Caterina Sforza
Caterina Sforza (born 1462/63, Milan [Italy]—died May 28, 1509, Florence) was an Italian noblewoman who ruled the cities of Forlì and Imola (now in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy) during the late 15th century. During her lifetime she became famous for her cunning, audacity, and extreme brutality as a warrior and a ruler. Her actions dramatically defied conventional notions regarding the capabilities and proper behaviour of noblewomen. She was a member of the powerful Sforza family, which ruled Milan continuously in the second half of the 15th century and for brief periods in the early 16th century (see Milan: Feudal and dynastic conflicts).
Caterina Sforza was the granddaughter of Francesco Sforza, a condottiere (mercenary leader) who assumed the title of duke of Milan in 1450 through his marriage to the daughter of the duke Filippo Maria Visconti. Caterina’s father was Galeazzo Maria Sforza (1444–76), Francesco’s eldest son, who succeeded his father as ruler of Milan in 1466. Her mother was Lucrezia Landriani, Galeazzo’s mistress.
Caterina Sforza was well educated. She was also trained in fighting, horseback riding, and hunting, which was unusual for a noblewoman of her time. In 1477 she wed Girolamo Riario (1443–88), the nephew of Pope Sixtus IV (1414–84), in an arranged marriage. The couple eventually had eight children, six of whom lived beyond infancy. In Rome, Riario served as leader of the papal armies. In order to solidify his control of the Papal States, Sixtus made Riario the ruler of Imola in 1473 and of Forlì in 1480.
As Sixtus lay dying in the summer of 1484, Rome descended into turmoil as various factions battled for control of the city. Riario and his soldiers engaged in a reign of terror against his enemies. In order to secure her family’s position, Sforza, who was then seven months pregnant, rode on horseback to the Castel Sant’Angelo and gained control of the papal castle, where she threatened the destruction of the College of Cardinals with the castle’s artillery. After several days, the cardinals offered Riario money and assurances of his continued rule of Imola and Forlì in exchange for his immediate retreat from Rome. Sforza and Riario returned to Forlì, where she eventually began to take over the governing of the city. Riario, who was hated by his subjects, was the target of several assassination attempts and was plagued by illnesses.
In 1488 a noble family in Forlì successfully arranged Riario’s assassination. Moreover, they took Sforza and her children hostage. Her captors ordered her to persuade the soldiers at Forlì’s main fortress—who were still loyal to the Riario family—to surrender. They took her there to talk to the soldier in charge, but he refused to obey. Before she was captured, Sforza had gotten word to him that he should resist all pleadings for surrender. When the captors took her to the fortress a subsequent time to negotiate, she tricked them into letting her enter the castle to negotiate alone. Once inside, she refused to surrender the fortress.
The captors were angry with Sforza’s trickery. When they threatened her children, Sforza replied that her relatives would avenge her children’s deaths and that she had another child growing in her womb. In his Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livy (1531; translated from Italian by Henry Neville, 1675), Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527), who had not been an eyewitness to the confrontation, notoriously—and implausibly—claimed that Sforza had shocked her captors with a lewd gesture:
Madonna Caterina (as the Countess was called) promised the conspirators that, if they allowed her to enter [the fortress], she would have it consigned to them, and that they might retain her children with them as hostages. Under this pledge, these men allowed her to enter, but she, as soon as she was inside the walls, reproached them for the death of her husband, and threatened them with every kind of vengeance: and to show that she did not care for her children, she showed [the conspirators] her genital member, saying that she had the means of making more.
Intimidated by Sforza’s defiance, the captors fled without harming her children. Sforza then had her guards capture, torture, and kill the offenders.
Sforza spent the next several years acting as regent for her eldest son, Ottaviano, who was too young to rule on his own. During that time, she put down several conspiracies and rebellions while retaining firm control over Imola and Forlì. In addition, she wed twice more. Her second husband, Giacomo Feo, gained power in her court but also acquired enemies. After assassins killed him in 1495, Sforza had those involved, as well as their families, tortured and killed. Her third husband, Giovanni di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, died of natural causes in 1498.
In 1499 Sforza’s military might was tested once again. Cesare Borgia (1475/76–1507), the son of Pope Alexander VI (1431–1503) and the leader of the papal armies, launched military attacks on Italian cities that refused to acknowledge the pope’s supremacy (see also Borgia family). Assisted by a large contingent of French troops, Borgia’s armies conquered Imola and marched to Forlì. Sforza barricaded herself and her troops in the main fortress to withstand a siege, but they were no match for Borgia’s attacks. The fortress fell in January 1500, and Sforza was taken captive. She was held in Rome for more than a year before being released by the pope. She then moved to Florence and schemed with her sons to retake Imola and Forlì, but all of her efforts were thwarted.