Naples, which was held by Alfonso's brother, Pedro de Aragon, was besieged in 1424 by the Genoese ships and Joan's troops, now led by Francesco Sforza, son of Muzio ( who had died at L ' Aquila ).

Giovanni Sforza, first husband of Cesare's sister Lucrezia, was soon ousted from Pesaro ; Pandolfo Malatesta lost Rimini ; Faenza surrendered, its young lord Astorre III Manfredi being later drowned in the Tiber river by Cesare's order.

Francesco I Sforza ( July 23, 1401 – March 8, 1466 ) was an Italian condottiero, the founder of the Sforza dynasty in Milan, Italy.

Francesco Sforza was born in San Miniato, Tuscany, one of the seven illegitimate sons of the condottiero Muzio Sforza and Lucia da Torsano.

The allegiance of mercenary leaders was dependent, of course, on pay ; in 1433-1435, Sforza led the Milanese attack on the Papal States, but when he conquered Ancona, in the Marche, he changed sides, obtaining the title of vicar of the city directly from Pope Eugene IV.

With the help of Venice, Sforza was again victorious and, in exchange for abandoning the Venetians, received the title of capitano generale ( commander-in-chief ) of the Duchy of Milan's armies.

While the other Italian states gradually recognized Sforza as the legitimate Duke of Milan, he was never able to obtain official investiture from the Holy Roman Emperor.

Under his rule ( which was moderate and skillful ), Sforza modernised the city and duchy.

As King Alfonso of Naples was among the signatories of the treaty, Sforza also abandoned his long support of the Angevin pretenders to Naples.

He was succeeded as duke by his son, Galeazzo Maria Sforza.

It was while she was being entertained by Louis, whose troops occupied Milan, that she offered asylum to Milanese refugees including Cecilia Gallerani, the refined mistress of her sister Beatrice's husband, Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, who had been forced to leave his duchy in the wake of French occupation.

Lucrezia was married to Giovanni Sforza ( Lord of Pesaro ), Alfonso of Aragon ( Duke of Bisceglie ), and Alfonso I d ' Este ( Duke of Ferrara ).

As such, he called off Lucrezia's previous engagements and arranged for her to marry Giovanni Sforza, a member of the house of Sforza who was Lord of Pesaro and titled Count of Catignola.

Giovanni was an illegitimate son of Costanzo I Sforza and a Sforza of the second rank.

Before long, the Borgia family no longer needed the Sforzas, and the presence of Giovanni Sforza in the papal court was superfluous.

Following her divorce from Sforza, Lucrezia was married to the Neapolitan Alfonso of Aragon, the half-brother of Sancha of Aragon who was the wife of Lucrezia's brother Gioffre Borgia.

Built on the former Sforza castle area, it was enlarged in the 17th – 18th centuries.

His son Francesco I Sforza ruled Milan for the first half of the Renaissance era, acquiring the title of Duke of Milan from the extinct Visconti family in 1447.

The building, one of the first Italian examples of civil architecture-commissioned in the 15th century by the Sforza family, the dukes of Milan-was seriously damaged by the bombings of 1943.

Galeazzo Maria Sforza was born in Fermo, near the family's castle of Girifalco, the first son of Francesco Sforza and Bianca Maria Visconti.

He was a member of the famous Milan chapel of the Sforza family in July 1474, along with Loyset Compère, Gaspar van Weerbeke, and some of the other composers from northern Europe who were part of the first wave of Franco-Flemish influence in Italy.

Bianca was born in Pavia on 5 April 1472, the eldest daughter of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan, by his second wife, Bona of Savoy, whom he had married in 1468, a year after the death of his first wife, Dorotea Gonzaga, who did not bear him children.

She had an older brother Gian Galeazzo Sforza, who married their first cousin, Isabella of Naples, by whom he had issue, and a younger sister Anna Sforza, first wife of Alfonso I d ' Este, Duke of Ferrara, who, after Anna's death in childbirth, would marry secondly, Lucrezia Borgia.

Her uncle was Ludovico Sforza Il Moro, Duke of Milan, who married Beatrice d ' Este, and her aunt was Ippolita Maria Sforza, first wife of King Alfonso II of Naples.

His first wife was Ippolita Maria Sforza, whom he married on October 10, 1465, in Milan.

After the death of her first husband Francesco Sforza, Christina went to live at the court of her aunt, the Governor of the Netherlands, Dowager Queen Mary of Hungary.

She married her first cousin, Gian Galeazzo Sforza, who at the time was the Duke of Milan.

Alfonso's first wife was Anna Sforza, the sister of Gian Galeazzo Sforza.

* 1508 – Ludovico Sforza, Italian ruler, Duke of Milan ( b. 1452 )

He was the fourth son of Francesco I Sforza and Bianca Maria Visconti and, as such, was not expected to become ruler of Milan.

However, his uncle Ludovico Sforza was the de facto ruler.

Beatrice d ' Este ( 29 June 1475 – 3 January 1497 ), duchess of Bari and later of Milan, was the wife of the Milanese ruler Ludovico Sforza ( known as " il Moro ").

This unstable situation opened the way to foreign dictatorships, like those of Galeotto I Malatesta ( 14th century ), initially recruited as a mercenary ( condottiero ) in the war against Fermo, and Francesco Sforza.

During his previous employment with the dukes of Ferrara, he had acquired numerous contacts and influential friends elsewhere in Europe, including the Sforza family in Milan ; doubtless this assisted in the spread of his reputation, and the consequent importation of musicians from foreign countries into northern Italy.

Francesco Sforza would base his lifelong external policy on this principle of balance of power.

Sforza was a ruling family of Renaissance Italy, based in Milan.

Filarete, while in Milan, was responsible for the great public hospital known as the Ospedale Maggiore, and also for an influential Treatise on Architecture, which included a plan for a star-shaped ideal city called Sforzinda in honour of Francesco Sforza and passionately argued for the centrally planned form.

This brought him into a potential conflict with Maximilian, who on 16 March 1494 had married Bianca Maria Sforza, a daughter of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, duke of Milan.

When news of this invasion reached Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, on 21 October 1496, he wrote to his ambassador in Spain, to request the Spanish monarchs make peace between England and Scotland.

A third war erupted in 1535, when, following the death of the last Sforza Duke of Milan, Charles installed his own son, Philip, in the duchy, despite Francis's claims on it.

After blowing up an auctioneer to cover up the theft of the Sforza, the Mario Bros. take Hawk away inside an ambulance, but when Hawk sticks needles into Antony Mario's face they try to run him down ( as the stretcher Hawk is on falls out of the ambulance as it speeds along the highway ), but are both killed when their driver crashes the ambulance due to the needles in Antony's face.

Vigevano received the honorary title of city with a decree of Duke Francis II Sforza on February 2, 1532.

A famous civil engineer of pound locks in Europe was the Italian Bertola da Novate ( c. 1410 – 1475 ), who constructed 18 of them on the Naviglio di Bereguardo ( part of the Milan canal system sponsored by Francesco Sforza ) between the years 1452 and 1458.

In this altarpiece, which is a triptych ordered for a patron of the house of Sforza, we find the style of Van der Weyden in the central panel of the Crucifixion, and that of Memling in the episodes on the wings.

* Portrait of Galeazzo Maria Sforza ( c. 1471 )-tempera on wood

French forces under Gaston de Foix inflicted an overwhelming defeat on a Spanish army at the Battle of Ravenna in 1512, but Foix was killed during the battle, and the French were forced to withdraw from Italy by an invasion of Milan by the Swiss, who reinstated Maximilian Sforza to the ducal throne.

Ludovico Sforza was born on July 27, 1452, at Vigevano, in what is now Lombardy.

It is the site of a Franciscan monastery build on behalf of Bona Sforza, the queen consort of King Sigismund I of Poland.

The Thurzo family were in close relations with Polish King Zygmunt Stary, thus not surprisingly Bona Sforza stayed for a night on her way to the marriage in Kraków with Zygmunt Stary ( 1518 ). Thurzo's possessions were dissolved over time ( stripped of Mysłowice in 1536 ) and eventually, the land of Pszczyna was purchased by Baltazar Promnitz, bishop of Wroclaw under special regulation that no land shall be divided.

She had a son, Cesare, on 3 May 1491 by Lodovico Sforza.

Following the capture and execution of Ludovico Sforza in April 1500 and seeking protection from France, Bellinzona joined the Swiss Confederation on 14 April 1500, as a condominium under the joint administration of Uri, Schwyz and Nidwalden.

He threw in his lot as bodyguard to the future Duke of Milan, Francesco II Sforza, who had been reinstated in Milan by Emperor Charles V. The Medeghino gained a reputation for unscrupulous violence in the Sforza pay ; in partial recompense, he was made Marquis of Marignano on 28 March 1528 ( by Imperial patent and confirmed by Francesco Sforza II, Duke of Milan ), and also Marquis of Musso and Lecco.

Julius had hired another army of Swiss mercenaries ; they descended on Milan, bringing with them Maximilian Sforza, who was determined to regain control of the Duchy for his family.

Francis advanced on Milan, capturing the city on 4 October and removing Sforza from the throne.