Biography
He assumed the title at thirteen, under his mother's regency. The Duchy soon disintegrated: among the various parties contending its lands, the condottiero Facino Cane prevailed. Taking advantage of Gian Maria's cruelty, he managed to create in him doubts about Caterina, who was imprisoned in Monza, where she died on 17 October 1404, probably murdered. The duke was famous for his dogs, which were trained to slaughter men.
In 1408 Gian Maria married Antonia Malatesta of Cesena, daughter of Carlo I lord of Rimini. They had no issue.
A plot by a party of Milanese Ghibellines was raised against the Duke when Facino Cane was ill in Pavia, and Gian Maria was assassinated in front of the church of San Gottardo in Milan. The dying Facino had his officers swear to support Filippo Maria, Gian Maria's brother, who in fact succeeded him.
Read more about this topic: Gian Maria Visconti
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem.”
—André Maurois (1885–1967)
“As we approached the log house,... the projecting ends of the logs lapping over each other irregularly several feet at the corners gave it a very rich and picturesque look, far removed from the meanness of weather-boards. It was a very spacious, low building, about eighty feet long, with many large apartments ... a style of architecture not described by Vitruvius, I suspect, though possibly hinted at in the biography of Orpheus.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A biography is like a handshake down the years, that can become an arm-wrestle.”
—Richard Holmes (b. 1945)