Ippolita Maria Sforza (Jesi, 18 April 1445 – Naples, 19 August 1488) was an Italian noblewoman, a member of the Sforza family which ruled the Duchy of Milan from 1450 until 1535. She was the first wife of the Duke of Calabria, who later reigned as King Alfonso II of Naples. Ippolita was described as very intelligent and cultured.
Life
Childhood Ippolita was born on 18 April 1445 in Jesi to Francesco Sforza and Bianca Maria Visconti, the only daughter and heir of Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan
Agnese del Maino who also resided at the ducal court, was a prominent part of Ippolita and her siblings childhood and helped with overseeing the education of her grandchildren.
Since Ippolita was a child she showed precocity of intellect, a love for letters and a certain passion for hunting, which was encouraged by Ippolitas mother who also liked to hunt. Ippolitas father would also gift her greyhounds for use when hunting when visiting their country estates.
Francesco Sforza sometimes asked his young daughter to act as an intermediary between him and his mother, so that she could help him to return to the graces of Bianca Maria, during the times when he and his wife entered into a quarrel for some reason.
Ippolita's father, while having a good relationship with her mother, was not known to be faithful to his wife and fathered 15 illegitimate children during the marriage.
One of these, a daughter named Drusiana the daughter of Francescos long time mistress Giovanna d Acquapendente was in fact brought up alongside Ippolita
She had four masters , by , humanist from the Marche region heir to the humanist pedagogy of Vittorino da Feltre, Doro Luftigo and Constantine Lascaris, who gave her the study of Greek and dedicated a Greek Grammarto her. When she was 14 years old she made a Latin address to pope Pius II at the diet of Mantua, which became well known after it was circulated in manuscript. Domenico Ghirlandaio allegedly painted a portrait of Ippolita.
Giovanni Sabatino degli Arienti describes it as follows:
Marriage On 10 October 1465 she married the Duke of Calabria Alfonso of Aragon, son of King Ferrante of Naples. The latter sent his second son Federico with six hundred horses to Milan to marry Ippolita by proxy in the name of his brother and to accompany her to his new home.
The bride had already left Milan with the wedding procession when the marriage was nearly called off due to the sudden death of the condottiero Jacopo Piccinino, son-in-law of Francesco Sforza. Ferrante of Aragon had previously enticed him to come to Naples with the false promise of a military command and then, out of revenge, had him imprisoned, as the condottiero had fought against him during the first baronial revolt. Jacopo Piccinino died shortly after his arrest—said by Ferrante to have fallen from a window following a failed escape attempt, but according to most, he was strangled in prison on the king’s orders. Francesco Sforza was so enraged at his death that he halted his daughter’s wedding procession and threatened to call off the marriage. In the end, the situation was resolved, and Ippolita, after spending two months in Siena and then passing through Rome, arrived in Naples on September 14, where she was received with great magnificence by her husband Alfonso and her father-in-law Ferrante, who organized many festivities and performances to celebrate the wedding.
In the early days, her relations with her husband—three years younger than her—must have been good, since that same year the fifteen-year-old Eleonor of Aragon, who was herself about to marry Ippolita's younger brother, Sforza Maria Sforza, wished for "some of the caresses [she] sometimes saw the Duke of Calabria give the Duchess", and Ippolita herself wrote to her mother that she and Alfonso slept together every night and often enjoyed themselves with hunts and amusements at their country estates. For example, she described her husband in these terms, in one of her many letters: "My most illustrious husband [...] with falcon and kite hunting, playing ball, reading and explaining to me his Spanish book on the governance of the state, and many other moral matters, has kept me and keeps me still in the greatest pleasure".
If that was the case, then relations between the spouses must have deteriorated over time, both due to Alfonso’s constant and brazen infidelities—he eventually found a new and compliant mistress in Trogia Gazzella—and because of his distinctive character. Indeed, just a few weeks after the wedding, there were already indications of Ippolita's first feelings of jealousy toward her husband: Alfonso was said by ladies and ambassadors to be a very handsome young man, "so charming that words could not describe him", but also "so restless that he couldn't stay still for half an hour".
Alfonso, however, also showed jealousy toward his wife: in the summer of 1466, he insisted that Ippolita stop playing with Giovanna da Correggio, wife of Roberto Sanseverino, when Giovanna came to visit her accompanied by her relative Gian Francesco.
Several letters from December 1466 onwards, both from ambassadors and from the lady herself, report an episode of jealousy on the part of Ippolita, when she was pregnant with her firstborn son. She had instructed one of her servants, a certain Donato, to follow her husband wherever he went. Alfonso, realizing he was being tailed, reacted with a very forceful gesture toward Donato, the exact nature of which is unknown (ambassador Pietro Landriani speaks of a beating), but it must have been quite serious, as Ippolita was deeply distressed by it. She wrote to her mother: "This matter with Donato I will never forget [...] not just a wound to my heart—I believe it split it in two, so great was and will remain my pain."
King Ferrante downplayed the incident to her Milanese relatives, saying that "these wars of the day arrive at peace by evening", but the situation did not improve, not even with the announcement of the duchess’s first pregnancy.
Alfonso's violent reaction should not come as a surprise: after all, he was deeply hated by the Neapolitan people for having offended his subjects with "the cruelest insults and abuses", for committing the most heinous crimes—such as "violating virgins, taking other men's wives for his own pleasure", and for engaging in the "detestable and abominable vice of sodomy." In other words, he was simply beginning to reveal to his wife his true character. Nevertheless, Ippolita remained unfailingly faithful to him as a wife; indeed, she "distinguished herself by her great fidelity to her fearsome husband and by her extraordinary modesty". For his part, King Ferrante was extremely pleased with his daughter-in-law for her beauty, intelligence, and virtue—so much so that Sforza's ambassadors wrote that "His Majesty the King has no other pleasure, nor any other paradise does he seem to find, except when he sees her dancing and singing." In her letters to her mother, Ippolita reveals a certain discomfort at her father-in-law’s excessive displays of affection.
She also formed an excellent friendship with her brother-in-law Federico, who, like her, was a lover of literature and a man with a very sensitive soul. He would often visit her at Castel Capuano or at her villa known as the Duchesca, spending time in her company.
Throughout her life, Ippolita found herself playing the role of peacemaker between Milan and Naples and between Naples and Florence, since relations between the various powers were tense and Ferrante was partly responsible for the infamous Pazzi conspiracy. Indeed, when Lorenzo de’ Medici—not without a certain amount of fear—went to Naples in 1480 to try to negotiate peace with Ferrante, he did not leave Florence until Ippolita had reassured him that Ferrante would not imprison and kill him, as Ferrante had been known to do with his guests.
As early as 1468, Ippolita had returned to the court of Milan to try to reconcile her brother Galeazzo Maria—now duke after their father’s death—with their mother Bianca Maria and also with her father-in-law Ferrante. However, the visit proved to be very brief, as Ippolita, then in the full bloom of her womanly beauty, was forced to return quickly to Naples apparently to escape her brother’s advances, as he demonstrated highly ambiguous feelings toward her.
As a mother she was very fond of her children, and this is demonstrated by the tender letter she wrote to her mother to announce the birth of the firstborn Ferrandino, in which she hopes that her little son, growing up, will show her the same affection that she still showed to her mother. In addition to the three children she had with Alfonso, Ippolita also raised like her own her young niece and nephew, Beatrice and Ferrante d'Este, children of her sister-in-law Eleonora of Aragon, who had left them at the court of Naples while they were still young, at the request of her father Ferrante.
Death Ippolita died suddenly on 19 August 1488 in Castel Capuano, shortly before the wedding of her daughter Isabella, according to Arienti due to an "apostema in the head". (pustulent swelling in the head)
Her death was said to have been prophesied by the friar Francis of Aragon, who was in the city of Florence: from there the friar wrote to the duchess, who had asked him to pray for her mother's soul, that he had had a vision in which the late Bianca Maria Visconti told him she had begged God to let her daughter come to heaven with her, adding that the bread was now baked and that the Almighty was eager to taste it at His banquet. Two or three days after receiving the letter, Ippolita fell seriously ill and sixteen days later died, despite all the processions and relics brought to her bedside—such as the blood of St. Januarius, the crucifix that spoke to St. Thomas Aquinas, and the head of St. Luke the Evangelist.
Her family members were always close to her, including the king and queen, and so also the eldest son Ferrandino who, initially very far from home, as soon as he received news of his mother's illness immediately returned to comfort her, being the favorite child of Ippolita. The second son Peter was also sick in bed and on the verge of death, and for this reason the departure of his mother was kept secret from him, so as not to cause him a displeasure that could have killed him.
Great funeral preparations were made and the deceased, dressed in white brocade, with a golden circle on her head and jewels and rings on her fingers, was buried in the church of the Annunziata in Naples.
She composed many letters. These have been published in Italy in a single volume entitled, The Letters of Ippolita Maria Sforza, and edited by Serena Castaldo. Previously, in 1893, in Bologna, F. Gabotto published a collection of Ippolita's letters which she had written in Naples from 1475 to 1482.
Apart from epistolary activity, her notable writings include poetry and a Latin eulogy for her father Francesco.
Religious fervor At her death, Ippolita was regarded almost as a saint due to the profoundly religious life she had led: every day she attended three Masses, sometimes even four or five, never less than two. She recited the rosary daily and read from a prayer book as large as a psalter and another as large as a vesperal, kneeling before the image of the Virgin. She would also recite the seven penitential psalms and offer prayers for the souls of her parents and deceased relatives, maintaining this practice for more than twenty years.Bernardino da Rende, Trattato della laudanda vita e della profetata morte di Ippolita Sforza d'Aragona, a cura di Francesco Sica, Edisud Salerno, 2007.