The Seven Families

Author's name: Matteo Strocol

Seven families, seven kings, and six cities. This is Italy in the fifteenth century, torn apart by wars, intrigues, and betrayals, and ruled by lords who were sometimes far-sighted but often power-hungry and bloodthirsty in nature.
In Milan, Filippo Maria, the last of the Visconti family, in the absence of sons, tries to secure his lineage by marrying his very young daughter to Francesco Sforza, a promising man-at-arms.
Meanwhile, he plots against his arch-enemy Venice in an attempt to bribe its commander-in-chief, Count Carmagnola, but the counter-attackers are not afraid of attacks. They uncover the plot and manage to impose a Venetian on Peter's throne, who will become Pope with the name Eugene IV.
However, the Duke of Milan will also find allies in Rome: representatives of the Colonna family are hostile to the Pope coming from Venice and determined to expel him from the city. Only with the help of the Medici does the death of the Pope, who is nevertheless forced into forced exile in Florence, manage to avoid it. While the war in southern Italy between the Angevins and the Aragonese becomes increasingly bloody, the fate of the Italian peninsula is increasingly uncertain.