56 Lionel and Violante 



2. VIOLANTE 



As she was born in 1355, or at earliest near the very end of 

 1354,8 Violante can hardly have been much more than 13 years 

 old^ on June 5, 1368. She is called beautiful by the chroniclers.^^ 

 It must have been a blonde beauty, one would think, like that 



tomb at Canterbury (Gardiner, p. 256) ; but allowance must be made for 

 the fashion of the time (Encyc. Brit., nth ed., 3. 576). See the picture of 

 Edward Ill's tomb in Gardiner, p. 263; cf. Shakespeare, Richard II 

 3. 3. 105-6. 



''Deduced from the statement of Chron. Plac. (R. I. S. 16. 546-7), 

 where she is described as dying in November, 1386, and as not having 

 'ultra annos XXXII. ' If she had been born at any time before November, 

 I354> she would have been over 32; her birth must consequently have 

 been later than that date. The Milanese annalist says (R. I. S. 16. 778) : 

 'anno aetatis suae XXXII,* but mistakes the year, calling it 1383. That 

 the latter is not correct is shown (i) by the carelessness of this docu- 

 ment in other respects (e. g. 'in paucis diebus habuit tres viros'), (2) by 

 the fact that Chron. Plac. is approximately right in saying that she died 

 after her third husband had been in prison two years, or thereabouts (he 

 was actually taken prisoner in May, 1385; cf. R. I. S. 16, 784-6, 853), 

 since the time was actually a year and a half. 



"Tenera dy etade' (Cron. Saluz., p. 1013) ; 'tenera sua figliola' {Cron. 

 Monf., p. 1212). She was about the age of Lionel's own daughter 

 Philippa, who was married to Edmund Mortimer just before Lionel 

 left England for Italy (Cont. Eul. Hist. 3. 333; cf. Diet. Nat. Biog. 39. 

 119). Lionel's first wife, Elizabeth, was nine when he was contracted to 

 her, and he three. 



Violante is called Galeazzo's only daughter by the chronicles of Piacenza 

 and Milan (R. I. S. 16. 510, 738), but there had been a younger one, 

 Maria, born in 1357, and dying in May, 1362 (M. H. P., p. 1336; Corio, 

 p. 462). 



Boccaccio, too, had had a daughter Violante, for whom see p. 81. The 

 name occurs in the Decameron (5. 7). 



There had been earlier Violantes, especially in the houses of Mont- 

 ferrat and Saluzzo; so, for example, one who married, toward the close 

 of the 13th century, Andronicus Palaeologus, Emperor of Constantinople, 

 and thus became the great-grandmother of Secondotto (M. H. P., pp. 

 932, 1325 ; cf . below, pp. 108-9) ', and another, the second daughter of 

 Manfredo IV of Saluzzo (d. 1340) by his second wife, who in 1327 married 

 Luchino Visconti (M. H. P., p. 969). 



The name, owing to confusion, is sometimes written Yolande, or 

 Yolante. 



^"^ Chron. Plac. (R. I. S. 16. 510) and Annal. Med. (R. I. S. 16. 738), in 

 an identical passage, say 'juvenem et formosam.' 



