A feudal dynasty shaped by shifting alliances and family feuds
The fortunes of the family begin in the 12th century with Guido I da Fogliano, considered the founder of the line. His ties to other feudal powers in the Emilian territory are strengthened when Guido himself marries a sister of Pope Innocent IV, from the noble Ligurian family of the Fieschi. Between the 14th and 15th centuries, the da Fogliano family is one of the great feudal powers of Emilia, capable of alternating Guelph and Ghibelline loyalties according to the convenience of the moment, and of contending for a long time for the lordship of Reggio Emilia against rivals such as the Gonzaga, the Scaligeri, and the Estensi. Their dominion, built on a dense network of castles between Carpineti, Scandiano, Dinazzano, and Casalgrande, is interwoven with the affairs of the major lordships of northern Italy: the della Scala of Verona, the Gonzaga of Mantua, the Visconti of Milan. It is a family marked by internal betrayals, imprisonments, summary executions, and killings among blood relatives, but also by moments of great prestige, as attested by the famous fresco by Simone Martini in the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena dedicated to one of its most well-known members. The profiles that follow reconstruct the family ties and events of the main members of the house, from the generation of the four brothers active at the beginning of the 14th century (Giberto, Guidoriccio, Giovanni Riccio, and Guglielmo) to Carlo, the last of the da Fogliano lords of Reggio. The survey closes with Corrado da Fogliano, also known as Corrado Sforza, belonging to the same noble family of Reggio Emilia, son of Marco and of Lucia Terzani, who was for many years the mistress of the condottiero Muzio Attendolo Sforza: he was therefore the maternal half-brother of Francesco, Alessandro, Giovanni, and Leone Sforza. For this reason contemporary chroniclers often recalled his deeds under the name Corrado Sforza.
GIBERTO DA FOGLIANO
URL: https://condottieridiventura.it/the-turbulent-life-and-crimes-of-giberto-da-fogliano/
Of Reggio Emilia. Ghibelline.
Son of Niccolò and of Caterina della Scala, daughter of Alberto. Brother of Giovanni Riccio, Guglielmo, Guidoriccio, Tommaso, and Matteo. Father of Ludovico (who died from wounds suffered in combat during his imprisonment in Mantua), Bernardino (drowned in the collapse of a drawbridge during an assault on Reggio Emilia), Daria (who married Azzo da Sesso, and who at a certain point in her life was considered “Immodest”), Guido Savina, Matteo (a man-at-arms), Francesco (another man-at-arms, who dies hanged). He is also the father of a daughter, a nun, who was left by her brothers to die in poverty, and of another daughter whom he himself killed. He probably dies in 1372.
Lord of Reggio Emilia, Carpineti, Dinazzano, Ventoso, San Valentino, Arceto, Sabbione, Scandiano, and numerous other castles in the Reggio area, Giberto is the most powerful and most ruthless of the four da Fogliano brothers. Active since the 1320s in the struggles between Guelphs and Ghibellines in Reggio Emilia, he openly joins the imperial party when Ludwig the Bavarian descends into Italy, going as far as to organize the assassination of the city’s papal governor. He repeatedly obtains the imperial vicariate and, finally, full lordship of Reggio Emilia, which he holds and reconquers on several occasions thanks to alliances with the Scaligeri of Verona, the Gonzaga of Mantua, and the Estensi of Ferrara. He is captured in battle on at least two occasions, the second of which costs him imprisonment in a wooden cage in Mantua, where he watches his son Ludovico die. Nevertheless he reconquers power and castles into old age, when he shuts himself in the fortress of Reggio Emilia in the face of the return of the Gonzaga. Defeated, in the end, after a period of truce, he dies, probably in 1372, in prison in Reggio Emilia itself, where he is held together with his family members. Given the ambivalent nature of this figure, the accounts of him by chroniclers and historians more or less contemporary to his activity are mixed. He is a “brave and shrewd captain of his time,” according to Francesco Sansovino in his work on the origins and deeds of illustrious Italian families. A very different picture is given by S. and P. Gazata in their chronicle concerning the events of Reggio Emilia, who describe him as more powerful and more noble in the world than anyone of his time, brought to such an end by the crimes he had committed, a judgment recorded in the “Chronicon regiense ab anno 1272 ad 1388” alongside the violent deaths of four of his six sons and the killing, by his own hand, of one of his three daughters.
GIOVANNI DA FOGLIANO / GIOVANNI RICCIO DA FOGLIANO
Of Reggio Emilia.
Son of Niccolò and of Caterina della Scala, daughter of Alberto, who was in turn the brother of Mastino. Brother of Giberto, Guidoriccio, Guglielmo, Tommaso, and Matteo. Dies around 1350.
Lord of Reggio Emilia and of Carpineti, Giovanni fights from 1317 onward alongside his brothers in the civic wars of Reggio Emilia. He is among the organizers of the killing of the papal governor Angelo di Sant’Elpidio in 1327, an act that opens the way to the family’s alliance with Emperor Ludwig the Bavarian and with the della Scala, lords of Verona and Lucca. Together with his brother Giberto he obtains the imperial vicariate of Reggio Emilia, collecting heavy tributes from the city’s inhabitants. Later driven out of Reggio, he finds refuge and pay with Mastino della Scala, lord of Verona, who confirms to the friendly family the possession of numerous castles, including Carpineti. Already elderly, he still takes part in assaults against Reggio Emilia together with his brothers Giberto and Guidoriccio. He dies around 1350.
GUIDORICCIO DA FOGLIANO
URL: https://condottieridiventura.it/the-life-and-influence-of-guidoriccio-da-fogliano/
Of Reggio Emilia.
Son of Niccolò and of Caterina della Scala. Brother of Giberto, Giovanni Riccio, Guglielmo, Tommaso, and Matteo. Circa 1290 – 1352 (June).
Guidoriccio is without doubt the most famous member of the family, immortalized in the fresco that Simone Martini painted in the Sala del Mappamondo of the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena to celebrate his conquest of the castle of Montemassi in 1328. He holds for seven years the post of captain of war of the Republic of Siena, an appointment renewed every six months despite repeated accusations of cowardice and even of secret dealings with the enemy. He leads sieges in the Maremma against the counts of Santa Fiora and against Massa Marittima, and is knighted on the field after the victory at Giuncarico. Back in Reggio Emilia, he alternates periods of civic lordship with phases of exile at the Scaligeri court in Verona, on whose behalf he serves as podestà in Padua and Verona. Captured several times in battle, he is recorded among those imprisoned in Venice in 1338 together with several members of his family. In 1343 he is part of the Great Company of Werner von Urslingen with the rank of marshal. In 1351, following the death in Verona of the city’s lord Mastino della Scala, he is driven out of the city along with all members of his family. He returns to Siena, where he dies in mid-June of the following year. He is buried at Camporeggio in the church of San Domenico with solemn funeral rites that cost the commune 500 florins. Accounts of him are uniformly favorable, especially among modern authors. Francesco Bozzi, in his study of the Fogliano family of Reggio Emilia, notes that Guidoriccio owes much of his fame to his activity as a military commander, so much so that historian Michael Mallett saw in him a forerunner of many 15th-century condottieri and a representative of continuity in Italian military tradition. Giorgio Batini, in his work on the captains of Tuscany, offers what may be considered the finest tribute to him, describing him as not Tuscan by birth but the knight of Tuscany all the same, the finest and most famous captain ever to have led an army there, immortalized not by an ordinary painter but by Simone Martini, not on an ordinary wall but on a great wall of the Sala del Mappamondo in the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena, where for over six and a half centuries Guidoriccio has continued to advance toward the siege of Montemassi.
GUGLIELMO DA FOGLIANO
Of Reggio Emilia.
Son of Niccolò and of Caterina della Scala. Brother of Giberto, Guidoriccio, Giovanni Riccio, Tommaso, and Matteo. Circa 1275 – circa 1355.
The eldest of the brothers by age, Guglielmo becomes lord of Reggio Emilia. He already holds public offices from the first decade of the 14th century, serving as captain of the people and podestà of Parma; in that role he strengthens the defenses of Borgo San Donnino (Fidenza). In the 1330s he obtains, together with his brothers, the imperial vicariate of Reggio Emilia; in the pay of the Scaligeri he takes part in the war of Lucca against the Pisans, and is captured but soon freed. Still active outside Emilia, in 1349 he serves under Louis of Taranto against King Louis of Hungary. He takes part in the battle near Melito in the Kingdom of Naples against the Hungarians commanded by Corrado Lupo. The Angevin forces charge the enemy’s front line; rather than resisting the impact, the line opens on its flanks to let the attackers through, who thereby find themselves facing a new front that soon leaves the cavalry with no room to maneuver. Guglielmo da Fogliano is taken prisoner and stripped of his weapons. He is freed upon payment of a ransom and a promise never again to fight the Hungarians. In the final years of his life he is still engaged on behalf of the Scaligeri against Bologna; in 1352 he is again recorded in the Kingdom of Naples, where, together with Giovanni di Asperg, he defeats at Cesa in Campania the mercenary company led by Bertrand de la Motte (in the clash 22 German constables, 300 horses, and 400 foot soldiers are captured). He dies shortly afterward, around 1355.
FRANCESCO DA FOGLIANO
Guelph.
Son of Giberto. Brother of Guido Savina, Ludovico, Bernardino, Daria, Matteo, and two other sisters. Marries Elisabella Ordelaffi. The names of his children are unknown, including that of the one who avenged his death by killing his uncle Guido Savina. Dies hanged in December 1372.
He serves first in the pay of the lord of Milan, Bernabò Visconti, before switching to the Florentine alliance and then to that of the Church against the Visconti themselves. In 1354 he treacherously kills his brother Matteo, lord of Scandiano and Dinazzano, along with one of Matteo’s sons, thereby seizing his two castles. He is assisted in the act by his brothers Guido Savina and Bernardino. The following year he takes part, together with his father Giberto, in the assault on the Benedictine convent of Saints Pietro and Prospero in Reggio Emilia, and is captured by the troops of Feltrino Gonzaga who come to the monks’ rescue. In June 1372, commanding the troops opposing Bernabò Visconti, he is defeated and captured near Rubiera. He is taken to Reggio Emilia and held in the local citadel. In December, on the feast of Sant’Ambrogio, he is hanged from a battlement of the Tower of San Bernardo overlooking Scandiano: his brother Guido Savina, in fact, has refused to hand over Scandiano and Dinazzano to the Visconti in exchange for his release. His body remains hanging from the walls for nine days. He is later buried in the cathedral of Reggio Emilia before the altar of Santa Lucia. Judgments of him are negative, both from Pompeo Litta, in his work on illustrious Italian families, who calls him a man notorious for his wickedness, and from Guido Panciroli, in his history of his homeland, who calls him an exceedingly criminal man, a scoundrel more wretched than all others.
GUIDO SAVINA DA FOGLIANO
Son of Giberto. Brother of Francesco, Ludovico, Bernardino, Daria, and two other sisters who remain unnamed. Father of Carlo. Marries Margherita della Palude. Dies assassinated in his bed in October 1374.
Lord of Scandiano, Paullo, Carpineti, Salvaterra, Dinazzano, and numerous other castles in the Reggio area. Guido Savina is captured for the first time in Padua in August 1337, when Pietro dei Rossi frees the city, on behalf of the Venetians, from Scaligeri rule. In 1355 he joins his father Giberto and his brother Francesco in the assault on the convent of Saints Pietro and Prospero. He subsequently serves the lord of Milan, Bernabò Visconti, against the troops of the anti-Milanese league. In April 1363 he is defeated and taken prisoner by Francesco da Carrara in the battle fought at the bastion of Solara. After the capture of his brother Francesco at Rubiera in 1372, Bernabò Visconti offers to free the relative in exchange for the surrender of his territories; Guido Savina does not respond to the request, and Francesco is hanged. The following year Bernabò Visconti grants him twenty-four castles, even at the expense of Francesco’s own sons, and gives in marriage to Guido Savina’s son Carlo, still a minor, one of Bernabò’s natural daughters, Isotta. In 1374, after reconquering Scandiano, which had been temporarily lost due to an attack by the anti-Visconti league, Guido Savina is assassinated in his own bed by one of the sons of his brother Francesco, who thereby manages to seize Scandiano with the support of its inhabitants. He is buried at night by a few loyal followers, and his body is never found. The unanimous judgment of both Pompeo Litta and Corrado Argegni, in his work on condottieri and captains, is that he was a man of great valor.
CARLO DA FOGLIANO
Count.
Son of Guido Savina. Marries Isotta Visconti, natural daughter of Bernabò Visconti. The marriage is later annulled despite the birth of a son. Father-in-law of Ottobono Terzi, lord of Parma. Circa 1350 – October 1423.
Lord of Scandiano, Carpineti, Valestra, Casalgrande, Arceto, and other castles inherited from his father Guido Savina. Driven out of Modena by the Estensi in 1391, he allies himself with the Visconti of Milan, who confirm to him possession of his properties. Possessed of a spirit not unlike that of other members of his family, he is guilty of a double murder of blood relatives. In 1395 he treacherously kills his relative Niccolò da Fogliano as the latter is leaving the fortress of Rondinara to attend Mass; shortly afterward he also has Boccadoro da Fogliano captured and killed in order to seize his castles of Viano and San Romano. In the service of Gian Galeazzo Visconti he takes part in 1402 in the battle of Casalecchio di Reno and in the subsequent conquest of Bologna. On the death of the Duke of Milan he passes into the pay of Florence and of the Estensi. Over time he becomes a close ally of the lord of Parma, the condottiero Ottobono Terzi, whose son-in-law he also becomes, sharing in his rise and fall: he is indeed at Terzi’s side when the latter is treacherously killed by Muzio Attendolo Sforza in 1409. On that occasion he manages to save himself by fleeing on foot; in the campaign that follows he swiftly loses all his properties and castles to the lord of Ferrara, Niccolò d’Este. He spends his final years at Quercioli, in conditions far removed from those of his family’s origins. The sources describe him, in the words of Pompeo Litta, as the last of the Fogliani to be permitted the violation of every law of humanity, and note that with his death, as Francesco Sansovino puts it, the reputation and greatness of his line came to an end.
CORRADO DA FOGLIANO, also known as Corrado Sforza
As already noted, usurpations, crimes, and acts of revenge follow one another in the final phase of this family, which already appears in ruin in the early years of the 1400s. Its last figure of note is Corrado, son of Marco and of Lucia Terzani, who for a decade (1401-1411) was the mistress of the condottiero Muzio Attendolo Sforza, by whom she had eight children. In that same year, 1411, she marries Marco da Fogliano, a member of the noble family of Reggio Emilia, who is in the service of the same condottiero. Three children are born of this marriage, among them Corrado and Rinaldo, both of whom serve under their maternal half-brother Francesco Sforza, and Bona Caterina, wife of another Sforza condottiero, Troilo da Rossano. Corrado marries Gabriella Gonzaga, widow of Giberto da Correggio and natural daughter of the Marquis of Mantua, Ludovico. 1410 – December 1470.
Marquis of Viguzzolo and lord of Castelnuovo Fogliani, Corrado follows closely throughout his life the military and political fortunes of his half-brother Francesco Sforza. He fights constantly at his side up to his relative’s conquest of the Duchy of Milan; he takes part in the battle of Caravaggio and in numerous engagements against the Venetians and the Marquis of Montferrat, and is severely wounded by a spear to the head in 1453 during the reconquest of Castelleone. He is invested with the fief of Viguzzolo, obtains citizenship of Milan, and is sent on several occasions as a Sforza ambassador to King Louis XI of France. He holds the governorship of Savona and that of Genoa on behalf of his nephew Galeazzo Maria Sforza from 1468 until his death. He dies in Milan at the end of 1470 and is buried in the city’s cathedral. He is the founder of the branch of the Fogliani Sforza d’Aragona. Various commentators praise him highly: Pier Candido Decembrio credits him with brave and faithful service in many wars, Francesco Sansovino notes that in his military career he followed the banners of Sforza, and, more recently, Vittorio Spreti, in the “Enciclopedia storico nobiliare italiana,” judges him to have always shown faithful attachment to the Sforza, along with great foresight and prudence.
