Galeazzo da Sanseverino (French: Galéas de Saint-Séverin'), known as the son of Fortuna, (c. 1460 – 24 February 1525) was an Italian-French condottiere and Grand Écuyer de France; Marquis of Bobbio, Count of Caiazzo, Castel San Giovanni, Val Tidone and Voghera. He was first the favorite of Ludovico il Moro and Beatrice d'Este, then of Louis XII and Francis I of France, as well as a sworn enemy of Gian Giacomo Trivulzio.
Life He was the third son of the famous leader Roberto Sanseverino, first Count of Caiazzo and Giovanna da Correggio. The date of birth is not at all clear, to be placed around 1458-60 and perhaps in Milan, where his mother Giovanna was certainly in the years 1458-59, waiting for the return of her husband from his pilgrimage to the Holy Land. It is not even known whether his brother Antonio Maria was born before or after, but certainly after his second son Gaspare, known as Fracasso, who was already married in 1475.
He made his first military experiences in the company of his father Roberto and in 1475 he obtained, together with his brothers, his first conduct in the pay of Florence.
At the service of Milan In June 1483, during the Salt War, Galeazzo and his brother deserted the Venetian conduct of their father Roberto and entered the service of the Duke of Bari, then Duke of Milan, Ludovico il Moro, despite the fact that his father was his bitter enemy. Shortly afterwards two of his half-brothers, Giorgio known as Faccenda and Ottaviano, also followed them. Two other brothers, and , remained faithful to their father, and only after Roberto's death, in 1489, they passed to Moro. The latter essentially gained in his service all the sons of the great enemy, esteemed among the best leaders of the peninsula.
Son-in-law del Moro Galeazzo in particular immediately became the favorite of Ludovico, who certainly had to recognize his excellent courtesan qualities, and from this moment began for him a career in perpetual ascent, as well as to spread his fame. Of southern origins but without a homeland, the chronicler Andrea Prato alludes to him, when he reproaches Ludovico for his bad choices:Cronache milanesi, Volume 1, Gio. Pietro Vieusseux, 1842, pp. 256-257.Already in 1486 King Ferrante of Aragon instructed his Milanese ambassador to greet Galeazzo on his part, telling him that he had heard "of his virtues, of his good bearings, and of the great affection that he brings us" and saying he was willing to gladly give him some benefit, if the opportunity had arisen.Regis Ferdinandi Primi Instructionum liber. 1486-1487, a cura di Scipione Volpicella, p. 130.
In 1488 Galeazzo was sent to the rescue of Caterina Sforza barricaded in the Rocca di Ravaldino following the conspiracy of the Orsi. After liberating the city, returning to Milan, he was appointed captain general of the Sforza army.Bernardino Corio, L'Historia di Milano, Giorgio de' Cavalli, 1565, p. 1025. This prevarication attracted to him and Ludovico the relentless hatred of Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, and more generally the envy of the other brothers.
He also had a strong enmity with the Marquis of Mantua Francesco Gonzaga, always for the same reasons: the Milanese conduct of the Marquis, in fact, ended at the very beginning of 1489, shortly after Galeazzo had obtained the title of captain general. Floriano Dolfo probably alludes to the latter, in a letter full of vulgarity written in 1496, when he tells the Marquis Francesco to praise his decision, taken years earlier, to pass to the service of the Lordship of Venice, as a "cerse - that is, a genital organ - of a horse that spurs neither fears, nor lashes" had dissolved the parental bond that bound Francesco al Moro, being in fact the two brothers-in-law. Covered with benefits and often in charge of very delicate missions by the Moro, who trusted him blindly, in 1489 he married Ludovico's illegitimate daughter- legitimized for the occasion: Bianca Giovanna. The latter was at the time a seven-year-old girl, so the marriage was purely nominal, becoming effective only in 1496, when the girl turned fourteen. With the marriage he was invested with the possessions of the counties of Bobbio, Castel San Giovanni, Val Tidone and Voghera. In the same years he was given the castle of Mirabello.
The new duchess When in 1491, after ten years of engagement, Ludovico finally decided to take Beatrice d'Este as his wife, Galeazzo knew with his affability and his natural charm to earn the favor of the new duchess, becoming his most faithful servant in perpetuity. Not infrequently they are found together in the daily entertainment of the court, as well as in matters of greater importance..
Thus, for example, in 1491, Beatrice wrote to her sister: "every day the illustrious Messer Galeazzo and I, with some other of these courtiers, take pleasure in the game of ball at the mallet after lunch".«Beatrice immediately began a life of violent entertainment mostly in the company of the very elegant Galeazzo Sanseverino, spending February and March in sometimes risky hunts and games in the surrounding castles.»
(Achille Dina, Isabella of Aragon Duchess of Milan and Bari.)
The uncertainty of the name In his letters Galeazzo used to sign himself with the triple surname Sfortia Vicecomes de Sancto Severino, or because through his marriage with Bianca Giovanna he had been "adopted" within the Sforza family or because of his descent from Muzio Attendolo.
A series of letters written in this period to the Marquise Isabella d'Este contain a curious and interminable dispute about who was the best paladin: Orlando or Rinaldo, as well as the story of a trip made by Beatrice d'Este to Cusago and the many amusements of the new duchess. These letters, however, contain only the signature Galeaz Sfortia Vicecomes armorum capitaneus appears.
This generated some confusion among historians, since there was at least one other Galeazzo Visconti his contemporary, also called "messer Vesconte", also a courtier friend of the dukes, who figures as podestà of Annone in 1484, advisor to Duke Gian Galeazzo, invested by the latter in 1488 of the county of Busto Arsizio, ambassador to Charles VIII in 1492 and military commissar of Duke Ludovico in 1495; after the expulsion of the Moro he also passed to the French side.
The name appears several times in the chronicles and letters and it is not possible to establish whether it was always the same person or different, nor above all if it corresponds to the homonymous court poet Galeazzo Visconti. The uncertainty lies in the variability of the names with which at the time it was possible to indicate the same person: Ludovico Sforza himself is sometimes mentioned as "Ludovico Vesconte" and it was not mandatory in the letters to sign with the full surname. However, it is clear that Galeazzo Sanseverino and Galeazzo Visconti were not the same person, as they were mentioned separately in the same context. Doubts remain about the identity of the sender of the letters to the Marquise, however it does not appear that this Galeazzo Visconti also bore the surname Sfortia, also the references in them to the days of leisure spent in the company of the two sisters d'Este and to the great familiarity with the Duchess Beatrice, as well as to a brother named "Gasparo" who could correspond to , led to a belief that the sender was in fact Galeazzo Sanseverino.
He tells of having accompanied the Duchess Beatrice on holiday in Cusago and being mounted with her in a cart, where during the journey they sang more than twenty-five songs, "doing a lot of crazy things", then fished, hunted and played ball with many other amusements, returning to Milan after sunset, so much so that - he adds jokingly - in the star behind Beatrice he had almost gone crazy:
He also enjoyed the rare privilege of free access to the ducal apartments, if at the end of the letter he reminds the Marquise Isabella of those times when, entering Beatrice's private dressing room, he found the ladies still undressed and intent on styling their hair:
Son of Fortune There was no meeting, public or private, at which Galeazzo was not present. He was a participant in all the secrets of the ducal family and, as long as he lived in Milan, he kept in the castle almost a court of his own. In the regency committee, composed of only three members, which - in the event of Ludovico's sudden death - would take over the government, he was in second place immediately after Duchess Beatrice and immediately before Cardinal Ascanio, Moro's brother.Ascanio Maria Sforza, la parabola politica di un cardinale-principe del rinascimento, volume 1, Marco Pellegrini, 2002, p. 283.
As proof of the very close relationships existing between the three, consider that, in the period of mourning for the death of her mother, Beatrice used to eat meals with the sole company of her husband and son-in-law Galeazzo, and that the latter was very close to her even when, in 1492, a sudden attack of malarial fevers put her first pregnancy at risk.For the exceptional social climb that, from Roberto's unknown son, had led him to be almost a second duke in Milan, Galeazzo was called "the son of Fortune". Philippe de Commines in his Memoirs justifies the fact by saying that Ludovico "kept him as a son, as he did not yet have any adults". On the other hand, a link of a sexual nature should not be excluded, if - as Achille Dina, a twentieth-century historian, recalled - this was referred to by that accusation of Francesco Guicciardini, who said of Ludovico: "he was dishonest in the sin of sodomy and, as many say, still as an old man no less patient than agent".Archivio Storico Lombardo, serie quinta, anno XLVIII, Achille Dina, Isabella d'Aragona Duchessa di Milano e di Bari, pp. 331-332
Achille Dina, however, insists on the strong "intimacy" that Galeazzo had rather with the Duchess Beatrice and insinuates that the two were lovers, arguing that "some intimate remorse" was due to her deep sorrow for the death of her stepdaughter:Archivio Storico Lombardo, serie quinta, anno XLVIII, Achille Dina, Isabella d'Aragona Duchessa di Milano e di Bari, p. 372.Although it is true that Beatrice wanted him next to her wherever she went and that, a bit like everyone, she probably suffered the fascination, however, none of the contemporaries insinuated any suspicious behavior between the two, and Beatrice demonstrated on several occasions to be "in superlative shameful". and, if not directly in love,. at least fond of her husband,. as well as praised for his "modest mind". She was also herself to inform her family of the amusements taken with Galeazzo, and none of this would have been possible without the consent of Ludovico, who had gladly encouraged him. More easily one would look at their relationship as the classic one between knight and lady, as his biographer interprets it and as Galeazzo himself declares in one of his letters, referring to his eternal and absolute servitude to Beatrice. He represents in some ways the forerunner of the cavalier servant, a figure that would arise only three centuries later.
A sexual metaphor could in fact be read in a passage by Sanudo, who in 1499 wrote: Antonio Perria instead hypothesizes a relationship with Duke Gian Galeazzo, because at the end of 1492 a scandal broke out for which Isabella of Aragon had tried to spread poison to this Rozone, favorite and lover of her husband Gian Galeazzo, as well as to Galeazzo Sanseverino himself. It is not known why, but it was probably out of jealousy of her husband. King Ferrante, informed on the matter, replied that it was impossible that Isabella had tried to poison Galeazzo, who was "loved by them as a son and always proved to be a good servant and relative"; as for Rozone, he said he was surprised that his niece "out of desperation" had not done worse.