Ippolita Maria Sforza

Ippolita Maria Sforza (Jesi, 18 April 1445 – Naples, 19 August 1488) was an Italian noblewoman, a member of the Sforza family which ruled the Duchy of Milan from 1450 until 1535. She was the first wife of the Duke of Calabria, who later reigned as King Alfonso II of Naples. Ippolita was described as very intelligent and cultured.

Life

Childhood Ippolita was born on 18 April 1445 in Jesi to Francesco Sforza and Bianca Maria Visconti, the only daughter and heir of Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan

Agnese del Maino who also resided at the ducal court, was a prominent part of Ippolita and her siblings childhood and helped with overseeing the education of her grandchildren.

Since Ippolita was a child she showed precocity of intellect, a love for letters and a certain passion for hunting, which was encouraged by Ippolitas mother who also liked to hunt. Ippolitas father would also gift her greyhounds for use when hunting when visiting their country estates.

Francesco Sforza sometimes asked his young daughter to act as an intermediary between him and his mother, so that she could help him to return to the graces of Bianca Maria, during the times when he and his wife entered into a quarrel for some reason.

Ippolita's father, while having a good relationship with her mother, was not known to be faithful to his wife and fathered 15 illegitimate children during the marriage.

One of these, a daughter named Drusiana the daughter of Francescos long time mistress Giovanna d Acquapendente was in fact brought up alongside Ippolita and Constantine Lascaris, who gave her the study of Greek and dedicated a Greek Grammarto her. When she was 14 years old she made a Latin address to pope Pius II at the diet of Mantua, which became well known after it was circulated in manuscript. Domenico Ghirlandaio allegedly painted a portrait of Ippolita.

Giovanni Sabatino degli Arienti describes it as follows:

Marriage On 10 October 1465 she married the Duke of Calabria Alfonso of Aragon, son of King Ferrante of Naples. The latter sent his second son Federico with six hundred horses to Milan to marry Ippolita by proxy in the name of his brother and to accompany her to his new home.

The bride had already left Milan with the wedding procession when the marriage was nearly called off due to the sudden death of the condottiero Jacopo Piccinino, son-in-law of Francesco Sforza. Ferrante of Aragon had previously enticed him to come to Naples with the false promise of a military command and then, out of revenge, had him imprisoned, as the condottiero had fought against him during the first baronial revolt. Jacopo Piccinino died shortly after his arrest—said by Ferrante to have fallen from a window following a failed escape attempt, but according to most, he was strangled in prison on the king’s orders. Francesco Sforza was so enraged at his death that he halted his daughter’s wedding procession and threatened to call off the marriage. In the end, the situation was resolved, and Ippolita, after spending two months in Siena and then passing through Rome, arrived in Naples on September 14, where she was received with great magnificence by her husband Alfonso and her father-in-law Ferrante, who organized many festivities and performances to celebrate the wedding.

In the early days, her relations with her husband—three years younger than her—must have been good, since that same year the fifteen-year-old Eleonor of Aragon, who was herself about to marry Ippolita's younger brother, Sforza Maria Sforza, wished for "some of the caresses [she] sometimes saw the Duke of Calabria give the Duchess", and Ippolita herself wrote to her mother that she and Alfonso slept together every night and often enjoyed themselves with hunts and amusements at their country estates. For example, she described her husband in these terms, in one of her many letters: "My most illustrious husband [...] with falcon and kite hunting, playing ball, reading and explaining to me his Spanish book on the governance of the state, and many other moral matters, has kept me and keeps me still in the greatest pleasure".

If that was the case, then relations between the spouses must have deteriorated over time, both due to Alfonso’s constant and brazen infidelities—he eventually found a new and compliant mistress in Trogia Gazzella—and because of his distinctive character. Indeed, just a few weeks after the wedding, there were already indications of Ippolita's first feelings of jealousy toward her husband: Alfonso was said by ladies and ambassadors to be a very handsome young man, "so charming that words could not describe him", but also "so restless that he couldn't stay still for half an hour".

Alfonso, however, also showed jealousy toward his wife: in the summer of 1466, he insisted that Ippolita stop playing with Giovanna da Correggio, wife of Roberto Sanseverino, when Giovanna came to visit her accompanied by her relative Gian Francesco.

King Ferrante downplayed the incident to her Milanese relatives, saying that "these wars of the day arrive at peace by evening", but the situation did not improve, not even with the announcement of the duchess’s first pregnancy.

As a mother she was very fond of her children, and this is demonstrated by the tender letter she wrote to her mother to announce the birth of the firstborn Ferrandino, in which she hopes that her little son, growing up, will show her the same affection that she still showed to her mother. In addition to the three children she had with Alfonso, Ippolita also raised like her own her young niece and nephew, Beatrice and Ferrante d'Este, children of her sister-in-law Eleonora of Aragon, who had left them at the court of Naples while they were still young, at the request of her father Ferrante. Neapolitan albarello with probable childhood portrait of Ferrandino, eldest son of Ippolita.

Death Ippolita died suddenly on 19 August 1488 in Castel Capuano, shortly before the wedding of her daughter Isabella, according to Arienti due to an "apostema in the head". (pustulent swelling in the head)

Her death was said to have been prophesied by the friar Francis of Aragon, who was in the city of Florence: from there the friar wrote to the duchess, who had asked him to pray for her mother's soul, that he had had a vision in which the late Bianca Maria Visconti told him she had begged God to let her daughter come to heaven with her, adding that the bread was now baked and that the Almighty was eager to taste it at His banquet. Two or three days after receiving the letter, Ippolita fell seriously ill and sixteen days later died, despite all the processions and relics brought to her bedside—such as the blood of St. Januarius, the crucifix that spoke to St. Thomas Aquinas, and the head of St. Luke the Evangelist.

On every eve of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, she would recite a thousand Hail Marys to honor the Virgin, to whom she always directed her thoughts, and very often she wept thinking of her sufferings. Every Saturday she recited the rosary three times with great devotion, having been the one to bring this devotion from Lombardy to Naples; on the eve of the Immaculate Conception, she would recite it six times. On Friday mornings, she would enter the chapel before Mass and, once alone, would close the door and pray prostrate on the floor with her arms outstretched in the form of a cross to commemorate Christ’s Passion, reciting one hundred Our Fathers and one hundred Hail Marys. Then she opened the doors and let in the chaplains who were to celebrate Mass. She also wished to hear the Vespers prayers every day.

In similar ways she had also obtained the healing of her other two children, Isabella and Pietro, also reduced to a serious condition, as well as her husband Alfonso and father-in-law Ferrante. In the historical fantasy drama series Da Vinci's Demons Ippolita is played by Jeany Spark.

In both these television series, the character of Ippolita is completely distorted: towards Lorenzo de’ Medici, with whom she maintained a correspondence, she never felt anything more than sincere friendship, a friendship that was never love. Nor would Ippolita, a woman renowned for her exceptional chasteness, ever have given herself to him, thus betraying her husband; nor would King Ferrante, who was infatuated with his daughter-in-law, ever have exploited her by pushing her to prostitute herself to the Medici lord.