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He founded that most wonderful of all convents, the Certosa of Pavia and the cathedral of Milan, 'which exceeds in size and splendor all the churches of Christendom. The palace in Pavia, which his father Galeazzo began and which he himself finished, was probably by far the most magnificent of the princely dwellings of Europe.
A man of splendid force and confidence, he ruled wisely, and alone of her rulers up to this time seems to have been regretted when, in 1466, he died, and was succeeded in the Duchy of Milan by his son Galeazzo. This man was a tyrant, and ruled like a barbarian, till his assassination in 1476.
When, for instance, he ordered his artists to decorate a hall at the Castello at Pavia with portraits of the ducal family in a single night, under pain of instant death, the Ferrarese Diarist had good reason to describe the new Duke of Milan as a prince guilty of great crimes and greater follies. At the same time, Galeazzo showed himself a liberal patron of art and learning.
His plan was to disguise himself as a Franciscan monk, so that mounted an a shabby horse he might pass for their chaplain; the others, Galeazzo di San Severing, who commanded under him, and his two brothers, were all tall men, so, adopting the dress of common soldiers, they hoped they might escape detection in the Swiss ranks.
The court poet Taccone waxes eloquent over the splendour of the procession, led by Messer Galeazzo, captain-general of the armies, and the beauty of the bride, whose tall and slender figure showed to advantage in her gorgeous apparel, with her long fair hair flowing over her shoulders, as she rode through the streets bowing in response to the enthusiastic cheers of the crowd.
Galeazzo, his son, was less fortunate than Matteo, surnamed Il Grande by the Lombards. The Emperor Louis of Bavaria threw him into prison on the occasion of his visit to Milan in 1327, and only released him at the intercession of his friend Castruccio Castracane. To such an extent was the growing tyranny of the Visconti still dependent upon their office delegated from the Empire.
Therefore the anecdote which Squarzafichi relates in his life of Petrarch, and has taken from Joseph Brivius, a contemporary, is quite credible namely, that when Petrarch was at the court of Visconti, and among many men and titled people, Galeazzo Visconti asked his son, who was still a boy in years and was afterwards the first Duke of Milan, to pick out the wisest man of those present.
He proposed, therefore, to advance at once into Lombardy, to get up a revolution in favour of his nephew Galeazzo, and to drive Ludovico Sforza out of Milan before he could get help from France; so that Charles VIII, at the very time of crossing the Alps, would find an enemy to fight instead of a friend who had promised him a safe passage, men, and money.
The reason is that I had scarcely finished composing and dictating the story of the adventures of Vasco Nuñez and his companions during their exploration of the South Sea, and had hardly despatched that narration to Your Holiness by Giovanni Ruffo di Forli, Archbishop of Cosenza and Galeazzo Butrigario, Apostolic nuncios and stimulators of my somnolent spirits, than new letters arrived from Pedro Arias whose departure last year as commander of a fleet bound for the new continent we have already announced.
The ducal sword and sceptre were borne before him by Galeazzo Visconti, the bells were rung, and the trumpets sounded, while the people hailed him with shouts of Duca! Duca! Moro! Moro!
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