How "Bloody Countess" and Italy's favorite Caterina Sforza took revenge on Caesar Borgia for her murdered husbands

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Caterina Sforza is one of the most famous women of the Renaissance and in some way one of its faces. She was called "the lioness of Romagna" and "the tigress of Forli"; she was the illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Sforza and went down in history for her confrontation with the illegitimate son of Pope Alexander VI, Caesar Borgia. In this story - all that part of the Italian Renaissance, which is usually hidden from our attention with wonderful paintings and ingenious sculptures.

Bloody Countess

Katerina's dad was a decent person and took good care of her. The girl grew up at his court and in due time a groom, Girolamo Riario, the beloved nephew of Sixtus IV, was picked up for her. Evil tongues said that the sister of Pope Sixtus covered up his sin and passed off his illegitimate son for her child - but the illegitimate girl was not born to worry about this. A much sadder circumstance was the age difference: thirty years for the groom and eleven for the bride.

However, Catherine stayed in her father's house, and everything could turn out even worse: a conspiracy was soon drawn up against her father, as a result of which the duke was stabbed in the cathedral, like Julius Caesar - by a crowd, his own courtiers. And who needed Katerina besides him?

In her first marriage, Katerina lived for fifteen years, until in 1488 in Forlì her husband was killed in almost the same way as her father, except perhaps in the cathedral - the conspirators were stabbed with several daggers. They stripped off the clothes from the corpse, and then threw it out of the window in front of Katerina. Together with her husband, they stabbed a random guest. Katerina herself was arrested with her children, and the houses belonging to Girolamo were looted. By and large, people had something to hate Katerina's late husband for, but the blow for her did not diminish.

Having caused riots in the city, the conspirators tried to take the fortress, but the commandant flatly refused to surrender it. Catherine was offered to persuade him; in response, she offered to let her into the fortress, leaving her children as hostages. But, finding herself under the protection of the commandant, the countess began to shout threats to the troublemakers and promised reprisals from her uncle, a very powerful man. As for the children, another matured in her womb, and it was enough to continue the family of her late husband.

The conspirators digested what they heard, took the loot and fled the city, leaving Katerina's children alive. Sforza was not so humane. She participated in a punitive operation, joining the approaching troops of her uncle.

A few years later, the situation repeated itself: as soon as Katerina married a certain Giacomo Feo, and soon he was stabbed to death with knives in front of his wife. And not because Katerina was so unlucky, but because the time is such. Unlike Girolamo, Katerina loved her second husband dearly and took revenge very cruelly, surrounding with her people the quarter where the murderers lived, and ordering her people to destroy everyone - men, women or children - who were somehow related to the murderers. She herself, sitting on horseback, personally watched the massacre.

Either the bloody revenge taught people to treat Katerina with caution, or simply lucky, but Katerina's third husband died a natural death - from gout at thirty-one. Exactly ten years passed between the first widowhood and the third for Sforza.

Heroine of Italy

The estates of her first husband, the cities of Forli and Imola, Katerina ruled herself, on behalf of her son Ottavio. Shortly after the death of her third husband, Sforza learned that these lands intended to annex - along with many others - to the lands of her father, Caesar Borgia. To avoid the endless Italian conspiracies around, the Borgia hired the French to conquer the lands.

For a clash with the Borgia, Caterina prepared ahead of time. She sent the children to Florence, the soldiers began to drill (and she herself, probably, also trained), filled the bins of the fortress of Ravaldino with supplies, and strengthened the walls. Learning that the inhabitants of Imola themselves had opened the gates to the Borgia army, Katerina called the townspeople of Forli and asked directly if they were ready to fight with her. Embarrassed silence was her answer, and Sforza … solemnly freed them from the oath of allegiance, after which she closed herself with her soldiers in the fortress.

Borgia, despite all his notoriety, did not at all live for the sake of murder and violence, and therefore the first thing he asked the lady to surrender in peace. And this, and all subsequent proposals, Sforza rejected and continued to fight, personally holding weapons in her hands. At some point, she was almost lucky to personally take Caesar prisoner, and this scared and angered him so much that he appointed a reward of 10,000 ducats (a lot of money) for dead or alive, but disarmed Katherine.

The siege of the fortress lasted so long that the news of one of the few who dared to give the Borgia a real rebuff, the brave and unsupported widow, spread throughout Italy. They sympathized with Catherine, sang her praises, and wrote epigrams and anecdotes about the Borgia. Finally, after a bloody, grueling assault, the French managed to grab Catherine and knock the sword out of her hands.

For some time Sforza stayed in captivity with the Pope of Rome, who, by a happy coincidence, was also the Pope of Caesar Borgia. But Italy was so rooting for Katerina and so shamed in all sorts of street verses of men who, out of fear, keep the poor widow in a cage after taking everything from her that the Pope decided to let her go to the children. Without possessions and other sources of income, Katerina with all her numerous offspring had to live in poverty.

The rest of her days, Katerina devoted to the study of alchemy and pharmaceuticals, which, probably, earned some money. At forty-six, nine years after the confrontation with Caesar Borgia, who wrote her down in history, she died of pneumonia. Neither alchemy nor pharmaceuticals then knew a remedy for this disease. She survived Caesar by two years - he was killed by the conspirators. That was the time.

Rough Nuns, Heartbreaker Queen, Pope's Orgy: The Most Spicy Scandals of the Renaissance, I must say, took place not only in Italy, but still not without Borgia.