The Tigress of Forli (29 page)

Caterina's proud letters recounting the knighthood conferred on Giacomo aroused the suspicions of her uncle Ludovico the Moor, and soon enough he installed a spy in her court. Florence also took an avid interest, sending a representative to evaluate potential weaknesses in Forlì because of Caterina's new attachment. In public, at least at first, Caterina and Giacomo behaved normally, trying not to arouse suspicion. But the Forlivesi knew better. Caterina's subjects prudently held their tongues even when they noticed that Caterina no longer traveled to Imola for the hot summer months, but rather stayed in Forlì to be near Feo, who was obliged to remain in Ravaldino.

This decision to stay near her beloved nearly had disastrous consequences for her children. Summer migration to better-ventilated areas spared delicate constitutions the effects of the "bad air" of an urban center. In the summer of 1491 Ottaviano and Cesare fell ill with tertian fever. In the hot weather mosquitoes infested the stagnant moat around Ravaldino, which only aggravated their discomfort. Caterina wrenched herself away from Feo to accompany her children to the better climate of their country house in Imola. Along the way Caterina herself succumbed to fever. Giacomo, lovelorn and impetuous, quit his post as castellan, handing over the castle to his uncle Cesare Feo, and raced to Imola to be by Caterina's side. There was no doubt in anyone's mind now. Caterina and Giacomo were lovers.

Most of her subjects looked upon the affair with an indulgent eye. Many understood that little love had existed between Count Girolamo and Caterina. They had been allies in their political interests, she had borne him six children, but Girolamo had never showered her with affection. They may have thought that the countess deserved a little passion in her life and hoped that the affair would blow over soon.

In some ways the early stages of the affair were a boon to Forlì. Caterina, desiring more time with her beloved, reconvened the Council of Forty, which had been suspended since Girolamo's murder. She also reconstituted the Council of the Elders. It seemed that the countess was ready to relinquish some of her power. Furthermore, she recognized that the presence of peacekeeping soldiers posed an undue burden on the people. Caterina abolished the tax that paid for their lodging and proposed instead the construction of a military quarter outside the walls to remove the discomfiting presence of the military. To pay for the project, she put a tax on grain, but offered those who couldn't afford the monetary contribution the possibility of carrying lumber or digging foundations in lieu of the fees. In the eyes of the Forlivesi, love had apparently softened the countess.

But a small group of her subjects remained concerned. Caterina and Giacomo's open cohabitation in Imola hinted at a secret marriage, a serious threat to political stability. They saw no good in the groom turned knight. Jealousy grew into deep hostility, and by September plans were afoot to murder the countess and her lover.

Caterina habitually made the rounds of her fortresses both major and minor, ensuring that they were well maintained and that the castellans remained loyal. While in Imola, Caterina and Giacomo planned to travel to nearby Tossignano to pay a visit to one of their minor fortresses. But shortly before their departure, two Imolesi informed Caterina that a trap awaited her at the castle; she and Giacomo would both be killed as soon as they were inside. Caterina sent soldiers in her stead and within hours the culprits were apprehended.

Descending to the interrogation cells, Caterina was surprised by the identity of her would-be assassins. Besides her own castellan of Tossignano, they were Marcantonio and Teseo Tartagni, whose family Caterina had honored with the right to work her land only one year earlier, and Domenico Viani, whose side Caterina had taken in the resulting conflict with the Mercati family. Enea Viani, the head of the family, had escaped and found refuge with the duke of Ferrara. These people only had reason to be grateful to her, for she had made them prosperous and exiled their enemies. What could have spurred them to turn against her?

The answers were blunt and unanimous. They were protecting the rights of Ottaviano. Worried that Caterina's favoritism was undermining the rightful claim of the Riario heir, they had intended to take her prisoner, kill Feo, and, as had been done in Faenza, appoint a regency of leading citizens.

Caterina sentenced the four ringleaders to death but commuted the sentence to imprisonment under one of the towers of the Ravaldino fortress. Buried under the pillar of Caterina's defenses, the conspirators saw their sons brought to the castle as hostages to prevent any further uprising by the network of family clans that dominated Imola. Their houses were razed and their wives, the daughters of a powerful Florentine, Cosimo Pallavicini, were exiled from Imola, with their dowries deposited in Caterina's bank vaults.

Caterina had subdued the conspiracy but could not bear it that Enea Viani had escaped unscathed. That he had been given refuge by the duke of Ferrara was insult upon injury. Relations between Ercole of Ferrara and Caterina had improved little since the death of Girolamo. Although the duke and the countess regularly exchanged gifts at the beginning of Lent, Ercole sending salted eels for the long meatless weeks and Caterina offering candied chestnuts and the first fruits of the Romagnol orchards, most of their correspondence was fraught with hostility. Caterina battled endlessly for restitution from the duke. Border skirmishes destroyed her property and bandits murdered her citizens in the Ferrara woods, but the aloof Ercole rarely responded to her complaints.

Upon discovering that her would-be assassin was safely ensconced in Ferrara, she called a halt to the favors and courtesies customary between courts, and bombarded the city with letters demanding the immediate expulsion of Viani. Although Ercole never responded directly, in the early months of 1492 Viani was finally captured and brought to Forlì, where he joined his fellow conspirators in prison. The dukes of Milan and Ferrara interceded on behalf of the Imolese noble, but to no avail.

The Tossignano conspiracy was a portent of graver things to come, but Caterina remained blind to the problems caused by Giacomo's presence. To complicate matters, she needed to conceal that she was pregnant with his child. Her secluded court life within the castle walls went a long way to veil her expanding silhouette from curious eyes, and large, loose robes did the rest. In the summer of 1492, Caterina disappeared from court for several weeks with a bout of fever. She saw no one except her most immediate circle but continued to send correspondence and conduct business at a brisk rate from her bed. By the time the ambassador to the duke of Milan noticed Caterina's absence, she had already been confined to her bed for eight days, and it was several more weeks until Caterina was up and about again. Most likely this disappearance was connected to the birth of Giacomo and Caterina's son, Bernardino, who would join the Riario children in the castle as Giacomo's illegitimate offspring from an unknown mother. It was probably in this period that Caterina and Feo married in secret to ensure the child's eventual rights, although the actual date of their marriage remains unknown. Everyone took the new addition in stride, especially Cobelli, who knew well the dangers of exposing the countess's indiscretions. One elderly artisan, a certain Sante di Sole, foolishly repeated the rumor, in public, that Caterina was Bernardino's mother. His punishment was exemplary. The irate countess assailed the poor man. "What is this I hear, that you have been running off at the mouth about me?" she demanded angrily. "Have you been saying that Sir Giacomo's son is mine?"
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The unfortunate man stammered and protested but, implacable, Caterina ordered the poor man beaten so harshly that he died from his injuries. Caterina, certain that she could coerce her people into keeping her secrets, ordered several other similar beatings. In public, Caterina's maternity of Bernardino remained uncertain until her deathbed, when she finally admitted to the child by her clandestine marriage with Feo and made provisions for him in her will.

In 1493, the Florentine ambassador Puccio Pucci arrived in Romagna and paid a visit to Caterina at her home inside Ravaldino. Although he would officially reside in Faenza, a Florentine ally, his real task was to keep an eye on the countess. On May 21 he arrived for an audience with Caterina and left posterity a picturesque description of her domestic life. Entering the throne room, he found Giacomo perched on a windowsill and wearing a fitted crimson silk jacket. His light brown hair fell in soft curls around his face and hung like tendrils over the collar. The sunlight illuminating him from behind bathed him in golden light and sparkled on the brocade mantle thrown carelessly over his shoulders. Caterina sat by him on a throne decorated with broad wings. Dressed in white damask silk, she looked like an angel, the porcelain glow of her face set off by the black scarf around her neck. "They seemed alone in the world,"
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wrote the startled ambassador, embarrassed by his intrusion upon such an intimate moment. Amid murmurs and caresses, the countess and her beloved Giacomo watched two small children playing. One was the countess's and one was Feo's. Caterina's toddler Sforzino cavorted with their son Bernardino until Sforzino fell and cut his leg and head and was carried away by Lazarus, a Jewish doctor of Caterina's household. The two parents hovered anxiously, no longer concerned about witnesses to their union.

Cobelli was both amazed and disappointed by Caterina's subjugation to Feo. Blaming it on the stars, he observed that "Venus and Mars dominate the skies." The weary chronicler rued the strange transformation of "our countess who we knew as virtuous, wise, and prudent."
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A
S CATERINA CONTINUED
her affair with Giacomo Feo, the political landscape in Italy was altering dramatically and dangerously. The distractions of her private life would blind her to its implications for her state.

The year 1492 had opened a new era for Italy, as well as for the Western world. In April Lorenzo de' Medici died and was mourned almost universally. Eulogized as "Italy's peacekeeper," Lorenzo the Magnificent was recognized as one of the greatest figures of the Renaissance. Caterina wrote letters of condolence and sincerely grieved for the passing of a man she had admired since she was a child. Yet it seemed that Lorenzo passed little of his "magnificence" on to his heirs. Lorenzo's son, twenty-one-year-old Piero, known as "the Unlucky," was no substitute for his father. Lorenzo had excelled through his bravery, brilliance, and benevolence; Piero embodied mediocrity. He favored recreation over statecraft and preferred hauteur to humility. The golden age of the Medicis was over. Piero's arrogance as well as his lack of interest in affairs of state soon led to widespread discontent among the Florentines. Moreover, the prominent scions of the cadet branch of the family, Giovanni and Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici, who had always resented their status as the "lesser Medicis"—less honored, less wealthy, and less powerful—embarked on a subversive campaign to discredit Piero. Florence, once a bastion of stability in Renaissance politics, was developing fissures in its very foundations.

Caterina was focused so intently on her corner of Romagna that she was slow to appreciate the transformative events taking place in Europe. For Spain, 1492 had been a year of triumph. After over a decade of war, the sovereigns Ferdinand and Isabella had retaken Granada, the last Moorish stronghold on the Iberian Peninsula, which had been in Muslim hands for 250 years. The newfound strength of victorious Spain introduced an important new player in the European balance of power. In the same year Pope Innocent VIII Cybo died, which brought a sigh of relief for Caterina, as Innocent had been hostile to the Riario family even as a cardinal. His successor, the Spanish cardinal Roderigo Borgia, was close to Isabella and Ferdinand and seemed, at first, like a godsend to the Riario family. Cardinal Borgia had stood as godfather to Ottaviano and had received Caterina's ambassadors warmly, promising to be like a "father to Ottaviano" while offering assurance that Caterina could "count on him for anything." There was every reason to hope for great things for Forlì during the pontificate of Alexander VI Borgia. Amid the jubilation for a freed Spain and a new pontiff, one momentous undertaking of 1492 passed relatively unnoticed. Isabella and Ferdinand outfitted a small group of ships to search for a safer trade route to the Indies, entrusting them to one Christopher Columbus from Genoa.

In France, 1492 saw twenty-two-year-old King Charles VIII take command of his throne from his sister, Anne of Beaujeu, who had been serving as regent. Described by the Italians as "hunchbacked and hideously ugly," King Charles was rumored to be barely literate, but he had been raised on tales of war and glory. Any lingering hostilities from the Hundred Years' War finally evaporated in November 1492, when Charles VIII and Henry VII Tudor of England signed the Treaty of Étaples, concluding an extended conflict between the two nations. Furthermore, Charles's marriage to Anne of Brittany had united the entire territory of France under one ruler. Like Spain, France was a unified, powerful country in 1492, ready to flex its muscles. With veteran troops at his command, Charles dreamed of an opportunity to show his strength. He cast his gaze across the Alps toward Italy.

Caterina's uncle Ludovico the Moor proved to be the catalyst for the unhappy encroachment of foreign armies on Italian soil. Ludovico, still only the power behind the throne, had long looked to consolidate his authority. In 1489 Caterina's brother Gian Galeazzo Sforza, now twenty years old and the rightful duke of Milan, had married Isabella of Aragon, the daughter of Alfonso, duke of Calabria, and the granddaughter of King Ferrante of Naples. After years of subjugation to his mother, Bona of Savoy, and then Ludovico the Moor, Gian Galeazzo seemed content to leave governing to his uncle and devoted himself instead to hunting, fishing, and other pleasant pastimes. His new bride was not of the same mind. Raised at one of the most powerful and ruthless courts of Italy, Isabella had no intention of taking second place to a usurper. When Ludovico married Beatrice d'Este two years later, sparks began to fly in earnest. Although the two weddings were social and political events of great importance in northern Italy, Caterina attended neither. As a dutiful niece and sister, she sent huge delegations bearing lavish gifts, but in 1489 she was still weathering the aftermath of Girolamo's murder. In 1491, however, she was probably too attached to Feo to be parted from him. That year a third wedding cemented the series of alliances that would ultimately affect Caterina's realm. The heir to the Duchy of Ferrara, Alfonso d'Este, on January 30, 1491, wed Caterina's sister Anna Sforza, reinforcing the bond between Ferrara and Milan.