Francesco II Sforza (February 4, 1495 – November 2, 1535) was

Duke of Milan The following is a list of rulers of Milan from the 13th century to 1814, after which it was incorporated into the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia by the Congress of Vienna. Before elevation to duchy Until 1259, Milan was a free commune that ele ...

from 1521 until his death. He was the last member of the Sforza family to rule Milan. He was the second son of

Ludovico Sforza Ludovico Maria Sforza (; 27 July 1452 – 27 May 1508), also known as Ludovico il Moro (; "the Moor"). "Arbiter of Italy", according to the expression used by Guicciardini,

and Beatrice d'Este. When Ludovico was ousted from Milan in the course of the

Italian Wars The Italian Wars, also known as the Habsburg–Valois Wars, were a series of conflicts covering the period 1494 to 1559, fought mostly in the Italian peninsula, but later expanding into Flanders, the Rhineland and the Mediterranean Sea. The pr ...

, he brought Francesco with him to the court of the Emperor Maximilian I, who had married a Sforza, Francesco's cousin Bianca Maria. Francesco was assigned to an ecclesiastical career. His father was imprisoned in

Loches Loches () is a commune in the Indre-et-Loire department, central France. It is situated southeast of Tours by road, on the left bank of the river Indre. History Loches (the Roman ''Leucae'') grew up around a monastery founded about 500 by St. ...

by Louis XII of France, and died in 1508, but when Charles V re-conquered Milan from the French in 1521, Francesco was appointed its duke, the last of the family to hold that title. His sovereignty, however, remained circumscribed by the military occupation of Milan by Spanish troops.Schulin p. 151 He returned to his state, depleted by twenty years of combat, promoting a cultural and economic recovery. Francesco fought at the Battle of Bicocca, on the side of the emperor, in 1522. In 1526 he switched sides, joining the

League of Cognac The War of the League of Cognac (1526–30) was fought between the Habsburg dominions of Charles V—primarily the Holy Roman Empire and Spain—and the League of Cognac, an alliance including the Kingdom of France, Pope Clement VII, the ...

, together with

Francis I of France Francis I (french: François Ier; frm, Francoys; 12 September 1494 – 31 March 1547) was King of France from 1515 until his death in 1547. He was the son of Charles, Count of Angoulême, and Louise of Savoy. He succeeded his first cousin on ...

Pope Clement VII Pope Clement VII ( la, Clemens VII; it, Clemente VII; born Giulio de' Medici; 26 May 1478 – 25 September 1534) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 19 November 1523 to his death on 25 September 1534. Deemed "the ...

and the

Republic of Florence The Republic of Florence, officially the Florentine Republic ( it, Repubblica Fiorentina, , or ), was a medieval and early modern state that was centered on the Italian city of Florence in Tuscany. The republic originated in 1115, when the Fl ...

, and was besieged in the Castello Sforzesco. On May 4, 1534 he married the 12-year-old niece of Charles V,

Christina of Denmark Christina of Denmark ( da, Christine af Danmark; November 1521 – 10 December 1590) was a Danish princess, the younger surviving daughter of King Christian II of Denmark and Norway and Isabella of Austria. By her two marriages, she became Duc ...

, the daughter of

Christian II of Denmark Christian II (1 July 1481 – 25 January 1559) was a Scandinavian monarch under the Kalmar Union who reigned as King of Denmark and Norway, from 1513 until 1523, and Sweden from 1520 until 1521. From 1513 to 1523, he was concurrently Duke ...

and Isabella of Burgundy. The union remained childless. His death in 1535 sparked the Italian War of 1535. His half-brother Giovanni Paolo reclaimed briefly the Duchy of Milan after his death, but died in the same year under mysterious circumstances.

Ancestry

Footnotes

References

* Michael Mallett and Christine Shaw, ''The Italian Wars:1494-1559'', Pearson Education Limited, 2012. *

Charles Oman Sir Charles William Chadwick Oman, (12 January 1860 – 23 June 1946) was a British military historian. His reconstructions of medieval battles from the fragmentary and distorted accounts left by chroniclers were pioneering. Occasionally his ...

. ''A History of the Art of War in the Sixteenth Century''. London: Methuen & Co., 1937. * Ernst Schulin. ''Kaiser Karl V: Geschichte eines übergroßen Wirkungsbereiches''. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag, 1999. (German) 1495 births 1535 deaths Francesco 2 Sforza Francesco 2 Sforza Military leaders of the Italian Wars 16th-century Italian nobility {{italy-politician-stub