Her father, who was a member of the Scaliger family of Northern Italy, was Lord of Verona, Vicenza, Brescia, Parma, and Lucca.

By the time of Beatrice’s birth the della Scala family had expanded their territory to contain Padua in the north to Treviso in the east.

In the end Beatrice’s father was left holding only two cities; Verona and Vicenza[4] In the late 1340s Mastino encountered another threat to his lands from Milan and its new lord Giovanni Visconti.

The marriage had been arranged between Beatrice’s father and Giovanni Visconti, the ruling lord of Milan and paternal uncle of Bernabo.

In 1351, barely a year after Beatrices marriage to Bernabo, her father Mastino della Scala died and was succeeded by her brother Cangrande.

The only legitimate sibling of Beatrice still alive after 1375 was her sister Verde (wife Niccolo II d´Este) [8] The families of d´Estes and Viscontis had been in conflict since around the time of their marriage.

He seized the papal city of Bologna, rejected the Pope and his authority, confiscated ecclesiastical property, and forbade any of his subjects to have any dealings with the Curia.

A year and a half later, her husband was deposed and later poisoned by his nephew and son-in-law Gian Galeazzo Visconti, who in 1395 became the first Duke of Milan.