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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: VIR-WAT |
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VISCONTI , the name of a celebrated Italian family which long ruled Milani they claimed descent from King Desiderius, and in the 11th century possessed estates on Lakes Como and Maggiore. A certain OTTONE, who distinguished himself in the First Crusade, is mentioned in 1078 as viscount of Milan. The real basis for the family's dominion was laid, however, by another OTTONE, a canon of Desio, appointed archbishop of Milan by Pope Urban IV. in 1262 through the influence of Cardinal Ubaldini. The Della Torre family, who then con-trolled the city, opposed the appointment, and not until his victory at Desic in 1277 was Ottone able to take possession of his see. He imprisoned Napoleone Della Torre and five of his relatives in iron cages, and directed his later efforts toward the advancement of his nephew Matteo. He died on the 18th of August 1295, aged eighty years. MATTEC, born at Invorio on the 15th of August 1255, succeeded his uncle as political leader of Milan, and although an uprising of the. Della Torre in 1302 compelled him to take refuge
endeavoured to exercise sole power in the state after the death of his brother, but his young nephew Gian Galeazzo plotted against him and put him to death (1385). GIAN GALEAllO, the most powerful of the Visconti, became joint ruler of the Milanese territories on the death of his father in 1378 and sole ruler on the death of his uncle seven years later. He founded the cathedral of Milan, built the Certosa and the bridge across the Ticino at Pavia, improved the university of Pavia and established the library there, and restored the university at Piacenza. His bureaucratic government was excellent; he was an able and economical administrator, and was reputed to be one of the wealthiest princes of his time. He was ambitious to reduce all Italy under the sway of the Visconti. He conquered Verona in 1387; and in the following year, with the aid of the Venetians, took Padua. He plotted successfully against the rulers of Mantua and Ferrara, and now that the whole of Lombardy lay prostrate before him he turned his attention to Tuscany. In 1399 he bought Pisa and seized Siena. The emperor Wenceslaus had already conferred on him the title of duke of Milan for roo,000 florins, reserving only Pisa, and refused to take arms against him. Gian Galeazzo took Perugia, Lucca and Bologna (143o-I), and was besieging Florence when he died of the plague (3rd of September 1402) at the age of fifty-five years. His sons, Giovanni Maria and Filippo Maria, were mere boys at the time of his death, and were taken under the protection of the celebrated condottiere Facino Cane de Cesale; but most of Gian Galeazzo's conquests were lost to his self-seeking generals. GIOVANNI MARIA was proclaimed duke of Milan in 1402, displayed an insane cruelty, and was killed in 1412 by Ghibelline partisans. FILI'Po MARIA, who became nominal ruler of Pavia in 1402, succeeded his brother as duke of Milan. Cruel and extremely sensitive about his personal ugliness, he nevertheless was a great politician, and by employing such powerful condottieri as Carmagnola, Piccinino and Francesco Sforza he managed to recover the Lombard portion of his father's duchy. From his marriage with the unhappy widow of the above-mentioned Facino Cane he received a dowry of nearly half a million florins. He died in 1447, the last of the Visconti in direct male line, and was succeeded in the duchy, after the shortlived Ambrosian republic, by Francesco Sforza, who had married his daughter Bianca in 1441 (see STORZA). VALENTINA (13661408), a daughter of Gian Galeazzo and a sister of the preceding, married Louis of Orleans in 1387, and it was from her that Louis XII. of France derived his claims to the duchy of Milan. GABRIELE, an illegitimate brother, gained possession of Pisa and other towns, but was despoiled and beheaded (1407) by Charles VI.'s governor of Genoa, under whose protection he had placed himself. Among collateral branches of the Visconti family were the counts of Saliceto, counts of Zagnano, lords of Brignano, marquis of San Giorgio di Borgoratto, marquis of lnvorio and Marquis Della Motta. Other branches attained to some prominence in the local history of Bari and of Tarento. Tebaldo Visconti of Piacenza became Pope Gregory X. in 1271. Among the Visconti lords of Fontaneto was Gasparo, who died in 1505 archbishop of Milan. An Ignatius Visconti was sixteenth general of the Jesuits (1751-55). There is a contemporary history of the principal members of the family by Paolo Giovio, bishop of Nocera, which may be had in several editions. See J. Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, trans. by S. G. C. Middlemore (London, 1898); J. A. Symonds, Age of the Despots (New York
series (1896). (C. H. HA.)VISCONTI-VENOSTA, EMILIO, MARQUIS (1829 ), Italian statesman, was born at Milan on the 22nd of January 1829. A disciple of Mazzini, he took part in all the anti-Austrian conspiracies until the ineffectual rising- at Milan on the 6th of February 1853, of which he had foretold the failure, induced him to renounce his Mazzinian allegiance. Continuing,nevertheless, his anti-Austrian propaganda, he rendered good service to the national cause, but being molested by the Austrian police, was obliged in 1859 to escape to Turin, and during the war with Austria of that year was appointed by Cavour royal commissioner with the Garibaldian forces. Elected deputy in 186o, he accompanied Farini
Victor Emmanuel II. to Vienna and Berlin. Upon the occasion of his marriage with the daughter of the marquis Alfieri di Sostegno, grand-niece of Cavour, he was created marquis by the king. For a time he remained a member of the parliamentary opposition, and in x886 was nominated senator. In 1894, after eighteen years' absence from active political life, he was chosen to be Italian arbitrator in the Bering Sea question, and in 1896 once more accepted the portfolio of foreign affairs in the Di Rudini cabinet at a juncture when the disasters in Abyssinia and the indiscreet publication of an Abyssinian Green Book had rendered the international position of Italy exceedingly difficult. His first care was to improve Franco-Italian relations by negotiating with France a treaty with regard to Tunis. During the negotiations relating to the Cretan question and the Graeco-Turkish War, he secured for Italy a worthy part in the European Concert and joined Lord Salisbury in saving Greece from the loss of Thessaly. Resigning office in May 1898, on a question of internal policy, he once more retired to private life, but in May 1899 again assumed the management of foreign affairs in the second Pelloux cabinet, and continued to hold office in the succeeding Saracco cabinet until its fall in February 1901. During this period his attention was devoted chiefly to the Chinese problem and to the maintenance of the equilibrium in the Mediterranean and the Adriatic. In regard to the Mediterranean he established an Italo-French agreement by which France tacitly undertook to leave Italy a free hand in Tripoli
Victor Emmanuel Ill. on the occasion of the birth of Princess Yolanda Margherita of Savoy (1st of June 1901). In February 1906 he was Italian delegate to the Morocco conference at Algeciras.An account of Visconti-Venosta's early life (down to 1859) is given in an interesting volume by his brother Giovanni Visconti-Venosta, Rieordi di Gioventd (Milan, 1904). End of Article: VISCONTI If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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