The Tigress of Forli (32 page)

Caterina's behavior toward her own children shocked Italy. Letters and reports, written by eyewitnesses or reporting hearsay, recounted the lurid tales of the countess's escalating vengeance. Antonio Pavagliotta's mistress had been captured and, together with their three children, murdered. The priest himself, betrayed and captured outside Ravenna, had fared little better than his colleagues. He was brought to the square on a market day, scorched over hot coals, and then beheaded. The bodies of the assassins hung outside the walls of the city, a macabre warning to those who would betray the countess. The heads were affixed to the municipal bell tower, where they remained for over a year, until February 17, 1497, "when there was a strong wind." Caterina, who had ordered such gruesome ornaments removed after the execution of the Roffi conspirators, remained in stony silence this time. She also allowed her troops to run rampant through the city. In the past, she had invariably intervened to protect Forlì from the rapacious behavior of soldiers. But because none of the people had helped her beloved Giacomo, she would not help them either.

Caterina was in a private hell. Her vendetta had brought her only disgrace. Her disclosure to the Forlivesi that she and Giacomo had been secretly married (although she didn't claim Bernardino as her son) impressed no one as a reasonable excuse for the slaughter. Cobelli, totaling the number of people targeted for revenge in the wake of Feo's murder, listed thirty-eight dead and many others tortured, exiled, or imprisoned.
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In the reprisals after the murder of Girolamo, nine had died—a pittance, compared to this bloodbath. Pope Alexander VI, the duke of Milan, and the Signoria of Florence recoiled at what the pope described as the "unheard-of bloodthirstiness committed to satisfy her passions."
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Overcome with misery, Caterina chose to live among the dead. She ordered a memorial to her beloved cast in bronze, the most precious sculptural material available. The large, finely chased casket rested on four exquisitely modeled lion's paws. Feo's monument rivaled Barbara Manfredi's tomb as Forlì's finest work of sculpture. But no Forlivesi, pilgrims, or tourists would ever see it. Instead of placing it in a church, Caterina erected her shrine to Feo within the walls of Ravaldino, where she could dwell on the loss of her husband every day.

Giacomo was not denied the honor of a public monument, however. Feo's sudden rise in status and wealth had made him eligible to endow a private family chapel in the Church of San Girolamo. To fresco its walls, Caterina and Giacomo had hired Melozzo da Forlì, the former court painter to Pope Sixtus IV who had decorated the Riario palace in Rome and immortalized Girolamo Riario on the walls of the Vatican library. Melozzo replicated the grandeur of his Roman frescoes in this work,
The Stories of Saint Giacomo,
particularly in the martyrdom scene, where the perspective illusion of the deeply vaulted hall employed the same dramatic rendering of space. The mathematician Luca Pacioli lauded the chapel for its "wondrously perfect proportions." Melozzo had died in 1494, much lamented by all of Forlì, especially by his friend Leone Cobelli, who had looked to the older master as his mentor in painting. Caterina now continued the project, hiring Melozzo's best assistant, Marco Palmezzano, to create
The Miracle of the Hanged Man,
which included several portraits of members of Caterina's family. A striking and youthful Giacomo stands at the center, with Melozzo's perfectly ordered world arrayed around him. Girolamo Riario kneels in sharp profile before the figure of Saint Giacomo, who is resurrecting a hanged man. The expressionless face and turned head seem to emphasize his distance from Caterina's affections. By adding a portrait of her first husband in her lover's chapel, Caterina highlighted Giacomo's loyalty to the Riario clan, reminding viewers that he had faithfully served the count for many years. This image would preserve for posterity Giacomo's identity as a noble retainer of the Riario family, not the countess's gigolo. Caterina kneels behind Girolamo, dressed in pilgrim's garb and shrouded in a heavy widow's veil. She too looks ahead with empty eyes. There, represented amid her deceased husbands, Caterina appears devoid of life, oblivious to young Ottaviano, who bows his head, in a cascade of golden ringlets, toward her, begging for her attention. She seems to ignore even Feo, whose adoring gaze tries to direct her to the miracle of the resurrected man. This portrait captures the devastated Caterina, oblivious to the world around her, looking fixedly toward the afterlife.
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The winter of 1496 was one of the coldest on record. Sleet, hail, and freezing winds howled around the stone walls of Ravaldino. Apprehensive Forlivesi wondered what the future held. Many had noted ominous portents, such as stones falling from the skies. Famine had struck in Romagna, pushing the price of grain too high for the poor people of the city to afford.

Those icy months were further darkened by the appearance of a new disease. The mysterious genital rashes and swollen lymph nodes baffled local doctors as they plied the usual salt-dried serpent powder or leek paste used to treat leprosy or canker sores. The inflammations disappeared after a few days, which seemed merciful, for it was not known that this was merely the first phase of the affliction. The spread of syphilis had begun. Named the "French disease" for the soldiers of Charles VIII who had disseminated it, the deadly infection had arrived for the first time in this part of Europe. With the Holy Year in the offing, celebrating the fifteen-hundredth anniversary of Christ's birth, the menacing auguries and the new plague seemed to herald the end of the world.

The fortress ramparts had become Caterina's tomb where she mourned Feo and dwelled on the wreckage of her lands caused by the French invasion and her own rage. The woman who had bravely stormed into plague-stricken areas, fought off assassins and usurpers, and survived the delivery of seven children, was paralyzed by sorrow, shame, and disappointment. In a desperate letter to her uncle, she confided thoughts about drowning herself.
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But true to Sforza form, Caterina's first steps toward recovery were taken on a battlefield. During the French invasion, Count Guido of Gaggiolo, known as "Guerra" ("War") had profited from the general distraction to capture the town of Castrocaro from the archbishop of Ravenna and that of Cuseroli from his own brother. In November 1495, a Romagnol league of sorts, comprising soldiers from Faenza, Castrocaro, and Forlì, assembled under the command of Achille Tiberti, lord of Cesena. The small but well-trained force marched south to retake these cities and rid Romagna of the bellicose Count Guido. The expedition was successful: Guerra was killed, the castle of Cuseroli was returned to Caterina's friend and ally, and Caterina was given the fortress town of Castrocaro.

But this Pyrrhic victory was short-lived. The archbishop of Ra- venna claimed protection from the Republic of Venice, which had been willing to deal with Guerra but would not tolerate Caterina's possession of the town. The military machine of the Most Serene Republic trained its sights on Caterina's tiny garrison. Terrified at the prospect of conflict with his fickle Venetian allies, the duke of Milan implored Caterina to return the town. Caterina dutifully obeyed her uncle, but the taste of battle had revitalized her spirits.

As the winter wore on, Caterina shifted her focus from her own woes to her subjects. Confronting a famine, caused by both the cold weather and the troops' trampling on the fields, she purchased large quantities of grain to sell cheaply to her people. From February to June, five hundred pounds of flour a day were distributed free of charge to the poor of Forlì. Concerned about protecting the destitute from starvation in the future, Caterina and the archbishop of Forlì subsidized the local confraternities to form the Company of Charity, which would guarantee food to deprived families.

The salt shortage of 1496 was only slightly less serious. The wet winter had kept the salt beds in Cervia from drying out, so they could not be harvested, and without the precious mineral people would be unable to cure meats and preserve other foods. Caterina bought four hundred sacks of salt for transport from the Adriatic coast to Forlì. So precious was this shipment that it traveled under the protection of a military detachment. Arriving in big chunks and full of sand, the salt nevertheless allowed Forlì and Imola to stave off famine for a year.

While dedicating time and energy to repairing her relationship with her subjects, Caterina also began to rebuild her personal world. She started by tearing down the palace where she had lived with Girolamo, leaving no beam standing to remind her of "every memory of that place where she had suffered shame and disrespect."
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The destruction of the house on the piazza where she had lived among the people coincided with the unexpected illness and death of her own twelve-year-old son, Giovanni Livio. This child, born shortly after her arrival in Forlì, had been the symbol of her new life and her role as the wife of Count Girolamo of Forlì. But during the twelve years since that joyous day, Livio's godfather had murdered Girolamo, the city had turned against her, and now she had alienated her citizens. No longer a Forlivesi or a Riario or a Feo, she was all Sforza.

The remains of her old house were reused for new building projects, the most important being her new home in the fortress of Ravaldino. As a child in Milan, Caterina had flourished within the confines of family castles. The Sforzas had excelled in constructing strong castles for security but also for pleasure. The high walls of Ravaldino protected Caterina from the danger of assassination as well as the critical eyes of the world. During the course of 1496, Caterina transformed part of the dank Ravaldino into a comfortable and luxurious living space reminiscent of her childhood home. Within the square belt of the ramparts, Caterina built a palace nestled by the
maschio,
or keep. High vaulted ceilings—instead of low coffered wood—displayed Caterina's taste for modern architecture. As in her former palace in Rome, there were richly carved columns and exquisitely painted walls, punctuated by decorative reliefs, bearing her coat of arms. Delicately designed ceramic tiles paved the floors in the warm yellows and reds typical of Romagna. This became her intimate inner sanctum, known as Il Paradiso. Open loggias embellished with frescoed vines and garlands looked out over a vast park with orchards that supplied her table with fruits; exotic trees, imported for their height, formed a shield around Caterina's playground. A large herb garden encircled the little hut Caterina used for her "experiments," the production of formulas for beauty creams and medicinal remedies. Outside the castle walls, a large forest offered Caterina and her family quarry for their favorite sport, hunting. The two-mile circumference was delineated by thick bushes, which contained ample boar, stag, and hare. Caterina's Paradise was connected to the main keep by a covered walkway, where a spiral staircase wound up to her lookout point on the
maschio.
The military portion of the fortress was never neglected: the barracks, the squares where she could review the troops, and the dungeons were all repaired and updated. The domestic renovations had simply transformed the gloomy fortress into a magnificent castle.
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The year 1496 held one more tragedy for Caterina. In May, her half sister Bianca died in childbirth. Caterina joined Bianca's husband, Tommaso Feo, in Imola to mourn. After the death of her husband, sister, and son in a short time, Caterina turned to her family and set about mending fences with her children. She began with Ottaviano, thinking to arrange a fitting marriage for her firstborn. She negotiated an engagement to Isotta Bentivoglio, the daughter of Giovanni Bentivoglio of Bologna. This marriage would cement family alliances, but in the summer of 1496, Isotta surprised everyone by declaring her intention of taking religious vows and joining a convent. The embarrassment caused by her abrupt rejection of Ottaviano increased Caterina's already considerable doubts about Bentivoglio loyalties. In the wake of Feo's death, numerous rumors implicated Giovanni Bentivoglio (among many others) in the murder. Conspirators in the assassination, thieves, and even one of Caterina's more unscrupulous accountants had found refuge with the Bentivoglios. Caterina perceived the refusal of marriage as a betrayal and it nearly drove her into another vengeful fury. Her rapid-fire letters to her uncle insisted that she had been "atrociously provoked." "I tolerated this [Bentivoglio's offenses] with much patience, yet fury often weakens patience, and furthermore, demonstrating that many wrongs and injuries don't have any effect, often encourages the wicked to do even worse." Caterina closed the letter, however, with the promise to "tend toward forgiveness rather than vendetta."
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Nonetheless, Caterina had already sought revenge by sending assassins into Bologna to murder one of her bitterest enemies, Giovanni Battista Brocchi. They failed and Caterina sheepishly had to admit to her uncle that she had sent the killers. In her defense she wrote, "I have been gravely wronged, and I still want to get my hands on him, to further thwart those who conspire against me... I confess, I did not do a good thing, as you said, but there is no need for Mr. Giovanni [Bentivoglio] to act amazed, as I am made of the same stuff as he."
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In the end Caterina took a more diplomatic revenge, threatening to offer shelter to the Malvezzi clan, implacable enemies of the Bentivoglios. But the rising tide of hostility was weakening the two former allies.

Having failed to unite Ottaviano with the Bentivoglio family, Caterina decided to arrange for him to gain some military experience. From June to September she bombarded Duke Ludovico of Milan with letters asking him to "get sixteen-year-old Ottaviano's career off to a good start."
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Ludovico, perhaps sensing that in military matters Ottaviano was more of a Riario than a Sforza, responded with a new marriage proposal. The next candidate was a daughter of Marquis Giovanni Francesco Gonzaga of Mantua, a wealthy state traditionally allied with Milan. Caterina's diplomatic refusal cited the "poor and turbulent condition of things in Italy,"
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but her desire to avoid outside political interference is evident in her letter. Amid complaints regarding Giovanni Bentivoglio, who "wants to govern here as well," Caterina hinted at her doubts about the Gonzaga family's motives for the match. Ottaviano, however, spent no time despairing over his lost fiancées. He was already involved with a carpenter's daughter, who bore him a child in 1497.