page_title: Visconti of Milan
section_title: Joint lordship of Matteo II, Bernabò and Galeazzo II (1354–1385)
hierarchical_section_title: Visconti of Milan / Lords and Dukes of Milan / Rulers and their families / Joint lordship of Matteo II, Bernabò and Galeazzo II (1354–1385)
caption_attribution_description: English: Bernabò Visconti is arrested by the men of Gian Galeazzo Visconti
context_page_description: The Visconti of Milan are a noble Italian family. They rose to power in Milan during the Middle Ages where they ruled from 1277 to 1447, initially as lords then as dukes, and several collateral branches still exist. The effective founder of the Visconti lordship of Milan was the archbishop Ottone, who wrested control of the city from the rival Della Torre family in 1277.
context_section_description: On 5 October 1354 the archbishop Giovanni died. In his honour, few days after, Petrach held a commemorative oration. In the same month the three sons of Stefano agreed to share the power, dividing the Visconti domains according to geographic criteria. Matteo II died the following year and his territory was divided between Bernabò and Galeazzo II. The two brothers settled their courts separately: Bernabò in Milan, Galeazzo II in Pavia. Through the marriages of their sons and daughters, Bernabò and Galeazzo II extended the Visconti relationships to a number of other European noble dynasties.
  In 1360 Gian Galeazzo, the eldest son of Galeazzo II, married Isabelle of Valois, daughter of King John II of France. The marriage was the result of negotiation participated also by Petrarch with a journey to Paris and leading the Visconti to contribute with 600,000 francs to the ransom paid by France to England to obtain the freedom of the King in an episode of the Hundred Years' War. Violante, the eldest daughter of Galeazzo II, married in 1368 Lionel of Antwerp Duke of Clarence, third son of King Edward III of England. After her husband's death, only few months after the marriage, in 1377 Violante married Secondotto, Marquess of Montferrat. Remained again widow, in 1381 she married her cousin Lodovico, one of the sons of Bernabò.
  Bernabò and his wife Regina Della Scala had 15 children. Nine daughters (Taddea, Viridis, Valentina, Agnese, Antonia, Maddalena, Anglesia, Lucia, Elisabetta) married scions of other European dynasties, connecting the Visconti to the houses of Wittelsbach (Taddea, Maddalena, Elisabetta), Habsburg (Viridis), Poitiers-Lusignan (Valentina, Anglesia), Württemberg (Antonia), Gonzaga (Agnese), Kent (Lucia). Their sons Marco and Carlo married respectively Elisabeth of Bavaria and Beatrice of Armagnac. Caterina, another daughter of Bernabò, married in 1380 her cousin Gian Galeazzo, widow of Isabelle of Valois, who died in 1373 in Pavia while giving birth to her fourth child.
  When Galeazzo II died in 1378, his son Gian Galeazzo was the only heir of his half of the Visconti territories. Bernabò, being 28 years older than his nephew, tended to assume a leading role towards him. The two Visconti had different personalities and ruling styles: instinctive, bad tempered and establisher of a terror regime Bernabò; circumspect and relatively mild to his subjects Gian Galeazzo. In the following years the relationship between the two Visconti progressively deteriorated.
  Few months after the death of his wife and counselor, Bernabò was deposed by his nephew in a coup, probably prepared for years and kept secret. On 5 May 1385, accompanied by his generals (Jacopo dal Verme, Antonio Porro and Guglielmo Bevilacqua) and with a heavy armed escort, Gian Galeazzo moved from Pavia for an apparent pilgrimage journey to Santa Maria del Monte di Velate near Varese. The following day, passing by Milan, he arranged to meet Bernabò for what was expected to be a familiar greeting. Bernabò, unprotected, was intercepted and arrested. The coup led also to the arrest of two sons of Bernabò, who were accompanying him.
  The people living in the domains of Bernabò, firstly the Milanese, promptly submitted to Gian Galeazzo, an attitude widely attributed to their desire to abandon the ruthless regime under which they had been living. Incarcerated in his own castle at Trezzo sull'Adda, Bernabò died few months later after being submitted a poisoned meal.
caption: May 6, 1385, Bernabò Visconti is arrested by the men of his nephew Gian Galeazzo Visconti (19th-century engraving)
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