Francesco Sforza seizes Milan
Francesco Sforza entered Milan as its duke on 25 March 1450, having spent the previous year besieging the republic that had hired him to defend it. Filippo Maria Visconti, the last of his line, died in August 1447 without a legitimate heir. Milan proclaimed the Ambrosian Republic, named for the city's patron saint, and its subject towns immediately began declaring independence. The republic hired Sforza, the most formidable condottiere in Italy and the husband of Visconti's illegitimate daughter Bianca Maria, to fight Venice. He fought Venice successfully for two years, taking Piacenza and destroying a Venetian fleet on the Po. Then, in October 1449, he made a secret treaty with Venice instead, which gave him a free hand against the city he was employed by. He blockaded Milan through the winter of 1449–50. Grain prices rose to famine levels, and the republican government — which had been quarrelling internally throughout — lost control of the streets. The city opened its gates in February and a popular assembly acclaimed him duke a few weeks later. He never received investiture from the Holy Roman Emperor, which left every Sforza title formally defective and gave France a pretext half a century later. He then governed better than anyone expected of a mercenary: he restored the finances, dug the Martesana canal, founded the great hospital, and negotiated the Peace of Lodi in 1454 with Cosimo de' Medici, which produced the Italic League and forty years of relative stability. Machiavelli treats him as the model of the self-made prince.
- Year: 1450 CE
- Category: Diplomacy
