Milan was a sore spot as it technically reverted to the crown at the extintion of a male line (Sforza succession was de-facto an usurpation by strenght of arms)
Victor Amadeus of Savoy inherits Spain
- Thread starter The Undead Martyr
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Wasn't Milan also an imperial fief and thus uninheritable by a woman (similar to how Karl VI refused to acknowledge a female succession in Tuscany for the same reason)? Granted...Karl V might have enfeoffed Felipe II as such to PREVENT something like the Valois inheriting the claim via the female line.
But as to female-line inheritance in Milan, I suspect if it WERE possible, Giovan' Galeazzo Visconti wouldn't have REMARRIED after his first wife left him with only a surviving daughter.
More or less the same thing I was saying. I have more doubts about the Duchy BEFORE the investiture of Ludovico as the succession in the Duchy was promised to the legitimate Valentina (in case of extinction of the male line) and the legitimized Bianca Maria was seen as heiress of her father, but that would be likely possession de facto of the Duchy without the imperial confirmation of the lands
When Isabella of Valois died in 1372 giving birth to a second son, Carlo, who also died at the same time, GG had two surviving children: Azzone (born 1368) and Valentina (born 1370).
GG's second marriage (to Caterina Visconti) and the contemporaneous marriage of his sister Violante to Ludovico Visconti in 1380 were both more or less enforced by Barnabo Visconti, who wanted to control more closely his nephew GG, linking him to his own line of the Viscontis (the same is true also of the marriage between GG's son and heir Azzone and Barnabo's daughter Antonia in 1378, but Azzone's death in 1380 ruined the thing).
GG had already tried to marry Maria of Sicily (and before him, his uncle Barnabo tried to marry another of his many sons to her), but both attempt failed since the Pope and Aragon were absolutely against either marriage.
In any case, the issue of succession was not yet in play. The emperor had not intervened when Galeazzo (GG's father) and Barnabo partitioned between themselves the Visconti inheritance at the death of their father.
The first real interaction of GG with the empire (or the second, if one wants to count his investiture to knight at the hands of Charles IV of Luxembourg in 1355, when GG was just was 4 years old) was in January 1380, when he bought the title of Imperial Vicar, to protect himself from the ambition of his uncle.
When he bought the ducal title in 1395, he had already two male sons from Caterina, and probably it makes some kind of sense to have male primogeniture, since the marriage contract of his daughter Valentina to Louis of Valois, duke of Touraine (1387), included a right to agnatic succession if the main male line died out.
The second ducal title (1396) extended the ducal rights to all the Visconti possessions (the title gained in 1395 was limited to the city of Milan), included provision for male only legitimate succession and the title of Count of Pavia, which would have been reserved for the heir to the ducal title.
As a matter of fact, neither Francesco Sforza (with his claim to the ducal title coming from his marriage to the daughter of the last Visconti duke as well as from his right of conquest) nor his successors gained the imperial investiture until 1494, when Ludovico il Moro was confirmed in the title (the dowry of 500,000 ducats for the marriage of his daughter Bianca Maria to Maximilian Habsburg was certainly instrumental). However, the Sforzas ruled Milan all the same for 40 years, even in the absence of a formal recognition of their title: as usual, might makes right.
So my suspicions were pretty much correct, thanks for the info.
Just one thing Bianca Maria was not the daughter of Ludovico (who had no legitimate daughter and married pretty late) but his niece (daughter of Galeazzo and sister of Gian Galeazzo)...
Ludovico had a daughter called Bianca but Bianca Giovanna Sforza was a legitimized daughter and the child bride of Galeazzo Sanseverino.
Too many Biancas around, sometimes the family names are truly annoying
However, my point was that a female heir can always inherit, provided she has the required amount of steel and/or gold at heir disposal
That is a given... but required also who the states in question were more powerful than the EmperorToo many Biancas around, sometimes the family names are truly annoying
However, my point was that a female heir can always inherit, provided she has the required amount of steel and/or gold at her disposal
Was Francesco Sforza more powerful than the emperor? In absolute terms, I doubt it. In practice, Francesco was more powerful than the emperor on his own turf, and that was enough.
Anna Maria de Medici is the counterpoint: her claim to Tuscany was unassailable, nut she did not have a successful condottiere as husband, and she got the short end of the stick, sacrificed on the altar of European-wide compromise (however, if Anna Maria had a husband and a son, things would have been quite different. Some time ago, I suggested that she might have married the heir to Modena, and their son would have unified the two duchies into a single state; if he also manages to marry Elisabetta Farnese....).
If Philip II had decided to give his daughter Milan rather than Brussels, the succession laws would have been the same
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More likely the Emperor had zero de-facto power over Milan or Italy at that time. He had given Imperial investiture to the Visconti Dukes only when he was asked by them, but had no real power there. Francesco’s son Ludovico, before his fall, was without doubt much more powerful (and richer) than both the Emperor and the King of France.
Anna Maria de’ Medici was born in an era in which Austria and France were the world’s greatest powers and Italian states were subjected to their will and whims, and was an older childless widow. If she had children then she would likely have good chances to get Tuscany for herself, her son or son-in-law
Let's say better: he sold the ducal title to GG, against a suitable payment, same as Ludovico got the formal confirmation against an ever higher payment masked as a dowry