scattered to the winds in accordance with the Papal edict against him.[1] Galeazzo, his son, was less fortunate than Matteo, surnamed Il Grande by the Lombards.  The Emperor Louis of Bavaria threw him into prison on the occasion of his visit to Milan in 1327, and only released him at the intercession of his friend Castruccio Castracane.  To such an extent was the growing tyranny of the Visconti still dependent upon their office delegated from the Empire.  This Galeazzo married Beatrice d’ Este, the widow of Nino di Gallura, of whom Dante speaks in the eighth canto of the Purgatory, and had by her a son named Azzo.  Azzo bought the city, together with the title of Imperial Vicar, from the same Louis who had imprisoned his father.[2] When he was thus seated in the tyranny of his grandfather, he proceeded to fortify it further by the addition of ten Lombard towns, which he reduced beneath the supremacy of Milan.  At the same time he consolidated his own power by the murder of his uncle Marco in 1329, who had grown too mighty as a general.  Giovio describes him as fair of complexion, blue-eyed, curly-haired, and subject to the hereditary disease of gout.[3] Azzo died in 1339, and was succeeded by his uncle Lucchino.  In Lucchino the darker side of the Visconti character appears for the first time.  Cruel, moody, and jealous, he passed his life in perpetual terror.  His nephews, Galeazzo and Barnabas, conspired against him, and were exiled to Flanders.  His wife, Isabella Fieschi, intrigued with Galeazzo and disgraced him by her amours with Ugolino Gonzaga and Dandolo the Doge of Venice.  Finally suspicion rose to such a pitch between this ill-assorted couple, that, while Lucchino was plotting how to murder Isabella, she succeeded in poisoning him in 1349.  In spite of these domestic calamities, Lucchino was potent as a general and governor.  He bought Parma from Obizzo d’ Este, and made the town of Pisa dependent upon Milan.  Already in his policy we can trace the encroachment which characterized the schemes of the Milanese despots, who were always plotting to advance their foot beyond the Apennines as a prelude to the complete subjugation of Italy.  Lucchino left sons, but none of proved legitimacy.[4] Consequently he was succeeded by his brother Giovanni, son of old Matteo il Grande, and Archbishop of Milan.  This man, the friend of Petrarch, was one of the most notable characters of the fourteenth century.  Finding himself at the head of sixteen cities, he added Bologna to the tyranny of the Visconti in 1350, and made himself strong enough to defy the Pope.  Clement VI., resenting his encroachments on Papal territory, summoned him to Avignon.  Giovanni Visconti replied that he would march thither at the head of 12,000 cavalry and 6,000 infantry.  In the Duomo of Milan he ascended his throne with the crosier in his left hand and a drawn sword in his right; and thus he is always represented in pictures.  The story of Giovanni’s answer to the Papal Legate is well told by Corio:[5] ’After