LUDOVICO THE MOOR [Ludovico it Moro] (1451-1508), who is famed as patron of Leonardo da Vinci and other artists, had summoned Charles VIII. of France to his aid (1494) and received the ducal crown from the Milanese nobles on Oct. 22, in the same year, but finding his own position endangered by the French policy, he joined the league against Charles VIII., giving his niece Bianca in marriage to Maximilian I. and receiving in return imperial investiture of the duchy. Ludovico was driven from Milan by Louis XII. in and although reinstated for a short time by the Swiss he was eventually delivered over by them to the French (April I soo) and died a prisoner in the castle of Loches. FRANCESCO, the son of Gian Galeazzo, was also taken to France by Louis XII., became abbot of Marmoutiers, and died in 1511.
The two sons of Ludovico, MASSIMILIANO and FRANCESCO MARIA, took refuge in Germany; the former was restored to the duchy of Milan by the Swiss in 1512, but after the overwhelming defeat of his allies at Marignano (1515) he abandoned his rights to Francis I., and died at Paris in 153o; the latter was put in
possession of Milan after the defeat of the French at La Bicocca in 1522. His death (Oct. 24, marked the extinction of the direct male line of the Sforza. The duchy went to Charles V.
The dukes of Sforza-Cesarini and the counts of Santa Fiora are descended from collateral branches of the Sforza family.
See A. Segre, "Lodovico Sforza, duca di Milano," in R. Accad. d. Sci. At ti, vol. 36 (Turin, 1901) ; G. Clausse, Les Sforza et les arts en Milanais, 1450-1530 (1909) ; F. Malaguzzi Valeri, La corte di Lodovico it Moro (2 vols., . There is a critical bibliography by Otto von Schleinitz in Zeitschrift fur Biicherfreunde, vol. v. (Bielefeld, 1901).