My Library

of Venetian forces against Milan after Carmagnola was killed. Colleone was remarkable for not changing sides or seeking to play one side off against another. He is celebrated in the famous Colleone monument by Andrea Verocchio in Venice, which shows the leader on his horse. bernabò See visconti. borgia, cesare (c.1475–1507) Illegitimate son of Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, later Pope Alexander VI, Cesare Borgia was made Bishop of Pamplona at fifteen and a cardinal at eighteen. In 1497 the murder of his elder brother Giovanni made him the main beneficiary of his father’s plans for territorial expansion. Cesare was suspected of Giovanni’s murder but nothing was proved. In 1498 he negotiated with Louis XII in Paris on behalf of his father; the king’s marriage was dissolved, allowing him to marry the widow of Charles VIII, while Louis agreed to an aggressive military alliance with the pope to capture Naples. Cesare then became the first person in history to resign his pos- ition as cardinal, upon which Louis made him Duke of Valenti- nois, hence the nickname, Duke Valentino. The alliance with Louis was reinforced by Borgia’s marriage to Charlotte d’Albret, the king’s cousin, and Borgia was serving with Louis’s army when it captured Milan in 1499. Prompted by his father and with Louis’s military support, Borgia set out to conquer the Romagna, taking the towns of Fano, Pesaro, Rimini, Cesena, Forlı̀, Faenza and Imola. In 1501 the pope declared him Duke of Romagna. Borgia successfully commanded French troops at the siege of Naples in 1501, returning to the Romagna to capture Urbino and Camerino in 1502. In this period he appointed Leonardo da Vinci as his military architect and engineer. Faced with a revolt by mercenary leaders in his service, he invited them to Senigallia to negotiate and had them imprisoned and executed. The death of his father in 1503 eventually led to the loss of the Romagna, imprisonment and exile to Spain, where Borgia died in the service of his brother-in-law King John III of Navarre. borgia, rodrigo See alexander vi. borgia, valentino Duke Valentino. See borgia, cesare. braccio Andrea Braccio da Montone (1368–1424). Successful mercenary commander who fought numerous campaigns both