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Contra damnationis ﬁlios: the Visconti in fourteenth-century papal diplomacy

Sharon Dale

Humanities and Social Sciences, Penn State-Erie, The Behrend College, Station Road, Erie, PA 16363-1501, USA

Abstract

This article seeks to reappraise the relationship between the Avignon papacy and the Visconti lords of Milan during the fourteenth century. Avignon popes generally viewed the Visconti as the major obstacle to papal temporal power in Italy and thus fashioned propaganda that demonised them. This mythic portrayal, that was re-framed by Florence to justify its own imperialistic ambitions in Tuscany, has been accepted uncritically by modern historiography. Documents from the Vatican archive reveal a more complicated diplomacy. Papal policy toward the Visconti was far from consistent, as the curia welcomed Visconti money and Avignonese popes regularly granted the Visconti papal vicariates. This article demonstrates that the papal-Visconti struggle was a key factor in the creation of the strategic alliance between Florence and the Visconti that made the War of Eight Saints possible and ended the Guelph alliance. This study further suggests that the political ambitions of Giangaleazzo Visconti were stoked in great measure by the Great Schism when partisans of both popes looked to him as the saviour of the Church and of Italy. Finally this article suggests that a re-evaluation of fourteenth-century diplomacy might accord closer scrutiny to the role played by the Church in destabilising Italy. Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Visconti; Diplomacy; Papacy; Great Schism; Italy

Author's personal copy

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The portrayal of the Visconti in Italian historiography is curiously bifurcated.1 Recent scholarship in Italian political history has illuminated the critical role played by the Visconti ducal state in the formation of regional states in Italy.2 Yet, an image of the Visconti as malevolent tyrants has been a stock feature of Florentine historiography in which the Florentine struggle against Giangaleazzo Visconti is cast in Manichaean terms: ‘the only champion of the ideals of democracy and liberty in Italy’,3 defeats Visconti tyranny through the virtu` of its citizens. This study attempts to reconcile these two seemingly contradictory views of the Visconti by locating the source of both the villainous image and the emerging regional state in the Trecento struggle between the Avignon papacy and the Visconti. The iniquitous image was not the product of a ‘struggle for liberty’, in Florence as Hans Baron termed it,4 but of papal ambitions for temporal power in fourteenth-century Italy. In fact, Florence had appropriated an already com- plete model of a demonised Visconti from elsewhere. The Avignon papacy in its propaganda against the Visconti regularly applied terms such as ‘heretic’, ‘Belial’, ‘son of iniquity’, ‘son of perdition’ and ‘son of damnation’, creating a mythic image of villainy that was adapted only later by Florence. The Visconti were one of many families, equally ambitious and often equally rapacious, that vied for political power in northern Italy and were opposed to any expansion of papal temporal authority. But papal diplomacy singled out the Visconti, casting them as enemies needing to be defeated and rooted out of Italy by papal armies. Moreover, the papacy, and most notably its legates, unwittingly created an aura of Visconti invincibility, for time and again, the forces of the Avignon popes could not extirpate them. And, documents from papal archives reveal that the papacy’s policy was far from consistent, for the papacy welcomed Visconti money and made frequent accommodations with Visconti power by

1 Giannina Biscaro’s, ‘Le relazioni dei Visconti con la Chiesa’, Archivio Storico Lombardo, 46 (1919), 84-227; 47 (1920), 193-271; 54 (1927), 44-236, based on an intensive examination of papal registers in the Archivio Secreto Vat- icano (hereafter ASV), is a model of archivally based scholarship and was the stimulus for the present article. Biscaro did not, however, consider the larger issue addressed here. The series was continued by Gerolamo Biscaro in the same journal and under the same title in 55 (1928), 1-96 and n.s. 2 (1937), 119-93, but, these latter works are only lightly dependent on archival research and evince a distinct and pervasive anti-Visconti bias. A startlingly different interpre- tation of this diplomacy was advanced by Mollat, whose model of cunning, vicious Visconti versus Avignon popes who were ‘nobly’ working to bring peace to Europe, is hardly borne out by the evidence in papal registers, many of which Mollat himself edited. See Guillaume Mollat, The popes at Avignon 1305-1378 (9th edition, London, 1949), 62. Modern scholars, in the main, have relied on Mollat and extended his model. 2 Pioneered by Giorgio Chittolini, the subject has been the subject of numerous excellent studies. See for example, Giorgio Chittolini, ‘Alcuni considerazioni sulla storia politico-istituzionale del tardo Medioevo: alle origini degli ‘stati regionali’’, Annali dell’ Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento, 2 (1976), 401-19 and Principi e citta` alla fine del Me- dioevo, ed. Sergio Gensini (San Miniato, 1996). 3 Antonio Lanza, Firenze Contro Milano, Gli intellettuali fiorentini nelle guerre con i Visconti (1390-1440) (Anzio, 1990), 13. Lanza was expressing a view best identified with Hans Baron, The crisis of the early Italian renaissance: civic humanism and republican liberty in an age of classicism and tyranny (rev. edition, Princeton, 1966) and sub- sequently extended by numerous historians. The model has been challenged and in many ways discredited yet, the portrayal of the ViscontiAuthor's has not been re-evaluated. personal See James Hankins, ‘The ‘Baron thesis’copy after forty years and some recent studies of Leonardo Bruni’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 56 (1995), 309-38. Even a careful scholar like Gene Brucker refers to the ‘Visconti behemoth’ of c. 1360 while describing Florence’s conquest of Tuscan cities as ‘The steady extension of communal authority into outlying areas d for example, the cities of Pistoia and Volterra’. in the same period; Gene Brucker, Florentine politics and society 1343-1378 (Princeton, 1962) 150-1 and 183. 4 Hans Baron, ‘A struggle for liberty in the renaissance: Florence, Venice, and Milan in the early quattrocento’, Amer- ican Historical Review, 58 (1952-53), 265-89, 544-70. S. Dale / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 1e32 3 granting nearly every Visconti lord a papal vicariate. Such concessions of titles of legitimate authority give the lie to the allegedly obdurate opposition of the papacy to Visconti political power. Their demonisation by successive popes, coupled with the inability of the papacy to defeat them, led to the perception that the Visconti were more powerful than they really were, until, ironically, they were viewed as and eventually became the major obstacle to papal temporal domination in Italy. And the Visconti exploited their vilification by the Church so that even the most zealous Guelph city-state, Florence, sought their protection against the papacy in the War of Eight Saints. Moreover, the corrosive effect on the reputation of the Avignon papacy in Italy as a result of its wars against the Visconti had a major role in its own demise. Onerous taxes levied to pay armies in the papal state eroded support for the papacy in Italy.5 And the Great Schism, was, in part, a product of the bellicose Ital- ian policy pursued by Avignon. Finally, the schism effectively neutralised papal resistance to the Visconti and allowed Giangaleazzo Visconti to assume a mantle of virtual invincibility that only death e or the civic virtu` of Florence, could defeat. Thus a new myth arose from the ashes of an earlier one. The pattern that shaped papal diplomacy with the Visconti was set early in the fourteenth century by Pope John XXII (1316-34), whose election followed a contentious two year vacancy on the throne of St Peter. Following Henry VII’s death in 1313, imperial power was contested between Louis of Bavaria and Frederick of Austria, which precipitated a crisis when the pope declared the imperial throne vacant. The bull Si fratrum, issued in April 1317, was a transparent attempt to expand papal temporal authority in Italy at the expense of the empire and Italian Ghibellines.6 It stipulated that since the disputed imperial election of 1314 had created a vacancy in the empire, the pope was obligated to assume its jurisdiction. Further, the exercise of the imperial vicariate in Italy without papal authorisation would be punishable by excommunication and temporal sanctions. To implement this expansion of power, the pope appointed as his legate to Italy Cardinal Bertrand du Poujet, who brought the confrontation directly to the Visconti.7 Beginning in July 1319, du Poujet led a papal-Angevin army into Lombardy and Piedmont. Du Poujet’s general goal was the eradication of Ghibellinism in Italy and he focused his efforts primarily,

5 Jean Gleńisson, ‘Les origines de la re´volte de l’e´tat pontifical en 1375’, Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia,5 (1951), 145-68. 6 On the bull, see Peter Partner, The lands of St Peter (Berkeley, 1972), 304-5. 7 In his chapter on the papacy of John XXII, Mollat makes no mention of the Si fratrum or the violent tenure of Bertrand du Poujet as legate in Italy. His sole reference to the Visconti is, ‘[John XXII]. dealt with the innumerable and exceptionally serious difficulties caused him by the Visconti in Milan, by Louis of Bavaria, the rebel Franciscans under the leadership of Michael of Cesena, the schism of Pietro da Corbara, and by the rebellion of the towns in the papal states;’ Mollat, Popes at Avignon, 24. The Si fratrum is discussed in a subsequent chapter, ‘The papacy and Italy’ in which John’s seizure of the prerogatives of imperial power is juxtaposed against Ghibelline forces who ‘formed a bloc withAuthor's Matteo Visconti who, as Villani personal tells us, considered himself no less copy than a king’: Mollatt, Popes at Avignon, 77-80. Mollat frames this Ghibellline alliance as a ‘danger’ to ‘the balance of power in Italy that the Roman Church had always sought to preserve in intact’: Popes at Avignon, 77. Similarly, Yves Renouard depicts John XXII’s foreign policy in Italy as focused on returning the papacy to Rome and thus needing to quell Italian unrest. ‘In 1319, John XXII appointed a fellow Cahorsin whom he had made Cardinal, Bertrand du Poujet, to lead the military expedition intended to rescue northern Italy from the Visconti and the Scaligieri and re-establish papal authority in Bologna and the Romagna’. Yves Renouard, The Avignon papacy, trans. Denis Bethell (Hamden, CT, 1970), 29. 4 S. Dale / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 1e32 though not exclusively, on the Visconti.8 Backed by an enriched papal treasury,9 and the fre- quently exercised power of excommunication and interdict, du Poujet doubtless slowed Visconti expansion in northern Italy, even as he would fail to eliminate them.10 Excommunication of the Visconti began in 1322 and included the lord of Milan, Matteo I as well as his sons Galeazzo I, Luchino, Marco, Giovanni and Stefano.11 The cause of the excommunication was the ‘usurpa- tion’ of the lordship of Milan by Matteo during the vacancy in the empire. All of the Visconti were routinely described as heretics in processes against them.12 Their followers and political supporters throughout Lombardy were excommunicated on charges of heresy as well.13 Arriving in Italy in 1327 and receiving the iron crown in both Milan and Rome, Louis of Bavaria responded to the pope with an inversion of the Si fratrum. He proclaimed that since Rome was the spiritual seat of the Christian world and no pope resided there, the throne of St Peter was vacant and the papacy of John XXII in Avignon was invalid. Louis then crowned a new pope, Nicholas V, the former Peter Rainalducci of Corbara on 12 May 1328.14 Neither emperor nor anti-pope had much power or even credibility outside a few Ghibelline strongholds like Pisa, Lucca and Pavia. Elsewhere, Louis was badly wounded politically by his decision to declare Pope John XXII a false pope. While Italian Ghibellines vigorously resented any extension of papal power in the temporal realm and had sought the imperial alliance to thwart such efforts, the spiritual realm was some- thing else. The theorist of popular government and critic of papal power Marsilius of Padua had called for a drastically curtailed church, but the vast majority of Italians opposed such tamper- ing. Italians generally wanted the Roman Church back in Rome, not a schismatic church with an anti-pope beholden to a German emperor. By 1330 Louis had learned that harsh truth. He retreated to Germany, paid off by Azzo Visconti, while the Pisans turned over the anti-pope to the Avignon curia for arrest.15 Louis’s departure from Italy set the stage for a reconciliation between John XXII and the Italian Ghibellines. After fighting the Visconti for over a decade, in

8 An older but still useful source is Lisetta Ciaccio, Il cardinal legato Bertrando del Poggetto in Bologna (1327-1334) (Bologna, 1906) that includes transcriptions of 50 pertinent documents. 9 John XXII successfully rebuilt the papal treasury that had been depleted by his predecessor Clement V; Mollat, Popes at Avignon, 14. On John XXII’s expenditures in these efforts see Yves Renouard, Les relations des papes d’Avignon et des compagnies commerciales et bancaires de 1316 a` 1378 (Paris, 1941), 169-70 10 See Carlo Capasso, ‘La signoria viscontea e la lotta politico-religiosa’, Bollettino della Societa` Pavese di Storia Pat- ria, 8 (1908), 265-317; 408-36. 11 The legal proceedings against the Visconti are in collected in Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (hereafter BAV) Vat. Lat. 3937. See Leonida Besozzi ‘I processi canonici contro Galeazzo Visconti’, Archivio Storico Lombardo, 107 (1981, published 1984), 235-45. 12 Italian Ghibelline opponents of papal temporal power were also accused of witchcraft in plotting the death of the pope; See Gerolamo Biscaro, ‘Dante Alighieri e i sortilegi di Matteo e Galeazzo Visconti contro papa Giovanni XXII’, Archivio Storico Lombardo, 47 (1920), 446-81. 13 See Leonida Besozzi, ‘Famiglie di Cannobio nella contesa tra i Visconti e Giovanni XXII’, Verbanus, 2 (1980), 89-103 and ‘I milanesi fautori nei processi canonici degli anni 1322-1323’, Archivium Historicae Pontiﬁcae,3 (1982), 7-63. For aAuthor's lengthy bibliography on the inquisition personal of the Visconti in this period see copy Andrea Gamberini, ‘Il prin- cipe e i vescovi: un aspetto della politica ecclesiastica di Gian Galeazzo Visconti’, Archivio Storico Lombardo, ser. 12, 4 (1997), 39-115 at 93-4. 14 Giovanni Villani, Cronica, ed. F. G. Dragomanni (Milan, 1848), book 10: chapter 69, 63e6. See too Partner, Lands of St Peter, 319. The latter is still the best guide in English to a complicated history. 15 The anti-pope Nicholas V, isolated and without any support, was handed over by the Pisans to the Avignon curia in August. His confession is in ASV Armadio 34 pt. 2 f. 31v. He confessed his errors and genuﬂected before the pope requesting forgiveness. As well, he repudiated the heretic and schismatic Louis of Bavaria. S. Dale / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 1e32 5

June 1331 John XXII acknowledged the Visconti repudiation of Louis of Bavaria and his anti- pope. The changed papal attitude was the result of shrewd politicking and generous payments by the Visconti. They did, after all, provide the funds that made Louis’s departure from Italy possible and they were no less generous to the pope. Azzo Visconti’s ambassadors negotiated a war indemnity of 50,000 florins for damages suffered by the papacy in fighting the Visconti and an annual census of 10,000 florins. These amounts were a quarter of the monies first sought by the pope and substantially less than the cost of supporting Louis of Bavaria in the manner to which he had hoped to become accustomed.16 The papacy stopped short of full absolution for Italian Ghibellines, which would not be granted for a decade.17 Nonetheless, Giovanni Visconti, who had been made a cardinal by the schismatic pope,18 was named bishop of Novara in 1332 by the very pope who had ordered his excommunication. Likewise, still excommunicated,19 Azzo was named vicar of Milan and Piacenza by John XXII.20 The emerging Visconti domination of Lombardy was validated and given the imprimatur of legitimacy by such actions. Conversely, such recognition would inexorably erode the reputation of the Avignon papacy. Du Poujet had not only failed to eradicate the Visconti, but the papacy had nearly bankrupted itself in the effort. The war in Italy eventually consumed over three million florins or two thirds of John XXII’s income.21 It is both notable and ironic that the papal alliance with the Vis- conti was necessitated by a need for cash, which was itself the direct result of the heavy financial toll taken by the same pope’s war to oust the Visconti from power in Lombardy, where they in fact held legitimate authority.22 John’s successor, Pope Benedict XII (1334- 42) provided Italy with a respite from aggressive papal intervention.23 He was an austere Cistercian whose dominant agenda was the reform of monastic practice. Inheriting a seriously deflated treasury, he rigorously pursued a streamlined and efficient collection system

16 ‘Impecunious kings were not rare in fourteenth-century Europe. But [Louis’] lack of money was chronic and des- perate to a degree which sets him apart from most of his contemporaries’. Hilary S. Offler, ‘Empire and papacy: the last struggle’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, 6 (1956), 21-47, at 31. 17 ASVArmadio 34 t. 2 f. 19. John XXII did not permanently lift the interdict on the city of Milan. On 2 June 1331, the procurators of the clergy and populace of Milan presented their declarations of loyalty to the papacy in consistory. How- ever, presumably using this as leverage against the Visconti, the pope delayed lifting the interdict. Armadio 34 t. 2 f. 58v. Giovanni Villani, Croniche, book 10: chapter 181, 165, reported that the excommunication of the Milanese and the Marchigians was lifted on 4 June that year. See too Francesco Cognasso in Storia di Milano, 5 (Milan, 1955), 238-41. 18 See Konrad Eubel, ‘Der Gegenpapst Nikolaus V und sein Hierarchie’, Historisches Jahrbuch, 12 (1891), 277-308. 19 Azzo’s excommunication was not part of the earliest denunciations of the Visconti that were levelled by the inquisitorial panel. He was excommunicated late in 1323, along with his cousins Roberto and Vercellino. This group is not specifically named in subsequent documents condemning the other Visconti, indicating their indirect culpability as ‘fau- tores’ or supporters of those already excommunicated. BAV Vat. Lat. 3937 f. 103. 20 The vicariate was granted to Azzone due to the ‘vacancy in the empire’. It did not, however, grant full temporal power in the name of the Church, a distinction emphasised by Biscaro, ‘Le relazioni dei Visconti’ 46 (1919), 163. Bis- caro comments more about the exceptional nature of this vicariate later in the chapter, see 167. 21 Partner, Lands of St Peter, 326. Fiamma described John as ‘the richest Christian’. Gualvanei de la Flamma, Opus- culum de rebus gestisAuthor's ab Azone, Luchino et Johanne Vicecomitibuspersonal ab anno MCCCXXVIII copy usque ad annum MCCCXLII, in: Ludovico Antonio Muratori, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores [n.s.] [hereafter RIS n.s.] ed. Carlo Castiglioni (Bologna, 1938), vol. 12 pt 4, 15. On John’s income see Renouard, Relations des papes d’Avignon et des compagnies commerciales, table 32-I. 22 See Th. Sickel, ‘Das Vikariat der Visconti’, Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaf (1859), 3-81. 23 On Benedict’s policy of seeking peace where possible see Helen Jenkins, ‘Papal efforts for peace under Benedict XII’ (published doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1933), esp. 74. 6 S. Dale / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 1e32 from his benefice holders.24 Expending only about six per cent of his income on war,25 he rebuilt the war-depleted treasury. Perhaps his most lasting efforts were in the ambitious con- struction of the papal palace at Avignon, lending an important symbol of permanence to a heretofore peripatetic curia.26 Alone among later Avignon popes, Benedict XII resisted the temptation of war with the Vis- conti. Benedict preferred to use spiritual weapons, offering absolution from interdict and excommunication in exchange for peace as, for example in 1341 when he issued a long series of absolutions for Ghibelline cities, including Milan, that had supported Louis of Bavaria.27 Benedict attempted to negotiate with Azzo Visconti the recognition of papal temporal power in Italy. Azzo was willing to renounce Louis of Bavaria, but he would not accept papal control of Lombard cities including Piacenza, Lodi and Crema. For this refusal he would never receive absolution and died excommunicated. Nevertheless, upon Azzo’s death in 1339, Benedict named Luchino Visconti his papal vicar for Milan and the lord of Piacenza and Crema.28 The seeming rapprochement with the Visconti was consistent with Benedict’s efforts to prevent German expansion into Italy while abandoning John XXII’s policy of active warfare with the Visconti. Once again a large payment to the papal treasury, 50,000 florins, sealed the arrangement. Benedict rightly saw that the Visconti could keep Louis out of Italy and to this Limousin pope, a Visconti-dominated Lombardy was preferable to a German one. This message was not lost on the Visconti. Luchino immediately embarked on territorial expansion. The Milanese chronicler Galvano Fiamma observed that he wanted to dominate all of Lombardy.29 The rigid, but peace-seeking Benedict would be succeeded by the sophisticated and cultivated Clement VI in 1342. This pope’s relations with the Visconti give a truer picture of Vis- conti influence on papal diplomacy. At first Clement sought accommodation. He named Giovanni Visconti the archbishop of Milan, the position that he had long sought. Inheriting a re- plenished treasury of around 1.5 million florins, Clement VI reduced the amount that Giovanni and Luchino Visconti had to pay in reparations to the 50,000 florins already paid the papal treasury in 1342, for they had demonstrated ‘humility and contrition’.30 Clement’s attention was initially focused upon the unfolding Hundred Years’ War and by a preoccupation with punish- ing anyone trading with ‘Turks’ or ‘Saracens’.31 Correspondence with Luchino Visconti pressed him to pay various sums of money as specified in benefices and treaties. He was always

24 On this subject see B. Guillemain, La politique beńe´ficiale du Pape Benoit XII (1334-1342) (Bibliothe`que de l’E´ cole des Hautes Etudes, fasc. 299, Paris, 1952). 25 Partner, Lands of St Peter, 338. 26 On the peregrinations of the papacy in the thirteenth century see Mollat, Popes at Avignon, xiii-xiv. 27 ASV Reg. Vat. 129 contains most of these absolutions. The letters absolving Giovanni and Luchino Visconti indicate that they had been unfairly found guilty of deeds executed by Galeazzo, Marco and Stefano Visconti, f. 38r-39r. None of these absolutions mention Azzo. A provisional lifting of the interdict had been granted in 1335; Luigi Osio, Documenti tratti dagli archivii Milanesi, 1 (Milan, 1865), no. 54. 28 Stephanus Baluzius, Vitae Paparum Avenionensium hoc est historia pontificum romanorum . ed. Guillaume Mollat (Paris, 1914), vol. 1, Sexta Vita Benedicti XII, 231. 29 Gundisalvo Odetto,Author's ‘La Cronaca Maggiore dell’ Ordine personal Domenicano di Galvano Fiamma’, copyArchivum Fratrum Prae- dicatorium, 10 (1940): 297-373, at 341. 30 ASV Reg. Vat. 137 f. 33v no. 97. Also cited by Caterina Santoro, La Politica Finanzaria dei Visconti 1, 3 (Varese, 1976), vol. 1, no. 48. Cle´ment VI (1342-1352): lettres closes, patentes et curiales, inte´ressant les pays autres que la France, publieés ou analyseés d’apre`s les registres du Vatican, ed. E. De´prez and G. Mollat (Paris: 1960), no. 196, er- roneously cited as f. 23v. 31 ASV Reg. Vat. 137 f. 117v no. 393 of 1344 is a typical letter to Edward of England urging peace with Philip of France. A letter excommunicating anyone trading with ‘Saracens’, is at ASV Reg. Vat. 141 f. 48r (20 July 1347). S. Dale / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 1e32 7 referred to as the vicar of the Roman Church, as was Giovanni.32 Other correspondence to the archbishop exhorted resistance to the ‘Turkish people who are offensive toward the Catholic faith’.33 Like many other such letters, they were intended to generate support and revenue for yet another crusade. Later in 1344, Clement decreed that the holders of all benefices needed to pay a year’s tithe for the ‘necessities of the Church’, that is, a crusade.34 In 1346, a triennial tithe was ordered for the war against the Turks.35 Piedmont and Lombardy were far from peaceful, but papal preoccupation with another crusade and revenge against Louis of Bavaria overrode any strongly punitive action there. Clement beseeched the various players to recall their common enemies, the Turks and ‘the condemned Bavarian and the other heretics and rebels [against the Church]’.36 The endless low-level warfare in northern Italy clearly irked the pope, but his most forceful objection was that such wars were causing the various nobles, magnates and communes involved to lapse in their payments of ecclesiastical taxes, the continued absence of which would provoke excommunication of the offenders.37 Even the staunchly loyal Joanna of Naples was periodically threatened with sanctions by the pope for her reluctance to pay the premiums demanded for the new crusade.38 And Clement gratefully accepted 10,000 florins a year from the Visconti as the census for their vicariates,39 tempering any strongly negative actions against the expansion of Visconti political power for a long while. The Visconti brothers maintained a two-headed strategy of leadership, with Luchino providing the visible face of military aggression while Giovanni seemingly tended to episcopal matters.40 This charade was tacitly accepted by the pope, even as he correctly understood that political authority was shared and military decisions jointly determined.41 While Giovanni and Luchino Visconti avoided incursions into the papal state, their territorial ambitions elsewhere were not

32 ASV Reg. Vat. 137 f. 134r no. 463 (3 November 1343) is a letter to the Archbishop Giovanni Visconti urging him to be sure that his brother Luchino pays his census. Both brothers are referred to as vicars. 33 ASV Reg. Vat. 137 f. 166v no. 584 (4 January 1344). 34 ASV Instr. Misc. 1635 (11 May 1344). 35 ASV Reg. Vat. 140 f. 6v no. 18 is the letter to bishops and archbishops, including those in Milan, exhorting all to pay the triennial tithe to fund the fight against the Turks. 36 ASV Reg. Vat. 170 f. 12v (21 May 1346) is typical as various Visconti, Amedeo of Savoy and the marquis of Mon- ferrato were urged to cease nibbling away at the Piedmontese territory of Joanna of Naples. 37 ASV Reg. Vat. 141 f. 39r. (9 July 1347). 38 Clement revoked Joanna’s concessions, donations, infeudations and privileges over her reluctance to pay the premium for the crusade; ASV Instr. Misc 1670 (11 June 1345). A letter of 20 May 1347 in ASV Reg. Vat. 141 f. 281v-282v pressed Joanna for these funds as well, indicating the durability of these requests, denials and processes. 39 ASV Reg. Vat. 140 f. 121r (18 September 1346) is a payment record citing both Visconti as vicars of the Roman church who owe 10,000 florins for their annual census. 40 Clement was cautious and calculating in his dealings with Giovanni Visconti concerning religious affairs. When the bishop of Lodi died in 1343, Giovanni Visconti actively promoted a Milanese member of the Umiliati as his successor. Luchino Visconti was the papal vicar of Lodi, yet Clement did not accept Giovanni’s recommendation, unwilling perhaps to grant more authority to Visconti partisans. Conversely in 1350, as relations with the Visconti were eroding, Clement named aAuthor's penitentiary from Rome as the new personal prior general of the Umiliati and wascopy careful to thank Giovanni Visconti for recommending him: Cle´ment VI: lettres closes, ed. De´prez and Mollat, no. 2220. 41 Clement wrote separately to Luchino and Giovanni about Luchino’s aggression against Louis of Savoy and Amedeo of Savoy in Turin. ASV Reg. Vat 141 f. 73r and v (8 September 1347). But at f. 73v and 74 r, the same letter, mutatis mutandis was sent to the marquis of Monferrato. And in December the pope wrote to Giovanni that ‘you and dear son noble man Luchino Visconti your brother’ had occupied a borough in Piedmont that belonged to the seneschal of Pro- vence. This contains the strongest language so far about the discord as the pope commanded the Visconti to leave the territory. ASV Reg. Vat. 141 f. 171r (28 December 1347). 8 S. Dale / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 1e32 well received in Avignon and strained relations with Clement VI.42 The cities of Lodi, Vercelli, Asti and Albi were all subjected to Visconti aggression that provoked papal missives urging its cessation.43 Asti, a city held by Joanna of Naples, seemed to be wavering and was cautioned by the pope to remain loyal to the Angevins.44 As well, the Visconti had taken Tortona, a fact that Clement recognised with characteristic reluctant pragmatism.45 That the Visconti had designs on Pavia is suggested by papal warnings that they not violate the boundary of that diocese in 1347.46 Repeated letters were sent urging the Visconti to honour papally forged treaties, yet they were not alone in violating the peace. The active enmity between the Visconti, Monferrato, Saluzzo, a host of Savoyards and Acaea that took the form of contesting control of Alessandria and other cities in Piedmont, blunted any specifically anti-Visconti action, for the time being.47 The Visconti correctly surmised that Clement was preoccupied with shoring up the church treasury to continue the successful crusade of Smyrna of 1344.48 And as the chronicler Pietro Azario noted, Luchino and Giovanni Visconti assiduously avoided taxing ecclesiastical benefices in their territory, even as Luchino forbade the Church to acquire real property in Lombardy.49 The always astute Giannina Biscaro observed that despite growing ‘animosity and diffidence’ on the part of the pope, the Visconti, between 1341 and 1349 had, in fact, observed the tenets of the peace forged with Benedict XII.50 The demise of Luchino Visconti in 1349, coupled with a renewed interest in Italian matters at the Avignon curia, markedly altered the political equation. While the co-eval tribunate of Cola di Rienzo is better recalled today,51 the Visconti were the greater Italian concern of the papacy. Lu- chino’s death exposed the Archbishop Giovanni’s political designs, for he refused to return lands

42 A glimpse into their territorial expansion is offered by a fragment of a register recording purchases of rural property by Luchino and his brother. See Francesco Cognasso, ‘Richerche per la storia dello stato visconteo-II, Un registro pat- rimoniale di Luchino Visconti’, Bollettino della Societa` Pavese di Storia Patria, 22 (1926), 1-63. 43 ‘Vexation’ of the bishop of Lodi was the subject of a letter to Giovanni Visconti in ASV Reg. Vat. 141 f. 88r (24 September 1347). The ‘molestation’ by the recently deceased Luchino Visconti of territory near Vercelli is addressed in several letters. ASV Reg. Vat. 142 f. 5r-7r (24 May 1348). Earlier that year, the citizens, podesta` and consilio of Albi were cautioned to stop molesting its bishop; ASV Reg. Vat. 142 f. 105 (2 Jan 1348) and agents of the Visconti had seized church property in Asti; ASV Reg. Vat. 142 f. 133r-v (30 January 1348). 44 ASV Reg. Vat. 141 f. 13 v records letters to the bishops of Asti and Alba urging them to remain loyal to Joanna (17 June 1347). 45 ASV Reg. Vat. 139 f. 206v (16 February 1346). 46 ASV Reg. Vat 141 f. 12r (13 June 1347) is a letter to the vicar, anziani and other leaders of Valenza, in the diocese of Pavia, asking them to maintain good relations with and loyalty to Joanna of Naples. Later that month the pope wrote to Luchino urging him to stop sending hostile forces against the count of Lomello in Langusco, in the diocese of Pavia in violation of the treaties negotiated by the papacy; ASV Reg. Vat. 141 f. 44r (14 June 1347). 47 A typical series of correspondences of this genre is in ASV Reg. Vat. 141 f. 41r from 10 July 1347. The first was addressed to Giovanni, the Marquis of Monferrato and exhorted him to be peaceful in Piedmont. Similar letters were send to Luchino Visconti, Giovanni Visconti, Amedeo of Savoy, Louis of Savoy, Amedeo, the Count of Geneva and Jacopo of Savoy (Acaea), the same parties (or their successors), that will contest Piedmont for decades. A year earlier, all the lords of Piedmont and Lombardy had been ordered to stop pressuring the Angevin holdings in Piedmont. The letters were sent asAuthor's far as the Carrara in Padua and topersonal Taddeo Pepoli in Bologna ASV Reg.copy Vat. 140 f. 38r (15 June 1346). 48 On this crusade see Norman Housley, The Avignon papacy and the crusades, 1305-1378 (Oxford, 1986), 32-4. 49 Biscaro, ‘Le relazioni dei Visconti’ (1927), 226-7. 50 Biscaro, ‘Le relazioni dei Visconti’ (1927), 227. 51 Amanda Collins, Greater than emperor: Cola da Rienzo (ca. 1313-54) and the world of fourteenth-century Rome, (Ann Arbor, 2002); Ronald G. Musto, Apocalypse in Rome: Cola da Rienzo and the politics of the new age (Berkeley, 2003). S. Dale / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 1e32 9 and castles seized by Luchino, despite being urged repeatedly by Clement to do so.52 At the same time, the declaration of a Jubilee year in 1350 was the pretext for Clement’s new enthusiasm for reasserting temporal control in Rome and the papal state, a process begun in December 1347, with the naming of Astorge de Durfort as papal legate to Romagna.53 Clement’s letters regarding the Jubilee included an unsubtle warning that transgressors against the Church should mend their ways in order to benefit from the remission of sins that might accompany a pilgrimage to Rome that year. Giovanni Visconti was among the many to receive such a letter.54 Luchino’s death renewed Giovanni Visconti’s interest in seeking absolution for other, long- deceased members of the family. A delegation of Visconti ambassadors was sent to Avignon for this purpose and its arrival was courteously acknowledged by Clement in a letter to Giovanni.55 But, the appeal was not acted upon by the consistory, which declined to hear the case due to protests by Cardinal Bertrand de Deaulx, who requested more information before undertaking the process. Bertrand had served as papal legate to Joanna of Naples between 1346 and 1348, as Luchino Visconti began encroaching upon her lands in Piedmont and the cardinal was evidently unwilling to grant absolution to any Visconti, even long-dead ones. It must have seemed the most effective means of communicating papal displeasure with current Visconti behaviour; the sins of the sons being retroactively applied to the fathers.56 But, Giovanni was incensed over the rejection and, fortified by the return from exile of his nephews Galeazzo II and Bernabo`, he began to move aggressively into the papal state and elsewhere.57 The earliest papal letter directed to Bernabo` and Galeazzo II, regarding incursions in Faenza, comes on the heels of this consistorial rebuff.58 In his last years as pope, Clement and his legate Astorge de Durfort unwittingly set into motion the creation of a legalistic hornet’s nest that would be the basis for violent confrontations with the Visconti for decades to come. In the fateful summer of 1350 Astorge first arrested Giovanni Pe- poli, the lord of Bologna, signalling the papacy’s renewed temporal interest in Romagna. Later

52 In ASV Reg. Vat. 142 f. 156r of 17 Feb. 1349, Luchino is described as quondam, that is, dead. He had died in Jan- uary. The pope urged Giovanni to return territory in Vercelli. Later that year the pope wrote that he knew that Luchino had ‘vexed’ Genoa and that Giovanni continued to do so and he urged the archbishop to cooperate with the papal nunzio, a canon from Narni, whom the pope had sent to mediate; ASV Reg. Vat. 142 f. 164r (7 March 1349). The next year, Giovanni was asked by the pope to restore the lands seized by Luchino to their rightful owners, indicating Giovanni’s continued reluctance to cede any acquired territories; ASV Reg. Vat. 143 f. 21r. (9 June 1350). 53 ASV Reg. Vat. 141 f. 169v (23 December 1347). 54 ASV Reg. Vat. 142 f. 190v (23 March 1349). 55 Giovanni’s choice of ambassadors was characteristically meticulous. Among the delegates was Leone de Dugnano, the lawyer and Visconti loyalist who had served as Azzo’s representative to Benedict in 1335, and who could provide an extraordinary first-hand history of the process. ASV Reg. Vat. 143 f. 46r-v (2 August 1350). 56 For Bertrand see Konrad Eubel, Hierarchia Catholica medii aevi (8 vols, Monasteri: 1898), 1, 17. For the consistorial rebuff see Cle´ment VI: Lettres closes, ed. De´prez and Mollat, no. 2114 (15 December 1349). 57 Luchino had exiled his nephews Galeazzo II and Bernabo`. See Petri Azarii, Liber Gestorum in Lombardia ed. Francesco Cognasso in: Ludovico Antonio Muratori, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores (Bologna, 1926), vol. 16 pt 4, 37. Despite direct papal intervention by Clement, Luchino refused to permit their return. A letter from the pope urged Luchino to forgive them or at least allow them the usufruct of their property ASV Reg. Vat. 141 f. 86v (23 September 1347). A later letter indicates that Bernabo` appearedAuthor's personally to petition for papal assistance personal in the matter. ASV Reg. Vat. 141copy f. 236v-237r (5 April 1348). 58 ASV Reg. Vat. 143, f. 157v. Significantly, the first reference to the purported torturing of a captive lord occurs just as this next generation of Visconti milites enters the fray. In a letter addressed to Archbishop Giovanni, the pope advised that he had heard that the Marquis of Ceva, a lawyer, acting as emissary for the pope to Genoa, was kidnapped and taken to Asti where he was reportedly tortured; ASV Reg. Vat. 143 f. 139r (13 February 1350). Freed and evidently not the less for wear, the Marquis was sent again by the pope to Genoa six months later: Cle´ment VI: (1342-1352): Lettres se rapportant a` la France, publieés ou analyseés d’apre`s les registres du Vatican, ed. E. De´prez and G. Mollat (Paris, 1959), no. 4617 and 4618 (31 July 1350). 10 S. Dale / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 1e32 that month, Clement warned Giovanni Visconti not to aid the Pepoli, who were now opposing the Church,59 and Astorge sought Visconti assistance in removing them from Bologna.60 That fall, Giovanni Pepoli, whose freedom had been ransomed, sold the lordship of Bologna to Giovanni Visconti for 200,000 florins.61 Astorge tried and failed to militarily remove the Visconti from Bo- logna, as the pope issued processes of excommunication against Giovanni and Galeazzo II Vis- conti and the Pepoli for their occupation of the city.62 In the face of failure, Clement invoked anew the model established by Pope John XXII. Giovanni Visconti was named papal vicar of Bo- logna for a 12 year term in exchange for annual payments of 12,000 florins and an expression of contrition for fighting against the papacy.63 An additional war indemnity of 100,000 florins was to be paid by the Visconti and the Pepoli.64 Giovanni was further obligated to provide 400 armed soldiers for service to the church.65 Finally, Giovanni and his heirs pledged to stay out of the territories of the kingdom of Sicily in Piedmont.66 This hastily brokered arrangement was of critical significance to Giovanni Visconti’s successors, particularly Bernabo`, who would henceforth justify repeated incursions into the papal state by citing the purchase of Bologna from the Pepoli and the legal tenets of the papal grant, which specifically included a clause permitting the vicariate to be inherited by the archbishop’s heirs.67 Six months after the vicariate was granted, Clement was dead. Besides a substantial library of sermons that he preached and a legacy of artistic and literary patronage, he left his successor, Pope Innocent VI, a nearly empty treasury.68 Unfazed, Innocent appointed Cardinal Gil Albornoz as his legate to northern Italy.69 Some 80 letters defined and publicised Albornoz’s

59 ASV Reg. Vat. 144, f. 61v (31 July 1350). 60 ASV Reg. Vat. 144, f. 59r (31 July 1350). Taddeo Pepoli had forged an alliance with Luchino Visconti in 1347; See Niccolo` Rodolico, Dal Comune alla Signoria saggio sul governo di Taddeo Pepoli in Bologna (Bologna, 1948), no. 81. 61 Matteo Villani, Cronica, ed. Giuseppe Porta (2 vols, Parma, Fondazione Pietro Bembo, 1995), vol. 1, book 1: chapter 70: 133. See too, Paul Lecacheux, ‘La premie`re le´gation de Guillaume Grimoard en Italie (juillet-novembre 1352)’, Me´langes d’ archeólogie et d’ histoire, 17 (1897), 409-39. 62 ASV Reg. Vat. 144 f. 161v (20 November 1350); 209v (4 February 1351) and Inst. Misc. 1853. See too, Augustin Theiner, Codex diplomaticus dominii temporalis S. Sedis (3 vols, Rome: 1862), vol. 2, no. 205. 63 Giovanni’s expression of contrition is at ASV Reg. Vat. 145 f. 229v (17 April 1352). On 29 June 1352 the pope granted Giovanni and his three nephews the vicariate of Bologna, ASV Reg. Vat. 146 f. 34r. Theiner also published a longer subsequent document in which the pope acknowledged Giovanni’s payments of 6000 florins for half of the annual vicariate obligation and 50,000 florins of the war indemnity owed by Giovanni and his nephews; Theiner, Codex diplomaticus, vol. 2, no. 228 (23 June 1352). 64 Clement VI Lettres closes, ed. De´prez and Mollat, no. 2654 is a quittance for receipt of half of the payment. The other 50,000 florins were to be paid in two months. Inst. Misc. 1908 (23 June 1352) records the same transaction. 65 Stephanus Baluzius, Vitae paparum Avenionensium, vol. 1, 249, Prima Vita Clementis VI. Mollat, Popes at Avignon, 124 indicated that the promised number of soldiers was 300. He also refers to Clement’s ‘political genius’, a debatable quality in this situation. 66 ASV Reg. Vat. 146 f. 46v-47v. (21 July 1352). 67 The new vicariate evidently enboldened Giovanni Visconti, whose troops occupied the city of Orvieto. In August, the pope ordered him to return the city to the Church. Cle´ment VI: lettres se rapportant a la France, ed. De´prez and Mollat, no. 5382 (16 August 1352). 68 On Clement’s sermonsAuthor's see Guillaume Mollat, ‘L’Oeuvre personal oratoire de Cle´ment VI’, Archives copy d’histoire doctrinale et litteraire du moyen age, 3 (1928), 239-74 and D. Philibert Schmitz, ‘Les Sermons et Discours de Cle´ment VI, O.S.B.’, Revue Benedictine, 41 (1929), 15-34. See too, Diana Wood, Clement VI (Cambridge, 1989). The ‘rebellious Visconti’ merit few references in the latter book, 111. The pope’s granting of the vicariate to Giovanni Visconti is examined as a seeming volte face that typified Clement’s clemency, 38. 69 On Albornoz see Diplomatario del Cardenal Gil de Albornoz Cancilleria Pontificia (1351-1353), ed. Emilio Saez and Jose Trenchs Odena (Barcelona, 1976) and Diplomatario del Cardenal Gil de Albornoz Cancilleria Pontificia (1354-1356), ed. Emilio Saez, Maria Teresa Ferrer, Jose Trenchs Odena (Barcelona: Alfonso, 1981). S. Dale / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 1e32 11 extensive mandate, which included a significant amplification of papal temporal power, a mission destined and determined to collide with Visconti ambitions.70 Reviving the style of Ber- trand du Poujet, he doggedly pursued and furiously engaged the Visconti in combat for nearly 15 years. Innocent VI’s early contacts with Giovanni Visconti gave no hint of the trou- bles to come. In the spring of 1353, the archbishop was addressed by the new pope as his vicar,71 and Giovanni’s payment of 50,000 florins, completing the war indemnity, was acknowledged with a quittance.72 Desiring to either construct or merely designate a church that would serve as a single Visconti burial site, Giovanni requested permission to have the bodies of his ancestors moved. The pope acknowledged that while many Visconti had been excommunicated, most had been at one or another time absolved and he requested that the matter be discussed in consistory.73 Initially, Albornoz seemed content to press Giovanni Visconti for extraordinary amounts of money, which the latter freely paid. The archbishop provided 300 soldiers and paid their salaries to assist the papal forces in retaking Viterbo from Giovanni de Vico in 1353 and remitted an additional 9600 florins for these same soldiers’ salaries in August, 1354.74 That summer, Al- bornoz wrote Giovanni that the entire patrimony was peaceful.75 Giovanni remitted an additional 23,600 florins to Albornoz to pay the salaries of mercenary soldiers in the patrimony in September.76 A separate payment of 8000 florins to Albornoz, ‘intended unstintingly for payments to soldiers’, was acknowledged by Pope Innocent VI that same month.77 Two other payments had already been made by Giovanni the previous June to papal procurators. Six thousand florins were part of the annual census for the vicariate, but additional payments totalling 8000 florins were sent with the express purpose of supporting Albornoz.78 The documentary record suggests that Giovanni Visconti was the largest single contributor, besides the papal treasury, to Albornoz’s military efforts.79 Indeed the sums sent to Albornoz from other sources pale in com- parison to the monies received from Giovanni Visconti. The latter appears also to have been

70 ASV Vat Reg. 244 records the 80 letters regarding Albornoz’s role as cardinal legate in the papal state, Tuscany and Lombardy. The letter on f. 1 is transcribed by P. Gasnault and M-H. Laurent, Innocent VI (1352-1362): lettres secre`tes et curiales (Paris, 1959), no. 352. It states that Albornoz is being appointed on account of the neglect of the cult of God and the Church and to combat schism and heresy. The letter emphasises Albornoz’s mission to bring peace, concord and unity but also to defend the Church with ‘virile fervour’. 71 Gasnault and Laurent, Innocent VI: lettres secre`tes et curiales, no. 326. (1 June 1353). 72 Gasnault and Laurent, Innocent VI: lettres secre`tes et curiales, no. 300 (16 May 1353). This letter also refers to Jacopo and Giovanni Pepoli as ‘nipotes’ of Giovanni Visconti. 73 ASV Reg. Vat. 146 f. 58 r and v. (13 March 1353); Gasnault and Laurent, Innocent VI: lettres secre`tes et curiales, no. 182. The letter indicates that the former archbishop of Milan, Aicardo, had excommunicated various Visconti as part of the 1322-23 inquisition process, but that Giovanni and Luchino had been absolved by Pope Benedict XII. Furthermore, Matteo, Galeazzo, Marco and Stefano had been ‘granted forgiveness from the processes for various reasons’, by Inno- cent VI himself. The pope requested that the consistory determine whether these deceased Visconti had demonstrated their loyalty to the Church before their demise. 74 Gasnault and Laurent, Innocent VI: lettres secre`tes et curiales, no. 298 (16 May 1353). Gil Albornoz et Androin de la Roche (1353-1367Author's): Correspondance des Le´gats et Vicaires-Gepersonalńe´raux, Premie`re Le ´gation copy d’Albornoz, ed. J. Gleńisson and G. Mollat (Paris, 1964): no. 95. 75 Gil Albornoz et Androin de la Roche, ed. Gleńisson and Mollat, no. 84. 76 Gil Albornoz et Androin de la Roche, ed. Gleńisson and Mollat, no. 107. 77 Gasnault and Laurent, Innocent VI: lettres secre`tes et curiales no. 119. 78 Gasnault and Laurent, Innocent VI lettres secre`tes et curiales nos 975 and 999. 79 Partner, Lands of St Peter, 345 estimated that between 1354 and 1357, at least 560,000 florins were transferred to Albornoz. Thus, Giovanni Visconti contributed about 10% of Albornoz’s funds. 12 S. Dale / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 1e32 a key supporter of the papacy. He was pressed into service as a negotiator for peace between Peter of Aragon, Genoa and Venice, a task that was accomplished and gratefully acknowledged by the pope.80 But, Giovanni’s sudden death in October 1354 created a brief power vacuum, as his three nephews, Matteo II, Bernabo` and Galeazzo II, divided between themselves the vast territory amassed by their uncles, Luchino and Giovanni.81 And the limits of papal-Visconti cooperation were now clear. Cardinal Albornoz was unable to resist an opportunity to purge the papal state of Visconti influence. The issues were both territorial and fiscal. Encouraged by the pope, Charles IV of Bohemia began transferring imperial vicariates in Lombardy and Piedmont from the Visconti to the Marquis of Monferrato in 1355. Yet consis- tency was not Charles IV’s strength, for he also granted vicariates to the Visconti of heretofore Angevin cities, assuring a destabilised Piedmont for decades to come.82 Cities such as Genoa and Pavia, that had been under the yoke of the Visconti, freed themselves. Relations between the curia and the Visconti took a turn for the worse in the spring of 1356, when Innocent VI condemned the Visconti for intercepting and reading letters written from the curia to recipients in Genoa, suggesting that Albornoz was beginning to target the Visconti outside the papal state.83 In Bologna, Giovanni Visconti d’Oleggio, who had been appointed captain of Visconti forces by the late archbishop, rebelled against Visconti control.84 While the pope exhorted him to return the city to Matteo Visconti, Albornoz attempted an alliance with Oleggio, rather than force the return of the city to the Visconti.85 Seeking to recapture Bologna, Bernabo` Visconti began a series of skirmishes in the papal state, while seeking some accord with Pope Innocent VI.86 Consuming tens of thousands of florins, Albornoz successfully retained Forlı` and Cesena in the face of a challenge by the Ordelaffi lords of those cities who were probably being assisted by Bernabo`. But Albornoz was moving closer to a direct confrontation with the Visconti.

80 Gasnault and Laurent. Innocent VI: lettres secre`tes et curiales no. 596 (12 October 1353) and ASV Reg. Vat. 235 f. 210 (26 October 1353). 81 See Matteo Villani, Cronica, vol. 2 book 4: chapter 25: 508. Bernabo` and Galeazzo killed Matteo II in 1355. I believe the assassination was at least partially based on a perception that Matteo was attempting his own policy of reconciliation with the papacy. In 1349, Clement VI urged the Archbishop Giovanni Visconti to reverse his banishment of Matteo from Milan, arguing that Giovanni had been provoked by false suggestions. ASV Reg. Vat. 143 f. 177v (31 March 1349). In 1352, when Giovanni’s relations with the pope were frayed, several papal letters were addressed only to Matteo and at one point, Astorge de Durfort was encouraged to seek dialogue only with him. Thus he may have been viewed by his brothers as a traitor or at least as unreliable. Luchino’s many children were excluded from the succession. 82 Azario considered the emperor responsible for starting a process that led to Lombardy being ‘cruelly lacerated’. See Azario, Liber Gestorum, 74. For example, in Torino, Archivio di Stato, Asti, Mazzo 11, no. 8, residents of Celle swore loyalty to the marquis of Monferrato as imperial vicar in January, 1356. See too Giacinto Romano, ‘Notizie di alcuni diplomi di Carlo IV imperatore relativi al vicariato visconteo’, Rendiconti, Reale Istituto Lombardo de Scienze e Lettere, 28 (1895), 1072-84. 83 See Diplomatario del Cardenal Gil de Albornoz, ed. Saez, Ferrer and Odena, no. 457 (28 April 28, 1356). 84 For Giovanni d’Oleggio, see Azario, Liber Gestorum, 56 and Matteo Villani, Cronica, vol 1 book 2: chapter 5, 200. The former suggests (plures credebant suum esse ﬁlium) and the latter asserts that he was a son of Giovanni’s. He was, in fact, theAuthor's son of Filippo Visconti, as was personal made clear in a long missive by Urbancopy V regarding the Vis- conti in which Giovanni d’Oleggio is referred to as Johannes quondam Philippi de Vicecomitibus de Oleggio natus militis Novariensis, ASV Reg. Vat. 261 f. 71-75r. The earliest reference to him that I have located is in 1335 when Giovanni d’Oleggio, identiﬁed as an ordinary of the cathedral of Milan, is included in the conditional absolution of Milanese clerics that was granted by Pope Benedict XII; See Osio, Documenti. Milanesi, vol. 1 pt 2, no. 54 of 19 May 1335 at 82. 85 Gasnault and Laurent, Innocent VI: lettres secre`tes et curiales, no. 1478 (30 April 1355). 86 Gerolamo Biscaro, ‘Relazioni’ (1937), 124-5. S. Dale / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 1e32 13

Attempting to isolate them and at the same time control the mercenary companies that had been brought into the struggle in the papal state, on 28 June 1357 Albornoz organised a vast league that included the Este of Ferrara, the Marquis of Monferrato, Simon Bocca- negra of Genoa, the Gonzaga of Mantua and Giovanni d’Oleggio.87 The conventions of their pact called for mutual defence and cooperation against both the Visconti and the companies, but the only way to deal with the latter was by paying protection money. Albornoz paid the company of Landau 15,000 florins. Matteo Villani reported that Florence and Pisa each paid an additional 16,000 florins.88 Bribing companies not to attack would become the debilitating model for Italian cities for half a century.89 Losing a major source of funds with the death of Giovanni Visconti compelled the legate to dig deeper into the papal treasury to underwrite his wars. Papal correspondence from this period was not explicitly anti-Visconti. Rather, the letters reveal a greater concern with depleting assets and the threat of mercenary companies. Those sent to Charles IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, and Louis, the king of Hungary, warn of the dangers to Italy of the companies, described as locusts that must be destroyed.90 Correspondence with Florence, Perugia and Arezzo describes Albornoz as the force keeping the companies at bay and asks for money to support him.91 Nowhere was it mentioned that Albornoz had been paying these companies for service in the papal state.92 Bernabo` approached the curia regarding a truce. The pope appeared receptive as he sent a nunzio to Milan with his terms for peace and appointed the war-averse Androin de la Roche as his new legate to the papal state in May 1357.93 Yet, the pope did not curb Albornoz’s anti-Visconti ac- tivity. Instead, he wrote to his legate regarding his onerous expenses to date and recommended that he seek monies from everywhere possible, including convents in the papal state, to continue his war against Bernabo`.94 Nevertheless, on the same day, the pope notified Bernabo` Visconti, addressing him as papal vicar of Bologna, that procurators would arrive shortly to negotiate the restoration of the city to him.95 Several months later, Bernabo` replied that he approved of the treaty.96 Shortly thereafter, and with evident reluctance, Innocent notified Albornoz that, while it would honour prior debts, the curia could no longer pay his soldiers.97 But, Bologna remained in Giovanni d’Oleggio’s hands and Albornoz, whose absence from Bologna was brief, refused to recognise Bernabo`’s legal right to it.98 Instead, he requested that Innocent make

87 For the details of the league see Gil Albornoz et Androin de la Roche ed. Gleńisson and Mollat, no. 331. 88 Matteo Villani, Cronica, 7. 89: 116-7. 89 On the economic and political ramifications of this policy, see William Caferro, Mercenary companies and the decline of Siena (Baltimore, 1998). 90 ASV Reg. Vat. 239 f. 79r-v. (27 May 1357). 91 ASV Reg. Vat. 239 f. 80r and v. (27 May 1357). 92 See, for example, a payment record of 20 February 1356 in which the German ‘Compagnia degli Speranti’, was paid 8000 florins by Albornoz for two months of service. F. Filippini, ‘La prima legazione del cardinale Albornoz in Italia’, Studi Storici, 5 (1896), 399. 93 ASV Reg. Vat.Author's 239 f. 108r. 11 (June 1357). personal copy 94 ASV Reg. Vat. 239 f. 158v (20 July 1357). 95 ASV Reg. Vat. 239 f. 158v (20 July 1357). 96 Bologna, Archivio Albornoziano, II, no. 332 [formerly 19]. Bernabo` wrote that he approved of the treaty, 20 December 1357. 97 ASV Reg. Vat. f. 239 209v-210r. 98 Androin’s departure was not voluntary. See his lengthy justification of his tenure, Gil Albornoz et Androin de la Roche, ed. Gleńisson and Mollat, 146-55. 14 S. Dale / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 1e32

Giovanni di Oleggio papal vicar, which the pope declined to do.99 Oleggio refused to pay the church a census without a vicariate and was, according to the curia, in arrears for 12,000 florins by February, 1359.100 Attempting to turn this to his advantage, Bernabo` submitted a payment of 2000 florins to the cash-starved Albornoz,101 who nonetheless continued to resist Visconti control. The curia was now both substantially poorer and far more likely to provoke Visconti retribution.102 Negotiating an exchange of territory with Oleggio that would return Bologna to the Church, Albornoz had succeeded again in violating the legal title of the city obtained by the Visconti in 1352. Unsurprisingly, Bernabo` Visconti was moved to war. But, Innocent was equally bellicose, encouraging Charles IV to fight the Visconti in Lombardy and pressing virtually every city in central Italy to take up arms in defence of the Church in Bologna. Fearful of the battle spilling into its territory, Florence was assured that Albornoz would not violate its border and that she should be more alarmed by Bernabo`, were he to control Bologna.103 On the heels of a peace treaty signed in February 1360 between England and France, the pope wrote to Edward III of England, urging his assistance to defeat Bernabo`, ‘a malign spirit’ in the patrimony.104 Presumably the pope intended to get the king behind an initiative that would lure the recently unemployed English mercenaries away from France and into Italy, as if the English crown needed or wanted further continental engagements beyond the Hundred Years’ War and as if Italy herself could withstand more papally dispatched mercenaries. And the belligerent rhetoric masked papal indecision and impulsiveness. Innocent pressed Naples for a 100,000 florin loan to prosecute Albornoz’s renewed war with Bernabo`.105 However, the money was not sent to the legate. Instead, Innocent offered it to Bernabo` Visconti in exchange for Visconti recognition of papal ownership of Bologna,106 and notified Albornoz that he wanted peace with Bernabo` Visconti.107 Innocent closed out his pontificate still pressing bishops and other benefice holders for money to continue his war against Bernabo` Visconti.108 Innocent’s successor Urban V (28 September 1362-70) inherited both Albornoz and his own predecessor’s dizzyingly inconsistent policy toward the Visconti.109 Among his earliest

99 Peter Partner, ‘Florence and the papacy in the earlier fifteenth century’, in: Florentine studies: politics and society in renaissance Florence, ed. Nicolai Rubinstein (Evanston, IL, 1968), 381-402 at 106 and Partner, Lands of St Peter, 349. 100 ASV Reg Vat 241 f. 16 v. Albornoz transferred funds to Oleggio numerous times in this period. Bologna, Archivio Albornoziano, II. 101 Gil Albornoz et Androin de la Roche, ed. Gleńisson and Mollat, no. 491 (27 May 1359). This is the first payment to the legate or the curia that I can find for Bernabo`. 102 An idea of papal priorities in this period may be gleaned from the expenses listed for the month of April, 1359: The war in Lombardy (which I interpret, broadly, as the anti-Visconti effort) is apportioned over 8000 florins while the war in the papal state is allocated 2000 florins. On the other hand, money for ‘works and buildings’ is set at 53 florins, church decoration is allocated 90 florins and money for all alms is set at 200 florins. ASV Reg. Vat. 241 f. 96r-98r and 99r-100v. 103 ASV Reg. Vat. 240 pt. 2 f. 84v (11 June 1360). 104 ASV Reg. Vat.Author's 240 pt. 2 f. 109v (February 1360). personal copy 105 ASV Reg. Vat. 240 pt. 2 f. 89v (27 June 1360). 106 ASV Reg. Vat. 240 pt. 2 f. 101v-103v (10 July 1360). Bologna would be held for a period of 15 years by Bernabo`. 107 ASV Reg. Vat. 240 pt. 2 f. 100v-101r (10 July 1360). 108 All benefice holders were pressed for extra funds (ASV Reg. Vat. 241, pt. 2 f. 50v-52r) and all bishops were required to lend the curia between 500 and 2000 florins. (ASV Reg. Vat. 241, pt. 2 f. 52v-53r). 109 An older but still excellent study of this pope is Maurice Prou, Relations politiques du pape Urbain V avec les rois de France Jean II et Charles V (1362-1370) (Paris, 1888). S. Dale / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 1e32 15 correspondence were letters to bishops and archbishops in Italy declaring Bernabo` a heretic and enemy of the Church.110 Secular figures were warned not to assist Bernabo`, the ‘son of damnation’.111 Early in 1363, he wrote Albornoz about a crusade against the Turks in Sicily signalling a distraction from the Visconti campaign,112 but Urban’s preoccupation with Ber- nabo` was conveyed by ratcheting up the intensity of his prose. One letter began, ‘For the purpose of the extermination of the perfidy of the son of perdition Bernabo` Visconti’.113 Through the spring of 1363 the pope exhorted allies to war, the cost of which may be gleaned by the imposition of a new three year tithe imposed on Hungary and Poland and an increase of 6000 florins in Joanna of Naples’s census, all devoted to fighting Ber- nabo`.114 And finances dictated the reluctant papal acknowledgment, made only to the king of France, of the need to negotiate an end to the war with Bernabo`, just two months later.115 By the winter, the combative Albornoz had been replaced as legate yet again by the war-shy Androin de la Roche, who, as in 1357, was directed to reverse the ‘rancor and dissent’ in the patrimony.116 Yet, Urban’s frustration is evident; while exhorting Androin to ‘repair the peace’ with the ‘noble man’ Bernabo` Visconti, a subsequent letter reminded Androin that he should regain the territory in Bologna that had been seized by Bernabo`.117 Androin accomplished this after a fashion: A treaty was drawn up in which Bologna was nominally returned to papal control. But the shifting power relationship is revealed by the financial arrangements for this peace. This time the papacy had to pay the Visconti a half million florins as a war indemnity. Moreover, until the indemnity was satisfied, the papal vicariate was to be held by none other than Bernabo` Visconti.118 Albornoz’ legation was transferred to Naples, with an admonition that his profli- gate expenditures at Bologna not be repeated.119 Despite his official transfer and the treaty with Bernabo`, Albornoz remained in Bologna and continued to resist Visconti authority, for which he was rebuked by the pope in June of 1364.120 Another warning issued a year later

110 ASV Reg. Vat. 245 f. 21r-v. 111 ASV Reg. Vat. 245 f. 100r. 112 ASV Reg. Vat. 245 f. 76r-76v 113 ASV Reg. Vat. 245 f. 144v. 114 ASV Reg. Vat. 245 f. 144r and 200r-201r. 115 ASV Reg. Vat. 245 f. 222v-223r and O. Rainaldi, Annales Ecclesiastici, ed. G.D. Mansi (Lucca, 1752), vol. 7, 80. Despite this, Albornoz paid mercenaries 1840 florins on 27 September 1363; Bologna, Collegio di Spagna Archivio Albornoziano VI, no. 351. 116 ASV Reg. Vat. 246 f. 17v-18v. Bernabo` announced the peace on 27 December 1363, declaring that he was both son and servant of the Church; Societa` Storica Lombarda, Repertorio Diplomatico Visconteo (2 vols, Milan, 1918), vol. 2 no. 1335. 117 ASV Reg. Vat. 246 f. 30r-v. 118 Theiner, Codex diplomaticus, vol 2. no. 387. Eight annual installments of 62,500 florins were to be paid by the curia to Bernabo` Visconti.Author's An entry in a papal register records personal a single payment to Bernabo ` Visconti copy of 31,250 florins at ASV Reg. Vat. 262 f. 198v (May 1364). One hundred thousand florins of the indemnity had been forgiven in exchange for papal assistance in recovering the imperial vicariate, leaving an obligation of 400,000 florins. In fact, hostilities soon renewed and no other payments to Bernabo` seem to have been made. 119 ASV Reg. Vat. 246 f. 154v-155v. 120 Urban ordered Albornoz to make peace on 2 June 1364. The pope was displeased, having heard that Albornoz was continuing to fight against his ‘dear son’ Bernabo` Visconti and his supporters; Bologna, Collegio di Spagna, Archivio Albornoziano, Busto 352 (37). 16 S. Dale / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 1e32 instructed Albornoz to restore the possessions of Bernabo`’s supporters, indicating his still active involvement in the papal state.121 Cardinal Albornoz died on 22 August 1367 having left Italy a legacy of some administrative organisation,122 but also having unleashed far-ranging destruction stemming from his introduction into the Italian struggle of mercenary companies. One of these, the English company of John Hawkwood, will play a central role in the papal-Visconti battle for Italy. In 1366, Hawkwood pledged that he would not fight against the Church.123 It was a vow he kept at least half the time. Notwithstanding the pope’s offer of absolution from sin for all members of the companies that would go to the Holy Land to fight for the Church,124 res- tive companies were marauding over central Italy while Urban V returned the papacy, tem- porarily, to Rome in 1367. Urban V named his brother Anglic Grimoard as his new legate to Italy and both of them determined to renew the battle with Bernabo` Visconti, despite his prior designation as papal and imperial vicar and notwithstanding the serious depletion of the papal treasury.125 Among Urban’s new preoccupations was the restitution to Joanna of Naples of formerly Angevin cities in Piedmont that were now occupied by Galeazzo II Vis- conti.126 That these cities had been for decades contested by numerous lords in Piedmont in addition to the Visconti now seemed of little consequence to the papacy. The three remain- ing years of Urban V’s reign whipsawed between tentative treaties and all out war with Bernabo`, alliances with other Lombard tyrants, invasions of more cities in the papal state and always, the relentless assault of mercenaries. If Gil Albornoz had been a reconfigured Bertrand du Poujet, the accession to the papal throne of Gregory XI in 1370 brought back the combative style and political agenda of Ber- trand’s pope, John XXII. In both cases the popes resorted to extraordinary aggression in the persons of their legates and armies, not in the papal state but in Lombardy, where the Vis- conti had legitimate authority. And both popes viewed the Visconti as the primary obstacle to papal power in Italy. Unlike his recent predecessors, Gregory was neither indecisive nor appeasing toward the Visconti. He immediately challenged both Bernabo` and Galeazzo to retreat from their territorial claims, a position rarely contemplated by any Visconti lord. A fragile peace in 1370 between the papacy, Visconti and Florence was soon shattered for none of these parties could, nor should have trusted the others.127 Florence was plainly uncomfortable with the newly aggressive legates in the papal state who were fomenting discord close to its territory even as it feared Visconti power.128 Determined to quash the

121 On 21 June 1365 the pope urged Albornoz to restore the possessions of Bernabo`’s supporters; Bologna, Collegio di Spagna, Archivio Albornoziano, Busto 355 (40). 122 On the ‘Egidian Constitutions’, see Paolo Colliva, Il Cardinale Albornoz, lo Stato della Chiesa, le Constitutiones Aegidianae (1353-1357) (Bologna, 1977). See also Partner, Lands of St Peter, 344 and 347-9. 123 Bologna, Collegio di Spagna, Archivio Albornoziano, Busto 361 (46) (29 October 1366). This is an original parch- ment, probably issued as part of a treaty between Urban V, Gil Albornoz, Joanna of Naples, Hawkwood’s English company and the whiteAuthor's company signed in.January 1366. Seepersonal ASV Camera Apostolica, Collectorie copy 203 f. 248-257 for the full text of the treaty. 124 ASV Reg. Vat. 246 f. 166r. 125 ASV Reg. Vat. 249 f. 17r. 126 ASV Reg. Vat. 248 f. 98r. 127 Bernabo` announced the peace to Ludovico Gonzaga on 19 November 1370; Osio, Documenti.Milanesi, vol. 1 pt. 2, 149, no. 82. 128 On Florence in this period, see Brucker, Florentine politics and society, 244-96. S. Dale / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 1e32 17

Visconti juggernaut, Gregory was weaving an intricate web of alliances that would surround and he hoped, overwhelm Visconti armies.129 Gregory’s letters reveal his systematic culti- vation of alliances with Genoa, Amedeo of Savoy, the marquis of Monferrato, Niccolo` d’Este and Ludovico Gonzaga, but also with Charles, the Holy Roman Emperor, Gerald, the elector of Nuremburg and Albert, the duke of Austria.130 The regional alliances were meant to territorially squeeze the Visconti; the international ones were meant to deprive them of mercenaries. In one of his final anti-Visconti acts, Gregory’s predecessor Urban V had requested that Charles IV deprive Bernabo` Visconti of the imperial vicariate of Milan.131 The proximate source of papal displeasure was Bernabo`’s transparent support of John Hawkwood’s mercenary army that had been hired by Perugia to oppose the papacy. Hawkwood’s English company is described as ‘satanic’, an appellation that was reserved for mercenaries only when they were fighting against the Church, for time and again these same mercenaries were on the papal payroll.132 The declaration stripping Bernabo` of his title is often cited by historians as proof of his moral turpitude and just reward. What has not been acknowledged is that a year later, Galeazzo II Visconti was himself invested with the title of papal vicar. On 1 April 1371 Pope Gregory XI wrote to congratulate Galeazzo on his promotion to papal vicar of Milan, acknowledging Visconti ‘magnanimity’ in the form of an oblation of 5000 florins.133 For his part, Bernabo` continued to sign his letters as imperial vicar.134 Despite the granting of a vicariate to Galeazzo, Gregory XI was laying the foundation for a renewed conflict with the Visconti. Focusing much of his putative ire on Galeazzo’s imprisonment of the bishop of Asti, Gregory issued a series of letters beginning with polite requests to free the bishop and gradually accelerating towards open enmity.135 But, Grego- ry’s real goal was the expansion of the war against the Visconti into Piedmont by uniting papal and Angevin forces against them, precisely as John XXII had done 50 years earlier. Still addressing him as imperial vicar, the pope wrote Bernabo` Visconti on 15 May 1371 urging him not to oppose the papacy and expressing hope that they could walk on the ‘path of friendship’ together.136 Two months later, Bernabo` was notified that he was

129 On the war, see Giacinto Romano, ‘La Guerra tra i Visconti e la Chiesa 1360-1376’, Bollettino della societa` pavese di storia patria, 3 (1903), 412-37. 130 ASV Reg. Vat. 268 f. 103r and 103v and ASV Reg. Vat. 244 f. 42r. 131 Theiner, Codex diplomaticus, vol. 2, 468, published the act depriving Bernabo` of his title as vicar of Milan by Charles IV (13 March 1370). 132 See for example a letter sent from Gregory XI to John Hawkwood of 13 January 1374, using the conventions of papal correspondence, ‘Dear son noble man John Hawkwood’ who ‘is now in service to the pope and the Church;’ ASV Reg. Vat. 270 f. 3v. 133 ASV Reg. Vat. 263 f. 28v. 134 For example in Archivio di Stato, Siena Concistorio 1793 40, which is a letter from Bernabo` Visconti dated 20 Feb- ruary 1378 and begins,Author's ‘Bernabo` Visconti of Milan, personal imperial vicar general’. copy 135 The bishop was Giovanni Malabayla whose ascent to the episcopacy had been the result of a long and successful family history in papal banking, a role that began during the pontificate of Clement VI in the wake of the failure of Florentine banks. On the extensive papal banking activities of the Malabayla see Renouard, Relations des papes d’Avignon et des compagnies commerciales, 200, 216-30. Malabayla had been bishop of Trent but was relocated to Asti, his family’s city, after the death of Giovanni Visconti. See Gasnault and Laurent, Innocent VI: lettres secre`tes et curiales, no. 1661 (3 July 1355). 136 ASV Reg. Vat. 263 f. 47r. 18 S. Dale / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 1e32 violating the peace of the Church. The threat of excommunication, suspension and interdict against Galeazzo II was first raised in the fall of that year.137 Letters threatening reprisals against Florentines who might lend armed support to Bernabo` Visconti and other letters warning priors of Florentine religious houses not to impede or disturb the cardinal legate preceded a Florentine withdrawal from the papal alliance.138 With the assistance of additional money and troops from Joanna of Naples and a vast army of mercenaries, Gregory’s war was still theoretically winnable, even without Florence. Despite a Visconti victory near Modena in June 1372, the papal forces kept up the pressure, replacing Florence in their alliance with Amedeo VI of Savoy,139 which had the immediate result of expanding the war from Lombardy into Piedmont, thereby drawing Galeazzo II into the fray. Not unmindful of this possibility, Galeazzo had been amass- ing a war chest by pressing his subject cities for money with new vigour beginning in 1370.140 On 23 September 1372, Gregory issued a legal proceeding against Bernabo` Visconti, the first step towards excommunication, and cardinals and bishops were notified of the action taken against the ‘son of iniquity, Bernabo` Visconti’.141 In the same correspondence, a warning was also issued to refrain from assisting Galeazzo, but the latter was described as ‘noble man’ indicating that Gregory was still distinguishing between the brothers.142 Shortly thereafter, the pope issued ple- nary indulgences for anyone who might die fighting against the Visconti.143 The war against them was now a crusade. The pope issued a proclamation that all ‘sons of the Church be they noble or common, Guelph or Ghibelline’ should unite to defeat the Visconti.144 The pope authorised John Hawkwood, once again on the papal side, to capture fortresses in Piacenza and Pavia, signalling a significant offensive by moving militarily into Lombard cities to which the Visconti had legal title.145 Prominent families in Piacenza, Vercelli and Novara were notified of the pope’s intention to liberate these cities from the ‘tyrannical hand’ of the Visconti.146 Similar missives were addressed to the bishop of Pavia and to prominent Pavese families, adding that supporters of the

137 The first letter regarding the imprisonment of Malabayla was sent to Galeazzo on 22 April 1371. ASV 263 f. 33v. and appealed to his misericordia, with no mention of excommunication. A week earlier, the pope had written Galeazzo to insist that another member of the family, Guido Malabayla, be freed. 15 March 1371 ASV Reg. Vat. 263, f. 262v. On 22 April Urban wrote again to Galeazzo, demanding that the bishop be freed, for his imprisonment was obnoxious to the pope. He warned Galeazzo of ‘the gravest penalties’, if this were not done; ASV Reg. Vat. 263, f. 33v. Another letter of 7 July still more or less politely requested his release; ASV Reg. Vat. 263 f. 77r-v but on 8 September 1371, the pope first threatened ‘sentences of excommunication, suspension interdict’ ASV Reg. Vat. 263 f. 102r. On that same day, Gregory wrote to an abbot of a monastery in Asti urging the freeing of the bishop, suggesting that the Visconti made use of religious institutions to jail ecclesiastical opponents. See ASV Reg. Vat. 263 f. 101v. F. Ughelli has a nar- rative of these events in Italia Sacra (Nendeln, 1970), vol. 4, 387. Guillaume Mollat, in Lettres secre`tes et curiales du pape Gregoire XI (1370-1378) inte´ressant les pays autres que la France, ed. G. Mollat (Paris, 1962), 19 no. 124, used the term ‘excommunication’ in his summary of the 7 July letter, although it was not explicitly mentioned. 138 On 2 May, a series of letters was sent to Florentines, warning them not to send arms or military assistance to Bernabo` in Pe- rugia, ASV Reg. Vat. 263 f. 272v and 273r. Similar letters were sent to Florentine religious houses; ASV Reg. Vat. 263 f. 286r, 301v and 302r (6 October 1371). Lettres secre`tes et curiales du pape Gregoire XI. pays autres que la France, ed. Mollat, no. 332. 139 On this alliance see Bruno Galland, ‘Le roˆle du Comte de Savoie dans la ‘ligue’ de Gre´goire XI contre les Visconti (1372-1375)’, Me´langes de l’ećole française de Rome, Moyen Age, 105 (1993), 763-824. 140 See Santoro, PoliticaAuthor's Finanziaria dei Visconti , vol. personal 1, 208. copy 141 Lettres secre`tes et curiales du pape Gregoire XI. pays autres que la France, ed. Mollat, no. 1025. 142 ASV Reg. Vat. 264 f. 62v. 143 Lettres secre`tes et curiales du pape Gregoire XI.pays autres que la France, ed. Mollat, no. 1108. 15 October 1372. 144 ASV Reg. Vat. 264 f. 71v (7 December 1372). 145 Lettres secre`tes et curiales du pape Gre´goire XI (1370-1378) relatives a` la France extraites des registres du Vatican, ed. L. Mirot, H. Jassemin and J. Vielliard (Paris: 1942) fasc. 3-4, no. 2737. 146 Both Galeazzo and Bernabo` are described as ‘sons of iniquity’. The series of letter is at ASV Reg. Vat. 264 f. 81v-85r. S. Dale / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 1e32 19

Visconti would meet ‘ecclesiastical and divine retribution’.147 Later that month, the pope named Enguerrand de Coucy as captain general of his forces in Lombardy ‘against the sons of damnation, Bernabo` and Galeazzo Visconti’, who were persecutors of and rebels against the Church.148 Ame- deo of Savoy, hastily named imperial vicar, was put in charge of an army in Piedmont, where the captain general was Niccolo` Spinelli da Giovinazzo, papal confidant, chancellor to Joanna of Na- ples and, no small coincidence, a prote´ge´ of the late Gil Albornoz.149 Spinelli’s son- in-law Gio- vanni Orsini led a column of troops.150 This pope was not going to be defeated. Indeed, his goal was the ‘extermination and destruction of the Visconti lords of Lombardy’.151 On 28 March 1373, Bernabo` and Galeazzo were formally excommunicated.152 The war effort was going favourably enough by June that the pope authorised Niccolo` Spinelli to assume the cities of Vercelli and Alessandria in his name.153 Gregory’s determination to defeat the Vis- conti in their own territory is evidenced as well by an offer he made to the king of Hungary of 20,000 florins a month for a year if he would lead a 12,000 man army ‘in Lombardy against Bernabo` and Galeazzo Visconti’.154 Gregory was so confident of victory in Lombardy that he was already congratulating his condottieri for their success in May 1373, and authorizing Luchino Novello Visconti, cousin and now rival of Galeazzo and Bernabo`, to receive their territories in Lombardy in fealty to the pope and the Holy Roman Emperor.155

147 The letter to the bishop of Pavia is at ASV Reg.Vat. 264 f. 84v-85r. Corresponding letters to Pavese families are at ASV Reg. Vat. 264 f. 83v, 84v, 230v and 231r. 148 Lettres secre`tes et curiales du pape Gre´goire XI (1370-1378) relatives a` la France extraites des registres du Vatican, ed. L. Mirot and H. Jassemin (Paris, 1935), nos 2750 and 2751. 149 On Spinelli see Giacinto Romano, Niccolo` Spinelli da Giovinazzo (Naples: 1902). The book was serialised previously in the Archivio Storico per le Province Napoletane (1899-1901). Spinelli was well paid. On 10 Feb 10, 1372, Pope Gregory XI directed Joanna of Naples to give Spinelli an annual payment equal to one hundred ounces of gold. ASV Reg. Vat. 268 f. 110v-111r. 150 ASV Reg. Vat. 269 f. 44 151 This phrase was used in correspondence with papal nunzios regarding the conquest of Pavia, Piacenza, Parma and other Visconti-controlled cities. Lettres secre`tes et curiales du pape Gregoire XI.pays autres que la France, ed. Mollat, no. 1800. 152 Lettres secre`tes et curiales du pape Gregoire XI.pays autres que la France, ed. Mollat, no. 1626. 153 ASV Reg.Vat. 265 f. 139r. (20 June 1373). 154 ASV Reg. Vat. 265 f. 72 (10 September 1373). Lettres secre`tes et curiales du pape Gregoire XI.pays autres que la France, ed. Mollat, no. 2163. 155 ASV Reg.Vat. 265 f. 6r. Gregory XI wrote the bishop of Vercelli regarding Luchino’s defection to the papal side; See too Romano, ‘Guerra tra i Visconti e la Chiesa’, 434. As late as 1369, Luchino Novello, whose paternity was renounced by the lord Luchino Visconti before his death, was allied with his cousins, serving in an administrative, rather than military role in Milan. See Santoro, Politica Finanzaria dei Visconti, 1, no. 254. For Luchino Novello’s earlier history see Biscaro, 1927, 222. As friction grew between Florence and the Visconti lords, Bernabo` and Galeazzo II, Luchino fled the city and became a Florentine citizen. See Julius Kirshner, ‘Angelo degli Ubaldi and Bartolomeo da Saliceto on privileged risk: investment of Luchino Novello Visconti in the public debt (Monte Comune) of Florence’, Rivista Internazionale di Diritto Comune,14 (2003), 83-117. In 1378, Luchino was party to a treaty organised in Verona with German mercenaries against Bernabo` Vis- conti. Osio, Documenti. Milanesi, vol. 1 pt 2, no. 130 at 194. In 1388, Giangaleazzo denied Luchino’s Visconti paternity in keeping with his father’s earlier renunciation. Osio, Documenti. Milanesi vol. 1, no. 194. Yet, Luchino seems to have returned to the service of his cousin Giangaleazzo after 1390 for he was party to a consilium issued by Baldo degli Ubaldi regarding the boundariesAuthor's of Vercelli and Casale that waspersonal issued while Baldo was in Pavia copy after 1390. See Mario Conetti ‘Baldo e la politica visconteo’, in: VI Centenario della Morte di Baldo degli Ubaldi 1400-2000, ed. Carla Frova, Maria Grazia Nico Ottaviani and Stefania Zucchini (Perugia, 2005), 473-522 at 491. In his will of 7 July 1399, drawn up in Venice, Luchino identifies himself as ‘Luchino Visconti of Milan’ and orders his burial in that city as well. The will contains a provision that should his burial in Milan displease the duke of Milan, he should be buried in Florence, an indication of his tenuous status. Osio, Documenti. Milanesi, vol. 1, no. 232. In his own testament of 1397, Giangaleazzo specifically forbade any of his children to conclude alliances or pacts with the heirs of both Bernabo` and Luchino (the elder) Visconti even while providing dowries for two unmarried daughters and a granddaughter of Bernabo`. Osio, Documenti. Milanesi, vol. 1, no. 223. 20 S. Dale / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 1e32

But the celebration was premature. The papal victory in Vercelli had dealt the Visconti a serious blow, but it also obligated Amedeo of Savoy and others in northern Italy to consider the implications for the peninsula of an empowered and nakedly aggressive papacy that was finan- cially dependent on the Angevins, defended by unfettered mercenaries, and, perhaps most importantly, unwilling to recognise legitimate territorial sovereignty. Ironically, their reputation for cruelty and excess would suggest to many Italians that the Visconti were perhaps the only force that could hold the papacy in check and at the same time afford to pay the stipends of mercenaries who would otherwise wreak havoc. On 30 April 1374, the pope authorised the expenditure by Amedeo of several thousand florins per month to continue the war against the Visconti.156 But, Savoy was eager for peace with his brother-in-law Galeazzo Visconti, who had distanced himself from Bernabo`’s interminable wars.157 Shortly thereafter, the long time allegiance of Galeazzo’s family with the Savoyards was renewed. By the end of that year, the pope instructed his agent Otto of Brunswick to negotiate a peace between both Bernabo` and Ga- leazzo Visconti and the curia; peace treaties were signed by spring 1375.158 Despite the peace treaty, the pope continued to actively underwrite the expense of soldiers and arms in Vercelli to prosecute a low-level war against the Visconti in Piedmont. At one point, he transmitted over 4500 florins to maintain and pay mercenaries. They were paid at least through November, 1376, as a payment record indicates that they were active usque ad diem praesentem.159 Yet, while still funding his secret war, Gregory announced the peace treaty with Galeazzo Visconti to a host of cities early in 1376.160 But, Gregory had pushed Italy too far, inciting a remarkable turn of events d Bernabo` Visconti and Florence signed a treaty of mutual aid and Florence declared war on the papacy in 1375.161 Papal incredulity was

156 ASV Reg. Vat. 273 f. 8r. 157 On 21 March 1373, Bernabo` Visconti notified Ludovico Gonzaga that Amedeo of Savoy and his brother Galeazzo had declared a peace between them and that Savoy was seeking to include the papacy in the peace agreement. Bernabo` viewed the arrival of a cardinal to discuss such a treaty as a danger to his own territory. Osio, Documenti. Milanesi, vol. 1, no. 94. 158 Lettres secre`tes et curiales du pape Gregoire XI.pays autres que la France, ed. Mollat, no. 2984. No. 3335 of 27 May 1375 is the treaty with Bernabo`. See too Theiner, Codex diplomaticus, vol. 2, no. 575. 159 A series of miscellaneous instruments at the ASV records these expenditures, most referring explicitly to the guerra in Vercelli. See Inst. Misc. 2881 of 9 Feb 1375. On July 11 1375, the pope paid 4590 florins for grani et bladi in Ver- celli; Inst. Misc, 2906. Inst. Misc. 2909 concerns soldiers in Vercelli (Aug, 1375): as does Inst. Misc. 2915 of 28 Sep- tember 1375. Inst. Misc 2935 of 14 March 1376 authorised another 71 florins. Monies were still paid as late as November 1376 as per Inst. Misc. 2952 and 2953. 160 Nicomede Bianchi, Le materie politiche relative all’estero degli archivi de stato piemontesi (Modena, 1876): 82 indicates that a treaty between Gregory XI and Galeazzo Maria [sic] Visconti spelled out the stipulations for peace in Biella and Vercelli. It called for the respective restitution of previously held territories, but left some exceptions regarding the right of temporal control by the Church in Vercelli, suggesting that the agreement left matters at an in- conclusive draw. The treaty was negotiated by Robert of Geneva and signed on 19 June 1376. Torino, Archivio di Stato Trattati diversi, I, no. 33 is a peace negotiated by papal representatives between Galeazzo and Monferrato; Cited in Eugene L.Cox, The Green Count of Savoy: Amadeus VI and transalpine Savoy in the fourteenth century (Princeton, 1967),Author's 297. personal copy 161 ASV Reg. Vat. 271 f. 22v is a letter to the priors of the guilds and the judges of Florence exhorting them to remain loyal to the papacy. On the War of Eight Saints see Richard Trexler, The spiritual power: republican Florence under interdict (Leiden, 1974) and, ‘Who were the eight saints?’, Renaissance News, 16 (1963), 89-94. Interestingly Brucker, Florentine politics and society, 283 noted that there was no discussion of this war in the Consulte e Pratiche for that year, suggesting that the decision to go to war was made by a small and secretive group within the Florentine government. Most recently see David S. Peterson, ‘The War of the Eight Saints in Florentine memory and oblivion’, in: Society and individual in renaissance Florence, ed. William J. Connell (Berkeley, 2002), 173-214. S. Dale / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 1e32 21 expressed in a letter to the king of France in which the union was described as insane.162 In fact, it was a brilliant match. Florence got military muscle via Bernabo` and through him to a vast army of mercenaries who, instead of menacing Florence, were paid by its ally to protect it. Ber- nabo` got respect and credibility. After being vilified for 20 years by the papacy, Bernabo` was now courted by Florence, heretofore the church’s staunchest ally. His very demonisation was its appeal and spoke volumes about Florentine intent. He was the city’s best protection against the papacy. The War of Eight Saints epitomised the damage done to the papal cause by Gregory XI’s furious determination to defeat the Visconti at all costs, the aggressive and often bungled political interference of his legates and perhaps most menacingly, the military threats and exorbi- tant payments demanded by the pope’s own condottieri.163 Most surely, decades of papal warfare on Florence’s borders had frayed its loyalty to the pope. And certainly, internal Flor- entine politics must have exacerbated this tendency. Yet, without the protection afforded her by the alliance with Bernabo` Visconti, the papal nemesis, it is unlikely that Florence would have undertaken this war. After all, there seemed no greater stopgap to papal hegemony than the Vis- conti, a lesson that Italy had learned well after 50 years of papal-Visconti encounters. Gregory responded by ordering papal banking transferred out of the hands of Florentine merchants and bankers and directing an inquisitorial force into Florence.164 A process was published against the citizens of Florence in May 1375.165 Yet, as hostilities ensued, Gregory im- plored his ambassador to continue negotiations to avoid the ‘scandal’ of Florence at war with the papacy.166 In vain, Gregory wrote to various English condottieri advising them of his peace treaty with the Visconti.167 Papal missives of the period reveal the complexity and flexibility of loyalties in this period. A letter to Niccolo` Spinelli deplored the conduct of Florence in providing assistance to Bernabo` Visconti. It described John Hawkwood as fighting for Bernabo` in Modena against the Marquis of Este. Gregory allowed that he would write Hawkwood, urging him to hasten to Florence to fight for the papacy.168 But Gregory then indicated in a letter to Charles Vof France that Hawkwood was unlikely to defect to the papacy, for Bernabo` had married two of his natural daughters to the condottieri John Hawkwood and Lutz van Landau.169 The allegiance of John Hawkwood was yet another perquisite obtained by Florence through its alliance with Bernabo`.

162 Theiner, Codex diplomaticus, vol. 2, no. 567. 163 In 1375 John Hawkwood demanded and received 130,000 florins from Florence to secure his promise not to invade the city for five years. See Brucker, Florentine politics and society, 291. 164 On 5 May 1375 Gregory ordered papal monies in Paris and London out of Florentine hands. ASV Reg. Vat. 267 f. 104. On Florence and the inquisition see ASV Reg. Vat. 271 f. 15-16 and Lettres secre`tes et curiales du pape Gregoire XI.pays autres que la France, ed. Mollat, nos 3212 and 3277. 165 ASV Armadio II Misc. 103 f. 301. 166 ASV Instr. Misc. 2907 (13 August 1375) is a short missive from Gregory to the archbishop of Taranto regarding the negotiations underAuthor's way in Florence conducted by Niccolo personal` of Sicily, a Franciscan. The pope copy expressed the hope that they might ‘avert scandal’, presumably referring to the ugly spectacle of the papacy at war with Guelph Florence. 167 ASV Reg. Vat. 271, f. 232-233. 168 Lettres secre`tes et curiales du pape Gre´goire XI relatives a` la France, ed. Mirot, Jassemin and Vielliard, no. 680. 169 Lettres secre`tes et curiales du pape Gre´goire XI relatives a` la France, ed. Mirot, Jassemin, Vielliard, nos 692-5, 4 September 1377. The conjugal tie with Landau will not prevent Bernabo` from condemning him and his brother Ever- ardus to the emperor in 1380, urging their punishment for leading German mercenaries against Verona in defiance of Bernabo`. See Carlo Magenta, I Visconti e gli Sforza nel Castello di Pavia (2 vols, Milan, 1883) vol. 1, no. 49, 214-6. 22 S. Dale / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 1e32

Florentines wrote to Bernabo` that ‘your state and our state are the same to such an extent, that the ruin of one would mean the downfall of the other’.170 A union of Bernabo` Visconti with Flor- ence was perilous for the rest of Italy, particularly smaller cities such as Siena. A series of letters to the Sienese consistory from early 1378 reveals this vulnerability. First, Bernabo` Visconti wrote to notify Siena that the count of Landau had formed a new mercenary army in the service of the marquis of Monferrato.171 Almost immediately thereafter, Siena’s enemy and neighbour Florence wrote that it had hired the English company ‘solely for the defence of the city in all of its dangers’.172 Despite a letter from Bernabo` affirming peace with Siena, the latter could not have been pleased to receive a bill from the Florentine Eight of War for money paid to the count of Landau, presumably a bribe to avert invasion.173 Another letter from Florence notified the Sienese that stipendiaries in service to Florence were headed for Perugia.174 It was against this unpromising background that Gregory XI moved the papacy back to Rome in 1377, to a city that was fraught with intrigue, corruption, anti-French sentiment and a determination to keep the papacy at any cost.175 Gregory was planning this trip as early as 1375,176 but he likely regretted the move almost immediately. Nonetheless, his ill health and the hostage-like status of his court in Rome left him few options but to remain there. Gregory XI’s death the following March would be the penultimate precipitate of a new crisis in the Church, the Great Schism. The college of cardinals elected Bartolomeo Prignano, the archbishop of Bari and a Neapolitan by birth, and thus a compromise candidate, being both (or neither) French and Italian. Taking the name Urban VI, his heritage was Angevin but his working life was largely spent at the curia in Avignon where he was an efficient, if uninspired civil servant whose lack of leadership ability was exceeded only by his personality defects, traits that ill-served him in the months and years to come.177 Urban’s own cardinals almost immediately regretted his election and laboured hard for his withdrawal, which he would not submit. Failing that, twelve of sixteen cardinals (the eleven French-speaking cardinals and the Spanish Peter of Luna, later Pope Benedict XIII in the Avig- non obedience) withdrew first to Anagni and then to Fondi. Despite the intense pressure to elect an Italian and keep the papacy in Rome, they elected Robert of Geneva of France-Romand as Pope Clement VII on 24 August 1378.178 Robert had been the cardinal legate responsible for

170 Florence, Archivio di Stato, Missive XV, f. 12v (9 October 1375) as quoted in Nicolai Rubinstein, ‘Florence and the despots’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 2 (1952), 24. 171 Archivio di Stato Siena, Concistorio 1793 no. 40. 172 Archivio di Stato Siena, Concistorio 1793 no. 41. 173 Archivio di Stato Siena, Concistorio 1793 no. 57. 174 Archivio di Stato, Siena, Concistorio 1793 no. 63. 175 An early indication of Gregory’s difficulties was a letter of 14 August 1377 sent by the pope, who was in Anagni, to the bishop of Nocera urging him to act against those who had ransacked and stolen liturgical objects and books from the sacristy of the Lateran: Lettres secre`tes et curiales du pape Gregoire XI. pays autres que la France, ed. Mollat, no. 388. 176 A letter to Gomez Albornoz, nephew of the late legate, of 1 June 1375, urged him to conclude his affairs in the papal state no later thanAuthor's 1 September and be ready to accompany personal Gregory to Rome. ASV Reg. copy Vat. 271 f. 231r. 177 On Prignano and his papacy, see L. Tacchella, Il pontificato di Urbano VI a Genova (Genoa, 1976). 178 A concistorial volume at the ASV, Obligationes et Solutiones 43 records the elections of both popes by the College of Cardinals. Several miscellaneous instruments at the Vatican pertain as well. Inst. Misc. 2985 announced the election of Urban on 1 April 1378. Successive instruments testify to the shifting current within the College of Cardinals as it announced processes against Urban made when it met in Anagni (Inst. Misc. 2986) and then formally deposed him (Inst. Misc. 2988, 9 August 1378). Following a universal declaration of Urban’s deposition (Inst. Misc. 2992), the Col- lege formally announced the election of Clement VII as pope on 24 August 1378. S. Dale / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 1e32 23 the massacre at Cesena in 1377 that had horrified Italy with its brutality and was used quite successfully by Florentine propagandists against the papacy.179 That Robert was elected speaks to the agenda of these renegade cardinals d a pope who only inspired fear and resentment was not intended to be a spiritual leader, but a military emblem, defiance of whom would bring violent reprisal. Historians of the period emphasise one or another component of the events that followed to explain the resulting schism in the Church.180 The coerced first election was made by a conclave of cardinals that justifiably feared for the lives of its members, duress cited by ultramontane cardinals as voiding the election.181 Yet the inconsistency of the assembled cardinals in Rome, electing one pope and then another, was unconscionable.182 The fractured college of cardinals, divided into Limousin, French and Italian blocs, had clearly put partisan interests ahead of those of the Church. And their insistence on viewing the Church as an oligarchy rather than a monarchy assured their complicity in creating and maintaining the schism. The new pope’s shortcomings, which were considerable and indeed grew only worse as his papacy evolved, did not help matters.183 The Angevins played a considerable role in destabilizing Urban’s tenuous power.184 Charles V of France actively subverted the papacy in Rome.185 On the other hand, incipient Italian nationalism and a general anti-French sentiment stoked the schism.186 All of these factors doubtless contributed to the failure of the papacy to unite the college of cardinals. However, it is equally clear that Rome was not Avignon d that is, these cardinals had departed a courtly, refined and prosperous city that embraced the papacy as its creation and its creator and found themselves in a hostile, corrupt, decrepit city that demanded the papacy but not this particular pope.187 And in the prior one hundred years, French-speaking popes had, on numerous occasions moved the papacy to and from Italy, with the rationale of ubi Papa, ibi Urbe. This portability lent the French and Limousin cardinals the freedom to think easily of returning to Avignon, to the fully functioning curia they had left behind and with a new, French-speaking pope. But, the dogged determination of the Avignon popes to defeat the Vis- conti at all costs finally had a real price tag d Italian tolerance had worn thin. Even a deeply flawed Italian pope was better than a French-speaking one who had been a murderous legate in Italy. Indeed, Robert was only the latest in a long line of cardinals legate who had inflicted sav- age warfare on Italy in the name of papal temporal power. And flaws notwithstanding, Urban made clear his intention to remain in Rome and bring the papacy back to Italy.

179 On the massacre see Noe¨l Valois, La France et la grande schisme d’Occident (Paris, 1896; repr. Hildesheim, 1967) vol. 1, 80-1 and esp. 81 note 1 with an extensive bibliography of chronicle accounts of the massacre. 180 A wide assortment of ‘causes’ is offered in the highly useful essays in Gene`se et de´buts du grand schisme d’occident (Paris, 1980). 181 See ASV Armadio 54 t. 17 f. 47-80. This was, and is, the circumstance cited most often by French commentators in explaining the Schism. 182 Valois, La France et la grande schisme, vol. 1, 83. 183 Walter Ullmann, The origins of the Great Schism. A study in fourteenth-century ecclesiastical history (Hamden, CT, 1967). Author's personal copy 184 Partner, Lands of St Peter, 368. 185 Euge`ne Jarry, ‘La voie de fait et l’alliance Franco-Milanaise (1386-1395)’, Bibliothe`que de l’Ecole des chartes,53 (1892), 213-53 at 215. 186 Roger Logoz, Clement VII (Robert de Gene`ve). Sa chancellerie et le clerge´ romand au de´but du grand schisme (Lau- sanne, 1974), 75. 187 A chant reﬂected this state of affairs, Romanum vel ytalicum volumus, gallicum noluimus, et miserum neapolitanum habemus. Cited by R. N. Swanson, Universities, academics and the Great Schism (Cambridge, 1979), 39. 24 S. Dale / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 1e32

Not surprisingly, war erupted in the papal state between the Urbanists and the Clementines, conducted by an assortment of condottieri whose main agenda was pillage. Perhaps the more important battle was a polemical one. Each pope expended considerable capital and energy asserting his own legitimacy and denouncing the other. Curial documents of the period record these efforts in exhaustive detail.188 Predictably, Urban VI’s supporters stressed the legitimacy of his election and the inconsistency, hence unreliability of the rebellious cardinals who renounced their earlier election and named a second pope.189 For example Baldo degli Ubaldi mocked the ultramontaine cardinals as asserting that they only dreamt that they elected Ur- ban.190 More seriously, Baldo’s Allegationes Primae, in defence of Urban VI and in favour of a general council to explore an early end to the dual papacy, was perhaps the most important and certainly the most widely disseminated tract favouring the Roman pope.191 Clement’s cardinals and other adherents wrote innumerable declarations of the illegitimacy of Urban VI’s election.192 Their arguments nearly always attested to the pressure of the Roman mobs that had made a free, hence legitimate election impossible. In contrast, they argued, Clement’s election was made without threat or coercion and thus was the legitimate one.193 Even Clement’s violent past was justiﬁed by appeal to Biblical antecedents.194 Later, Vincent Ferrer would smoothly translate Clement’s military past into the church militant.195 The crisis facing Christianity was not simply that there were two popes, but that both were so deeply ﬂawed, one a mass murderer and the other, destructively suspicious and volatile

188 Despite the fragmentary state of registers from Urban VI’s papacy, many volumes at the ASV are devoted to recording the testimonies of the partisans of both popes. See for example Armadio 54 t. 14. An early, but still informative book based on these documents is L. Gayet, Le grand schisme d’occident (2 vols, Florence, 1889). See as well Stephanus Baluzius, Vitae Paparum Avenionensium, vol. 4, 174-246 and the still magisterial La France et le grand schisme d’occident of Noe¨l Valois. 189 See, for example, ASV Armadio 54 t. 16 f. 118r-119r in which Piero Corsini, the Cardinal of Florence attests to the freedom with which he and the Cardinal of Milan and the other cardinals elected Urban. Both cardinals would switch allegiances and align with Clement as Urban’s erratic behaviour tested his most enthusiastic partisans and Clement’s clearly superior curial structure and administrative efﬁciency gave his papacy the patina of legitimacy. The defection of these two popes to Clement is recorded in Inst. Misc. 3083 and occured on 15 February 1381. 190 Baldus de Ubaldis, Allegationes Primae in ASV Armadio 54 t. 14 f. 52, Quod casus iste est sui raritate mirabilis; nuncquam enim in mundo legitur quod cardinals fuerint ita contrarii sibi ipsis, et tantum est dicere quod ipsi dicunt quantum dicere: Non feci, sed me fecisse somniavi. 191 Swanson, Universities, academics and the Great Schism, 24-5; See also, James A. Wahl, ‘Baldus de Ubaldis: a study in reluctant conciliarism’, Manuscripta, 18 (1974), 21-9. 192 As, for example Peter de Luna’s statement in ASV Armadio 54 t. 17 f. 41r. 193 A typical one was published in Stephanus Baluzius, Vitae Paparum Avenionensium, vol. 4, 186, no. 194. ‘All the cardinals make known in which way the lord Clement was correctly and in accordance with Church law elected by them and solemnly enthroned and crowned’, from Paris BN, MS latin 11745 f. 266r. Numerous other such letters are in ASV Armadio 54 t. 14-17. 194 Stephanus Baluzius, Vitae Paparum Avenionensium, vol. 4, 246 includes a lengthy series of rationes put forth in defence of Urban VI or against Clement VII followed by responsiones that demolish the case. One ratio addressed the accusations regarding Robert of Geneva’s violent past. ‘It is said that our pope is a man of blood who often ordered murders and led armies into war. Yet,Author's this kind of man would not be electedpersonal pope. To which we might add copy from the Psalms XXII, ‘You have wages wars and poured out red blood. You cannot build a house in my name with so much blood having been spilled’. The responsio further declares that not only is this accusation false but no ‘illicit’ deeds were done by Robert in his position as legate for Gregory XI. Furthermore, while many popes up to now had had legates in charge of armies to defend and recover the Roman [i.e. Italian] lands for the church, none of them ‘brought to bear a bloody hand’. The citation from Psalms, is in fact from Paralipomenon 22. I thank Thomas Izbicki for locating this source. 195 Vincenzo Ferrer, De Moderno Ecclesiae Schismate, ed. Albano Sorbelli (Rome, 1900), 72: ‘That is the church militant descending from Heaven, that is to say from the church triumphant’. S. Dale / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 1e32 25

(Urban would imprison and drown several of his own cardinals).196 Clement, who had retreated first to Naples and eventually to Avignon, claimed the fealty of Savoy (the Green Count was his cousin;197 In 1380, Clement’s sister will marry Amedeo’s son and heir)198 most of France, Christian Spain and Scotland, while Urban in Rome retained most of Italy and the rest of Chris- tian Europe. Predictably, the loyalty of Naples veered with the political winds and eventually settled with Avignon. A Europe already riven by the military excesses of the Avignon papacy was now hurled into the spiritual chaos of two competing popes, neither of whom seemed ca- pable of lighting a path to salvation. The Great Schism was born. With one pope at Avignon and another in Rome, the ambitious temporal agenda of the papacy was reduced to often intense internecine warfare in the papal state and in the kingdom of Naples. The rest of Italy was largely spared the military impact of papal territorial demands, leaving several ambitious cities, especially Venice and Florence, free to expand without the interference of the papacy. But the real winner in the Great Schism was neither a pope nor a city. It was Gianga- leazzo Visconti, who succeeded his father as lord of Pavia just as the schism was unfolding. On 28 September 1378 Giangaleazzo wrote the Marquis of Monferrato announcing the election of Rob- ert of Geneva as pope Clement VII and calling for a celebration of three days.199 Despite the cel- ebratory tone, Giangaleazzo cultivated a studied neutrality in the face of the schism. Later that year, he informed the bishop of Tortona that during the schism, obedience of his subjects to either pope was acceptable, in effect legitimising Clement’s claims and giving him parity with Urban.200 This flexibility signalled that from Giangaleazzo’s perspective, his subjects’ choice of papal obedience was of little consequence, for what mattered was his ability to exploit the power vacuum that the schism engendered. Perhaps most significant for Giangaleazzo, for the first time in decades, a pope with serious temporal ambitions in Italy was not actively challenging Visconti authority in Lombardy. Registers of the schismatic popes are free of anti-Visconti invective, for these popes had more immediate enemies in one another.201

196 H.V. Sauerland, ‘Aktenstuecke zur Geschichte des papstes Urban VI’, Historisches Jahrbuch, 14 (1893), 820-32, at 825 for the torture of cardinals and 829 for the drowning in the Tiber of six cardinals. 197 Amedeo VI of Savoy, the brother in law of Galeazzo II Visconti, was known as the Green Count of Savoy. 198 Logoz, Clement VII,6. 199 Societa` Storica Lombarda, Repertorio Diplomatico Visconteo, vol. 2, no. 2425. Secondotto, the young marquis of Monferrato, had died violently in late August 1378. His brother Giovanni succeeded him in the marquisate. 200 Societa` Storica Lombarda, Repertorio Diplomatico Visconteo, vol. 2, no. 2476. The letter reﬂects the checkered pattern of obedience in Visconti-held territories. Vercelli and Bergamo were Clementine; Tortona, Cremona, Milan and Pavia adhered to Urban in Rome. 201 Urban’s fragmentary registers do not contain anti-Visconti letters. And the evidence in extant registers indicates that the Visconti were no longer Avignon’s prime diplomatic concern. Clement sought to place the struggle for Italy in a revisionist historical context tied to the crisis in the church caused by the schism. In one typical letter the lands of the Church in Italy are described as having once been occupied by an unnamed ‘Tyrant’ on account of which Clement’s papal predecessors incurred onerous expenses and were compelled to levy loans and subsidies on prelates. But ‘in modern times’, such subsidies were now needed for ‘extirpating the schism by whatever means’. ASV Camera Apostolica Collectiones 359A f. 150v (28 March 1382).Author's Even Boniface IX, who was personal far more wary than his Roman predecessor copy of Visconti ambitions, did not, in his letters, explicitly criticise Giangaleazzo Visconti until after his death. For example, following Giangaleaz- zo’s acquisition of the ducal title, Boniface IX imposed a 9000 ﬂorin loan, payable within one month, on prelates in the diocese of Milan, but still referred to Giangaleazzo as ‘dear son’ and ‘noble man’. ASV Reg. Vat. 315 f. 160v (18 July 1397). In 1403, shortly after Giangaleazzo’s death, Boniface began reasserting his own control over cities in the papal state that were now part of the Visconti state. His correspondence blamed ‘nepharious and greedy’ people in Perugia for selling the city to Giangaleazzo and threatened its citizens with military force should they not resubmit to the papacy but remained neutral in its references to the departed duke; ASV Reg. Vat. 320 f. 124v-125v (18 January 1403). 26 S. Dale / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 1e32

Giangaleazzo Visconti’s political aspirations were a direct result of the opportunities afforded him by the schism. Without it, he might have contented himself with consolidating his power in western Lombardy and eastern Piedmont, perhaps even attempting to retake Genoa, but always under the thumb of his uncle Bernabo`, who would have continued his own efforts to take Bologna. Building upon the hostility engendered by Gregory XI’s relentless warfare in Italy, Bernabo` Visconti had successfully, if paradoxically presented himself as a viable protector against Gregory’s mercenary armies, as he had done with Perugia and Florence. The death of Galeazzo` II Visconti initially fuelled his brother’s ambitions. Having secured ad- vantageous marriages to nobility and royalty throughout Europe for many of his myriad children,202 Bernabo` also engineered the marriage of one of his natural daughters, Caterina, to his widowed nephew Giangaleazzo, whose young wife Isabelle had tragically died in childbirth in 1372.203 Giangaleazzo’s apparent passivity and, indeed, acquiescence to his uncle’s bellicosity, protected the lord of Pavia. With the schism, the possibilities for new dominance within the papal state had only increased for Bernabo`. More importantly it offered Giangaleazzo a reason to remove Bernabo` from power. In 1385, with Bernabo` conﬁdent of his own domination of his nephew, and contemptuous of his meek and overly pious relative, Giangaleazzo took quick and bold action. The story is well known, if not its implications.204 Having received his uncle’s permission to traverse Milanese territory in order to visit a church at Varese, Giangaleazzo requested Bernabo`’s presence outside of Milan in order to pay him homage. Bernabo` and two of his sons arrived with no army protecting them. With a large army, Giangaleazzo immediately captured and imprisoned Bernabo` and his sons.205 Little discussed in the literature is that Giangaleazzo’s brilliantly simple capture of Bernabo` secured for himself a new image, that of a protector of the peace. In place of rapacity and sav- age plunder, represented by Bernabo` and the mercenary armies employed by both popes and Florence, the elegant sprezzatura of Bernabo`’s capture without bloodshed varnished Gianga- leazzo’s credibility as a different kind of leader, an ironic form of David slaying Goliath. The schism afforded Giangaleazzo Visconti an unprecedented opportunity to both consolidate his power in Lombardy and perhaps beyond and establish a legitimate seigniorial and dynastic state that would dominate Italian diplomacy. With both popes concerned more with survival than expansion, church forces were effectively neutralised. While he relentlessly pursued some cities, their subjugation was usually without bloodshed for Giangaleazzo preferred diplomacy and economic blockade to war. And cities such as Siena and Perugia actively sought the protection afforded them by Giangaleazzo against other predatory cities, mainly Florence, and a host of marauding mercenary armies that had already been threatening them. Importantly, Giangaleazzo could count among his advisors and counsellors two of the leading jurists of his day, Niccolo` Spinelli da Giovinazzo and Baldo degli Ubaldi, a testament to the perceived legitimacy of his stature. That Spinelli had been an implacable foe of the Visconti ﬁghting against them for 20 years and then serving the Avignon obedience, while Baldo had faithfully served the Roman cause, speaks to the legacy of the papal wars against the Visconti. Author's personal copy 202 Societa` Storica Lombarda, Repertorio Diplomatico Visconteo, vol. 2, no. 2615 is an extract from Bernabo`’s will. He listed eight legitimate children from his marriage to Regina della Scala along with eleven natural children. 203 Caterina had been married to Secondotto Monferrato. See Azario, Liber Gestorum, 166, n. 1 204 The standard work on Giangaleazzo is Daniel Bueno de Mesquita, Giangaleazzo Visconti (Cambridge, 1941). This invaluable study virtually ignores the impact of the Schism on Giangaleazzo’s diplomacy. 205 The capture is described in the Annales Mediolanenses, Ludovico Antonio Muratori, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores (Milan, 1730; repr. 1977) vol. 16, 784. It occurred on 7 May 1385. S. Dale / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 1e32 27

For the winner of these wars was Giangaleazzo Visconti, the one figure who could control the companies, maintain mostly cordial diplomatic ties with both the French king and German emperor, limit the territorial aspirations of Florence and Venice and actively, if discreetly, encour- age the claims of two competing popes. A measure of Giangaleazzo’s significance to Italian diplomacy during the schism was Niccolo` Spinelli da Giovinazzo’s decision to settle in Pavia in 1387. A jurist by training, Spinelli was entrusted by Cardinal Albornoz with numerous diplomatic missions and spent years stiffening Pope Urban V’s resolve against Bernabo` Visconti. Following Albornoz to Naples, Spinelli was named grand chancellor of the kingdom of Sicily and senescal of Provence, with large stipends attached to the titles. Spinelli was captain general of the Angevin troops in Piedmont that had been the scourge of the Visconti at Vercelli in 1373. Spinelli was deeply enmeshed in the creation of the Great Schism.206 Initially supportive of Urban, he soon was actively promoting the election of a second and he hoped, Italian pope, thinking that Urban might be forced to resign. With the election of the very un-Italian Clement, Spinelli nonetheless moved Joanna of Naples to his obedience, for which he was rewarded by Clement with several feudal concessions. Urban VI, predictably, issued denunciatory sentences against Spinelli and removed his feudal titles.207 Charles of Durazzo was crowned king of Sicily by Urban on 2 June 1381 as revenge against Joanna’s adhesion to Clement.208 Charles’ partisans murdered Joanna and imprisoned Spinelli, who managed to escape to Avignon in the summer of 1382.209 Two years later Pope Clement VII paid Spinelli 1100 florins to underwrite his attempted seizure of the Puglian territory of Charles of Durazzo.210 In May 1387, Clement paid Spinelli 1000 florins to return to Italy on a diplomatic mission. He was to go to Giangaleazzo Visconti in Milan and then to Florence, to persuade them to adhere to Clement, during a period in which Urban’s erratic and volatile behaviour was straining even his most loyal supporters.211 Instead of proceeding to Florence, Spinelli remained for the rest of his life at the Visconti court in Pavia, serving as counsellor and diplomat to Giangaleazzo.212 Niccolo` Spinelli likely told Giangaleazzo Visconti about an abortive plan by Clement VII to infeud the papal state to Louis of Anjou, via a grant

206 Romano, Niccolo` Spinelli, 270. 207 The earliest denunciation is from 30 December 1378. BAV Vat. Lat. 6330 f. 141. 208 Joanna vacillated between popes in the early years of the schism. Letters beseeching her to cross to the Clementine obedience from Louis of Anjou from early 1379 and June, 1380 indicate that Joanna’s resolve was not yet firm. See BAV Barb. Lat. 2101 f. 8-10. 209 Urban made no distinction between Charles of Durazzo, whom he had installed as king of Sicily and who later betrayed him and Niccolo` Spinelli, who had been a prime mover in creating the Schism. They are described as ‘schismatic apostates’ who were excommunicated and anathemised together by Urban. A fragmentary register also records Urban’s continued transfer of Spinelli’s benefices near Rome. Here Giovanni and Poncello Orsini, newly affirming their fidelity to Urban, were granted a ten year census of 3000 florins from Narni; ASV Inst. Misc. 3362 f. 3r-v (24 September 1388). 210 ASV Clement VII Introitus et Exitus 337 f. 45v. 211 In 1388 Florence considered withholding the payment of its tithe to Urban to signal its frustration with his fixation with fighting Ladislaus of Durazzo, successor to his father Charles III of Durazzo; Valois, La France et la grande schisme,vol.1,202. 212 Spinelli servedAuthor's as Giangaleazzo’s negotiator in personal numerous diplomatic efforts, as for copy example in 1393 in a treaty in which Savoy agreed not to allow troops hostile to Giangaleazzo to cross Savoy territory. See Turin, Archivio di Stato, Estratti Savoy 6. On 10 July 1392, Niccolo` Spinelli’s house in Pavia was the site of an agreement to allow Alcardo Alcardi to sell the goods of ‘rebels’ in Bologna up to the value of 300 florins a year. The document names Giangaleazzo Visconti as the imperial vicar general and cites Niccolo` Spinelli as Giangaleazzo’s’s representative to whom Alcardo is to give a faithful accounting. The notary Catelano Cristiani then recorded the names of the people whose goods had been appropriated along with a detailed listing of the items and their value. Pavia, Archivio di Stato, Notarile 4, no. 9. 28 S. Dale / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 1e32 made to him in 1379.213 Louis would be king of Adria, the renamed papal state.214 Adria would have the same juridical status as the kingdom of Naples and would remit to the papacy a census of 40,000 florins a year. The infeudation was justified by the ‘affliction of the people and clergy that was caused by a multitude of tyrants who had taken advantage of the distance of the papacy [in Avignon] from the papal state to plunder it’.215 This infeudation would be a first step in reasserting French control of the Roman papacy by first securing control of the papal state. Louis of Anjou never got very far with this plan. Instead he devoted most of his efforts to asserting his rights to the crown of Naples acquired by his adoption by Joanna of Naples. But the idea of the infeudation of the papal state to a French vassal was reinvigorated by Gianga- leazzo.216 That nothing had come of the earlier grant made it more tempting for Giangaleazzo Visconti, whose son in law was Louis of Orleans, the brother of Charles VI of France, and thus a logical new king of the territory of Adria. Hemmed in by Venice to the east and Florence to the south, Giangaleazzo looked strategically to the papal state, which was particularly vulner- able given the spectacular failure of the Avignon papacy to convince Italians that it was a viable political entity rather than a staging area for a shifting cast of warmongering legates. Thus, it might fall like ripe fruit into de facto Visconti control, for Louis of Orleans, who was considered weak and ineffectual by some, could be managed as a surrogate by Giangaleazzo. As cautious as he was ambitious, Giangaleazzo tried to secure the support of both the French king and the Avignonese pope for this renewed infeudation. He sent several ambassadors to Paris and Avignon, Niccolo` Spinelli among them, in November 1392.217 The instructions car- ried by Spinelli to France were careful to cite Clement as the pope and Boniface as the anti- pope and to promote the duke of Orleans as the figure who could recover the lands of the papal state. But, the instructions are notable for other reasons. They contain an astonishingly revisionist history. From Bertrand de Poujet through Gil Albornoz, papal legates were always fighting to regain the papal state from unnamed local tyrants or members of the Malatesta family. Only one Visconti lord, significantly Bernabo`, is cited as fighting against any papal forces and even he is mentioned in concord with Pope Gregory XI when they signed a peace treaty in 1376. Importantly, an economic case was made that the papal state had always been an enormous drain on the papal treasury, with millions of florins expended on warfare for a territory that, even in rare times of peace, had provided little revenue. In contrast, Joanna of Naples over the course of her reign paid into the papal treasury over two million florins and never cost the papacy a denarius. The history concluded that the continued retention of the papal state by the Church offended God, that the church monies spent on the territory disadvantaged the

213 This rarely cited bull of Sperlonga was published by G. G. Leibnitz, Codex Juris Gentium Diplomaticus.(Hann- over, 1693), 239-50. 214 It would have included the March of Ancona, Romagna, Spoleto, Bologna, Ferrara, Ravenna, Perugia and Todi. 215 On Adria see Paul Durrieu, ‘Le Royaume d’ Adria: episode se rattachant a` l’histoire de la politique francaise en Italie sous le re`gne de Charles VI 1393-1394’, extract from Revue des questions historiques (Paris, 1880), 5-74 at 42-3. 216 Ever wary of Giangaleazzo, Hans Baron proposed that the Count of Virtues himself devised the Adria plan; Baron, Crisis, 31. Author's personal copy 217 The alleged purpose was to alert the French about the formation of a defensive league against Giangaleazzo by Flor- ence, Padua, Ferrara, Faenza, Imola and Mantua. Having intercepted a message regarding the league, Giangaleazzo falsely notiﬁed Charles VI that he had been invited to join this alliance by Boniface IX, who also wanted the partici- pation of England and the Empire, with a view to isolating France. Additionally, he wrote that as a condition of member- ship in the league, England would be obligated to invade France should the latter attempt an invasion of Italy. Having barely survived the Hundred Years’ War with England, the French would be naturally alarmed at this potential rekin- dling of hostilities. Romano, Niccolo` Spinelli, 412. S. Dale / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 1e32 29

Church and that even the schism might be blamed on the papal state since it was in its defence that Pope Gregory had come to Italy, only to die in Rome, setting up the dual election. It asserted that the territory comprising the papal state was not governable by the pope and needed to be infeuded to a secular sovereign loyal to Clement and to the French king, specifically Louis of Orleans. Just as Naples had been made a vassal state a century earlier and was a source of revenue to the Church instead of costing the papal treasury money, the proposed new kingdom would be the source of lucrative census payments. The document is bold and revealing, reflecting Niccolo` Spinelli’s ex- asperation with both the endless wars fought in the papal state and the durability of the schism. Coming on the heels of considerable expenses paid in vain to secure Naples one more time, the French king and the Avignon papacy had little taste for such an ambitious and costly action and the plan died, but it does expose Giangaleazzo’s intention to profit from the schism by incremen- tally prying away the papal state from the temporal control of Avignon. If the kingdom of Adria represented Niccolo` Spinelli’s last best hope for peace in Italy, Giangaleazzo’s other and far more successful attempt to expand his power had the imprint of yet another eminent jurist at Pavia, Baldo degli Ubaldi.218 Baldo had been one of the most outspoken defenders of Urban VI, but years of loyalty and service had been repaid with frustration: even a promised infeudation was not granted despite a lawsuit filed by Baldo at the curia in 1386.219 And, like Niccolo` Spinelli, after over a decade of the Schism, Baldo viewed Giangaleazzo as the one figure who might bring peace to Italy.220 Baldo’s loyalty to Giangaleazzo has been the subject of some debate,221 but his own politics are less interesting than the way in which his juridical gifts interacted with Giangaleazzo’s ambitions. Baldo’s writ- ings, notably the Super Usibus Feudorum and consilia or legal opinions produced in Pavia, suggest that he played a major role in shaping the political behaviour of the count of Virtues. Significantly, Baldo dismissed the legal possibility of the kingdom of Adria, arguing that as a result of the Donation of Constantine, the pope was obligated to preserve the papal kingdom and

218 Invited by Giangaleazzo to teach at the university, Baldo probably left Perugia with mixed feelings. He always signed his name, Baldus de Perusii, reflecting his deep affection for and identification with his home city and indeed in 1385, he pledged not to leave the city; T. Cuturi, ‘Baldo degli Ubaldi in Firenze’, Bollettino della Regia Deputazione di Storia Patria per l’Umbria, 6 (1900), 153-82. 219 See Kenneth Pennington, The prince and the law, 1200-1600. Sovereignty and rights in the western legal tradition (Berkeley, 1993), 219. See also, S. Fodale, ‘Baldo degli Ubaldi, difensore di Urbano VI e signore di Biscina’, Quaderni Medievali, 17 (1984), 73-85. I have located the previously lost and unpublished documents of infeudation at the ASV, Instr. Misc. 3289, 3051 and 3053. The latter two texts have been published; Sharon Dale, ‘ Baldo degli Ubaldi and the infeudation of Biscina: the original bulls discovered’, in: Baldo degli Ubaldi, ed. Frova, Ottaviani and Zucchini, 555-60. 220 Like many others, Baldo was deeply frustrated with the Schism and with the tenacity with which both Boniface IX and Benedict XIII clung to power. He came to believe that the emperor and kings could force these popes to submit, either by convening a council, resigning or agreeing to arbitration. See Joseph Canning, The political thought of Baldus de Ubaldis (Cambridge, 1987) 43. 221 Canning seems to conflate Baldus’s legal opinions or consilia with his political opinions. ‘Baldus for the rest of his days threw in his lot with the Visconti, and as these consilia attest fully supported the signorial regime of the state of Milan’. Canning,Author'sPolitical thought of Baldus, 221. Kennethpersonal Pennington sees a more nuanced copy Baldo in this period, yet still maintains that political preference guided the opinions in consilia. See Kenneth Pennington, ‘Allegationes, solutiones and dubitationes: Baldus de Ubaldis revisions of his Consilia’, in: Die Kunst der Disputation: Probleme der Re- chtsanwendung im 13 und 14 Jahrhundert, ed. Manlio Bellomo (Munich, 1997) 29-71, at 31. The two authors have continued this scholarly debate even while acknowledging that the issuance of consilia depended upon case precedent rather than political sentiment; see Kenneth Pennington, ‘Was Baldus an absolutist? The evidence of his Consilia’, 1-16 in: Baldo degli Ubaldi, ed. Frova, Ottaviani and Zucchini and Josesph Canning, ‘Why Baldus was no republican’, 193-204 in the same volume. 30 S. Dale / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 1e32 could not alienate the territory nor transfer it to another. Legally, the only exception to this would be that the pope could give the patrimony back to the emperor, an unlikely scenario.222 Baldo’s imprint is on Giangaleazzo’s successful petition for the ducal title of Milan in 1395 that was a crucial step in the continuous evolution towards a dynastic state in Lombardy, ruled by force of law, not the law of force. According to the 1396 grant that expanded the ducal title beyond Milan, all holders of imperial fiefs in Lombardy were obligated to recognise and swear fealty to Giangaleazzo, who ruled in the name of the emperor.223 Even before receiving the ducal title, Giangaleazzo Visconti had requested a detailed examination of infeudation, which Baldo presented to the count of Virtues in 1393 as the Super Usibus Feudorum.224 The consilium Rex Romanorum was written to clarify the process of infeudation within the legal framework of the ducal title. In it, Baldo boldly asserted that in Giangaleazzo, the Roman empire had risen from the dead. He referred to Giangaleazzo as princeps and asserted that his monarchy was a kingdom in all but name.225 Perhaps the most startling defection to the court of Giangaleazzo Visconti was that of Pileo da Prata, who had been named a bishop by Innocent VI and archbishop by Gregory XI, who sent him as a nunzio to negotiate peace in the Hundred Years’ War.226 Named a cardinal by Urban VI in 1378, Pileo traveled throughout Europe, tirelessly arguing for Urban’s legitimacy and maintaining a credibility that the pope himself lacked. Convinced of Urban’s ineptitude and more, hoping to end the Schism, Pileo and five other cardinals attempted a subtraction of obedience in the summer of 1385. The plan failed and Pileo swore an oath of fidelity to Urban in Genoa, to which the besieged pope had fled.227 But in August of the next year, Pileo and another cardinal, Galeotto Pietramala, escaped to Pavia. Seeking to explain their seeming aban- donment of Urban to the anziani of Bologna, Pileo wrote that they blamed Urban for ‘creating, nurturing and nourishing’ the schism and faulted him for the damage done to the Church, to Italy and to the whole Christian world.228 In contrast, Giangaleazzo Visconti was described as the ‘head of Italy’ and a ‘zealous lover of Italy’ with the ‘greatest desire for the reform of the Church and the peace of Italy’.229

222 On Baldo and the papal state see Joseph Canning, ‘A state like any other? The fourteenth-century papal patrimony through the eyes of Roman law jurists’, in: The Church and sovereignty c. 590-1918, Essays in honour of Michael Wilks, ed. Diana Wood (Oxford, 1991), 245-260. 223 For an historic review of the feudal process in Lombardy, see Piero Brancoli Busdraghi, La Formazione storica del feudo Lombardo come diretto reale (2nd edition, Milan, 1965; repr. Spoleto, 1999). 224 The original manuscript that was part of Giangaleazzo Visconti’s library is today in Paris, Bibliothe`que Nationale, Lat. 11.727. See Elizabeth Pellegrin, La bibliothe`que des Visconti et des Sforza ducs de Milan, au XV sie`cle (Paris, 1955), 43. 225 Baldus de Ubaldis, Consiliorum sive responsorum volumina 1-5 ed. (Venice, 1575) vol. 1. no. 333: Rex Romanorum in verum principatum & Ducam creavit, fecit, & erexit de plenitudine potestatis.Nam tunc Romanum imperium sur- rexit a mortuis, si bene consideretur, quando dictam magniﬁcam, illustrem et gloriosam gratiam fecit [i.e. imperator] domino nostro duci Mediolani comiti Papie et virtutum, etc. On this consilium, see most recently, Kenneth Pennington as in note 221 above. While still engaged in the largely irrelevant contemporary debate regarding Baldus’s politics, Pen- nington provides aAuthor's good summary of the issues raised personal in the consilium. copy 226 Paolo Stacul, Il Cardinale Pileo da Prata (Rome, 1957). 227 ASV Inst. Misc. 3362 f. 5-7(23 0ctober 1385) records their return to Urban’s curia in Genoa. The cardinals were each required to hold the feet of the pope with both hands and swear allegiance to him in a secret concistory. Then a public announcement was made to this effect and ﬁnally Pileo da Prata was individually required to execute a sworn statement that he was faithful to Urban. 228 Sauerland, ‘Aktenstuecke.Urban VI’, 828 229 Sauerland, ‘Aktenstuecke.Urban VI’, 830. S. Dale / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 1e32 31

That cardinals and lawyers would look to a Visconti for the salvation of the church and the peace of Italy attests to the profound failure of the papal wars against the Visconti d and the failure of papal temporal power. Far from extirpated, exterminated and destroyed, the Visconti had flourished, not despite, but because of the Avignon papacy’s wars against them. The Vis- conti had fulfilled the papacy’s worst fears and become the dominant obstacle to papal temporal control of Italy, a role that they exploited masterfully, presenting themselves as defenders of Italy against papal aggression. By his skilful elimination of Bernabo`, Giangaleazzo had re- shaped the Visconti image of evil incarnate to become the embodiment of invincible power, a revived Roman monarch and, in the view of some, a veritable prince of peace. Yet, Giangaleazzo Visconti’s impact on Italy has been examined almost entirely through a Florentine lens that presents a starkly different picture. Just as the papacy’s demonisation of the Visconti distorted the reality of the power struggle in northern Italy, Florentine expansion in Tuscany was conveniently disguised as a defence against a vilified enemy. Polemicists produced a torrent of treatises, letters and poetry that celebrated Florentine libertas and its republican ethos while denouncing the tyranny of Milan as a justification for the seizure of other cities.230 Thus, for example, Leonardo Bruni could proclaim ‘Can anyone so feeble of intellect or so devoid of truth be found who would deny that all Italy would have fallen under the power of the duke of Lombardy had not this one city resisted his power with its troops and sound strategy?’231 Even the closer scrutiny accorded the politics and rhetoric of these writers by contemporary historians,232 has not much altered the fixed idea of a Visconti predator menacing Florence and Florentine interests in central Italy. Florentine aggression is portrayed as necessary to the survival of a Vis- conti-free Tuscany,233 as if the interests of Florence and those of the rest of Tuscany were identical. Implicit is the assumption that Tuscan cities preferred domination by Florence rather than Milan, and that such domination was somehow synonymous with libertas. Florence had been engaged, however, in aggressive territorial expansion and predatory warfare in Tuscany decades before the Visconti were a force to reckon with in Lombardy, let alone Tuscany.234 Florence’s goal was ‘to preserve its liberty at home and to pursue empire abroad’.235 Abroad meant her Tuscan neighbours. Numerous cities, including Siena, Pisa, Lucca and Perugia, sought protection from Florentine domination by submitting, voluntarily, to Giangaleazzo’s authority. In much of Italy and most particularly in Tuscany, Giangaleazzo had been viewed as the only defence against Florentine aggression,236 a truth realised after

230 James Hankins, ‘Humanism and modern political thought’, in: Cambridge companion to renaissance humanism, ed. Jill Krahe (Cambridge, 1996), 118-41. 231 Leonardo Bruni, ‘Panygyric to the city of Florence’, in: The earthly republic/Italian humanists on government and society ed. Benjamin G. Kohl and Ronald G. Witt (Philadelphia, 1978), 166. 232 See for example the excellent review essay by Robert Black, ‘The political thought of the Florentine chancellors’, The Historical Journal, 29 (1986), 991-1003. 233 ‘If Florentines did not take dominion over their neighbours, their enemies would do so’. Daniel Meredith Bueno da Mesquita, ‘The place of despotism in Italian politics’, in: Europe in the late middle ages, ed. J.R. Hale. J.R.L. Highfield and B. Smalley (Evanston,Author's IL, 1965), 301-31 at 306-7. personal copy 234 William J. Connell, ‘Introduction’, in: Florentine Tuscany, ed. William J. Connell and Andrea Zorzi (Cambridge, 2000), 1. 235 Mikael Ho¨rnqvist, ‘The two myths of civic humanism’, in: Renaissance civic humanism reappraisals and reflections, ed. James Hankins (Cambridge, 2000) 105-42 at 124. 236 Bueno da Mesquita, Giangaleazzo Visconti, 115. Cities such as Volterra were assessed onerous taxes for Florentine ‘protection’. See Lorenzo Fabbri, ‘Patronage and its role in government’, in: Florentine Tuscany, ed. Connell and Zorzi, 225-41 at 229. 32 S. Dale / Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007) 1e32 his death when, absent any Visconti threat, Florence brutally invaded neighbouring cities such as Pisa. Historians are beginning to examine the more extravagant claims for Florentine libertas as Mikael Hornqvist has noted Florentine ambitions for ‘imperial greatness and hegemonic rule over Tuscany, Italy, and, on occasion, even the entire world’,237 and Gordon Griffiths has revealed the gap between the rhetoric and the reality of Florentine foreign policy.238 Yet Italian historiography still clings to a vocabulary and a historical framework that justifies ‘the growing dynamism of the republic [of Florence] in extending its control over the Tuscan territory’ as the response to ‘the menacing expansionism of the lords of Milan’. [italics mine]239 And even as the ‘Baron thesis’ undergoes continuous scrutiny, debate and revision, nearly all of the scholarly attention has been focused upon Florence,240 ignoring any new consideration of its opponents, the Visconti. They remain the same one-dimensional tyrants crafted by Avignonese propaganda and repackaged by Florentine polemicists. Clearly a re-evaluation is in order. While beyond the scope of the present article, it nonetheless begs for a re-examination of fourteenth-century Ital- ian diplomatic history that is untethered to Florentine polemic and that properly accounts for the active role of the Avignon papacy in destabilizing Italy and forcing the diplomatic realign- ment that set the stage for both the War of Eight Saints and the ensuing Great Schism. As well, it suggests that the rise of the regional state in Italy might profitably be studied less as a primarily Florentine phenomenon of the next century and more as a process that began in the fourteenth century as Milan and Florence vied with one another and with Venice to carve out territorial advantage in response to and eventually at the expense of papal temporal power in Italy.

Sharon Dale is Associate Professor of Art History at Pennsylvania State University-The Behrend College. She is the author of several articles on Cistercian and Augustinian art patronage in fourteenth-century Italy. She is the co-editor (with Duane Osheim and Alison Williams Lewin) of a volume of Italian chronicles in translation, Chroniclers and His- torians in Medieval and Renaissance Italy (The Pennsylvania University Press; in press). The present article is part of a larger study of papal-Visconti diplomacy, in preparation. Another chapter from that book, ‘A house divided: San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro in Pavia and the politics of Pope John XXII,’ was published previously in the Journal of Medieval History, 27 (2001): 55-77.

Author's personal copy

237 Ho¨rnqvist, ‘Myths of civic humanism’, 109. 238 Gordon Grifﬁths, The justiﬁcation of Florentine foreign policy offered by Leonardo Bruni in his public letters (1428-1444) (Rome, 1999). 239 Francesco Salvestrini, ‘San Miniato al Tedesco’, in: Florentine Tuscany, ed. Connell and Zorzi, 249. 240 For a useful summary of the literature, see William J. Connell, ‘The republican idea’, in: Renaissance civic humanism, ed. Hankins, 14-29.