The Battle of Parabiago

When Visconti fought Visconti for control of Milan

One of the bronze doors of Milan cathedral, sculpted by
Giannino Castiglioni, includes a scene from the battle

One of the bloodiest battles of the 14th century took place on this day near the village of Parabiago, about 20km (12 miles) northwest of Milan.

The Battle of Parabiago in 1339 saw the armies of Azzone Visconti, the ruler of Milan, defeat an attempt to unseat him by his exiled uncle, Lodrisio Visconti, leader of a mercenary army named the Compagnia di San Giorgio - the Company of St George.

In 1311, Lodrisio had helped Matteo Visconti and his son Galeazzo regain the rulership of Milan from the Della Torre family, who had previously held power in the city but was later instrumental in imprisoning Galeazzo and his son, Azzone, as part of a power struggle. When Galeazzo and Azzone ultimately escaped, Lodrisio fled.

Initially holding up in his castle at Seprio, about 38km (24 miles) northwest of Milan, near the city of Varese, he was besieged by soldiers led by Azzone, who destroyed the castle but failed to capture Lodrisio.

In exile, Lodrisio became a condottiero - a mercenary military leader - and found employment with the Della Scala family of Verona, also known as the Scaligeri, who controlled much of the area that today makes up Veneto, with the exception of Venice, as well as the key strategic cities and surrounding territories of Brescia in Lombardy, Parma in Emilia-Romagna and Lucca in northern Tuscany.

Azzone Visconti, Lord of Milan, who
died soon after his army's victory

The Scaligeri were the enemies of the Visconti but Lodrisio had no qualms about working for them and became wealthy in the process, bestowing upon himself the title of Lord of Seprio.

With the help of the Scaligeri, Lodrisio assembled an army of 6,500 men, made up of 2,500 mainly German knights, 1,000 Swiss halberdiers, and infantry and militia supplied by the Scaligeri. In 1339, the army was named the Compagnia di San Giorgio. Its first contract was to capture Milan for the Della Scala family, who had a score to settle with Azzone Visconti after he supported Venice in an earlier conflict against Verona.

Azzone, who was in poor health, ruled Milan with the help of two uncles, Luchino Visconti and Giovanni Visconti, the Bishop of Milan.

Lodrisio’s army set out for Lombardy in late January, 1339. They met resistance from the Milanese in Rivolta d'Adda, Cernusco sul Naviglio, Sesto di Monza and Legnano but each time had the numbers and the expertise to prevail.

In the meantime, with Azzone confined to Milan because of gout, Luchino had assembled a force comprising his citizen militia and 700 knights from Savoy, led by the Bolognese commander Ettore da Panigo. 

Luchino's army into two corps, one of which established a camp just outside the village of Parabiago. It was here, on 20 February, in deep snow, that Lodrisio launched an attack. Fierce fighting entailed, with heavy casualties on both sides, but ultimately Lodrisio’s company claimed victory, capturing Luchino.

There were more casualties as the Milanese force retreated but amid the confusion of the battlefield, not helped by the weather conditions, remaining elements of Luchino’s militia offered more resistance, delaying Lodrisio’s progress towards the city.  This bought enough time for Azzone to organise reinforcements.

Luchino Visconti was captured and
then freed - perhaps by the saint

Meanwhile, bolstered by a militia force from the nearby town of Rho, Da Panigo’s knights surprised the 400 troops Lodrisio had left behind at Parabiago to guard the captured Luchino. These were quickly overcome and Luchino freed.

Da Panigo and Luchino were now able to join Azzone’s reinforcements in launching a violent assault on Lodriso’s remaining German knights and what followed was a rout. 

Legend has it that an apparition of Sant’Ambrogio (Saint Ambrosius), the patron saint of Milan, descended on horseback from a cloud to lead the Milanese troops in the decisive moments of the battle, and caused their enemies to panic.  A variation on the same story is that Sant’Ambrogio had intervened to untie the ropes binding Luchino to a walnut tree.

Although the victory belonged to Azzone and Luchino, there was a heavy price in bloodshed. It is estimated that 2,300 Milanese soldiers were killed, and at least 4,500 members of the Compagnia di San Giorgio.

Lodrisio was taken prisoner and locked up in an iron cage at the Castle of San Colombano al Lambro, southeast of Milan between Pavia and Piacenza. Although Azzone died soon after the battle, Lodrisio was not released until after Luchino’s death in 1349, when Archbishop Giovanni, who succeeded Luchino as Lord of Milan, granted him his freedom.

To give thanks for the successful defence of Milan, Giovanni Visconti had a church and an abbey built on the site of the battle in Parabiago, called Sant'Ambrogio della Vittoria - St. Ambrose of the Victory. Until 1581, a procession from Milan to Parabiago took place in February each year to remember the victory.

The campanile of the
church of Sant'Ambrogio

Travel tip:

The Parabiago of today falls within the boundaries of the greater Milan metropolitan area. After the battle it remained a relatively obscure village but began to grow in the 18th century and expanded quickly with the Industrial Revolution, becoming a centre for textile manufacture and shoe-making. After the first shoe factory was opened in 1899 and others followed, it became known as La Città della Calzatura - the City of the Shoe. It enjoyed a further boom in the 1960s and now has a population of almost 28,000. The original Chiesa di Sant’Ambrogio della Vittoria was demolished and another built in its place in the 18th century.

A snowy scene at the Castello
Visconti di San Vito

Travel tip:

The castle to which Lodrisio Visconti originally fled following his exit from Milan may have been what is now the Castello Visconti di San Vito at Somma Lombardo, a town about 22km (14 miles) southwest of Varese that in mediaeval times came under the jurisdiction of the nearby town of Arsago Seprio, then an important political centre. The castle’s origins are said to date back to the ninth century. Development of the castle into a palace was started in 1448 by the brothers Francesco and Guido Visconti. In the 1950s, the castle complex came under the ownership of the Marquis Don Alberto Visconti of San Vito, a descendent of Francesco Visconti. Nowadays, it hosts meetings, seminars and banquets and is a popular venue for weddings. 

Also on this day:

1549: The birth of Francesco Maria II della Rovere - the last Duke of Urbino

1778: The death of ground-breaking physicist Laura Bassi

1816: Rossini’s opera The Barber of Seville premieres in Rome

1993: The death of car maker Ferruccio Lamborghini

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Galeazzo Maria Sforza - Duke of Milan

Effective leader with dark side

Piero Pollaiuolo's portrait of Galeazzo,
which is kept by Uffizi in Florence

Galeazzo Maria Sforza, who became the second member of the Sforza family to take the title Duke of Milan, was born on this day in 1444 in Fermo, in what is now the Marche region.

Sforza was an effective ruler but is often remembered as a tyrant with a cruel streak.  He ruled Milan for just 10 years before he was assassinated in 1476.

In that time, Galeazzo did much to boost the economy of Milan and the wider area of Lombardia. He introduced measures to promote and protect the work of Lombard craftsmen and boosted agriculture by the introduction of jasmine farming and rice cultivation. Farsightedly, he realised that a healthy population was a more productive one and expanded the health institutions started by his father, Francesco Sforza.  He minted a new silver coin, the Testone, which carried an image of his profile on the reverse.

He saw to it that work on Milan’s cathedral, which had started almost 100 years earlier, continued to progress, and took over the construction of a major hospital that his father had wanted to see built.

Galeazzo was also a major patron of music, attracting composers and musicians not just in Italy but from northern Europe, especially the Franco-Flemish areas of present day Belgium and Holland. Alexander Agricola, Johannes Martini, Loyset Compère, and Gaspar van Weerbeke all had their standing boosted by their association with the Sforza court, where they composed masses, motets and secular music.

The Testone coin, bearing the image
of Galeazzo Maria Sforza on the reverse

He was also a patron of the arts, although this was mainly connected with the extravagant decoration and embellishment of the vast Castello Sforzesco. The castle had been built by his father, Francesco, but he and Galeazzo’s mother, Bianca Maria Visconti, chose to live in the more modest Corte d’Arengo rather than be seen to flaunt their wealth.

Such considerations were dismissed by Galeazzo, who decided the castle was a suitable home for him and his family and hired two Florentine architects of particular note, Bartolomeo Gadio and Benedetto Ferrini, to oversee the restructuring of the Ducal Court, Rocchetta courtyard and his own private accommodation.

He commissioned the Ducal Chapel, built in 1471, and engaged artists of considerable reputation such as Bonifacio Bembo, Giacomino Vismara and Stefano de Fedeli.  The chapel’s extraordinary decoration, with much use of pure gold, makes it one of the masterpieces of Sforza art.

A skilled soldier, Galeazzo was called back from a military expedition in France at the time of his father’s death and hundreds of Milanese turned out to acclaim him as the new Duke when he returned to the city. It was not long before his ruthless streak emerged, however. At first ruling jointly with his mother, he soon took steps to relegate her to a much less influential position and it was not long before she moved to Cremona, where she had considerable support.  It is said that she was in contact with Ferdinand I of Naples, an enemy of Galeazzo, and after she became ill and died in 1468 there were suspicions that Galeazzo had ordered his agents to poison her.

Part of the sumptuously decorated
ceiling of the Ducal Chapel

If that were true, it would have been consistent with the stories of cruelty that have been associated with Galeazzo, who is said to have taken delight in condemning those who offended him to agonizing deaths and subjecting his enemies to torture.  A womaniser, he allegedly raped the wives and daughters of Milanese noblemen, confident that they would be too fearful for their own safety to raise objections.

However, his excesses and cruelties eventually cost him his life when three of high-ranking officials in his court, Carlo Visconti, Gerolamo Olgiati and Giovanni Andrea Lampugnani, conspired to assassinate him.  All three had motives, Lampugnani’s stemming from a land dispute that cost him a considerable part of his fortune, Olgiati’s from political differences, and Visconti’s from suspicions that Galeazzo had raped his daughter.

Their plot came to fruition on 26 December, the feast of Santo Stefano, when Galeazzo attended the Basilica di Santo Stefano Maggiore to celebrate the saint.  When Galeazzo arrived, Lampugnani knelt before him in the atrium but then rose suddenly and stabbed him in the groin and chest. Visconti and Olgiati joined in, plunging their own weapons into the body of the Duke, who was soon dead.

Lampugnani himself was killed by one of Galeazzo’s guards, while Visconti and Olgiati were caught and executed within days.  Galeazzo was succeeded as Duke of Milan by Gian Galeazzo Sforza, the first-born of his four legitimate children, although for five years, until his majority, Milan was governed by his mother, Bona of Savoy.

The inner courtyard of the Castello Sforzesco in Milan,
which Galeazzo Maria Sforza turned into his luxurious home

Travel tip:

The Castello Sforzesco is one of the main sights for visitors to Milan, situated to the northwest of the city centre, with the Parco Sempione behind it. Francesco Sforza built it on the site of the Castello di Porta Giovia, which had been the main residence in the city of the Visconti family, from which Francesco was descended. The Viscontis ruled Milan for 170 years. Renovated and enlarged a number of times in subsequent centuries, it became one of the largest citadels in Europe and now houses several museums and art collections.

The Basilica of Santo Stefano Maggiore in Milan, the
scene of Galeazzo Maria Sforza's assassination

Travel tip:

The Basilica of Santo Stafano Maggiore can be found in Piazza Santo Stefano, to the southeast of Milan’s centro storico, just a few minutes’ walk from the Duomo. Although it dates back to the fifth century, the present structure was built in 1075 in Romanesque style.  It contains the relics of at least eight saints. As well as being the scene of the death of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, an event which is commemorated with a plaque in the atrium, the church also witnessed the baptism, in 1571, of the painter Michelangelo Merisi, better known as Caravaggio.

Also on this day:

41AD: The assassination of Roman Emperor Caligula

1705: The birth of the castrato singer Farinelli, acknowledged as music’s first ‘superstar’

1916: The birth of actor Arnoldo Foà

1947: The birth of footballer Giorgio Chinaglia


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Castruccio Castracani - condottiero

Castruccio Castracani was a career
soldier who ruled Lucca for 12 years

Mercenary soldier who ruled Lucca 

Castruccio Castracani, a condottiero who ruled his home city of Lucca from 1316 to 1328, was born on this day in 1281.

His relatively short life - he died at the age of 47 - was taken up with a series of battles, some fought on behalf of others, but latterly for his own ends in the conflict between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines that dominated medieval Italy as part of the power struggle between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire.

Castruccio's story inspired a biography by Niccolò Machiavelli and later a novel by Mary Shelley.

Born Castruccio Castracani degli Antelminelli, he was from a Ghibelline family and therefore a supporter of the Holy Roman Emperor in opposition to the Guelphs. He was exiled from Lucca at an early age with his parents and others by the Guelphs, then in the ascendancy.

Orphaned at 19, he lived initially in Pisa before moving to England, where he lived for some years and displayed a skill in the use of weapons that earned him victory in some tournaments and won the favour of King Edward I.

A scene from the important Battle of Montecatini in 1315,
in which Castruccio masterminded a Ghibelline victory

However, after committing a murder, even though it was for reasons of honour, he was forced to leave England and went to France.

There he served as a condottiero - a kind of mercenary military leader - under Philip of France in Flanders. As commander of the cavalry, he distinguished himself in the clash of Arras and in the defence of Thérouanne in the Flanders War.

After a few years he returned to Italy, where he stayed in Verona and Venice. Later, he fought for the Visconti in Lombardy, and in 1313 under the Ghibelline chief, Uguccione della Faggiuola, Lord of Pisa.

When the German king Henry VII entered Italy to be crowned Holy Roman Emperor, Castruccio supported him alongside Uguccione and in 1314 led the Ghibelline forces back to Lucca, over which Uguccione was given power.

He fought as commander of a part of the Ghibelline army at the Battle of Montecatini in 1315, in which, with the help of the emperor's soldiers, he was the main architect of the victory over the Florentine Guelph League.

A drawing of Castruccio, kept at the
Biblioteca Statale in Lucca

A rivalry developed between the two leaders, however, which at one point saw Castruccio imprisoned by Uguccione, pending execution. However, following a popular uprising in Lucca and Pisa, Uguccione had to flee, Castruccio was freed and in 1316 acclaimed Captain General of the city of Lucca.

In 1320 the emperor Frederick III appointed Castruccio imperial vicar of Lucca, Versilia, and Lunigiana. When the emperor Louis IV entered Italy to be crowned in Rome, Castruccio became one of his most active advisors.

In 1325 he defeated the Florentines at Altopascio, and was appointed by the emperor Duke of Lucca, Pistoia, Volterra and Luni. Two years later he captured Pisa, of which he was also made imperial vicar. He was by now one of the most powerful men in Italy.

Louis appointed him Count of Latran, Duke of Lucca, in 1324 with rights of succession for his heirs, and a senator of Rome.

But, subsequently, his relations with Louis became less friendly and he was afterwards excommunicated by Pope John XXII in the interests of the Guelphs.

The title page from Mary Shelley's
novel, published in 1923

Castruccio died in Lucca on September 3, 1328, stricken with a sudden malarial fever as he prepared to take up arms against Florence. His left his empire disorganized and easy prey for the Florentines, who soon recaptured most of his holdings.

The story of Castruccio is said to have inspired Machiavelli, who published his biography, entitled La vita di Castruccio Castracani da Lucca, in 1520.

Three centuries later, the English writer Mary Shelley published a novel, in 1823, called Valperga: The Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca, in which the condottiere’s armies threaten the fictional fortress of Valperga, governed by Countess Euthanasia, the woman he loves, who faces a dilemma over whether to choose him or political liberty.

It was taken at the time to be a love story but was later recognised as a sophisticated commentary on the right of autonomously governed communities to political liberty in the face of imperialistic encroachment.

More than four kilometres of walls, upon which work
began in 1513, surround the city of Lucca

Travel tip:

Lucca is situated in western Tuscany, just 30km (19 miles) inland from Viareggio on the coast and barely 20km (12 miles) from Pisa, with its international airport.  It is often overlooked by travellers to the area in favour of Pisa’s Leaning Tower and the art treasures of Florence, 80km (50 miles) to the east, yet has much to recommend within its majestic walls, where visitors can stroll along narrow cobbled streets into a number of beautiful squares, with lots of cafes and restaurants for those content to soak up the ambiance, but also a wealth of churches, museums and galleries for those seeking a fix of history and culture.   The Renaissance walls, still intact, are an attraction in their own right, providing a complete 4.2km (2.6 miles) circuit of the city popular with walkers and cyclists.

The Rocca Ariostesca at Castelnuovo di Garfagnana in
Tuscany, about 50km (31 miles) north of Lucca 

Travel tip:

Today, there remain many historical relics, especially fortifications and castles, that are linked with Castruccio Castracani. These include the Rocca Ariostesca at Castelnuovo di Garfagnana in the Lunigiana area, which Castruccio had substantially enlarged in the early 14th century, the fortress at Serravalle Pistoiese, the fortress of Sarzanello, near Sarzana, the Tower and Arch of Castruccio Castracani at Montopoli in Val d’Arno and the Rocca Arrighina, named after his son Arrigo, in Pietrasanta. The Augusta Fortress he built in Lucca in 1322, which had 29 towers and four access gates, with one side attached to the city walls, was demolished in 1370 on the orders of the Council of Elders. The Palazzo degli Anziani was built in its place.

More reading:

Federico da Montefeltro - the art-loving condottiero

Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, last of the great condottieri

How the Battle of Meloria sparked the decline of Pisa

Also on this day:

1825: The birth of the blessed Francesco Faà di Bruno, advocate for poor

1888: The birth of aviation pioneer Enea Bossi

1939: The birth of actor Terence Hill, star of hit TV show Don Matteo

(Picture credit: Rocca Ariostesca by Sailko; via Wikimedia Commons)


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Ivana Spagna – singer-songwriter

Dance track made 30 years ago still holds record

Spagna performing her 1986 hit Easy Lady

The singer and songwriter Ivana Spagna, whose single Call Me achieved the highest placing by an Italian artist in UK chart history when it reached number two in 1987, was born on this day in 1954 in the town of Valeggio sul Mincio, in the Veneto.

Often performing as simply Spagna, she has sold more than 10 million copies of her singles and albums in a career spanning 46 years, having released her first single in 1971 at the age of 16.

She began to sing professionally in the early 1980s, when she provided the vocals for a number of disco tracks lip-synched by other artists, and when she relaunched her recording career in her own right she met with immediate success.

The single Easy Lady, recorded in 1986 and which she tends to regard as her debut single as a professional artist, sold more than two million copies, as did Call Me, which was released the following year.

Spagna defied the expectations of her record company, who had misgivings about promoting an Italian singing in English under the stage name “Spain” but were pleasantly surprised by her popularity.

The cover for Spagna's UK success Call Me

Call Me topped the European singles chart and reached No 13 in the Billboard dance chart in the United States.

In 1987, her first album, featuring both successful singles under the title Dedicated To The Moon, achieved a further 500,000 sales. She followed up with a dance-rock album, You Are My Energy, and another hit in the UK chart, Every Girl and Boy.

Supported by Sony Music, Spagna moved to the US in 1990, living in Santa Monica, working on her new disco-pop album No Way Out, which was geared to the US market.

After returning to Europe in 1993, recording her last European hit, Lady Madonna, in 1995, Spagna decided it was time to start singing in her native Italian.

Her big ‘break’ in that regard was to be chosen to sing Elton John’s song Circle of Life, in Italian, for the soundtrack of the Italian version of the Disney movie The Lion King. Released as a single, it was a big hit in Italy.

Encouraged by the TV host Pippo Baudo, she took part in several Sanremo Festivals, finishing third in 1995 with Gente Come Noi (People Like Us), which was another successful single in Italy.

Ivana Spagna as she was in 1969

Her first album in Italian, Siamo in due, sold more than 350,000 copies, which made it the best-selling album by a female singer in Italy in 1995.

Throughout her early career in particular, Spagna was guided by her brother, Giorgio Theo Spagna, who gave her piano lessons and wrote songs for her.  He and Larry Pignagnoli, the promoter and producer, joined forces with Spagna in the Opera Madre group as they set out to conquer the Italo Disco scene.

Pignagnoli, who also writes songs, has worked with Spagna for most of her career.

Today, Spagna is still recording and more recently returned to creating dance tracks. She has also written a book, Sarà capitato anche a te (It will have happened to you too), describing the premonitory dreams she claims to have experienced repeatedly during her life.

Tortellini di Valeggio

Travel tip:

Spagna’s home town of Vallegio sul Mincio, which can be found about 25km (16 miles) southwest of Verona, is famous for tortellini pasta, which it claims was invented there (although Bologna also makes that claim). Vallegio’s story is that the shape of the pasta parcels was inspired by the legend of Marco, a captain in the Visconti army, who eloped with a girl he originally took to be a nymph from the Mincio river, leaving behind a knotted gold silk handkerchief as a symbol of their love. The pasta shape is supposed to represent the knotted handkerchief.

The remains of the fortified dam, the Ponte Visconteo

Travel tip:

Each year on June 18, Vallegio sul Mincio stages a festival that not only celebrates tortellini but also the 650m (710yds)-long Ponte Visconteo, a fortified dam built across the Mincio by Gian Galeazzo Visconti in 1393. Two huge tables of 600m (656yds) each are assembled on the 25m (27yds)-wide bridge with seats for 4,000 diners, who are served local specialities including the tortellini, which has a filling of beef, pork and chicken flavoured with celery, carrot and rosemary and is served cooked in a broth, with butter and sage and a sprinkling of cheese.

Also on this day:

1944: The birth of Santo Versace, business brain behind the Versace fashion empire

1945: The death of the FIAT founder Giovanni Agnelli

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Azzone Visconti - ruler of Milan

Nobleman who used family power to bring prosperity to the city

Azzone Visconti's rule saw Milan prosper and
expand in the early 14th century

Azzone Visconti, a nobleman sometimes described as the founder of the state of Milan and who brought prosperity to the city in the 14^th century, was born on this day in 1302 in Ferrara.

The Visconti family ruled Lombardy and Milan from 1277 to 1457 before the family line ended and, after a brief period as a republic, the Sforza family took control.

Azzone was the son of Galeazzo I Visconti and Beatrice d’Este, the daughter of the Marquis of Ferrara.

Galeazzo was descendant from Ottone Visconti, who had first taken control of Milan for the family in 1277, when he was made Archbishop of Milan by Pope Urban IV but found himself opposed by the Della Torre family, who had expected Martino della Torre to be given the title.

Ottone was barred from entering the city until he defeated Napoleone della Torre in a battle and, apart from a brief period in which forces loyal to Guido della Torre drove out Galeazzo’s father, Matteo, the Visconti family held power for the next 170 years.

Ambrogio Ficino's 1590 painting of the apparition
 of St Ambrose at the Battle of Parabiago

A crisis faced the Visconti rule in 1328 when Louis IV, the Holy Roman Emperor – known in Italian as Ludovico il Bavaro – had Galeazzo and other members of the family arrested following the death of Galeazzo’s younger brother, Stefano, in a suspected assassination.  Azzone’s uncle, Marco, was said to have betrayed Galeazzo by passing on information that implicated his brother at the heart of the plot.

Ludovico confiscated the Visconti territories, handing control of the smaller cities in Lombardy to local families. It proved the end of Galeazzo, who died later in the year.  On their release, Azzone was involved in a power struggle with Marco for control of Milan.

Azzone gained the upper hand when, with the help of another uncle, he raised the sum of 60,000 florins which he paid Ludovico for the title of Imperial Vicar of Milan, which effectively made him the ruler of the city.  When Marco was killed soon afterwards, Azzone was named as the chief suspect, although he was never prosecuted.

This development angered Pope John XXII, who excommunicated Azzone. As a solution, Azzone was forced to submit to the Pope and renounce his Imperial Vicariate, reaching a compromise under which he retained political power under the title of Lord of Milan.

Azzone’s rule lasted only nine years until his death in 1339 from gout, but during that time he enhanced the wealth and power of the city.

By joining the League of Castelbaldo, he brought the Lombardy cities of Bergamo, Novara, Cremona, Como, Lodi, Piacenza and Brescia back under the rule of Milan, establishing the city’s predominance in the region.

The bell tower of the church of San
Gottardo in Corte in Milan

He also defeated a plot to unseat him by his uncle, Lodrisio, who escaped a crackdown that saw several accomplices arrested and locked up in prison in the Castle of Monza but suffered defeat in the Battle of Parabiago, where a Milanese army led by another uncle, Luchino, was said to have been facing defeat but was saved by the divine intervention in the form of an apparition of St Ambrose on horseback, which caused the enemy army to flee.

Away from the battlefield, Azzone Visconti is credited with beginning an artistic renewal of Milan.

He rebuilt the Palazzo del Broletto Vecchio, opposite the Duomo, formerly the municipal seat, as Visconti palace - later the Royal Palace - and moved the town hall to the Palazzo della Ragione.

Azzone commissioned the Cremonese architect Francesco Pecorari to construct the church of San Gottardo in Corte, with an octagonal bell tower, which remains today, that was probably inspired by the drawings Giotto made for the bell tower of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence.

He hired Giotto himself to execute a number of frescoes in the Visconti palace, although none remain today.  His commitment to the architectural embellishment of Milan continued under his successors, notably with work beginning on the magnificent Duomo in 1386 under the rule of Gian Galeazzo Visconti.

Azzone was also credited with rebuilding the city of Lecco, at the southern end of the eastern fork of Lago di Como, known as Lago di Lecco. The city had been destroyed by his grandfather, Matteo, in 1296.

The monumental tomb of Azzone Visconti

Travel tip:

The church of San Gottardo in Corte can be found in Via Francesco Pecorari, just a few yards from the Duomo. Built as a ducal chapel, it was originally dedicated to the Blessed Virgin but Azzone, who had gout, later changed the dedication to St. Gotthard of Hildesheim, patron of those with gout. The interior has been partially restored but in the original church part of the a fresco of the Crucifixion, thought to have been painted by a pupil of Giotto remains, along with the monumental tomb sculpted for Azzone by the Pisan sculptor Giovanni di Balduccio.

The Palazzo della Ragione in Piazza Mercanti

Travel tip:

The Palazzo della Ragione (Palace of Reason), which Azzone established as Milan’s town hall, is located in Piazza Mercanti, just off Piazza del Duomo, facing the Loggia degli Osii. It also served as a judicial seat. Built between 1228 and 1233 for the podestà (chief magistrate) of Milan, Oldrado da Tresseno. It maintained a central role in the administrative and public life of the city Milan until 1773, when it was enlarged to accommodate legal archives.  Between 1866 and 1870, the building hosted the headquarters of the Banca Popolare di Milano, a major Milanese bank, but returned to its function as house of legal archives until 1970.

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Ludovico III Gonzaga – Marquis of Mantua

Condottiero fought to improve the town of his birth

Ludovico Gonzaga in a detail from a
painting by Andrea Mantegna

Ludovico Gonzaga, who ruled his native city for 34 years, was born on this day in 1412 in Mantua.

He grew up to fight as a condottiero - a military leader for hire - and in 1433 he married Barbara of Brandenburg, the niece of the Holy Roman Emperor, Sigismund.

After Ludovico entered the service of the Visconti family in Milan, he and his wife were exiled from Mantua by his father, Gianfrancesco I.

But father and son were later reconciled and Ludovico became Marquis of Mantua in 1444, inheriting territory that had been reduced in size and was impoverished after years of war.

He continued to serve as a condottiero, switching his allegiance between Milan, Florence, Venice and Naples, to gain territory and secure peace for Mantua.

The high point of his reign came when Pope Pius II held a Council in Mantua between 1459 and 1460 to plan a crusade against the Ottoman Turks. Although the Pope was unimpressed with Mantua and criticised the food and wine afterwards, the event earned prestige for Ludovico, whose son, Francesco, was made a Cardinal.

The Torre dell'Orologio Gonzaga built for Mantua

During Ludovico’s reign, he paved the streets of Mantua, built a clock tower and reorganised the city centre. He also appointed Andrea Mantegna to be court artist to the Gonzaga family.

Ludovico died in 1478 in Goito, to the north of Mantua, during an outbreak of plague and was subsequently buried in Mantua Cathedral.

Having fathered 14 legitimate children, Ludovico was succeeded by his eldest surviving son, who became Federico I of Mantua.

Travel tip:

Mantua is an atmospheric old city in Lombardy, to the south east of Milan, famous for its Renaissance Palazzo Ducale, the seat of the Gonzaga family between 1328 and 1707. The Camera degli Sposi is decorated with frescoes by Andrea Mantegna, depicting the life of Ludovico Gonzaga and his family. The beautiful backgrounds of imaginary cities and ruins reflect Mantegna’s love of classical architecture.

The Cathedral of St Peter in Mantua

Travel tip:

Ludovico III was buried in the Cathedral of Saint Peter in Mantua, where his ancestor, Ludovico I, the founder of the Gonzaga family, is also buried. There was a church on the site from early Christian times, followed by a later building that was destroyed by fire. The current church was built between 1395 and 1401. It was given a baroque façade made from Carrara marble during the 18th century.

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Francesco Rosi - film director

Documentary style put him among greats of Italian cinema

Francesco Rosi

The film director Francesco Rosi, one of Italy's most influential movie-makers over four decades, was born on this day in 1922 in Naples. 

Rosi, who made his directing debut in 1958 and filmed his last movie in 1997, built on the fashion for neo-realism that dominated Italian cinema in the immediate post-war years and his films were often highly politicised.

Many of his works were almost pieces of investigative journalism, driven by his revulsion at the corruption and inequality he witnessed in the area in which he grew up, and the dubious relationships between local government and figures from the crime world.

His film Hands Over the City, for example, starring Rod Steiger as unscrupulous land developer, sought to show how the landscape of Naples was shaped by greed and political interests.  The film's disclaimer stated that “All characters and events narrated in this film are fictitious, but the social reality that created them is authentic.”

The Mattei Affair, which starred Gian Maria Volonté - himself a political activist - tells the story of Enrico Mattei, a former Italian resistance fighter who rose to be head of ENI, the state-owned oil company, and died in a plane crash in Sicily. Conspiracy theorists linked his death with his attempt, in the middle of the Cold War, to break America's dominance of the Italian market, sign deals with Arab countries and even court Russia as a possible trading partner.

The project took Rosi's team into such dangerous political territory that one of his researchers, the journalist Mauro de Mauro, disappeared. He was never found and it is presumed he was murdered for finding out too much about the case.

Gian Maria Volonté (centre) in a scene from The Mattei Affair

Lucky Luciano, which featured Volonté and Steiger, was another movie filmed in the style of a documentary investigation, this time with its focus on the controversial role of a repatriated Sicilian-American Mafia boss in the Allied liberation of Sicily and the assault on the Italian mainland towards the end of the Second World War.

Later, with Illustrious Corpses, Rosi sought to shine light on the dark machinations of what would come to be known as 'The Strategy of Tension' during the 1980s, in which a series of deadly attacks carried out by right-wing extremists with the apparent collusion of the secret services would be blamed on activists on the hard left in order to derail an alliance being proposed between the Christian Democrat Party and the Communist Party.

Among his many awards was a Palme d'Or at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival for The Mattei Affair, a Golden Lion at the 1963 Venice Biennale for Hands Over the City and ten David di Donatello awards from the Academy of Italian Cinema.

In 2012, he was awarded an honorary Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale for lifetime achievement and leaving "an indelible mark on the history of Italian film-making".

Rosi was born in Montecalvario, a neighbourhood of central Naples that includes part of the Spanish Quarter, the Piazza Carità and the bustling Via Toledo.  His father worked in the shipping industry, but also drew satirical cartoons, once earning a reprimand for his insulting depictions of Benito Mussolini and King Vittorio Emmanuel III.

Giorgio Napoletana, a schoolfriend of Francesco Rosi,
who would go one to become President of the Republic

Rosi went to college with Giorgio Napolitano, who would later become Italian President, and they would remain lifelong friends.  He studied law but his career took him in a different direction, first as an illustrator of children's books, then as a reporter with Radio Napoli.

The connections he made through the radio station led him into theatre work and film.  After several films as assistant director, learning from Ettore Giannini and Luchino Visconti among others, he made his solo debut in 1958 with La Sfida (The Challenge), an expose of corruption in the retail trade in Naples which quickly made clear Rosi's preoccupation with social justice and the complex labyrinths in Italian society.

His breakthrough in terms of international acclaim came in 1962 with Salvatore Giuliano, a fictional exploration of the life of the Sicilian bandit of the title, his connections with the state and the church, and his role in fighting against communism in Sicily.  Rosi's aim was to use the bandit’s life and death to convey the complexities of post-war Sicilian politics and society in which "resolving the truth was an impossibility."

Salvatore Giuliano won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1962 and established Rosi as one of the central figures of the post-neorealist phase in Italian cinema, along with Gillo Pontecorvo, Pier Paolo Pasolini, the Taviani brothers, Ettore Scola and Valerio Zurlini.

Rosi’s later movies were accomplished productions but critics felt they lacked the power of his earlier work, although in his adaptation of Christ Stopped at Eboli, Carlo Levi's memoir about his experiences as a doctor exiled in southern Italy for his anti-Fascist views, with Volonté in the title role, came close, winning a BAFTA for Best Foreign Language Film.

After ending his career in film with The Truce, based on holocaust survivor Primo Levi's memoir of returning to Italy after his liberation from Auschwitz, he returned to theatre, notably directing the Neapolitan comedies of Eduardo De Filippo.

He spent his last years living in Rome on Via Gregoriana, near the Spanish Steps.   He died in 2015 aged 92.

The Via Toledo in Naples has a typical flavour of the city

Travel tip:

Montecal- vario, where Francesco Rosi was born, is said by many visitors to capture the essence of Naples.  Bordered on one side by the Via Toledo, the busy shopping street which links Piazza Dante with Piazza Trieste e Trento, it includes the part of the Spanish Quarter in which can be found the Teatro Nuovo, an historic theatre originally built in 1724 and twice destroyed by fire.  The theatre became famous for comic opera in the 19th century and in the 20th century staged the plays of the great Neapolitian comic dramatist, Eduardo de Filippo.

Hotels in Napoli by Booking.com

Travel tip:

The Via Gregoriana, where Francesco Rosi spent his last years, is a street almost in the centre of Rome, very close to the tourist hubbub of Piazza di Spagna and the Spanish Steps, yet still retains the air of a peaceful residential thoroughfare, the kind you might expect to find in a well-to-do suburb.  Commissioned by Pope Gregory XIII in 1575, it runs from the church of Trinita dei Monti, which looks down over Piazza di Spagna, towards Via del Tritone and has long been popular with artists and intellectuals.

Rome hotels by Booking.com

More reading:

Ennio Morricone, the film music maestro enters his 89th year

Anna Magnani - Oscar winning star of neo-realist fashion

The legacy of Fellini and La Dolce Vita

Also on this day:

1905: The birth of conductor Annunzio Mantovani


(Picture credits: Francesco Rosi by Georges Biard; Gian Maria Volonté by Pèter; Giorgio Napoletana by Ralf Roletschek; Via Toledo by Inviaggiocommons all via Wikimedia Commons)

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