Probably the most renowned of the Italian Renaissance armorials among scholars and art historians, this princely illuminated manuscript - probably a work by Gian Antonio da Tradate - is conserved in the Biblioteca Trivulziana at the Castello Sforzesco, Milan. This codex dates back to the early years of the condottiere Francesco Sforza as Duke of Milan (1450-66), having married Bianca Maria, the heir of the last Duke of the Visconti family, Filippo Maria, a natural daughter of him and Agnese del Majno; it reproduces - along with the armorials bearing of the members of the Ducal Family and their imprese - a couple of thousands of coats of arms of families and municipalities of the Duchy, but also those of some families linked - for different reasons - to the Dukes: so you can recognize, for example, the coat of arms of the German merchant-bankers Fugger, or that of the Ducal Adviser Cicco Simonetta, a gentleman from Calabria, and of several mighty Italian families of condottieri, like the Brandolini, Savelli, Colonna and Orsini, and signori, like the Della Scala, the Este and the Gonzaga. For this reason, this armorial is a milestone both for everyone interested in the history of the Italian Renaissance balance of powers and history of art, given the important part that the Dukes of Milan and their courtiers played as art patrons.

Carlo Maspoli was an editor of Archivum Heraldicum, published by the Società Araldica Svizzera since 1887, to which he has contributed for decades several essays that are milestones in the field of the heraldry of the ancient Duchy of Milan and especially of the areas of Lakes Como and Lugano, and of Valchiavenna and Valtellina. He has edited also the Codice Carpani. Stemmario delle famiglie nobili dell'antica Provincia e Diocesi di Como and, in this same series, the Stemmario Bosisio.

Series: Antichi Stemmari Lombardi. This lavishly illustrated series is aimed at the scholar of Reinassance Italian History as of history of art and decorative arts, with a keen interest in the history of the area of the ancient Duchy of Milan - a political entity far exceeding present-day Lombardy. Each volume explores and reproduces in full colour a single celebrated heraldic codex from public or private collections with comprehensive commentary, blazon of the coats of arms and suggestions for further reading.