Duchy of Milan

The richest state in Renaissance Italy and the one everybody fought over. Milan sits where the Alpine passes come down into the Po valley, which made it the gateway between Italy and the north and gave it the arms industry that armoured most of Europe. The Visconti built a signoria out of the commune and turned it into a duchy in 1395 by buying the title from the emperor; the Sforza, mercenary captains, took over in 1450 when the line failed. Ludovico Sforza's court employed Leonardo da Vinci for seventeen years, during which he painted the Last Supper and designed machines nobody built. That same Ludovico invited the French into Italy in 1494 to settle a quarrel with Naples, beginning sixty years of war in which France, Spain and the Empire fought over the peninsula and Milan changed hands repeatedly. Spain held it from 1535, Austria from 1714. Its cathedral took nearly six centuries. The Navigli canals moved the marble to build it. Milan is now Italy's financial and industrial capital. The duchy covered most of Lombardy. Milan is now Italy's second largest city. The Duomo is among the largest churches in the world and took from 1386 to the nineteenth century. Leonardo's Last Supper is in a refectory in the city and is a World Heritage site. The Sforza castle still stands at the centre. The Visconti held the duchy from 1395, the Sforza from 1450, and Spain and Austria ruled it for most of the period after 1535.

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