Enea Silvio Piccolomini (German: Johann Norbert Piccolomini;

Papal States The Papal States ( ; it, Stato Pontificio, ), officially the State of the Church ( it, Stato della Chiesa, ; la, Status Ecclesiasticus;), were a series of territories in the Italian Peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope fro ...

, c. 1650 –

Pristina Pristina, ; sr, / (, ) is the capital and largest city of Kosovo. The city's municipal boundaries in Pristina District form the largest urban center in Kosovo. After Tirana, Pristina has the second largest population of ethnic Albanians an ...

Skopje Skopje ( , , ; mk, Скопје ; sq, Shkup) is the capital and List of cities in North Macedonia by population, largest city of North Macedonia. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre. The territory of Sk ...

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

, 9 November 1689) was a Sienese nobleman whose lineage included two popes, and who served in the Habsburg army of Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor. He is known for leading a campaign against the Ottomans in Bosnia, Macedonia and

Kosovo Kosovo ( sq, Kosova or ; sr-Cyrl, Косово ), officially the Republic of Kosovo ( sq, Republika e Kosovës, links=no; sr, Република Косово, Republika Kosovo, links=no), is a partially recognised state in Southeast Euro ...

in 1689, and for setting on fire

, the present day capital of the

Republic of North Macedonia North Macedonia, ; sq, Maqedonia e Veriut, (Macedonia before February 2019), officially the Republic of North Macedonia,, is a country in Southeast Europe. It gained independence in 1991 as one of the successor states of Yugoslavia. It ...

Origins

Enea Silvio Piccolomini came from the long-established noble family Piccolomini, which included two popes:

Pius II Pope Pius II ( la, Pius PP. II, it, Pio II), born Enea Silvio Bartolomeo Piccolomini ( la, Aeneas Silvius Bartholomeus, links=no; 18 October 1405 – 14 August 1464), was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 19 August ...

(born Enea Silvio Piccolomini) and Pius III (born Francesco Todeschini Piccolomini), as well as the

Generalfeldmarschall ''Generalfeldmarschall'' (from Old High German ''marahscalc'', "marshal, stable master, groom"; en, general field marshal, field marshal general, or field marshal; ; often abbreviated to ''Feldmarschall'') was a rank in the armies of several ...

Ottavio Piccolomini Ottavio Piccolomini, 1st Duke of Amalfi (11 November 1599 – 11 August 1656) was an Italian nobleman whose military career included service as a Spanish general and then as a field marshal of the Holy Roman Empire. Early life Ottavio was bor ...

Early career

Young nobles left Siena individually and contacted the important Italian lobby in Vienna, hoping to obtain junior positions in some German regiment. In February 1660 Enea Silvio also left Siena to look for a career in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

. Enea Silvio's father established him in an apartment in the imperial capital, with a page, two valets, and a groom for his horses, while the youngster sought audiences with the emperor Leopold I, empress, the archduke and important ministers on the credentials of his famous ancestors. A breakthrough came when he managed to obtain a position in the regiment of the minister Count Rabassa. Enea Silvio's situation, like that of other young German and Italian officers, was precarious. When the emperor dissolved some of his regiments in October 1660, he narrowly escaped complete unemployment and was happy to be a simple comet in his patron's cavalry regiment. In 1675 Enea Silvio was a lieutenant-colonel on a campaign. He describes some desperate and bloody engagements he fought against the French in the

Rhineland The Rhineland (german: Rheinland; french: Rhénanie; nl, Rijnland; ksh, Rhingland; Latinised name: ''Rhenania'') is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly its middle section. Term Historically, the Rhinelands ...

under

Montecuccoli The House of Montecuccoli is the name of an Italian noble family, descending from Montecuccoli Castle, Pavullo nel Frignano in the former Duchy of Modena. In later parts of its history, a branch of it became thoroughly Austrian in identity and loya ...

. Although his court patron, the empress

Claudia Felicitas of Austria Claudia Felicitas of Austria (30 May 1653 – 8 April 1676) was by birth an Archduchess of Austria and by marriage Holy Roman Empress, German Queen, Archduchess consort of Austria, Queen consort of Hungary and Bohemia as the second wife of Leopol ...

died in 1676, he gained sudden popularity with the court, and in January 1677 he describes himself as being feted by the emperor and all the ministers in Vienna - appearing to have as many friends at court as if he had never left it. The last letter from November 1681 shows him negotiating through the Dowager Empress Leonora for the positions of pages for his nephews; for him, they represented two more Piccolomini and Sienese in Germany.

Campaign in the Balkans

After the

siege of Vienna (1683) The Battle of Vienna; pl, odsiecz wiedeńska, lit=Relief of Vienna or ''bitwa pod Wiedniem''; ota, Beç Ḳalʿası Muḥāṣarası, lit=siege of Beç; tr, İkinci Viyana Kuşatması, lit=second siege of Vienna took place at Kahlenberg Mo ...

, emperor Leopold I mounted a series of campaigns against the Ottomans (see: Great Turkish War), to capture territories of the Balkans. During the

Battle of Mohács (1687) The Second Battle of Mohács, also known as the Battle of Harsány Mountain, was fought on 12 August 1687 between the forces of Ottoman Sultan Mehmed IV, commanded by the Grand-Vizier Sari Süleyman Paşa, and the forces of Holy Roman Emperor ...

Enea Silvio Piccolomini, now a lieutenant-general, with some of his cavalry regiments successfully counterattacked and stopped the attack of the numerically much superior Ottoman Sipahi cavalry, helping in saving the left-wing of the Habsburg army. In 1689 one of the Austrian campaigns was led by Piccolomini. He led an army into

, where it was welcomed by Albanian Archbishop and Patriarch of Këlmendi,

Pjetër Bogdani Pjetër Bogdani (1627 – 6 December 1689), known in Italian as ''Pietro Bogdano'', was the most original writer of early literature in Albania. He was author of the Cuneus Prophetarum (''The Band of the Prophets''), 1685, the first prose work ...

, and large numbers of Catholic and Muslim Albanians and Serbs, who joined the army. Piccolomini thus had over 20,000 Albanians and Serbs under his orders. He attempted to conquer the Ottoman territories of

, Bosnia and Macedonia. During the offensive, the city of Skopje, the present-day capital of the Republic of Macedonia, was plagued by epidemics of cholera. To prevent the outburst of the disease, or, by other accounts, to retaliate for the siege of Vienna, General Piccolomini ordered the city to be burned (see Fire of Skopje). He perished of the plague himself in Skopje; leaderless, his army was defeated. Many of the Serbs and Albanians fled into exile, led by the Patriarch Arsenije III Crnojević.

Sources

The decline of a provincial military aristocracy: Siena, 1560-1740 by Gregory Hanlon.
* Richter, Die Piccolomini (Berlin, 1874) * A. Lisini and A. Liberati, Albero della famiglia Piccolomini (Siena, 1899) * Articles by A. Lisini in the Miscellanea storica senese, 3rd series 12, and 4th series, 17 and 189.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Piccolomini, Enea Silvio 1689 deaths Austrian generals Italian generals Austrian people of Italian descent Italian untitled nobility People of the Great Turkish War Year of birth uncertain Military personnel of the Habsburg Monarchy People from Siena Enea Silvio

Origins

Early career

Campaign in the Balkans

Sources

See also

References