Ferrante Gonzaga

Ferrante I Gonzaga (Italian: Ferdinando I, 28 January 1507 - 15 November 1557) was an Italian condottiero, a member of the House of Gonzaga and the first of the branch of the Gonzaga of Guastalla.

The third son of Francesco II Gonzaga and Isabella d'Este, at the age of sixteen he was sent to the court of Spain as a page to the future emperor Charles V, to whom Ferrante remained faithful for his whole life. In 1527 he took part in the Sack of Rome and attended Charles' triumphant coronation at Bologna in 1530: at the death of the conestable Charles of Bourbon (1537) he was appointed commander-in-chief of the Imperial army in Italy.

He defended Naples from the assault of the French troops under Odet of Foix, Viscount of Lautrec, and obtained the surrender of the Republic of Florence. For this feat Pope Clement VII, member of the Medici who had been ousted from that city, named him papal governor of Benevento. Again for Charles V, he fought against the Turks at Tunis in 1535 and Algiers in 1543 with a contingent of 3,000 cavalry. He served Charles as Viceroy of Sicily (1535-1546), accompanying the Emperor to Germany in 1543 and fighting the resolute campaign that enforced the Treaty of Crépy. He then served as Governor of the Duchy of Milan (1546-1554).

In 1534 Ferrante married Isabella di Capua, who brought him the fiefdoms of Molfetta and Giovinazzo.. In 1539 he bought the countship of Guastalla, on the left bank of the Po for 22,280 golden scudi from Duchess Ludovica Torello; it was in part a strategic puchase, for Guastallo lies near Ferrara, which Charles wished to take from the Este. Ferrante's villa near Milan, La Gualtiera, is now known as La Simonetta. Ferrante rebuilt it in the 1550s, commissioning the services of the Tuscan architect Domenico Giuntallodi of Prato. [E. Heydenreich and W. Lotz, "Architecture in Italy, 1400-1600" (Harmondsworth: Penguin) 1974:292-93;] He was a patron and protector of the sculptor and medallist Leone Leoni, who executed a bronze medal for him about 1555, with a reverse that depicts Hercules with upraised club besting the Nemean Lion and the legend TV NE CEDE MALIS, "You do not yield to evil", [ [http://freenet-homepage.de/seeCoins/KarlV/Ital-Z_E.htm#07c Illustration] ] alluding to his acquittal after indictment for misappropriation of funds and corruption. His son Cesare commissioned from Leone a more public monument from Leone, a bronze "Triumph of Ferrante Gonzaga over Envy," (1564), which stands in Piazza Rome, Guastalla. [A commemorative Italian postage stamp issued on the five-hundredth anniversary of his birth show a detail of Leone Leoni's sculpture.] Like all the Gonzaga, Ferrante was a patron of tapestry-makers: a series "Fructus Belli" ("the Fruits of War") was woven for him, and a lighter series of "Putti". [The tapestry commissions of Ferrante and his brothers is sret against the broader background of their patronage of the arts in Clifford M. Brown, Guy Delmarcel and Robert S. Nelson, "Tapestries for the Courts of Federico II, Ercole, and Ferrante Gonzaga 1522-63" (1996).]

He died in Brussels from a fall from a horse and battle fatigue received at the Battle of St. Quentin. He was buried in the sacristy of the cathedral of Milan.

Ferrante was succeeded in Guastalla by his son Cesare.

In conspiracy theories, such as the one promoted in "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail", Ferrante been alleged to be the fourteenth Grand Master of the Priory of Sion.

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