Pier Luigi I Farnese

Pier Luigi Farnese (* 1435 , † approx. 1487 ) was an Italian condottiere , was lord of Capodimonte , Musignano, Valentano , Gradoli , Piansano , Canino and Abbazia al Ponte, papal pastor of Canino.

Coat of arms of the House of Ferns

biography

Pier Luigi was born to Ranuccio Farnese il Vecchio and Agnese Monaldeschi before the mid-15th century. When the father made his will he was still a minor.

Ranuccio, who was dying, gave his sons not only extensive territorial rule, but also a clear political goal that would prove to be an engine for the continued rise of the family. Although he enjoyed a high reputation in Rome, he decided to build his city residence in Viterbo and on the island of Bisentina in Lake Bolsena to build a monastery and a family grave. He also expanded the strategic alliances. On the one hand, trade relations with Orvieto were further expanded (Ranuccio's wife was a Monaldeschi), on the other hand, relations with the Orsinis were strengthened. His son Gabriele Francesco married an Orsini from Pitigliano .

Ranuccio's sons, Angelo, Gabriele Francesco and Pier Luigi not only managed to preserve their father's fortune, but thanks to their marriage policy they were also able to acquire new property.

Pier Luigi was placed under the protection of the brothers by the dying father. The property he inherited consisted of the castles of Capodimonte and Musignano and the family's rights over the Abbazia al Ponte, Canino and Montalto, to which the fourth part of the property of Pian d'Arcione and part of the entire movable property and 11,000 guilders, which were deposited in Florence at the Medici Bank were added.

From the middle of the century he became involved in the fighting that plagued the region. In 1458 he intervened in favor of the Gatti who, together with the Capitano del Patrimonio, were expelled from Viterbo . In 1461 he appears in connection with Orvieto, who campaigned for an indictment against the conspiracy of the Condottiere Gentile della Sala, a man of the Monaldesca who tried to take over the city with a coup.

In the meantime, negotiations have started to marry Giovannella Caetani, daughter of Onorato III, Duke of Sermoneta . The negotiations were led by Cardinal Ludovico Scarampi. Scarampi had been associated with the Farnese family for a long time and had already been appointed executor by Ranuccio.

In the years 1460–61 he stood by Caterina Orsini, wife of Onorato, with his help and advice. She had to rule the state alone as her husband was absent for the war in the Kingdom of Naples . The negotiations are very well documented by the correspondence kept in the Caetani archive. They began in 1460 and in March 1464 Pier Luigi appointed a procurator from his residence in Ischia near Castro , who accepted Giovannella's dowry of 2,750 ducats. With this marriage, the Farnese entered the ranks of the Roman aristocracy, which brought the family high esteem.

A document from 1480 shows that the sons Ranuccio and Paolo could not agree on the death of his brother Gabriele Francesco, which probably occurred between December 1475 and the first months of the following year, because of the division of some countries. The dispute lasted for some time and came to a final agreement in 1480 with the assignment of the estates of Arlena and Civitella to Pier Luigi and that of Tessennano to the nephews, while the cannara of Marta (a safety gear for catching eels) was split in half.

The state of the documentation does not suggest that his wife was involved in the management of family affairs, but it can be assumed that behind the events of her daughter Julia and the education and career of Alexander also her determination and contacts with the Roman nobility and especially the Curia stood. The arrest of her son Alexander, who accused his mother of several crimes in 1487 , is remembered . This episode is difficult to reconstruct as the existing documents cannot be classified chronologically.

Pier Luigi died between the issue of his will, dated December 1485, and November 1487 when Giovannella appeared in a document as "uxor olim domini Pietrolovisii".

progeny

• Angelo (1465–1494), condottiere of the Papal States, married Lella Orsini, daughter of the condottiere Niccolò
• Girolama (1466–1505), married Puccio Pucci and then Giuliano dell'Anguillara
• Alessandro (1468–1549), Pope Paul III.
• Beatrice (1469–1507), was a nun and from 1480 abbess of the monastery of S. Bernardino
• Bartolomeo (1470–1552)
• Giulia (1474-1524), was the lover of the Borgia Pope Alexander VI.

literature

• Litta Pompeo: Famiglie celebri d'Italia. Farnese Duchi di Parma . Turin 1835 (Italian).
• Angela di Lanconelli: FARNESE, Pierluigi . In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani . tape 45 , 1995 ( treccani.it ).