Caterina Sforza

gigatos | March 3, 2022

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Summary

Caterina Sforza (Milan, 1463 circa – Florence, May 28, 1509) was lady of Imola and countess of Forlì, first with her husband Girolamo Riario, then as regent for her eldest son Ottaviano Riario.In private life she devoted herself to various activities, among which excelled the experiments of alchemy and the passion for hunting and dancing. In the family affections she was an attentive and loving educator for her numerous children, of whom only the last, the famous captain of fortune Giovanni delle Bande Nere (born Ludovico de” Medici), inherited from his mother the strong personality. She was defeated, after a heroic resistance, by the conquering fury of Cesare Borgia. Imprisoned in Rome, after regaining her freedom, she led a retired life in Florence.

The founder of the Sforza family, Muzio Attendolo (1369-1424), belonged to a family of minor nobility living in Cotignola, where his parents, Giacomo Attendolo and Elisa de” Petrascini, were farmers. Muzio, at the age of thirteen, ran away from home with a horse stolen from his father, to follow the soldiers of Boldrino da Panicale, who was passing through those parts to look for new recruits, and, shortly after, he joined the mercenary company of Alberico da Barbiano, who nicknamed him “Lo Sforza”, and he became one of the most famous leaders of his time, putting himself at the service of several cities in Italy, from the north to the center, up to Naples.

Also Caterina”s grandfather Francesco Sforza (1401-1466), son of Muzio Attendolo, distinguished himself in exercising the career of commander, to the point of being considered by contemporaries one of the best. Thanks to his political ability he succeeded in having as his wife Bianca Maria, daughter of Filippo Maria Visconti, the last duke of the Visconti family of Milan. Bianca Maria always followed her husband in his activity of leader and shared with him the political and administrative decisions. It was thanks to his marriage with the last representative of the Visconti dynasty, that Francesco was recognized as Duke of Milan in 1450, when the Golden Ambrosian Republic came to an end. Francesco and Bianca Maria, having become lords of Milan, dedicated themselves to embellish the city, to increase the economic well-being of its inhabitants and to consolidate their fragile power.

Galeazzo Maria (1444-1476), their eldest son and heir, also embarked on a military career. However, he did not succeed in obtaining the fame of his ancestors: he was considered too impulsive and overbearing and, moreover, military glory and the government of the duchy were not his only interests: in fact, he often and more willingly devoted himself to hunting, travel and beautiful women. Caterina was born from the relationship between Galeazzo and his lover, Lucrezia Landriani.

Also read, biographies – Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Childhood at the court of Milan

Illegitimate daughter (later legitimized) of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza and his lover Lucrezia Landriani, it is believed that Caterina lived the first years of her life in the family of her natural mother. The relationship between mother and daughter was never interrupted: Lucrezia in fact followed Caterina”s growth and was always beside her in the crucial moments of her life, even in the last years she spent in the city of Florence.

Only after becoming Duke of Milan in 1466 upon the death of his father Francesco, Galeazzo Maria Sforza had his four children, Carlo, Chiara, Caterina and Alessandro, all of whom were born to Lucrezia, moved to court. They were entrusted to their grandmother Bianca Maria and later all adopted by Bona di Savoia, whom the Duke married in 1468.

At the court of Sforza, frequented by men of letters and artists, where there was a climate of great cultural openness, Caterina, Chiara and their siblings received, according to the customs of the time, the same type of humanistic education, consisting of the study of Latin and the reading of classical works, present in large quantities in the well-stocked ducal library.

Caterina in particular learned from her paternal grandmother the cornerstones of the qualities that she would later prove to possess, especially her predisposition for governing and for the use of weapons, with the awareness of belonging to a lineage of glorious warriors. Of her adoptive mother she will remember, for a long time, the great affection that Bona di Savoia showed to the children that her husband had before marrying her, confirmed by the correspondence between her and Caterina after the latter had left the Milanese court.

The ducal family resided both in Milan and Pavia and often stayed in Galliate or Cusago where Galeazzo Maria dedicated himself to hunting and where most likely his daughter learned to hunt herself, a passion that will accompany her for the rest of her life.

In 1473 was organized the marriage of Catherine with Girolamo Riario, son of Paolo Riario and Bianca della Rovere, sister of Pope Sixtus IV. She substituted her cousin Costanza Fogliani, eleven years old at the time, who, according to some historical sources, was refused by the groom because the mother of the girl, Gabriella Gonzaga, pretended that the consummation of the marriage took place only at the fulfillment of the legal age of her daughter, which at that time was fourteen years old, while Caterina, although at the time she was only ten years old, agreed to the claims of the groom; other sources instead, report that the marriage of Caterina and Girolamo was celebrated in 1473, but consumed only after the fulfillment of the thirteenth year of the bride, without adding the causes that made fail the negotiations for the marriage of Costanza.

To Girolamo, Sisto IV had procured the lordship of Imola, already city sforzesca, in which Caterina solemnly entered in 1477. After that she reached her husband in Rome, stopping previously for seven days in the village of Deruta, between Todi and Perugia. Girolamo Riario, originally from Savona, had already been living for several years in the service of the Pope, his uncle.

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The first stay in Rome

Rome at the end of the 15th century was a city in transition between the medieval period and the Renaissance, of which it would later become the most important artistic center, and Catherine, when she arrived there in May 1477, found a culturally very lively environment.

While Girolamo dealt with politics, Catherine quickly became part of the life of the Roman aristocracy with her easy-going and lovable attitude, made up of balls, lunches and hunting parties, attended by artists, philosophers, poets and musicians from all over Europe. She, as it is shown by the correspondence of that period, immediately felt very important in her new role: she was in fact admired as one of the most beautiful and elegant women and affectionately praised by the entire social circle, including the Pope, and soon she was transformed from a simple adolescent girl into a sought-after intermediary between the court of Rome and not only that of Milan, but also the other Italian courts.

In the meantime, after the premature death of his brother, Cardinal Pietro Riario, Sixtus IV gave Girolamo a prominent position in his policy of expansion, especially against the city of Florence. He increased day by day his power and also his cruelty towards his enemies. In 1480 the Pope, in order to obtain a strong dominion in the land of Romagna, assigned to his nephew the lordship of Forlì, at the expense of the Ordelaffi family. The new Lord tried to gain popular favor with a policy of building public works and abolishing many taxes.

In Forlì and Imola

The arrival of the new lords in Forlì was preceded by the arrival of their goods that paraded for eight days on the back of mules covered with silver and gold cloths and the coat of arms with the rose of the Riarios and the viper (or dragon) of the Visconti followed by carts full of chests. The commissioners of the city went to meet Girolamo and Caterina intercepting them in Loreto and on July 15, 1481 the procession reached a mile from the city. Here they were welcomed under a canopy by children dressed in white waving olive branches and young members of the nobility dressed in gold. Arrived at Porta Cotogni met the bishop Alessandro Numai and were offered the keys of the city. Entered in the city it came them meeting an allegorical wagon full of children representing the Graces and near the public square of the commune they found that it had been prepared a false giraffe to natural largeness. The procession passed under a triumphal arch with the allegories of the Fortitude of Justice and Temperance then continued to the Cathedral of Santa Croce where Girolamo was taken in arms and transported to church where they recited the Te Deum. After leaving the church they went back to the Piazza del Comune where Catherine was carried by a group of commoners to the halls. Girolamo Riario confirmed the exemptions already promised and added that of the grain tax. This was followed by refreshments of cakes and sugared almonds and a dance. The following day was called a joust in which participated the Roman nobles in the retinue of Riario and a commemoration of the capture of Otranto by the Turks occurred in August of the previous year, in which participated 240 men. On August 12 the Riario-Sforza entered Imola after having been received by the city authorities on the banks of the Santerno.

On September 2, 1481 the Riario-Sforza family left for Venice. The official reason was the attempt to involve the Serenissima in the military operations promoted by Sixtus IV against the Turks who had captured Otranto. The real motivation of the diplomatic mission was instead to convince the Serenissima to ally with the Pope in order to expel the Este from Ferrara, which would have been included in the domains of the Riario, obtaining in exchange Reggio and Modena. In fact, Ercole d”Este, although formally a vassal of the Church, had been one of the condottieri in the service of the Medici against the papal troops and for this he had been excommunicated. At the same time the duke of Ferrara was disliked by the Venetians for his marriage with Eleonora of Aragon, which had strengthened relations with the Kingdom of Naples, their enemy.

The procession embarked in Ravenna and after having passed Chioggia it reached Malamocco where it was welcomed by the doge Giovanni Mocenigo on the bucintoro together with 115 Venetian noblewomen sumptuously dressed and adorned with jewels. As they were often used to do, the Venetians did not mind the expense and treated their guests with every respect without accepting their proposal. The following year the Serenissima tried to subtract Ferrara from the Este family failing in the attempt but succeeded in securing Rovigo and the saltworks of Polesine.

In October 1480 a conspiracy was hatched by two priests and two relatives of the castellan of Forlì (supported by 60 armed men) against the latter in order to gain control of the fortress of Ravaldino and deliver it to the Ordelaffi. Girolamo and Caterina, although formally lords of the city, had not yet taken possession of it and in those months they were in Rome. The plan failed because a third priest reported everything to the governor of the city who informed Riario. The two relatives of the castellan were hanged, one at Porta Schiavonia and the other at the fortress, while the two priests were exiled to the Marche region and later released.

A month later, the Ordelaffi ordered a second conspiracy. On December 13, three carts full of weapons covered with straw should have presented themselves in front of Porta Schiavonia, should have taken possession of it and should have introduced themselves in the city raising the people in favor of the deposed lords of Forlì. Once again the conspiracy was discovered and on December 22 five men were hanged from the windows of the Palazzo Comunale and three others were banished from the city and then pardoned by Riario.

Following the arrival of the new lords in the city and in spite of the donations and public works promoted by Riario, the artisans of Forli ordered a third conspiracy by meeting in the Pieve di San Pietro in Trento to kill Girolamo and Caterina and restore the Ordelaffi. The conspiracy was supported not only by the Ordelaffi, but also by Galeotto Manfredi of Faenza, Giovanni II Bentivoglio of Bologna and above all Lorenzo il Magnifico who wanted to take revenge for the Pazzi Conspiracy. The attack should have been carried out on their return from Imola, where they had gone to return from the trip to Venice. The news however leaked making the plan fail and since then Girolamo Riario decided to reinforce his armed escort. The next day he went to mass at the abbey of San Mercuriale together with Caterina surrounded by 300 armed guards. Wary of the people, in the following months the new lords of Forlì showed themselves more and more rarely outside the Palace. On October 14, 1481, after having moved their clothes and valuables to the more stable Imola, they left for their second trip to Rome. On November 15, five people were hanged on the Palazzo Comunale, others were exiled or forced to pay fines whose proceeds were assigned to the Cathedral of Santa Croce.

The second stay in Rome

In May of 1482 the Venetian army led by Roberto Sanseverino attacked the Duchy of Ferrara. The Kingdom of Naples sent troops to help the Este under the command of Alfonso of Aragon, Duke of Calabria, but Sixtus IV prevented them from passing into the Papal States. The Aragonese camped in Grottaferrata while the papal army, led by Girolamo Riario moved towards the enemy stopping at the Lateran. Riario”s inexperience in warfare, together with his debauchery and delays in pay, increased the lack of discipline of his army, which began to plunder the Roman countryside, committing all kinds of violence. Sixtus IV to remedy the situation asked for help to the Venetians who sent Roberto Malatesta, son of Sigismondo, lord of Rimini. The Malatesta provoked the Neapolitan army to the point of forcing it to accept battle on August 21 at Campomorto (later Campoverde) where, after six hours of fighting, it succeeded in surrounding it, killing over 2,000 men and capturing 360 Neapolitan nobles. During the battle the pusillanimous Girolamo remained to guard the camp. During the military campaign Catherine remained in Rome where the people saw her praying, attending sanctuaries, undergoing voluntary corporal penances and donating money to the poor.

Forlì in the meantime remained in the hands of the bishop of Imola, of notoriously weak and impulsive character. Once again the Medici, the Ordelaffi, the Manfredi and the Bentivoglio took advantage of it and gathered a small army assaulted the city trying to take it by surprise. The people of Forli defended themselves bravely and repulsed them. Tommaso Feo, castellan of Ravaldino, sent messengers to inform the Riario who sent Gian Francesco da Tolentino to help them and chased away what remained of the enemy troops that were infesting the countryside around Forlì and Imola.

Roberto Malatesta died of malaria or poisoning on September 10, after having entered Rome triumphantly and being hailed as a liberator. Girolamo Riario, with the death of Malatesta, hoped to get his hands on the seigniory of Rimini, but the Florentines forced the pope to recognize as heir his natural son Pandolfo IV Malatesta, who was only seven years old.

In the following months Riario imposed himself more and more as the new tyrant of Rome, in alliance with the Orsini and in contrast with the Colonna and Savelli, causing a civil war to break out. He did not repay certain debts that he had contracted, allowed his soldiers to sack churches and palaces of the opposing families, even came to capture and torture Lorenzo Colonna who was then beheaded in Castel Sant”Angelo despite his family had promised to give him Marino, Rocca di Papa and Ardea.

On January 6, 1483 Sixtus IV sanctioned a holy league together with the Estensi, the Sforza, the Gonzaga and the Medici against the Serenissima, which had attacked the Duchy of Ferrara and excommunicated the Council of Pregadi. Even the Kingdom of Naples, against which it had been at war until the previous year, participated. Girolamo Riario was designated as one of the general captains and together with his wife left for Forli where he arrived on June 16. The operations continued until October when the Riario-Sforza, having been informed of yet another conspiracy of the Ordelaffi to kill them and for the insistence of the pope, decided to return to Rome leaving Forlì in the hands of the governor Giacomo Bonarelli. On November 2, those responsible for the conspiracy were hanged at the Palazzo Comunale. On August 7, 1484 was sanctioned the peace of Bagnolo with which the Venetians maintained control over Polesine and Rovigo ceding to the Este Adria and a few other towns that had occupied. The late attempt of Sisto IV to contain the Venetians had failed. In the night between 12 and 13 August, the Pope died from complications of the gout that had been afflicting him for some time. At the news of the Pope”s death, all those who had suffered injustices from his collaborators during his pontificate threw themselves into the sack, bringing disorder and terror to the streets of Rome. The residence of the Riarios, Palazzo Orsini in Campo de” Fiori, was attacked and almost destroyed.

The Riario-Sforza learned of the death of the pope while they were in the camp of Paliano. The Sacred College ordered them to retreat with the army to Ponte Milvio and Girolamo obeyed, arriving there on August 14. Catherine, however, was not of the same opinion and together with Paolo Orsini the same evening rode up to Castel Sant”Angelo, occupying it in the name of her husband after having convinced the garrison to let her enter. She ordered to turn the cannons against the Vatican, to fortify the entrances and chased away the vice-chastellan Innocenzo Codronchi together with all the other citizens of Imola. The control of the fortress guaranteed her the control of the city and therefore the possibility to put pressure on the College in order to elect a pope who was well disposed towards the Riarios.

In the meantime in the city the riots increased and, in addition to the population, the militia that had come in the wake of the cardinals also gave themselves up to looting. Some of these did not want to attend the funeral of Sixtus IV and even refused to enter the conclave, for fear of being under fire from Catherine”s artillery. The situation was difficult, since only the election of the new pope would have put an end to the violence that raged in the city.

Girolamo in the meantime had placed himself with his army in a strategic position, but he did not put in action a decisive action of force. The Sacred College on the exhortation of Giuliano della Rovere (future pope Giulio II) asked him to leave Rome within the morning of August 24, offering him in exchange the sum of eight thousand ducats, the reparation of the damages suffered to his properties, the confirmation of the lordship on Imola and Forlì and the position of general captain of the Church. Girolamo accepted but Caterina had no intention of giving in so easily. When she was informed of her husband”s decisions, she secretly let another 150 infantrymen enter the castle and prepared for the resistance, citing her pregnancy as the reason for not leaving the fortress. Then, in mockery of the Sacred College and to raise the mood of the soldiers, called parties and banquets. The cardinals, humiliated and enraged by the attitude of the woman, went again to Jerome threatening him not to keep faith with the pacts if his wife had not left the fortress immediately. The evening of August 25 eight cardinals, including his uncle Ascanio Sforza, appeared in front of Castel Sant”Angelo. Catherine allowed them to enter and after negotiations she decided to leave the castle after twelve days of resistance together with her family, escorted by infantrymen. The Sacred College could thus meet in conclave.

Forlì

On the road to Forlì, the Riarios learned of the election of a pope opposed to them: Innocent VIII, born Giovanni Battista Cybo, who confirmed to Girolamo the lordship over Imola and Forlì and the appointment of captain general of the papal army. This last nomination, however, was only a formal assignment, the pope in fact dispensed Girolamo from his presence in Rome, depriving him of every effective function and also of the remuneration. Despite the lack of income that the service to the pope guaranteed, Girolamo did not restore the payment of taxes from which the inhabitants of Forli were exempt in order to improve its image in the eyes of the people. The Riario completed the fortress of Ravaldino, one of the largest fortresses in Italy, building a new and wide moat around the castle and barracks that could accommodate up to two thousand men and hundreds of horses.

On October 30, 1484 was born Giovanni Livio and on December 18, 1485 was born Galeazzo Maria, who was given the name of his maternal grandfather. Both were baptized in the abbey of San Mercuriale.

At the end of 1485 the public expenditure became unsustainable and Girolamo, strongly urged by a member of the Council of Elders, Nicolò Pansecco, reorganized the tax policy by restoring the duties previously suppressed. This measure was felt by the population as exorbitant and, soon, Girolamo made enemies all classes of his city, from peasants to artisans, from notables to patricians. To the exacerbation of taxes, which hit especially the artisan class and landowners, we must also add the discontent that spread among the families who had suffered the power of the Riarios, who repressed with force all the small insurrections that occurred in the city, and there were also those who hoped that the Lordship would soon be taken over by other powers, such as Florence. In this climate of general dissatisfaction matured among the nobles of Forlì the idea of overthrowing the seigniory of the Riarios with the support of the new Pope and Lorenzo de” Medici. At the end of 1485, the Magnificent pushed Taddeo Manfredi to attempt a coup d”état on Imola, but it failed. The thirteen spies from Imola were all executed.

In September 1486 Girolamo Riario was still convalescing after four months of illness. Caterina, who was in Imola, learned from a messenger sent by Domenico Ricci, governor of Forlì, that certain Roffi, peasants from Rubiano with a certain following, had captured Porta Cotogni and then been repelled by the city guards. Five were hanged and the rest captured and imprisoned. Catherine went personally to Forli, wanted to question all those responsible, discovered that behind the conspiracy there were the usual Ordelaffi and, having a free hand from her husband, she had six hanged and quartered by the captain of the guards who had lost Porta Cotogni, the others were released.

At the beginning of 1488 Girolamo Riario found himself having to deal with a growing discontent on the part of both the peasants and the citizens of Forli due to the increase in taxation. The spark that led to his death occurred during Lent when he tried in vain to get the credit of 200 gold ducats he had with Checco Orsi to be returned. The Orsi, a noble family from Forlì, initially benefited from the magnanimity of the Riarios and Ludovico, Checco”s brother, in 1482 became senator in Rome thanks to the recommendation of Girolamo. Lorenzo de ”Medici, however, knew how to bring them on his side and planned a new conspiracy against the Riarios leaning on Galeotto Manfredi lord of Faenza. Soon the two Orsi brothers were joined by Giacomo Ronchi, a foreman of the Forlì guards and Ludovico Pansechi, one of the executors of the Congiura dei Pazzi (Pazzi Conspiracy) because the Riario had been behind with their pay for some time.

On April 14 Ronchi went to the Palazzo Comunale where he convinced his nephew Gasparino, waiter of the Riarios, to warn him by waving his hat from one of the windows when the Count would sit down to dinner. At sunset, the conspirators gathered in the square and waited for the agreed signal; then they headed towards the stairs, climbing undisturbed up to the Sala delle Ninfe. Checco Orsi entered first without being announced and saw that the Count was leaning on the windowsill of one of the windows and with him were the waiter Nicolò da Cremona, the chancellor Girolamo da Casale and the relative Corradino Feo. Girolamo welcomed the Orsi benevolently and pretended to show him a letter with which he intended to assure him of the forthcoming extinction of the debt. As soon as Girolamo stretched out his right arm towards the Orsi to grab the letter, he pulled out a knife that was hidden in his clothes and wounded him in the right breastplate. Girolamo, stupefied, shouted betrayal, tried to take refuge under a table and then to escape to the rooms of his wife. The Orsi did not have the courage to rage and Girolamo would have escaped if the Ronchi and the Pansechi had not entered and had not grabbed him by the hair throwing him to the ground and then finish him off with a dagger. The three guests of the Count fled, Corradino Feo rushed to Caterina”s rooms. The Sforza ordered the servants to kill the conspirators and to report to Tommaso Feo not to deliver for any reason the fortress of Ravaldino, gave them two letters addressed to the courts of Milan and Bologna and finally locked the doors of the room where he was with his sons. In the meantime Gasparino, descended the staircase, warned Ludovico Orsi of the death of the Riario and these immediately went up in the hall together with his partisans where he clashed with the servants of the Riario, managing to make them escape. At the end the Orsi managed to break into Caterina”s room and took her prisoner together with her sister Stella and her children. Soon the town square was filled with armed people cheering the Orsi as liberators. The crowd killed Antonio da Montecchio, the bargello of the city, then some people climbed into the palace and threw the body of Riario and the two corpses were stripped and mangled. The bodies were finally collected by the Battuti neri who took them to the Corpus Domini church. This was followed by the looting and devastation of the municipal palace by the people of Forli.

Once the conspiracy had been perpetrated, the Council of the Magistrate gathered. Checco Orsi imagined an autonomous Forli, free from any external power, but the head of the Council, Niccolò Tornielli, warned him to treat Catherine with respect for fear of reprisals by the Duchy of Milan and suggested to make an act of dedication to the Church by delivering the city to Cardinal Giovanni Battista Savelli who was in Cesena. The Council accepted this last position and immediately sent a letter to Savelli. The cardinal took possession of the city the following day, met Caterina at the Orsi”s house and then told them to move her to Porta San Pietro entrusting her to a garrison of twelve guards who were actually partisans of the Sforza”s. The Orsi then brought Caterina in front of the Ravaldino fortress threatening to kill her if Tommaso Feo did not surrender. The Sforza, pretending, tried to convince the lord of the castle who, as agreed, was adamant even when the Ronchi threatened to pierce her with his partisan. The next day the same scene was repeated in front of Porta Schiavonia. Caterina was then locked up together with her seven children, her sister Bianca, her mother Lucrezia Landriani and her wet nurses in the tower above Porta San Pietro. Never tamed, she asked Andrea Bernardi, her servant and historian from Forli, to go to the fortress and to tell Francesco Ercolani a plan with which she would have been able to enter it. Ercolani was to summon Monsignor Savelli to surrender the fortress to him on the condition that he could speak privately with her in order to obtain his pay and produce a certificate by which he would not be passed off as a coward or traitor. The Savelli and the Council agreed while the Bears refused knowing the cunning of Catherine and proposed that the dialogue took place in public. The day after the Bears brought Caterina in front of the fortress and this begged the Feo to let her enter. The castellano, executing the orders of Caterina, said of wanting to speak to her on condition that she entered in the fortress alone and she remained there not more than three hours while the rest of her family would be remained as hostages to the Orsi. Ercolani bickered with the Orsi but in the end Savelli ordered her to enter. Caterina went triumphant along the drawbridge and reached the main door and turned indriè e fi”gli quatro fichi.Una volta nella rocca, Caterina fece voltare tutti i cannoni in direzione dei principali edifici della città, pronto a raderla al suolo qualora si fosse toccata la sua famiglia poi va a riposò. After three hours the Orsi and the Savelli realized they had been mocked and were forced to return to the city. They went to the Porta San Pietro, took over the family and returned to the fortress where they made them parade one by one forcing them to beg the castle to make the fortress. The Feo did not give in and fired a few shots of arquebus putting in escape the Orsi, the Savelli and the rest of the crowd. On the episode a legend was born, whose historical bases are not sure since neither Cobelli nor Bernardi, who were direct witnesses, speak about it: Caterina, standing on the walls of the fortress, would have answered to the Orsi who threatened to kill her sons: “Do it, if you want: hang them in front of me – and, lifting her skirts and showing her pubis with her hand – here I have enough to make others! Faced with such bravado, the Bears did not dare touch their children.

The 18 April a messenger of the Bentivoglio arrived to Forlì ordering to the Savelli to give back the power on the city and the sons to Caterina or suffer the revenge of Ludovico il Moro. The cardinal agreed to the liberation of the children but not to the cession of the city. The request was renewed in the following days and Savelli decided to transfer Caterina”s mother and children to Cesena and to expel from the city all those he did not trust. On April 21 arrived a herald of the Duke of Milan accompanied by one of the Bentivoglio with the request to see Caterina”s children. The Orsi answered that they had killed them and imprisoned them but they were freed the next day under pressure from a new envoy. In the meantime the Bentivoglio had gathered a small army near Castel Bolognese and waited for the arrival of the Sforzeschi. The 26 April the Orsi and the Savelli opened fire against the fortress of Ravaldino using a passavolante and a bombard (the castellan answered cannoneggiando the city. The following day, believing Caterina to be a goner, Battista da Savona, castellan of Forlimpopoli, ceded the city to Savelli for four thousand ducats.

On April 29, the Sforza army, a total of 12,000 men, camped at Cosina, halfway between Faenza and Forlì. It was led by Captain General Galeazzo Sanseverino, Giovanni Pietro Carminati di Brambilla (called the Bergamino), Rodolfo Gonzaga Marquis of Mantua and Giovanni II Bentivoglio lord of Bologna. Giovanni Landriani was sent to try to convince for the last time the Savelli and the people of Forlì to give back the city and the lordship to Caterina. Savelli refused to accept the conditions and Orsi lied to him about the imminent arrival of the papal army led by Niccolò Orsini. The Sforza”s army moved against Forli to assault and sack it but Caterina, with whom she was in constant contact, suggested to stop at the gates of the city in order to terrorize it. He then shot with the cannons of the skewers on which they were wrapped posters that incited the people to revolt against the Bears. These, taken from despair, gathered fifty men together with the Ronchi and Pansechi and tried to be delivered the children of Catherine from the garrison of Porta San Pietro that denied them and began to target them with arrows and stones forcing them to retreat.Radunato all gold and jewelry that could carry, the Bears and fifteen other conspirators fled from Forli late at night. The Savelli remained in the city.

On April 30, 1488, Caterina began her government in the name of her eldest son Ottaviano, who was recognized by all the members of the Commune and the head of the magistrates as the new Lord of Forlì on that same day, but was too young to exercise power directly.

The first act of her government consisted in avenging the death of her husband, according to the custom of the time. She wanted all the people involved to be imprisoned, among them the governor of the pope Monsignor Savelli, all the papal generals, the castellan of the fortress of Forlimpopoli, for the fact that he had betrayed her, and also all the women of the Orsi family and of the other families who had supported the plot. Trusted soldiers and spies searched everywhere, throughout Romagna, for any of the conspirators who had, at first, managed to escape. The houses owned by those imprisoned were razed to the ground, while the precious objects were distributed to the poor.

On July 30, news arrived that Pope Innocent VIII had granted Ottaviano the official investiture of his state “until the line is finished”. In the meantime, the cardinal of San Giorgio Raffaele Riario had gone to Forli, officially to protect Girolamo”s orphans but, in reality, to influence Catherine”s government.

The young countess personally took care of all the matters concerning the government of her “state”, both public and private ones. To consolidate her power she exchanged gifts with the lords of the neighboring states and conducted marriage negotiations for her children following the customs of the time, according to which making a good marriage alliance was an excellent way to govern. He revised the fiscal system by reducing and eliminating some duties, he also controlled all expenses, even the trivial ones. He directly took care of both the training of his militia and the procurement of weapons and horses. He also found time to take an interest in laundry and sewing. It was his intention to make sure that life in his cities ran in an orderly and peaceful manner, and his subjects proved to appreciate his efforts.

The state of Forlì and Imola was small but because of its geographical position had a certain importance in the political dynamics. In those years there were important events that changed the political framework of Italy. On April 8, 1492 Lorenzo the Magnificent died, whose wise policy had kept in check the claims and rivalries of the various Italian states. On July 25 of the same year Innocent VIII also died, and was replaced by Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, with the name of Pope Alexander VI. His election seemed to be a favorable event for the State of Caterina, because during the period that the Riario couple lived in Rome, the Cardinal often attended their house and he was also godfather of their firstborn Ottaviano.

These events directly threatened the stability and peace in Italy. With the death of the Magnificent, the friction between the Duchy of Milan and the Kingdom of Naples was rekindled, until the crisis of September 1494, when, encouraged by Ludovico il Moro, Charles VIII of France descended in Italy claiming Naples as heir of the Angevins. At first, even Alexander VI was in favor of this intervention.

During the conflict between Milan and Naples, Caterina, who knew that she was in a strategic position of obligatory passage for anyone who wanted to go to the south, tried to remain neutral. On one side there was her uncle Ludovico who wrote to her to ally with Charles VIII, on the other side Cardinal Raffaele Riario who supported the king of Naples, now supported also by the Pope who had changed his opinion. After their meeting on September 23, 1494, Catherine was persuaded by the Duke of Calabria Ferrandino of Aragon to support King Alfonso II of Naples and prepared to defend Imola and Forlì.

To provoke the rupture between the two was then the so-called sack of Mordano, occurred between 20 and 21 October: around the city of Mordano were gathered between fourteen thousand and sixteen thousand French to besiege it and at the same time to take in trap Ferrandino, which having a smaller number of men would have been almost certainly defeated. He therefore, understood the situation, on the advice of his generals decided not to respond to requests for help from the Countess. It followed a massacre by the French that was as much as possible contained by the Milanese forces led by Fracasso, who undertook to save many women from the violence of the soldiers. Caterina, very angry, considered herself betrayed by her Neapolitan allies and she sided with the French, who had devastated her lands and torn her subjects apart, therefore Ferrandino, having heard the news, under a heavy rain was forced to leave Faenza with his men and to set out for Cesena.

In this regard, the chronicler Leone Cobelli from Forli notes that, while Ferrandino always behaved honestly, Caterina sent men after him to rob him, although without success:

Charles VIII, however, preferred to avoid Romagna and cross the Apennines following the road of the Cisa pass. The King of France conquered Naples in only thirteen days. This fact frightened the Italian princes who, worried about their independence, gathered in an anti-French League and Charles VIII was forced to quickly go back up the peninsula and to take refuge, after the tactical but useless victory of Fornovo, first in Asti and then in France.

On this occasion Catherine managed to remain neutral. By not participating in the expulsion of the French, she maintained the favor of both the Duke of Milan and the Pope.

Two months after Girolamo”s death, rumors spread that Caterina was about to marry Antonio Maria Ordelaffi, who had begun to visit her and, as chroniclers report, everyone noticed that these visits were getting longer and more frequent. With this marriage would have ended the claims of the Ordelaffi family on the city of Forlì. The thing was given for certain and Antonio Maria himself wrote to the Duke of Ferrara that the countess had made him promises in this sense. When Caterina realized how things were, she imprisoned all those who had contributed to spread the news. She also turned to the Senate of Venice that sent Antonio Maria in Friuli, where he was confined for ten years.

The countess instead fell in love with Giacomo Feo, the twenty-year-old brother of Tommaso Feo, the castellan who had remained faithful to her in the days following the murder of her husband. Caterina married him, but in secret, in order not to lose the protection of her children and, consequently, the government of her state. All the chronicles of the period report how Catherine was madly in love with young James. It was also feared that she wanted to take away the state from her son Octavian to give it to her lover.

In the meantime, Giacomo”s power had increased dramatically and he was feared and hated by everyone, even by Caterina”s children. On the evening of August 27, 1495 Giacomo was attacked and mortally wounded, becoming the victim of a conspiracy of which the Countess” children were also aware. But Caterina was unaware of everything and her revenge was terrible. When her first husband had died, her revenge had been carried out according to the criteria of the justice of the time, but now she followed her instinct, blinded by the rage of having lost the man she loved. According to the chroniclers, Caterina even slaughtered the children, infants and pregnant women of the conspirators. Thus Marin Sanudo, who says she was “most cruel”:

In 1496 the ambassador of the Republic of Florence, Giovanni de” Medici, known as the Popolano, arrived at Catherine”s court. Son of Pierfrancesco the Elder, he belonged to the collateral branch of the Medici family. With his brother Lorenzo, he had been sent into exile because of his open hostility towards his cousin Piero de” Medici, who had succeeded his father Lorenzo the Magnificent in the government of Florence. When in 1494 King Charles VIII of France had descended on Italy, Piero was forced into an unconditional surrender that allowed the French to advance freely toward the Kingdom of Naples. The Florentine people rose up, drove Piero out, and proclaimed a Republic. Giovanni and his brother were able to return to the city. They renounced to the family name and assumed that of Popolano. The republican government appointed Giovanni ambassador of Forli and commissioner of all the possessions of Romagna in Florence.

Shortly after having paid homage to the Countess as ambassador, Giovanni was lodged, with all his entourage, in the apartments adjacent to those of Caterina in the fortress of Ravaldino. The rumors of a possible marriage between Giovanni and Caterina and that Ottaviano Riario had accepted a conduct from Florence threatened by the Venetians, alarmed all the princes of the League and also the Duke of Milan.

Catherine could not keep hidden from her uncle Ludovico these third marriages. The situation was different from the previous one, as Caterina had the approval of her children and she ended up having that of her uncle as well. From the marriage was born a son, who was named Ludovico in honor of the Duke of Milan, but later became famous with the name of Giovanni dalle Bande Nere.

In the meantime, the situation between Florence and Venice was worsening and Caterina, who was always placed on the passage ways of the armies, prepared herself for the defense. She had also sent a contingent of knights to help Florence, headed by her eldest son, accompanied by trusted men, instructed by herself, and her stepfather.

Suddenly Giovanni de” Medici became so ill that he had to leave the battlefield and go to Forli. Here, despite the treatments, his condition continued to worsen and he was transferred to Santa Maria in Bagno, where he hoped for miraculous waters. On September 14, 1498 John died in the presence of Catherine, who had been called to go to him urgently. Their union was the origin of the grand ducal dynastic line of the Medici, extinguished with Anna Maria Luisa in 1743.

From the marriage of Giovanni dalle Bande Nere with Maria Salviati (daughter of Lucrezia de” Medici of the main branch of the Medici) was born Cosimo I de” Medici, second Duke of Florence and first Grand Duke of Tuscany.

Immediately returned to Forli to take care of the defense of her States, Caterina kept herself busy directing the military maneuvers, concerning the provisioning of soldiers, weapons and horses. The training of the militia was carried out by the Countess herself who, in order to find money and additional troops, did not tire of writing to her uncle Ludovico, to the Republic of Florence and to the neighboring allied states. Only the Marquis of Mantua and Ludovico il Moro sent a small contingent of soldiers. This last one sent two valid commanders: Fracasso and Gian Francesco Sanseverino, but Caterina was not able to manage the surly and irascible character of the first one: she complained to her uncle, saying that Fracasso continuously quarreled with her brother and with the other captains, that he did what he wanted and spoke badly of her; even one day he threatened to leave, offended by some of his words. Ludovico invited her to be patient, because, although he said “some bad words”, they could not find a better leader than him.

After a first attack of the Venetian army, which inflicted serious destruction in the occupied territories, Caterina”s army managed to get the better of the Venetians, among whom were also Antonio Ordelaffi and Taddeo Manfredi, descendants of the families that had governed Forlì and Imola respectively before the Riarios. After that the war continued with small battles until the Venetians were able to bypass Forli to reach Florence by another route.

From this moment on, in many chronicles related to the lands of Romagna, Caterina is often named with the appellative of “Tygre”.

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The conquest of Duke Valentino

In the meantime, Louis XII had succeeded to the French throne. He had rights over the Duchy of Milan and also over the Kingdom of Naples, as a descendant of Valentina Visconti and the Anjou dynasty respectively. Louis XII, before starting his campaign in Italy, secured the alliance of the Savoy, the Republic of Venice and Pope Alexander VI. At the head of his strong army in the summer of 1499, he entered Italy, occupying without having to fight all of Piedmont, the city of Genoa and Cremona. On October 6 he settled in Milan, abandoned the previous month by Duke Ludovico who had taken refuge in the territories of Tyrol under the protection of his nephew Maximilian I of Habsburg.

Alexander VI had allied himself with the King of France to have in exchange his support in the constitution of a Kingdom for his son Cesare Borgia in the land of Romagna. With this purpose, he issued a papal bull to revoke the investiture of all the feudal lords of those lands, including Catherine.

When the French army left Milan with Duke Valentino to conquer Romagna, Ludovico Sforza reconquered the Duchy with the help of the Austrians.

Catherine, in order to oppose the French army that was arriving, sought help from Florence, but the Florentines were threatened by the Pope who ordered to take Pisa away from them, so she was left alone to defend herself. She immediately began to enlist and train as many soldiers as she could and to store weapons, ammunition and provisions. She reinforced the defenses of her fortresses with important works, especially that of Ravaldino where she herself resided and which was already considered impregnable. She also made her children leave and they were welcomed in the city of Florence.

On November 24 Cesare Borgia arrived in Imola. The doors of the city were immediately opened by the inhabitants and he was able to take possession of it, after having conquered the fortress where the castellan resisted for several days. Given what had happened in her minor city, Caterina expressly asked the people of Forlì if they wanted to do the same or if they wanted to be defended and, in this case, bear a siege. As the people hesitated to answer her, Catherine decided to concentrate all the efforts for the defense in the fortress of Ravaldino, leaving the city to its destiny.

On December 19, Valentino took possession of Forli and laid siege to the fortress. Catherine did not give in to the attempts made to convince her to surrender, two made directly by Duke Valentino and one by Cardinal Raffaele Riario. She also put a bounty on Cesare Borgia in response to the one that the Duke had put on her: 10,000 ducats for both, dead or alive. She also tried to take prisoner Valentino, while he was near the fortress to talk to her, but the attempt failed.

For many days the artillery of both factions continued to bombard each other: Catherine”s artillery inflicted numerous losses on the French army, without being able to dismantle the main defenses of the fortress. What was destroyed during the day was rebuilt during the night. The besieged also found time to play and dance.

The solitary resistance of Catherine was admired throughout Italy itself reports that numerous were the songs and epigrams composed in his honor, of which there is only one of Marsilio Compagnon.

Since time passed and no results were obtained, the Valentine changed tactics. He began to bombard the walls of the fortress continuously, even at night until, after six days, two large gaps were opened. On January 12, 1500 the decisive battle was bloody and fast and Caterina continued to resist fighting herself with weapons in hand until she was taken prisoner. Among the gentlemen captured together with her, there was also her secretary, Marcantonio Baldraccani from Forli. Immediately Catherine declared herself a prisoner of the French, knowing that there was a law in France that prevented women from being held as prisoners of war.

Machiavelli, according to whom the fortress was poorly built and the defense operations poorly directed by Giovanni da Casale, commented: “The poorly built fortress and the little prudence of those who defended it made shame to the magnanimous enterprise of the Countess…”.

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Rome

Cesare Borgia obtained the custody of Catherine from the general commander of the French army Yves d”Allègre, promising that she would not be treated as a prisoner, but as a guest. She was forced to leave with the army that was preparing for the conquest of Pesaro. The conquest however had to be postponed because of Ludovico il Moro, who on February 5 reconquered Milan, forcing the French troops to go back.

The Valentino then, left alone with the papal troops, headed towards Rome, where he also led Catherine who was at first placed in the palace of Belvedere. Towards the end of March Caterina tried to escape but she was discovered and immediately imprisoned in Castel Sant”Angelo.

To justify the imprisonment of Catherine, Pope Alexander VI accused her of poisoning him with letters impregnated with poison sent in November 1499 in response to the papal bull that deposed the Countess from her feud.

Even today it is not known whether the accusation was well-founded or not. Machiavelli is convinced that Catherine had really tried to poison the Pope, while other historians, such as Jacob Burckhardt and Ferdinand Gregorovius are not so sure. A trial was also held but it did not end and Catherine remained imprisoned in the fortress until June 30, 1501, when she was freed by Yves d”Allègre who had come to Rome with the army of Louis XII to conquer the Kingdom of Naples. Alexander VI demanded that Catherine sign the documents for the renunciation of her states, since in the meantime her son Cesare, with the acquisition of Pesaro, Rimini and Faenza, had been appointed Duke of Romagna.

After a brief stay in the residence of Cardinal Raffaele Riario, Caterina embarked to reach Livorno and then Florence, where her children were waiting for her.

Florence

In the city of Florence Catherine lived in the villas that had belonged to her husband Giovanni, often staying in the Medici Villa of Castello. She complained of being mistreated and of living in economic straits.

For several years she sustained a legal battle against her brother-in-law Lorenzo for the guardianship of her son Giovanni, who was entrusted to his uncle because of his imprisonment, but who was returned to her in 1504 because the judge recognized that incarceration as a prisoner of war was not comparable to that due to having committed criminal acts.

With the death of Alexander VI on August 18, 1503, Cesare Borgia lost all his power. This opened all the possibilities of restoring the old feudal lords of Romagna in the states from which they had been expelled. Caterina didn”t waste any time and sent many letters and trusted people to plead her and Ottaviano”s cause to Julius II. The new Pope was in favor of the restoration of the Riario”s Seigniory over Imola and Forlì, but the population of the two cities was opposed to the return of the Countess, so the State passed to Antonio Maria Ordelaffi who took office on October 22, 1503.

Having lost any possibility of restoring the ancient power, Caterina spent the last years of her life dedicating herself to her children, in particular to Giovanni who was the youngest, to her grandchildren, to her “experiments” and to her social life, continuing to have an intense correspondence both with the people who had remained affectionate to her in Romagna and with her relatives who lived in Milan.

In April of 1509 Catherine was seriously ill with pneumonia. She seemed to recover, so much so that she was declared cured, but a sudden worsening of the disease led her to her death on May 28. After having made her will and arranged for her burial, she died at the age of forty-six years “That tygre of the madona of Forlì”, who had “tucta scared Romagna”. She was buried in the monastery of the Murate in Florence, in front of the main altar: later his nephew Cosimo I de ”Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, wanted to remember her by affixing a plaque, but today no trace remains of the tomb: exhumed the remains during a remake of the nineteenth-century floor, were then dispersed at an unspecified time.

Despite the importance of the figure of Caterina Sforza in the Italian Renaissance panorama, the odonomy remembers her in few urban centers: in Rome with a square, in Forlì, Forlimpopoli, Imola and San Mauro Pascoli with streets.

In the last years of his life he confided to a friar: “If I could write everything, I would amaze the world”.

From the marriage with Girolamo Riario were born six children:

From the union with Giacomo Feo was born:

From the wedding with Giovanni de” Medici was born:

This is how the Florentine historian Bartolomeo Cerretani describes it:

“She was wise, animated, great: complex, beautiful face, she spoke little; she wore a satin dress with two arms of train, a capperone of black velvet in the French style, a man”s girdle, and scarsella full of gold ducats; a sickle for the use of retort next to it, and among the soldiers on foot, and on horseback she was feared a lot, because that woman with the weapons in her hand was proud and cruel. She was not the legitimate daughter of Count Francesco Sforza, the first captain of her time, to whom she was very similar in spirit and boldness, and did not lack, being adorned with singular virtue, some vices that were not small or vulgar”.

Marin Sanudo defined her as “femina quasi virago, crudelissima”, in relation to the massacre she made of the children and pregnant women of the conspirators, following the death of her second husband Giacomo Feo.

The leader Fracasso says she is “cunning”, ready to change party at the occasion, but specifies that “to be her dona is not without fear of her things”.

The future Cardinal Bernardo Dovizi da Bibbiena, in a letter in which he narrated to Piero de” Medici the “strange meeting” of Caterina with the Duke of Calabria Ferrandino d”Aragona (which took place on 23 September 1494), described her as ugly in the face, echoing the impressions of Ferrandino himself. In fact, although Catherine is known to posterity as a woman of great beauty, the medals of the time depict a woman with masculine features and rather corpulent.

Around 1502, according to an informant of Isabella d”Este, Caterina was “so fat that I could not make a comparison”. Fatness was very common in the Sforza family: her father Galeazzo Maria himself, whom Caterina resembled very much, did not wear the breastplate that perhaps would have saved him from death – which he did – “not to look too big”.

She had also inherited from the Sforza family the typical important nose, slightly hooked, and the protruding chin. Her hair had to be wavy and it seems that she kept it gathered behind her head, but it is not known for sure if she was naturally blond and fair or if she obtained these results through her own mixtures. This does not mean that blond hair was not common among the members of the Sforza family.

Caterina worked for a long time in the fields of herbal medicine, medicine, cosmetics and alchemy and left us a book: Experimenti della excellentissima signora Caterina da Forlì (Experiments of the most excellent Signora Caterina da Forlì), composed of four hundred and seventy-one recipes which illustrate procedures for fighting illnesses and preserving the beauty of the face and body. It is the result of numerous chemical “experiments” that Caterina was passionate about and practiced throughout her life.

With its enigmatic formulas, the cookbook provides us with interesting information not only about the customs and habits of the time, but also about the state of scientific knowledge in the 15th century: in some procedures important discoveries are intuited, which will be made only much later, such as the use of chloroform to put the patient to sleep.

This interest in cosmetics and alchemy came from ancient traditions and from oriental culture. It was handed down from the “workshops” of the monasteries, from the courts and from the families themselves, who kept and handed down from generation to generation the “secrets” to produce remedies against diseases.

All the chronicles of the time inform us that Catherine was a woman of extraordinary beauty. Surely for this reason, a large part of the recipe book is made up of recipes to preserve this beauty, according to the canons of the time: to “make the face very white and beautiful and colored”, to “make the hair grow”, to “make the hair come out rizzi”, to “make the hair blond and golden”, to “make the hands white and beautiful so that they look like ivory”.

Catherine devoted herself to her “experiments” with constancy throughout her life. This made her truly competent in this field, as demonstrated by the enormous amount of correspondence she kept with doctors, scientists, noblewomen and sorceresses, in order to exchange “secrets” for the preparation of cosmetics, lotions, smoothes, elixirs and ointments. Her most important advisor in this field was Lodovico Albertini, an apothecary from Forlì, who remained fond of her and continued to serve her even when she no longer lived in Forlì.

In 1933 a part of Catherine”s beauty recipes were published and the first edition sold out in a very short time.

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Ballads

The chroniclers of the time have left numerous testimonies about the fame and admiration that Catherine earned. To her is dedicated a ballad of the sixteenth century, attributed to Marsilio Compagnon, which begins thus:

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Anecdotes

According to an anecdote reported also by Baldassarre Castiglione in his Cortegiano, the famous leader Fracasso Sanseverino, being in Forlì, refused the invitation of the countess to join the dances and the other entertainments, saying that the war was his only job and that he didn”t know any other, reason for which Caterina had fun mocking him:

Sources