Portrait of Bianca Maria Visconti

The Sforza got Milan through this woman. Bianca Maria Visconti was the daughter of Filippo Maria Visconti, the last duke of the old line, promised at about six to the condottiere her father needed and married to him in 1441, at 16, in Cremona, a city that came with her as dowry. In 1448, with her husband campaigning elsewhere, she held Cremona against a Venetian attack, and the story told afterwards had her riding out in armour with the troops. This panel and the portrait of Francesco were painted around 1460 as a pair, meant to face one another, both in the profile that kept a ruling couple formal. Brera gives both to Bonifacio Bembo, an attribution that scholars have never fully settled. Four years before the pair was painted, she and Francesco founded the great hospital of Milan, the Ca' Granda, whose courtyards now belong to the university.