Filippo Maria Visconti

Filippo Maria Visconti, (1392 - 1447), who became nominal ruler of Pavia in 1402, succeeded his brother as duke of Milan.

Cruel and extremely sensitive about his personal ugliness, he nevertheless was a great politician, and by employing such powerful condottieri as Carmagnola, Piccinino and Francesco Sforza he managed to recover the Lombard portion of his father's duchy. From his marriage with the unhappy widow of Facino Cane de Cesale he received a dowry of nearly half a million florins.

He died in 1447, the last of the Visconti in direct male line, and was succeeded in the duchy, after the short-lived Ambrosian republic, by Francesco Sforza, who had married his daughter Bianca in 1441.

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This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.