[3] Beatrice di Tenda, the wife of Facino Cane, was twenty years older than the Duke of Milan.  As soon as the Visconti felt himself assured in his duchy, he caused a false accusation to be brought against her of adultery with the youthful Michele Oranbelli, and, in spite of her innocence, beheaded her in 1418.  Machiavelli relates this act of perfidy with Tacitean conciseness (1st.  Fior. lib. i. vol. i. p. 55):  ‘Dipoi per esser grato de’ benefici grandi, come sono quasi sempre tutti i Principi, accuse Beatrice sua moglie di stupro e la fece morire.’

Filippo, the last of the Visconti tyrants, was extremely ugly, and so sensitive about his ill-formed person that he scarcely dared to show himself abroad.  He habitually lived in secret chambers, changed frequently from room to room, and when he issued from his palace refused salutations in the streets.  As an instance of his nervousness, the chroniclers report that he could not endure to hear the noise of thunder.[1] At the same time he inherited much of his father’s insight into character, and his power of controlling men more bold and active than himself.  But he lacked the keen decision and broad views of Gian Galeazzo.  He vacillated in policy and kept planning plots which seemed to have no object but his own disadvantage.  Excess of caution made him surround the captains of his troops with spies, and check them at the moment when he feared they might become too powerful.  This want of confidence neutralized the advantage which he might have gained by his choice of fitting instruments.  Thus his selection of Francesco Sforza for his general against the Venetians in 1431 was a wise one.  But he could not attach the great soldier of fortune to himself.  Sforza took the pay of Florence against his old patron, and in 1441 forced him to a ruinous peace; one of the conditions of which was the marriage of the Duke of Milan’s only daughter, Bianca, to the son of the peasant of Cotignola.  Bianca was illegitimate, and Filippo Maria had no male heir.  The great family of the Visconti had dwindled away.  Consequently, after the duke’s death in 1447, Sforza found his way open to the Duchy of Milan, which he first secured by force and then claimed in right of his wife.  An adverse claim was set up by the House of Orleans, Louis of Orleans having married Valentina, the legitimate daughter of Gian Galeazzo.[2] But both of these claims were invalid, since the investiture granted by Wenceslaus to the first duke excluded females.  So Milan was once again thrown open to the competition of usurpers.

[1] The most complete account of Filippo Maria Visconti written by a contemporary is that of Piero Candido Decembrio (Muratori, vol. xx.).  The student must, however, read between the lines of this biography, for Decembrio, at the request of Leonello d’ Este, suppressed the darker colors of the portrait of his master.  See the correspondence in Rosmini’s Life of Guarino