Francesco sforza short biography
Short biography format.
The Sforza of Milan
Francesco Sforza (1401 - 1466) was a mercenary soldier (what Machiavelli would have called a "condottiero", i.e.
Francesco sforza short biography
a military contractor) and the son of a prominent mercenary whose practice centered on the Duchy of Milan, which included the city-state of Milan, a cluster of dependent cities (including the some-time capital city of Pavia) and the surrounding territory in the northern thigh of Italy.
Father and son rented their soldiers to Milan and her powerful neighbors, Venice in the east and Florence in the south. After his father’s death Francesco won such a formidable reputation that in 1441 Filippo Maria Visconti.
offered him a full time job as the husband of his daughter Bianca and ruler of her dowry, the Milanese towns of Cremona and Pontremoli. Bianca’s dowry gave Francesco the toe hold he needed to begin his conquest of Milan when Filippo died in 1447.
Where Filippo had represented power, the situation after his death de