Ludovico Sforza

Duke of Milan (r. 1481-1499)

• Born: July 27, 1452
• Birthplace: Vigevano, duchy of Milan (now in Italy)
• Died: May 27, 1508
• Place of death: Loches, Toubrenne, France

One of the most spectacular and significant statesmen and political manipulators of the High Renaissance in Italy, Sforza directed the duchy of Milan during a crucial period of European history. His political maneuvers determined the following century of Italian affairs.

Early Life

The fourth legitimate son of Francesco Sforza, first duke of Milan, and Bianca Maria Visconti, Ludovico Sforza (lood-oh-VEECH-oh SFAWRT-sah) was born into two of the most powerful families of the fourteenth century. At birth, his mother gave him the surname Maurus, which she later changed to Maria. By that time, however, “Maurus” had evolved into the nickname Il Moro (the Moor), which Ludovico liked, not only because it suited his dark complexion but also because it conjured up images of romance and adventure. Thereafter, the name stuck; Ludovico even used puns on that name to provide the metaphorical basis of some of his favorite personal devices and symbols, a Moor’s head (moro) and a mulberry tree (mora).

He became his mother’s favorite while still young, remaining devoted to her his entire life. Discovering that he was bright, she directed his early education and eventually hired the Humanist Francesco Filelfo as his tutor. Sforza received a thorough grounding in the new learning of the Renaissance, becoming adept in both ancient languages and literature and the intellectual and technical innovations of the time. As a result of this background, he would later take his responsibilities as patron of the arts and literature and as commissioner of public buildings seriously, though he apparently had little confidence in the consistency or accuracy of his taste and judgment.

When the twenty-four-year-old Sforza was visiting France, his brother Galeazzo Maria, who had succeeded their father as duke of Milan ten years earlier, was assassinated on December 24, 1476, leaving the seven-year-old Gian Galeazzo as heir. The child’s mother, Bona of Savoy, assumed the regency, with Cicco Simonetta as principal adviser. Intrigues seemed to occur overnight, prompted chiefly by older Sforza relatives. When a plot implicated Ludovico and his brothers, all three were exiled. Eventually, however, Ludovico persuaded Bona to pardon him. On his return to Milan, he learned that Bona had taken a young servant, Tamino, as her lover. He used both his privileged position and his inside knowledge to gain control, having Simonetta murdered, driving Tamino away, discrediting Bona, and getting the nominal duke to appoint him chief counselor. From that time November, 1480 he was on his way to becoming duke.

Life’s Work

Sforza’s life was the governing of Milan. At first, that meant making his rule legitimate, but eventually it would mean making it both legitimate and secure; neither was easy. Sforza’s opening move was to ally himself with Ferdinand I, king of Naples. This eventually led to a marriage arrangement between Isabella of Aragon, granddaughter of Ferdinand, and the teenage Gian Galeazzo; in confirming the marriage, Sforza probably outsmarted himself, failing to realize that this articulate and ambitious woman would not accept the title of duchess without the power. At any rate, he refused to relinquish control after the wedding, thereby precipitating his ultimate downfall. Isabella immediately began conspiring to turn her Aragonese kinsmen against him, especially after January, 1491, when he married the young and equally spirited Beatrice d’Este of Ferrara, who was also of the family of Aragon. The Aragonese listened to Isabella.

Desperate for allies, Sforza turned to Charles VIII of France, establishing a mutual defense compact with him in 1492. Later that year, Alexander VI became pope with the support of Sforza’s brother, Cardinal Ascanio; this gave Sforza hope of papal support. Temporarily safe, Sforza attempted to maintain security by constructing a tenuous web of secret alliances and counteralliances. Once again he was too subtle for his own good: Charles VIII, who claimed the throne of Naples in his own right, and who had become obsessed with establishing a base in Italy for mounting a crusade, seized on a pretext of perceived danger to invade Italy in 1494. During this campaign, Charles visited Gian Galeazzo at Pavia; the next day, the young man became ill and died, in circumstances that looked suspiciously like poisoning.

Meanwhile, Sforza was also carrying on surreptitious negotiations with Emperor Maximilian I , who needed both money and a wife. In exchange for accepting a well-dowried niece of Sforza, Maximilian agreed to legitimate him as duke of Milan. Gian Galeazzo’s death occurred before this could happen. To divert public accusation, Sforza immediately summoned the Milanese Council, proposing that the duke’s infant son be named his successor. Since he had packed the council, he knew in advance that its recommendation would be in favor of strength and experience, not rule by children. Thus, Sforza finally became duke of Milan in name as well as in fact.

In the meantime, Charles pushed on through Italy and subjugated Naples. His success unsettled the states of Italy; Sforza feared that he had given Charles a foothold from which he would not budge a fear intensified by the presence in Charles’s army of the Duc d’Orléans, himself a claimant to the throne of Milan through his mother. Quickly Sforza withdrew his troops from the alliance and opened talks with Venice. The various Italian states joined forces to trap Charles in the peninsula, but he evaded them, withdrawing from Italy in October, 1495. Sforza took credit for forcing the retreat; he bragged at the time that the pope was his chaplain, the emperor his condotierre (military commander), Venice his chamberlain, and the king of France his courier. This was at best wishful thinking; Sforza was more likely a master in the art of self-deception.

He did not have much leisure to indulge such delusions. Maximilian came for a visit but proved too poor and vacillating to provide any real assistance. Shortly thereafter, the pope changed his strategy, Venice asserted its independence, the Aragonese recovered Naples, and Charles VIII died, to be succeeded by Sforza’s antagonist, the duc d’Orléans, now Louis XII , who had himself crowned both king of France and duke of Milan. Far from manipulating his enemies, Sforza was now hemmed in on all sides. Sforza tried the desperate expedient of urging the Turks to invade Venice. Instead, Maximilian abandoned him, and the pope, France, and Venice formed a common league. Louis XII invaded the outlying districts, seizing the mountain strongholds. Sforza had no recourse but to flee. With his fortress at Milan in the hands of his chosen commandant, he packed his treasury in an immense mule train and escaped to Maximilian’s court at Innsbruck. The emperor had probably never dreamed of such a windfall; Sforza’s coffers went a long way toward solving Maximilian’s financial problems.

In the meantime, rather than defending the castle to the death as instructed, in September, 1499, Sforza’s commandant surrendered it to the French for 150,000 ducats. Sforza’s cause was almost lost. He used what remained of his treasure to hire an army of Swiss and Burgundian mercenaries. At first, his campaign was successful; the people rallied behind him, since the high-handed methods of the French had alienated them. Yet Sforza did not have the opportunity to bring his opponents to battle. The Swiss were bribed to surrender him to the French, which they did on April 5, 1500. Taken to France as a prisoner, he was confined to the fortress at Loches in Touraine, where he remained in captivity until his death eight years later.

Sforza’s lifetime marked the high point of Italy’s greatness. At the beginning of his life, Italy was the paragon of Europe, the leader in the new civilization of the Renaissance, setting the pace of innovation in painting, music, sculpture, literature, philosophy, and all the arts of civilization. At the beginning of Sforza’s career, Italy was considered a superior civilization, impregnable, almost sacrosanct, a region populated by a higher race. By his end, it had become a playground for petty princes and their mercenaries, stamped with fraud, corruption, greed, and venality. Worse, its vulnerability to external aggression had been exposed. Henceforth, it would become merely a collection of victims for plundering.

Significance

Like many other notable Renaissance princes, Sforza has not been given the attention by contemporary historians that he received from previous generations.

Yet Sforza was celebrated in his time for the splendor of his court and his patronage of the arts. He set a standard of living that has rarely been equaled for style and taste. His center lacked the strenuous intellectualism and the learned grace of his great predecessor, Federico da Montefeltro of Urbino; yet that gathering of learning, beauty, and wit, the fantasy of all academics since, could never be duplicated, and Sforza did not try. He wanted to build not a haven for intellectuals but a model of harmonious living for all his citizens. This did not mean conspicuous consumption of luxury for the sake of ostentation, though there was plenty of that. It did mean that general prosperity and enlightened regulation were fundamental to his plan ideals that unfortunately often conflicted with his political and military operations. Along these lines, he built a model farm to test new agricultural methods; for it and others near it, he devised a new system of irrigation by canal. He had his hometown and favorite retreat of Vigevano completely rebuilt. He promoted art, literature, science, and trade.

Yet his reputation for courtly living derived more from his dreams and plans than from what he actually was able to bring into being. Sympathetic contemporary biographers contributed largely to his legend. Thus Sforza is widely credited with patronage of Leonardo da Vinci and Donato Bramante. Yet the encouragement he gave them was often more verbal than financial. Ludovico commissioned the astonishing Last Supper (1495), which he also had almost completely reconstructed; he also did much to make both art and learning more available to the community. The final judgment on his patronage is aptly symbolized in the fate of the great statue of Francesco Sforza, which, like so many of Ludovico’s dreams, never materialized. The brass for its casting was diverted during the French invasion to be made into cannons, and the model itself was shattered by French soldiers, who used it for target practice, after the fall of the castle.

Finally, Sforza is perhaps best seen as one who dreamed grandly but could not control the forces, social and political, in which he found himself. It is hard to imagine what might have happened had he not seized power when he did. He failed to accomplish what he intended. The temporary security he provided made the destruction following him seem that much more devastating. In his subtlety, he outmaneuvered himself. His extravagance was financed by increasing and unpopular taxation. Yet for his time, he was magnificent. If he, with his intensity, intelligence, and force, failed, what would have happened under Gian Galeazzo? He has been blamed for the dissolution of Italian self-rule that followed him, but it is likely that it would have taken place anyway. His career is ultimately tragic, for he tried much and failed grandly. His attempt remains impressive.

Bibliography

Abulafia, David, ed. The French Descent into Renaissance Italy, 1494-95: Antecedents and Effects. Brookfield, Vt.: Ashgate, 1995. Anthology of essays contesting the traditional view that Italy was largely internally harmonious for the forty years leading up to the French, peace-shattering invasion of Charles VIII. Essays delve into the internal strife and rivalries of the Italian states; political, military, and technological aspects of the invasion itself; and the effects of the invasion on both the Italians and the French. Includes illustrations, maps, bibliographic references, index.

Breisach, Ernst. Caterina Sforza: A Renaissance Virago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967. In this scholarly biography of one of the most remarkable women of the fifteenth century, Breisach includes much incidental information about Sforza since his focus is properly on his subject. He does emphasize the interrelationship of the two, which was not of primary importance for Sforza. The bibliography is helpful in locating material on Sforza, most of which is in Italian.

Burckhardt, Jacob. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. Translated by S. G. C. Middlemore. 2 vols. New York: Harper & Row, 1958. In this classic study, Burckhardt may be said to have invented the idea of the Renaissance as a cultural entity. Since one of his focal points is the development of the individual personality, he shows insight into all the major personalities of the period, as he does with Sforza.

Cole, Alison. Virtue and Magnificence: Art of the Italian Renaissance Courts. New York: H. N. Abrams, 1995. A study of two related values in Renaissance culture: the virtue of the artist, and the magnificence of the ruler who commissions the art. Includes a chapter on Sforza’s patronage of the arts in Milan and Pavia. With illustrations, map, bibliographic references, and index.

Larner, Joseph. The Lords of Romagna: Romagnol Society and the Origins of the Signorie. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1965. Larner presents a balanced view of Sforza with extensive information and provocative points of view. His portrait is somewhat revisionist, in that he rejects the once-conventional notion that Sforza was simply a subtle schemer with dreams of glory. He presents Sforza as a progressive for his time, concerned with the welfare of the state as a whole.

Plumb, J. H. The Italian Renaissance: A Concise Survey of Its History and Culture. New York: Harper & Row, 1965. Though not known as an authority on the Italian Renaissance, Plumb here presents a brilliant synthesis of the basis of that culture. His account of Sforza is lucid, readable, and packed with detail. This is easily the best source for the general reader.

Potter, G. R., ed. The Renaissance. Vol. 1 in The New Cambridge Modern History. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1967. Includes a general account of Sforza in relation to the historical events of his time.

Pyle, Cynthia M. Milan and Lombardy in the Renaissance: Essays in Cultural History. Rome: La Fenice, 1997. Study of the culture that produced Sforza, and of the culture that Sforza produced. Includes illustrations, bibliographic references, and index.

Shaw, Christine. The Politics of Exile in Renaissance Italy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Study of the practice of political exile in Renaissance Italy both of the importance of the practice itself to political life and of the role played by exiles who then intervened in the politics of the nation that had banished them. Includes bibliographic references and index.

Welch, Evelyn S. Art and Authority in Renaissance Milan. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995. Study of three specific fourteenth and fifteenth century Milanese monuments and the structures of patronage and political power underlying them. Looks at Sforza’s use of art to legitimize his rule and represent it as benevolent, and at the importance of his hospital as a political, rather than a social or medical, construct. Includes illustrations, maps, bibliographic references, index.