The Tigress of Forli (15 page)

The most significant panels of the series were entrusted to the two most gifted painters, Botticelli and Perugino.
The Delivery of the Keys,
the image symbolizing Jesus' institution of the papacy, was assigned to Perugino, famous for the stateliness and dignity of his work. Botticelli was awarded the commission to paint the panel dearest to the pope, the one facing his throne. Although only two years earlier Botticelli had portrayed the members of the Pazzi conspiracy, including Archbishop Salviati, hanging indecently above the piazza after their execution, Sixtus now wanted the brilliant Florentine to execute the scene that would be peopled with members of his own family.

The Purification of the Leper
and
The Temptation of Christ
was among the first four panels executed in the summer of 1481. In the background, Botticelli rendered several miniature scenes from the temptation of Christ; the foreground features the high priest accepting the sacrifice offered by the leper whom Christ had healed. This is the only panel of the series where Jesus is absent from the principal scene. The priest's deep lapis robe laced with gold and his high tiara-like hat, with a single acorn on the summit, associate this noble figure with the pope and his authority to judge whether one is cleansed of sin. Santo Spirito, the hospital complex recently completed by Sixtus, dominates the image. This great gift to the city cared for both pilgrims to Rome and Romans themselves, all spiritual children of the pope. The striking fresco alludes to the pope's desire to heal the ills of both body and soul. By including this distinctively Roman building, Botticelli transported the scene out of first-century Galilee and placed it squarely in the Eternal City. Facing the papal throne stands Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, holding a white handkerchief to symbolize his elevated authority in the papal court. Directly behind the high priest Botticelli then placed Girolamo Riario, wearing the heavy gold chain that marked his important civic status. In this portrait, the count's fleshy face droops into the scowl fast becoming his most characteristic expression. The two papal nephews, already great rivals, face each other on either side of the high priest.
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On the right, however, Botticelli inserted a single graceful female figure. Painted in the style of his Flora of
The Primavera,
she approaches like a gentle breeze. This figure can be recognized as Caterina, entering the sixth month of her pregnancy with her third child, Bianca. The lovely woman of the fresco wears her swollen belly easily, walking with a light step as her golden hair trails behind her. At the time the panel was painted, Caterina was busily preparing for her trip to Forlì. Botticelli seems taken not only with the beauty of the countess but also with her vibrant energy. The figure in the painting effortlessly carries firewood over her shoulder, perhaps an allusion to Caterina's industriousness despite the summer heat and her advanced pregnancy. At her feet, an infant bearing grapes recoils as a viper winds itself around his leg. Since the viper is the symbol of the Sforzas, this child could be Cesare, the one-year-old son of the Riarios.

Botticelli and Caterina may indeed have spent more time together during his stay in Rome. Several art historians have recognized Caterina in his portrait of Saint Catherine kept in the Altenburg Staatliches Museum.
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The golden-haired woman in sharp profile represents Caterina's high position as well as her modesty as the wife of one of the most powerful men in Europe. This early portrayal of Caterina, noble, beautiful, yet turned away from the viewer, captures a young woman still dominated by her household and circumstances. Soon that phase of her life would come to an end.

Although their images in the Sistine Chapel suggest a glittering world free of cares and strife, the days of Riario glory were numbered. Sixtus was growing weaker. As the Romans realized that his papacy was drawing to a close, plans were laid to avenge Girolamo's extortions and outrages. The armed guards surrounding Caterina and her husband grew to a cumbersome and unruly number as Girolamo's fear of going out in public grew.

Girolamo exploited every minute of the waning papacy to extract as much money as possible from the College of Cardinals. Many of the churchmen capitulated to the count's demands. Joining forces with his nephew, Cardinal Raffaello Riario, who only a few years earlier had been the terrified Florentine prisoner in the wake of the Pazzi conspiracy, Girolamo ruled Rome from behind the now weak and aged pontiff. The Sienese ambassador Lorenzo Lanti warned his home republic that "the pope had put all the government in the hands of the count [Girolamo] and San Giorgio [Raffaello Riario]: temporal, spiritual, money, and everything." Lanti also noted that almost every judge in Rome was "ready to uphold their sentences."
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Girolamo sold church offices, demanded immediate payments of up to a thousand ducats from papal employees to allow them to keep their jobs, and imposed random taxes. He had torn down and burned numerous houses in the course of his extortions, and stole reliquaries and missals. Girolamo's own relative Antonio Basso della Rovere had denounced the count from his deathbed before witnesses, accusing him of having "committed crimes that had scandalized the universe" and warning that "God's justice, which no human being can escape, would soon be on him."
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Although most of Girolamo's accomplices were street thugs and ruffians, a few were brave, intelligent, and surprisingly loyal. Il Tolentino, the trusted governor of Forlì, had been recalled to Girolamo's side shortly after the Riarios returned to Rome. The count needed his acute ability to sniff out danger in the Curia, the governing body of prelates at the Vatican. A substitute for Il Tolentino in Forlì had been hastily chosen in the archbishop of Imola, a cruel and inept man who wrongfully punished the entire city for a supposed conspiracy by detaining all the citizens inside the city walls and forbidding the harvesting of grapes for wine, a major source of income to the town. The keeper of the citadel, Tommaso Feo, fearful of a full-scale revolt, sent word to Rome of the excesses of the archbishop. Il Tolentino leapt into the saddle and in three days and three nights of ceaseless riding returned to Forlì, where he was greeted with tears of joy from the grateful populace.

Girolamo's other trusted henchman was Innocenzo Codronchi, keeper of the Castel Sant'Angelo, the papal fortress of Rome. A citizen of Imola, Codronchi had proven his worth during the Battle of Campo Morto. In return, Girolamo gave him control of the most imposing building in Rome. The Castel Sant'Angelo had been built by the emperor Hadrian in the second century
A.D.
as a burial site for himself and future emperors. It didn't take long for the medieval Romans to realize that the building, a solid round drum of bricks and stone blocks, would make an impregnable fortress. Its strategic position across the Tiber from downtown Rome and its close proximity to the Vatican made its location decisive: the person who controlled the castle controlled Rome. The Castel Sant'Angelo (so named after the miraculous apparition of the archangel Michael in
A.D. 590
) protected the citizens of Rome until the eleventh century, when it was first used to detain political prisoners. In 1400, when the popes returned from Avignon, they assumed direct control of the fortress. With its high, thick walls, and its cannons trained on every part of the city, the Castel Sant'Angelo underwrote the papal insurance policy against internal revolt.

While Il Tolentino governed in Forlì and Codronchi resided in the castle, a new crony of Girolamo's appeared on Caterina's doorstep—Virgilio, lord of Bracciano, head of the power-hungry Orsini clan. The new partnership between Girolamo and Virgilio would drag Rome into civil war.

Although an international peace of sorts had been gained by 1480, in Rome the perennial tensions between the Orsini and the Colonna families—age-old rivals of the Roman aristocracy who had been feuding for centuries—were reaching the boiling point. Entire networks of Romans were tied to one or the other tribe, while the papacy teetered on a tightrope between the two. The hostilities between the Orsini and Colonna clans was one of the spurs that had goaded the popes to Avignon. Girolamo foolishly thought himself crafty enough to maneuver the situation to his advantage. In reality, Virgilio Orsini saw in the rapacious papal nephew a chance to bring about the downfall of his ancient enemy.

During the Salt War of 1482, when the duke of Calabria appeared outside Rome with his army, Sixtus called all of his Roman knights to his service. Virgilio Orsini hastened to obey but the Colonna, Savelli, and della Valle families refused, joining the duke and exploiting his military force to expropriate Orsini lands and expand Colonna holdings.

Although most of the noncombatant members of the Colonna clan took cover safely in their country estates, their allies were left to fend for themselves within the city walls. On April 3, 1482, the Santa Croce family, supporters of the Orsinis, spurred by Virgilio and assisted by Girolamo Riario's own soldiers, attacked the palace of the della Valles, staunch Colonna allies, with two hundred men. In the resulting fracas, a Colonna was killed.

Sixtus, desperately trying to restore calm, exiled the Santa Croce clan despite Girolamo's protection. He then razed their houses, hoping to eradicate the cancerous hatred of these clans by uprooting the family enclave. But Girolamo was implacable. On June 2, the count turned on members of the pope's cabinet, accusing Cardinal Giovanni Colonna, half brother to the murdered Colonna, as well as Cardinal Giovanni Battista Savelli of attempting to have him assassinated. Despite their high office as princes of the church, Girolamo insisted on their arrest. The first night of their imprisonment, they were housed in comfortable accommodations, which was Girolamo's sop to Sixtus, who protested the arrest; but as soon as the elderly pope was distracted, the count transferred his prisoners to the dank cells of the Castel Sant'Angelo.

Now when Caterina walked through the papal apartments, she no longer heard the lilting Tuscan accents of the Florentine painters, the giggles of women posing for frescoes, and the spirited discourse of theologians and philosophers. Instead, the clang of armor resounded in the halls, as did the voices of the mercenary soldiers, speaking in mixed languages. At the door of the papal palace, as the diarist Sigismondo dei Conti described it, "soldiers stood with their swords unsheathed ready for battle. All the court was filled with pain and anguish and the exasperation of the people was kept in check by force of arms."
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All of Caterina's intercessory powers were rendered useless, as the pope, failing in health, was no longer able to control his rampaging nephew. Sixtus's golden age of renewal was over. Girolamo was ushering in an age of iron.

Anticipating the pope's death and frantic to ensure the continued prosperity of his family, Girolamo purchased another house in 1483. Called "The Garden," it was deeded in the name of his four-year-old son, Ottaviano. This maneuver, Girolamo hoped, would protect the property from the many eager to retaliate once the count had lost his powerful benefactor.

In February 1483, Caterina and Girolamo hosted exceptionally flamboyant festivities for the Roman carnival. Together, she and Girolamo frequented the dances, races, and other amusements. Wine ran from fountains and tables groaned with food as the Riarios employed the ancient technique of bread and circuses to win favor in Rome. When the week of carousing was over, Caterina and Girolamo received ceremonial ashes and prepared to suffer the forty penitential days of Lent alongside their fellow Romans.

During the first sobering weeks of the season, Sixtus fell seriously ill. Convinced of the pope's imminent death, the College of Cardinals prepared to expropriate all of the Riario properties and titles while vengeful Romans made ready to sack and destroy Girolamo's home, erasing his decadelong stranglehold on the city.

The pope recovered, but Caterina and Girolamo had seen what awaited them in the absence of papal protection. Facing a formidable list of enemies, Caterina and her husband put aside their differences and stood united to protect their children's inheritance. In March, Sixtus appointed Caterina's uncle Ascanio Sforza as cardinal, giving the Sforzas another friend in the Curia. In June they left for Forlì once again, most likely bringing the rest of the most valuable Riario possessions with them. Cart after cart transported children, furniture, and cash far from the hands of the vindictive Romans and into the well-protected fortresses of their own dominions. They returned in November and Girolamo set about making his last play in Roman politics. A month later Caterina was again with child.

Despite the pope's precarious health and the Riarios' concerns for their future, Girolamo, instead of shoring up alliances, continued to provoke difficulties and divisions. In 1484 he began open war with the Colonna family, ostensibly for their treason during the Battle of Campo Morto. With the assistance of Virgilio Orsini, he occupied Colonna lands surrounding Rome, but his sights were set on Paliano and Marino, the largest of the Colonna fortresses. To that end, Girolamo demanded that the pope summon Lorenzo Colonna, lord of Marino and protonotary of the church, to answer the accusations against him. On May 30, Girolamo brought two hundred men to the Colonna house near the Piazza Venezia, where a brutal skirmish ensued, lasting two hours and leaving several dead. Wounded in the hand, Lorenzo Colonna wisely surrendered to Virgilio. According to Infessura, Girolamo, half mad with rage, tried repeatedly to stab the protonotary as he was taken to the Castel Sant'Angelo and threatened him: "Oh you traitor, you traitor, I'll hang you as soon as we get there."
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The only obstacle separating Lorenzo from Girolamo and his dagger was Virgilio Orsini, who kept the crazed count at bay.

The Colonna houses were sacked and pulled down, together with the palaces of the Savellis. Books, artworks, and other treasures of the family that had produced Pope Martin V and returned the papacy to Rome were stolen or destroyed. Dust and smoke arose at the foot of the Capitoline Hill, where the buildings lay in ruin.