Bernabò Visconti (1349 – 1385)

Bernabò Visconti, also called Barnabò (1319 – 19 December 1385), was an Italian soldier and statesman, Lord of Milan in the 14th century.
He was born in Milan, the son of Stefano Visconti and Valentina Doria. From 1346 to 1349 he lived in exile, until he was called back by his uncle Giovanni Visconti.
In 1350 Bernabò married Beatrice (also known as Regina) della Scala, daughter of Mastino II of Verona, and forged both a political and aesthetic alliance between the two cities. His intrigues and ambitions kept him at war almost continuously with Pope Urban V, the Florentines, Venice and Savoy. In 1354, at the death of Giovanni, he inherited the power of Milan, together with his brothers Matteo and Galeazzo. Bernabò received the eastern lands (Bergamo, Brescia, Cremona and Crema), who bordered the Veronese territories. Milan itself was to be ruled in turn by the three brothers.

In 1356, after having offended the emperor, he pushed back a first attack to Milan by the imperial vicar Markward von Raudeck, imprisoning him. In 1360 he was declared heretic and condemned by Emperor Charles IV. The ensuing conflict ended with a dismaying defeat at San Ruffillo against the imperial troops under Galeotto I Malatesta (July 29, 1361). In 1362, after the death of his sister's husband, Ugolino Gonzaga, caused him to attack also Mantua. Warring on several different fronts, in December of that year he sued for peace with Urban V, through the mediation of King John II of France. However, having Barnabò missed to return the Papal City of Bologna and to present himself at Avignon, on March 4, 1363 he was excommunicated, together with his children, one of which, Ambrogio, was captured by the Papal commander Gil de Albornoz. With the peace signed on March 13, 1364, Visconti left the occupied Papal lands, in exchange of the raising of the ban and of 500,000 florins. In Spring 1368 Visconti allied with Cansignorio della Scala of Verona, and attacked Mantua, then ruled by Ugolino Gonzaga. The situation was settled later in the year through an agreement between him and emperor. Two years later he besieged Reggio, which he managed to acquire from Gonzaga in 1371. The following war against the Este of Modena and Ferrara raised again the Papal enmity against the Milanese. In 1373, the pope sent two papal delegates to serve Bernabò and Galeazzo their excommunication papers (consisting of a parchment bearing a leaden seal rolled in a silken cord). Bernabò, infuriated, placed the two papal delegates under arrest and refused their release until they had eaten the parchment, seal, and silken cord which they served him.[citation needed] He managed to resist, despite also the outbreak of a plague in Milan, whose consequences he suppressed with fanatic energy. In 1378 he allied with the Republic of Venice in its war against Genoa. His troops were however defeated in September 1379 in the Val Bisagno. Bernabò, whose dispotism and taxes had enraged the Milanese, was deposed by his nephew Gian Galeazzo Visconti in 1385. Imprisoned in the castle of Trezzo, he was poisoned in December of that year. Bernabò was an ally of Stephen II, Duke of Bavaria: three of his daughters were married with Stephen's descendants: Agnes (d.1391) married Francesco I Gonzaga.




















Monument of Bernabò Visconti at Castello Sforzesco, Milan
by Bonino da Campione - Italian Gothic-era sculptor