Actually, there are more than one Castello Visconteo, e.g. Castello Visconteo di Pavia, di Locarno, di Bruzzano, di Binasco, di Voghera, di Cherasco, di San Vito, di Cassano Magnago, di Verona etc., all of which have been under the control of the noble Italian family, Visconti of Milano.
An short introduction over the noble family, Visconti. Briefly saying, they are a very old noble family in north Italia and have ruled Milano from 1277 to 1395. Their name comes from vice comitis, which means they had got this title as Viscount. Gian Galeazzo, whose name can be easily found in Lombards as well as history book and films, became a Duke.
Figure 1 Gian Galeazzo (1351-1402)
So what makes the Castello Visconteo di Pavia, built in the fourteenth century exactly from 1360 to 1365[1], different from other castles under the name of Visconti? There are two reasons.
Firstly, it is the city Pavia. Though it is nowadays less than Milan, Pavia has been once the capital of Ostrogothic Kingdom (Regnum Italiae), and later of Kingdom of the Lombards, as well as of Kingdom of Italy (as one of the constituent kingdoms of the Holy Roman Empire). That could be the reason why Galeazzo II, father of the first Duke of Milan, Gian Galeazzo, selected this city, which has been destroyed during the conflict between the Guelphs (i.e. pro-imperial) and Ghibellines (i.e.pro-papal), as the capital city, until the beginning of 15th century (1413). It is also the birthplace of Gian Galeazzo Visconti.
Figure 2 Il castello Visconteo di Pavia from the south-west, taken on 5th Mar.
Moreover, it is importance to us especially because of its library (i.e. Biblioteca visconteo sforzesca[2]) in the western tower, where there are a lot of manuscripts in various fields like legal and scientific texts, geography, military art, agronomy, medicine, rhetoric , as well as for personal interests: from the aristocratic passion for hunting, dancing or playing chess to the still late Gothic passion for chivalric romances, or the progressive inclination for the Latin and Greek classics, because in the mind of the people in the middle age, an ideal library should have all kind of knowledge.
The library takes shape under the careful direction of Gian Galeazzo – who makes this prestigious collection an expression of his personal power and his political unscrupulousness – through the progressive acquisition of various and more or less substantial book collections, according to various methods: by absorption of family inheritances – paternal, maternal and various family member volumes, such as those of his uncle Bernabò, who Gian Galeazzo opposed in the struggle for power -, through requisitions and confiscations of the book holdings of disgraced figures (such as the cultured ducal secretary Pacino Capelli), or as real war spoils.
The court of the Viscontis and the Sforzas also made use of copyists and illuminators with or without a name, demanding the highest technical and formal quality, in particular for the creation of unique examples in terms of pomp, elegance, preciousness, which could serve as a sophisticated seal of dynastic and personal alliances and whose decorative features reflect, depending on the era, the style then dominant in the Lombardy area and the refined taste of the clients.
Even after capital of the Visconti dominions was moved to Milano, the Duke’s private library was still here. Visconti Library has been one of the biggest library until its transfer to Paris later in 16th century under the French rule (Louis XIV). As a result, most of the manuscripts found nowadays in Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Furthermore, I have got the DH progress about the manuscripts, i.e. the multimedial reconstruction (la ricostruzione multimediale promossa dai Musei Civici di Pavia). It’s a pity that I cannot find any reports about it in English. All the contents are in Italian, so I have to use Google translation and deepL. It is said, that the first stage was the collection of microfilm versions of almost all the volumes identified, so that they could once again be consulted and enjoyed, at least in image form, in the same monumental ‘casket’ in which they were originally kept.
Unlucky, on the 5th March, the civic museum was closed and we could not take a visit inside and have a look over the multimedial reconstruction. I have taken only one picture from the south-west, showing where the manuscripts used to be.
[1] https://museicivici.comune.pv.it/site/home/il-castello.html
[2] They have a website in Italian, of which this blog get the information about the library and its manuscripts.