Silvano was fortified by two large and strong towers, and was the usual residence of Adorno, who had strong friends and political allies in all the castles and villages around him. He devoted his early years to arms, and, rising to the rank of colonel under Cæsar, he acquired distinction in Provence and in the kingdom of Naples. In the latter he obtained the feud of Caprarica. Weary of the tumults of war, he retired to his home and married Maddalena, daughter of the Doge Antoniotto Adorno. In beauty, this woman was excelled by few persons of her time.
The quiet of Adorno was disturbed by serious quarrels, especially by one with count Paolo Pico of Mirandola, who attacked his lands and put Castelletto to fire and sword. This strife, so bloody in the civil war which it inflamed, was not less spirited before the tribunals of the empire; but it is not our province to enlarge on its many vicissitudes.
Adorno cherished the design of cultivating the popular party, and so raising the declining fortunes of his house, and he soon began to attempt plots against the new order in Genoa.
In this purpose he turned to the count of Lavagna, through the mediation of a Fra Badaracco, and, after many debates, it was resolved to unite their forces for the overthrow of the Dorias. Barnaba was to be elevated to the Dogate, and the count to govern the eastern Riviera as his father had done before him. They further agreed to place the Republic under the protection of France, without prejudice, however, to its liberties, and solely to secure it from the vengeance of Cæsar. Fra Badaracco, in order to find partisans, held conversations with some gentlemen whom he supposed to be dissatisfied with the government of the Dorias. But these persons exposed the matter in the senate: the friar was arrested, and some letters of Barnaba Adorno were found on his person. After having been tortured, Bardaracco was decapitated, having confessed that, besides Adorno, Gianluigi Fieschi and Pietra Paolo Lasagna were concerned in the conspiracy. The senators, not being able to obtain proofs of their guilt, decided not to prosecute the conspirators.
Having thus failed in his first effort, the count sought new paths to his end. He saw that it was necessary to have an understanding with the king of France, as a means of restraining the army which the emperor had in the territories of Milan, and to secure the capture of the fleet of Doria, which was the chief prop of the imperial power. It was plain that these naval and military forces would easily quell any insurrection, unless the troops of France in Piedmont were directed to hold the army of Cæsar in check. Gianluigi was induced to enter into an understanding with France by one of his relatives by blood, of whom we ought briefly to speak, because his name has been almost forgotten in our domestic histories.
A branch of the Fieschi family, expelled from Genoa in 1339, had taken up its residence in Piedmont and acquired there both possessions and honours. A certain Giovanni Fieschi—made bishop of Vercelli by Clement VI., in 1348—gave a share of the temporal government of his diocese to his brother Nicolò, and conferred upon him some lands and castles.
We find in the archives of the court at Turin that the Fieschi ruled in Masserano until 1381, and that Nicolò, Giovanni, and Antonio formed an alliance with count Verde. Some few years later, or in 1394, Lodovico Fieschi, also bishop of Vercelli and cardinal, petitioned Boniface IX. for the repayment of a large sum of money spent by him in maintaining the rights of his church, and he obtained permission to alienate from the jurisdiction of the church the castles of Masserano and Moncrivello, and to confer the feud upon his brother Antonio. This investiture was confirmed by subsequent popes, especially by Julius II.; and Alexander VI. added, in 1498, the feuds of Curino, Brusnengo, Flecchia, and Riva, assigning them to the brothers Innocenzo and Pier Luca.
The first of these had a son named Lodovico, and this Lodovico a daughter named Beatrice, whose hand her father gave to Filiberto Ferrero, a citizen of Biella, adopting him as a son.
The Fieschi possessions in this way passed into the family of Ferrero; and he, having obtained for his son Besso the hand of Camilla, niece of Paul III., secured the investiture of Masserano, then created a Marquisate. Whoever is desirous of learning how these feuds came into the possession of the Ferreri to the exclusion of the male line, and particularly of Gregory and Pier Luca Fieschi, may consult Curzio Giuniore.
This Pier Luca II., lord of Crevacuore, where he had an excellent mint, of whose coinage some specimens are preserved to us, constantly revolved revolutionary projects, as a means of recovering his lost dominions, and urged Count Gianluigi to proclaim himself a partisan of France. It is certain that by the advice of Pier Luca, Gianluigi bought the Farnesian galleys, of which we shall presently speak.