All the following comes from Elizabeth Lev's smart biography of Caterina Sforza Riario De'Medici. There are many connections and much exposition, many personal histories and backstories to lay out to develop her story. Lev does it simply, clearly and with a persistant forward motion, sensitive to allegiances and inserting stories of the art and other productions of the age along the way. A couple examples of the sorts of stories Lev chooses to include, around young Caterina's life, dramatically show the turbulence of this place and time.
Since Caterina Sforza left Milan for Rome, she continued to write to her stepmother, now the widow to Galeazzo Sforza and the regent caring for his son and heir, Gian Galeazzo. Elizabeth Lev tells us they wrote frequently and often with much affection back and forth. There was much for Bona to do in Milan, not so much for Caterina's little brother the baby boy Gian, but often in deflecting various external plots, as her late husband's relatives came scheming for the dukedom of Milan. Bona had help (Lev calls him 'faithful', p. 54), in the longtime Secretary of State there. He was a family advisor and negotiator, for three-generations of Sforza's, named Cicco Simonetta. They managed to hold off the throne-takers for a couple years.
Newly arrived in Rome and settled, the young Countess Caterina had enjoyed hunting and horseback riding on the Janiculum Hill across the Tiber in Rome. It was still possible then for a countess with a retinue in Rome to race a horse on the hills in Rome.
On September 1, 1479, Caterina wrote a letter to Bona in Milan to tell her she had given birth to a healthy boy the day before. The parents overjoyed, named him Ottaviano, an Italian variation of Octavian,after the name of Augustus Caesar. The baby was soon baptized by the pope and Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia was named the boy's godfather. [p. 52]
Within the month, Caterina also received word that Cicco Simonetta in Milan had been sent to prison and Ludovico her father's brother had become much more friendly with her stepmom. The man she had known growing up, dutifully running the house all the while, was gone from that world. By the end of the year, with her husband staying out of the public fray, Caterina had become pregnant again. [pp. 54-55]
The following year a new house was built for them by a famous architect. Caterina had another baby boy. She sent a letter to her step mom, but a month later probably September 1480, the brother Ludovico, called 'il Moro' due to his darker skin, sent Bona from Milan to live out her days in an abbey while he took responsibility for his nephew, the heir. Caterina's ties to Milan were cut, but she would visit again and keep her name.[p.60]
The year 1480 was also a big year for pope Sixtus IV as that was when his plans to remake Rome were put in place. The ancient aqueduct was cleared, fixed and put back into use after centuries of neglect. Numerous palaces were built. A famous hospital Santo Spiritu was built, roads widened and much else. Girolamo and Caterina and their boys were moved into one of these great palazzi near Piazza Navona. This was a central market in Rome and trade had seemed to pick up. What happened to her stepmother may have seemed worrisome, but Caterina's life in Rome seemed to be going very well.
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Forli was a small city in the north, near Imola with a population of maybe ten thousand. It had formerly been part of papal lands but for hundreds of years been picked at by both neighbors and popes. Becoming battered as a result. In 1438 the city had been taken from Caterina's grandfather Francesco Sforza by Antonio Ordelaffi with the help of Venetian forces. His son was killed by his brother Pino who ruled the city with a heavy hand. He would marry a daughter of the neighboring town Faenza, Barbara Manfredi, producing offspring and illegitimate children as well and, after awhile, the wife would end up dead (1466). But he had a beautiful marble statue made for her tomb that's still in Forli (but not on the internet). The next year Pino's mother was found poisoned. Two wives in fact from the local Manfredi family - one from Faenza and one from Imola - wound up dead, probably from poison. Forli under Pino Ordelaffi was not a happy scene. [pp. 61-62]
Pino's next wife, outlasted him. Pino did his duty providing forces to Girolamo Riario, the recent Count of Imola, helping when the papal hammer was being brought down on neighboring Florence. Conflict between Sixtus IV and Florence having lasted a couple years more. But by the birth of Caterina's second child, August 1480, tensions were being settled there. When the townspeople found out that Pino was ill, in 1480, they stormed his house, dragged him down the steps and kicking and spitting on him, he died. His quick-minded wife Lucrezia Pico della Mirandola, put up his recognized (but illegitimate) son as heir, fending off Pino's relatives, the sons of his brother Francesco Ordelaffi.
This was the chance that pope Sixtus IV was waiting for. A troop of soldiers were sent to Forli who seized the palace and Lucrezia was given 130,000 ducats and thrity-two carts of baggage to take with her to a new palace the pope had given her. She took it and left. The pope had formally conferred the town onto Girolamo Riario and so, the remaining sons of Francesco Odelaffi returned to Faenza burning for hatred of Sixtus IV the della Rovere pope. [pp. 62-63]
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Elizabeth Lev, The Tigress of Forli: Renaissance Italy's most courageous and notorious countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de'Medici : 2011, USA, Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt Publishing Company
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