Milan

The lordship became a duchy under Gian Galeazzo Visconti, who began a cathedral in 1386 meant to rival the greatest in Europe and bought the title of duke of Milan from the emperor in 1395. When his line died out with Filippo Maria in 1447, the citizens tried to rule themselves again as the Ambrosian Republic, named for their patron saint, but in 1450 Francesco Sforza, once a Visconti condottiero, starved the city into accepting him.

The Sforza court was among the richest in Italy, built on mulberry trees and silk, and Bramante and Leonardo da Vinci worked for it. Its fall began at home: Ludovico il Moro's call to Charles VIII of France opened the Italian Wars, and in 1499–1500 the army of Louis XII ended the duchy's independence. After Charles V's victory at Pavia drove out the French and the last Sforza died in 1535, Milan passed to Spain for nearly two centuries. The plague of 1630 killed some 60,000 of its 130,000 people, and in 1706 an imperial army took the city for Austria.