The Tigress of Forli (20 page)

"Your messenger," she shot back in reply, "arrived here with your letter requesting the return of your chair covering (
spalliera
), which your Excellency claims was left in Forlì... and used incredible rudeness and insolent words for this." Caterina was uncharacteristically vehement in this letter, repeating how she had been insulted by the ducal messenger and how poorly the Riarios' hospitality had been repaid. In response to the implication that her husband might have stolen the object, she haughtily stated that "it is not in our nature to unduly desire things of others, nor does necessity compel us to have to; through the grace of God, with these and other things we are more than well furnished." She closed her letter by diverting blame to Ercole's own court, pronouncing that his problems lay in his own house. His courtiers had made a bad impression, she wrote, and likely they resorted to offensive accusations against the Riarios only to "cover their own perfidy and ribaldry."
³

But the final stroke came two days after Sforzino was born. Caterina, suspicious of Ercole, had built a farmhouse on the border between her lands and Ferrara. From Trentino in northern Italy she imported thirty fine cows, which grazed peacefully in the pastures, and had filled the yard with sheep and chickens. But the farm served more than agricultural purposes. A contingent of soldiers also lived there, constantly watching Ferrara territory and serving as a first-alert system should Ercole decide to invade the Riarios' land.

The duke, something of a strategist himself, saw through the trick and incited the peasants of his lands in Massa Lombarda to sack and destroy the
cascina,
as the little farm was called. On August 19, 1487, while Caterina was still confined to her bed after childbirth, the peasants tore down and burned the house, stealing the cattle and other animals. Caterina fired off letters of protest from her bed, but the duke blandly responded that she had built her farm on Ferrarese land and was at fault for overstepping the boundaries. Caterina persevered, eventually taking the case before a Roman tribunal, but she ultimately lost to the more powerful duke, who had agents situated in every court in Italy.

The embers were still smoldering at the
cascina
when the next disaster struck. Antonio Maria, the Ordelaffi claimant to Forlì, also raced to exploit the weakened rulers there. In September 1487, his agents Nino Biagio and Domenico Roffi gathered a group of farmers from the village of Rubano and stormed the western gate, the Porta Cotogni, intending to clear a passage for Ordelaffi. His forces took the tower, but Domenico Ricci, the steadfast governor, acted immediately and after a few hours of fighting he regained the gate and apprehended the ringleaders. Ricci hanged five of them on the spot and detained the others in holding cells, then rode to Imola to inform the count. Though Caterina had delivered her sixth child only a month earlier, it was Girolamo who still kept to his bed. There was no question as to who would go. Caterina galloped back to Forlì as the governor labored to keep up with her. She didn't stop until she reached the fortress, where she insisted on interrogating the prisoners herself.

She first interviewed Nino Roffi, one of the ringleaders. Ordelaffi had planned the whole attempt, he claimed, but the real organizer had been another farmer, a man named Passi. He was the real enemy. Caterina got up from her chair and commanded that Passi be brought to her. Within the hour, the police thrust the terrified man, bound hand and foot, into the cell. Caterina watched as the two men faced each other, and she ordered Nino to repeat his accusation. As he listed names, dates, and meetings that allegedly took place at Passi's house, the defamed prisoner jolted in his chair and shouted his defense. He protested that he hadn't spoken to Roffi for eight months because he didn't like the way he lived, talked, or thought, and he certainly wouldn't share the hangman's rope with him. Caterina, intently following this exchange, interrupted the argument by dispatching Roffi to the gallows. Roffi confessed on the way to his death; he had lied about Passi because he knew the man had influential relatives who might have been able to help them.

With the truth revealed, Caterina smiled at the distraught Passi. Taking him by the arm, she led him out of the fortress. Before the gathered crowd, she told him to "go and return to your wife and children; you are a good and faithful subject."
⁴

She had freed the innocent; now she had to deal with the guilty. Girolamo's crowd-pleasing policy of giving pardons had only brought characters like the twice-pardoned Antonio Butrighelli (who had planned to assassinate them the previous year on Good Friday) back for more. Out of respect for the nominal ruler of Forlì, Caterina wrote back to Girolamo with her findings. She listed the culpable, the blameless, and those who had just gone along with the crowd. To her query regarding penalties, Girolamo, grateful to have the burden of responsibility lifted from his shoulders, replied that she had leave to do as she wished. Caterina chose the route of exemplary punishment.

She exonerated those who had simply run through the streets invoking the church, Venice, and the Ordelaffis, but she publicly executed the six who assaulted the tower. The culprits were brought to the main square of Forlì and beheaded; their bodies were then quartered. To carry out this sordid task, Caterina summoned an amateur executioner named Barone, the unfortunate watchman responsible for protecting the tower of the Porta Cotogni. Illness had confined him to his bed, allowing the gate to be overrun. Caterina, doubtful as to whether his sickness was due to infection or bribery, awarded him the task of executing his fellow citizens before the gathered townspeople. Barone laid out the mutilated bodies in the square as a warning that the countess was not as malleable as her husband. That night the bodies vanished before the confraternity of the Battuti Neri could see to their burial. The next morning, three of the heads were found impaled on lances at the Porta Cotogni; the bodies hung outside the city wall. Two more cadavers decorated the Porta San Pietro and the last dangled outside the fortress of Ravaldino. Caterina, although not shocked, disapproved of this kind of barbaric spectacle and commanded the miserable Barone to collect the remains for burial. After these trials, the poor man immediately left on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Loreto in the hopes of erasing the bitter memory of his deeds.

Girolamo's mysterious illness remains a puzzle to historians. Some see it as a kind of clinical depression, while others claim that his malady stemmed from his obesity. During his recovery, however, Girolamo returned to some of his old Roman tricks. Once he had reinstated the
dazi,
he seemed to think he had nothing to lose by squeezing the Imolesi a little more. He demanded a tribute from them to pay for a four-hundred-strong mounted guard; they did so, but after a year of having the count in residence, the Imolesi realized that the guard consisted of only one hundred men. Girolamo kept the money for himself. Moreover, he appropriated benefices, claiming the revenues from the churches of Saint Mary of the Regola and Saint Peter for himself. He didn't even balk at stealing the gold embroidered vestments and altar cloths from the convent church of Saint Francis to make new clothes for himself and his family. Several citizens unsuccessfully tried to sue him in the tribunal of Imola after he had forced them to sell their mills to him for pennies. Soon the discontent that had arisen in Forlì permeated Imola, and Girolamo decided to return to Forlì. The near success of the Roffi plot convinced Girolamo that Forlì needed its rulers in residence, and on November 2, 1487, the Riario family was reinstalled in the palace in the piazza.

In the Renaissance era, November was observed as the month of the dead. Nobles and peasants prayed in cemeteries and church crypts and offered Masses for the souls suffering in Purgatory. A somber mood fell over Forlì as the days grew shorter and colder. The penitential spirit was enhanced by the arrival of a young Franciscan preacher from Siena, Giovanni Novello. Looking younger than his twenty-four years, with fair hair and wide blue eyes, the friar had a dramatic flair. A rough white robe (the uniform of the penitent Christian) engulfed his slim frame, while his black hood highlighted his ethereal pallor. His bare feet bore the thick calluses of one who had walked many a mile on sharp stones, and he carried a four-foot iron cross, which seemed to weigh more than he did.

The haggard count, still reeling from his brush with death, was entranced by the holy man and ordered all businesses closed on the day of Father Giovanni's first sermon, so that the whole town could attend. The crowd poured into the main square while Caterina and Girolamo, dressed in clothes made of a plain dark fabric, sat side by side at the window of the Hall of the Nymphs. The Franciscans were famous throughout Europe for their preaching. Saint Francis, the founder of the order, had been a passionate and eloquent preacher, breathing new life into the sacred stories with his direct and colorful speech. For an era without newspapers, cinema, or radio, itinerant preachers provided not only spiritual nourishment but also entertainment. Giovanni's sermon was worthy of his order. Following in his founder's footsteps, his first concern was for the poor of Forlì. He beseeched the town to assist those living in poverty by creating a Monte di Pietà, a fund that would provide low-interest loans for the needy, using pawned objects as collateral. These stirring words and practical solutions so moved Count Girolamo that he leapt to his feet and offered three hundred ducats on the spot, exhorting his fellow citizens to do the same. Determined to assist the young friar, Girolamo even gathered the Council of Forty to put the proposal before them. But the council, on which sat many bankers, still resented the reinstatement of the
dazi:
the black beans dropped into the dish one after another, saying a staccato no to Girolamo's attempt to redeem himself before God and his subjects.

Not long after, most of Italy rejoiced at the wedding of Innocent VIII's son Francescetto to Caterina, the daughter of Lorenzo de' Medici, which took place in January 1488. But to the count and countess of Forlì, the wedding bells sounded like death knells. Two sworn enemies uniting in a formal alliance could only mean disaster for the Riarios. Girolamo feared both Rome and Florence and monitored known sympathizers of the Ordelaffis. Unnerved by the peasant uprising led by the Roffi family, Girolamo began ruffling the feathers of the nobility in an effort to placate the lower classes. In early 1488, a group of farmers petitioned Girolamo to relieve their taxes on land that was actually owned by city dwellers. The count, finding no flaw with their argument, agreed to shift the burden of taxation to the townspeople. As soon as the satisfied delegation departed, Ludovico Orsi, who had been listening to the exchange, reproached Girolamo. The nobleman attempted to convince the count that it was a mistake to pander to peasants at the cost of angering the nobles and artisans. Exasperated at Girolamo's indifference to his rank, Orsi could contain his anger no longer. "They will tear you to shreds and then me!" he shouted.

Girolamo's demeanor went cold. He spat back, "You never were my friend and you lie!" Then, in the menacing tone that many had learned to fear, he asked, "Perhaps you would rather that I die?"

Ludovico fled the count's rooms in terror. He had been part of Girolamo's inner circle for many years and knew him well. Ludovico stormed into the Orsi family palace, a block from the Riarios' house, calling for his brother Checco. He found him in one of the larger halls, taking a dance lesson from Forlì's finest instructor, none other than the diarist Leone Cobelli. Intrigued by the agitation in Ludovico's voice, the curious Cobelli contrived to make himself invisible in order to eavesdrop on the conversation. Ludovico alternated between rage and terror, first railing against the count's obstinacy then speaking in dread of his cruelty. Checco punctuated the tirade with outbursts of his own. Checco had been given the lucrative position of collecting the tax on the sale of meat but now owed the count two hundred ducats, which Girolamo requested daily. His demands for repayment were growing increasingly threatening. The brothers finally agreed that things had taken a definite turn for the worse with the count:
credo che nui arimo piu bon taglieri
("we won't share the same table anymore"), a Romagnol phrase denoting the end of a friendship.

But the Orsis had more in mind than absenting themselves from the count's guest list. Ludovico, now fearful of Girolamo, remained closeted in the house. On the one occasion when he went out, he tried to disguise himself, but Girolamo, vigilantly watching the piazza from his windows, spotted him. The count's soldiers dragged the petrified man to Girolamo's quarters. Girolamo inquired why Ludovico didn't visit anymore and why his brother Checco had been avoiding the piazza for weeks. Orsi stuttered a few words about money for the count and other soothing phrases, but as Girolamo's soldiers stepped toward him, he panicked. Pushing and screaming wildly, Ludovico stumbled out of the room and raced back to his own house. The break with Girolamo was complete, and everyone in the family was well aware of the fate reserved for enemies of the count. They decided that they would act first. Pooling their knowledge, the Orsis looked for a chink in Girolamo's armor. Ludovico had heard that two of Girolamo's personal guards, Ludovico Pansecho and Giacomo del Ronche, had not been paid in months and were ready to rebel. The Orsi family made plans to murder their enemy, with Pansecho and Ronche as accomplices.

Girolamo habitually took his midday meal in the Hall of the Nymphs, away from his family, and after a little siesta he held audiences in the afternoon. All the assassins needed were a few minutes alone with the count, and they knew how to get it. Girolamo had recently hired Giacomo del Ronche's nephew Gasparino as a court page, and the young man was stationed in the Hall of the Nymphs. It was easy to persuade the unwitting boy that his uncle needed a few minutes alone with the count about a private matter. Gasparino, indebted to his uncle, readily agreed to signal from the window when Girolamo was taking his rest.