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Updated: June 17, 2025
When the line of the Visconti ended, in the year 1447, their tyranny was continued by Francesco Sforza, the son of a poor soldier of adventure, who had raised himself by his military genius, and had married Bianca, the illegitimate daughter of the last Visconti.
Not that, without these especial motives, he would have thought it anything but great gain for a man to be made a slave, if it were the means of bringing him into communion with the Church. After this, several expeditions, which did not lead to much, occupied the Prince's time till 1447.
Probably it was not even known to the Visconti, who acted on this, as on so many other occasions, by a mere spasm of suspicious jealousy, for which he could have given no account. From the year 1447 to the year 1455, it is difficult to follow Colleoni's movements, or to trace his policy.
When the Visconti dynasty ended by the death of Filippo Maria in 1447, there was a chance of restoring the independence of Lombardy. Milan in effect declared herself a republic, and by the aid of Florence she might at this moment have maintained her liberty.
One can never forget in his presence the tragedy that attends the too earnest seeker after beauty: not "all is vanity" does Botticelli say, but "all is transitory". Botticelli, as we now call him, was the son of Mariano Filipepi and was born in Florence in 1447. Whatever the cause, the fact remains that the name of Filipepi is rarely used.
In the year 1447, Nuna Tristan made another voyage to the coast of Africa; and, advancing beyond Cabo dos Mastos, or the Cape of Masts, so named from some dead palms resembling masts, seen there by Lançarot, who made this discovery in the former voyage, Nuna Tristan proceeded southwards along the coast of Africa, 180 miles beyond Cape Verd, where he reached the mouth of a river which he called Rio Grande, or the Large River, since called Gamber, Gambra, or Gambia.
The island is said by tradition to have been re-discovered by a Portuguese sailor in 1447. Tradition says that this sailor went hastily to the court of Portugal to announce the discovery, but was blamed for not having remained longer, and so fled.
In the fourteenth and the first half of the fifteenth centuries the authority of the Popes, both as Heads of the Church and as temporal rulers, had been impaired by exile in France and by ruinous schisms. A new era began with the election of Nicholas V. in 1447, and ended during the pontificate of Clement VII. with the sack of Rome in 1527.
One of their own companions, Juan Fernandez, from an ardent desire to procure information for the prince, got leave to remain among the Assanhaji Arabs. Next year, 1447, Antonio Mendez was ordered to return in search of Juan Fernandez, from whose inquisitive disposition much information was expected.
In this year 1447, a Portuguese ship, in coming through the Straits of Gibraltar, was forced a great way to the westwards by a violent tempest, and came to an island having seven cities, the inhabitants of which spoke the Portuguese language, and they inquired of our mariners if the Moors still infested Spain, whence their ancestors had fled to avoid the distresses which occurred subsequent to the death of Don Roderigo, king of Spain.
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