Principality of Piombino

The Principality of Piombino was a small state in central Italy centred on the town of Piombino, on the Tyrrhenian coast, and including part of the island of Elba. It grew out of the lands of the Appiani family after Gherardo Appiani sold Pisa and most of its territory to the Visconti of Milan in 1399, keeping Piombino, Populonia, Suvereto and Elba for himself. The resulting lordship was contested by the Orsini and the Appiani and repeatedly drawn into the rivalries of Florence, Siena, Naples and Spain. Cesare Borgia occupied it in 1501–1503, and the Medici incorporated it in 1548; a treaty of 1557 restored the Appiani under Spanish protection, with Spanish garrisons in Piombino and Scarlino. In 1594 Emperor Rudolf II raised the lordship to a principality. After the childless Iacopo VII died in 1603 the succession was disputed, and Spain occupied the state in 1628. It passed to the Ludovisi in 1634 and later to the Boncompagni, who rarely resided there and left local government to the Council of Elders. French revolutionary armies occupied Piombino in 1799, and in 1805 Napoleon merged it into the Principality of Lucca and Piombino for his sister Elisa Bonaparte. The Congress of Vienna restored the princely title in 1815 but not the state, which was absorbed into Tuscany.