How the Fregoso Fought, Ruled and Lost Genoa Over Two Centuries

The Fregoso (or Campofregoso) are an ancient noble family of the Republic of Genoa, whose members distinguished themselves as leaders of the Guelph faction during the era of the “cappellazzi” (1339–1527), that is, the government of the popular doges, in perpetual rivalry with the Ghibelline family of the Adorno. Thirteen of them held the office of doge. Two of them are featured in this entry: Paolo (doge in 1362, in 1363–1364, and in 1483–1488) and Giano (1512–1513), removed from office by the Spanish in favour of his cousin Ottaviano. The Fregoso are one of the most turbulent and influential Genoese houses of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Their history is inseparable from the political structure of the Ligurian city, where the dogeship was not a hereditary office but a permanent battleground between rival factions: Fregoso against Adorno, Fieschi or Doria, depending on the circumstances; useful instruments of the great external powers interested in controlling the republic, such as the Duchy of Milan, the kingdoms of France and Naples first, the kingdom of Spain later, Spain and the Empire finally: all powers that used one family or the other as pawns in their hegemonic designs over the peninsula.

In this context, the Fregoso are not simple condottieri in the classical sense of the term: they are at once lords, exiles, corsairs, diplomats, admirals, captains whose operational horizon extends from the Ligurian Apennines to the coasts of Otranto, from Corsica to the fields of Lombardy, to the courts of France and Urbino. Their greatness is always precarious, seized by arms and lost with equal violence; their historical relevance is documented by the network of family ties that spans half a century of Italian wars. The house ultimately lost much of its political importance already in the first part of the sixteenth century with the dogeship of the aforementioned Ottaviano, imprisoned by the Imperials and dead in captivity on the island of Ischia. The most notable members are Paolo Fregoso, corsair, Archbishop of Genoa, doge, cardinal, admiral of the papal fleet against the Turks, twice a candidate for the papal throne; and Giano Fregoso, elected to the dogeship by Pope Julius II and shortly removed from that office, following a popular uprising, by order of the Spanish Viceroy of Naples and the Marquis of Pescara Ferdinando d’Avalos. He ended his career as a condottiero where he had begun it, in the pay of the Serenissima.

Agostino Fregoso, Lord of Sarzana and Sant’Agata Feltria

1442–1486 (July). Son of Ludovico Fregoso, doge of Genoa on three occasions, and of Ginevra Gattilusio, daughter of Palamede, lord of Enos (now Inoz or Enez), a small locality in eastern Thrace (Turkey). He married Gentile da Montefeltro, daughter of the Duke of Urbino Federico, who brought him a dowry of twelve castles including Sant’Agata Feltria. Father of seven children, among them Ottaviano, last doge of the Republic of Genoa; Federico, Archbishop of Salerno, cardinal and admiral, who in 1516 led a joint French, Genoese and papal naval expedition assembled to fight the Barbary corsairs; Costanza, wife of Marcantonio dei Landi of Piacenza, Prince of the Val di Taro; Bettina, wife of Onorato Grimaldi, lord of Bogliasco; and Caterina, married to the Umbrian count Matteo di Baschi. Son-in-law of Federico da Montefeltro, having married his daughter in 1476, who was the widow of the Count of Ghiaggiolo Carlo Malatesta. With the loss of Sarzana, it was Sant’Agata Feltria that became for several generations the centre of the family branch descending from him.

“Ligurem bellatorum optimum.” So the Campanian historian Giovanni Albino described him. And further: “A good soldier, even if aware that treachery and poison are often more effective than arms. He experienced this on his own skin, and he would use treachery and poison to maintain and increase his power. He did not even stop before his father-in-law who had welcomed him into his home, going so far as to plan the elimination of his wife’s father by poison, at Viterbo in 1480.” So writes Francesco Dall’Ara in “Sant’Agata Feltria. Briganti e gentiluomini. Vicende di storia d’Italia viste da una buona terra di montagna.” This, in summary, is the portrayal of this condottiero, who turned to the life of a soldier of fortune following the numerous misfortunes that marked his early years. He had the opportunity to serve various lordships of the time, such as the Duke of Burgundy Charles the Bold in France and Germany, Siena, Venice and the Papal States on multiple occasions. To escape the bitter struggles that in the second half of the 1400s saw his family pitted against the Adorno for political supremacy in Genoa, he moved to the court of Federico da Montefeltro, whose daughter Gentile he married. Between 1478 and 1484 he was engaged in opposing Florence in the struggle for control of Sarzana, a city formerly belonging to the Republic of Genoa, until, owing to the difficulties encountered, he was forced to cede the locality to the Banco di San Giorgio. In 1483 he was in Genoa with the role of palace guard; in that capacity he helped Archbishop Paolo Fregoso, his cousin, to become doge at the expense of his nephew Battista Fregoso. He resumed his activity as a condottiero in the service of Pope Innocent VIII (the Genoese Giovan Battista Cybo) against the troops of the King of Naples Ferrante d’Aragona. In July 1486 he was wounded in an ambush laid for him at Altavilla Silentina, near the mouth of the Sele, while he was trying to bring relief to the defenders of the castle of San Severino, besieged by the enemy. The wounds sustained on that occasion proved fatal; he died a few days later at Mercato San Severino.

Paolo Fregoso, Doge, Archbishop and Cardinal of Genoa
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1430–1498 (March). Paolo is the most complex and controversial figure of the house: Archbishop of Genoa, three times doge, cardinal, corsair and commander of the papal fleet. He was born in Genoa to Battista, a noted man of arms, brother of Doge Tommaso, whom his father displaced for a few hours in 1437, and to Ilaria Guinigi, daughter of the lord of Lucca Paolo, his second wife. Orphaned at the age of twelve, he was directed by his brother Pietro towards an ecclesiastical career. He studied at Pavia and Bologna. Already a cleric but still a student, he was appointed apostolic protonotary by Pope Nicholas V, until the death of the Archbishop of Genoa Giacomo Imperiale and, above all, papal protection, allowed him within a few years, as soon as he reached the canonical age, to be consecrated Archbishop of Genoa by Pope Callixtus III. Such were the premises that conditioned a life characterised by an uninterrupted sequence of conquests of power and consequent reversals. The assessment of this figure is controversial. Paolo Fregoso is considered by some modern historians such as Jacques Heers “a tyrant, demagogue and troublemaker; he was perhaps the most infamously celebrated among the Genoese lords of the sea.” In the same vein is the Frenchman Petit: “Archbishop-brigand.” Of an entirely different opinion is Maristella Cavanna Ciappina, author of his biography. In it, she highlights the annotation by Sanudo who, upon news of his death, thus records in his Diarii: “He was a poor cardinal and had little income.” This confirms that “beyond the reversals that certainly characterise his destiny, the independent and proud nature of (this) extraordinary personality” ensured that his “ambitious utopia was demonised by a historiographical tradition conformistically disposed to endorse the condemnation of a political priest who was inconvenient for the Banco di San Giorgio, for the Sforza and for the upper strata of the Genoese Republic.” Elected doge for the first time in 1462, then in 1463, then again in 1483 by a coup against his nephew Battista, he was just as many times exiled or forced to cede power under pressure from the Sforza, the Adorno or the city factions. During his periods of exile he devoted himself to corsair warfare in the Mediterranean, plundering, from a base in Corsica, Genoese and foreign ships; in 1481 he led for Pope Sixtus IV a fleet of twenty-four galleys to counter the Turks threatening Rhodes and cooperated with the Aragonese in the reconquest of Otranto. Appointed cardinal in 1480, he ceded Genoa to the Sforza in 1488 and retired to Rome, where he died at the end of March 1498.

Giano Fregoso, Doge of Genoa
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c. 1455–1529 (August). Giano is the son of Tommaso Fregoso; paternal uncle of Agostino. He married Ardabella di Leca, daughter of the Corsican nobleman Giampaolo di Leca, around 1482–1488. He had numerous children, among whom Cesare, Annibale, Alessandro and Ercole, a canon, distinguished themselves as condottieri. His daughters married members of the Brescian nobility such as the Avogadro and the Maggi. His brothers were Fregosino, accused of espionage; during Giano’s dogeship, he was the perpetrator of the assassination of a son of Gianluigi Fieschi, which in 1513 caused the city to rise up against him. Other brothers were Ludovico, who at the time of the revolt was guarding the Castelletto, and Zaccaria. The latter was captured by the Fieschi; killed, his corpse was dragged through the streets of Genoa. The assessments of Giano are positive and unanimous, not only from Venetian sources such as Sanudo: “He is a valiant man and a most devoted servant of this state… He has excellent governance (in the conduct of troops),” but also from Genoese historians of the second half of the 1500s such as Uberto Foglietta. Giano Fregoso is one of the most significant military figures of his generation. After years of exile and military activity in the service of France, Venice and Pope Julius II, in 1512 he returned to Genoa to be elected doge by the will of that pontiff and with the recognition of the Venetians. His dogeship was brief: he had to effectively cede power to the French in December 1512, only to be finally removed from his office in February 1513 by the will of the Spanish Viceroy of Naples Raimondo di Cardona. For the rest of his life he served almost uninterruptedly under Venice, operating mainly in Lombardy and the Veneto both against the Imperials and, at a later stage, against the French. He attained the rank of governor general of Venetian troops and was among the protagonists of the campaigns of the 1520s. Thanks to his experience, the Serenissima also entrusted him with military engineering assignments (missions to Corfu, Candia and Nauplia in 1518–1519); he took part in some of the decisive events of the Franco-Imperial war for control of northern Italy, such as the defence of Brescia and the siege of Abbiategrasso. He died in August 1529 in Brescia, in the house of Aymo Maggi (or at Quinzano d’Oglio, according to other sources), with his sons Annibale and Cesare present at his deathbed. He is buried in Verona in the church of Sant’Anastasia, where in 1565 his son Ercole, a canon of the same church, had the sculptor Danese Cattaneo, a pupil of Sansovino, erect a grand mausoleum in his honour.

Cesare Fregoso
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1502–1541 (October). Of Rome. Son of Giano and Ardabella di Leca. Brother of Annibale and Alessandro. In October 1529 he married Costanza Rangoni, sister of Guido, widow of the Ferrarese count Tommaso Calcagnini. Brother-in-law of Luigi Gonzaga, lord of Castelgoffredo. Knight of the Order of Saint Michael. His secretary was Matteo Bandello, with him in Verona from 1529 to 1536, who dedicated a novella to him and mentioned him several times in his works, portraying him as a refined, pleasure-loving man, fond of perfumes, sweets, embroidered garments and luxurious clothing accessories. He was in correspondence with Pietro Aretino.

A valorous condottiero, expert in the field of military architecture, mortal enemy of Andrea Doria with his vain attempts to bring Genoa back under French orbit. “He was a man distinguished in the arts of war and peace, highly skilled in military architecture, a friend of artists and men of letters, and always magnificent in his affairs”: this is the portrait drawn by Litta. Cesare was among the most active Venetian condottieri of the 1520s, distinguishing himself in numerous actions in Lombardy, the Veneto and Piedmont. In 1527 he participated in the liberation of Genoa from Imperial control alongside Andrea Doria (at that moment his ally), and for a brief time served as its governor; in 1536 he abandoned Venetian service to enter French service. He left Verona with 200 cavalry, without permission, to support his brother-in-law Guido Rangoni against the Imperials. The Serenissima not only stripped him of his pay and rank (captain general of light cavalry); it confiscated his possessions and banished him from its territories as a deserter. His brother Alessandro was also dismissed. He fought in Piedmont, conquered Racconigi and strenuously defended Cherasco in 1537 against the attacks launched by the Marquis of Vasto Alfonso d’Avalos. He was forced to surrender only after months of resistance. In the following years he became one of the most valuable diplomatic agents of the King of France Francis I. After the Peace of Noyon he was at the sovereign’s side at the time of his meeting with Emperor Charles V. He had other meetings of a similar nature with Pope Paul III. In 1541 he was reported in Paris with the ambassador to Constantinople Antonio Rincon, a Spanish diplomat naturalised French. He spent a long time at court, where Fregoso and Rincon were assigned the task of promoting in Venice an alliance of the republic with the French and the Turks in an anti-Imperial function. He reached Rivoli; to cross Lombardy and arrive more quickly in Venice, the river route was chosen. He embarked with a small escort. He was killed in an ambush ordered by the Governor of Milan, d’Avalos, despite the contrary opinion of the Emperor. The murder was carried out at the confluence of the Ticino with the Po; in a second boat, some men carrying letters and 150,000 ducats escaped to Piacenza. D’Avalos declared himself innocent to no avail. After two months the boatmen who had steered his vessel were released. They led to the discovery of the bodies of Cesare Fregoso and Rincon, buried in the mud and half-eaten by wild animals. The condottiero’s left hand was recognised by the missing finger; it was placed in a pouch and delivered by his wife Costanza to the King of France. His death was the cause of the renewal of the conflict between the French and the Imperials. In Venice, in those same days, a spy network organised by him with several Venetian gentlemen in favour of the French was uncovered.

Annibale Fregoso

1500–1532 (June). Son of Giano and Ardabella di Leca. Brother of Cesare and Alessandro. Like his brother Alessandro, he married a Strozzi of Ferrara. He died barely past thirty in Padua.

His military career was conducted entirely in the service of Venice, always in close collaboration with his brother Cesare. He distinguished himself, as a captain of infantry, in various actions in Lombardy in 1527; he was present, in particular, in the attack conducted against Genoa alongside his brother Cesare and Andrea Doria. Other operations, always in those same years, saw him as protagonist in the Po Valley. In the summer of 1528, during the defence of Pavia, he was taken prisoner by the Imperials, after being recognised in an attempt to escape disguised as a peasant. He was freed in November of the same year by Antonio di Leyva in exchange for Gabriele da Martinengo, a Spanish captain and 400 ducats. Having returned to Venetian service in 1529, he participated in the final phases of the war in Lombardy; in the same August he was reported alongside his brother Cesare at the deathbed of their dying father. He died in Padua. “He won praise for great valour,” recalls Pompeo Litta in his work “Famiglie celebri italiane,” an essay in which the history of 113 families is traced, constituting the most worthy attempt made in his time (mid-nineteenth century) by an Italian to illustrate national history. The Venetians too recognised Annibale‘s valour, when his conduct, at the end of the last conflict with the Imperials, was praised in Venice, in the Collegio dei Pregadi, by the former provveditore general Giovanni Dolfin.

Alessandro Fregoso

d. 1565. Son of Giano and Ardabella di Leca. Brother of Annibale and Cesare. Like his brother Annibale, he married a Strozzi of Ferrara. From his son Galeazzo originated the branch of the Fregoso of Verona, which would die out at the end of the nineteenth century.

“He was likewise notable in matters of the militia… He eclipsed the fame of many captains of his time.” Punctual on the part of Sansovino is the recognition of his valour on the battlefield; however, this assessment lacks any reference to all the tribulations linked to the decisions of his brother Cesare, which drastically reduced the years Alessandro could dedicate to the profession of arms. From 1512 he served regularly under the Republic of Venice with the condotta of fifty men-at-arms inherited from his father. He was captured by the Spanish at the Battle of Creazzo in 1513 and again in 1516: on both occasions he was freed through a prisoner exchange. He took part in the Battle of the Bicocca in 1522, in the defence of Pavia in 1527 and, throughout the 1520s, in numerous campaigns in Lombardy and the Veneto. In 1536 he was dismissed by the Venetians because of his brother Cesare‘s abandonment of their service; in 1542 he was expelled by them from Padua; all his provisions were also revoked following the discovery of the spy network organised in Venice, again by Cesare, in favour of the French. He died in Padua. He is buried at Garda in the church of the Friars Minor.

Aurelio Fregoso, Count, Lord of Sant’Agata Feltria

d. 1581. Natural son of Ottaviano, last doge of Genoa. He married Lucrezia Vitelli, sister of Chiappino. Father of Ottaviano and Orazio. Son-in-law of Francesco da Montauto. Nephew of Federico Fregoso, his father’s brother, cardinal and Archbishop of Salerno.

In addition to being “a celebrated captain of our times,” as Sansovino notes, the Genoese historian Foglietta records above all his sagacity in matters of war: “Of him, no one in our age is considered to possess greater understanding in the affairs of war.” His father Ottaviano died imprisoned in the fortress of Ischia, poisoned according to some authors; in the middle of that same month Aurelio was invested with Sant’Agata Feltria by the Duke of Urbino Francesco Maria della Rovere. He was able to take possession of this fief only in 1541 upon the death of his uncle Federico. He initially lived at Urbino; in 1549 he moved to France in the service of King Henry II, at whose court he was recognised with the titles of chamberlain and gentleman; he took part in the War of Siena (1551–1554), in which he proved himself one of the most active officers of the Marshal of France Piero Strozzi. He distinguished himself in guerrilla actions, night sorties and, in particular, in the ambush that led to the capture of Ascanio della Cornia in 1554. He parted ways with Strozzi at the end of the War of Siena. Driven to abandon the French camp by the offers of the Duke of Florence Cosimo de’ Medici, he judged that in Tuscany his prospects were more favourable than those to be expected from the French. He obtained command of the ducal cavalry and subsequent diplomatic and policing assignments. In 1566 he was reported at the head of three thousand infantry sent to Hungary to aid Emperor Maximilian of Habsburg, engaged in a conflict against the Turks. In 1568 he was tasked with conducting an inquiry into alleged malfeasance by the commander of the Medici fleet Alfonso d’Appiano. In 1570 he was reported in Rome at the side of Cosimo de’ Medici when the latter was crowned Grand Duke of Tuscany by Pope Pius V. Among his less edifying exploits was the hiring in 1565 of an assassin for the purpose of murdering at Moulins, on behalf of the Medici, the Florentine exile Bernardino Corbinelli. In 1571 he took part in factional struggles in Genoa. He was contacted by the popular party to obtain his help against their rivals, the nobles who dominated civic life. Only in 1576 was the Treaty of Casale, aimed at the elimination of internal strife, also signed by him. He probably died in Florence. Thanks to the positions held in Florence by his sons Ottaviano and Orazio, the branch of the Fregoso of Sant’Agata Feltria managed to live in prosperity for more than one generation.

Paolo Battista Fregoso

d. 1555. His activity was entirely dedicated to the service of the French in their war against the Imperials. In 1552 he took part, with the rank of lieutenant in the company of the Duke of Nemours, in the celebrated defence of Metz, a city in north-eastern France, capital of the department of Moselle. The siege lasted four months from October to the following January 1553 and ended with the defeat of the enemy. Fregoso distinguished himself on several occasions with his squadron of light cavalry in numerous sorties, various reconnaissance actions and some engagements in the vicinity of Thionville and Saarburg. His presence was subsequently reported in further combats taking place at Valenciennes and Renty. He died on the battlefield in 1555 in Piedmont, at Fossano. Brantôme remembered him as one of the finest captains of light cavalry of his time.