The House of Rossi di Parma: A Dynasty of Swords and Lordships

Among the great seigniorial families of medieval and Renaissance north-central Italy, the Rossi di Parma occupy a position of foremost importance for their military continuity, political ambition, and territorial rootedness. Aligned almost uninterruptedly with the Guelph cause, the Rossi built over the course of more than two centuries — from the fourteenth century to the mid-sixteenth — a landed domain protected by castles and fortresses extending across dozens of localities in the Parma region, from the Po plain to the Apennine valleys, with outposts reaching into the Lunigiana and Tuscany.

The geographical fulcrum of the Rossi’s power was the fortress of San Secondo Parmense, around which gravitated a system of strongholds (Torrechiara, Felino, Berceto, Roccabianca, Corniglio, Fornovo, Basilicanova, and many others) that secured for members of the dynasty control over strategic access routes, both toward the Po and toward the Apennine passes. The “Sala delle Gesta Rossiane” (Hall of the Rossi Deeds), still visible today in the fortress of San Secondo, stands as the most eloquent testimony to the dynasty’s self-awareness: a pictorial cycle commissioned to celebrate the exploits of their ancestors, transforming military history into permanent noble propaganda.

The Rossi were not mere soldiers of fortune: they were feudal lords who exercised full civil and criminal jurisdiction over their subjects, faction leaders within the urban context of Parma, senators of Milan, and ambassadors of princely courts. Their ability to navigate between the great powers of their time — the Visconti, the Sforza, the Papal State, France, the Empire, Venice — determined alternating fortunes and reversals, with sequences of rebellions, confiscations, exiles, and recoveries that run through the entire arc of the dynasty. When in the second half of the sixteenth century the family dissolved into the logic of the great territorial monarchies — Spanish and French — the Rossi had already exhausted their historical function as an autonomous power. What remained were the fortresses, the portraits by Parmigianino, the medals by Gianfrancesco Enzola, and a long series of biographies of valorous captains.

The Condottieri of the Dynasty

Marsilio dei Rossi (1287 – August 1337)

Lord of Parma, Lucca, Cremona and Fidenza

Son of Guglielmo and Donella da Carrara. Brother of Pietro, Rolando, and Andrea. Marsilio dei Rossi married a noblewoman whose name is known only by her first name, Margherita; he had a single daughter, Teresa, who married Marquis Uberto Pallavicini. Of him “an undying fame remained, because to robustness and courage he added great wisdom and counsel.” This, in brief, is the judgment of Ireneo Affò, the father of Parma’s historiography, regarding him. Similar assessments were expressed by Vincenzo Carrari (Historia de’ Rossi Parmegiani), by Pompeo Litta (Famiglie celebri d’Italia), and in a manuscript in Padua by the philosopher Giacomo Zabarella, considered the foremost exponent of Paduan Aristotelianism in the sixteenth century. Marsilio was the great political strategist of the fourteenth-century generation, the brain beside the sword of his brother Pietro. Born in 1287, he made his debut as captain of the people of Bologna in 1307 and experienced Scaligeri captivity at the battle of Vicenza in 1314. In the 1320s he adhered to the Guelph cause alongside his brother Rolando, working to increase the influence of the Rossi in Parma. In 1326 he convened in the Palazzo Vecchio the general council that delivered the city to the Papal State; the following year he was rector of Bologna on behalf of the cardinal legate Bertrand du Pouget.

In 1328 he made a decisive shift toward Emperor Louis IV of Bavaria: he entered Reggio Emilia, expelled the papal troops, and became rector of the city; the lordship of Parma followed, to which he soon added that of Cremona. Appointed imperial vicar for all of Lombardy in 1330, he managed with intelligence the crisis that followed the imprisonment of his brother Rolando by Cardinal du Pouget. After a further change of allegiance in favour of John of Bohemia (1331), he took part in the campaigns of 1334–1335 against the Scaligeri, and then in the cession of Parma to Mastino della Scala in exchange for marginal fiefs. Having fled from Verona in 1336 alongside his brother Rolando, following an accusation of conspiracy against the lord of Verona, he took refuge in Venice, where he was admitted to the Grand Council. He died in August 1337, seven days after learning of the death of his brother Pietro from wounds sustained at Monselice; according to some sources he was poisoned by the Scaligeri. He was buried in the Basilica of Sant’Antonio in Padua beside his brothers. In memory of his exploits, two centuries later, Troilo II dei Rossi had three episodes attributed to him depicted in the “Sala delle Gesta Rossiane” in the castle of San Secondo Parmense: the investiture of fiefs in the Parma region by Emperor Louis IV of Bavaria, the acquisition of the city of Lucca of which Marsilio became imperial vicar, and the victory achieved together with his brother Pietro at Cerulio over the troops of Mastino della Scala.

Pietro dei Rossi (1301 – August 1337)

Lord of Parma, Lucca, Pontremoli, Brescello, Berceto, Fidenza. Patrician of Venice

Son of Guglielmo and Donella da Carrara. Brother of Marsilio, Rolando, and Andrea. Pietro dei Rossi married Ginetta Fieschi di Calestano; he was father to six children, of whom only one was male, Bernardo. “A valorous Captain… this Pietro, great of stature, most vigorous and robust, had a face full of majesty, most vivid eyes, and a magnificent spirit, of great prudence and understanding of military affairs… For the great scorn he bore toward the Scaligeri, he sometimes fell inconsiderately into recklessness.” Such is the portrait drawn by a sixteenth-century Venetian historian, Giovanni Bonifacio. Even more emblematic is the depiction offered by the Florentine historian Giovanni Villani, a contemporary of Pietro dei Rossi: “He was the most capable and the wisest captain of war and boldest in person than any other who in his time existed not only in Lombardy but in all of Italy.” Further praise, relating to his character, comes from the Novarese historian Pietro Azario in his work Liber gestorum in Lombardia: “Cui dudum in Italia par non fuit in sensu et pocius probitate.”

Pietro was thus not only the most celebrated condottiere of his dynasty, but was also regarded, as seen from the opinions of his contemporaries, as the finest captain in Italy of his time. Born in 1301, he fought from the late 1320s alongside his brothers in the campaigns of Parma against the papalists, the Scaligeri, and the da Correggio. In 1336 the Venetians appointed him captain general of the anti-Scaligeri league; under a personal standard — a silver lion on a blue field — he led an army of more than three thousand cavalry across the Veneto, devastating Scaligeri territories, capturing Soave, and bringing his banner beneath the gates of Verona. He liberated Padua in 1337 with a swift action; after supporters of the Carrara had opened the Porta Pontecorvo to him, he reached the main square where Marsilio da Carrara and the city authorities awaited him with a jubilant crowd. His death came in a manner as banal as it was cruel: wounded by a short hand-lance at the joint of his armour during an assault on Monselice, he fell into a ditch and the infected water poisoned the wound; he died after two days of agony. Venice displayed his helmet in San Marco; Florence and Padua held solemn funeral rites; ballads and sonnets spread his fame for decades. He was buried in the Basilica of Sant’Antonio in Padua, in the chapel of San Felice, beside his brothers Marsilio and Rolando.

Rolando dei Rossi (died May 1345)

Lord of Parma, Lucca, Berceto, Pontremoli, Fidenza, Brescello, Felino, Belforte

Son of Guglielmo and Donella da Carrara. Brother of Marsilio, Pietro, and Andrea. Rolando dei Rossi married Agnese Ruggeri (who brought him Felino as her dowry) and, in a second marriage, Giacomina da Gabiano. His daughter Maddalena was united in marriage with a natural son of Cangrande della Scala, lord of Verona; a second daughter, Costanza, was wed to Arrigo Castracani, son of Castruccio. Rolando is the most contradictory figure of the first generation of the Rossi: chroniclers are divided between those who judge him incapable in arms and those who, by contrast, recognise his tireless military activity. On the one hand he is characterised as “A fierce man, but in capacity of intellect and military discipline very dissimilar to the virtue of his brothers” by Scipione Ammirato (a sixteenth-century historian), or by Bartolomeo Beverini (a seventeenth-century historian) as “Vecordem ac stolidum hominem,” while historians closer to our own time, such as Marc-Antoine Laugier, assess his work in the opposite way: “He merited among soldiers as much esteem as they held for his brother”; or, more equidistant (again among researchers of our own day), Carlo Ciucciovino: “It may be that Rolando Rossi was not endowed with the exceptional military qualities of his brothers Pietro and Marsilio, but one certainly cannot impute to him idleness: his activity was tireless and was not even slowed by the winter season.” A Guelph partisan, then pro-imperial, then Guelph again as convenience dictated, he managed with his brother Marsilio the conspiracy that drove Giberto da Correggio from Parma in 1317. In 1322 he confronted the San Vitale and strengthened the Rossi’s influence in the city.

In 1325 he was appointed captain general by the cardinal legate Bertrand du Pouget with 3,000 cavalry and 10,000 infantry against Fidenza; the campaign unfolded amid raids, delays, and skirmishes. In 1328 he rebelled against the papalists, seized Parma together with his brother Marsilio, and obtained from the general council the lordship of the city and its territory. In September of the same year he received the lordship of Pontremoli, where he distinguished himself as a mediator between his son-in-law Arrigo Castracani and the rebellious inhabitants. In 1329 he was treacherously captured by Cardinal du Pouget during peace negotiations and confined in a cage in the fortress of Faenza; an imprisonment his brothers swiftly avenged by inciting Parma to revolt. Released in 1331 through an exchange of prisoners and the payment of a heavy ransom (8,000 florins), in 1335 he ceded Parma to the Scaligeri. Having fled from Verona in 1336 after being accused of conspiracy against the lords of the city, he fought as captain general of the Florentines in Val di Nievole, then as captain of Venice in the Veneto alongside his brothers. His conduct was characterised by fierce pillaging and raids in enemy territory. With the signing of peace (January 1339) he recovered his properties in Parma with a perpetual exemption from all duties. He died in Padua in May 1345. He is buried in the Basilica of Sant’Antonio beside his brothers Pietro and Rolando.

Andrea dei Rossi (died March 1453)

Son of Guglielmo and Donella da Carrara. Brother of Marsilio, Pietro, and Rolando. Andrea dei Rossi married Vannina di San Vitale. Son-in-law of Giovanni Quirico di San Vitale, only a few months into his marriage he joined his brother Rolando in the struggle against his father-in-law and his supporters. When San Vitale was driven out of Parma, that very same night he seized and sacked several localities controlled by their adversaries. Having initially devoted himself to administrative and judicial activities (he served as podestà in Piacenza), he was soon compelled to stand alongside his brothers in their conflicts against the papalists, the Este, and the Scaligeri. With the flight from Verona of his brothers he left Parma. He is recorded at the defence of the castle of Pontremoli; he subsequently took part in the conflict that set the Florentines and Venetians against the Scaligeri. With the final victory of the Serenissima he was able to return to Parma and recover his properties there. He was now in a position to resume the office of podestà in various localities of the Veneto (Bassano del Grappa), Lombardy (Bergamo), and Tuscany (Florence). He died in Padua in March 1453.

Pietro dei Rossi (Pier Maria dei Rossi I) (died January 1438)

Count of San Secondo, Berceto, and Corniglio. Lord of San Secondo Parmense, Felino, Sant’Andrea a Bagni, Marzolara, Roccaferrara, Roccaprebalza, Basilicanova. Venetian Patrician

Son of Bertrando, second count of San Secondo, and of Eleonora dei Rossi. Father of Pietro Maria, known as “il Magnifico.” Enthusiastic praise is offered by Bartolomeo Angeli, author in the second half of the sixteenth century of La historia della città di Parma et la descrittione del fiume Parma. This praise embraces both father and son (Pietro dei Rossi and Pietro Maria) under the shared epithet of “il Magnifico.” “Regarded as a most prudent man in military affairs… He was the most capable and wisest captain of war, brave in his person, than any other who in his time existed not only in Lombardy but in all Italy. For his greatness and splendour he was called by the surname of ‘il Magnifico’,” also for his gifts as a theorist and composer of music, recognised by Giorgio Anselmi, a philosopher, physician, mathematician, physicist, astrologer, and musician of his era. This Pietro represents the branch of the family that, during the difficult period of transition between the Scaligeri and Visconti lordships over Parma, managed to preserve and then rebuild the feudal patrimony of the Rossi.

In 1397 he was sent to Pavia for the coronation of Gian Galeazzo Visconti as duke; he took part in the battle of Governolo and ended up a prisoner. After the death of the lord of Milan (1402) he rebelled against the Visconti, allying himself with the Florentines. For dominion over his city he had to face the fierce rivalry of Ottobono Terzi, who expelled him from Parma and had him and his bishop brother painted hanged by one foot in the public square. Captured in 1403, then released, then in conflict once more, Pietro was forced into continuous wandering through Emilia and Lombardy. Only after the killing of Terzi by the Este (1409) could he operate more freely in the Parma region, progressively recovering his own castles. In 1413 he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem alongside Niccolò III d’Este. In 1418, with Alberico da Barbiano, he captured the fortress of Zibello. In the years that followed he defended the Parma region in the service of the Visconti, confronting the Fieschi and the Pallavicini. He died in Parma in January 1438 and was buried there in the church of Sant’Antonio Abate.

Pietro Maria dei Rossi (Pier Maria dei Rossi II), known as “il Magnifico” (March 1413 – September 1482)

Count of San Secondo, Berceto, and Corniglio. Lord of Torrechiara, Felino, Berceto, San Secondo Parmense, Corniglio, Noceto, Graiana, Miano, Sant’Andrea a Bagni, Neviano de’ Rossi, Roccabianca, Roccalanzona, Roccaprebalza, Roccaferrara, Basilicanova, Corniana, Bardone, Calestano, Torricella, Varano de’ Melegari, Stagno, Castellaro, Mezzano, Polesine Parmense, Carona, Carignano — a total of twenty-two castles.

Son of Pietro dei Rossi and Eleonora dei Rossi. Pietro Maria dei Rossi married Antonia Torelli, daughter of Guido Torelli, count of Guastalla and Montechiarugolo, and in a second marriage Orsina Visconti. Father of seven children, of whom two, Guido and Giacomo, likewise took up the military profession. Known as “il Magnifico,” he is the most celebrated member of the Rossi dynasty who, both as a condottiere and as a patron, brought the family to the height of its splendour through his artistic commissions (the finest pictorial cycles of the fifteenth-century Po plain) and through the castles associated with his fame. He was indeed the lord who succeeded in constructing across the Tuscan-Emilian Apennine section the most extensive defensive system based on fortifications such as castles, which allowed him to impose himself as arbiter of Parma’s politics for four decades. The judgment of Francesco Sansovino — son of the more famous architect Jacopo and author of Delle origini e dei fatti delle famiglie illustri italiane — is sufficient to delineate this figure. “He was regarded as a man of great natural counsel and great worth, and because he was learned he was an amiable and tractable person with the moderate and peaceful, and terrible and severe with the unbridled and unreasonable. A man of greatness of spirit, generosity, and splendour of life, he surpassed all others of his house and many of his peers, and was a great man of war. A prudent, wise, and bold man.”

He fought the Venetians in the Ghiaradadda (1438) in the service of the Visconti; in 1446 he confronted, alongside Luigi dal Verme, the siege of Pontremoli. Upon the death of Filippo Maria Visconti (1447) he recovered his own territories and aligned himself with Francesco Sforza, contributing decisively to the conquest of Parma in 1449: the Parmesans called him “founder and preserver of the liberty of the homeland.” In the 1450s and 1460s he managed an almost autonomous power in the Parma region, in perpetual tension with the opposing “Three Factions” (the Pallavicini, the San Vitale, and the da Correggio) and with ducal interference. Between 1448 and 1460 he had the castle of Torrechiara built — a masterpiece of small-scale fifteenth-century seigniorial architecture, with the cycle of the “Camera Peregrina Aurea” — and rebuilt San Secondo Parmense, dedicating both undertakings to his mistress Bianca Pellegrini. The rupture with Ludovico Sforza in 1482 was his final act: declared a public enemy, he held out for months in his castles with his son Guido; then, reduced to dire straits, he withdrew to Torrechiara where he died in September 1482. He is buried in the same locality, in the crypt of the chapel of San Nicomede, beside his wife and his mistress.

Guido dei Rossi (died October 1490)

Count of San Secondo. Lord of San Secondo Parmense, Roccabianca, Felino, Berceto, Torrechiara, Noceto, Roccalanzona, Sant’Andrea a Bagni, Varano de’ Melegari, Bardone, Basilicanova, Corniglio, Roccaferrara, Bosco, Cozzano, Carignano, Fornovo

Son of Pietro Maria and Antonia Torelli. Brother of Giacomo; father of Filippo and Bernardo. Guido dei Rossi married Ambrosina Borromeo and a daughter of Roberto da San Severino whose name is not known. Guido was the eldest son of Pietro Maria; with him the branch of the dynasty known as the “counts of San Secondo” effectively came to an end. Knighted in Milan in 1464 in the presence of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza, he obtained several military commissions in the 1460s and 1470s. In 1478 he was appointed governor of Pontremoli and the Lunigiana by Duchess Bona of Savoy, with the task of countering Roberto da San Severino, who favoured Ludovico Sforza. The Rossi rebelled against the Sforza (1482). Declared a traitor and rebel, he was portrayed alongside his father hanging by one foot in the public palace of Piacenza. He took an active part in this conflict, fighting with great energy in the Parma region until the capitulation of San Secondo Parmense in October of the same year. On that occasion he also managed to evade poisoning attempts made against him by the perennial enemies of his dynasty, the Pallavicini.

Having taken refuge in Venice, in 1484 he was admitted to the Venetian patriciate alongside his brother Giacomo; he obtained a commission of 400 cavalry and an annual stipend. He distinguished himself particularly in the celebrated battle of Calliano (1487) against the Tyrolean and German troops of Duke Sigismund of Austria: left isolated on a small island in the Adige, he succeeded in ferrying his men to shore during the night on a barge, and from there, at daybreak, launching a fresh engagement in which he emerged victorious. On that same occasion he was appointed captain general in place of his father-in-law Roberto da San Severino, who had died in the same battle. He died in Venice in October 1490 with solemn funeral rites; the bells of San Marco rang three times. His funeral oration was delivered by the historian Sabellico. “A man of great spirit and expert in the art of war” — so Bernardino Corio recalled him in his work L’historia di Milano. His action at the battle of Calliano is immortalised in a fresco in the “Sala delle Gesta Rossiane” in the castle of San Secondo Parmense.

Giacomo dei Rossi (died c. 1495)

Of Parma

Son of Pietro Maria and Antonia Torelli. He married Ginevra Terzi. Brother of Guido and Giovanni. Father of Cesare, who served in Venetian pay as a captain of light cavalry. Cousin of Amoratto and Guido Torelli. Giacomo dei Rossi was the younger brother of Guido; a figure marked by a dramatic private history and, at the same time, by loyalty to the dynasty. He served initially in the pay of the Duke of Milan Francesco Sforza: in 1452 he was defeated and captured at the battle of Abbadia Cerreto; he managed, however, to escape after a few months. In 1460 he fought in the Kingdom of Naples in the Aragonese cause against the Angevins of Provence. In Parma he was noted for his indiscipline and constant insubordination. In 1464, with the complicity of his brother Giovanni, he murdered Antonio Cattabriga, a squad commander of the Sforza and husband of his mistress Ginevra Terzi. Disinherited by his father along with his brother, he was banished from the Milanese duchy. Years of exile followed, along with attempts to obtain a military commission, all of which failed due to Sforza pressure on potential employers, as occurred in the case of the lord of Rimini, Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, who was preparing to sail for the Morea to fight the Turks there on behalf of the Venetians.

He put himself forward repeatedly, in vain, to the Venetians themselves. Only in 1467 did he manage to be reconciled with Pietro Paolo Cattabriga, brother of the man he had killed. The two mounted their horses and rode to Torrechiara, where they dined together. His father Pietro Maria obtained the revocation of his banishment and his properties were restored to him. In those same days his father wished to have him marry Francesca d’Arluno, the thirteen-year-old daughter of his mistress Bianca Pellegrini. Thereafter he served in the pay of the lord of Bologna Giovanni Bentivoglio, then for the new Duke of Milan Galeazzo Maria Sforza, and in the service of the Duke of Burgundy Charles the Bold against the Swiss. In 1482, despite his disagreements with his brother Guido, he stood at his side against the Sforzeschi. Commissioned by the Venetians alongside his cousin Guido Torelli, he distinguished himself in the War of Ferrara. The last records concerning him (1487) place him serving, again on behalf of the Serenissima, under the orders of Roberto da San Severino against the German troops of Duke Sigismund of Austria. He died around 1495. Chroniclers remember him as a valorous condottiere.

Filippo dei Rossi (Filippo Maria dei Rossi) (c. 1465 – March 1529)

Count of San Secondo, Torrechiara, and Berceto. Lord of Graiana, Bardone, Corniglio, Bosco, Beduzzo

Son of Guido and Ambrosina Borromeo. Brother of Bernardo. Filippo dei Rossi married a daughter of Giovanni Francesco Gonzaga. Letizia Arcangeli, in her study of this figure, aptly captures the essence of a man difficult to define as either a lord out of his time or a soldier of fortune: “Filippo constitutes a significant example of the conception of war and of relations between states at the end of the fifteenth century, of its ambiguity and its crisis. Filippo is well aware that even having a military commission is important for maintaining the possibility of ‘making a move’… Even in seeking a commission he moves and speaks as a free lord, ignoring the language of loyalty or bonds of territorial obedience.” Filippo was the last champion of the main Rossi line, and his biography is a lengthy attempt — largely frustrated — to recover the paternal patrimony dispersed after 1482. As a child he was handed over by his father to Ludovico Sforza and kept as a hostage in the Castello Sforzesco; still very young, from Venice he witnessed his father’s final campaigns.

After the death of Guido (1490), he obtained from the Serenissima, together with his brother Bernardo, the commission previously held by his father. At the battle of Fornovo (1495) he was present in the Venetian ranks. In 1500 he abandoned them to follow Ludovico Sforza in his attempt to recover the Duchy of Milan. He temporarily managed to retake Felino, Torrechiara, and Corniglio; with the Sforza defeat he was compelled to take refuge in Mantua under the protection of the city’s lord, Francesco Gonzaga. In the years that followed he oscillated between service to the imperialists, the Gonzaga, and the papacy, without ever managing to consolidate a stable base. In 1509, during the siege of Padua, he was captured by the Venetians and had torture inflicted on him by the Council of Ten for his arrogant conduct; he was imprisoned under harsh conditions. Released in 1510 thanks to the intercession of Pope Julius II, in the 1510s and 1520s he obtained partial recoveries of fiefs through imperial support. Conflicts with the branch represented by his cousins — that of the marquises of San Secondo descended from Troilo I — absorbed his final energies. He died at the end of March 1529 at Corniglio, where he is buried. The branch of the dynasty tied to his line became extinct with his nephew Filippo Maria, imprisoned by the Farnese in the rocchetta of Parma, where he died.

Piermaria dei Rossi (Pier Maria dei Rossi III) (1502 – August 1547)

Count and Marquis of San Secondo, Count of Berceto. Lord of Roccafranca, Bardone, Roccaprebalza, Corniana, Felino, Roccabianca. Venetian Patrician. Knight of the Order of Saint Michael

Son of Troilo I dei Rossi and Bianca Riario, herself daughter of Girolamo Riario and Caterina Sforza, half-sister of Giovanni de’ Medici. Brother of Bishop Giovan Girolamo and of Angela dei Rossi, wife of Vitello Vitelli and of Alessandro Vitelli. Father of Sigismondo and Troilo II. Piermaria dei Rossi married Camilla Gonzaga, daughter of Giovanni, lord of Vescovato (dowry of 6,000 ducats in cash, jewels, clothing, and furnishings). This marriage is at the centre of the historical re-enactment of the palio delle contrade of San Secondo Parmense. Piermaria dei Rossi was above all a soldier — valorous indeed, but above all vindictive and fierce. Telling in this last regard is the episode concerning the death of one of his former squad commanders, Anguillotto da Pisa. This man, having grown indignant toward him, defected from his ranks (the imperialists) to pass to the enemy camp defending Florence. In a skirmish this soldier was gravely wounded in the chest by a lance and on the head by an iron mace. Thrown from his horse, he begged his adversary to be killed by him (in reality, to have his throat cut) rather than fall into the hands of Rossi. The marquis vented his rage on Anguillotto’s standard-bearer, killing him with his rapier despite the man having surrendered. Also well known are his quarrels with fellow captains: those involved in his disputes included Fabrizio Maramaldo in Austria; Ludovico and Guido Rangoni in Emilia (the challenge issued by the latter was also signed by two other condottieri, Marzio Colonna and Maramaldo himself); and Piero Strozzi in France; his last victim was yet another former comrade-in-arms, the Duke of Parma Pier Luigi Farnese.

Compelled to swear loyalty to him, he had a formal protest drawn up in Paris that was in effect a declaration of enmity. Frequently challenged by rivals to duels, his response was invariably refusal, accompanied by an insult-laden written riposte. Piermaria belonged to the “French” branch of the Rossi: he spent his youth as a page at the French court and remained bound to the French cause for the greater part of his career. Born in 1502, he fought in Milan in 1521–1522 in the service of the French and in the companies of his uncle Giovanni de’ Medici (Giovanni delle Bande Nere). Taken prisoner at Pavia in 1525, he took part in the League of Cognac, then in imperial service during the Sack of Rome (1527) and the siege of Florence (1529–1530). In 1535 he followed Charles V in the Tunis expedition; in 1536 he fought in Provence; in 1537 he distinguished himself at the assault on Castelnuovo (Herceg Novi, in Montenegro) against the Turks. Having returned to the service of Francis I in 1541, in 1543 he was appointed gentleman of the chamber of the king and captain general of the Italian infantry; he also received the collar of the Order of Saint Michael. He fought the imperialists in Picardy, at Landrecies, and the English at Boulogne-sur-Mer. His portrait, executed by Parmigianino between 1535 and 1539, is today preserved in Madrid at the Museo del Prado. He died in the palace of San Secondo Parmense in August 1547 as a consequence of wounds sustained in his last campaign in France. Bonaventura Angeli dedicated the second part of his history of Parma to him.

Sigismondo dei Rossi (1524 – c. 1580)

Marquis of San Secondo

Son of Piermaria and Camilla Gonzaga. Brother of Troilo II. Sigismondo dei Rossi married the German Barbara Trapp. Sigismondo was the younger brother of Troilo II; for this reason he was directed primarily toward diplomatic and representational roles on behalf of the dynasty. In 1550 he served as ambassador in Florence on behalf of Duke Cosimo de’ Medici at the Diet of Augsburg. In 1551 he fought in the service of Ottavio Farnese in the War of Parma, sustaining a wound to an ear during operations in the Piacenza area. In 1554 he took part in the War of Siena with a commission of 100 cavalry, distinguishing himself in Val di Nievole and in the defence of Pienza. In 1565 he was in Innsbruck and Prague to negotiate the marriage of Francesco de’ Medici with a Habsburg princess. In 1570 he was ambassador in Madrid to congratulate Philip II on his nuptials. In 1574 he travelled to Venice with Troilo Orsini to pay his respects to Henry of Valois. In 1576 he attended the Diet of Regensburg. In 1579 he received at the grand duchy’s borders the Venetian ambassadors en route to Florence for the coronation of Bianca Capello. He died around 1580.

Troilo I dei Rossi, Count and Marquis of San Secondo (c. 1462 – June 1521)

Count and Marquis of San Secondo, Count of Berceto. Lord of San Secondo Parmense, Torrechiara, Felino, Basilicanova, Corniana, Corniglio, Berceto, Bardone, Roccaprebalza, Fornovo, Carona, and Roccalanzona

Son of Bertrando, firstborn of Pietro Maria. Father of Piermaria. Troilo the Elder — to be distinguished from his nephew of the same name — was the lord who, after the disaster of 1482, rebuilt the core of Rossi power in the Parma region under French protection. In 1497 Troilo I dei Rossi was at Asti with the French. In 1499, with the French reconquest of the Duchy of Milan, he obtained the restitution of the castles of San Secondo Parmense, Felino, and Torrechiara, which had formerly belonged to Pietro Maria dei Rossi. King Louis XII appointed him Marquis of San Secondo and subsequently senator of Milan with a stipend of 1,000 Tournois livres. In 1503, thanks to the Trivulzio, he married Bianca Riario. In 1504 he purchased the castle of Basilicanova from Gian Giacomo da Trivulzio for 45,000 lire. In 1509 he had to confront the attack of his cousin Filippo on his own possessions. In the years that followed he consolidated his position as a French client in Emilia: he remained, on the whole, always a secondary figure compared to the great feudatories of the time, yet succeeded in keeping his fiefs safely. He died in the early days of June 1521 in the fortress of San Secondo Parmense, where he is buried in the oratory of Santa Caterina. In the same location he restored the fortress, rebuilding the bastions and towers demolished during the Sforza dominion. He is remembered for having commissioned in it the celebrated “Sala delle Gesta Rossiane.”

Troilo II dei Rossi, Marquis of San Secondo (died January 1591)

Marquis of San Secondo, Count of Berceto. Lord of Roccafranca, Bardone, Roccaprebalza, Roccabianca, Felino, Fornovo, Brescello, Corniglio, Roccalanzona, Corniana, Bosco

Son of Piermaria and Camilla Gonzaga. Troilo the Younger was the last militarily significant Marquis of San Secondo; his career unfolded entirely in the service of the Empire and of Spain. In 1543 Troilo II dei Rossi fought in Picardy under the command of his father Piermaria in favour of the King of France; from 1546 he assumed command of the Italian infantry as lieutenant of his ailing father. In 1547, with the murder of Pier Luigi Farnese in Parma, he supported the imperialists of Ferrante Gonzaga in their ambitions over the city. In 1551 he took part in the War of Parma against the Farnese with 1,000 infantry and 100 cavalry; he distinguished himself at the siege of Mirandola. In 1553 he fought in Corsica; in 1554 he served under the Duke of Florence Cosimo de’ Medici in the War of Siena. In 1561 he obtained from Philip II of Spain the command of one of the four companies of men-at-arms defending the Duchy of Milan, with an annual stipend of 600 scudi. In 1570 he accompanied Cosimo de’ Medici to Rome for his investiture as grand duke. In 1578 his citizenships of Milan, Cremona, and Pavia were renewed; in 1583 the King of Spain granted him the privilege of full jurisdiction over his lands; in 1585 his Venetian patriciate was reconfirmed. He died in January 1591. Francesco Sansovino wrote of him that he “acquired the name of an excellent and courageous soldier. He greatly enlarged his estates and, governing with great prudence and intelligence, did not in the least degenerate from his father Troilo.”