Ludovico Sforza

Ludovico Maria Sforza was born 3 August 1452, the fourth son in a line that should have left him nowhere near power. He seized the regency from his sister-in-law Bona, then took the duchy itself from his nephew Gian Galeazzo in 1494 - some say by poison. Once in control, he became a patron of artists and writers, and his Milan court became one of Europe's most important during the Italian Renaissance. Historian Francesco Guicciardini called him "the arbiter of Italy." But he was also fearful and fickle: when threatened by King Alfonso II of Naples, he invited the French into Italy; when the French turned on him, only his wife Beatrice's intervention saved him. Her death sent him into depression, and the court collapsed from jubilance to despair. In 1499 he succumbed to King Louis XII of France, was imprisoned, and died in captivity on 27 May 1508.