The Tigress of Forli (13 page)

Ferrara was a flourishing duchy neighboring the most important states of northern Italy: Florence, Bologna, Milan, and Venice. Ercole d'Este, the warlike and powerful ruler of the prosperous city, had wheeled and dealed with both the papacy and the Holy Roman Emperor to amass a wide swath of land from Modena to Reggio as well as the town of Ferrara. A handsome man with soft graying hair, he had also contracted a brilliant marriage with Eleanora of Aragon, the daughter of King Ferdinand of Naples. During the conflict between Florence and the papacy, Ercole, as papal
condottiere,
should have fought in the interests of the papacy. But he had decided instead to defend his neighbor, Florence, thus incurring the enmity of Pope Sixtus and Girolamo. During the nine months that Caterina was carrying their third child, plans for vengeance were gestating in Girolamo's mind.

In early September, Girolamo and Caterina, now in her eighth month, set out on a voyage to the Republic of Venice. A mighty baggage train of thirty-six mules and twenty-one carts announced the arrival of the couple in Ravenna, and on September 8 they cruised into Venice on special gondolas constructed for the arrival of exalted guests. The ruler of Venice, Doge Giovanni Moecenigo, accompanied by 115 members of the nobility, sailed out to meet them. Sleek black gondolas glided silently across the Grand Canal as the sun sparkled on the ripples in their wake. The doge, from his golden barge, greeted Girolamo effusively, heralding him as "a true son of Mars." One might wonder if he was wryly alluding to the count's penchant for causing bloodshed rather than his martial abilities and courage.

Venice, with its dark and winding canals, was a breeding ground for intrigue. Lorenzo de' Medici knew Girolamo's trip meant more than the ostensible excuse of recruiting the Venetian navy to free Otranto from the Turks. He correctly suspected that the real plan was to ally with Venice against Ercole d'Este. In the name of Pope Sixtus, Girolamo offered to carve up Ercole's territories, giving Reggio to Venice while keeping Faenza for himself.

But the crude cunning of the count was no match for the sly tactics of the Venetians. As one report to Lorenzo the Magnificent said, Girolamo "saw more things that provoked displeasure than gratitude."
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The doge honored him with fabulous balls and banquets and lavished empty titles on him, but Girolamo never got what he came for. The Venetians did not want to risk war with the powerful father-in-law of the duke of Ferrara, King Ferdinand of Naples.

It is doubtful that Caterina found the Venetians congenial. Straightforward herself, she probably sensed their duplicity as she dined on the tiny, sweet Adriatic shrimp scented with heady spices, which had been obtained through Venice's questionable dealings with the Turks. Florentine ambassadors, always attentive to relations among their restive neighbors, wrote reports alluding to how the Venetian ladies feigned friendship, but behind the Riarios' back they sneered at the provincial manners of the Romans.
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Girolamo feared that Caterina might speak indiscreetly, and it appears that her husband did not confide his plans to her. On August 16, shortly before the trip to Venice, Caterina wrote a cheery little missive to the wife of Ercole d'Este, Eleanora of Aragon, asking for new hunting dogs. Clearly a connoisseur, Caterina requested "a singular and special gift of a pair of greyhounds that were great runners and capable of running down the hares of the Roman countryside, which are very fast, and a pair of good bloodhounds" for following scents and trails. She also asked for a pack of retrievers to work with her falcons "so well trained and valiant that I hope to be able to say when they catch a wild animal, 'Those are the dogs given to me by the illustrious duchess of Ferrara.'" She wrote engagingly, recognizing their common love of hunting and Ferrara's supremacy in the matter of hunting dogs; she seemed unaware that her husband was plotting to usurp her new friend's realm.

On their return from Venice, the couple took a longer route to avoid passing through Ferrara. They stopped in the tiny village of Cotignola, where Caterina's great-grandfather, Muzio Attendolo, had been born. There the villagers poured into the dusty streets to see Caterina, raising the cry of "Sforza! Sforza!" and welcoming her to "her home."
¹⁴
To Caterina, it must have been heartening to hear her proud family name echoing in the streets, after the pain of being refused a visit to her home and family. Soon enough that name would be honored in a far greater setting than Cotignola.

The Riarios' second arrival in Forlì was not as felicitous as the first. Already sparks of discontent were igniting among the Forlivesi, and Lorenzo de' Medici was attempting to fan them into flames. The powerful Florentine had not forgotten the murder of his brother, and now that Girolamo was near at hand, it was time to strike. Ercole of Ferrara was only too glad to help, given Girolamo's attempts to usurp his rule. It was easy enough for them to find some discontented tradesmen of Forlì whose work brought them to Florence and Ferrara. The so-called Artisan conspiracy was thus hatched in late September to kill both Girolamo and Caterina along the road between Imola and Forlì on the last leg of their return from Venice. Il Tolentino, the faithful factotum whose ear was always to the ground, discovered the plot in time to save the count and countess. But when Girolamo heard of it, he flew into a rage. "How can it be that people of Forlì want to kill me and restore Ordelaffi?" he cried. "Is this the thanks I receive for getting rid of their taxes?" As he railed against the people of Forlì, he overlooked his real predicament. He had antagonized two of the most powerful men in northern Italy, whose families had ruled for several generations. As a newcomer from a foreign family, he would always be at a disadvantage. He instructed Il Tolentino, however, not to say a word about the conspiracy, lest his authority appear to be in jeopardy.

The next day, Girolamo went to Mass at San Mercuriale, unaccompanied by his family and friends but surrounded by three hundred armed soldiers. This show of strength was meant to remind the Forlivesi that the pope's nephew could, as he desired, bring riches to the town or summon an army. No parties or dances attended Girolamo's last days in town, and when the count set off on October 14, he took several citizens of Forlì as guests to Rome, with the announced intention of entertaining them in the Eternal City. In reality they were hostages.

In the wake of the Artisan conspiracy Caterina traveled a different route to Rome, with an escort of fifty horsemen and ten female attendants. Stopping in Imola, the safer of the two cities in the Riarios' realm, she left the children and a conspicuous portion of the family treasures, along with their summer clothes. She met up with her husband in Rimini and together they embarked on the road to Rome. Caterina was riding on a mule in a sort of carriage made of two baskets, as she was now nine months pregnant. For most expectant noblewomen of the Renaissance era, the ninth month was generally treated as a "lying-in period," during which they would wait in their chambers for labor to begin. Caterina displayed strength of both body and mind in making this trip, as certainly everyone, including her husband, would have tried to dissuade her from doing so. Willing to risk a haphazard roadside delivery, Caterina obviously had no intention of leaving her husband in Rome alone. On October 26, only a few days after her arrival, Caterina gave birth to her first girl, Bianca. The child was named for Caterina's grandmother, who with Bona of Savoy had helped raise her. The delivery was uncomplicated and her husband surprisingly solicitous, hurrying to her bedside and declaring himself "more pleased with a girl than a boy."
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Girolamo waited until November, the month of the dead, to exact justice for the Artisan conspiracy. When he and his family had resumed their life in Rome, Il Tolentino hanged five men in the main square of Forlì and exiled many others. A few months later, however, the count recalled several of the exiles in an effort to instill a spirit of forgiveness and restore goodwill in the town.

Throughout the Italian peninsula, a quiet mood masked undercurrents of war. Despite Venice's refusal to assist Girolamo in obtaining Ferrara, the Most Serene Republic picked a fight of its own with Ercole d'Este. The subject of the dispute was salt. In the ages before refrigeration, salt was a precious commodity, necessary for preserving food. Ancient Rome had grown wealthy by controlling the salt mines to the north, and in Renaissance Italy salt was so precious it could be used as currency. Venice controlled huge salt marshes on the Adriatic coast and therefore almost all the salt production and distribution.
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Ferrara coveted this million-ducat business and started extracting salt from Comacchio, a territory it leased from Venice. The Venetians, still "official" owners of that land, forbade this undertaking, but Ercole ignored them. War began in the spring of 1482.

The northern Italian powers, Milan and Florence, always distrustful of Venice, leapt to the aid of Ferrara. Genoa, on the other hand, assisted its fellow maritime republic. Yet the costliest battle of the Salt War would play out in Rome.

King Ferdinand of Naples, father-in-law to Ercole, dispatched his son Alfonso, duke of Calabria, to relieve beleaguered Ferrara. The troops were well trained and seasoned after having finally freed Otranto from the Turks the preceding autumn. On April 23, 1482, Alfonso approached the borders of the Papal States with three thousand infantrymen and twenty squadrons of cavalry and asked permission to pass through papal territory to assist his brother-in-law at Ferrara. Although the duke had been the only leader to answer Sixtus's plea to save Otranto while Girolamo had been scheming in Venice, the pope refused him. Indignant, Alfonso, with the help of his Roman allies, entered the Papal States anyway and proceeded to devastate the countryside.

As captain of the papal armies, Girolamo was summoned to defend Rome. He assembled his infantry and set up camp by the southern gate on the Via Appia, steps away from the cathedral of Rome, Saint John Lateran. But instead of seeking out Duke Alfonso, he and his men waited inside the city walls. Girolamo claimed that he was ensuring that the Romans themselves would not revolt, but in fact Girolamo, though quick to order that others be assassinated, was circumspect when he himself faced actual combat.

Caterina, whose father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had won their fame and their lands through boldness in battle, must have found the conduct of her husband disgraceful. The Sforza name had never before been associated with cowardice. Adding to her woes, scandalous stories were coursing back to the Vatican palaces from the camp. Girolamo Riario, captain of the papal army, whiled away the days playing dice with his soldiers on the high altar of the cathedral, above the very table where Saint Peter and the first popes had celebrated Mass in the first century
A.D.
Horrified clerics reported that the soldiers sat on cases and boxes containing the most famous collection of relics in the world as they swapped obscene tales.
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The nave of the church, once fragrant with incense and filled with harmonious chant, now echoed with blasphemies. Caterina no doubt burned with shame. Her father, with all his failings, had always shown respect for the sacred, and Bona, despite Duke Galeazzo's many betrayals, had made the soul of her murdered husband her foremost concern. At the beginning of these tensions, Caterina had offered to go to Milan with her husband to "calm and pacify these issues,"
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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.

Caterina, barred by gender from negotiating for her husband among the temporal powers, became his advocate before God. 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.

Spurred by complaints from the peasants around Saint John Lateran, whose lands had been raided by Girolamo's soldiers, Pope Sixtus appealed to the Venetians in the hope that new forces would break the stalemate. The Venetians sent a
condottiere
from Rimini, Roberto Malatesta, who arrived in Rome with his own well-trained troops to the relief of the Roman people, who now believed that the destructive impasse between Alfonso, the duke of Calabria, and Girolamo, the count of Forlì, would be broken. On August 15, Malatesta and Girolamo marched their troops in review before the pope. Nine thousand infantry paraded through the city before heading out to meet Duke Alfonso's army, now swelled with followers of the Colonna and Savelli families.

After a few skirmishes, the day of the decisive battle came. The question would be settled on August 20 at Campo Morto. The very name of the battleground, "the field of death," presaged what would be the most violent conflict of the decade. Generally, wars among the Italian states resulted in few casualties; the mercenary soldiers who fought them tended to circle one another, with only an occasional clash of arms, while the overlords negotiated. This day would be different. The battle began at 4
P.M.
, when the brutally hot summer sun began to wane, and continued ferociously until 11
P.M.
, two hours after darkness had fallen. The papal troops were victorious. Caterina, waiting anxiously in Rome, was among the first to receive the good news. From the moment the rider burst into the papal apartments to inform Sixtus, Caterina was already writing letters announcing that "with maximum honor and our victory they had broken and dispersed"
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the troops of the duke of Calabria. Two thousand lay dead on the field, while many more succumbed to the "bad air" of the marshes in Campo Morto—one of the highest death tolls of any battle fought on Italian soil in the fifteenth century. Stagnant water and rampant malaria made the area a lethal trap. Meanwhile, 360 of the enemy's noblemen were led to Rome, where they were imprisoned in the papal fort of Castel Sant'Angelo to await trial.