Ascanio Sforza
Ascanio Maria Sforza (born March 3, 1455 in Milan , † May 28, 1505 in Rome ) from the Sforza family was a cardinal and the sixth son of Francesco I. Sforza , Duke of Milan and Duchess Bianca Maria Visconti . His brothers were the Milanese dukes Galeazzo Maria Sforza and Ludovico Sforza , known as "il Moro".
Life
Ascanio Maria Sforza was Bishop of Eger and was elevated to cardinal by Pope Sixtus IV in 1484 with the titled deaconry Santi Vito, Modesto e Crescenzia . As a cardinal, he saw it as his task to expand and maintain the power of the Sforza. Before 1499, the Duchy of Milan , usurped by his brother Ludovico Sforza , was one of the most influential in Italy. Milan, however, was a fiefdom of the Holy Roman Empire and was therefore nominally subject to the Emperor - initially Friedrich III. , from 1493 his son Maximilian I. Ludovico's situation was particularly precarious because he was the rightful heir to the Milanese throne, Galeazzo Maria Sforza (who was also married to Isabella of Aragon (1470–1524), a granddaughter of the Neapolitan king Ferrante ) sought to oust from domination. As long as Emperor Friedrich lived, he also had no way of being legally enfeoffed with the ducal hat - the Habsburgs simply rejected the descendant of the condottiere Muzio Attendolo as a parvenue. Therefore, like all Italian ruling houses, the Sforza were under constant existential pressure and were forced to enter into constantly changing alliances.
The Sforza had initially supported the election of Rodrigo de Borgia as Pope, originally in the hope that he would allow himself to be led on a leash, as Giuliano della Rovere had demonstrated with his predecessor Innocent VIII . Ascanio actually wanted to become Pope himself after Innocent's death in July 1492, but at 37 years of age he was not only too young, but also too politically exposed due to his family. Already in the conclave Ascanio pulled out all the stops: equipped with a power of attorney from his brother to buy votes and the numerous benefices of the Vice Chancellor of the Curia, Rodrigo Borgia, the papal throne was literally sold as a commodity. As the secretary of Cardinal Barbo, Giovanni Lorenzi, had already stated before the conclave, the two had divided the world circle between themselves: the vice-chancellor became Pope, Ascanio became super-Pope .
But Alexander VI. (so the pope's name Rodrigo de Borgias), who - like his uncle Calixt III. - saw a possible Borgia rule in Naples, played his own game. This forced Ludovico Sforza to ask France for support; Charles VIII regarded himself as the legitimate heir of the Kingdom of Naples and - after the War of Succession for Burgundy that had just been lost against Maximilian I - not only had both hands free, but also strove to finally cover himself with glory. In addition, the French king should not only eliminate Ferrante, but also force a council to depose the insubordinate Pope in the eyes of Sforza - with the ulterior motive, of course, that Ascanio could finally reach for the tiara himself. (In the meantime, Alexander had negotiated with the Neapolitans - Naples was a papal fief after all - and had considered a marriage with the Aragonese.)
Charles VIII's subsequent Italian campaign was victorious, but only as far as Naples was concerned - because the king renounced a council and Alexander was able to pull his head out of the loop in negotiations.
The French troops in Italy became more and more a danger to the European equilibrium - and, above all, were perceived as a threat by the Italian city-states and territorial lords. The Sforza saw themselves forced under the pressure of the Italian situation to change their allies once again. Together with Spain, the Emperor, Venice and the Pope, they formed a league against France and expelled the French troops from Italy on July 6, 1495 at the Battle of Fornovo .
Ascanio had now gotten between the fronts at the Curia and threatened Giuliano della Rovere (who had initially gone into French exile after the conclave and wanted to win the king there for a council against Alexander, but now at the request of the king with the Pope - temporarily - had reconciled) and to be worn out by the Borgia. When Charles VIII died in 1497 - he had run into a beam in his castle in Amboise and apparently suffered a stroke as a result of the head injury - Louis XII. from the house of Orléans French king. If Karl was still an ally of Ludovico, the situation changed fundamentally: because the Orléans were related to the Visconti - and these were precisely those who had been driven out of Milan by the Sforza. Thus the new French ruler reached out to Milan.
In 1500 French troops finally occupied the seat of the Sforza family in Milan . Cardinal Ascanio Sforza supported his brother - who had meanwhile gone into exile with his family in Austria ( Bianca Maria Sforza was married to the Roman-German king and later Emperor Maximilian I ) - in the struggle to recapture the city. When Ludovico Sforza could no longer pay his Swiss mercenaries, however, he was handed over to the French in April 1500. Ludovico was supposed to die in French captivity in 1508. Cardinal Ascanio Sforza was extradited from Venice to the French - also in 1500. Unlike his brother, however, he was not thrown into a dungeon, but only received house arrest and was released in 1502 on condition that he did not leave France. Cardinal Ascanio Sforza was even sent to the French royal court under Louis XII. called and was soon one of the French king's constant hunting companions. He caused a stir when he had the French queen presented an unusually large pearl that his brother Ludovico used to wear.
In August 1503, Louis XII. the cardinal's return to Rome. Pope Alexander VI had died and Cardinal Ascanio Sforza assured the French king that he would vote for the French Cardinal Georges d'Amboise . However, the cardinal's policy was still aimed at the rehabilitation of his family, the reinstatement of his brother Ludovico, imprisoned in French, as Duca in Milan, and the expulsion of the French from Lombardy . In accordance with his promise to the French king, Cardinal Sforza actually chose the cardinal favored by the French court, but made sure that in the conclave Francesco Nanni Todeschini-Piccolomini as Pius III. was elected Pope. Pius III, who was primarily supposed to prevent Giuliano della Rovere, turned out to be only a transitional candidate - he died just four weeks after his election. This finally cleared the way for Giuliano della Rovere , who came to the chair of Petri as Julius II .
Even though Pope Julius II belonged to an Italian ruling family not well-disposed towards the Sforzas, they were united by the goal of ending France's influence in Italy. Julius' policy finally escalated in 1510 in an open battle against the French troops in northern Italy. Cardinal Ascanio Sforza did not live to see this anymore. He died at the age of 50 on May 28, 1505.
Tomb
Ascanio Maria Sforza's tomb, which was commissioned by Julius II despite opposition to Andrea Sansovino (around 1467–1529), is in the “Cappella Maggiore” of the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome. It is the first triaxial triumphal arch tomb erected in Rome and bears the inscription:
- Ascanio Maria Sforza ... who showed himself to be measured in happiness and of the greatest steadfastness in misfortune, of Pope Julius II, who remembered the extremely respectable virtues of the eternal, but forgot the quarrels with him. (quoted from Zitzlsperger, p. 27f)
This seemingly unusual gesture by Julius II has a realpolitical background. For Julius II, the Sforza family, as the legitimate dukes of Milan, were important allies in the fight against the French troops. With the tomb, the Pope from the Rovere family documented that he recognized their rule over Milan.
Influence on music history
After Ascanio Sforza's entry into Rome, he presumably called the composer Josquin Desprez (around 1450 / 55–1521) to the papal choir. The relationship between Ascanio Sforza and Desprez was so close that some of Josquin's compositions have come down to us with the author's name “Josquin Dascanio”.
literature
- Philipp Zitzlsperger: Deus dedit, Deus abstulit. Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza fights for the survival of his family. In: Arne Karsten (ed.): The hunt for the red hat. Göttingen 2004, ISBN 3-525-36277-3 , pp. 13-28
- Philipp Zitzlsperger: The causes of the Sansovino tombs in the choir of S. Maria del Popolo. In: Arne Karsten, Philipp Zitzlsperger (Ed.): Death and Transfiguration. Funerary culture in the early modern period. Conference files of the interdisciplinary research colloquium in Blankensee Palace near Berlin from September 12 to 14, 2002. Cologne / Vienna / Weimar 2004, pp. 91–113.
- Marco Pellegrini: Ascanio Maria Sforza. La parabola politica di un cardinale-principe del rinascimento. 2 volumes. Istituto storico italiano per il medio evo, Rome 2002
- Peter Schmid: Sforza, Ascanio Maria. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 9, Bautz, Herzberg 1995, ISBN 3-88309-058-1 , Sp. 1575-1576.
- Sfòrza, Ascanio Maria , In: Enciclopedia Italiana
Web links
- SFORZA, Ascanio Maria. In: Salvador Miranda : The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church. ( Florida International University website), accessed July 10, 2011.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Sforza, Ascanio |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Sforza, Ascanio Maria (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Archbishop of Eger, Cardinal |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 3, 1455 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Milan |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 28, 1505 |
| Place of death | Rome |