Genealogy and Military Career
Gentile Virginio was the son of Napoleone II and Francesca Orsini. On the death of his uncle Carlo (1485), he obtained the reins of his prominent house, at the time an enemy to the King of Naples and an ally of the pontiff. Pope Sixtus IV appointed him general of his forces, which Virginio led to a victory over the Neapolitan army at the Battle of Campo Morto (1482). Almighty due to pontifical benefices, Virginio took advantage of the disorder which followed Sixtus’s death (1484) in order to exterminate the Roman house of Colonna, something he didn’t manage completely due to the Sacred College’s restoring the order. During the reign of Innocent VIII (1484–1492), the Orsini family reached the peak of its power and held significant influence over the Roman Curia through Virginio's cousin, Cardinal Gianbattista Orsini of Monterotondo. The ascension of Alexander VI to the papal throne (August 1492) changed the status quo in the Roman politics.
Read more about this topic: Virginio Orsini
Famous quotes containing the words military and/or career:
“I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)
“What exacerbates the strain in the working class is the absence of money to pay for services they need, economic insecurity, poor daycare, and lack of dignity and boredom in each partner’s job. What exacerbates it in upper-middle class is the instability of paid help and the enormous demands of the career system in which both partners become willing believers. But the tug between traditional and egalitarian models of marriage runs from top to bottom of the class ladder.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)