sanseverino, Antonio Maria (da)73, 126
Savelli, Gianbattista, cardinal87, 102, 108
Sanseverino, Barnab (da), conte di Lauria Savelli, Giovanni78
196
Savelli, Jacopo181
Sanseverino, Bernardino (da), principe di
Savelli, Mariano102, 178
Bisignano200, 201, 208
Savelli, Paolo (d.1405)100
Sanseverino, Carlo (da), conte di Mileto
Savelli, Paolo di Mariano102
29-30, 194, 196
Savelli, Silvio141
Sanseverino, Ferrante (da), principe di
Savelli, Troiano78, 87
Salerno49, 131, 133, 201, 208-209,
Savelli, Troilo78, 102
252
Savignone15, 40
Sanseverino, Galeazzo (da)125-126
Savona3, 59
Sanseverino, Gaspare (da)126
Savorgnan5
Sanseverino, Giacomo (da), conte di Mileto Savorgnan, family1, 5, 24, 35, 46-47, 59,
200
74-75, 98, 121, 136, 221-222, 249
Sanseverino, Gian Francesco (da), conte di
Savorgnan, Antonio74, 98, 221, 222
Caiazzo125-126
Savorgnan, Federico74

Savorgnan, Francesco74
Savorgnan, Germanico136-137
Savorgnan, Giovanni (d. 1509)221
Savorgnan, Giovanni (fl. 1549)75
Savorgnan, Girolamo24, 59, 136, 222
Savorgnan, Giulio136, 222-223
Savorgnan, Mario136
Savorgnan, Niccol74
Savorgnan, Nicol98, 121
Savorgnan, Tristano (fl. 1420)5
Savorgnan, Tristano (fl. 1564)74, 75
Savorgnan, Urbano74
Savoy, duke of2 see also Ludovico,
Duke of Savoy; Yolande, Duchessregent of Savoy
Savoy, duchy of2, 147, 155
Schinner, Matthias, cardinal61, 212n57
Scotti, family96
Scotti, Pietro Maria96-7
Segalara217
Sessa189
Sforza, Ascanio, cardinal103, 108-109
Sforza, Bona, Duchess-regent of Milan
95, 118, 170
Sforza, Caterina218n84
Sforza, Elisa118
Sforza, Francesco, condottiere, then Duke of
Milan1, 4-5, 13, 57, 76, 89, 100, 110,
114, 115, 117, 118, 149-50, 156-160, 162-163,
167, 168, 173-175, 184, 187n168
Sforza, Francesco II, Duke of Milan127,
128, 203, 210, 214
Sforza, Galeazzo Maria, Duke of Milan13,
78, 95, 102, 103, 105-107, 117-119, 150, 153,
161-163, 167, 169, 173
Sforza, Ludovico, regent, then Duke of
Milan28-29, 62, 73, 94-96, 103, 102,
108-109, 114, 118, 119, 123, 125, 126, 150,
164-165, 169-170, 209, 211-213, 217
Sforza, Massimiliano, Duke of Milan96,
97, 127, 141, 210, 211, 214-216
Sforza di Santa Fiora, family5, 216
Sforza di Santa Fiora, Bosio216
Sforza di Santa Fiora, Costanza see Farnese,
Costanza
Sforza di Santa Fiora, Giulia216
Sforza di Santa Fiora, Luisa see Pallavicini,
Luisa
Sforza di Santa Fiora, Sforza216, 217n79
283
Sicily, king of8, 18-19
Sicily, kingdom of1, 7, 8, 12, 18-19, 20n41,
34, 50, 72n18, 182, 183, 187, 251-253
Siena, Republic of5, 62, 102, 103, 106, 115,
144-145, 148, 179-180n131, 232, 244-245
Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor154-5
Sixtus IV, Pope (Francesco della Rovere)
30, 66, 78, 87, 101, 103, 106-107, 114, 119,
177-180, 195n208
Soderini, Francesco, cardinal231
Sora195
Sorano245
Soria, Lope (de)225
Spain, kings of14, 61, 124, 127, 131, 143, 146,
147, 198, 202, 207, 208, 228, 240, 245,
248, 251, 252, 253 see also Charles V,
Holy Roman Emperor; Ferdinand of
Aragon; Philip II
Spanish in Italy14, 20, 30-31, 37, 39, 42, 61,
89, 91, 97, 100, 124, 127, 129-134, 138,
140-146, 198-199, 201-210, 224-235,
239-240, 242-248, 250, 251
Spilimbergo, Enrico (di)221
Spinola, family2, 3, 10, 13, 15-16, 24, 43-44,
60-61, 64n32, 65, 68, 76, 83, 88-91,
155-160, 172-174, 176, 223-227, 247, 250
Spinola, Agostino224, 226, 227
Spinola, Antonio68
Spinola, Caroccio10, 13
Spinola, Eliano43
Spinola, Ettore32, 158
Spinola, Filippo24
Spinola, Francesco43-44
Spinola, Galeotto32, 158
Spinola, Gilberto68
Spinola, Giorgio91
Spinola, Giovanni29
Spinola, Giulio68
Spinola, Giulio (infantry captain)134
Spinola, Jacopo13, 64n32
Spinola, Luca89-90, 174
Spinola, Niccol90
Spinola, Opizzino10
Spinola, Pantaleo90
Spinola, Pietro171
Spinola, Stefano91, 225, 227
Spinola, Troilo10, 156
Spoleto85-87
Stellanello, 157
284
Index
Stendardo, Pietro23
Sterpo24, 47
Stigliano74
Strassoldo, Federico222
Strassoldo, Francesco47
Strozzi, Piero133, 244
Strumieri, faction98
Swiss in Italy61, 124, 127, 138, 210-214
Vallisnera, family45, 45n162

Val Lugano83-84, 165
Val Nure97
Val Trompia219
Varano26
Varese35, 40-41, 82, 174
Venice, city of5, 75, 100, 119, 147, 222
Venice, Republic of, territory and state5,
6, 19, 25, 46-47, 56, 59, 62, 69, 74-76, 80,
Tagliacozzo77, 78, 101, 140, 188, 240
95, 96, 98, 100, 101, 104, 105, 110, 112-117,
Tassarollo32, 158
119-121, 126-128, 135-141, 144, 146, 147, 149,
Tenda, Margherita (di),160
156, 161, 162, 164-165, 168-171, 187n168,
Tenda, Onorato, conte (di)159
198, 206, 218n91, 218-223, 235, 236, 239,
Teramo64
241, 244, 249, 251
Termes, Paul (de)145
Venosa27
Terni85, 86-87
Ventimiglia89
Terzi, Ottobuono55, 56, 75
Ventimiglia, Alfonso72n18
Theinwald211n54
Ventimiglia, Enrico, marchese di Gerace
Tivoli85
72n18
Todi86-87
Verona5, 135, 165, 219
Toledo, Ferrando lvarez (de), duque de Alba, Viana, Carlos (de)183
31, 39, 133, 146, 209, 234-235
Viano36
Toledo, Garca lvarez (de)208
Vicenza5, 135, 219
Toledo, Pedro lvarez (de), viceroy of NaplesVico (di), family6, 77
30, 131, 208-209, 233
Vicovaro38, 238
Torelli, Paolo, conte di Montechiarugolo
Vigevano212
39
Vilamari, Bernat (fl. 1450)82
Torre, Francesco (della), 94
Vilamari, Bernat (fl. 1508)201
Torrechiara21, 26, 170n97, 215, 217
Virgoletta77-78
Torriglia32, 41
Visconti, Bianca Maria57
Traetto186, 189
Visconti, Filippo Maria, Duke of Milan
Tramontano, Gian Carlo48
10, 13, 55, 57, 76, 83, 109, 114, 152, 154-158,
Treschietto,153
161-163, 165-167, 166-167n79, 212
Trezzo, Antonio (da)184-185
Visconti, Gian Galeazzo, Duke of Milan
Trivulzio, Francesca69, 81, 243
55, 154, 165, 166
Trivulzio, Gian Francesco212
Visconti, Giovanni Maria, Duke of Milan
Trivulzio, Gian Giacomo81, 125, 211-212,
55, 56
217, 243
Vitelli, Vitellozzo236-237
Trivulzio, Teodoro215-216
Viterbo85, 86
Voghera95, 211
Udine5, 47, 59-60, 74, 75, 97-98, 221
Urbino, duke of33, 149 see also
Wenceslas, Holy Roman Emperor154,
Montefeltro, Federico (da)
166
Val Borbera10, 43, 160
Valle dOneglia43, 58
Valle Impero90
Valle Scrivia10, 23, 24, 156, 160
Yolande, Duchess-regent of Savoy160

Zamberlani faction98
Zibello80

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Barons and Castellans

koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015|doi 10.1163/9789004282766_001

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/hw

Barons and Castellans

Barons and Castellans in the Mid-Fifteenth Century

Barons and Castellans in the Mid-Fifteenth Century

koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015|doi 10.1163/9789004282766_002

concerted diplomacy, or concerted military action if diplomacy failed. This

Barons and Castellans in the Mid-Fifteenth Century

Barons and Castellans in the Mid-Fifteenth Century

indispensable to Sforzas winning the dukedom and then holding on to it. He

Barons and Castellans in the Mid-Fifteenth Century

Lands and Fortresses

Lands and Fortresses

koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015|doi 10.1163/9789004282766_003

Lands and Fortresses

Lands and Fortresses

Ibid., 2338, 2437, 24952.

Lands and Fortresses

Sisto, I feudi imperiali, 83.

Lands and Fortresses

The circumstances in which women could inherit fiefs were complicated

Lands and Fortresses

Carmelo Trasselli, Da Ferdinando il Cattolico a Carlo V. Lesperienza siciliana 14751525

Lands and Fortresses

Giorgio Chittolini, Il particolarismo signorile e feudale in Emilia fra Quattro e Cinque

Lands and Fortresses

Lands and Fortresses

Conti, Castelli e rocche, 171.

Lands and Fortresses

Lands and Fortresses

Lands and Fortresses

ASMantua, AGonzaga, b. 1913: Nino to Ercole Gonzaga, 14 Feb. 1543, Rome.

with Nicholas Vs return of Palestrina to the Colonna in 1447.95 Julius II gave

Lands and Fortresses

his estates.100 Vespasiano Colonna had an estimated income of 40,000 ducats

Raffaele Colapietra, I Sanseverino di Salerno (Salerno, 1985), 125.

Giuseppe Galasso, Il Regno di Napoli: Il Mezzogiorno angioino e aragonese (12661494)

Lands and Fortresses

Sandro Carocci, Baroni di Roma (Rome, 1993), 2056, 255.

Lands and Fortresses

Giorgio Santacroce, in 1493. The inhabitants would still be obliged to be loyal

ASRome, Archivio del Collegio de Notari Capitolini, b. 176 (Camillo Beneimbene),

their vassals, as well as their estates. Explaining to the Colonnas supporters in

Lands and Fortresses

Arcangeli, Un lignaggio padano, 83.

Lands and Fortresses

Ibid., II, CIX-CXVI.

Lands and Fortresses

ASMilan, ASforzesco, b. 1210: Giovanni Pietro Raymondo to Gian Galeazzo Sforza,

Lands and Fortresses

Lunigiana of the campaigns in Lombardy in the 1520s have on the attitude of

Lands and Fortresses

plague, an invasion by Imperial troops diverted attention from repressing

Lands and Fortresses

Barons in the City

Barons in the City

koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015|doi 10.1163/9789004282766_004

Barons in the City

Barons in the City

Barons in the City

C.F. Black, The Baglioni as tyrants of Perugia, 14881540, 24581.

Arturo Pacini, La Genova di Andrea Doria nellImpero di Carlo V (Florence, 1999).

Barons in the City