ANTIOCHUS Antiochus the Great (c.241-187 BC), King of Syria (223-187 BC). Spent most of his reign in military campaigns rebuilding the state he had inherited and conquering much of Asia Minor. In 192 BC he invaded Greece but was beaten by the Romans and eventually lost Asia Minor to them as well.
ANTONINUS CARACALLA see CARACALLA.
ASCANIO See SFORZA, CARDINAL.
BAGLIONI The Baglioni family ruled Perugia, a town midway between Florence and Rome, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
BENTIVOGLI, GIOVANNI (1438-1508) Son of Annibale, ruler of Bologna, who was murdered in 1445 when Giovanni was just a child. After a long interregnum Giovanni eventually took his father’s place in 1462, but was forced to flee when Pope Julius II attacked the town in 1506.
BERGAMO, BARTOLOMEO DA Bartolomeo Colleone (c.1395- 1475). Mercenary leader in the service of Venice and commander 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 position 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, Forlì, 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 ALEXANDERVI.
BORGIA, VALENTINODuke Valentino. See BORGIA, CESARE.
BRACCIOAndrea Braccio da Montone (1368-1424). Successful mercenary commander who fought numerous campaigns both for and against most of the major states in Italy, eventually becoming ruler of Perugia.
CAESAR Julius Caesar (c.100-44 BC). After successful military campaigns in Gaul and Britain, Julius Caesar made himself dictator, taking the first step to transforming the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. He was assassinated by a group of senators including his former friend Marcus Junius Brutus.
CANNESCHI A family that vied with the Bentivogli family for power in Bologna. The Bentivoglis were supported by Venice and Florence while the Canneschis were allied to the Viscontis, dukes of Milan. In 1445, with Milanese support, Battista Canneschi, head of the family, had Annibale Bentivogli murdered. The people of Bologna, however, turned against the Canneschis and lynched Battista, after which the rest of the family fled.
CARACALLAMarcus Aurelius Antoninus Caracalla (188-217), Roman emperor (211-217). On the death of his father, the emperor Severus, Antoninus took power with his brother Geta, but soon had him murdered, together with all his supporters. He extended Roman citizenship to all free citizens of the empire, keeping the support of the army by increasing soldiers’ pay. Unpopular with the people, Antoninus was eventually murdered by a member of his own guard, perhaps on the instigation of Macrinus, the next emperor.
CARMAGNOLAFrancesco Bussone (c.1432-82), Count of Carmagnola, a small town near Turin. Carmagnola was a mercenary leader hired first by Duke Visconti of Milan, then later by the Venetians to fight Milan. Failing to follow up an initial victory at the battle of Maclodio in 1427, Carmagnola was accused of treachery, arrested and beheaded.
CHARLES VII (1403-61) King of France (1422-61). Inspired by Joan of Arc, Charles united France under one ruler, driving the English from all their French possessions with the exception of Calais. He built up a powerful standing army.
CHARLES VIII (1470-98) King of France (1483-98). Having taken effective power in 1492 after the regency of his sister Anne and encouraged by both the pope and Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, to assert his claim to the throne of Naples, Charles assembled an army of 25,000 men and in 1494 marched into Italy. Having subdued Naples’ ally, Florence, Charles took Naples itself in 1495. At this point the other Italian powers, including the pope and Duke Ludovico, turned against him and drove him out of the peninsula.
COLONNA, CARDINALGiovanni Colonna. Made a cardinal in 1480, Giovanni plotted with Charles VIII against Alexander VI.
COLONNAApowerful family in medieval and Renaissance Rome, notorious for their long feud with the Orsini family. The Colonna family produced one pope, Martin V (ruled 1417-31), but were later excommunicated and their estates confiscated by Alexander VI. The feud between the families was ended by papal bull in 1511.
COMMODUS Lucius Aurelius Commodus Antoninus (161-193), Roman emperor (180-93). The son of Marcus Aurelius, Commodus rejected his father’s stoic asceticism, giving himself over to pleasure and amusement while allowing a series of favourites to run the empire. Boastful about his physique, he regularly took part in naked gladiatorial combat. Eventually a conspiracy against him led to his being strangled by the wrestler Narcissus.
CONIO, ALBERIGO DA Alberigo da Barbiano (c.1348-1409) was originally from the Romagna but later became Count of Conio, a small town in the hills above the Italian Riviera. He was the first mercenary commander to insist that his army (the Company of St George) be made up exclusively of Italians, a development that led to a reduction in the use of foreign mercenaries. Alberigo fought for Milan against Florence, dying in battle in 1409.
CYRUS (c.576-529 BC) Founder of the Persian empire, which he extended to include much of central and south-west Asia.
DARIUS Last king of Persia (336-331 BC), Darius was repeatedly defeated in battle by Alexander the Great and finally deposed and murdered by one of his provincial governors.
DAVID(c.1012-972 BC) The second King of Israel (after Saul, his father). Famous for his legendary defeat of the Philistine giant Goliath, using only a sling and stones. As king, David built up an empire, capturing Jerusalem, which he made his capital, as well as areas of modern Jordan and Syria.
EPAMINONDAS (418-362 BC) Theban statesman and military commander, he ended Spartan pre-eminence in Greece, making Thebes the dominant power.
FABIUSMAXIMUS(c.280-203 BC) Statesman and military commander, five times consul and twice dictator of Rome. Famous for his cautious delaying tactics against Hannibal in the Second Punic War and his hostility towards Scipio.
FERDINANDOFARAGON(1452-1516) At age seventeen Ferdinand married Isabella of Castile, then eighteen, thus taking a first step towards uniting Spain. He ruled Castile with his wife from 1474 and became King of Aragon in 1479. After a long campaign to capture Granada, the last territory held by the Muslims in Spain, Ferdinand was finally victorious in 1492. In the same year he expelled the Jews from both Castile and Aragon. The second half of his reign was spent countering French expansionism in Italy. From 1494 to 1496 he aided Italian leaders in their battle to drive Charles VIII of France out of Italy. In 1501 he signed an agreement with Louis XII to split the Kingdom
of Naples between them, but later turned against France, capturing the whole of the kingdom by 1504. By the time of his death, Spain was the most powerful country in Europe, a power enhanced when Ferdinand was succeeded by his grandson, Charles of Austria, who was also Holy Roman Emperor.
FERRARA, DUKE OF Machiavelli is actually referring to two dukes in a family that had ruled Ferrara for some four centuries.1. Ercole d’Este (1431-1505), duke from 1471-1505. Educated in Naples, Ercole married the daughter of King Ferrante of Naples and became one of the great patrons of Renaissance art. In 1481, in alliance with Ferrante, he fought against the Venetians and the papacy, losing a considerable amount of territory. He remained neutral in the so-called Italian War of 1494-98, but after the French took Milan in 1499 he asked for and was granted French protection.
2. Alfonso d’Este (1476-34), duke from 1505-34. Alfonso married, first, Anna Sforza, sister of Gian Galeazzo Sforza and, later, Lucrezia Borgia, daughter of Pope Alexander VI. In 1508 he joined the League of Cambrai, which sought to destroy Venetian power and partition its territories. After Pope Julius II went over to the Venetian side, Alfonso remained loyal to France, as a result of which he was excommunicated and attacked by both Venice and the papacy. He resisted successfully, partly thanks to French help, and partly due to Ferrara’s superior cannons whose manufacture was a matter of special concern and pride to the duke. In 1526-27 Alfonso took part in the expedition of Charles V (Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain) which led to the sacking of Rome.
FILIPPO,DUKE See VISCONTI, FILIPPO.
FOGLIANI, GIOVANNI A leading citizen of Fermo, Fogliani was killed in 1501.
FORLÌ, COUNTESS OF Caterina Sforza (1463-1509), an illegitimate daughter of Galeazzo Sforza, Duke of Milan. She married Girolamo Riario, officially the nephew but possibly the son of Pope Sixtus IV. Riario was Count of Forlì and after his murder in 1488 Caterina took control of the town until it was captured by Cesare Borgia in 1500. She is famous for having refused to hand over the citadel of Forlì to rebels despite their threatening to kill her children, whom they held hostage. Exposing her genitals from the castle walls, she told them she was perfectly capable of producing more children.
GRACCHI, THE The brothers Tiberius Gracchus and Gaius Sem pronius Gracchus were members of a prominent family in Rome in the second century BC. Both became Tribunes of the Plebs and both were murdered after attempting to limit the power of the nobles and introduce reforms in favour of the plebs.
GUIDOBALDO, DUKE OF URBINO (1472-1508) Guidobaldo da Montefeltro succeeded his father as Duke of Urbino in 1482. He fought as a military captain for Pope Alexander VI and Charles VIII of France, and later for Venice against Charles. Under attack from Cesare Borgia in 1497, he fled the town, returning when Borgia’s mercenaries proved disloyal. Under Guidobaldo’s rule, the court of Urbino was among the most refined in Europe and is considered to have been the inspiration of Baldassare Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier, which discusses the qualities of the perfect courtier.
HAMILCAR Hamilcar Barca (c.270-228 BC). Successful commander of the Carthaginians in the First Punic War against Roman forces in Sicily in 247 BC. Launched an invasion of Hispania in 236 BC and became virtual dictator of Carthage before being killed in battle. Father of Hannibal.
HANNIBAL (247-182 BC) Son of Hamilcar. Commander of Carthaginian forces from 221 BC, he took an army, which included war elephants, across the Iberian peninsula, over the Pyrenees and Alps and down into northern Italy in what became known as the Second Punic War. Despite impressive victories he was forced to return home when the Romans attacked Carthage, and was defeated at the Battle of Zama (201 BC) by Scipio Africanus. He then served for many years as chief magistrate of Carthage, introducing all kinds of reforms, before the Romans forced him into exile. Eventually, to avoid falling into Roman hands, he killed himself by poisoning.
HELIOGABALUS (c.203-222) Roman emperor (218-22). Grandson of the aunt of murdered emperor Caracalla, and priest in the cult of the sun deity El Gabal, Heliogabalus was proclaimed the true successor to Caracalla, with some people claiming he was Caracalla’s illegitimate son by a union between first cousins. Installed as emperor after the emperor Macrinus had been defeated and executed, he attempted to revolutionize Roman religious traditions and flouted sexual taboos, marrying five times before, aged eighteen, he was murdered and replaced by his cousin Severus Alexander.
HIERO OF SYRACUSE Hiero II, King of Syracuse (270-215 BC). Illegitimate son of a nobleman and one-time general with Pyrrhus, Hiero became commander of Syracusan forces on the departure of Pyrrhus in 275 BC and was elected ruler of the town after defeating the Mamertines (Mamertina was present-day Messina). After fighting and losing a war with Roman forces, he made a pact with Rome in 263 BC, which assured his kingdom’s security in return for support for the Romans in their war with Carthage. Hiero was a relative of Archimedes, whose inventions, particularly in the military field, he supported.
JOANNA, QUEEN (1373-1435) Joanna II ruled Naples from 1414 to 1435. Childless herself, she allowed her court to be run by her favourites and lovers, playing off the Anjou and Aragon families by offering prominent members of each succession to her throne. Conflict between the royal lines saw the two most successful mercenary commanders of the period, Francesco Sforza and Braccio da Montone, pitted against each other.
JULIAN Marcus Didius Julianus (c.133-193). Consul under Pertinax, Julian was proclaimed emperor by the Praetorian Guard after they had murdered Pertinax. He reigned for only sixty-six days before he himself was murdered when Septimius Severus, who had refused to recognize his leadership, arrived in Rome.
JULIUS II Giuliano della Rovere (1443-1513), Cardinal of San Pietro ad Vincula, was made pope in 1503 after the twenty-six-day reign of Pius III, who had been elected after the death of Alexander VI. Julius had for many years been a fierce rival of Alexander and was unlikely to be supportive of his son Cesare Borgia. He rapidly dismantled the Borgia family’s power and set about ending the feud between the dominant Orsini and Colonna families. Having thus secured his authority in Rome, he reasserted papal territorial rights in the Romagna, attacking the Venetians and taking Perugia and Bologna in 1506. This gave the papacy unprecedented temporal power. In 1508 he formed the League of Cambrai together with France, Spain and the Holy Roman Empire to expel the Venetians from Romagna altogether. But after the Venetians were defeated at Agnadello (or Vailà) in 1509, Julius feared French domination and joined forces with Venice to drive Louis XII out of Italy. Julius was hugely influential as a patron of the arts. He had the foundation stone of St Peter’s Basilica laid in 1506 and commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
LEOXGiovanni de’ Medici (1475-1521). Made a cardinal at age thirteen, Giovanni, son of Lorenzo de’ Medici, was elected pope in 1513, taking the name of Leo X. His papacy was memorable for the sale of indulgences to pay for building work on St Peter’s Basilica, his determined promotion of his Medici relations and his response to Martin Luther’s ninety-five theses against indulgences. In 1513 he joined forces with the Venetians and various foreign powers to expel the French from Italy, but later allied himself with the French against the Holy Roman Empire.
LOUIS XI (1423-83) King of France (1461-83). Louis increased the power of the king in relation to the barons and added Burgundy and Anjou to the French throne. In a treaty of 1474 he gained the right to levy troops in Switzerland.
LOUIS XII (1462-1515) King of France (1498-1515). Louis was the king who got France most determinedly involved in the affairs of Italy. Originally Duke of Orleans, he succeeded his cousin Charles VIII in 1498 and quickly made a deal with Pope Alexander VI that allowed him to renounce his first wife and marry Charles’s widow, thus adding Brittany to the French crown. Since the house of Orleans had claims to both Milan and Naples, Louis made an agreement with Venice to split Milan’s territory and took the town in 1499. Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, took it back in 1500 but was driven out again. Louis then used the same policy i
n the south, reaching an agreement with Spain to divide the Kingdom of Naples and taking the town for France in 1501. However, the occupying powers fell out over the terms of the partition and in 1503 the Spanish defeated the French at Gari gliano. In 1508 Louis joined the Holy Roman Empire, England, the Papal States, Florence and Spain in the so-called League of Cambrai, an aggressive alliance against the Venetians. Louis led the alliance’s army and scored a comprehensive victory over the Venetians at Agnadello (or Vailà) in 1509. But the consequent increase in the power of both Rome and France caused the two powers to fall out and in 1510 Pope Julius II, together with England, Spain, Switzerland and the Holy Roman Empire, formed the Holy League to drive France out of Italy, a goal that was finally achieved at the battle of Novara in 1513. Two years later, however, Louis’s successor, Francis I, would return to take Milan and much of northern Italy.
LUCA RAINALDI, BISHOP An ambassador for the Emperor Maximilian.
LUDOVICO II Also known as Ludovico il Moro. SeeSFORZA, LUDOVICO.
MACRINUS Marcus Opellius Macrinus (c.165-218). Roman emperor (217-18). Macrinus was the first emperor not to have been a senator or a member of a senatorial family. He rose from humble origins to bureaucratic service under Severus and was then appointed prefect by Caracalla and proclaimed emperor after Caracalla was murdered (many believed that Macrinus himself was responsible for the murder). His brief reign was spent entirely in the east, where military setbacks eroded his power-base until eventually he was defeated by supporters of the fourteen-year-old Heliogabalus, grandson of Caracalla’s aunt, Julia Maesa.
MANTUA, MARQUISOFFrancesco Gonzaga (1466-1519). Victorious mercenary commander of the forces of the League of Venice against Charles VIII of France at the battle of Fornovo in 1495.
MARCUS AURELIUS Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180), Roman emperor (161-180). A Stoic philosopher, his work Meditations , written in Greek while campaigning with his army, is still considered a masterpiece. A successful reformer in domestic policy, he faced serious military threats from Parthia and from various tribes in Germany and Gaul. He died of natural causes and was immediately deified.
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