Giangaleazzo - Prince of Milan

Lasombra -M- Lasombra Antitribu -M- Milan

Appearance: Giangaleazzo appears as a dapper Italian aristocrat with very fine features. He generally dresses in conservative cut suits of the most expensive fabrics. He always wears a ring with a large onyx stone set in a gold band.

Background: Giangaleazzo was present at almost every important historical event in Kindred society for the last five centuries. Present when the Convention of Thorns was called and the Camarilla began, he participated in the Anarch Revolt and was a signatory to the Code of Milan as that city's Archbishop. At the signing, Giangaleazzo had the honor of being the guardian of the original manuscript. During his swift, decisive and bloody defection to the Camarilla, he set what he claims to be the original draft of the Code aflame and threw it into the assembled ranks of the Milanese Sabbat, thus proclaiming his new allegiance. This act of defiance has made him one of the highest priority targets for the European Sabbat.

A Lasombra called Fray Diego, who was a wealthy patron of a Milanese order of monks, sired Giangaleazzo in the early 1400s. Diego chose him from a crop of novitiates when he saw how many older monks came to this young man for advice, and then how he used these elder clerics to ensure his promotion and eventual primacy at the monastery. Diego felt this fellow would make a fine addition to the clan, an opinion that was confirmed upon his discovery of Giangaleazzo's secret sojourns away from the monastery to nights filled with women, wine and song.

Giangaleazzo took to his new nature immediately and reveled in becoming one of the self-styled dark lords of creation. The monastery had been a means for the young man to be comfortable in the world, and eternal existence as a vampire provided even more and different opportunities. Who needed wine when vitae flowed hot and sweet?

Fray Diego brought his fledgeling to the council, where the terms of the Camarilla were hammered out alongside a quiet, young vampire named Maltheas. Diego supported the Camarilla's proposed move toward secrecy after a fanatical member of the Inquisition uncovered him feeding, nearly ended his unlife and left his face a burned ruin in the process, thanks to a flaming brand. Giangaleazzo was uncertain of the new sect's viability, but out of respect for his master said nothing.

The Anarch Revolt ended, but from its ashes rose the Sabbat. Giangaleazzo, by now Prince of Milan in all but name, continued to play both sides of the fence, officially condemning the anarchs, but allowing them sanctuary within his city.

Rapidly, Giangalezzo realized that Fray Diego had been wrong in throwing his support behind the Camarilla and provided the opportunity for the other members of his clan to destroy his foolish sire. Once assured of his power, he threw his lot in officially with his clan and the Sabbat, inviting the leaders to write their manifesto within his city.

Milan became a European Mecca for the Sabbat. Deep within Camarilla territory, and only a stone's throw from the Inner Circle's meeting place in Venice, the Sabbat often used the heavily defended city as a staging ground for assaults and harassment tactics. Giangaleazzo debauched himself in the bloody freedom of the Sabbat, and he sincerely believed in its mission to allow Cainites their freedom as the ultimate predators and rulers of the night.

As the 20th century dawned, Giangalezzo began to grow disillusioned with the world as he saw it around him. His Sabbat with its lofty goals of freedom for Cainites, had devolved into nothing but a squabbling and bloodthirsty rabble, intent on nothing but a reign of carnage and hedonism. Although Archbishop Giangalezzo could remember when he, too, felt that way, he missed the stately progressions of his past, and the Machiavellian complexity of the old times. Growing up in the days of the Medici princes and vast trading empires of Renaissance Italy gave Giangalezzo a fine appreciation of style. Having served as the abbot of a large monastery and then as the protege of Diego, he'd often came in contact with the nobility and shrewd trader-princes.

The events returning Milan to the Camarilla began when an emissary from a consortium of Italian princes approached the archbishop. Fearing a front united against him, Giangaleazzo decided to hear what this emissary had to say. The princes had done their research well and knew the ennui that afflicted the archbishop. The emissary described a new Camarilla that had moved with the times, that was prepared for every eventuality, that was open to new ideas and concepts. The archbishop listened to these words eagerly, and, intrigued, he agreed to speak further with this emissary.

Over the next few months a dialogue began, and Giangalezzo became more an more disgusted by the excesses of the Sabbat all around him, seeing the carnage and brutal waste in the name of freedom as nothing but mindless viciousness. Finally, he agreed to a stunning treachery against the Sabbat that would deliver the vampires of Milan into the hands of the Camarilla.

The Night of Bloody Terrors took place on a warm March night in 1997. The archbishop invited the Sabbat Cainites of his city to a wild ritus in his palace. There, with all the Sabbat gathered in the courtyard, the archbishop, clad in ceremonial robes, strode onto his balcony and surveyed the monsters below him. He unrolled the Code of Milan and held the yellowed parchment aloft. In a solemn voice he declared that Milan swore allegiance to the Camarilla and that hereafter he would be known as prince. Lighting the document amidst bestial howls, he threw it to the flagstones below. The sound of the mighty courtyard doors being closed and bolted reverberated throughout the palace, and as Giangaleazzo left his home, it exploded into flames, engulfing the Cainites within.

For several weeks, an extended Lextalionis hunted down the straggling remnants of the Sabbat, and at the end of the year, Milan was under the influence of the Camarilla. Supported by coteries of enforcers lent from the other Italian princes, Giangaleazzo, Prince of Milan, has begun to build his city into a shining example of what a Camarilla city can be.

Personality: Giangaleazzo has thrown in his lot with the Camarilla and damn the Sabbat to Hell. He is proud and forthright, but always with exquisite manners. It is only naked displays of bestiality that truly anger him, and setting his own Beast aflame to monstrous action. Refinement, manners, exquisite taste an poise are his personal hallmarks.

Current Events: Thirteen years is but a brief span for one of Giangaleazzo's age and the return of the emissary of the Camarilla was both, surprising, and welcome. The emissary sought a small boon of the mighty Prince of Milan and to quicken the bargain, a dalliance of surpassing enticement. Thereafter, Giangaleazzo was feeling both satisfied with himself and magnanimous, for he was now the prince of the jewel of the Camarilla, Milan. Much of his new life he owed in small part to the emissary, so he listened to her request and felt like King Herod being asked by Salome for the favor of John the Baptist's head. Still, the emissary had guided him through the most difficult part of his defection and betrayal, so knowing that she was already one step blood bound to him, he agreed to participate in her ritual, thus ensuring a second taste of his blood. Why she would need to use his blood to transform herself into a Lasombra Antitribu or why she would want such a thing, was beyond him, but this woman captivated him as no other had before. But, in agreeing to 'become' her sire, he required her aid in sorcerous matters and warned her that the Sabbat would hunt her down to hurt him, if they discovered he had 'sired' her. Though he has not seen her since the night of her 'Rite of the Second Becoming', he often finds himself fantasizing about her. In moments of reflection, he wonders, who was the mysterious woman with fiery hair and eyes of pale jade?

• -- Giangaleazzo's Statistics