William VII of Montferrat

William VII (c. 1240–1292), called the Great Marquis, ruled Montferrat from 1253 as son of Boniface II and Margaret of Savoy, with his mother governing as regent until 1257. Once a Guelph ally of Charles I of Naples, he allied with Alfonso X of Castile and married Alfonso’s daughter Beatrice in 1271, routing Charles’s forces in 1274.

He led a Lombard league and briefly ruled Milan until Ottone Visconti expelled him in 1281. His daughter Yolande, renamed Irene, married Byzantine Emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos.

In 1290 he entered Alessandria to make peace, but the citizens seized and caged him. He died on 6 February 1292, caged eighteen months, probably starved; Dante numbers him among the negligent princes in Purgatory.