Ludovico II Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua

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Andrea Mantegna: Ludovico Gonzaga, 1474.

Ludovico II (or III) of Gonzaga, also spelled Lodovico (June 5, 1412 – June 12, 1478) was the ruler of the Italian city of Mantua from 1444 to his death.

[edit] Biography

Ludovico was the son of Gianfrancesco Gonzaga and Paola Malatesta. He married Barbara of Brandenburg, niece of Emperor Sigismund, in 1437.

He succeeded to the marquisate of Mantua in 1444.

Ludovico followed the path of his father Gianfrancesco, fighting as condottiero for the Visconti of Milan from 1446, but spent the following year in the service of Venice in the league formed with Florence against Milan. In 1450 he received permission to lead an army for King Alfonso of Naples in Lombardy, with the intent of gaining some possessions for himself. However, Francesco Sforza, the new duke of Milan, enticed him with the promise of Lonato, Peschiera and Asola, formerly Mantuan territories but then part of Venice. Venice responded by sacking Castiglione delle Stiviere (1452) and hiring Ludovico's brother, Carlo.

Barbara of Hohenzollern, Ludovico's wife, acted as regent after his death. Portrait in the Uffizi, Florence.

On June 14, 1453, Ludovico routed the troops of Carlo at Goito, but Venetian troops under Niccolò Piccinino thwarted any attempt to regain Asola. The Peace of Lodi (1454) obliged Ludovico to give back all his conquests, and to renounce definitively his claim to the three cities. However, he obtained his brother's land after Carlo's childless death in 1478.

The moment of highest prestige for Mantua was the Council held in the city from May 27, 1459 to January 19, 1460, summoned by Pope Pius II to launch a crusade against the Ottoman Turks, who had conquered Constantinople some years earlier.

In 1460, Ludovico appointed Andrea Mantegna as court artist to the Gonzaga family.

From 1466 he was more or less constantly at the service of the Sforza of Milan. He died in Goito in 1478, during a plague. He was buried in Mantua cathedral.