Francesco Sforza was an Italian condottiero who transformed a career in mercenary warfare into dynastic rule over Milan. Born in 1401, the son of the celebrated commander Muzio Attendolo Sforza, he served a succession of Italian powers and repeatedly shifted alliances in the competitive politics of the peninsula. His marriage to Bianca Maria Visconti, the only child of Duke Filippo Maria Visconti, gave him an important dynastic claim when the Visconti male line ended in 1447.
After Filippo Maria’s death, Milan briefly became the Ambrosian Republic, which initially employed Sforza as a military commander before relations deteriorated. He blockaded the city and entered Milan as duke in 1450. As ruler he restored finances, encouraged agriculture and building, and used diplomacy as well as force to secure his position. The Peace of Lodi in 1454 helped stabilise relations among the principal Italian states, and the Sforza dynasty ruled Milan after his death in 1466.
In Peter Darman’s Prodigal, set in northern Italy around 1449–1450, as Francesco Sforza closes on control of Milan, being stabbed in the back is more painful than in the front. In Peter Darman’s The Wolf of Rimini, Milan and Venice competed for territory while condottieri such as Francesco Sforza turned military command into political power.
