Battle of Campo Morto: August 20, 1482

In the spring of 1482, the Venetians began retaking some salt marshes around Commachio. Over the previous dozen years, south of the Po river delta, the duke of Ferrara, Ercole d'Este had, bit by bit, taken over and begun to run what the Venetians had always claimed was their monopoly on salt.  This was seen as a dispute that was also an act of aggression, with two separate claimants.

Alfonso II of Naples, heir to his father's throne, and as the loyal brother of the wife of the Duke, took his army north to defend his sister and brother-in-law. No one to trifle with, after spending the previous year fighting the Turks in southern Italy, he had seasoned troops. But on the road north, he was stopped and not allowed to cross papal lands in order to get close enough to give relief to the embattled Duke. Outraged at this affront to his dignity, Alfonso turned instead to the nearby rich papal lands, near Rome, and began laying waste to the countryside. The pope was understandably horrified.

Girolamo Riario the captain-general of the papal forces was summoned to defend Rome. He amassed his army inside the city walls near the Appian Gate, on the southern side of the city, and waited. Skirmishes in the countryside, other armies assembled, Girolamo stayed in Rome, on the grounds of the Saint John Lateran church. This was the church [and a link to a virtual tour] where Peter and the other early popes first celebrated mass in Rome. Lev tells us that contemporary storyteller Stefano Infessura even heard that the soldiers of the captain-general were gambling and telling obscene stories in the nave. And worse. Lev, our storyteller, assumes that her heroine, Caterina, the wife of the dissembling Girolamo, must have 'burned with shame', but shows no evidence for it. Months dragged on.

"At the beginning of these tensions Caterina had offered to go to Milan with her husband to "calm and pacify these issues," but nothing came of it. From that letter in January 1482, Caterina wrote nothing more until the final battle of the Salt War played out in August of that year." 

That 'letter' refers to those of Caterina Sforza, collected in a three volume set by Pier Desiderius Pasolini and published in Rome, by Loescher in 1893 and kept in the Milan State Archives. I mention this and the existence of her letters, because our author does and because absence of evidence doesn't make her case. Instead, she helpfully does explain what women of Caterina's station did in those times when their menfolk were or should be at war.

"Like many other women of her age unable to intervene in earthly affairs, she invoked divine assistance. And because Caterina always threw herself wholeheartedly into her endeavors, she did more than light a few candles. According to her eighteenth-century biographer Antonio Burriel, her pale figure, emaciated from fasting, knelt for hours in a penitent's robes at the altar or distributed alms to the poor. She certainly prayed for peace, but probably also that her husband would desist from destroying the last shreds of respectability he enjoyed in Rome." [p.75]

Because I can't read the letters in the Milan archives, this is the only real criticism I might have on occasion, reading Ms Lev's biography of Sforza. As an example, saying that Caterina 'probably had' prayed that her husband 'would desist from destroying the last shreds of respectability he enjoyed...' without seeing the originals, leads a little much. Or later, that "... nothing of substance existed within..." her husband. [p. 77]  Again, I would not be aware of this as a topic without Lev's excellent biography, which is also duly, plentifully cited. But this statement and others like them, posit too much of Caterina's innermost thoughts and motives into such a narrative, with little more than modern supposition for such conjecture. It helps drive the narrative but does so by blurring cultural norms and expectations that we moderns may not share with Italian nobles of the renaissance period.

It also makes such 500 year old expectations of how people should act, normative, rather than, as in the case of Caterina Sforza, exceptional, as she very much was. Maybe there isn't the evidence to know what she thought about her husband this summer of 1482. In that case, we shouldn't make it seem certain with abstract ideas like shame and failing honor, or duty. Even if, or especially since, the eighteenth century biographer Pier Desiderio Pasolini was the source for such beliefs and we have no letters of hers to back it up. Lev notes in her introduction the difficulties she had with Pasolini's work. In other areas the author does point out when judgemental, interior thoughts are projected by others, as she does in the case of Stefano Infessura [p. 78-79].

By August, the pope had asked Venice for someone else to break the stalemate. Roberto Malatesta, a mercenery hired by Venice came to Rome and, together with Girolamo's, that is, the pope's forces, marched in parade thru the city. When the day of the battle came, Alfonso's forces had grown to include many of the Colonna, and Savelli families of Rome. Girolamo and the pope had grown very unpopular indeed in the city, by all accounts.
Lev tells us the battle lasted from Four til Eleven o'clock on August 20, 1482 and would be the most bloody Italian battle in a decade. Malatesta's army bravely stood their ground and did great damage to and soundly defeated those forces of Alfonso of Naples. Girolamo had stayed back, 'guarding the tents'. The pope had to accept that Malatetsa was the victor and he was awarded the honors. Like an ancient Roman General, Malatesta was paraded through Rome with a long train of Cardinals behind him, and the people came out and cheered their liberator. But he had contracted dysentery and died within a month.

Girolamo tried to take credit and was ignored. When Malatesta died, as lord of Rimini, his infant son became the new lord there. When Girolamo, desperate for a victory, galloped off to take control of Rimini,  he was stopped by forces from Florence. So, Girolamo returned, empty-handed. Naples had been humiliated, as well as Ferrara. Venice could continue to maintain the works near Commachio. Faenza, still independent, now had a weaker ally in the duke of Ferrara, and greater reason to fear 'empty-handed' Count Girolamo Riario.
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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