Portrait of Francesco I Gonzaga Francesco I Gonzaga (1366 – 7 March 1407) was

ruler A ruler, sometimes called a rule, line gauge, or scale, is a device used in geometry and technical drawing, as well as the engineering and construction industries, to measure distances or draw straight lines. Variants Rulers have long ...

Mantua Mantua ( ; it, Mantova ; Lombard language, Lombard and la, Mantua) is a city and ''comune'' in Lombardy, Italy, and capital of the Province of Mantua, province of the same name. In 2016, Mantua was designated as the Italian Capital of Culture ...

from 1382 to 1407. He was also a condottiero. Succeeding his father

Ludovico II Gonzaga Ludovico II Gonzaga (1334 – 4 October 1382) was an Italian politician who was capitano del popolo of Mantua. He was a member of the House of Gonzaga. Biography He was the son of Guido Gonzaga and Beatrix of Bar. Together with his brother Franc ...

in 1382, he led a policy of balance between the nearby powers of the

Visconti Visconti is a surname which may refer to: Italian noble families * Visconti of Milan, ruled Milan from 1277 to 1447 ** Visconti di Modrone, collateral branch of the Visconti of Milan * Visconti of Pisa and Sardinia, ruled Gallura in Sardinia from ...

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

and

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

. In 1380, he married

Agnese Agnese is a given name and a variant of Agnes. Its name day is 21 January in Italy. People with the name Agnese include: *Agnese Allegrini (born 1982), Italian badminton player *Agnese Bonfantini (born 1999), Italian football player * Agnese Kokl ...

, daughter of Barnabò Visconti. When she was executed in 1391 under accusations of adultery, Francesco switched his allegiance to Venice, also to protect his land from the increasing power of

Gian Galeazzo Visconti Gian Galeazzo Visconti (16 October 1351 – 3 September 1402), was the first duke of Milan (1395) and ruled the late-medieval city just before the dawn of the Renaissance. He also ruled Lombardy jointly with his uncle Bernabò. He was the foundi ...

. In 1393, he remarried, to

Margherita Malatesta {{Infobox noble , name = Margherita Malatesta , title = Consort of the ruler of Mantua , image = Маргарита Малатеста.jpg , caption = , alt = , CoA = ...

, who carried in the Gonzaga family the hereditary illness of

osteomalacia Osteomalacia is a disease characterized by the softening of the bones caused by impaired bone metabolism primarily due to inadequate levels of available phosphate, calcium, and vitamin D, or because of resorption of calcium. The impairment of bon ...

, which appeared periodically in Mantua's rulers until the 16th century. Francesco had subsequently to defend his lands from Gian Galeazzo's assault, but the latter's death in 1402 solved the conflict. His son by Margherita was Gianfrancesco I. Francesco Gonzaga is remembered as the builder of the Castle of San Giorgio, the nucleus of Ducal Palace of Mantua, the Gothic façade of the city cathedral, the bell tower of the Basilica of Sant'Andrea, as well as the Sanctuary of Santa Maria delle Grazie at

Curtatone Curtatone (Mantovano: ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Mantua in the Italian region Lombardy, located about southeast of Milan and about southwest of Mantua. The municipality of Curtatone is formed by the ''frazioni'' (subdivi ...

. Francesco Gonzaga is the one who use the earliest example of Homophonic

Substitution cipher In cryptography, a substitution cipher is a method of encrypting in which units of plaintext are replaced with the ciphertext, in a defined manner, with the help of a key; the "units" may be single letters (the most common), pairs of letters, tri ...

in 1401 for correspondence with one Simone de Crema.Fred A. Stahl.
A homophonic cipher for computational cryptography
Proceedings of the national computer conference and exposition (AFIPS '73), pp. 123–126, New York, USA, 1973.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gonzaga, Francesco 01 1366 births 1407 deaths Francesco 1 14th-century condottieri Francesco 1 15th-century Italian nobility Burials in the Cappella Gonzaga, San Francesco, Mantua