The Tigress of Forli (43 page)

But what did Caterina want? After long years of battles, betrayal, imprisonment, and legal strife, was Caterina really planning to return as countess to rule Forlì? Of all the Riario family members dancing attendance on Pope Julius II, Caterina knew him best. Julius had crossed swords with her late husband Girolamo Riario after the Medici assassination in the Pazzi conspiracy as well as during Girolamo's persecution of the Colonna family. She knew that the pope could not be swayed once he had made up his mind, and despite the exuberant hope of her partisans, she knew he had no reason to favor his Riario cousins. She encouraged her supporters in Romagna, hoping that if she could catapult her family onto the ruler's throne, then Julius might accept it as a fait accompli, but she had few illusions about her allies in Rome. In October 1503, Caterina wrote to Ottaviano, warning him of the treacheries and dangers of the pontifical court. "The iron is hot and it is time to strike it," she advised her son, persuading him to press his suit for Forlì. At the same time she issued a stern warning. "Guard yourself from those you trust and those who offer you advice, know the foul tempers that are all around you; if you allow yourself to be led by others, you will wind up with your cap over your eyes, so wake up!"
⁹

Unlike earlier years when she would have leapt on her horse and galloped to the heart of the action, seizing by force what she desired while others hesitated, the older, wiser Caterina sat back in Florence and watched events unfold. After years on the tightrope of Italian politics and in the web of domestic intrigues, Caterina seemed ready to step back from the throne and let her sons take charge.

Her sons, however, were not as popular as Captain Ridolfi seemed to think. Ginevra Bentivoglio, of the ruling house of Bologna, was shocked by the intense dislike Caterina's arrogant sons provoked in the Bolognese and only her respect for Caterina kept her from turning the Bentivoglio house against the Riario family.

The year 1504 brought such a cascade of contradictory and bizarre correspondence that Caterina must have wondered what was in store every time she opened a letter. One report claimed that Imola had cried out for Spanish rule; another declared that the town pined for the Riarios. Venice seemed interested at one point, and then the cities seemed ready to revolt against church rule after the imposition of the
dazi.
This flurry of rumors was interspersed with love letters from her old soldiers, some expressing themselves brusquely, while others penned awkward verses to her.

 

What do you want from me? I've given you my heart!
You have my fidelity, my servitude.
Don't be ruled by ingratitude.
Gentle spirits cannot live without love.
Your favor for me is beatitude.
How can you leave me in solitude?
¹⁰

 

By the end of 1504, it became clear that Pope Julius II had no intention of putting Imola and Forlì in Riario hands again. Even Ottaviano had given up and began asking once again for a cardinal's hat in return for any claim on his state.

Although Caterina lost her lands, she regained her youngest son. On June 5, 1505, the lawsuit with Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici was resolved and Caterina came into what was left of her Medici husband's wealth. Most important, little Ludovico was returned to her. As Caterina was reestablished as the sole guardian of her son, she legally changed his name. Henceforth he would be known as Giovanni di Giovanni de' Medici to perpetuate the name of his much admired and beloved father. Not even in her wildest dreams could Caterina guess how important that name would one day be to the city of Florence.

As she took her final step back from politics, Caterina focused on her children. She moved back to the Castello villa, which had been returned to her along with custody of her son, intent on raising little Giovanni herself. She had already written to one of her former soldiers to ask him to find a small horse to teach the seven-year-old boy to ride and hunt, as she herself had done years ago on the Sforza estate in Milan.

Caterina's interest in her other children did not diminish. At long last, she had found a husband for her gracious and lovely Bianca. Her first fiancé, Astorre Manfredi, had been deposed and murdered by Cesare Borgia. The passions of a second betrothed, the considerably older count of Caiazzo, had cooled while waiting for Caterina's political troubles to be over. But Triolo de' Rossi, the count of San Secondo in the region of Parma, had brought joyous news during the trying year of 1503 by asking for Bianca's hand. Caterina's twenty-two-year-old daughter was married on July 28, 1503, and Caterina's first legitimate grandchild, Pietro Maria, was born a year later.

Ottaviano likely remained a bitter disappointment to his mother, although she never openly expressed her displeasure with him. By 1503 he had garnered a reputation in Rome as "obese in the body and fat in the head."
¹¹
Still oscillating between his desire for high prelature and a secular life, Ottaviano was considering a marriage proposal with a Venetian noblewoman along with a military
condotta
for Venice in 1503. Ultimately, Ottaviano fell back on the family's ecclesiastical reserves. His uncle, Cardinal Raffaello Riario, ceded the diocese of Viterbo and Volterra to him, and Ottaviano became a bishop in 1507. Unlike his uncles, he would never wear the red hat of the cardinal. Remembering the mistakes his own uncle Sixtus IV had made, Pope Julius avoided appointing the rapacious members of his family to high positions in the church. Although Viterbo had been a papal city for many years and still enjoyed a fair revenue, Ottaviano continued to hound his mother for money and gifts even at the age of thirty. "Could you send a large piece of
ciamellotto
cloth, in either black or purple, because I am with a monsignor every day and don't have the right clothes, imagine how I feel,"
¹²
he lamented in a letter of June 20, 1507. One month later, he wanted a new mantle and then on August 12 he asked for fifty ducats to buy himself a
gabbano,
a long clerical robe, so he could present himself before the pope as stylishly dressed as the other prelates. In 1508 Ottaviano found himself with clerical duties and no idea how to carry them out. He asked his mother, who spent much of her time in ecclesiastical circles, to send him a "good and honest vicar" to help him, as well as one of his mother's large missals in which all the notes for Holy Week were written, so he would not be lost while presiding over the most solemn Masses of the year.

But Ottaviano's most frequent refrain was to ask that his mother intervene with one of her many relatives to make him a cardinal. Caterina never seemed inclined to pressure her sister who was married to the Holy Roman Emperor to assist Ottaviano. Maximilian I had remained aloof during her defense at Forlì, nor had he intervened in her imprisonment. Completely absorbed in subduing the Netherlands and his unruly German nobles, Maximilian would not meddle in the petty affairs of Italy. Caterina may have also been concerned about the effect of Rome and power on the weak-willed Riario men. It had utterly corrupted Ottaviano's father, Girolamo, and her son had always been more of a Riario than a Sforza. She did, however, take care of Cornelia, Ottaviano's illegitimate daughter, bringing her to live at the convent of the Muratte and ensuring that she was well raised and decorously married.

Cesare, her second oldest, was her most successful son. Named archbishop of Pisa at the age of nineteen, he was well liked in the Curia. But like his older brother, Cesare showed more interest in what he could obtain from his mother than any concern for her well- being. More documents testify to his business interests than his pastoral care—not surprising, since it seems that Archbishop Riario preferred to reside in Rome in the splendid palace of his uncle Cardinal Raffaello Riario. After renouncing any claim on Forlì, Ottaviano and Cesare were awarded twenty-five hundred gold ducats a year between them by Julius II for their losses, to be raised by a
dazio
on sheep and supplemented by papal funds.

One of her sons doted on his mother. Galeazzo, named for Caterina's father, was sixteen when his mother was released from the Castel Sant'Angelo. He was the brightest of the Riario boys, and Caterina had always nurtured high hopes for him. When he was only thirteen, she had tried to get him a
condotta,
but ultimately she sent him to Raffaello Riario to complete his education in Rome. At nineteen he married Maria della Rovere, niece of Pope Julius II and sister of the duke of Urbino. One of their daughters would take vows and become a religious sister of Caterina's beloved Muratte. His reputation as a just man and his powerful connections made Galeazzo a favorable candidate as ruler of Forlì and Imola during the years when a Riario return seemed possible. Despite never reclaiming the family throne, Galeazzo lived a successful life and showed a kindness to his mother that his brothers never had. His regular letters express genuine interest in his mother's health and peace of mind; he offered to come to her side at any moment she might need him. Of all her boys sired by Riario, the son bearing the treasured name of her father was her most steadfast.

Her youngest son by Girolamo had been named Francesco but nicknamed "Sforzino." Little information remains about him. Sforzino was fourteen when his mother moved to Florence and he most likely remained in her household for several years beyond that. He too followed an ecclesiastical career, ultimately becoming the bishop of the Tuscan town of Lucca, a few short miles from Pisa, where Cesare was archbishop.

As of 1505, Caterina's energy and drive centered on her beloved Giovanni. Caterina had used her relationship with the marquis of Mantua to influence the Florentine courts, and although she would not exploit her sister Bianca Maria's marriage to Maximilian to obtain Ottaviano's coveted cardinal's hat, she did beg their intervention to retrieve Giovanni from the clutches of his Medici uncle.

Just when Caterina emerged victorious from her custody suit, Florence was entering one of its most glorious artistic zeniths. Michelangelo's
David
had just been hauled into place in front of the Palazzo dei Priori in the center of town, where Caterina would have seen it as she marched to face her opponents in the legal arena. Caterina had much in common with David: like the shepherd boy, she had been thrust into the hard world of politics at a tender age; like the Jewish king, after a long and bitter battle to gain her crown, she had fallen victim to her own lust and cruelty; and like the author of the psalms, she had found solace in adversity through repentance.

Caterina hired tutors to impress reading and writing into the willful head of her spirited son, who cared little for study, preferring swimming and riding. Tutors came and went at the villa. No sooner had one drummed some flowery Latin verses into the child's head than another was on his way from Romagna.

The hours of the day not dedicated to Giovanni were occupied with Caterina's
favorite hobby, botanical experiments—brewing concoctions for everything from antidotes for various ailments to cosmetics. The large garden at Castello offered her possibilities for growing her own herbs, and she corresponded regularly with people all over Italy to obtain ingredients and new recipes. She eagerly awaited shipments of new products from her long-standing friend Anna in Rome, a Jewish woman who prepared the best creams for smoothing unsightly bumps and wrinkles from the skin. Another, Luigi Ciocca of Mantua, could barely contain his excitement as he scribbled across the page that he had obtained a special unguent used by Isabella d'Este, the marquise of Mantua herself. This treasured prize was believed to be the beauty secret of the woman known as the "the First Lady of the Renaissance" and whose likeness would be immortalized by both Leonardo and Titian.

Caterina also gathered remedies and cures. She kept on hand numerous ointments for scrapes and cuts, a necessity with a boisterous boy in the house. Sometimes she used compresses of sage on a skinned knee or elbow; for more serious wounds she prepared a mixture of wax, pine resin, a paste made of milk solids, water and lime powder, and vinegar. Sleeping potions and painkillers were also numerous on her shelves, along with medications for the plague and antidotes to poison. Her labors and discoveries would be posthumously published in her name as
Gli Esperimenti.

Now in her forties, Caterina still excited the admiration of many, and often a passionate love letter would arrive by post. Warriors fighting at the front dreamed of her; those setting off to seek their fortune wrote to ask for her encouragement. Physically, she kept herself worthy of admiration, drying her hair in the sun to keep it fair and diligently applying preparations to lighten her skin, cover freckles, and wipe away her first wrinkles.

Caterina's household experienced a happy expansion in 1508. Bianca, Caterina's devoted daughter, brought her four-year-old son Pietro Maria and her newborn girl to visit Castello. Caterina doted on them, so much so that Bianca later wrote her mother to thank her for all the attention she had showered on the children. Bianca so appreciated her mother's qualities that she left Pietro Maria in Caterina's care to learn to ride and hunt. Bianca corresponded regularly with her mother, occasionally sending a wheel of Parmesan or a package of candied fruit, Caterina's favorite sweet.

Caterina had found peace at last, preparing the next generation to carry on the Sforza tradition and living in the countryside as she had during her first carefree years of childhood. But as had often happened in her turbulent life, hardship arrived once again. This time danger was not from outside, but from within her own body.

In April 1509, Ottaviano broke a year-long epistolary silence to reprimand Don Fortunati, the faithful parish priest who was always by Caterina's side, that he had not been told that his mother was seriously ill. He complained that he had heard this news from a third party because Don Fortunati's letter of March 14 had not arrived until June 21.