Braccio Fortebraccio

Braccio da Montone (1 July 1368 – 5 June 1424), born Andrea Fortebracci, and also known as Braccio Fortebraccio, was an Italian condottiero.

He was born to the nobleman Oddo Fortebracci and Giacoma Montemelini at Montone, some 40 km north of Perugia. He married Elisabetta Ermanni with whom he had three daughters. After her death in 1419, he married Niccolina Varano, who bore his first son Carlo in 1421. He later had a son out of wedlock, Oddo, who also became a condottiero.

He began his military career as a page in Guido d'Asciano’s company. When his family was exiled from Perugia and he lost the castle of Montone, he entered Alberico da Barbiano’s "Company of St. George", in which he would make friends with Muzio Attendolo Sforza. At the head of 150 knights, Braccio performed some guerrilla actions which foreshadowed the tactics that his own company would later adopt.

After a short return to Montone, he fought for the Montefeltro and the Malatesta in Romagna, being slightly crippled during the siege of the Castle of Fossombrone (1391). In 1395 he fought again for Barbiano in the Kingdom of Naples, and two years later he was hired by the Republic of Florence. In 1398 he fought for the Pope in the war against Perugia.

In 1402, at the death of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, he fought against the Milanese army for the Pope. The following year Boniface IX regained Bologna, Perugia and Assisi, but the exiled Perugini could not return in the city: Braccio therefore returned again under Barbiano's aegis against Faenza and the Papal States. When his companions denounced him to Alberico, alleging he was planning to kill the commander, Braccio was forced to flee. In 1406 he fought against Perugia with other exiled, who, the following year, formed the great part of his new company, with which Braccio ravaged the Umbrian countryside. In May 1407 the citizens of Rocca Contrada gave him the seigniory of the town, in exchange for his support in combatting the marquess of Fermo.

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