Editing Gian Galeazzo Visconti

{{Short description|First duke of Milan (1351–1402)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2024}}
{{Infobox royalty
| name           = Gian Galeazzo Visconti
| image          =GiovAmbrogiodePredisattribGianGaleazzoVisconti.jpg
| image_size     = 220px
| succession     = [[List of rulers of Milan#Duchy of Milan (1395–1796)|Duke of Milan]]
| reign          = 5 September 1395 {{ndash}} 3&nbsp;September 1402
| coronation     = 5 September 1395, [[Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio]]
| successor      = [[Gian Maria Visconti]]
| succession1    = [[List of rulers of Milan#Lordship of Milan (1259–1395)|Lord of Milan]]
| reign1         = 6 May 1385 {{ndash}} 5 September 1395
| predecessor1   = [[Bernabò Visconti]]
| succession2    = [[Pavia#Medieval history|Lord of Pavia]]
| reign2         = 4 August 1378 {{ndash}} 5 September 1395
| predecessor2   = [[Galeazzo II Visconti]]
| succession3    = [[Republic of Pisa|Lord of Pisa]]
| reign3         = 13 February 1399 {{ndash}} 3 September 1402
| predecessor3   = [[Gherardo Appiani]]
| successor3     = [[Gabriele Maria Visconti]]
| birth_date     = 16 October 1351
| birth_place    = [[Pavia]], [[Kingdom of Italy (Holy Roman Empire)|Italy]]
| death_date     = {{death date and age|1402|9|3|1351|10|16|df=y}}
| death_place    = [[Melegnano]], [[Duchy of Milan]], Italy
| burial_place   = [[Certosa di Pavia]]
| spouse         = {{plainlist|
* {{marriage|[[Isabella, Countess of Vertus]]|1360|1372|end=d.}}
* {{marriage|[[Caterina Visconti]]|1380|1402|end=d.}}
}}
| issue          = {{plainlist|
* [[Valentina Visconti, Duchess of Orléans|Valentina, Countess of Vertus]]
* [[Gian Maria Visconti|Giovanni Maria, Duke of Milan]]
* [[Filippo Maria Visconti|Filippo Maria, Duke of Milan]]
* Illegitimate:
* [[Gabriele Maria Visconti]], Lord of Pisa
* {{ill|Antonio Visconti|it}}
}}
| house          = [[Visconti of Milan|Visconti]]
| father         = [[Galeazzo II Visconti]]  
| mother         = [[Bianca of Savoy]]
}}

'''Gian Galeazzo Visconti''' (16 October 1351 – 3 September 1402), was the first [[Duchy of Milan|duke of Milan]] (1395){{efn|He was also Signore di Verona, Cremona, Bergamo, Brescia, Belluno, Pieve di Cadore, Feltre, Pavia, Novara, Como, Lodi, Vercelli, Alba, Asti, Pontremoli, Tortona, Alessandria, Valenza, Piacenza, Parma, Reggio Emilia, Vicenza, Vigevano, Borgo San Donnino and of the valli del Boite.}} and ruled that late-medieval city just before the dawn of the [[Renaissance]]. He also ruled [[Lombardy]] jointly with his uncle [[Bernabò Visconti|Bernabò]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Tuchman |first=Barbara Wertheim |url=http://archive.org/details/distantmirrorcal00tuch |title=A distant mirror : the calamitous 14th century |publisher=Knopf |year=1978 |isbn=978-0-394-40026-6 |location=New York |pages=240 |language=en}}</ref> He was the founding patron of the [[Certosa di Pavia]], completing the [[Visconti Castle (Pavia)|Visconti Castle]] at [[Pavia]] begun by his [[Galeazzo II Visconti|father]] and furthering work on the [[Duomo of Milan]]. He captured a large territory of northern Italy and the Po valley. He threatened war with France in relation to the transfer of Genoa to French control as well as issues with his beloved daughter [[Valentina Visconti, Duchess of Orléans|Valentina]]. When he died of fever in the Castello of Melegnano, his children fought with each other and fragmented the territories that he had ruled.

==Biography==
During his patronage of the Visconti Castle, he contributed to the growth of the collection of scientific treatises and richly illuminated manuscripts in the Visconti Library.<ref>Hoeniger, Cathleen. ''The Illuminated Tacuinum sanitatis Manuscripts from Northern Italy ca. 1380-1400: Sources, Patrons, and the Creation of a new Pictorial Genre.'' in: Givens, Jean Ann; Reeds, Karen; Touwaide, Alain. (2006) ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=HK799l9nR4UC Visualizing medieval medicine and natural history, 1200-1550]''. Ashgate Publishing Ltd. pp. 51-82. {{ISBN|0754652963}}.</ref>

Gian Galeazzo was the son of Galeazzo II Visconti and Bianca of Savoy.{{sfn|Mueller|2019|p=550}} His father possessed the [[signoria]] of the city of Pavia. In 1385 Gian Galeazzo gained control of Milan by overthrowing his uncle Bernabò through treacherous means by faking a religious conversion and ambushing him during a religious procession in Milan.<ref>John T. Paoletta and Gary M. Radke, Art in Renaissance Italy</ref> He imprisoned his uncle who soon died, supposedly poisoned on his orders.<ref>[[Barbara Tuchman]] [[A Distant Mirror]] A.A.Knopf, New York (1978) p.418</ref>

Galeazzo's role as a statesman also took other forms. Soon after seizing Milan, he took [[Verona, Italy|Verona]], [[Vicenza]], and [[Padua]], establishing himself as ''Signore'' of each, and soon controlled almost the entire [[Po River|valley of the Po]],{{sfnp|Bueno de Mesquita|2011|pages=69–83}} including [[Piacenza]] where in 1393 he gave the feudal power to [[Montechino Italian Castle Piacenza|Confalonieri]] family on the lands they already had in the valleys around Piacenza.{{citation needed|date=December 2022}} He lost Padua in 1390 when it reverted to [[Francesco Novello da Carrara]].{{sfnp|Bueno de Mesquita|2011|pages=122–123}} He received the title of Duke of Milan from [[Wenceslaus, King of the Romans]] in 1395 for 100,000 florins.{{sfnp|Bueno de Mesquita|2011|page=173}}

Gian Galeazzo spent 300,000 golden florins{{citation needed|date=December 2022}} in attempting to turn from their courses the rivers Mincio from Mantua and the [[Brenta (river)|Brenta]] from Padua, in order to render those cities helpless before the force of his arms.{{sfnp|Bueno de Mesquita|2011|pages=165–167, 276–277}}

Notable are his library, housed in the grandest princely dwelling in Italy, the Castello in Pavia, and his rich collection of manuscripts, many of them the fruits of his conquests. In 1400, Gian Galeazzo appointed a host of clerks and departments entrusted with improving public health. For the new system of administration and bookkeeping this established, he is credited with creating the first modern bureaucracy, with the assistance of his Chancellor Francesco Barbavara.<ref name="John Addington Symonds">{{cite book |last1=Symonds |first1=John Addington |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8msbAAAAMAAJ&q=%22His+love+of+order+was+so+precise+that+he+may+be+said+to+have+applied+the+method+of+a+banker%27s+office+to+the+conduct+of+a+state%22&pg=PA142 |title=Renaissance in Italy: The age of despots |publisher=[[Henry Holt and Company]] |year=1888 |edition=American |volume=1 |location=New York |page=142 |asin=B003YH9WF0 |hdl=2027/mdp.39015026749849 |oclc=664406875 |quote=It was he who invented bureaucracy by creating a special class of paid clerks and secretaries of departments. Their duty consisted in committing to books and ledgers the minutest items of his private expenditure and the outgoings of his public purse; in noting the details of the several taxes, so as to be able to present a survey of the whole state revenue; and in recording the names and qualities and claims of his generals, captains, and officials. |author-link1=John Addington Symonds |access-date=March 8, 2011 |orig-year=1875}}</ref>

=== Conflict with France ===
Galeazzo was a devoted father to his daughter [[Valentina Visconti, Duchess of Orléans|Valentina]]. He reacted to gossip about Valentina at the French Court by threatening to declare war on France.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Frazee |first=Charles A. |date=June 1992 |title=The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Edited by Alexander P. Kazhdan, New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. 3 vols. xxxi + 2232 pp. $225.00. |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3168272 |journal=Church History |volume=61 |issue=2 |pages=241–243 |doi=10.2307/3168272 |jstor=3168272 |s2cid=162432200 |issn=0009-6407}}</ref> The wife of King [[Charles VI of France|Charles VI]] of France was [[Isabeau of Bavaria]], the granddaughter of Bernabò Visconti, and, thus, a bitter rival of Valentina and her father Gian Galeazzo.{{sfnp|Bueno de Mesquita|2011|pages=63, 158–159}}

Furious at French political manoeuvring that had removed [[Genoa]] from his influence, Gian Galeazzo had been attempting to stop the transfer of Genoese sovereignty to France and [[Enguerrand VII, Lord of Coucy|Enguerrand VII]] was dispatched to warn him that France would consider further interference a hostile act. The quarrel was more than political. Valentina Visconti, the wife of the Duke of Orleans and Gian Galeazzo's beloved daughter, had been exiled from Paris due to the machinations of Queen Isabeau the same month as the departure of the crusade.{{citation needed|date=May 2018}}

In 1396, after the [[Battle of Nicopolis|disaster of Nicopolis]], Galeazzo was strongly suspected of having informed the Ottomans of the Crusaders' plans and of the size and strength of their army as vengeance for his daughter being accused of being behind the illness of King Charles VI of France, and for France's increasing control over the city of Genoa that he had attempted to hamper, for which he had been rebuked by [[Enguerrand VII de Coucy|Enguerrand VII]] before the battle.{{citation needed|date=May 2018}}

=== Uniting Italy and death ===
{{main|Florentine–Milanese Wars}}
Gian Galeazzo had dreams of uniting all of northern Italy into one kingdom, a revived Lombard empire.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Giangaleazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan {{!}} History Today |url=https://www.historytoday.com/archive/giangaleazzo-visconti-duke-milan |access-date=2023-03-16 |website=www.historytoday.com}}</ref> Obstacles included [[Bologna]] and especially [[Florence, Italy|Florence]], who joined with other local potentates in the [[League of Bologna]]. In 1402, Gian Galeazzo launched assaults upon these cities. The warfare was extremely costly on both sides, but it was universally believed the Milanese would emerge victorious. The Florentine leaders, especially the chancellor [[Coluccio Salutati]] worked successfully to rally the people of Florence, but the Florentines were being taxed hard by famine, disease, and poverty. Galeazzo won another victory over the Bolognese at the [[Battle of Casalecchio]] on 26–27 June 1402.{{sfn|Morelli|2015|p=200-201}}

Galeazzo's dreams were to come to nought, however, as he succumbed to a fever at the Castello of Melegnano on 10 August 1402. He died on 3 September. His empire fragmented as infighting among his successors wrecked Milan, partly through the division of his lands among both legitimate and illegitimate children.{{efn|To his son [[Giovanni Maria Visconti|Giovanni Maria]] he assigned the title of Duke of Milan, which included Como, Lodi, Cremona, Bergamo, Brescia, Reggio Emilia, Piacenza, Parma, and claims to Perugia and Siena. To [[Filippo Maria Visconti|Filippo Maria]], conte di Pavia, he assigned in addition Vercelli, Novara, Alessandria, Tortona, Feltre, Verona, Vicenza, Bassano and the shores of Trento. To his illegitimate son, Gabriele Maria, went Pisa and Crema.}}

== Marriage and issue ==
His first marriage was to [[Isabelle of Valois (1348-1372)|Isabelle of Valois]],{{sfn|Ward|Prothero|Leathes|1934|p=table 68}} who brought him the title of comte de Vertus in [[Champagne (province)|Champagne]], rendered in Italian as ''Conte di Virtù'', the title by which he was known in his early career. They had:
*Gian Galeazzo (b. Pavia, 4 March 1366 – d. bef. 1376).
*Azzone (b. Pavia, 1368 – d. Pavia, 4 October 1381).
*[[Valentina Visconti, Duchess of Orléans|Valentina]] (b. Pavia, 1371 – d. Château de Blois, Loir-et-Cher, 14 December 1408), married on 17 August 1389 to [[Louis I, Duke of Orléans]]{{sfn|Ward|Prothero|Leathes|1934|p=table 68}}
*Carlo (b. Pavia, 11 September 1372 – d. Pavia, 1374).

After Galeazzo's wife Isabelle died in childbirth in 1372, he married secondly, on 2 October 1380, his cousin [[Caterina Visconti]],{{sfn|Ward|Prothero|Leathes|1934|p=table 68}} daughter of Bernabò; with her he had:
*[[Gian Maria Visconti|Gian Maria]] (7 September 1388 – 16 May 1412){{sfn|Welch|2010|p=33}}
*[[Filippo Maria Visconti|Filippo Maria]]{{sfn|Ward|Prothero|Leathes|1934|p=table 68}} (3 September 1392 – 13 August 1447).

==Gallery==

<gallery>
File:Caterina Visconti.jpg|The painted figures of [[Caterina Visconti|Caterina]] and Gian Galeazzo are shown kneeling in the foreground in this missal by Anovelo da Imbonate
File:The coronation of Gian Galeazzo Visconti.png|The Coronation of Gian Galeazzo Visconti in the [[Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio]]
File:Gian Galeazzo dona alla Madonna la Certosa.jpg|Gian Galeazzo Visconti, with his three sons, presents the [[Certosa di Pavia]] to the Virgin (Certosa di Pavia)

File:Giangaleazzo Visconti.jpg|Detail from [[:File:Gian Galeazzo dona alla Madonna la Certosa.jpg|Gian Galeazzo donates the Certosa to the Madonna]]

File:Tomba di Gian Galeazzo Visconti.jpg|Tomb of Gian Galeazzo Visconti at the [[Certosa di Pavia]]
</gallery>

== See also ==
* [[Montechino Italian Castle Piacenza]]

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

==Sources==
*{{cite book |last=Bueno de Mesquita |first=D. M. (Daniel Meredith) |year=2011 |orig-year=1941 |title=Giangaleazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan (1351-1402): A Study in the Political Career of an Italian Despot |edition=reprint |location=Cambridge, UK |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn= 9780521234559 |oclc=746456124 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IrE8AAAAIAAJ&q=%22A+study+in+the+political+career+of+an+Italian+despot%22&pg=PAxi }}
*{{cite book |chapter=Memoirs |first=Giovanni Di Paolo |last=Morelli |title=Merchant Writers: Florentine Memoirs from the Middle Ages and Renaissance |editor-first=Vitorre |editor-last=Branca |publisher=University of Toronto Press   |year=2015 }}
*{{cite book |title=The Venetian Money Market: Banks, Panics, and the Public Debt, 1200-1500 |first=Reinhold C. |last=Mueller |publisher=The Johns Hopkins University Press |year=2019 }}
*{{cite book |title=The Cambridge Modern History |volume=XIII |editor-first1=A.W. |editor-last1=Ward |editor-first2=G.W. |editor-last2=Prothero |editor-first3=Stanley |editor-last3=Leathes |publisher=Cambridge at the University Press |year=1934 }}
*{{cite book |chapter=Patrons, Artists, and Audiences in Renaissance Milan, 1300-1600 |first=Evelyn |last=Welch |pages=21-70 |editor-last=Rosenberg |editor-first=Charles M. |title=The Court Cities of Northern Italy: Milan, Parma, Piacenza, Mantua, Ferrara, Bologna, Urbino, Pesaro, and Rimini |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2010 }}


== External links ==
* [http://www.kleio.org/en/history/famtree/sforza/645.html Portrait and family tree] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130823030211/http://www.kleio.org/en/history/famtree/sforza/645.html |date=2013-08-23 }}

{{s-start}}
{{s-reg|it}}
{{S-bef|before=[[Galeazzo II Visconti]]|before2=[[Bernabò Visconti]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[Lord of Milan]]|years=1378–1395}}
{{S-non | reason = Became duke}}
{{s-new | creation}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[Duke of Milan]]|years=1395–1402}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Gian Maria Visconti]]}}
{{s-end}}

{{Visconti of Milan}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Visconti, Gian Galeazzo}}
[[Category:1351 births]]
[[Category:1402 deaths]]
[[Category:14th-century dukes of Milan]]
[[Category:15th-century dukes of Milan]]
[[Category:House of Visconti|Gian Galeazzo Visconti]]
[[Category:People from Pavia]]
[[Category:Italian Roman Catholics]]