Principality of Piombino

On February 19, 1399 Gherardo Appiani ceded Pisa, which his family had owned since 1392, to the Visconti of Milan for 200,000 florins, reserving Piombino for himself and his successors, becoming its lord; moreover he also took possession of Populonia, Suvereto, Scarlino, Buriano, Abbey of San Pancrazio al Fango and the islands of Pianosa, Montecristo, and Elba; making Piombino the capital of this newly created state.[1]

Gherardo had his residence built in Piombino in the small square (now Piazza Bovio) and on his death, in 1405, he left the state to his son Iacopo II. The latter, born in 1400, for the first years was under the tutelage of his mother, Donna Paola Colonna. During the years of regency and afterwards, the politics of the Appiani family were oriented first towards an alliance (obtaining protection with a deed of pardon) with the Republic of Florence, then that of Siena, and finally again with Florence.[1]

When Paola Colonna Appiano died in 1445, the power instead of Emanuele, son of Gherardo, passed to his sister Caterina, who counted on the support of her husband Rinaldo Orsini, a mercenary leader. In 1447 Orsini had the ravelin erected as a better defense of the ground gate characterized by a tower, in anticipation of the attack of his brother-in-law Emanuele, who in fact allied himself with Alfonso V, King of Aragon and Naples, who the following year besieged Piombino, also with Sienese and Florentine help: after four months of useless attempts, the king abandoned the invasion, retreating to his own territories and Rinaldo Orsini ruled the lordship until his death from the plague in 1450, a year before his wife.[2]

When Caterina died, the Council of Elders of the city proclaimed Emanuele as lord who, like his descendants, held the fiefdom with a valid alliance with the Kingdom of Naples and provided for the well-being of his subjects by encouraging industry and the construction of new buildings. On behalf of Iacopo III, new lord of Piombino, Andrea Guardi, Florentine architect and sculptor, between 1465 and 1470 carried out many works that changed the appearance of the city: the citadel, with the Villanova residential palace inside it replacing the old Appiani palace, the chapel and the cistern, he also built the cloister and the baptismal font in the cathedral of the city.[2]

Residence of the lords from 1399 to 1465,

Iacopo III was succeeded by his son Iacopo IV who, between 1501 and 1503, lost the lordship to the work of Cesare Borgia, who occupied Piombino: in 1502 his father, Pope Alexander VI, visited the city and the territory staying for some days.[3]

With the death of Pope Alexander VI, Cesare Borgia was deprived of the conquered power, and Piombino returned to Iacopo IV: the latter, advised by the Florentines, hosted Niccolò Machiavelli as a strategic consultant, who invited Leonardo da Vinci to study the city defenses in an optimal way. Iacopo IV was succeeded by Iacopo V, who welcomed famous artists into his court, such as Il Sodoma and Rosso Fiorentino. On his death he was succeeded by Iacopo IV, under the tutelage of his mother Elena Salviati. In 1548 the lord left Piombino, which from then on started to be a possession of the House of Medici. In 1557 Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, gave up Piombino, in exchange for Siena and Portoferraio.[4]

Iacopo VI, at odds with his subjects for lack of loyalty, left his natural son Alessandro Appiani govern the Piombino state. Alessandro, a dissolute man, attracted the disapproval of the most influential families of the island, who conspired against him, and killed him in an ambush in via Malpertugio in 1590, and entrusted Piombino to the Spanish Felix d'Aragona, commander of the garrison.[4]

The minor age of Alessandro's successor, Iacopo VII, caused fear of a Spanish annexation, a danger that was repeated on the death of the young prince in 1603: thus began an extremely agitated and confused thirty-year period in which the influence of the Spaniards became more marked, up to the military occupation of Piombino and the island of Elba. After an Appiani family member of a collateral branch had in vain claimed the lordship, it was the sister of Iacopo VII, Isabella Appiani, married to an Iberian noble, who ruled the state, until a revolt fueled by both Spain and the Medici deposed her in 1628.[5]

Coat of arms of the Appiani family, the founders and longest rulers of the Principality.

• Iacopo I
• Gherardo 1399–1404
• Iacopo II 1404–41
• Paola 1441–45
• Rinaldo 1445–50
• Caterina 1445–51
• Emanuele 1451–57
• Iacopo III 1457–74
• Iacopo IV 1474–1511
• Iacopo V 1511–45
• Iacopo VI 1545–85
• Alessandro 1585–89
• Iacopo VII 1589–1603 (prince after 1594)
• Rudolf 1603–11
• Isabella 1611–28
• Philip 1628–34
• Niccolò I 1634–64
• Giovan Battista 1664–99
• Niccolò II 1699–1700, under the regency of his mother Anna Maria Arduino
• Olimpia 1700
• Ippolita 1701–33, with Gregorio as co-regent (1701–07)
• Eleonora 1734–45
• Gaetano 1745–77
• Antonio 1778–1805, deposed by French troops in 1799 and 1801

• Abulafia, David (2010). "The Mouse and the Elephant: Relations between the Kings of Naples and the Lordship of Piombino in the Fifteenth Century". In Paton, Bernadette; Law, John Easton (eds.). Communes and Despots in Medieval and Renaissance Italy. Ashgate. pp. 145–60.
• Berte-Langereau, Jack (1955). "L'Espagne et le royaume d'Etrurie". Hispania. 15 (60): 353–460.
• Romero García, Eladi (1986). "El señorío de Piombino: Un ejemplo de influencia institucional hispánica en la Italia del siglo XVI". Hispania. 46 (164): 503–18.