Posted on 02/07/2021 8:20:41 AM PST by CheshireTheCat
On this date in 1391, the condottiero tyrant of Mantua, Francisco Gonzaga, removed his consort from his right arm by removing her head.
Daughter of the powerful Milanese Visconti family, Agnese Visconti had been dynastically married off to the Mantuan prince by her father. Dad had in 1385 been overthrown and murdered by a kinsman, Gian Galeazzo Visconti, but still this was all in the family: the thing was that Francisco Gonzaga started wanting to cut ties with that family.
No trouble: Francisco simply accused his wife of adultery with a knight,* Antonio da Scandiano, and had both put to death on February 7, 1391 — Agnese via the blade, Antonio at the end of a rope. Then, Francisco switched its allegiance from #TeamMilan to #TeamVenice in the peninsular geopolitics scrum.**
European courts were aghast as news of the divorce proceedings reached her preening chateaux, but “nimble, opportunistic changes of political loyalty like these were typical of Gonzaga foreign policy and helped them to navigate their small state safely in a sea of unpredictable alliances.” (Source)
Consummate survivors, the House of Gonzaga weathered the Visconti wrath and ruled Mantua into the 18th century, producing among other things down the centuries a name check in Hamlet and a pious Jesuit who became namesake to the many educational institutions called “Gonzaga”...
(Excerpt) Read more at executedtoday.com ...
Very, very interesting. Thanks for posting. History/education BUMP!
We moderns usually, mistakenly, think of the unified Italy of today as if it was a continuation of Italy after the Roman Empire fell apart. Italy itself fell apart in divisions in the post-Empire era. The modern unified Italy does not appear until 1871; about the same time the German states unified; and almost 100 years after the founding of the United States. As peoples many European societies may be older than the U.S., but as nation-states quite a few are younger than the U.S.
One of the interesting details about this is that crowds would congregate in front of opera houses where Verdi operas were being performed, chanting, "Viva Verdi! Viva Verdi!" "Verdi," however, was an acronym for "Victor Emmanuel, Rei d'Italia," though it was also good PR for Giuseppe Verdi.
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