Enea Silvio Piccolomini (German: Johann Norbert Piccolomini;

Papal States The Papal States ( ; ; ), officially the State of the Church, were a conglomeration of territories on the Italian peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope from 756 to 1870. They were among the major states of Italy from the 8th c ...

, c. 1650 –

Pristina Pristina or Prishtina ( , ), . is the capital and largest city of Kosovo. It is the administrative center of the eponymous municipality and District of Pristina, district. In antiquity, the area of Pristina was part of the Dardanian Kingdo ...

Skopje Skopje ( , ; ; , sq-definite, Shkupi) is the capital and largest city of North Macedonia. It lies in the northern part of the country, in the Skopje Basin, Skopje Valley along the Vardar River, and is the political, economic, and cultura ...

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

, 9 November 1689) was a Sienese nobleman whose lineage included two popes, and who served in the

Habsburg The House of Habsburg (; ), also known as the House of Austria, was one of the most powerful dynasties in the history of Europe and Western civilization. They were best known for their inbreeding and for ruling vast realms throughout Europe d ...

army of

Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I (Leopold Ignaz Joseph Balthasar Franz Felician; ; 9 June 1640 – 5 May 1705) was Holy Roman Emperor, King of Hungary, List of Croatian monarchs, Croatia, and List of Bohemian monarchs, Bohemia. The second son of Ferdinand III, Holy Rom ...

. He is known for leading a campaign against the

Ottomans Ottoman may refer to: * Osman I, historically known in English as "Ottoman I", founder of the Ottoman Empire * Osman II, historically known in English as "Ottoman II" * Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empir ...

Bosnia Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes known as Bosnia-Herzegovina and informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeast Europe. Situated on the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula, it borders Serbia to the east, Montenegro to the southeast, and Croatia to th ...

Macedonia Macedonia (, , , ), most commonly refers to: * North Macedonia, a country in southeastern Europe, known until 2019 as the Republic of Macedonia * Macedonia (ancient kingdom), a kingdom in Greek antiquity * Macedonia (Greece), a former administr ...

and

Kosovo Kosovo, officially the Republic of Kosovo, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe with International recognition of Kosovo, partial diplomatic recognition. It is bordered by Albania to the southwest, Montenegro to the west, Serbia to the ...

in 1689, and for setting fire to

, the present day capital of the

Republic of North Macedonia North Macedonia, officially the Republic of North Macedonia, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe. It shares land borders with Greece to the south, Albania to the west, Bulgaria to the east, Kosovo to the northwest and Serbia to the n ...

Origins

Enea Silvio Piccolomini came from the long-established noble family Piccolomini, which included two popes:

Pius II Pope Pius II (, ), born Enea Silvio Bartolomeo Piccolomini (; 18 October 1405 – 14 August 1464), was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 19 August 1458 to his death in 1464. Aeneas Silvius was an author, diplomat, ...

(born Enea Silvio Piccolomini) and Pius III (born Francesco Todeschini Piccolomini), as well as the

Generalfeldmarschall ''Generalfeldmarschall'' (; from Old High German ''marahscalc'', "marshal, stable master, groom"; ; often abbreviated to ''Feldmarschall'') was a rank in the armies of several German states and the Holy Roman Empire, (''Reichsgeneralfeldmarsch ...

Ottavio Piccolomini Ottavio Piccolomini, 1st Duke of Amalfi (11 November 1599 – 11 August 1656) was an Italian nobleman whose military career included service as a Spanish general and then as a field marshal of the Holy Roman Empire. Early life Piccolomini was ...

Early career

Young nobles left Siena individually and contacted the important Italian lobby in Vienna, hoping to obtain junior positions in some German regiment. In February 1660 Enea Silvio also left Siena to look for a career in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

. Enea Silvio's father established him in an apartment in the imperial capital, with a page, two valets, and a groom for his horses, while the youngster sought audiences with the emperor Leopold I, empress, the archduke and important ministers on the credentials of his famous ancestors. A breakthrough came when he managed to obtain a position in the regiment of the minister Count Rabassa. Enea Silvio's situation, like that of other young German and Italian officers, was precarious. When the emperor dissolved some of his regiments in October 1660, he narrowly escaped complete unemployment and was happy to be a simple comet in his patron's cavalry regiment. In 1675 Enea Silvio was a lieutenant-colonel on a campaign. He describes some desperate and bloody engagements he fought against the French in the

Rhineland The Rhineland ( ; ; ; ) is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly Middle Rhine, its middle section. It is the main industrial heartland of Germany because of its many factories, and it has historic ties to the Holy ...

under Montecuccoli. Although his court patron, the empress Claudia Felicitas of Austria died in 1676, he gained sudden popularity with the court. In January 1677, he describes himself as being feted by the emperor and all the ministers in Vienna, appearing to have as many friends at court as if he had never left it. The last letter, from November 1681, shows him negotiating through the Dowager Empress Leonora for the positions of pages for his nephews; for him, they represented two more Piccolomini and Sienese in Germany.

Campaign in the Balkans

After the

siege of Vienna (1683) The Battle of Vienna took place at Kahlenberg Mountain near Vienna on 1683 after the city had been besieged by the Ottoman Empire for two months. The battle was fought by the Holy Roman Empire (led by the Habsburg monarchy) and the Polish–Lit ...

, emperor Leopold I mounted a series of campaigns against the

(see:

Great Turkish War The Great Turkish War () or The Last Crusade, also called in Ottoman sources The Disaster Years (), was a series of conflicts between the Ottoman Empire and the Holy League (1684), Holy League consisting of the Holy Roman Empire, Polish–Lith ...

), to capture territories of the Balkans. During the

Battle of Mohács (1687) The Second Battle of Mohács, also known as the Battle of Harsány Mountain, was fought on 12 August 1687 between the forces of Ottoman Empire, Ottoman Sultan Mehmed IV, commanded by the Grand Vizier Sarı Süleyman Pasha, and the forces of Leo ...

Enea Silvio Piccolomini, now a lieutenant-general, with some of his cavalry regiments successfully counterattacked and stopped the attack of the numerically much superior Ottoman Sipahi cavalry, helping in saving the left-wing of the Habsburg army. In 1689 one of the Austrian campaigns was led by Piccolomini. He led an army into

, where it was welcomed by Albanian Archbishop and Patriarch of Këlmendi,

Pjetër Bogdani Pjetër Bogdani (; 1627 – 6 December 1689) was the most original writer of Old Albanian literature. He was author of the Cuneus Prophetarum (''The Band of the Prophets''), 1685, the first prose work of substance written originally in (Gheg) A ...

, and large numbers of Catholic and Muslim Albanians and Serbs, who joined the army. Piccolomini thus had over 20,000 Albanians and Serbs under his orders. He attempted to conquer the Ottoman territories of

and

. During the offensive, the city of Skopje, the present-day capital of the Republic of Macedonia, was plagued by epidemics of cholera. To prevent the outburst of the disease, or, by other accounts, to retaliate for the siege of Vienna, General Piccolomini ordered the city to be burned (see Fire of Skopje). He perished of the plague himself in Skopje; leaderless, his army was defeated. Many of the Serbs and Albanians fled into exile, led by the Patriarch Arsenije III Crnojević.

Sources

The decline of a provincial military aristocracy: Siena, 1560–1740 by Gregory Hanlon.
* Richter, Die Piccolomini (Berlin, 1874) * A. Lisini and A. Liberati, Albero della famiglia Piccolomini (Siena, 1899) * Articles by A. Lisini in the Miscellanea storica senese, 3rd series 12, and 4th series, 17 and 189.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Piccolomini, Enea Silvio 1689 deaths Austrian generals Italian generals Austrian people of Italian descent Italian untitled nobility People of the Great Turkish War Year of birth uncertain Military personnel of the Habsburg monarchy People from Siena Enea Silvio

Origins

Early career

Campaign in the Balkans

Sources

See also

References