Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIV.djvu/832

 806 SFORZA cock. Gov. Seymour had positively declined to permit the use of his name as a candidate ; bat on the 22d ballot the Ohio delegation, to forestall a threatened movement in favor of Salmon P. Chase, cast their united vote for Ho- ratio Seymour. When Wisconsin was reached in the call of states its delegation seconded his nomination, and every state changed its vote to Seymour, who was declared the unanimous choice of the convention. Gen. Francis P. Blair, jr., was nominated for vice president. At the election Seymour and Blair received 2,703,600 votes, against 3,013,188 votes for Grant and Colfax. Mr. Seymour lives on an extensive and well cultivated farm in Deer- field, near Utica. He is president (1875) of the national dairymen's association, and has delivered many addresses before agricultural societies. He is also president of the prison association of the United States-. SFORZA, an Italian family, several members of which were sovereign dukes of Milan du- ring the 15th and 16th centuries. I. GUeomnzzo Attf ndolo, the son of a peasant and the founder of the house, born at Cotignola, in the Ro- magna, in 1369, died in 1424. He became one of the most redoubtable condottieri of Italy, and was surnamed Sforza on account of his muscular strength. He fought in the service of various princes, and Queen Joanna II. of Naples made him grand constable. In 1420, yielding to the influence of Pope Martin V., who had made him a count, he aided Louis III. of Anjou against the queen; but soon return- ing to Joanna, he protected her against Alfonso of Aragon, and while marching against Braccio di Montone was drowned in the Pescara. II. Francesco, duke (if Milan, natural son of the preceding, born in 1401, died in 1466. He suc- ceeded his father in the command of the mer- cenary bands upon whom his power rested. Enlisting in 1425 in the service of Filippo Ma- ria Visconti, duke of Milan, then at war with a formidable league headed by the republic of Venice, he was defeated at Macalo by Carma- gnola in 1427, but vanquished him in 1431 at Soncino. Under pretence of giving force to the decrees of the council of Basel against Eu- genius IV., he wrested the province of Anco- na from the pope. Entering the service of the Florentine republic against Visconti, he beat the Milanese under Piccinino and conquered Lunegiana in 1437; returning to his former ally, was sent by him to Naples to support Rene" of Anjou against Alfonso of Aragon; then going over again to the Venetians, defeat- ed Visconti in 1440, and invaded his territory ; and finally, receiving the hand of the duke's illegitimate daughter Bianca, forced Florence and Venice to grant that prince the peace of Capriana (1441). Visconti treacherously at- tempted to crush his son-in-law by forming a league of nearly all the Italian princes against him ; but, concentrating his whole force in the province of Ancona, Sforza routed his ene- mies at Monte Lauro and Mont' Olmo in 1444; and when, notwithstanding these successes, he was on the eve of succumbing to superior forces, he received timely aid from the repub- lic of Venice and from Florence, now under the control of his friend Cosmo de' Medici. On the death of Visconti without a male heir in 1447, the Milanese adopted a republican government ; but Sforza, after serving the re- public for a time, seized its principal towns, blockaded Milan, and in 1450 was proclaimed duke. Venice and Naples refused to acknowl- edge his title ; but he defeated the former in a short war, made peace and contracted an alliance with Alfonso of Aragon, king of Na- ples, made himself master of Genoa in 1464, and secured a controlling influence in all Italy. His protection of science and literature, his liberality toward the learned exiles from Con- stantinople, and the public improvements ac- complished under his reign, entitle him to a high rank among the princes of his age. III. Cateazzo Maria, son and successor of the prece- ding, born in 1444, assassinated in 1476. He was serving Louis XI. of France at the time of his father's death, and returned hastily in dis- guise to Milan, where, owing to his mother's energy, he was proclaimed duke ; but he gave himself up to luxury and debauchery, and was charged with poisoning his first wife and his mother. His second wife was Bona of Savoy, sister-in-law of Louis XI. He was assassina- ted by three conspirators, and Giovanni Gale- azzo, about eight years old, was proclaimed duke under the regency of his mother. IV. Lndovieo, called IL Mono, brother of the pre- ceding, born in August, 1451, died in 1508 or 1510. In 1479 he assumed the title of re- gent in Milan. His nephew, a son-in-law of Ferdinand, king of Naples, being treated as a prisoner, Ferdinand was arming against Ludo- vico, when the latter in 1494 invited Charles VIII. of France to undertake the conquest of Naples ; and Galeazzo dying soon after, Ludovico proclaimed himself duke. He now formed a league of all the northern powers of Italy to prevent Charles's return from Na- ples; but the French baffled his efforts, and in 1499 he was attacked by Louis XII., who claimed the duchy in the right of his grand- mother Valentina Visconti, and being forced to fly from Milan took refuge at Innspruck, with the emperor Maximilian. The French gave such dissatisfaction to the Milanese that, with the aid of mercenary Swiss troops, Ludo- vico was enabled to reconquer his duchy ; but on a new invasion of the French in 1500, he was taken while trying to escape, and con- fined for life in the castle of Loches. V. Mas- similiano, son of the preceding, born in 1491, died in June, 1530. lie was made duke by the "holy league" in 1512, after the expulsion of the French, but was overthrown on their re- turn in 1513. On the defeat of the French army at Novara he reentered Milan, but final- ly lost his crown in 1515, when Francis I. of France won the victory of Marignano (Me-