Duchy of Milano
DUCHY OF MILANO (Italian Ducato di Milano; 1395-1797)
The Duchy of Milan was an Italian state located in northern Italy. The duchy was created in 1395 by Gian Galeazzo Visconti, then the lord of Milan, and a member of the important Visconti family, that had been ruling the city since 1277. From the late 15th century, the Duchy of Milan was contested between the forces of the Holy Roman Empire and the Kingdom of France. It was ruled by Habsburg Spain from 1556 and it passed to Habsburg Austria in 1707 during the War of the Spanish Succession as a vacant Imperial fief. The duchy remained an Austrian possession until 1796 when a French army under Napoleon Bonaparte conquered it, and it ceased to exist a year later as a result of the Treaty of Campo Formio, when Austria ceded it to the new Cisalpine Republic.
After the defeat of Napoleon the territory became part of the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia, with the Emperor of Austria as its king. In 1859, Lombardy was ceded to the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, which became the Kingdom of Italy in 1861.
The arms show a quartered shield, which is essentially the arms of the Sforza family ad Dukes of Milano in the 15th and 16th century. The snake devouring a child is the arms of the Visconti family, the eagle the eagle of the Holy Roman Empire.
 The arms in the Wapen- en Vlaggenboek van Gerrit Hesman (1708) |
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