Five generations of a house that builds a domain across Lazio and Abruzzo, only to see it dissolve amid wars, debts and a fratricide
The Orsini of Bracciano are one of the branches of the great Roman Orsini family, alongside those of Monterotondo, Tagliacozzo and Pitigliano. Between the mid-fifteenth century and the second half of the sixteenth they assemble a feudal domain stretching from northern Lazio to the Abruzzo counties of Albe and Tagliacozzo. Thanks to their position on the Apennine roads linking the Kingdom of Naples, the Papal States and the rest of the peninsula, they are forced into a constant balancing act between rival powers, now in their service, now their adversaries as circumstances dictate. The historic enemy remains the Colonna family, on whose account Rome and its surrounding territory endure continual clashes and open wars between the two factions. The alliances of the house shift with the political seasons and involve numerous actors such as the Aragonese of Naples, the Medici of Florence, the kings of France, the Empire, Spain and the Papal States. The Castle of Bracciano is the symbol of this family branch’s power: Napoleone begins the transformation of the fortress in 1470, Virginio completes it, and Paolo Giordano has it frescoed by the Zuccari brothers.
The fief is raised to a duchy by Pius IV in 1560; twenty-five years later Bracciano is confiscated by the papal authorities. The history of these Orsini can be divided into three periods. The first is heroic, when Carlo (not included on the site), Napoleone and Gentile Virginio (appearing on the site simply as Virginio), sword in hand and starting from Bracciano, manage to expand their fiefs, helped in their plans of expansion by the cardinals Giordano and Latino. The second is tragic, when the second Napoleone, Girolamo and Paolo Giordano, their military role now diminished by the different scale the wars have assumed in Italy through the intervention of the Empire, France and Spain, “let themselves be dragged by pride and bloodthirsty tendencies into committing horrendous crimes against their closest relatives”. The third is that of the lords, when Virginio, Paolo Giordano II and Flavio, gradually softening the ancestral mentality with a brilliant life and artistic pursuits, consume in luxury, as required by their high rank, the incomes and capital accumulated in the heroic period (Vincenzo Celletti, Gli Orsini di Bracciano). The profiles that follow, arranged by family nucleus and in chronological order, refer to the condottieri active in the 1400s and 1500s.
Carlo Orsini
First lord of Bracciano; lord of Pozzuoli. Son of Giovanni, of the counts of Tagliacozzo, and count of Manoppello; brother of Francesco (count of Trani, count and duke of Gravina), Giordano (cardinal), Orso (count of Monterotondo), Perna, Orsina and Costanza. Father of Napoleone, second lord of Bracciano; of Roberto, from whom the Pacentro branch descends; Giovanni, commendatory of the abbey of Farfa and archbishop of Trani; Latino (cardinal); Paola (wife of Lorenzo Orsini of the Monterotondo branch), Maddalena (Jacopo Orsini, Monterotondo), Bartolomea (Aldobrandino Orsini, count of Pitigliano), Elena (Gentile Migliorati). Marries Paola Orsini, daughter of the count of Tagliacozzo. Died 1445.
On the death of his brother Giordano, one of the most influential cardinals at the papal court of the time, he remains lord of a large part of the family patrimony and of the vicariate of Bracciano. A politician and condottiero, in 1417 he defends Rome from the attacks of Braccio da Montone. Afterwards he serves in the pay of the Venetians: the Serenissima rewards his service by enrolling him in the golden book of its nobility. Returning to Lazio, he enters the service of the queen of Naples Joanna II of Anjou, who makes him Grand Constable and invests him with Pozzuoli. In the following years he acquires all the rights from the nobles who own land near Bracciano, until, in mid-1423, he no longer considers himself papal vicar of the place but, to all effects, its lord. As such he is recognized by the pontiffs, beginning with Pope Eugene IV.
Napoleone Orsini
Second lord of Bracciano. Count of Albe and Tagliacozzo, baron of Corbara and Paterno. Lord of Vicovaro, Galeria, Campagnano di Roma, Formello, Cantalupo in Sabina, Sacrofano, Bardella (Mandela), Larino, Castelpagano, Roccaguglielma, San Felice del Molise, Civitella Messer Raimondo, Monte Gentile and San Polo dei Cavalieri.
Son of Carlo Orsini and Paola Orsini of the Tagliacozzo branch. Brother of Roberto Orsini, Latino (cardinal), Giovanni, Paola, Maddalena, Bartolomea, Elena. Father of Virginio, Giustina (marries Stefano Sciarra Colonna, lord of Palestrina), Brigida (Camillo Orsini of the Mentana branch), Angelo, Eleonora (Cola Gaetani, lord of Sermoneta), Bartolomea (wife of Bartolomeo d’Alviano), Ippolita (Girolamo Tuttavilla), Bartolomeo. Around 1420 – 1480 (September).
Napoleone continues the line of the lords of Bracciano. He makes his debut in 1443 in the pay of the pope against Francesco Sforza; he conquers Tuscania by sending 150 infantrymen in through the sewer system: the city is sacked. He then passes into the pay of Florence, Naples and again the Church, with campaigns fought in Tuscany, Lazio, Umbria and the Marche. In 1460, with his brother Roberto, he recovers the county of Albe and control of Tagliacozzo. In 1461 he takes command of the papal troops in the Marche and Romagna against the lord of Rimini, Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, who is defeated on the river Cesano in August 1462. The following year he conquers the duchy of Sora, and in 1464 the king of Naples Ferrante of Aragon confirms to him the counties of Albe and Tagliacozzo, as well as the baronies of Corbara and Paterno. For years he fights Everso dell’Anguillara for possession of Monticelli. In 1469 the heavy defeat of Mulazzano, suffered at the hands of Federico da Montefeltro and Roberto Malatesta, costs him a serious wound and the capture of his son Virginio. In 1478 he hosts in the castle of Bracciano the meeting between the French ambassadors and the representatives of the anti-papal and Aragonese league. He dies at Vicovaro in early September 1480. Notable is the praise given him by Francesco Sansovino in Della origine e dei fatti delle famiglie illustri italiane: “He was such that he surpassed all others in the Orsini family: for in peace, living with the greatest splendor.. he yielded nothing to the grandeur and magnificence of the most distinguished princes of his time. In undertaking enterprises, he always considered whether the conditions of peace were much harsher than those of war, and, weighing his forces.. he often preferred an honest quiet to a dangerous disturbance.. He was of marvelous prudence in giving orders and of unheard-of promptness in having them carried out.”
Roberto Orsini
Of Pacentro. Founder of the Pacentro branch. Count of Albe, Nola and Tagliacozzo, baron of Corbara and Paterno. Lord of Pacentro, San Gregorio da Sassola, San Polo dei Cavalieri, Sant’Angelo Romano. Grand Constable of the Kingdom of Naples, knight of the Order of the Ermine. He is known for fighting in battle without a helmet visor over his face, a behavior that earned him the nickname “fearless knight”. Son of Carlo Orsini and Paola Orsini of the Tagliacozzo branch. Brother of Napoleone, Latino (cardinal), Giovanni, Paola, Maddalena, Bartolomea. Marries first Violante da San Severino and secondly Caterina da San Severino. Children of the first marriage are: Francesca (marries Francesco d’Aquino, marquis of Pescara, and Giovan Battista Carafa, count of Airola), Costanza (Pier Bernardino Gaetani, count of Morcone), Orsina (Marcello Colonna, lord of Gallicano, Calabritto and Zagarolo; secondly, Alfonso d’Avalos), Trifalda (Virginio Orsini). From the second marriage he is father of Alfonsina, wife of the lord of Florence Piero de’ Medici. Illegitimate children are Mario and Girolama (Paolo Vitelli).
His apprenticeship in war takes place under the orders of Francesco Sforza, who is close to reaching his goal, the duchy of Milan (1450): the Venetians are the adversaries. From 1453 he begins to serve the Aragonese of Naples. Afterwards he supports his brother Napoleone against Everso dell’Anguillara, returning in 1460 to oppose, in the service of the Aragonese, the attempt by John of Anjou to conquer the kingdom of Naples. It is in this conflict that he has the opportunity to distinguish himself at the battle of Sarno and in the punitive expedition in Calabria, where his soldiers burst into Cosenza, subjecting the city to a terrible sack with cruelty of every kind. He defeats Jacopo Piccinino at Troia. In March 1464 he is appointed Grand Constable of the Kingdom of Naples; with his brother Napoleone he is, after various vicissitudes, invested with the counties of Albe and Tagliacozzo, as well as the baronies of Corbara and Paterno. Years later he repeatedly confronts the Venetians, taking part in the battle of Molinella (adversary Bartolomeo Colleoni), the papal forces alongside Federico da Montefeltro, and the Florentines. He dies of plague in March 1479 near Montepulciano. He is buried in Siena in the church of Monte Oliveto. Historians are unanimous in their judgments of his qualities as a condottiero, which are particularly acknowledged by Sigismondo de’ Conti in his work Le storie dei suoi tempi dal 1475 al 1510: “A man most tolerant of every hardship, great in danger, and having as proof of his valor the wounds he bore on his chest and face.”
Virginio Orsini / Gentile Virginio Orsini
URL: https://condottieridiventura.it/virginio-orsini-between-military-hesitation-and-diplomatic-strategy/
Third lord of Bracciano. Count of Albe and Tagliacozzo, count of Campagnano, baron of Corbara and Paterno, knight of the Order of the Ermine. Nicknames: disparaging, Chiappino; praising, “the Great”. Around 1445 – 1497 (January). He dies in prison in Naples, in Castel dell’Ovo.
Son of Napoleone and Francesca Orsini of Monterotondo. Brother of Giustina, Brigida, Angelo, Elena, Bartolomea (wife of Bartolomeo d’Alviano), Caterina (Onorato Gaetani of Sermoneta), Ippolita, Bartolomeo. Father of Gian Giordano and Giambattista (a religious) and of two legitimized natural sons, Carlo and Annibale Antonio (a man of letters). Marries Trifalda Orsini, daughter of Roberto and Isabella Orsini. Around 1445 – 1497 (prisoner in Castel dell’Ovo in Naples).
Virginio is the high point of the family fortunes of the Bracciano branch. Captured at Mulazzano in 1469 alongside his father, in 1480 he inherits a feudal patrimony stretching from northern Lazio to the Marsican counties, controlling the roads between Naples and the Papal States. He loses and reconquers several times the counties of Albe and Tagliacozzo amid popes, Aragonese and Colonna. He fights at Campomorto in 1482 (on the side of the papal forces against the Aragonese); in 1484 he sides with Girolamo Riario against the eternal rivals, the Colonna: Lorenzo Colonna, captured, is beheaded in Castel Sant’Angelo. In March of the following year Pope Innocent VIII falls ill: Virginio Orsini takes advantage of this to resume the struggle against the Colonna alongside Paolo Orsini; he agrees to pass into the pay of the Aragonese against the papal forces and the Colonna; in December, in reprisal, his adversaries set fire to his palace of Monte Giordano in Rome. In the same period he is again invested by the king of Naples Ferdinand of Aragon with the counties of Albe and Tagliacozzo, already under the control of the rival Colonna. In January 1486 he reconciles with the pontiff; in the same spring he returns to the pay of the Aragonese. At the end of the conflict (summer), among the conditions set by Innocent VIII is that the Orsini present himself before the pope barefoot and with a halter around his neck; and, again, naked he is forced to ask for mercy. In 1487 he receives the Order of the Ermine and the right to the Aragonese insignia; at the same time he strengthens his understanding with the Medici. In 1492, with Medici money, he purchases from Franceschetto Cybo Anguillara Sabazia, Cerveteri and other lands, arousing the wrath of the new pontiff Alexander VI. In 1494 he is named by king Alfonso II of Aragon Grand Constable of the Kingdom of Naples; he serves under him. At the same time, during the conflict between the Aragonese and the French of king Charles VIII, he allows his sons Gian Giordano and Carlo to fight on the side of the French against his own troops. Having surrendered to his adversaries at Nola in February 1495, he manages to escape during the battle of Fornovo, with the French in retreat toward Piedmont. A brief interval follows in which he tries to bring his brother-in-law Piero de’ Medici back into Florence. When the initiative fails, he serves king Charles VIII. This adventure too ends badly with the surrender of the French and his capture by the adversaries. In January 1497 he is excommunicated by Pope Alexander VI. He dies in the same month in prison, locked up in Castel dell’Ovo in Naples, of fever or of poison. He builds the castle of Campagnano and completes that of Bracciano; he is a humanist and patron of the arts. Ercole Ricotti, in his weighty work Storia delle compagnie di ventura in Italia, judges him: “Illustrious for magnificence of manner and abundance of wealth, famous in war for infinite slowness, which then held almost the place of science, he passed away lamented not only by those of his lineage, who venerated him as their head, but by the Vitelli, the Conti, the Baglioni and the Anguillara, who all, coming out of his school, were renowned as valiant captains.” More negative, conversely, is the assessment given by Piero Pieri in Il Rinascimento e la crisi militare italiana: “A mediocre warrior.., he was a supreme intriguer, a typical representative of those captains of fortune accustomed to seeing in war a financial and diplomatic operation, negative elements in the history of the military art in this period.”
Carlo Orsini
Another condottiero of the Orsini house, known in particular as the founder of the branch of the counts of Anguillara. Lord of Cerveteri, Anguillara Sabazia, Isola Farnese, Bagni di Stigliano and Canale Monterano. Died July 1502.
Natural son of Virginio. Brother of Gian Giordano, Giambattista and Annibale Antonio. Father of Gentile Virginio and Brigida. Marries Porzia Savelli, sister of the condottieri Silvio, Troiano and Antonio.
He initially fights alongside his father Virginio in the service of the papal forces and the Aragonese from 1482 to 1494. In this last year he is reported defending the kingdom of Naples, attacked by the French of king Charles VIII. Besieged in Campagnano di Roma, he is forced to surrender. On his father’s advice he goes to France and places his person and his goods in the hands of the French. In December he opens to them the gates of Anguillara Sabazia, Campagnano di Roma and Bracciano; he supplies their troops with provisions, momentarily in difficulty against the Aragonese for this reason. In November 1495 he is in Lyon. His father hands him over as a hostage to the French on the occasion of his condotta with king Charles VIII. The following year he returns to Italy to defend the possessions of his family confiscated by Pope Alexander VI. With Vitellozzo Vitelli and Giulio Orsini he defeats at Soriano nel Cimino the papal troops led by Guidobaldo da Montefeltro (taken prisoner), Antonello Savelli and Fabrizio Colonna. He then joins his brother-in-law Bartolomeo d’Alviano and forces the adversaries to free his brother Gian Giordano and to return the lands of the Orsini of Bracciano through payment of a ransom of 50,000 ducats. Afterwards he passes into the pay of the Venetians, for whom he first confronts the Florentines in Tuscany and then in Lombardy (1500) the troops of the duke of Milan Ludovico Sforza. Over time he proves ever more unruly toward orders (he refuses to face the Turks in Friuli), undisciplined, arrogant in his demands. He asks for settlement of his dues and lets the term of his contract lapse, demanding a letter of good service (denied him). In October of the same year he is reported in the service of the papal forces under Cesare Borgia. In 1501 he confronts the Aragonese in the kingdom of Naples alongside the French. He dies in July 1502 at Montereale, in Abruzzo, of poison administered by Borgia himself. The funeral takes place in L’Aquila, where he is buried. He is judged by Pierre de Brantôme (together with Vitellozzo Vitelli) in Les vies des hommes illustres et grands capitaines estrangeres du siècle dernier as “Très braves et vaillans capitaines”.
Gian Giordano Orsini
Of Bracciano. Fourth lord of Bracciano. Count of Albe and Tagliacozzo, lord of Vicovaro, Isola Farnese, Sant’Angelo Romano, San Gregorio di Sassola, Sacrofano, Formello, Campagnano di Roma, Marcellina, Cesano, Galeria, Orvinio, Pozzaglia Sabina, Montorio Romano, Turania and Palo. Knight of the Order of the Ermine and of that of Saint Michael. Around 1460 – 1517 (October).
Son of Virginio and Isabella Orsini. Brother of Giambattista (a religious) and of two legitimized brothers: Carlo (condottiero) and Annibale Antonio (a man of letters). Marries Maria Cecilia of Aragon (natural daughter of the king of Naples Ferrante of Aragon) and in 1506 Felice della Rovere, natural daughter of Pope Julius II. From the first marriage are born Francesca (marries Antonio de Cardona, marquis of Padula, and in 1516 the condottiero Renzo di Ceri), Napoleone, Carlotta (Giantommaso della Mirandola), Giulia (Pietro Antonio da San Severino, prince of Bisignano). From the second marriage are born Girolamo, Giulio, Francesco (abbot of Farfa), Clarice (Luigi Carafa, duke of Mondragone).
Gian Giordano is a less gifted soldier than his father and more skilled as a courtier. He fights at Campomorto in 1482, in 1486 he marries Maria Cecilia of Aragon in Naples, and in 1487 he is armed, together with his father, as a knight of the Order of the Ermine by his father-in-law, the king of Naples Ferrante of Aragon. He follows Virginio in the wars of 1494 and 1496; he receives from the French the Order of Saint Michael and ends up a prisoner at Atella: he is freed in 1497 thanks to the intervention of his brother Carlo. In 1498 he accompanies Cesare Borgia to France, where he stays almost a year. In 1503 he rejects the proposals of Alexander VI to exchange the Lazio fiefs for a Neapolitan state; besieged in Bracciano and wounded at Vicovaro, he cedes with the Treaty of Celle the Lazio lands in exchange for the principality of Squillace and some domains in the Marche. After the pope’s death he returns to prominence in Rome. In May 1506 he marries Felice della Rovere, daughter of Julius II, whose dowry allows him to buy back several lands. In the pay of the king of France Louis XII he confronts the Venetians in 1509 at the battle of Agnadello; in October 1513, after the defeat suffered at Ravenna by the papal forces at the hands of the French, he places his territories at the disposal of Pope Julius II and defends him from the plots of Pompeo Colonna and other Roman barons. In 1516 he assigns as dowry to his daughter Francesca, on her second marriage to Renzo di Ceri, the centers of Formello, Sacrofano and Campagnano di Roma. He dies suddenly at Vicovaro without being able to confess and take communion because the doctors underestimated the seriousness of his illness. He has a palace built at Blois, also called the palace of Giordano. In general the assessments of him are not very positive. They range, in fact, from the judgment expressed by the papal master of ceremonies Paride de Grassi, in which “he is portrayed as a rough man, unaware of the most elementary rules of civil living” (Elisabetta Mori, L’archivio Orsini), to the citation of Christine Shaw in The political life of the Orsini family from Sixtus IV to Clement VII: “Was an honourable but strange man, and did not have the military skills of his father..His personal prominence can only have been due to his great wealth in lands and vassals.”
Napoleone Orsini
Abbot of Farfa and of San Salvatore di Scandriglia. Lord of Bracciano and Vicovaro.
Son of Gian Giordano and Maria Cecilia of Aragon. Brother of Girolamo, Francesca, Carlotta, Giulia, Giulio, Francesco, Clarice. Marries Claudia Colonna, daughter of Giulio, lord of Montefortino, and Maria Conti. Father of Ippolita (marries Carlo Zambeccari and one of Palombara), Giampaolo, Virginio, Antonio, Giovan Battista. Around 1503 – 1534 (February). He dies murdered at the hands of his half-brother Girolamo at Frattocchie, on the road leading from Castel Gandolfo to Albano.
Destined for an ecclesiastical career, at eight he is named apostolic protonotary; in 1512 Pope Julius II, natural father of his stepmother Felice della Rovere, grants him the abbeys of Farfa and San Salvatore di Scandriglia: the aim is to secure for Girolamo, firstborn of his father’s second wife, full lordship of Bracciano. On his father’s death (October 1517) he receives no lands as inheritance; clashes with his stepmother are inevitable. In 1521 he has new disputes with della Rovere, because she tries to have Antonio da San Severino elected cardinal in his place. Soon he renounces the ecclesiastical career to take up the profession of arms. In 1526 he fights for the papal forces against the Colonna; in 1527 he passes into the service of the imperials. He subsequently draws closer to the Colonna on the promise, although he is married, of being able to marry Isabella Colonna, daughter of Vespasiano. The plot is discovered by his relatives; captured at Bracciano, he is locked up in Castel Sant’Angelo. He emerges at the price of heavy financial commitments and the promise to go into exile in Florence, Rome or Venice. In February 1528, after the Sack of Rome, he massacres the last groups of Landsknechts and Spaniards in the Roman countryside and plunders the houses of the Jews in the city. He passes into the pay of the French, with whom he opposes the imperials in Abruzzo and Piedmont. In 1529 he is hired by the Florentines to face the papal forces and the imperials. In 1530 Clement VII declares him a rebel and strips him of the commend of Farfa. In the following years he continues to oppose his relatives; he imprisons his brother Girolamo at Vicovaro. His attempts are unsuccessful, so he is forced into exile first in Venice and subsequently in France, where king Francis I protects him and obtains for him a pardon from the pope. During his absence in France, his half-brother Girolamo, as head of the Orsini family, grants the hand of his half-sister Giulia to Pietro Antonio da San Severino, assigning her a dowry of 12,000 scudi and, as guarantee for it, giving her in pledge the land of Sacrofano. In February 1534 Napoleone returns to Italy. On the day set for departure the bride’s party, made up of Girolamo and an escort commanded by captain Matteo di Fossombrone, sets out for Naples. Napoleone, who is opposed to this marriage, is informed of the journey; he sees his rights as head of the house infringed; he sets off in pursuit of the party. He reaches Frattocchie. Girolamo asks to speak with him. In reply Napoleone, sword drawn, tears his clothes and wounds his mount. Matteo di Fossombrone intervenes with his men-at-arms and with Girolamo kills him. The assessments expressed by historians of this figure are very similar. Ludovico Antonio Muratori judges him “a factious man, a leader of armed men, and famous for his iniquities”. Conversely, Ferdinand Gregorovius in Storia di Roma nel Medioevo considers him indeed a “restless and proud young man”, but appreciates the figure, holding him “one of the most vigorous Italian temperaments of that age”. “Having lived in the first thirty years of the sixteenth century, known to historians for his restlessness, his betrayals, the abuses of every kind he committed, as well as his tragic end, he was judged by his contemporaries ‘a man marvelously fickle and of little faith’” (Vincenzo Celletti). Finally, also interesting is an observation by Elisabetta Mori, again concerning Napoleone Orsini from the French point of view: “At the court of Francis I Napoleone was much loved, as his father had been before him. If in Italy he was considered a crude and violent bandit, in France he was considered among the most refined gentlemen. Different angles of view from Florentine, imperial, French and Roman, Catholic or Protestant circles, like distorting lenses, transmitted opposite images of the figures of these families.”
Girolamo Orsini
Fifth lord of Bracciano. Lord of Vicovaro, Isola Farnese, Galeria, Campagnano di Roma, Trevignano, Sacrofano, Formello, Cantalupo, Bardella (Mandela).
Son of Gian Giordano Orsini and Felice della Rovere. Brother of Napoleone, Francesca, Carlotta, Giulia, Giulio, Francesco, Clarice. Marries Francesca Sforza, daughter of Bosio II, count of Santa Fiora and lord of Castell’Arquato. Father of Paolo Giordano and Clarice (marries Luigi Carafa della Stadera, prince of Stigliano). 1513 (July) – 1540 (November).
Girolamo is the son of Gian Giordano’s second marriage and therefore a rival of his half-brother Napoleone, born of the first marriage. He fights him in 1529, favoring the cause of Pope Clement VII; in 1532 he is captured and imprisoned at Vicovaro by his half-brother, to be finally freed through the action of Luigi Rodomonte Gonzaga. In 1533 he passes into the service of the emperor Charles V. In February 1534 he escorts to Naples his sister Giulia, who is to marry, against the will of Napoleone, the prince of Bisignano Pietro Antonio da San Severino; at the head of a few horsemen he kills his half-brother, who in turn had set off in pursuit of his relative. The governor of Rome sentences Girolamo to death with the confiscation of Bracciano and Vicovaro in favor of his brother Francesco; the intercession of cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici and a new pope, Paul III, annul the sentences after a year. In 1536 he hosts the emperor Charles V in the castle of Galeria. In 1540, still in the service of the Papal States, with Pier Luigi Farnese and other papal captains he intervenes in the so-called Salt War against Perugia, in whose defense is Rodolfo Baglioni. On that occasion massacres, thefts and destruction of buildings are perpetrated in the city, especially by the Swiss mercenaries (over 80 noble towers are torn down). He dies at Bracciano in the first days of November of wounds received in an ambush. Elisabetta Mori remembers him thus in her work on the Orsini family: “Unlike Napoleone, he was dearly loved by his mother, by the pontiff and always faithful to the emperor.. It is difficult if not impossible to re-establish the historical truth about figures whose political image has been covered by a curtain of dark affairs of crime. The image that contemporaries give back of the fratricide Girolamo is that of a cultured lord whose way of cultivating the chivalric concepts of virtue and honor they appreciate, ‘lover of every doctrine’.”
Paolo Giordano Orsini
URL: https://condottieridiventura.it/the-turbulent-life-of-paolo-giordano-orsini-duke-of-bracciano/
Sixth lord of Bracciano. Duke of Bracciano and Vicovaro, count of Anguillara. Lord of San Polo dei Cavalieri, Cerveteri, Campagnano di Roma, Marcellina, Isola Farnese, Anguillara Sabazia, San Gregorio da Sassola, Saracinesco, Trevignano Romano, Castel Giuliano, Orvinio, Cantalupo in Sabina, Canale Monterano, Formello, Galeria, Sacrofano and Palo; knight of Saint Michael and of the Golden Fleece. Nickname: “the Generous” (il Largo), for his princely lifestyle.
Son of Girolamo and Francesca Sforza of Santa Fiora. Brother of Clarice. Marries Isabella de’ Medici, daughter of the duke of Florence Cosimo and the poet Vittoria Accoramboni. One son from the first marriage (name unknown). 1541 (January) – 1585 (October).
Born after his father’s death, he grows up first under the guardianship of his mother and then of his uncle cardinal Guido Ascanio Sforza, who rebuilds the territorial power of Bracciano through recourse to large loans. In this way an enormous debt accumulates that Paolo Giordano will never be able to meet. In 1553 (aged twelve) his marriage to Isabella de’ Medici is decided. It is in Florence that he lives his first years. His military activity is relatively brief. In 1556, in the service of the Papal States, he fights in Lazio the imperials commanded by the Duke of Alba; in 1560 Pope Pius IV raises Bracciano to a duchy; in 1566 Pius V names him captain general of the papal army with the task of protecting the coasts of the Marche from raids by Turkish corsairs. Fallen into disgrace because of his debts, in 1570 he passes into the pay of the Venetians, on whose behalf he faces the Turks in the defense of Cyprus; in October 1571 he takes part in the battle of Lepanto at the head of 360 infantrymen aboard a galley. He is wounded in the leg by an arrow; during the fighting he captures the cadi of the Ottoman fleet (the official in charge of its administration and of the control of its various activities). He brings the latter to Rome, where he enters in triumph at the side of the victor of the historic battle, his brother-in-law Marcantonio Colonna. In 1573 he takes part in the expedition to Tunis on behalf of the Spanish. In July 1576 begins the first event that shatters his life: the death of his wife Isabella at Cerreto Guidi. Tradition names him as the author of her strangling, in agreement with his brother-in-law Francesco de’ Medici, while a recent reconstruction based on archival documents (Elisabetta Mori, in L’onore perduto di Isabella dei Medici) attributes the death to a blockage of the biliary, urinary and intestinal tracts. In 1581 he has killed the husband of his lover Vittoria Accoramboni, wife of the nephew of cardinal of Montalto Felice Peretti. Pope Gregory XIII long prevents him from marrying her; on the latter’s death he marries the woman he loves; Sixtus V, uncle of the murdered man, ascends to the papal throne (1585). Paolo Giordano takes refuge in Venice and Padua, while Bracciano is confiscated from him. He dies at Salò after making his will. Vittoria is killed at Padua in the same December by Ludovico Orsini, of the Monterotondo branch, who moved (by his own account) to defend the interests of the son of her first marriage. Orsini is executed without trial; the three assassins are lynched by the population and their heads, placed on pikes, are handed over to the city authorities. The poet Bernardo Tasso, father of the more famous Torquato, remembers Paolo Giordano Orsini in a work, the Amadigi, where he grants him a place among the heroes on the Hill of Glory; Francesco Sansovino dedicates to him a book on the history of his house. The tragic death of Isabella de’ Medici has inspired, over the centuries, writers, poets and scientists, from the Elizabethan John Webster, who writes the tragedy The White Devil, to Alexandre Dumas and Domenico Guerrazzi. The life of Vittoria Accoramboni and her dramatic end have inspired, among many authors, again Webster and Stendhal.
