Bernabo, and Galeazzo.  Between these three princes a partition of the heritage of Giovanni Visconti was effected.  Matteo took Bologna, Lodi, Piacenza, Parma, Bobbio, and some other towns of less importance.  Bernabo received Cremona, Crema, Brescia, and Bergamo.  Galeazzo held Como, Novara, Vercelli, Asti, Tortona, and Alessandria.  Milan and Genoa were to be ruled by the three in common.  It may here be noticed that the dismemberment of Italian despotisms among joint-heirs was a not unfrequent source of disturbance and a cause of weakness to their dynasties.  At the same time the practice followed naturally upon the illegal nature of the tyrant’s title.  He dealt with his cities as so many pieces of personal property, which he could distribute as he chose, not as a coherent whole to be bequeathed to one ruler for the common benefit of all his subjects.  In consequence of such partition, it became the interest of brother to murder brother, so as to effect a reconsolidation of the family estates.  Something of the sort happened on this occasion.  Matteo abandoned himself to bestial sensuality; and his two brothers, finding him both feeble and likely to bring discredit on their rule, caused him to be assassinated in 1355.[1] They then jointly swayed the Milanese, with unanimity remarkable in despots.  Galeazzo was distinguished as the handsomest man of his age.  He was tall and graceful, with golden hair, which he wore in long plaits, or tied up in a net, or else loose and crowned with flowers.  Fond of display and magnificence, he spent much of his vast wealth in shows and festivals, and in the building of palaces and churches.  The same taste for splendor led him to seek royal marriages for his children.  His daughter Violante was wedded to the Duke of Clarence, son of Edward III. of England, who received with her for dowry the sum of 200,000 golden florins, as well as five cities bordering on Piedmont.[2] It must have been a strange experience for this brother of the Black Prince, leaving London, where the streets were still unpaved, the houses thatched, the beds laid on straw, and where wine was sold as medicine, to pass into the luxurious palaces of Lombardy, walled with marble, and raised high above smooth streets of stone.  Of his marriage with Violante Giovio gives some curious details.  He says that Galeazzo on this occasion made splendid presents to more than 200 Englishmen, so that he was reckoned to have outdone the greatest kings in generosity.  At the banquet Gian Galeazzo, the bride’s brother, leading a choice company of well-born youths, brought to the table with each course fresh gifts.[3] ’At one time it was a matter of sixty most beautiful horses with trappings of silk and silver; at another, plate, hawks, hounds, horse-gear, fine cuirasses, suits of armor fashioned of wrought steel, helmets adorned with crests, surcoats embroidered with pearls, belts, precious jewels set in gold, and great quantities of cloth of gold and crimson stuff for making raiment.