House of Sforza

The Sforza dynasty originated with Muzio Attendolo Sforza (1369–1424), a peasant-born condottiere from Romagna whose surname—meaning 'to force'—became the family name. His illegitimate son Francesco I Sforza seized the Duchy of Milan in 1450 by right of his marriage to Bianca Maria Visconti, the sole heir of the last Visconti duke, grounding the family's legitimacy in dynastic inheritance rather than mere military conquest. The Sforzas reached their cultural and political apex under Ludovico il Moro in the 1480s and 1490s, when Milan became one of the foremost courts of the Italian Renaissance, and they patronized both religious and civic building, including substantial contributions to Milan Cathedral and the Certosa di Pavia. Like other Renaissance rulers, the Sforzas expressed Christian devotion through lavish artistic commissions—most famously Ludovico's commission of Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper for the Dominican refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie—interweaving piety with the projection of dynastic prestige. The main ducal line ended in 1535 with the death of Francesco II Sforza, who left no heir, whereupon the Duchy reverted to Emperor Charles V and passed into the Spanish Habsburgs.