Everything about Bartolomeo Colleoni totally explained
Bartolomeo Colleoni (c.
1395/
1400 –
november 2,
1475) was an
Italian condottiero.
Biography
Colleoni was born at
Solza, in the countryside of
Bergamo (
Lombardy), where he prepared his magnificent mortuary chapel, the
Cappella Colleoni, in a shrine that he seized when it was refused him by the local confraternity, the Consiglio della Misericordia. The family was a noble one, exiled with the rest of the
Guelphs by the Visconti. Bartolomeo's father Paolo seized the castle of Trezzo by wile and held it by force, until he was assassinated by his cousins, probably acting on order of
Filippo Maria Visconti, duke of
Milan.
The young Colleoni trained at first in the retinue of Filippo d'Arcello, the new master of
Piacenza. Then he entered the service of various condottieri, beginning with
Braccio da Montone, who was skirmishing in Apulia, profiting from the struggles between Alfonso of Aragon and Louis of Anjou during the weak sovereignty of
Queen Joanna by taking Alfonso's cause, and then of
Carmagnola. After the latter was put to death at Venice (1432), Colleoni passed to direct service of the
Venetian republic, entering on the major phase of his career. Although
Gianfrancesco Gonzaga was namely commander-in-chief, Colleoni was in fact the true leader of the army. He recaptured many towns and districts for Venice from the Milanese, and when Gonzaga went over to the enemy, Colleoni continued to serve the Venetians under
Erasmo da Narni (known as Gattamelata) and
Francesco Sforza, winning battles at
Brescia,
Verona, and on the lake of
Garda.
When peace was made between Milan and Venice in
1441, Colleoni went over to the Milanese, together with Sforza in
1443. Although well treated at first, Colleoni soon fell under the suspicion of the treacherous Visconti and was imprisoned at
Monza, where he remained until the duke's death in
1447. Milan then fell under the lordship of Sforza, whom Colleoni served for a time, but in
1448 he took leave of Sforza and returned to the Venetians. Disgusted at not having been elected captain-general, he went over to Sforza once more, but Venice couldn't do without him; by offering him increased s, Venice induced him to return, and in
1455 he was appointed captain-general of the republic for life. Although he occasionally fought on his own account, when Venice was at peace, he remained at the disposal of the republic in time of war until his death.
Colleoni was perhaps the most respectable of all the Italian condottieri. Although he often changed sides, no act of treachery is imputed to him, nor did he subject the territories he passed through to the rapine and exactions practiced by other soldiers of fortune. When not fighting, he devoted his time to introducing agricultural improvements on the vast estates with which the Venetians had endowed him, and to charitable works. At his death in 1475, he left a large sum to the republic for the
Turkish war, with a request that an
equestrian statue of himself should be erected in the
Piazza San Marco. The statue was made by
Verrocchio: however, as no monument was permitted in the famous Piazza, it was placed opposite the
Hospital of St. Mark.
Italian cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni
In
1930 the Italian
Regia Marina launched a
cruiser of the
Condottieri class named after Bartolomeo Colleoni.
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