Francesco Foscari

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Coat of arms of Francesco Foscari.

Francesco Foscari (1373 – November 1, 1457) was doge of Venice from 1423 to 1457, at the height of the Italian Renaissance.

Foscari, of an ancient noble family, served the Republic of Venice in numerous official capacities—as ambassador, president of the Forty, member of the Council of Ten, inquisitor, Procuratore di San Marco, avvogadore di comun—before he was elected in 1423^[1] to lead Venice in a long and protracted series of wars against Milan, governed by the Visconti, who were attempting to dominate all of Italy.^[2] Despite notable victories, the war was extremely costly to Venice and to her ally Florence, and they were eventually overcome by the forces of Milan under the leadership of Francesco Sforza. Sforza soon made peace with Florence, however, leaving Venice adrift.

In 1445, Foscari's only surviving son, Jacopo, was tried by the Council of Ten on charges of bribery and corruption and exiled from the city. Two further trials, in 1450 and 1456, led to Jacopo's imprisonment on Crete and his eventual death there.

News of Jacopo's death caused Foscari to withdraw from his government duties, and in October 1457 the Council of Ten forced him to resign. However, his death a week later provoked enough public outcry that he was given a state funeral.

The Parting of the Two Foscari by Francesco Hayez,1842 (Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Florence)

Foscari's life was the subject of a play The Two Foscari by Lord Byron (1821) and an episode in Samuel Rogers' long poem Italy. The Byron play served as the basis for the libretto written by Francesco Maria Piave for Giuseppe Verdi's opera I due Foscari, which premiered on November 3, 1844 in Rome.

1 See also
2 Notes
3 Further readng
4 External links

[edit] See also

Palazzo Foscari, built by Francesco Foscari on the Grand Canal.

[edit] Notes

^ "In proclaiming the new doge the customary formula which recognized the people's share in the appointment and asked for their approval - the last vestige of popular government - was finally dropped." (Encyclopædia Britannica, 1911.)
^ See Wars in Lombardy.