Condemning Political Dissent and Anti-Princely Views in Fifteenth-century Milanese Literature

This paper investigates the representation of political dissent in Renaissance Milanese literature and the multiple literary forms in which the topic of political discordia, and its decisive condemnation, was put forward in this context. Around mid-Quattrocento, political opposition to centralized princely power in Milan had its main expression in the brief government of the Ambrosiana Republic (August 1447-February1450) and, after the takeover by the Sforza in 1450, in the conspiracy against Galeazzo Maria Sforza in 1476. The issue of political conflict occupied a central position also in literary works, where it was mainly addressed through the depiction of the danger of political disunity and the disapproval of popular forms of governments and any attempts at overturning princely power. The texts examined in this article as significant case studies belong to different genres (epistles, orations, histories, poems) and were produced by important intellectuals active in the cultural circles close to Milanese power, such as Francesco Filelfo, Antonio Cornazzano, and Bernardino Corio, but in other cases they were targeted at a more popular audience, in particular the anonymous Lamento del duca Galeazzo Maria. This contribution analyses how both the Ambrosiana Republic and the conspiracy against the Sforza Duke were presented in this corpus of sources, through a specific ideological perspective aimed at the containment of dissent and at supporting the principle of unity in the state.