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Updated: June 27, 2025
The faithful servants who had followed him into exile, saw their lands and houses confiscated and divided among the victors. The Count of Ligny's mother occupied the Marchesino Stanga's house, and Trivulzio's triumph over his rivals was complete when he received the Moro's palace of Vigevano and Messer Galeazzo's fair domain of Castel Novo as his share of the spoils.
It stirred the latter into taking measures against the move he feared Ferrante might make to enforce Gian Galeazzo's claims. Lodovico Maria went about this with that sly shrewdness so characteristic of him, so well symbolized by his mulberry badge a humorous shrewdness almost, which makes him one of the most delightful rogues in history, just as he was one of the most debonair and cultured.
"The peace of Italy is dead!" exclaimed Pope Sixtus IV. when the news of Galeazzo's murder reached him. And the issue proved that he was not far wrong.
Lodovico was absent at the time of Galeazzo's assassination, and with his brother Sforza, Duke of Bari, was spending Christmas at the court of Louis XI. at Tours.
The Milanese chronicler Bernardino Corio gives a dramatic account of the scene, which he himself witnessed, and relates how Bona, who was haunted by a presentiment of coming evil, implored her lord not to leave the Castello that morning, and how three ravens were seen hovering about Galeazzo's head on that very morning, when, in his splendid suit of crimson brocade, the tall and handsome duke entered the church doors, while the choir sang the words, "Sic transit gloria mundi."
"And yet," remarks the grave historian, "this Roland they tell of has been dead well-nigh seven hundred years." Unfortunately, Isabella's share in this singular and interesting correspondence has perished, and only Messer Galeazzo's letters survive. These may still be seen in the Gonzaga Archives, where they were first discovered by Signor Alessandro Luzio and Signor Rodolfo Renier.
That regency he had usurped from Gian Galeazzo's mother, and he was now in a fair way to usurp the throne itself. He kept his nephew virtually a prisoner in the Castle of Pavia, together with his young bride, Isabella of Aragon, who had been sent thither by her father, the Duke of Calabria, heir to the crown of Naples.
He and his brothers fought desperately, till the sword was broken in Galeazzo's hands and Fracassa was badly wounded. But all their heroism was of no avail. Trivulzio was already in secret treaty with the Swiss, who sent a deputy to the French camp, asking for leave to lay down their arms and return to their own country.
Lodovico wrote her word that he had been arranging a tournament at Pavia in honour of the christening of Gian Galeazzo's son, the little Count of Pavia, but that since she would not come, he had made up his mind to put it off and have no jousting. Luzio-Renier, op. cit., p. 112. Luzio-Renier, op. cit., p. 113.
Copies of the following instruments concerning the last Sforza of Pesaro are in the archives of Florence: will of Giovanni Sforza, July 24, 1510; agreement between Galeazzo and the Papal Legate, October 30, 1512; Galeazzo's will, March 23, 1515; Isabella's marriage contract, Pesaro, September 29, 1520.
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