v.. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNf(>* SAN DIEGO ^ S3 CATHERINE SFORZA CATHERINE SFORZA. AT THE AGE Or 18 l + Sl. From a Painting anributed to Marco Palmeggiani (rorli Gallery.) I I e IT •> " I \ I \ 1 CATHERINE SFORZA BY COUNT PIER DESIDERIO R^SOLINI AUTHORIZED EDITION, TRANSLATED AND PREPARED WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF THE AUTHOR BY PAUL SYLVESTER ILLUSTRATED WITH NUMEROUS REPRODUCTIONS FROM ORIGINAL PICTURES AND DOCUMENTS LONDON WILLIAM HEINEMANN 1898 All rights reserved 2)c£)(catcD BY PERMISSION TO THE QUEEN OF ITALY TRANSLATOR'S NOTE The translator is too keenly alive to the charm of the original work not to realize that some of its elements must evaporate in the process of translation. Among these he accounts the contrast afforded by the modern colloquialisms of the Italian narrative to the archaic diction of the quotations by which it is enriched. By this perhaps unconscious artifice the voices of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are made to speak in the ear of the nineteenth, so bridging over the gap, that the author may well claim to have made tangible the great dim phantom of that wonder of her age, of whom a modern critic has happily said — de son vivant die devint mythe. The numbers of the documents quoted in the course of this volume refer to an appendix, which, besides letters and other documents, includes Gli Experiuienti (some five hundred household and other recipes) of the Lady of Forli. — Caterina Sforza, Vol. III., di Pier Desiderio Pasoliui, Roma, Loescher. PREFACE A SHORT life of Catherine Sforza was written by Fabio Oliva towards the middle of the sixteenth century, and another, in three volumes 4to, less than a century ago by the Spanish Abbe Burriel, who, with others of his order and nationality, spent many years of exile in Forli. To Burriel must be ascribed the merit of examining con- temporary chronicles. But from lack of critical acumen, he failed to interpret and sometimes even to utilize them ; in Catherine Sforza he was bent upon recognizing a second Countess Mathilda. It has been my good fortune to read more than five hundred of Catherine's letters ; Burriel never saw but one ; all the correspondence which elucidates her history remained unknown to him, and he published few documents. Extensive research in various archives, Italian and foreign, has yielded a large collection of documents, enabling me to gradually complete and rectify the narrative of many episodes of the life of Catherine, and to relate others, hitherto unknown, of her early youth and her later years. The figure presented to us by the biographers is so intangible that we cannot grasp it, the one created by tradition melts under the test of docu- ments. The legends have some, but not all of the elements of truth, and even this truth is vitiated, the exception standing for the rule, and fantastic stories for history. xii PREFACE The aim of the present book, which reproduces many of Catherine's letters, is to bring her nearer to us than has been done by any preceding work. The reader, to whom is revealed not only the life of the militant sovereign, but that of the private woman, will be the better able to judge of the moral significance of this historic figure, so famous and so little known. Pier Desiderio Pasolini. ERRATA page 9, last line but one, read Lucia da Torsana, an excellent helpmate 39, descriptive names, No. 2, after Lungara read now Palazzo Corsini 56, heading of Chap. VI, for August 1881 read 1481 59, line 2 1, yi^r twentieth ;-6W(/ nineteenth 59, line 25, for Leoni read Leone 63, line ii,y£7;' setters r^ar/ Segusian hounds 239, line 5, for Fortunato read Fortunati 275, line i,yi^r Imola rcao'at Imola ; y^;- whose poor lord doth at commend 7-ead doth commend 334, line 9, yt>;- latter read former 341, line 27, for Borsi read Bossi CONTENTS BOOK I ORIGIN OF THE HOUSE OF SFORZA CHAP. I. Catherine's Ancestrv ..... BOOK II CATHERINE'S GIRLHOOD II. Childhood — Marriage . . . , III. The Assassination of Galeazzo . IV. From Milan to Rome . . . . 21 26 32 BOOK III CATHERINE AND THE RIARIO V. Who were the Riario? 45 VI. Catherine in the Romagna and Venice . . 56 VII. Catherine, the Riario, Orsini and Colonna . 6g VIII. Catherine in the Castle of St. Angelo . . 75 IX. Catherine leaves Rome — The New Pope . . 82 X. The Taxes of Forli 89 XI. Catherine and Innocenzo Codronchi . . 98 xii. The Conspiracy of the Roffi . . 103 xiii. The Assassination of (^irolamo Riario . .107 CONTENTS CHAl'. XIV. XV. XVI. XVII. XVIII. BOOK IV CATHERINE'S WIDOWHOOD Catherine and the Assassin The Legend of the Fort The Flight of the Orsi The Restoration . Catherine's Vengeance I'AGE 128 148 161 BOOK V A CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE XIX. The Castellane of Ravaldino . XX. Charles VIII. in Italy XXI. The Assassination of Giacomo Feo . XXII. Catherine and Ludovico il Moro 171 179 188 200 BOOK VI THE HOUSE OF MEDICI xxiii. Giovanni Popolano XXIV. The Florentine Alliance . XXV. Assassins in Romagna . XXVI. The Legation of Machiavelli 211 228 239 BOOK VII CATHERINE AND THE BORGIA XXVII. The Defences of Forli xxviii. Valentino takes Imola XXIX. Forli before the Siege XXX. Valentino at Forli XXXI. The Fall of Ravaldino XXXII. C^SAR Victorious. XXXIII. The Prisoner of War . xxxiv. The Pope's Impeachment XXXV. The Deliverance . xxxvi. The Last Troubles and the End 265 284 289 300 310 322 339 348 357 372 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Catherine Sforza ..... Frontispiece House of the Attendolo-Sforza Family, Cotignola House of the Attendolo-Sforza Family, Cotignola Autograph Letter of Girolamo Riario . Panorama of Rome in the Time of Catherine Sforza Panorama of Rome (part ii.) ..... The Librarian Platinus before Sixtus IV. Coins Struck by the Riario ..... Palace Built by the Riario-Sforza, 1484 Autograph Letter of Catherine Sforza to the Signory of Sienna ........ Castle of St. Angelo in the Fifteenth Century . Castle of St. Angelo before the Demolitions of 189 Bianca Maria Sforza. Palace of the Podesta The Church of St. Mercurial The Miracle of the Fowls Giovanni de' Medici delle Bande Nere CosiMO de' Medici, Son of Giovanni Octaviano Riario. Medal Coined by Nicolo Fiorentino Letter of Catherine Sforza, dated September 14, 1498 Arms of Pope Alexander VI Arms of C^sar Borgia I'^ORT of Imola ......... Woman's Armour, probably made for Catherine Sforza Woman's Armour {back) Fort of Ravaldino : Present Day CiESAR Borgia ......... Castle of Malatesta, or Murata 4 5 35 38 39 48 60 61 71 78 79 95 119 153 176 218 219 224 230 248 265 287 312 323 325 335 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Castle of Malatesta, or Murata {anot]ier view) Arms of C^sar Borgia Castle of St. Angelo in the Fifteenth Century . Castle of St. Angelo Passage from the Vatican to the Castle of St. Angelo Window in the Castle of St. Angelo Cannon's Mouth, Castle of St. Angelo . Window, Castle of St. Angelo .... Autograph Letter of Catherine Sforza Castello, a Villa of the Medici near Florence . Maria Salviati de' MediCi Medici Castle, Florence PAGE 337 343 345 349 353 355 357 367 381 390 392 BOOK I ORIGIN OF THE HOUSE OF SFORZA CHAPTER I CATHERINE'S ANCESTRY At the latter end of the fourteenth century bands of foreign mercenaries roamed at will over the bloodstained lands of down-trodden Italy, fighting now for one prince, now for another. Indifferent to the rights or wrongs of those who paid them, they remained constant only in their desire to amass wealth; an ambition which in the case of their leaders, or condotticri, was sometimes supplemented and gratified by the acquisition of a State and the foundation of a princely dynasty. The Italians, in course of time, followed their example. Alberigo da Barbiano, a young gentleman of Romagna, raised a banner with the motto: Liber Ital. ab. exter., and by the union of rival factions opened a new field to the prowess and hopes of all. Little was heard, henceforward, of old feuds in the villages and castles of Romagna, where all were banded together in new aims. The movement spread rapidly ; the boldest youths escaped from home, joined the nearest camp, and Italian companies, eager and in unison, prevailed against alien ones. Not only was the honour of Italian arms saved, but foreign hirelings were supplanted by Italian condotticri. The most brilliant example of a movement that was individual rather than collective, military than national, is f)und in the family of the Attendolo-Sforza of Cotignola. Its members surpassed the most famous condotticri in war and statecraft, and in their history it is easier to follow the steps that led them to a principality than in that of any other Italian family. 3 a'nesiJ^ma 4, HOUSE OP' THE ATTENDOLO-SFORZA FAMILY, COTIGNOLA. CATHERINE'S ANCESTRY 5 " Sforza (Muzzo from Giacomo or Giacomuzzo)^ was born at Cotignola, an old community of the Romagna, close to the Via Emilia in the county of Faenza," writes Zazzera in his Nobilta d' Italia. " His father was Giovanni of the Attendoli, a family of greater influence than nobility: of great wealth. HOUSE OF TIH-; ATTENDOLO-SFORZA FAMILY, COTIGNOLA. however, and flourishing by reason of a numerous progeny given to the service of arms. His (Muzzo's) mother was ^ This same account of his name and origin was given by "Muzio" Sforza to Robert of Bavaria, when the latter wished to grant him a new coat of arms, which would have connected him by descent with a city and a royal liouse of Dacia. Muzzo became afterwards corrupted into "Muzio" by adulators of the Sforza princes who affected to trace the descent of the great condottiere from Mutius Sccevola. 6 ORIGIN OF THE HOUSE OF SFORZA Elisa, a woman of virile mind, of the clannish House of the Petrascini. . . . She gave birth to twenty-one children, whom she so educated that they set no store by ornate garments, delicate viands, nor soft beds ; and all, being of a certain vigorous valour of mind, upheld the reputation of the family by frequently resorting to arms.^ . . . At that time the halls and chambers in the houses of the Attendoli were not hung with tapestries, but with shields and armour ; the beds were wide and without coverings. Therein slept troops of armed kinsmen, and all were so alert and hardy that, without either choice or order, they partook in common of the frugal viands that were served up to them by serving-boys and muleteers." The education received by the Attendoli from their mother tempered and adapted them to those new times in which simple soldiers of fortune, from a little Romagnole village, could attain to the dominion of one of the foremost of European States. In the few generations in which the marvellous career of this family was developed, the ancestral type of Elisa was never lost : wives and sisters fought side by side with husbands and brothers, or in their stead, and by the renown of their valour and beauty upheld their State and lent security and honour to their lives. Their glory culminated in the heroic deeds of a warlike princess, the great-granddaughter of Muzzo or Muzio Attendolo, and the last, but perhaps the most perfect type of the knightly heroine of the middle ages. One evening of the year 1382, Giacomo (Giacomuzzo) Attendolo, afterwards surnamed Sforza, was quietly digging the paternal land when he heard the sound of pipes and drums. Some soldiers of the company of Boldrino of Panicale had been sent into that country to recruit. Behind ^ " For," continues Zazzera, "they bad a mortal enmity to the Pasolini wlio were their equals ; Martino Pasolino, head of that House, having forcibly detained a noble maiden with a great inheritance for her dower, who was affianced to Bartolo, brother of Sforza (Muzzo). For this reason tliey were wont to fall on each other as in veritable battle, and many were slain. In the end Martino, having lost his son and all his friends, was driven from the Commune." Zazzera, Delia Nobilta d' Italia [della Fainiglia Sforza). CATHERINE'S ANCESTRY 7 them he perceived some of his own companions who had been already enrolled. " O Muzzo ! " (Giacomuzzo) cried the latter, " cast away your spade, and come with us to seek your fortune ! " Muzzo threw his spade into an oak, meaning, if the spade fell, to take it up again for ever ; if it stayed there, to be a soldier. The spade did not fall, and when night came, Muzzo fled from Cotignola, on one of his father's horses, and joined the camp. Two years later Muzio^ returned to visit his parents, but as his heart was ever with arms and armaments, his father said, " Be then a man of arms ! go back to the camp and make thy fortune!" And he pledged a strip of land to buy him four horses and his arms. Muzio returned to the camp followed by a troop of his kinsmen, eager to acquire power and riches ; his violence earned him the nickname of Sforza ; bold and turbulent, he could scarcely endure to hear of the adventures of more fortunate condottieri. Broglio of Chieri was Lord of Assisi, Biordo of his native Perugia ; Acuto (John Hawkswood), an Englishman, of Cotignola. Their success kept Sforza sullen by day and wakeful by night. "Am I not as good as these.''" he asked himself. " May I not beat these strangers, who plunder our richest soil and capture our fairest cities ? " For the cup was brimming over, and the foreign orgy was nearing its end. The butchery at Faenza (March 29, 1376), and the more horrible slaughter, by the Bretons and English, of Acuto, by command of Robert, Cardinal of Geneva, had stirred the whole peninsula. Romagna arose from that bath of blood with a sense of revolt against the foreign hordes, and of envy of the luck of their leaders. " But among all," says Giovio, " Alberigo Balbiano, illustrious by the splendour of his arms, inflamed him (Sforza) to follow the wars." Sforza and his Romagnole band went to swell the ranks of the company of St. George, composed exclusively of Italians who had sworn never to turn their backs upon the enemy. After these had, in more than one place, vanquished the Iketons, killed the French, beaten the Germans, broken the ' I'ide note on Muzio (corruption of Muzzo) on page 5. 8 ORIGIN OF THE HOUSE OF SFORZA Spaniards, and routed the Savoyards and the English, they sufficiently proved that the Italians had still some claim to a reputation for valour. Thus the fortunes of the House of Sforza grew with the renascent glory of Italian arms. Sforza was the greatest and most fortunate of coudotticri — he fought for four popes and four kings. After the death of King Ladislaus of Naples he attached himself to Joan, his sister and successor, who " lived shamelessly, surrounded by a varied and ever-changing circle of lovers. . . . Sforza, a most gallant soldier, took his place among these." ^ Sforza was not without a certain rustic cunning, but " inexpert in intrigues and in the ways of Courts, he fell an easy prey to treason." - Pandolfo Alopo, his rival in the Queen's love, thrust him into prison, then appealed to him to help him to oppose Giacomo della Marca, whom Joan had chosen for her husband despite his age, " the better to manage and circum- vent him." But the latter, who cared more for his crown than for his queen, deprived the unhappy princess of her power and tormented her ; Alopo lost his head on the scaffold, and Sforza, in chains in a dungeon, awaited torture. The Virgin appeared to him and promised him that he should not suffer. Invoking her name, he resisted his tor- mentors, and the new King failed to extort from him the pass-words of the fortresses : he joined in prison, but faith upheld him. The King sent to Tricarico to take possession of the city. Margaret, Sforza's sister, who was its ruler, met the King's envoys, sword in hand, and cast them into prison, vowing to hang them all by the neck unless her brother were set at liberty. Sforza was immediately liberated. Sforza now strove to acquire riches as a means to power, but ever fearful of their influence, turned away his eyes from coin, lest the sight of heaps of gold should weaken him. He balanced his expenditure with the revenues of castles and stipends ; he did not understand figures, yet never made a mistake in paying. He never failed his creditors, for he held that credit consisted rather in a loyal reputation than in ready ^ V. Simonetta, Vita dl Francesco Sforza. - Giovio. CATHERINE'S ANCESTRY 9 money. When in need, no one was ever so rich as he " because of the singular esteem in which the bankers held him."^ He never hesitated to shed blood, even by treacherous means, and his discipline with his soldiers was iron. He who stole forage was dragged by a horse's tail ; traitors were hung to the roadside trees and their bones left to be picked by the birds; strokes were administered for a spot, or even a little rust on arms ; they whose helmets were unadorned by a fine plume were hissed. His reviews were splendid and sumptu- ous. The horses' harness was gilt or enamelled in the Persian fashion, the trappings heavy with gold and silver embroidery. He tolerated neither gambling nor swearing in camp. On days of leisure, he practised gymnastics with the soldiers and proved his superiority in suppleness of limb and muscular strength. At night the legends of the paladins of France were read to the soldiers ; he made generous offers to men of letters to translate for him the Greek and Latin historians, apologizing for his ignorance " in that he had not learnt to hold book and sword in the same hand." He wrote few letters and these in hasty and unformed characters, signed with a simple cipher that he had learned in the prison of Castel deir Ovo. His table was hospitable, in his house he neither tolerated unbelievers, madmen, nor jesters. He attended mass every day and partook of the Communion once a year. He received and employed the old enemies of his family, but advised them not to return to Cotignola ; for although he forgave them freely, there were those among his kinsmen who would neither forget nor forgive.'' Matrimony was, to this fighting peasant, who had castaway his spade in the hope of a sceptre, the most rapid way to riches and power. To this end, he did not hesitate to sacrifice the celebrated Lucia da Torsana, an excellent wife, who had already borne him Francesco and six other sons. When he ^ Giovio. - Among these was Martino I'asolino (head of a House witli whom that of Sforza was at enmity), who, finding himself ruined and hunted from every refuge, cast him- self in despair at the feet of Muzio, who immediately forgave and employed him. Doc. I, 2, 3 : Documents relating to "Experiments" of Catherine .Sforza — Pier Desiderio Pasolini — Rome, Loesclier. lo ORIGIN OF THE HOUSE OF SFORZA became rich and famous, he no longer looked upon her as his equal, and wishing to be free to contract a princely alliance, he looked about him, until at fifty he succeeded in wedding the widow of Louis of Anjou, King of Naples. For the rest, his morals are in no way to be commended. When Francesco, his son, set out to make his fortune, he gave him the following advice : " Do not look at the wife of a friend ; do not beat anyone, or if you have beaten him, make your peace with him and send him far away ; ride no horse that hath a hard mouth or a tender heel : " for these three things had endangered his own life. On Januar}- 4, 1424, Sforza, then in his fifty-sixth year, gave battle to the Bracceschi at the mouth of the river Pescara. To complete his victory, there remained but to pursue the enemy. But a sudden wind blew from the north ; the sea howled, the river swelled and some squadrons of horse, that were still on the other side of the river, hesitated to cross. Sforza, who had already crossed, signed to the soldiers and called to them by name ; then, seeing that none of them ventured to move, dashed once more into the river as an example to those who were afraid. In mid-current he perceived that a beloved page who had followed him, bearing his helmet, had lost his saddle and was on the point of drowning. " Poor boy! " cried Sforza, " will no one help you ? " Approaching him, he threw himself completely on one side, and by extending his arm succeeded in gripping the page by the hair. In doing this he unwittingly tightened his horse's rein. He rode a fine charger, of so delicate a mouth that it reared at the slightest touch of the bit ; its hind-legs caught in the river mud and the rider was thrown. Unburdened of his weight, the horse swam to land. But Sforza, dragged down by the weight of his armour, disappeared where the lUshing river lost itself in the waves and the roar of the sea. Twice his mailed gloves were seen to rise out of the water and join. None dared to breast the current. His corpse was never found. The Bracceschi had been already driven back within the CATHERINE'S ANCESTRY ii city of Pescara, when a runner arrived with the news of Sforza's death. From every side came cries of sorrow and discourage- ment. But Francesco, impassable, continued to give battle and held the command until the victory was complete. Some hours later, when the wind was down and the water low, Francesco, the victor of the day, drew rein at the river- side. He consigned his horse to a squire, lest he should trample on the body of his father, sprang into a small ruinous boat, which he rowed with a branch he had cut from a tree with his sword, and kneeling, bareheaded, regardless of the enemy's arrows, crossed the river which had become his father's grave. He was immediately surrounded by Sforza's weeping soldiers. " Be faithful to me," he said, " as you were to my father ; with God's help I will yet lead you to glory and fortune." In that same January of 1424, Francesco, with a following of forty men-at-arms, offered his services as his father's successor to Queen Joan of Naples. The unhappy Queen, on seeing him, cried, weeping bitterly : " O Sforza, Sforza ! ^ your name at least shall live. Francesco Sforza, be Sforza the surname of your sons and brothers." In Francesco was no trace of his father's rustic bearing; he had already won twenty-two battles, his achievements were as famous as those of his father before him, and no ambition was disproportionate to his merit. His constant aim was as his father's, a crown, and he pursued it by like means and with the same capacity. Matrimony was to complete what had been begun with valour and the fortune of arms. Bianca Maria, daughter of Philip, last of the Visconti, by his mistress, Agnese del Maino, conferred on him the rights and privileges of an old and princely name. At the time of the death of Duke Phih'p, Francesco and his wife were at Cotignola. He hastened with four thousand horse and two thousand foot soldiers to Cremona, a city that Bianca had brought him in dowr}-. Maria of Savoy, widow of Duke Philip, who had subjected ^ Sforza, a nickname acriuired by Muzio Attendolo on account of liis extreme violence and impetuosity. 12 ork;ix of the house of sforza her to many humiliations, was venerated by his subjects. She persuaded them to ally themselves with her brother, Ludovic, Duke of Savoy, an alliance which was to be frustrated by Bianca Maria, the daughter of her rival, who was determined not to lose the paternal heritage. Francesco Sforza declared he would turn the Dukes of Savoy out of Italy and enrich his followers with the Piedmontese territory. He put to death soldiers and subjects of the Duke of Savoy, scoffed at the Duchess Dowager of Milan, and sent to advise the magistrates of that city to put no faith in the promises and fables of the House of Savoy. As Captain- general of the ^Milanese Republic, he had beaten the Venetians at Caravaggio. He then allied himself with them, turned upon the Republic and besieged Milan, which opened her gates to him after thirty months of anarchic liberty. On February 26, 1450, Francesco made his state entry. He ordered his soldiers to give up their bread to the starving populace, and refusing to enter the chariot, with its baldaquin of cloth of gold, which the Milanese had prepared for him, was almost carried into the Dome on horseback by the enthu- siastic crowd which surrounded him too closely to permit of his dismounting. The appearance of this typical warrior and prince of the fifteenth century is thus described in a letter of Pope Pius H. " Of tall and imposing stature and serious expression, ever calm and affable in speech ; in truth, a princely bearing," None left him dissatisfied, nor were ever disappointed in him. He honoured men of virtue and merit ; was benevolent and for- bearing to the weak, of quick temper, but prompt to atone by acts of spontaneous kindness for offence given, deaf to mali- cious insinuations, careful of religious observance, just and unrevengeful. In the licence and cruelty of his times, Fran- cesco Sforza, despite his ten natural children and more than one act of violence, was accounted humane, moral, and true to his given word. At that time, diversity of faith and country divided the human family, but when the Duke had erected the chief hospital, he decreed that despite diversity of faith and country the sick CATHERINE'S ANCESTRY 13 and maimed of all nations and creeds should be receiv^ed there. The citizens often met him, walking with his children or riding to inspect the new buildings in progress. Like his father, he loved to dine in good company, but the ducal table was frugal. Besides his guests, any one might approach him at meal-times, when he would listen, with infinite courtesy and patience, to long stories of misfortune and continual appeals for help. He was a loving husband to Bianca Maria, of whom he was wont to say that, "of all the good things for which he thanked God, that for which he was most grateful w^as that he had been found worthy of such a woman, who had not her equal upon earth." Whence it will be seen, that in the family of these fortunate adventurers, although the end was often used to justify the means, and legitimacy of birth was regarded as a negligible quantity, many simple, domestic virtues went hand in hand with military fame and the pomp of power. Bianca INIaria Visconti was eight years old when she was affianced to Francesco Sforza. Later, her father betrothed her, for political reasons, to two other princes, but Bianca w^ould wed none other than Francesco, so that on October 25, 1441, when he was forty and the bride seventeen, they were married. A year later, Francesco entrusted her with the government of the Marca d'Ancona. She was happiest in the midst of her soldiers, but to avoid slander did not appear in camp except when councils were held, or in moments of extreme danger. Hearing, while her husband was away fighting in Bresciana, that the castle of Monza had fallen into rebel hands, she started on foot, calling to her guard : " Let those who love me follow," and appearing suddenly, with her escort, in the rebel midst, obtained the immediate restitution of the castle. On another occasion, fearing that Francesco, wearied by continuous rain, would raise a siege, she joined him, and finding that he had placed seven cannons in position, persuaded him to add to them two others and to bombard day and night. The fortress fell, and Francesco declared that he trusted even more in his wafe than in his aimy. In 144S Francesco was at war with Venice. The battle 14 ORIGIN OF THE HOUSE OF SFORZA raged under the walls of Cremona. Bianca, who was then twenty-three, mounted her horse, called the citizens to arms, and placing herself at their head, led them to the camp. "Mark, St. Mark!" cried a Venetian soldier, from a tower. Bianca threw her lance at him and he fell dead. The burghers of Cremona, led by the voice of their liege lady, fought until night, wherever the danger was hottest, and having beaten the Venetians, led her back in triumph to the city. It was Bianca who, after the death of her father, advised her husband's alliance with the Venetians, and when the latter recalled their men and Francesco began to fear that their plan had fallen through, exhorted him "to fear naught, for the daughter of Duke Philip was capable of raising the spirits of the Milanese." When, during the siege of Milan, grain was selling at sixty ducats per measure, Bianca, by means of secret agents and letters, sent word to the people that they would be " blessed " if they summoned her and her "husband within their walls! Your Duke will be a father and brother to you ! " Francesco was summoned ; Bianca recaptured the paternal State, and giving it to her husband, became the foundation pillar of Lombard statecraft under this new regimen, and beloved by her people, ev^er ruled them with justice. Many she freed from death, imprisonment and exile, and lavishly rewarded old servants and soldiers of her father.^ " When reproached with being too munificent and generous," says Sabadino, " she replied, raising her beautiful white hands, laden with jewelled rings, that she could never do enough to satisfy her soul." - Her greatest pleasure was to make peace where there had been discord. She gave money where she gave advice, and thus put an end to enmity with other miseries, provided dowers and arranged the marriages for the daughters of impoverished but deserving nobles, and albeit "was habited with such pomp and magnificence, that the like was never seen,"^ fasted like a nun and visited the shrines, in and out- ' Sabadino de li Arienti, Gyncvera de la dare donne. - Ibid. •* Ibid. CATHERINE'S ANXESTRY 15 side Milan, clothed like a penitent, barefoot, privately and in inclement weather. A careful education, in the seclusion of the castle of Abbiategrosso, enabled the Duchess to direct the education of her children. "We must remember," she said to one of their learned teachers, " that we have to train princes, not literatiy One of the themes she propounded to them was : " Of the manner, rules and artifices whereby the contracts between princes are made." The matter was to be treated in Latin by children from thirteen to sixteen, Ludovico il Moro was then nine. In a childish letter, written some years later from the country, Ludovic assures his mother, to whom he sends seventy quails, two partridges and a pheasant, that his love of sport {caccici) does not cause him to neglect his studies, "which will one day be very useful to him." Bianca divided her children's days into hours of study, hours for gymnastic and hours for military exercise. Some ladies of the Court were deputed to teach them good manners. They sometimes went on foot to pay visits to citizens of importance in their houses : they were expected to entertain the lords and gentlemen who came to Court from other cities, and to dance with their ladies. When the life of Francesco was despaired of, Bianca, remembering that the Sforza sovereignty lacked the imperial sanction, recalled her eldest son Galeazzo from the war in Dauphine : " It is our will," she wrote, "that immediately on receipt of this our letter you mount your horse and come away, flying, without any intermission of time." The Duke died on March 8, 1466. In the same night Bianca summoned the chief personages of Milan, took measures to frustrate any attempt to incite the people to rebellion, and wrote to the Italian Powers. She shed no tears, but her aspect compelled the pity of every witness. When her duties were fulfilled she went to pray by the corpse of her husband, where she watched for two days and nights and whence she had to be torn by force by the friends and doctors who surrounded her. Then only she lost her fortitude, and raining passionate tears and kisses on the dead face, u[)braided herself for having some- i6 ORIGIN OF THE HOUSE OF SFORZA times opposed her lord, praying God to receive his soul in peace. Bianca had saved the State for her son and shared its government with him so wisely that "all Italy spoke of her with reverence." But she soon became irksome to the new Duke, whose pride had been inflated by his marriage with Bona of Savoy, an alliance which made him brother-in- law to the King of France and son-in-law to that Duke Ludovic whom his father had threatened to turn out of Piedmont. His mother sought refuge from her humiliation in her own city of Cremona, where upon arrival she suddenly fell ill, and soon her life was despaired of. None ventured to tell the pious Duchess of her danger, until Michael Carcano (afterwards beatified), learning from the physicians that she could not outlive the following day, took heart of grace and said : " Gracious Lady, your hour is near." She calmly asked for the Sacrament, made her will and to Duke Galeazzo, who had hastened to her bedside, recommended her " Milanese and all our other subjects. But the Cremonese," she added, "who came to me as my paternal dower, I give and bequeath to thee." And having prayed him to so requite her household that none might say they had in vain spent time and service on her, and having blessed the Duke and her other children, " presently fell asleep." The decadence of the race of Sforza began with Galeazzo, son of Francesco and Bianca, who inherited the paternal energy without its power of organization. To the vicissitudes of Romagna, Muzio owed his mental vigour ; to the pursuit of war and the thirst of power, Francesco owed his firmness and the temperament that is born of a high ideal. Galeazzo, who ascended the throne at twenty-two, had never measured his strength with an enemy, an equal, nor a rival ; unac- customed to restraint, he was foolhardy, sensual and cruel. His violent nature was leavened by two weaknesses, in- constancy and vainglory, owing to which, the astute could bend his will to their own ends. His best adviser was Cicco Simonetta, who had been secretary to Duke Francesco. Popularity being the chief aim of Galeazzo, his first care was CATHERINE'S ANCESTRY 17 to ensure the cheapness of victuals, and knowing that the people, next to abundance, cared most for public festivities, he determined that the Milanese should be proud of the splendour of his Court. He patronized and affected letters, and sought the praise of every kind of artist ; he spent treasure on musicians, singers, sculptors and painters. But even as a Maecenas he was mad and tyrannous ; he ordered a room in the Castle of Porta Giovia (built, but not decorated by his father) to be decorated, in one night, with the portraits of the ducal family, their courtiers and pages. Yet it was in the nature of things that, caring so much for praise, he should sometimes achieve that which was praise- worthy. Corruption existed no longer in the administration ; there was discipline in the army and liberty in commerce. The prince's word was considered as good as his bond. But his life was a continual contradiction, because his acts did not spring from an innate sense of good. He offered his people abundance, feasts and cavalcades, yet wrote to his treasurer : " Have a care not to emancipate our subjects, like those of Savoy." A contemporary defined him as "a monster compounded of virtues and vices ; " the Diario of Ferrara is more explicit : " He was a man who committed acts of madness and things that cannot be written." Milanese licence was so unbridled that Galeazzo could abandon himself to any sort of profligacy without fear of endangering his popularity ; his example not only corrupted manners, but principles; modesty was re- garded as barbarism, husbands were honoured by the prince's irregularities, his favourites were the leading ladies of the capital ; he did not hesitate to torture, mutilate, and bury alive any supposed rival in their fickle affections. A terrible suspicion cast its shadow over him ; he was reputed to have poisoned Dorothea Gonzaga, his affianced bride, that he might be free to woo Bona of Savoy. The sudden and mysterious death of Duchess Bianca was ascribed to the same cause by the populace, and when they saw him hasten to her deathbed at the Castle of Melegnano, they recoiled from what they believed to be hypocrisy. The callousness with which i8 ORIGIN OF THE HOUSE OF SFORZA Galeazzo received official condolence confirmed this rumour, which is not justified by history, while proofs are not wanting that his mother died of a broken heart. "Mental anguish" wrote Hianca's physician to the reigning Duke, " is most conducive to bodily suffering." Galeazzo had married Bona of Savoy in 1468. She is described by contemporaries (among whom was the Duke's brother, Tristan Sforza, his proxy at the wedding at the Castle of Amboise) as beautiful, gracious, gentle and in every way worthy of her name. By dint of tact and patience she obtained great influence over her erratic husband, and, shocked by his excesses, interceded between him and his victims. In 1474 the Sforza prisons and dungeons were crowded ; in many places gallows were erected, and everywhere terror and indignation prevailed, when the Duke, " touched by the entreaties of the Duchess" (writes Campi), "caused a general pardon to be proclaimed ; " a (ew were kept in chains, but no blood was shed. Bona, henceforward known as " the first Madonna of Italy," bore her husband five children : Giovan- Galeazzo, Alexander, Hermes, Bianca-Maria and Anna. His illegitimate offspring were Carlo, Octavian, Chiara, Galeazzo and one who must ever live in history as Catherine Sforza, not for having initiated a new era, but because she stands out from it, like a great figure from an older time. BOOK II CATHERINE'S GIRLHOOD CHAPTER II CHILDHOOD. MARRIAGE The name of Catherine Sforza is first mentioned in a letter written by Duke Galeazzo (then in camp with the Florentine and Neapolitan armies in Bolognese territory) to his mother. Catherine, who was in her sixth year, had been left in the guardianship of her paternal grandmother ; she was ill, and as there was no improvement in her condition, two couriers had left Milan on the same day to convey news of the child. There was no mention of her mother. Duchess Bianca was then forty-one, still beautiful, although she had little more than a year to liv^e, and an affectionate grandmother to the child of her son's first love, an error which had been quickly condoned by her, and had not scandalized any one else. Catherine was born about the year 1463, in Milan or Pavia, where the ducal family spent part of the year. Her mother, Lucretia Landriani, was remarkably beautiful, but there is nothing to prove her possession of the intellectual gifts with which she is accredited by some historians. She plays no part either in the education or the history of Catherine, who was, however, constant in her love for her. She had several children : Bianca and Pietro were legitimate, not so Stella, who yet was no daughter to Galeazzo. Galeazzo legitimized Catherine. On the death of her heroic grandmother she was adopted by Bona, his wife, who loved her as if she had really been her daughter, and educated her with maternal solicitude. Meanwhile her father, who intended her to serve his political aims, affianced her at the age of seven to Onorato, son of Count Marcantonio Torelli. 22 CATHERINE'S GIRLHOOD Onorato's early death paved the way to Catherine's higher fortune. Catherine's education was most elaborate : the Duke, her father, prided himself on his literary acquirements. His Court was thronged by scholars and humanists ; the best masters were at hand, and the pupil was apt and of remarkable memory. The princesses of the fifteenth and si.xtecnth centuries were generally educated with their brothers, the field of learning being limited to the study of the classics. Italian and Latin verse, written by the women of the period, is virile in character, and in no wise distinguishable from that of the men. The study of music, in which it does not appear that Catherine was proficient, was generally confined to the lute. In the Italian Courts of the fifteenth century woman held a position equal to that of man — she was in every way his peer. Marriage, instead of blending two beings in one, united two equals, while enthusiasm for antique ideals and the conviction that classic culture was the principal ornament of life, made it essential to maidens who were destined to govern like men. The first important event which can have been retained by Catherine's memory was her visit to Lorenzo Medici. Galeazzo, conscious that the annexation of the county of Imola was obnoxious to the Medici, and desirous of averting a war with Florence, left, under the pretext of a pilgrimage to the Annunziata, for that city in March 1471 with his wife Bona and daughters Anna and Catherine. It would appear, from the sumptuousness of his travelling and hunting equipage and the splendour of the liveries and trappings of their numerous following, that Galeazzo challenged com- parison with the magnificent Florentine, who received the ducal family in his own house, while the Court were lodged in the city at the expense of the Commune. Galeazzo was spellbound by the combination of magnificence and the highest art in Casa Medici. And the humour of the Florentines was so unconstrained in its gaiety that " if the said Duke found the town steeped in effeminate delicacy CHILDHOOD. MARRIAGE 23 and in customs opposed to those of every well-ordered city, he left it worse than he found it," says Machiavelli. Genoa was not less splendid in her reception of the Duke and Duchess, but despite the warmth of the official reception, and the value and variety of the official presents, the t}-rant betrayed his terror lest he should be assassinated, and after ordering the fortifications to be strengthened so that Genoa might continue to be held in subjection, Galeazzo, who had left Milan like a satrap, returned to it in fear and trembling, almost as a fugitive. Thus Florence and the Mcdicean Court were the first spectacle witnessed by Catherine, destined to become a member of a family who were mortal enemies of the Medici, and to be a witness of her husband's conspiracy against, and punishment by. the Medici, without lessening the irresistible sympathy which attracted her to the Florentines. One of her sons took service under the Republic ; she entertained Nicolo Machiavelli, a Medici was her last love, and as his widow she found her last resting-place in Florence, where a long line of her descendants became famous rulers in peace and war. Pope Sixtus IV. resorted to princely alliances as a means of aggrandizem.ent for his nephews. For Leonardo he had secured a daughter of the King cf Naples, for Girolamo he sought an alliance with the reigning House of Milan and a State in Northern Italy. In December 1472, Girolamo Riario arrived in Milan from Bologna for the solemnization of his betrothal to Constance, daughter of Conrad Fogliani (half-brother of Francesco Sfcrza). The preliminaries were satisfactory to all parties until Gabriella Gonzaga, mother of the bride, demurred to some of the exactions of Girolamo, who was therein supported by the Duke of Milan. Galeazzo stormed, menaced and coerced in vain. Gabriella (on whom he afterwards revenged himself by a law-suit) remained unshaken and Catherine Sforza, in lieu of her cousin, was offered in marriage to Riario, who, placated b>' the promise of so much beauty and the prospect of a marriage in a 24 CATHERINE'S GIRLHOOD political sense more advantageous, concluded a hasty be- trothal with Catherine at the Castle of Pavia on February 23, 1473. Three days later the bridegroom's gifts to the bride were consigned to Duchess Bona, in the presence of four Court officials, among whom was Pietro Landriani, Master of the Household and husband of the fair Lucrctia. The legal act of donation shows ^ that the gifts comprised two dresses, one of gold brocade and the other of green velvet, embroidered with 1538 large and as many small pearls, three rows of large pearls, two thimbles, set with diamonds, emeralds and sapphires, a jewel " in the form of a peasant," the head being formed by a large pearl, a jewelled clasp with a pear-shaped pearl for a pendant, two crosses set with diamonds, pearls and rubies, a purse of gold, seven girdles set in silver, and two pairs of sleeves of silver brocade. In September of the same year Cardinal Pietro Riario, preceded by the fame of absolute power and regal magnifi- cence, arrived in Milan as the Pope's legate, and was received with a pomp which could not have been exceeded had he been Pope. This young Cardinal had been instrumental at the conclave in the election of his uncle to the papacy. He had quickly risen to such power that he ruled the Pope and squandered an income of 60,000 gold florins in the most shameless profligacy. No sooner had he arrived than he asked to see Catherine, by whose precocious beauty and talent (she was then eleven) he was so impressed that he lavished upon her caresses and presents. He confirmed the marriage contract that had been entered into the preceding year, stipulated that the bride's dowry of io,ooo ducats should be augmented by the Forest of Alexandria and that the town, lands and castle of Imola which the Duke had obtained from the Manfredi of Faenza, in defiance of the Medici, should become the property of the Church. To this Galeazzo agreed on the understanding that Imola should be the appanage of Girolamo Riario, as the Pope's vicar, and his heirs. The price of the ^ Doc. 60, State Archives of Milan. CHILDHOOD. MARRIAGE 25 cession of this little State to the Church was 40,000 ducats. The Pope declared that the price was excessive and that the gift of Imola, which by right belonged to the Church, to Girolamo, went somewhat against his conscience, but he granted it because " it was not meet that the daughter of so great a prince should live like a simple gentlewoman." Thus Galeazzo secured the Pope's favour, the Pope had the satisfaction of regaining an ancient fief for the Church, of founding a State for Girolamo and of spiting Lorenzo Medici. On the 7th of the following November, Girolamo was invested with the County of Imola, paying a yearly tribute of two hundred instead of the five hundred ducats which the Church had levied from the Manfredi. The Cardinal, contrary to the Duke's advice, left Milan for Venice, where he was again received with great honours. But his politics aroused suspicion, and the profligacy of his conduct, offence and scandal. He therefore fled to Rome in the disguise of a simple priest, after a five days' ride through Bolognese territory. He died in January 1474, at the age of twenty-eight, a victim to his own vices, or, as some people averred, to poison administered to him by an agent of the Signory of Venice. His death was hailed by many as a deliverance from a moral pest that had exceeded the licence and degradation of pagan Rome, but the populace, to whom his lavish expenditure had endeared him, mourned him, and the Pope, crying " Aly son and my hope ! " wept so bitterly at his grave that a contemporary describes his grief as "undue." So great was the instinct of family aggrandizement in Cardinal Pietro, that his last care had been for the future of his brother Girolamo, and on him the Pope concentrated henceforward all his affection. Catherine's affianced husband inherited all the riches of his brother, to whose diplomacy he alrea'dy owed the dominion of Imola. In his hands was soon vested all military and ecclesiastic power, and he became the centre of the intrigues and political crimes of his day. His primary need was a faction ; he therefore assured himself of the Orsini and soon rose to such pre-eminence that he was known as the " Arch-Pope." CHAPTER III THE ASSASSINATION OF GALEAZZO The tacit hate and bitter satire of the scholars and rhetoricians who at that time controlled public opinion, was aroused by the arrogance of Galeazzo, then in the full tide of his success. Among the most intolerant of the Duke's critics was Cola Montana, who had established a school of rhetoric in Milan in the year 1466. This man, without any common sense or even a conception of the logical sequence and inexorable law that govern events, felt himself called upon to reorganize society. He had been the tutor of Galeazzo and had later been found guilty of one of those offences which he most disapproved in the Duke. The latter, delighted in an opportunity of requiting the punishments inflicted on him by Cola, had him whipped in public. This increased his hatred of Galeazzo, which, owing to the vogue of classic literature and the examples of ancient Greece and Rome, passed for hatred of tyranny. Cola never ceased in his attacks upon the Duke ; he inflamed the }-outh of Milan against his excesses and declared only those to be happy who lived under a republican govern- ment ; Catiline was his greatest hero, Sallust his favourite author, tyrannicide the supreme achievement of a life. Giovan-Andrea Lampugnani, reduced to a poverty which was insufferable to his pride, had been condemned to death by Francesco and pardoned by Galeazzo. Carlo Visconti could neither forget that the Sfcrza had usurped the honours of his family nor that the Duke had seduced his sister. Girolamo 26 THE ASSASSINATION OF GALEAZZO 27 Olgiati, a beardless youth, had no motive of personal hatred, but he saw with the eyes and heard with the ears of Cola, who, maddened by his dream of glory, promised these favourite disciples the fame of Brutus, Cassius and Catilinus. After discarding many plans for the suppression of the tryant, the conspirators agreed to await the occasion of a public festivity, whetting their thirst for vengeance, meanwhile, on a magnifi- cently attired lay-figure of the Duke, on which, while heaping threats and insults, they made savage attacks,^ so keeping their hands and nerves in readiness for the deed. In December 1476, Duke Galeazzo had, in defence of Philibert of Savoy, partially repressed the invasion of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgund}-, and sent his troops to their winter quarters to avoid the intense cold of the Pied- montese plains. He himself returned to Vigevano, with the intention of resuming hostilities in the spring. Christmas was at hand ; it was the custom of the House of Sforza to celebrate it at home, a custom to which Duke Francesco, who, though dead ten years, yet lived in the loving remembrance of his people, had alwa}'s adhered. Galeazzo, knowing that his acts would be compared with those of his father, felt that the maintenance and progression of the State was due to the initial impulse of its founder. He was thus driven, uncon- sciously, to imitate him even in unimportant details. He had been absent from Milan for some time and was flattered by the thought of returning to his capital as a conqueror. Yet the mind of the young Duke was not attuned to these happy circumstances. A Milanese astrologer, a priest whom he had consulted, had foretold that he would not complete the eleventh year of his reign. The Duke had thrust him, with a loaf, a glass of wine and the wing of a capon, into a dungeon, where the wretched man had starved for twelve days. He died of hunger, but his prophecy survived him and the Duke could not be rid of it ; the victory of his army left him as gloomy as before. There might be a refuge, he thought, in home and religion, and that was wh)- he was ' AUcgrcltc) AllcgrcUi, Diarii Saiiesi. 28 CATHERINE'S (nRLIIOOD returning, according to the custom of his father, to spend Christmas with his family and his people. On mounting his horse, he perceived a ccnnet and trembled ; then he learnt that his chamber had caught fire at Milan: a secret impulse, says Corio, warned him to proceed no farther. Still, he put spurs to his horse, and no sooner had he started than three crows flew over his head. He called for a cross-bow and shot two arrows at the ill-omened birds, but missed them. Assailed by an inexplicable discouragement, he hesitatingly proceeded, reaching Milan on December 20. He crossed the drawbridge with bent head, his gloom diffusing itself among his slow and silent following, and as the last of the long line of men-at-arms and caparisoned horses disappeared behind the iron gates of the Castle of Porta Giovia, the bridge was again drawn up. The Duke's first order, on dismounting, was that the singers should be dressed in mourning for mass on the following da}-, and be forbidden to sing any but the most solemn chants. On the morning after Christmas-day, an icy frost hung over Milan. It was St. Stephen's day, and Duchess Bona had had an evil dream ; she saw the body of a murdered man in the church of St. Stephen. She arose hastily and besought the Duke not to attend mass in that church, nor to show himself in the streets of Milan, The Court chaplain had already gone to St. Stephen's with the sacred vessels, but the Bishop of Como, invited to celebrate the mass in the castle chapel, sent to say that he was ill. The Duchess again tried to dissuade her husband from leaving the castle, and entreated the principal members of his suite to prevent his so doing. The Duke put on a coat of mail, but took it off again " because it made him too stout." He was afraid and yet anxious to go to church, because he " was awaited there by some of his mistresses and others who from decorum I refrain from writing of," writes his faithful valet. The Duke halted at the top of the stairs as if he had forgotten some- thing. He sent for his children, whom he wished to see again, and to Corio, who saw him, with a child on either side, at a THE ASSASSINATION OF GALEAZZO 29 window, it appeared "that he could hardly tear himself away from them." At last, he left the castle on foot, but finding the ground frozen, decided on mounting his horse. All the courtiers sprang into the saddle, only the valet, Bernardino Corio, chief narrator of this episode, remained on foot and, taking a short cut, reached the church of St. Stephen in time to see the arrival of the cavalcade. At midday, the cavalcade entered the most populous quarter of the city, and was soon surrounded by a motley crowd of nobles, doctors, lawyers, ecclesiastics and the popu- lace, the men huddled in their dark cloaks and the women gay with their brightest colours. Here was the ducal guard, here were the equerries, here at last was the Duke himself, riding between the orators of Ferrara and Mantua. The people pressed closer to their prince, and noting his hard-set face, and the gloom in his eyes, muttered, " UJi I come sta duro !'' ("How grim he looks.") Corio met Giovanni Lampug- nani, arm-in-arm with Girolamo Olgiati, at the church door. "They wore coats and stockings of mail and short coats of crimson satin." Corio, knowing them to be members of the Court, wondered to see them there, instead of with the Duke's escort. Lampugnani and Olgiati, with whom were three ruffians of the lowest class, placed themselves on the right- hand side of the door ; Carlo Visconti, who did not wish to be seen, on the left, behind a group of unknown persons. The sound of voices, the tramp of horses mingled with the clink of arms, and the towering plumes of the Sforza cavalry came in sight : then they heard the quick step of the Duke's horse, who stopped suddenly, when Galeazzo Maria, in the beauty and strength of his thirty-two years, drew rein, and giving his horse to a Moor, entered the church to the strains of Sic transit gloria viiindi} What had happened .'' The two silent groups on each side of the door pressed for- ward, almost barring the Duke's way. Lampugnani came forward, as if to drive them off, crying, " Make way, make way ! " Arriving within touch of the Duke, he lifted his velvet beret with his left hand, and bending one knee as if to ' Aiinalcs PtiUciitini. 30 CATHERINE'S GIRLHOOD present a petition, thrust his dagger through the Duke's body and into his throat as he fell. Then came Olgiati, with another dagger, and Visconti with a third, while a certain Francione dealt him the most deadly blow of all, in the back. The Duke lay on the ground, in the midst of assassins, under a shower of blows : he expired with a faint cry, " O ! Our Lady ! " " Dead, dead ! " cried the crowd. The second to fall w^as Francesco da Ripa, a colossal equerry, who had drawn his sword on the assassins. The faithful Moor dispatched Lampugnani, who had taken refuge among the frightened women, and having caught his foot in one of their trains before he could join his horse, was speared by the slave and dragged by the feet through the streets by the crowd until he was torn to shreds. Jewels were snatched from the hair, the necks and arms of the gaily-attired ladies. A scene of indescribable violence ensued until the pikes and halberds of the ducal guard parted the crowed and secured the mur- derers, with the exception of Olgiati and Visconti, who had succeeded in making their escape. Soon eleven corpses were to be seen hanging from the ramparts of the castle, while others were quartered alive within the city, so that the people might hear the last desperate cries of the prisoners. At night the Duke was quietly laid to rest in the Dome, habited in a garment of cloth of gold which he had given to his wife to keep for his shroud, in case of sudden death. A iew days later Carlo Visconti was taken, tortured and quartered alive. Girolamo Olgiati, accursed by his father and abandoned by his friends, fell into the hands of the ducal executioners, and amid torments which dislocated his bones and tore his flesh, was commanded by his judges to reveal the plan of the conspiracy in writing to Duchess Bona. In the course of his confession he said : " We did to the Duke that which we had prepared. Now, owing to his cruelties and lasciviousness, he lies there dead, a proof to tyrants that justice still exists . . . and now to Thee, Holy Mother of God, and to thee, Duchess Bona (however guilty I may appear in thine eyes), I bend the knee, I implore of your clemency and benignity to be pleased to remember that I too THE ASSASSINATION OF GALEAZZO 31 have a soul, that you may leave to these miserable members enough of strength for me to make fitting confession of my sins." Duchess Bona sent a priest to him, to persuade him to save his soul by one word of penitence. But in broken and almost inarticulate accents, he said : " I know that by my sins I have deserved even greater torments, could my body but bear them . . . but I trust that the holy deed for which I die will obtain mercy for me at the hands of the Supreme Judge. And were I to be reborn ten times and ten times to perish in these torments, I would give my blood and all my strength for this sacred end." Mangled, under the knife of the executioner, a loud cry escaped the unfortunate young man. " Be of good cheer, Girolamo ! " he cried to himself, " Mors acerba, faina perpctiia. Stabit veins menioria facti I " A portion of his body was hung to each gate of the city, and his head exposed on the tower of Broletto Nuovo. Duchess Bona appealed to the Pope for the posthumous absolution of the man whom, despite the multitude and enormity of his crimes, she, " next to God, had loved above all else in the world," promising to make reparation, either by giving all she could to the subsidy demanded of princes by the Church, or by the erection of monasteries, donations to the hospital, or in dowries to marriageable maidens and other pious works within the State of Milan. "This she would prefer; being of opinion that reparation is most due, and good should follow evil, on the spot where it has been com- mitted," adding that she was willing in her own person to endure such fast, penance, or torment as could avail the soul of her husband. " The peace of Italy is at an end !" exclaimed Pope Sixtus IV. on hearing of the murder of Galcazzo, whose death, although he had neither been a saint nor a great politician, was indeed the prelude to fresh bloodshed, civil war and foreign invasion. CHAPTER IV FROM MILAN TO ROME Catherine, who at the time of these events was fourteen, wept for her father and herself Who now would ensure the happiness to which she had looked forward ? The coming of Cardinal Riario, with his splendid following, had appealed to her imagination ; this splendour had seemed to her to eclipse the magnificence of the Milanese Court and }-et it was but a spark of a much more glorious flame. There was a more splendid Court than that of her father, there was a greater and more powerful sovereign than the Duke of Milan : he who held, besides the sceptre, the keys of Paradise. That Court should have been her home : she had been destined to be the most holy niece of the sovereign pontiff, at whose feet she would have seen emperors and kings kneel. She had felt that all the princesses of Italy must envy her ! Now, the daggers of a handful of wretched madmen had imperilled all. But it was not so. For the death of Galeazzo inspired the Pope and Girolamo Riario with a momentary hope of obtain- ing possession of Milan, and in February 1477, the papal legate, Cardinal Mellini, arrived with instructions to hasten the marriage. Duchess Bona, who had always loved Catherine, most amply fulfilled her husband's promises : early in April, in her presence, that of the Cardinal and the assembled Court, Catherine's marriage was celebrated, by proxy and without any public rejoicing, on account of the recent death of the Duke. The first of Catherine's letters which exists reached Duchess Bona towards the end of that month. It ran as follows : from milan to rome ^^ " Most Illustrious and Most Excellent Madonna ! " Be it known to Your Grace that by the grace of God, to-day I arrived at Parma well, and withal afflicted at being far from Your Grace and to be incapable of narrating and express- ing, with other benefits I owe to Your Grace, the great honours and goodly companies that have followed me from place to place, adeo, it would be a great thing to write them, and especially in this Your city of Parma, to whom (sic) on bended knee I do commend myself "Ex. Parma die XXVII. Aprilis 1477. " Vestra servitrix et fillia " Caterina Vicecomes." On the same day, after describing to her sister Chiara the great feasts that everywhere had been given in her honour, she adds that she was well el sc/ionso/afa and sends affectionate greetings to her nurses and " in general to all my women." On the 28th she was at Reggio, on the following day at Modena, where there was a solemn reception and many visits; her gentlemen in waiting had advised her how to receive them, which had been " little trouble because of her great intelligence and discretion." At Bologna she was entertained by Giovanni Bentivoglio. On May i, before sunset, she made her state entry into Imola. The people had come out in masses to meet her, the Ancients of the city presented her with the keys, all along the streets from the gates to the palace the arms of the Pope, the Sforza, and the Riario were garlanded with flowers ; allegorical groups were formed and children sang verses and sonnets. A great pavilion, ingeniously decorated with man}'- coloured draperies, banners and arms, had been erected in front of the palace ; under this pavilion Catherine and her suite dismounted, when the crowd rushed in, disputing " with cries, blows and much tearing of hair " the honour of seizing the lady's horse, according to the custom of the time. The confusion which resulted from so much popular enthusiasm "was not displeasing" to Catherine. Under the pavilion, 34 CATHERINE'S GIRLHOOD Violantina Riario-Ricci, wife of the governor of Imola, sur- rounded by many ladies, received her sister-in-law, and led her within the palace, which was furnished with beautiful tapestries and hangings embroidered in gold and silver and hung with crimson velvets and satin and white damask silks. But what most attracted the admiration of the Milanese was a credenza, or cupboard, of great height and beauty, laden with artistically wrought silver, a costly gift of the Pope to Count Girolamo. Imola in its outward aspect was pro- nounced small and badly built, while the fortress, a recent construction of the Duke of Milan, was admired; the citizens, and especially the women, were well dressed and the dancers in the streets " with their many curtseys, bows, exchanges and shuffling of the feet " were singularly quaint. Catherine was permitted to rest in her chamber,^ the roof and walls of which were hung with white silk, brocaded with gold, while her suite were conducted over the other magnifi- cent apartments, which seemed to be endless, returning to conduct Catherine to a collation, after which Catherine shook hands with some of the ladies who had received her and dismissed them, inviting others to sup with her. After supper, as Catherine, although in good health and spirits, was " somewhat weary," the guests were permitted to retire, the foreigners being escorted, with many torches, to their apartments or to the lodgings allotted to them in the town. On May 2 Catherine attended mass and enter- tained some citizens and ladies to dinner; on the 3rd, which was market-day, the town was full of country people who had brought presents of comestibles to their new lady and succeeded, through the mediation of a jester named Piasentino, in being admitted to her presence. She gave her hand to each of the peasants, who shared the enthusiasm of the populace and citizens for the youthful Countess. "They never cease from feasting me," wrote Catherine to her sister, " even the stones rejoice because of my coming," She hoped to leave for Rome on the following Tuesday, and ^ Narrative of some gentlemen of Catherine's suite. Librairic Nationale, Paris, Doc. 91. FROM MILAN TO ROME 35 begged her sister to send her a certain cap which had been given to her by "the wife of Don Ciccho" (Simonetta) Mean- while because of the insanitary condition of Rome at that -^ 6^^ t Uf*\-xi f^ s^^ AUTOGRAPH LETTKR OF GIROI.AMO RIARIO. season, and because the recent death of Duke Galeazzo would cast a gloom over the projected festivities, the Pope had 36 CATHERINE'S GIRLHOOD decided to send Count Girolamo on a short visit to his subjects, to console his bride for the postponement of her triumphal entry. This plan fell through by reason of a con- spiracy of the Venetian patriarch and the cardinal of San Pietro in Vincoli (later Pope Julius II.) against the life of the bridegroom. It appears from the letters of the Orator of Milan to his Government and from one of Girolamo Riario to the Duchess of Milan, that Rome was in a state of ferment, malaria, hunger and sedition ; the populace were capable of the utmost violence; it would not do for the bride to arrive at so inauspicious a time. But these injunctions did not reach Imola until after the departure of Catherine and her suite, on May 13, who riding onwards through the provinces of Romagna and La Marca, acclaimed and feasted at every resting-place, reached Castel Novo, belonging to Stephen Colonna, on the 24th and there halted for the night. She was within fourteen miles of Rome. Departing thence after dinner on the following day, at the eighteenth hour, they rode for seven miles and were then met by Count Girolamo, escorted by a goodly following of his friends and servants, all habited alike in sable velvet and satin. The bride and bridegroom " dismounted, and taking each other by the hand, tenderly kissed and embraced." They all rested in a wood, and after an interchange of elaborate courtesies, remounted their horses and once more turned towards Rome. The first to join the united cavalcade was the Pope's nephew, Antonio Riario ; at every succeeding quarter of a mile, they were joined by prelates and members of the households of cardinals. Within three miles of the city the Prefect of Rome, the ugly and wicked Leonardo, elder nephew of Sixtus, brought a great company to pay homage to the bride. At Ponte Molle, on the Tiber, they were met by the papal Court and, turning to the west, by the ambassadors of Naples and Spain, who, joining the cavalcade, escorted the bride to the palace of the Cardinal of Urbino at Monte Mario. Here the bride and bridegroom dismounted and supped (before sunset), the escort and the horses returning to the city. After supper, the Count, who was recalled to Rome by the Pope, presented FROM MILAN TO ROME 37 his wife, on leaving, with a necklace of pearls "with a pendant jewel of the value of 5000 ducats." " Next day, being Pentecost " the horses were again led up to the door and Catherine, surrounded by her Milanese and escorted by the ambassadors and cavaliers as on the preceding day, by Gianfrancesco Gonzaga and several members of the Orsini and Colonna families, mounted hers. She wore "a cloak of black damask, brocaded with gold, a skirt of crimson satin and sleeves of black brocade and was splendidly adorned with jewels." The road to St. Peter's (a distance of two miles) was lined with spectators on horseback. Passing through the Porta Angelica and dismounting at the ancient Basilica (soon to be pulled down and rebuilt by Julius II.), Catherine was led to where Sixtus IV., in pontifical vestments, sat surrounded by the whole of the Sacred College. The mass lasted three hours. Then a young cardinal of thirty-four, Julian della Rovere (Cardinal of San Pietro in Vincoli, after- wards Pope Julius II. and the same who was suspected of connivance with the Venetian patriarch against his cousin's life), approached the bride who, attended by her suite. Count Girolamo and the orators of the Duke of Milan, was led by the Cardinal to the Pope : a rugged, ill-built, monkish figure surmounted by an austere, expressive face, with a hooked nose and piercing eyes. The tall, slim figure of Catherine emerged from her surrounding escort and kneeling before the awkward figure that seemed so ill at ease in the heavy pontifical garments, kissed the foot of Sixtus IV. " When she had arisen, Bossi, Orator of the Duke of Milan, read the Pope a lengthy Latin address on the virtues of the youthful Countess," upon which, contrary to all precedent, he was complimented by the Holy Father, who commanded him to take Catherine by the hand, spoke the sacramental words and allowed Girolamo to place the ring on her finger. Catherine again kissed the Pope's hand and foot. The Pope, among other affectionate courtesies, said to her that "he would marry her over again, and causing her to remove the chain of pearls given to her by my Lord the Count, put in its place another, all set with most precious jewels, valued at 4000 gold ducats, 38 FROM MILAN TO ROME 39 with so many caresses that it appears to us that Her Lady- ship is so well beloved by His Holiness, that he makes no difference between her and my Lord the Count" — who seemed to the narrator ^ cold in comparison. Catherine, instructed by Bossi, then kissed the hand of each cardinal. PANORAMA OF ROME (I'ART II. 1. Palazzo Orsini at Campo di Fiore. 2. Villa Riario at the Lungara (no Palazzo Coesini). 3. Monte Aventino. 16. Ponte Sisto. 41. Circo Flaminio. 82. Casa Farnese. 83. Casa Capoferri. 86. Casa Mattel. 87. Orchards of the Riario. 88. Villa of Agostino Chigi (later Farnesina). P. Porta Settimiaiia. who one and all declared themselves her servants, the Pope blessed and dismissed the escort, who then escorted the bride and bridegroom to the palace of Cardinal Orsini, in Campo 1 Doc. 105, Lib. Nat. Paris. 40 CATHERINE'S GIRLHOOD di Fiore, which had been prepared for Catherine pending the completion of the improvements begun at the Riario palace, in view of the postponement of Catherine's entry. The streets that led to Campo a Fiore were decked with " woollen draperies " and the arms of the Pope, the Riario and the Duke of IMilan in leaves and flowers ; perfumes were burnt and the air was redolent of sweet odours ; the spacious court of the palace, hung with rich stuffs, led to apartments sumptuously furnished, and sumptuous were the dresses of the eighty Roman ladies who received Catherine. Even the chambers prepared for the Milanese suite were of princely magnificence. At the seventeenth hour, a child, habited as an angel, announced in verse that dinner was ready ; Catherine entered the dining-room, water for the hands was handed to each guest, and to the table of the bride and bridegroom were bidden Antonio Riario, " the despot of Morea," the Bishop of Parma, who was one of the Milanese orators, the French Ambassador, Gianfrancesco Gonzaga, the wife of Giovanmaria Visconti, the wife of Fioramonte and the wife of the nephew of the Cardinal of Milan. At the other tables were prelates, ambassadors, lords and ladies, in all about two hundred persons. There were twenty-two courses, besides the sweets, and between every five courses a child recited verses from a triumphal car that was led in by several persons, while others represented classical subjects, such as the adventures of Medusa, Hercules and Theseus, dancers performed a ballet, a "moresca" and a Florentine dance, and six children, dressed as hunters, brought Catherine a quantity of cooked animals, " all served in their natural forms." The banquet lasted five hours, the guests were only kept awake by the novelty and variety of the entertainments. The presentation of gifts by the guests began as soon as the table-cloths were removed, and Catherine's presents were valued at 12,000 ducats. The effect produced by this welcome is reflected in a letter, written from Milan by Duchess Bona to her adopted daughter : " DOMIN.E CaTHERIN/E : " Magtiifica filia nostra dilectissiuia. We cannot say FROM MILAN TO ROME 41 with what great pleasure We have learnt of the honours and of the gracious reception accorded to thee by His Kohness and the whole Court of Rome. We hold all this as if it had been done to Ourselves, by reason of the singular love we bear thee. And although We suffer from the privation of thy sweet company, none the less, whenever We are reminded of the happiness of thy estate We experience an incredible consola- tion, to which nothing is wanting but the sight of thee. And We are assured that thou hast the same desire to see Us, which at this present cannot be. Therefore We exhort thee to be of good cheer and brave heart, assuring thee that this is the greatest pleasure thou canst procure to Us. We send thee three of the girdles thou didst order when here : and will send thee anything else from here, at thy pleasure." In another letter the Duchess assures Catherine that "When we hear thee well spoken of, We experience the happiness which Cometh to every good mother in the happiness of a dear daughter, such as thou art to Us." This correspondence bears the stamp of a pure and simple domestic life and proves that Catherine, whose virile qualities were destined to astound her contemporaries, was, in her early youth, a gentle and affec- tionate maiden. Of her appearance on the occasion of her official entry into the capital of Christianity, Fabio Oliva writes as follows : " That which was most remarkable in the diversity and multiplicity of spectacles was the rare and incomparable beauty of Catherine and her almost miraculous grace " BOOK III CATHERINE AND THE RIARIO CHAPTER V WHO WERE THE RIARIO? The Riario were the favourite nephews of a new pope, who was the daring and ill-starred initiator of a new era. On the death of Paul II., Duke Galeazzo Maria had sent a list of cardinals, friendly to him, to his orator in Rome, requesting him to do everything in his power to secure the appointment of one of them to the papacy. Among these was the Car- dinal Francesco della Rovere, a learned Franciscan, a native of Savona, a city subject to the Duke. At the same time the Duke sent an envoy to Rome, with instructions that were too secret to be written, and so much influence was brought to bear on the Conclave that Della Rovere assumed the tiara with the name of Sixtus IV. on August 9, 1479. During the ceremony of taking possession of the Lateran, the populace, revolted and attacked the litter of the new pope with stones. Sixtus, who combined a common exterior with an un- common egotism and a strong mind, was unscrupulous, intolerant of contradiction, and imbued with unbounded ambition for himself and his family. He was the son of a poor Ligurian fisherman and was, at the time of his exaltation, in his fifty-eighth year. He immediately provided his fifteen nephews with honours and riches. Julian (afterwards Julius II.), a sinister and dissolute man, generally considered insignifi- cant, was made cardinal and Bishop of Carpentras. But the Pope, having but little regard for him, advanced another nephew, Pietro, to the titles and benefices of Cardinal of San Sisto, Patriarch of Constantinople, Archbishop of Florence, Seville and Mendcs and Bishop of Treviso. His premature end has been chronicled in these pages. 45 46 CATHERINE AND THE RIARIO The blind afifection of the Pope for this young man might have been explained by the services he was known to have rendered in the Conclave, but public rumour accounted for it by other reasons of a scandalous nature. Both he and his brother Girolamo, known to be the sons of the Pope, were the reputed or adopted children of Bianca, the Pope's sister and Paolo Riario, a middle-class citizen of Savona. Girolamo, Catherine's husband, who was perhaps the worst member of his clan, had been a clerk in the custom-house of Savona, until Sixtus summoned him to Rome. His rugged and savage nature recoiled from things ecclesiastic, yet he was keenly alive to the advantages pertaining to cope and mitre. Although violent and uncultured, his arrogant, impetuous temperament appeared to Sixtus to be adapted for power. Not venturing to begin by making a prince of him he made him Captain- general of the papal forces and Governor of the fort of Sant Angelo. Girolamo, as pivot of the Church's temporal power, drew large revenues and availed himself of every opportunity of acquiring riches, influence and power. The avarice of Paul II. had scandalized Christendom ; he had accumulated treasure without spending any part of it and had been heard to declare, more than once, that his treasure chests contained fabulous sums. Sixtus only acknowledged to have found 5000 florins in the treasury, but his nephews, who astounded Italy and the whole of Europe by a luxury so sudden and unbridled, made it patent to all that their uncle had permitted them to rifle the hoards of the Church. This was the beginning of that deplorable epoch in the annals of the papacy which included the whole of our heroine's political career, in the course of which we meet with three popes, all of them famous in the sinister light of the Church's history. Although Catherine was the idol of one pope and the victim of another, her robust piety never permitted her to doubt the divineness of their mission, while she ascribed to human frailty the manner in which they exercised it. The papal bulls, and other documents which have been handed down to us, prove that even the worst popes, judged from their conduct as men and princes, were dogmatically WHO WERE THE RIARIO ? 47 irreproachable with regard to their guardianship of the Church's traditions. It is for this reason that ecclesiastical corruption could not undermine the Christian conscience : the evil times of Sixtus IV., Innocence VIII. and Alexander VI. passed like a summer storm which every one knows to be circumscribed within our terrestrial sphere, while overhead remains the peace and the eternal light of heaven. In the reign of Sixtus, there appeared with the secularization of the papacy a new phenomenon, a new disease : Nepotism ; the outcome of an alliance between celibacy and that family instinct which prompted the popes to found a nepotistic dynasty. The popes, being debarred from conquest or coloniz- ation, could only establish a family State by plundering the Church, and therefore elected to alienate from her possessions the province of Romagna, which long misrule and ferment had fitted more or less for new methods of government. Sixtus IV. was the first of a line of popes in whom the princely prevailed over the sacerdotal character. " This pontiff," says Machiavelli, " was the first who revealed the full extent of pontifical power, and how many things, which hitherto have been regarded as errors, may be hidden under its authority."' During the reign of Sixtus, the papacy fell into great discredit. The number of pilgrims had dwindled in the jubilee of 1475, and the few who came found the curia given up to usury, simony and traffic in office. A garment of paganism at once profaned and adorned the Holy City. At the time of the election of Francesco Rovere, Italy civilized, or at least vivified, by classical reminiscence, had feared that she might be thrust back into the barbarism of the past by the monkish austerity of this poor Franciscan : a false alarm ! for the new Pope was too ambitious not to be imbued with the spirit of his time. He built the bridge of San Sisto, the churches of Santa Maria della Pace and Santa Maria del Popolo ; the Hospital and Tower of Santo Spirito ; the Sixtine Chapel ; restored the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, and for the decoration of the new edifices summoned to Rome Mantegna, Perugino, Botticelli, Ghirlan- daio, Melozzo of Forli, Filippo Lippi, Luca Signorelli and 48 CATHERINE AND THE RIARIO Others, uniting them in the confraternity of St. Luke. He founded the Hbrary of the Vatican, patronized letters and furthered the triumph of humanism. MM MliRARIAN PLATI.NUS IlEFORE SIXTUS IV. The figure behind the kneeling Platinus, 7vith hands hidden, !s Girolamo Riario. In 1495, King Ferdinand of Naples advised the Pope to widen the streets and pull down the towers, loggias, balconies and other projections likely to facilitate disturbances. "You WHO WERE THE RIARIO ? 49 will never," he said, " be master of Rome while the women, by throwing down stones, can put to flight your best soldiers ; " and the Pope decided to follow this advice, if only to abolish the cause of much pestilence. But Sixtus IV. did not attempt this great undertaking until five years later, when he created a magistracy of public works, with power to purchase and pull down houses wherever it might be necessary to enlarge the streets, some of which were too narrow for two horsemen to ride abreast. When Catherine entered Rome, it was dark and uninhabitable. During her sojourn, it became gradually transformed into the splendid and artistic capital of Christen- dom. The pontificate of Sixtus IV. was glorious in the annals of art. With a change in politics came a change in the social life of Rome : banquets, sumptuous hunts, and nightly revels which, under the predecessors of Sixtus, would have been the cause of scandal, became the habitual recreations of high ecclesiastics and an acceptable spectacle to the populace. Sixtus was wont to say that the hand, ink and paper of the Pope sufficed to procure any given sum of money, and was so forgetful of his sacerdotal character as to be called the first pope-king. For many years there had been no princess on the steps of the papal throne, and the Riario were too unpolished, the curia too corrupt to be influenced by the charm of a daring, honest and beautiful woman. Catherine's influence was very limited during the lifetime of Sixtus IV., whatever later historians may say to the contrary. The harsh and discourteous Pope cannot have inspired her with any sympathy, nor could the descendant of famous condottieri delight in Girolamo, her husband, who, cowardly as he was violent, was always surrounded by ruffians, being too much hated to trust himself in the streets of Rome alone. A certain proud conception of her personal dignity saved her from being corrupted, and the dreams of an ever-soaring ambition enabled her to endure the moral filth which surrounded her. Her ambition bound her to her husband : she would have preferred him valorous and popular, yet found consolation for his baseness in his power and the fear it inspired. 50 CATHERINE AND THE RIARIO One of the most important factors in tlie life of Girolamo Riario was the conspiracy of the Pazzi, which ended in the tragedy of Santa Reparata. This conspiracy which was, in a measure, an imitation and consequence of the one in which Galeazzo Maria had perished, was headed by Sixtus IV. in alHance with the King of Naples, at the instigation of Girolamo Riario, and formed in opposition to the Lega. This league included the powers of Milan, Venice and Florence, where the Medici were no less hostile to the Pope's transform- ation of the States of the Church into an absolute monarchy. Girolamo Riario who had acquired the State of Imola without the sanction of Lorenzo Medici could not feel secure in its possession so long as the latter lived. The thread of the conspiracy was spun in the Vatican, the plan of the assassination being probably withheld from the Pope, who would naturally refrain from inquiring into matters that could not obtain sacerdotal sanction, while he was ready to absolve his nephew of the consequences of the means he might employ. In this conspiracy, which like the one against Galeazzo ended in a church, Giuliano Medici was murdered and Lorenzo wounded. The youthful Cardinal Raphael Riario, nephew to Girolamo, and the Pope's legate in Florence, was suspected of the murder. Imprisoned in the palace, he was not set at liberty until June 5. Andrea Bernardi, a contemporary, ascribes the unnatural pallor which ever after distinguished this young prelate as an effect of the fear of death by torture during his imprisonment. The fact remains that the Pazzi were the emissaries chosen by Girolamo Riario. The effects of this conspiracy were the humiliation of its originators, the exaltation of the family it aimed at exterminating, and a two years' war between the Florentines and their allies, on the one hand, and the Pope and the King of Naples, on the other. Undaunted by this result, and more than ever determined to wrest Florence from the Medici, so that the Pope might bestow it on himself, Girolamo resorted to a curious fiction. By agreement with a priest of Imola, he sent the latter to WHO WERE THE RIARIO ? 51 Florence, with instructions to affect great hatred of him (Girolamo), and to offer to poison him on condition that Lorenzo should provide the poison. Once in possession of the poison, Girolamo would have produced it before the Pope and the Consistory as a proof that Lorenzo sought his death. For this service the priest had been promised the custody of one of the gates of Imola. But the priest was taken and put to torture on his arrival in Florence, so that Girolamo was again baulked of his hopes. Later, Riario planned with certain Florentine exiles, who were enemies of the Medici, to remove Lorenzo by any means in their powder. The day appointed for his assassina- tion Avas May 30. It was postponed for repairs to some armour. Meanwhile, on June i one of the accomplices was taken, and having named the others all were hanged from the windows of the Bargello. It is scarcely credible that, in her sixteenth year, Catherine can have had any part in these conspiracies. Perhaps an echo of the terrors and bloody consequences of the great design may have reached her after the birth of Bianca, her eldest child, in 1478, when she was absorbed, not by political cares, but by the first maternal ones. In 1479, in the midst of the turmoil of the rumours of war, and of the furious excommunication of the Florentines, Sixtus feasted the birth of the eldest son of his favourite nephew, to whom Catherine gave birth September i. He w^as christened Octavian, and was held to the font by Rodrigo Borgia, a Spanish cardinal. Yet a few years and this cardinal w^ould occupy the chair of St. Peter and rob Catherine of throne and State. Meanwhile Duchess Bona, who ruled Lombardy for her little son, Gian Galeazzo, had weakly reposed all her con- fidence in a certain Antonio Tassino, a Ferrarese of humble origin, but elegant and attractive appearance. To him the Duchess referred all the deliberations of the council and every act and word of Cicco Simonetta, the experienced and trustworthy Secretary of State, who, conscious of having 52 CATHERINE AND THE RIARIO saved the State for Bona, refused to bend the knee to the new favourite. Tassino, in hatred of and opposition to Simonetta, brought about a reconciliation between Ludovico il Moro, the young Duke's ambitious uncle, and the Duchess. This sudden and unauthorized return of Ludovic and his gracious reception at the Castle of Milan surprised and offended Cicco. Nor was he disarmed by the deference with which Ludovic affected to treat so valued and trustworthy a servant of the House of Sforza. No sooner was he alone with the Duchess than he expressed his strong disapproval of what had happened, concluding with : " Most illustrious Duchess, I shall lose my head and you will lose your State." Three days later Ludovic coerced the Duchess into granting a decree for the incarceration of Cicco at Pavia. Two letters of Catherine, dated September i8, one to Battista Calco and the other to Duchess Bona, express the writer's satisfac- tion in the occurrence. She assures her stepmother that : " Next to the consolation of seeing her father resuscitated she could have none greater than knowing all the fire (discord) in Italy was ended by the imprisonment of that villainous Cicco . . . the homicide of our House and of his own flesh . . ." ^ " God be praised ! now she could venture on visiting her mother at Milan."- A letter of Sixtus IV. of the same date ^ not only expresses his approval but his regret that his advice on this matter had not been acted on sooner. Catherine, who had been informed by letters from Milan, and by her Roman advisers, that Cicco was a traitor, was too young to suspect the deception practised on her. She could neither refuse to write as she was bidden by the Pope nor divine the tragic end of the unfortunate minister, who after torture that drove his wife (a Visconti) to despair and madness, was decapitated at the Castle of Pavia on October 30, 1480. The omnipotence of Tassino dates from the death of Cicco. The Duchess's favour made him so arrogant that he often kept Ludovic Sforza and other personages waiting in his anteroom while his hair was dressed. But he overreached 1 Doc. 137. -' Doc. 138. " Doc. 139. WHO WERE THE RIARIO ? 53 himself when he tried to give his father the command of Porta Giovia, and was exiled from Lombardy, whence he departed with a great quantity of money and pearls. Ludovic took this opportunity of investing the Duke, who was then twelve years old, with the government, requesting the Duchess '■' to occupy herself henceforward with her devotions." " Bona was so enraged," writes Corio, " that forgetful of her honour and dignity, she determined also to cross the mountains ; nor could she be dissuaded from this unwise plan, but regard- less of her children's love, abandoned them to the guardianship of Ludovic Sforza." Ratti, after minute research, affirms the innocence of Bona's relations with Tassino. Her whole life is a protest against this calumny, invented to serve the designs of Ludovic, who seized the unhappy Duchess on her way to take refuge in Piedmont, and confined her for the rest of her life in the fortress of Abbiategrosso, where some historians say she died from poison administered by him in 1494. It would, how- ever, appear from a letter in the archives of ]\Iantua that Bona was alive in France about the year 1500. ^Meanwhile the fortunes of the Riario grew day by day. The Pope's chief care was to give them a State, and the papal army fought only on their behalf. The chronicles of Forli narrate how, on the death of Pino degli Ordelaffi on February 11, 1480, the dominion of the city, amid the clash of factions and rumours of intrigue, amours, and poison, was lost by the Ordelaffi, who had reigned over it for a hundred and fifcy years, and had been from the earliest times the most valiant and heroic family of Romagna. A quarrel between the two lines of the ancient house of Ordelaffi was a pretext for Sixtus to seize their dominion in the name of the Church, and give it to his favourite nephew. Sinibaldo, the infant heir, was dead of poison ; the fortress had surrendered to the representatives of the Pope, who, delighted to have won the game so easily, invested Girolamo Riario, his wife Catherine and their heirs, until the line should be extinguished, with the possession of P^orli, from which Antonio and Francesco Maria Ordelaffi were deposed, " for 54 CATHERINE AND THE RIARIO having used violence, killed and wounded the soldiers of the Church, and attacked the fortress with bombs and cannon." In Count Girolamo, as vicar of the Church, were vested all the civic rights of the city, subject to a yearly tribute of looo florins. The acquisition of h'orli, combined with that of Imola, became of political importance. These two cities, sufficiently fortified, might, under given circumstances, conduce to the maintenance of the balance of power between the northern and meridional powers of Italy. For there were only two roads from the States of Milan and Venice to the States of the Church and the kingdom of Naples, and one of these was the Tuscan and the other that of the Romagna, which passed through Imola and Forli. This position, despite its danger, entailed the support of one of the greatest of the powers, so that the first step of Girolamo Riario was to commission Maestro Giorgio Fiorentino to strengthen the fortress of Ravaldino, and add to it a citadel, where the whole Court could take refuge in case of rebellion or invasion. The first stone was laid June i, 148 1. Festivities followed one upon the other, and on the day after the dispatch of the brief of investiture the new Lady of Forli gave birth to a second son. The citizens of Forli were happy and full of confidence. Since it was written that the city must have a master, that it should have fallen to the lot of the Pope's favourite nephew seemed a guarantee of many advantages in the future. Four orators left for Rome to tender thanks to the pontiff and homage to the new lord, who annulled the odious tax on flour and those hitherto levied on the division of property, dowries and provisions. He summoned to Rome many citizens of Forli, who each, according to their desires and capabilities, were provided with lucrative office. He added that he wished to visit his subjects, but how could he abandon His Holiness in the midst of such terrible anxieties ? The moment was one of great danger. The Pope was on the worst of terms with the Duke of Milan and the King of Naples, who had sent his son Alfonso to invade the States of the Church. News had arrived of the occupation of WHO WERE THE RIARIO ? 55 Otranto by 15,000 Turks, Where would these barbarous heretics stop ? Italy was entirely open to their attacks. There were those who advised the Pope to take refuge in France, while others opined that the expedition against the Turks should proceed from the Holy See, not only in defence of its own States, but of the whole of Christendom. These terrors hung over Italy until May 3, 148 1, when the Sultan died, and, as if by enchantment, the Turkish fleet disappeared from the shores of Italy. Then only did Girolamo and Catherine obtain the papal sanction to visit their subjects in Romasfna. CHAPTER VI CATHERINE IN THE ROMAGNA AND VENICE (JULY- AUGUST 1881) ROMAGNA had been for two centuries the most unhappy of the many disturbed and unhappy provinces of Italy, In the place of their old nominal suzerainty, the popes had succeeded in establishing a real dominion which they had sought to render ever more direct and immediate. This policy, and the action and rebellion it evoked, had been accompanied by intrigue, fraud, treason and bloody wars ; the character of the Romagnole population, and especially of the papal Court, had fallen into extreme discredit. The perennial instability of the papacy in which, as in all elective monarchies, everything was subject to change with the person of the prince, increased the evil. The distance moreover which separated the Romagna from Rome, to which it was bound by political and traditional, but not by natural, ties, necessitated a separation of the administrative government from the sovereign rule ; each individual pope had made it over for an annual tribute to one of the more influential fam.ilies in each city, or had even sold it outright. The Ghibelline and Guelph factions and personal and dynastic ambitions brought about civil war, internal broils and fratri- cide among these papal vicars who were, more or less, the autonomous tyrants of every Romagnole city. The populace was a minor factor, for civic liberty, at first suppressed by individual tyrants and later by the centralizing action of papal rule, had never obtained in Romagna. After their flight to Avignon, the popes determined at any cost to possess a State in Italy, their craving for temporal, 56 CATHERINE IX THE ROMAGNA AND VENICE 57 having increased with their loss of spiritual, power. They spent untold treasure in the attempt to reconquer Romagna, to the scandal of Christendom. More than once they flooded this most rebellious of provinces with blood, and abandoned it to the fire and sword of ferocious mercenaries, led by avaricious and inhuman prelates. More often than any other province, Romagna had been laid waste by bands of French, Germans, Gascons and Bretons, whose excesses, instead of subduing her, had aroused the spirit of military honour and jealous love for the glory of Italian arms, which, combined with cupidity and ambition, had given to Italy the first of her great condottieri. The Romagna, at the time with which we are concerned, was already the brawling province of forty years later, that has been described by Guicciardini. Corrup- tion and party violence were the rule in all her cities, and this lamentable condition lasted till 1590, when the first century of the new era had nearly come to an end. The approaching solemn entry of Girolamo and Catherine was announced at Forli and Imola. Such changes, not unfrequent in those unhappy communities, always awakened new hopes and were marked by great festivities. During eight days, long lines of mules, whose burdens bound with silken cords were covered with cloths on which the Serpent of the Visconti, quartered with the rose of the Riario, were broidered in gold and silver, and carts laden with chests and trunks that contained costly household utensils, were seen to enter the town. Then came the long file of members of the household and servants and, at last, Catherine's little children. The Count and Countess did not arrive until eight days later, on July 15. Triumphal arches were erected and tapestries hung in the streets, where the first to receive them were a company of white-clad youths, bearing palm-branches. The Riario descended from their litter, thanked them for the peaceful augury, and continued on their way, the Count on foot, the Countess riding a white palfrey whose trappings were of cloth-of-silver embroidered with pearls. The young nobles in white and gold received them under a stately 58 CATHERINE AND THE RIARIO canopy, which they had carried for a mile from the town. The clergy were headed by the Bishop Alexander Numai, with whom, after an exchange of compliments, the Riario proceeded to the Porta Cotogni, Here they were received by the magistracy, whose chief presented the keys of the city on a silver shield. The sounds of music, the ringing of bells, the neighing of horses and clamorous cries of the people made it impossible for any one of those present to hear a word of the magniloquent discourse, but it was remarked that the manner in which the Signori replied to the magistrate left no room for doubt that they had appreciated every word of it. They continued on their way, accompanied by Giordano and Paolo Orsini, Girolamo Colonna, Gabriello Cesarini, and many other Roman noblemen, and followed by all who had already met them. The ever-increasing crowd was presently parted by a triumphal car full of prettily-adorned children representing the Graces, who declaimed verses, while a genius saluted the new rulers. Riario, who had by this time mounted a powerful bay charger covered entirely with cloth-of-gold, was surrounded by twenty-four guards habited in green silk, with stockings broidered with his "device" and bearing halberds and Castilian blades. Women and maidens pressed close to the horses, holding out their hands to Girolamo and Catherine, who smilingly gave theirs in return. Then followed other amenities, after which the pageant reached the piazza, where an artificial " giraffe, ugly but very cleverly constructed, performed many wonders," says an anonymous chronicler. On arriving at Santa Croce, the Count was carried from his horse by men dressed in white and deposited on the high altar. Priests intoned the Te Deiiin. On approaching the palace, he passed under an arch where three women, who represented Justice, Moderation and Power, raised their voices in song. At the entrance to the palace, Girolamo, turning to the men who were waiting to lift him from his saddle, said : "To your arms I commend myself, save my horse for me and I will do my duty." It was the custom for the populace to take possession of the prince's horse, for whose recover}- he paid a ransom. CATHERINE IN THE ROMAGXA AND VENICE 59 When Catherine was preparing to dismount, she was suddenly seized by some young men who carried her up the palace staircase. Others fought and even wounded each other in the piazza for the possession of her horse, whose gold harness was broken and divided in a thousand pieces. Catherine ransomed her palfrey by giving in exchange her cloak of cloth-of-silver. Meanwhile the nobles and their ladies awaited the Count and Countess in the palace, where, after an exchange of courtesies, they took their places on a sort of throne under a canopy and listened to an eulogy delivered in their honour by Dr. Guido Pepi, a scholar learned in the vulgar tongue, in Latin, Greek and Hebrew. The reply of Riario was prompt and happy. Impatient to prove his good-will, he confirmed the exemptions he had granted from Rome, to which he added other immunities, assuring them that in future he would do still more for the public weal. After the speeches, refreshments were served, and a pro- digious quantity of sweetmeats and pastry thrown out of the windows to the populace. At the ball on the same evening, Catherine — then in her twentieth year, wearing her most precious jewels and a turban whence depended a long veil wrought with the device Diversoruui openuii, and a rising sun piercing the clouds in silver and pearls — was more beautiful than ever. Leoni Cobelli, painter, musician, dancing-master and chronicler, was among the musicians ; words fail him to describe her grace and the beauty of the whole scene. After the ball, envoys from the various castles of the little State made their obeisance to Girolamo, presenting him with " fowls, calves, wax, sweets, forage, and other household necessaries." ^ On the following day, the moneys coined for this occasion were thrown to the people from the balcony of the palace. There was a tournament in which the Orsini, Colonna, Tolcntino and other gentlemen took part, and a wooden castle which had been erected at the Crocctta was taken by assault. This castle, which was an allusion to the burning topic of the day, represented Otranto besieged by the Turks ' Maixliesi. 6o CATHERINE AND THE RIARIO in the preceding year. It was painted in red and white, the ancient colours of the town. The tower wa.s adorned by a prodigious rose encircled by a serpent with the motto : Servabit odorcm. The Riario immediately began to adorn the interior of the palace. The chronicles describe great cupboards, ten feet high, filled with precious plate and china, that were placed in the great hall. The citizens, courteously admitted to view COINS STRLXK 1;Y THE RI.VRIO. this unusual magnificence, estimated its value at not less than 1 00,000 ducats. Catherine often appeared in public, her garments and those of her maids of honour were more splendid every day; she displayed daily a new dress during her stay in Forli. By these and other apparently futile means, the Riario succeeded in convincing the people of Forli that the wealth of the new rulers was boundless ; and CATHERINE IN THE ROMAGNA AND VENICE 6i that there was no fear of their demanding money — on the contrary, they had come to enrich them. Despite the warmth of his reception, Girolamo, who felt rAi.Aci; ];i-ii 1 i;\- iiri. uiaiu' i-^i ' ik/a, I4.>4. that the people hated him, shut himself up in his own house. This reserve was looked upon with suspicion. " Since his 62 CATHERINE AND THE RIARIO arrival, he has hardly ever left his room, so that the men of Forli are beginning to murmur," wrote the Milanese orator. On August 12, the Riario, with an escort chosen from the inhabitants of Forli, rode to Imola, which had then been in their possession for several years. The Sassatelli and Vaini rode to meet them with so many friends and retainers that they might have been taken for a well-ordered army. The nobles awaited them at the river Santerno and accompanied them under a canopy to the gates, where they were received by the clergy and the magistracy, who presented the keys of the city. Imola had been greatly rebuilt and adorned by Riario, who had spent large sums in pulling down old hovels built of mortar and replacing them by better buildings, in paving the muddy streets, mending the walls, adding towers and bastions to the gates, and completing the fortress which had been built by Catherine's father. In the opinion of Philip of Bergamo, Riario's munificence had converted *' the dregs of Romagna into one of its most beautiful cities." Yet Girolamo was not loved in any part of his dominions, and it was commonly said that he might be obliged to cede Forli to the Venetians. He employed a hundred workmen, with master-builders and carpenters, in the erection of his new palace at Imola, yet the Milanese envoy found the whole country ready to turn against him. There is ample proof that Girolamo, who was hated as a prince throughout Romagna, was harsh in his relations to his wife, and that Catherine was afraid of him. " Madama sent her chancellor to me," wrote the Milanese envoy (Appiani) from Forli in July i48i,"to inform me that Her Ladyship had tried to obtain permission to go to Milan, but that My Lord the Count, her Consort, had refused it, not without some anger. Therefore if, as she suspected, I had come with the purpose of obtaining this permission for Her Ladyship, she begged me not to ask it ; for this would make a breach between herself and her Lord, who would believe that she had been the cause of my coming." .... To the urgent appeal of Appiani, the Count had opposed excellent reasons for refusing the invitation. " Then I suggested that he should CATHERINE IN THE ROMAGNA AND VENICE 63 send his Illustrious Consort, with her august children. He replied that he could not live without her .... The aforesaid Madama Contessa has two children and is five months pregnant. She is beautiful, splendid in her apparel, and well-adorned with jewels." He adds, in conclusion, that he had given a gold ducat "to two drummers in the apartment of the Countess, who play while Her Ladyship is at table." About this time Catherine wrote to the Duchess of Ferrara for some greyhounds, "good runners for hunting the fleet mountain goats in the Roman Campagna, a couple of good setters and a couple of falcons." On September 2 Girolamo and Catherine left for Venice. The official pretext for the journey was to bring about an alliance between the Signoria and the Pope against the infidels. The Turks still held Otranto, and all over Italy fear prevailed that they might suddenly invade the peninsula. This danger had always been a favourite pretext of the popes for levying soldiers, hiring mercenaries, demanding money and imploring the help of the Powers. There was no Italian capital where this was believed to be the true, or at least the only reason for the journey. The Turk's name was ever on the Pope's lips, but in his heart was the aggrandizement of the Riario. And besides all the rest, Riario was really sent to Venice to perorate /;'*yi-«/p- P wvo /li^ ^A3y4^a -m^v^w^ ;. /Ur«M^*r*»- ,sr *u^ "*^'^-'*^'^ -"^^ ^^' ^ jr) -^ La <^/tnr M.9- if f^-^/ij L^-i^^^ 'U L. l^ ^U^nn- ^y^^'^f' i^jSelU- f^^y-r,^ JU^ c^y{l '^-^^ AUTOGRAni LETTER OF CATHERINE SFORZA TO THE KIGNORY OF SIENNA. for having favoured a conspiracy to reinstate the Ordelaffi in 1480 ; he had never ventured to attack Malatesta openly, but in the event of his death had determined to seize Meldola and the whole State of Rimini. The Pope had won a great victory, but his nephew had been defeated. Malatesta had returned unharmed from the battle and his hopes were at an end. Moreover, the truth leaked out, and the Pope commanded that Malatesta should make a triumphal entry into Rome, with a cardinal to hold his horse's bridle. Then on the 29th Malatesta suddenly fell ' Archives of Siena, Atti cLi Coihisloro. 72 CATHERINE AND THE RIARIO ill of dysentery and expired on September lo, in the house of his kinsman, Cardinal Nardini. Thither hastened Sixtus IV. to administer the Sacrament, but to his apparent profound grief he found him already dead, according to popular rumour of poison, at the instigation of Girolamo Riario, and to official report, of fever contracted in the pestilential plains of Campo Morto. After ordering solemn obsequies for the dead hero and a monument in St. Peter's, the Pope dispatched Girolamo Riario to Rimini to seize the heritage of the infant heir of Malatesta, in which he was thwarted by the Florentines, who protected the widow and child of Malatesta. In Rome Girolamo Riario and his nephew the Cardinal could do anything with impunity; "the Pope has given up the government, both temporal and spiritual, and moneys and everything else to the Count and San Giorgio (Cardinal Raphael), and there are not wanting judges who give sentences according to their pleasure," wrote Lanti, the Siennese Orator to the Signory. Girolamo, who was now feared as much as he was hated, invaded, in conjunction with the Orsini, the possessions of the Colonna, and cast the Cardinals Colonna and Savelli, whose wealth he appropriated, into prison in chains. One of the most piteous episodes of Girolamo's reign of terror is the capture, torture, and execution of the Protonotary, Lorenzo Colonna. The Pope's mercenaries sacked all the churches in the neighbourhood of the Quirinal, and the whole quarter in which stood the houses of the Colonna. The council of the people sent deputies to make peace between Sixtus and the Colonna, but Count Girolamo, tyrant of the Pope and people, would not consent to it. Dismayed by the excesses of which they knew Girolamo to be capable, the Colonnesi promised the Pope Marino, Rocca di Papa and Ardea, leaving to his mercy the life of the unhappy Protonotary. But Girolamo put to death the ambassador who carried this message, and replied that he would not be content with a few of the Colonna castles, he would have them all, and he CATHERINE, THE RIARIO, ORSIXI AND COLONNA Ti would take them by force, with cannon and bombs. He insisted on the execution of Lorenzo Colonna, whose trial was relegated by the Pope to a special tribunal. On June 30, 1484, at daybreak, Lorenzo, who had surrendered to Virginio Orsini, was dragged into a courtyard of the Castle of Sant Angelo, He heard his sentence with calmness and resigna- tion, and retracting the confessions that had been torn from him by torture, protested his innocence. After a reverent and resigned salutation of the Pontiff who had condemned him to death, he placed his head on the block, calling three times on the name of Jesus. " At the third time his head was severed from his shoulders." ^ His body was deposited in Santa Maria Transpontina, whence none of his friends and partisans ventured to remove it, until some priests and monks, sent by the mother of the murdered man, carried it to the church of the Santi Apostoli. The unhappy lady caused the coffin to be opened, and gazing upon the body, crushed by torture to a single wound, held the severed head by the hair so that the people might see it, crying — "This is the head of my son! This the faith of Pope Sixtus, who promised that if we gave up Marino to him, he would have given me back my son ! " A week later the unhappy mother died of grief The blind obstinacy with which Sixtus insisted on the annihilation of the Colonna had no other motive than to enrich his nephew Girolamo with that of which they were despoiled. " No one has moved in the matter," wrote Lanti to the Signori of Sienna on June 30. " The populace boils over a little at first, and then is silent. ... I know not what will happen next. Marino is in the power of the Pope. The plague is ravaging Rome." At the Court of Rome, the luxury, which surpassed even that of Milan, so deadened and cloaked everything else that it would have sapped the moral energy of Catherine had this not been sustained by her ambition. In the aspiration, the determination to rise to higher power, Catherine, imbued with ^ Infessura, R.I.S.I*. , c. 1173-75. 74 CATHERINE AND THE RIARIO the idea common to the politicians of her time — which was that a strong will combined with astuteness might vanquish any obstacle in the attainment of a given end — was at one with her husband. Yet she did not abandon herself to the current of folly and crime which subsequently led to the ruin of both Sixtus and Girolamo. Despite the cares of her household, her children, the Court and State, she appears to have found time for much reading, chiefly of historical and devotional books, and without affecting the erudition which had become the fashion among the ladies of her time, to have delighted in the society of the cultured and learned. It may be read between the lines of contemporary history how a feeling of disgust and loathing stirred her strong soul against her husband's baseness, and that sometimes she reproached him for the vileness of his acts : to which Girolamo retorted by such brutal and personal violence that Catherine confided later to a Milanese envoy she " had often envied those who died," because of the treatment she endured at her husband's hands. Either frightened by the corruption of the papal Court, or to show that she had no share in her husband's atrocities, or to escape from his violence, she seized the opportunity of his absence on July 7, 1484, and, accompanied by a strong escort, fled to Frascati. It cannot have been long before these clouds were dis- persed, for soon Catherine was back in Rome under her husband's roof ^ at the Lungara, where, without participating in his crimes, she again co-operated in his ambitious schemes. ^ Now Palazzo Corsini. CHAPTER VIII CATHERINE IN THE CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO Meanwhile the affairs of Italy assumed a new aspect. The Pope, in his terror of the Venetians, under pretext of preventing them from acquiring Ferrara, declared a " Most Holy" league with the other Italian powers on January 6, 1483, and on May 25 excommunicated the Venetian senate. This act reversed the state of the various parties. The King of Naples was now the Pope's ally, the Duke of Calabria came to Rome to kiss his foot and showed great friendliness to Girolamo Riario, his late conqueror. Towards the end of February, a congress was held at Cremona to decide the plan of war and nominate the captains-general. Among these was Girolamo Riario. On June 16 Catherine arrived with Count Girolamo at Forli, from Rome. The Count went to Imola to assume the command of the troops encamped in that district, and having placed the fortress on a war footing, went on to Bertinoro for the same purpose, returning to Forli in August, where he was present with his wife during the great earthquake of Santa Chiara. Houses were destroyed and bells tolled lugubriously for a month. Catherine and Girolamo inhabited a tent pitched within the precincts of the fortress. The cloister of St. Francis, which was being built at their expense, being partly destroyed, they restored and enlarged it. Catherine gave the example of public prayer and penance and, to appease the Divine wrath, the Riario made a vow to visit the shrine of St. Clara every year, with the chapter of the dome and the magistracy, on the name-day of that saint, to pray 75 76 CATHERINE AND THE RIARIO for her intercession with the Almighty, so that a like calamity might henceforward be averted from the city. Meanwhile Sixtus wrote to his nephew and niece, informing them that he did not feel safe in Rome in the confusion caused by the war between the Orsini and Colonna, and that he needed soldiers, money and friends. He needed the support of their presence. They therefore returned to Rome at the end of August, a weightier reason having conduced to hasten their departure. Letters from the Ordelaffi to certain monks had been intercepted, revealing a widespread conspiracy to assassinate Girolamo and Catherine, who, alarmed by the discovery of so much treachery, and convinced of the necessity of secrecy, were glad to escape the risk of becoming the victims of the plot or of being hated for retaliating on their assailants. They therefore left for Rome, after enjoining on the governor not to shed more blood than was necessary. Yet when the trial was ended, the bodies of two women (one of whom was a nurse of the Ordelaffi), a man, and all the monks were seen hanging from the windows of the palace throughout November 2, 1483. The year 1484 began with a repulsive spectacle for the people of Forli. The body of one Landi, a man of low condition, whose crime had never been divulged, was exhibited hanging from one of the palace windows. It was rumoured that despite recent warnings, he too had been found guilty of conspiring with the Ordelaffi. In the course of the year, the Pope's chronic gout became acute. He was embittered by the failure of his policy ; for Ludovic Sforza had left the league and gone over to the Venetians, whose alliance he needed in his designs on the throne of Milan. The Pope felt his loss of prestige and that he was no longer master of Rome : many more soldiers and much more money were needful for his security, and more than once he had thought of leaving it. In the midst of these terrible anxieties he learned that despite earlier successes, a disadvantageous peace had been concluded at Bagnolo. This fell as a thunderbolt on the Pope, whose gout flew to the chest. On the evening of August 12 he received the envoys, who read to him the conditions of the treaty. " This," he CATHERINE IN THE CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO -n exclaimed, " is an ignominious peace! My sons, I can neither give it sanction nor blessing." The envoys, perceiving that the agitated old man was losing strength, and that his speech was becoming inarticulate, replied that they hoped to find His Holiness calmer on a future occasion, meanwhile they prayed him to give his blessing to a peace that could not be revoked. Then the Pope, withdrawing a gouty hand from its enveloping bandage, raised it in a gesture that was interpreted by some as a contemptuous refusal, by others as a blessing on the envoys and the peace. He never spoke again, and expired in the night. "On the following morning," wrote Infessura, "the body of Pope Sixtus, wrapped in a ragged chasuble, was carried with only twenty torches and but a small following to St. Peter's. His corpse was black and disfigured . . . nor was there any one who blessed his memory, save only a certain monk of St. Francis, who watched alone by the body and endured its fearful exhalations." Like many another, who, abandoned and deceived by the world in his declining years, concentrates his affection on a few, Pope Sixtus, disillusioned and tired with every one, centred in the Riario his whole life and ambition. It was natural that he should take pleasure in the society of Catherine, who day by day developed fresh beauties of mind and person. So marked an admiration for the fair Milanese seemed unbecoming to the age and dignity of the old Francis- can pope, and was the cause of wonder, and perhaps some scandal. But the Pope, to whom this was indifferent, put less restraint as time wore on in the cordiality of his relations to his niece, or rather his daughter-in-law. A picture by a young Roman painter represented the siege of Cavi by the papal forces, with Count Girolamo, as chief of the expedition, in the foreground. The Pope, who wished to see this faithful presentment of the siege, discovered therein the figures of a Franciscan and a woman. In the Franciscan he recognized himself, in the woman he divined an allusion to Catherine. Both the allusion and the satire were terrible. The artist was thrown into prison, beaten and tortured, and his house sacked. 78 CATHERINE AND THE RIARIO He was condemned to be hanged, and only escaped with his life on being declared insane. Twenty days later the Pope was no more. This incident proves that Catherine's reputation was un- justly contaminated by her relations with the Pope, although they were imposed upon her by duty and necessity. None castle of st. angelo in the itfteenth century, ai'ter the picture i;y carpaccio. could be reputed innocent who stood near to the shameless old man. News of the Pope's death reached the Captain-general at Paliano, where he was encamped with the Orsini, and Cather- ine, who with her three children shared with her husband the rigours of camp life. Girolamo was at the same time CATHERINE IX THE CASTLE OF ST. AXGELO 79 ordered by the Sacred College to return to Rome with the troops and to station himself on the other side of Ponte Molle. Each chose the most congenial part ; Girolamo obeyed the mandate of the Sacred College, and, accompanied by Virginio Orsini, brought his troops to Ponte Molle on the evening of the 14th, while Catherine, accompanied by Paolo Orsini, resolutely pursued her way and entered the Fort of St. ,-.';-~ ■-T-rV-'*. CAsll.K UV ST. .A.NGEI.0 BKFORE THE DEMOLITIONS OK 1S92. Angelo. The Romans, who had never been permitted by Catherine to forget that she was a Sforza, revered in her the personification of the power and influence of the duchy of Milan. They crowded the narrow streets in expectation of the coming conclave, crying, "■ Diica ! Duca I Viva il Duca ! " on her passage. On her arrival at the castle, some doubted her right to enter, others were of opinion that they must await 8o CATHERINE AND THE RIARIO the orders of the Sacred College, but everything yielded to the imperious presence of Catherine, who, entering as the barred gates were opened, declared that she would hold the fortress for Count Girolamo, and ordered the entrance of the staircase which connected it with the Vatican to be strongly barricaded. The garrison trembled at a sign from her ! Soon the cardinals, knowing her within, must tremble. Innocenzo Cordrochi of Imola was vice-governor of the fortress. Catherine suspected him and sent him away, with other Imolese. Cardinal Riario sent an envoy to inform the Countess that he wished to see her, but Catherine, who had at that moment little confidence in cardinals, even when they were near relations, replied that he could not enter the Castle of St. Angelo at his pleasure, but that if he came with an escort, she would receive him in the presence of a witness. She was told that the envoy raged and stormed. " Ah ! " she exclaimed, " this man would match his wnts with mine ! Does he not know that I have the brain of Duke Galeazzo, and am as headstrong as he .-' " These are the first indications of that militant and wilful humour, that, displayed in supreme moments, was later to make Catherine so famous throughout Italy. And it is in the Castle of St. Angelo that she first appears to us as she is described by Cerretani : " Wise, brave, great, with a full, beautiful face ; speaking little. She wore a tan satin gown with two ells of train, a large black velvet hat in the French mode, a man's belt whence hung a bag of gold ducats and a curved sword ; and among the soldiers, both horse and foot, she was much feared, for that armed lady was fierce and cruel." Meanwhile, Rome was a prey to extreme disorder. The anarchy that always followed upon the death of a pope was a festival for the populace, for murderers, thieves, and assassins of every degree, while quiet, decent people bent before the storm, and those in high places either sallied forth to attack their rivals or entrenched themselves within their towers to resist them. Rome rang with the cries of victims, uncounted and uncared for. But the worst was reserved for the favour- CATHERINE IX THE CASTLE OF ST. AXGELO 8i ites and nephews of the late Pope, so that popular fury first vented itself on the house of the Riario on the Lungara^ close to what is still known as the Vicolo de Riario, This palace or villa had been furnished by Catherine with great magnificence, according to the fashion of her time, in which the most important article of furniture was a a-edenza or high cupboard that contained vases, glass, majolica and silver reserved for the use and adornment of banquets. In the house of the princes and nobles there were many chests and cupboards, the largest of which stood in the entrance hall and contained the household linen. Along the walls stood heavy tables and wooden chairs, generally covered with leather with clamps of bright metal ; if without leather, the wood was covered with movable cushions ; the great wide beds were surmounted by a canopy. The flooring was of cold, bare tiles ; in princely houses the woodwork was carved, gilt and painted with the arms of the family. In the houses of private persons, even of the rich, the walls were simply whitewashed ; in the palaces of great personages they were covered, on solemn occasions, with figured tapestry. A reliquary and the image of a saint, especially of the Madonna, before which a lamp was ever burning, completed the internal decoration of a fifteenth- century house. The riotous populace, possibly led by an enemy of the Riario, sacked and ruined the contents of their house, even to the wooden galleries where carved arms of the Sforza and the Riario were emblazoned and painted. Windows were broken, doors torn from their hinges, even the stables were so com- pletely ruined that no horses could stand in them. In the garden the trees were cut down, and fire would have been set to everything, to the cries of " Colonna ! Colonna!" if the conservators and other officials had not arrived on the spot. Yet, after all, the enraged populace did not succeed in destroying every trace of the Riario, for two hundred and fifty-four years later, when the nephews of Pope Clement XII. rebuilt the palace in its present form, they discovered human bones in the subterranean passages. ^ Now Palazzo Corsini. G CHAPTER IX CATHERINE LEAVES ROME. THE NEW POPE In a letter of Guidantonio Vespucci to Lorenzo Medici, dated August i8, the Florentine Orator writes that he had visited Girolamo Riario, who had told him that on "no account " would he tolerate the election of Cardinals San IMarco, Savelli, nor Molfetta (Cibo who, after all, was elected under the name of Innocent VIII.) to the papacy. "He should keep on his guard, for if it happened that one of these were elected, he would have recourse to arms, and give a turn that suited him to the affair." The Florentine Orator adds that he had tendered the offices of Lorenzo to Girolamo, in the protection of the latter's State in such wise " as to bring tears to the eyes of the Count." ^ It is difficult to believe in the sincerity either of Lorenzo's offer or of Girolamo's gratitude. They had been deadly enemies for years. The means employed by Catherine, who had appealed to ]\Iilan, were, as usual, more efficacious. " I know from a good source," wrote the Siennese Orator, " that the State of Milan is protecting the States of the Count, and has furnished him with soldiers for his safety. Whether or no it has intervened in the affairs of Rome, I do not under- stand. Every one's procedure is underhanded and silent. If treason, dissimulation and treachery were lost arts, they might be re-discovered here in these days." " God grant us a good change ! " wrote Lanti in another letter on the pre- liminary intrigues of the election ; " we cannot do worse than heretofore." The obsequies of Pope Sixtus, on the 17th, had been ^ Archivio Jllediceo avaiiti il Principato Filza, 39. 82 CATHERINE LEAVES ROME 83 attended by only eleven cardinals. The Cardinals Cibo, Savelli, Delia Rovere (related to Girolamo), and Ascanio Sforza (related to Catherine) had refused to attend them, rather than pass under the F'ortress of St. Angelo while Catherine held it. They said that unless the Sacred College found means to seize the castle from that woman, and to deprive the partisans of the Orsini from the guardianship of the Vatican, they should refuse to attend the conclave. Then began the trea- ties to obtain a short truce and the opening of the conclave. The Orsini promised to retire to Viterbo for a month, the Colonna to Lazio, while to induce Girolamo to give up St. Angelo, and retire to his States, the Sacred College promised him 8000 ducats, with a continuation of all the stipends granted him by the late Pope, and the title of Captain- general of the Church, and also that the new Pope should confirm him in the possession of Imola and Forli, and pay him an indemnity for the destruction of his house. The cardinals, on the security of the silver and other pro- perty of Sixtus, contributed a loan of 7000 ducats, which was handed to Girolamo for the pay of his men-at-arms on the 22nd. Girolamo, accompanied by two prelates, was to leave on the 24th. "The monies were paid on Monday," wrote Lanti ; "the Countess is still in the castle." How could they get her out of it .'' The Count had, as usual, yielded to threats and money, but there was no means of corrupting nor frightening her, whose evident intention was to hold the castle until the election of the new Pope, and then only yield to him when her claims had been satisfied. According to the agreement with Girolamo, the castle should have been sur- rendered on the morning of the 24th, but the sun went down and she had not moved. " The Countess is reported to be ill," wrote Lanti, " and therefore her departure has been post- poned." Her advanced pregnancy lent probability to this rumour, but in any case the indisposition was very oppor- tune, and if she were ill Catherine cannot be said to have been inactive. In the night, between August 24 and 25, Catherine, having previously revictualled the castle, secretly admitted a hundred and fifty of her husband's soldiers, whom 84 CATHERINE AND THE RIARIO she and the garrison received with great demonstrations of joy. But this time she had gone too far. The Sacred Col- lege, suddenly acquiring a courage born of fear, affected a clamorous indignation at the violation of the contract, and threatened to repudiate its obligations with regard to the Count's revenue and safe-conduct unless the castle were imme- diately surrendered. When Catherine saw the game was lost, that she was betrayed by her husband, who had taken the money, and was herself, perhaps, really suffering from her condition and the pestilential air of Rome at that hot season, she was obliged to yield. On the evening of the 25th, eight cardinals presented themselves at the castle in the name of the Sacred College ; the Countess, hearing that among them was her uncle, Ascanio Sforza, ordered them to be admitted. The cardinals courteously assured Catherine of their pro- tection of herself and family, but determined to rid them- selves, once and for all, of so dangerous a woman, were unanimous in insisting on her immediate departure. Lanti, the Siennese Orator, rode to the castle and witnessed the departure of Catherine, who, mounted on her palfrey, sur- rounded by the pikes and halberds of her men-at-arms, and followed by her household, looked pale and weary. Her husband, in allowing himself to be bought, had prevented her from holding the Castle of St. Angelo to the last, but fortune held in store for her another opportunity of showing the world how to defend a fortress, and how not to leave it by any other way than a breach in its walls. Before leaving Rome, Count Girolamo made a clear state- ment of his accounts to the Apostolic Chamber, with a result that left enormous sums to the credit of the Captain-general of the Church. This wise and provident step proved, after his death, of great service to Catherine and his children. On the road to Forli, news reached the Riario of the elec- tion of Cardinal Cibo (Molfetta) to the papacy, under the name of Innocent VIII. The news was unwelcome, for Cibo had been an opponent of Riario, who was well aware that no new pope had any tenderness for the nephews of his prede- CATHERINE LEAVES ROME 85 cesser; and the chief author of this election had been his cousin Giuliano Rovere. The characteristics of this handsome pope — amiable, gentle to irresolution, dissolute in his private, and not blameless in his political life — are indicated by Ves- pucci in his letter of the 29th to Lorenzo Medici, "When he was a cardinal his nature was humane and benevolent. He has not much statecraft, nor literature, yet is not wholly ignorant. He has always been devoted to S. Pier in Vincula (Giuliano Rovere). He is very tall, and full in the face, about fifty-five years old, has one brother, at least one bastard son, and several daughters married here. When he was cardinal, he did not agree with the Count. S. Pier in Vincula ^ may now be looked upon as Pope, and he will maintain his influence better than under Sixtus." The Riario entered Forli on September 4. On the 7th they received the much-coveted papal sanction of the investi- ture of Imola, Forli, and their other fiefs, the confirmation of Girolamo's title of Captain-general of the Church, and thirdly, the permission, despite this office, to live in the Romagna instead of Rome, which last ironical concession seemed almost to annul the first. All had been the work of their cousin Giuliano Rovere, who led the inexpert and volatile Innocent according to his will. Though with minds ill at ease, the Riario affected the utmost satisfaction, which they celebrated in Forli and Imola by bell-ringing, fireworks and other public rejoicing for three days. There were, indeed, in Rome and Florence, those who had been long awaiting the election of a new pope to suppress the malefactor who, under the cloak of Sixtus, had, with impunity, committed so many atrocious crimes, who had been the tyrant of Rome, had originated the Conspiracy of the Pazzi and persecuted the Colonna and Savelli. It had even been determined to whom the States of Imola and Forli should be given after the removal of Girolamo Riario. Lorenzo Medici, secure in the unbounded confidence of the new Pope, most of all fanned this flame. " Lorenzo shall learn," said Innocent VIII. to Pandolfini, the Plorentine legate, "that ' Cardinal dclla Rovcie, later Pope Julius II. 86 CATHERINE AND THE RIARIO never was a pontiff who loved him and his house as I do. And having learnt, by experience, the extent of his faith, integrity and prudence, I shall be governed by his memory and opinion."^ And Lorenzo, who remembered how narrowly he had escaped the daggers of Girolamo's emissaries, was terrible in counsel. There were besides Cardinal Savelli, whom Girolamo had offended, and whose election to the papacy he had there- fore opposed, and the Manfredi, lords of Faenza, who knew that the Riario coveted their State, and who hated them accordingly. All these intrigues to remove Riario by giving full scope to individual revenge, were conducted by the Pope with great prudence and mystery, for he was fearful lest Catherine should bring down upon himself and Lorenzo the reprisals of the Duke of Milan. The Riario had returned to their dominions, hampered with the occult and insidious enmity of Innocent VIII. and Lorenzo Medici. Encompassed by so many dangers, the Riario realized the necessity of striking deeper root in their Romagnole pro- vinces, by conciliating the affection of the people. There had been a bad harvest, and corn was dear. The Count imported it by sea, and on learning that his ships had been wrecked sent for others, whereby he was able to sell it at four lire per measure, while the landowners of Forli sold theirs at seven. The league had ravaged the territory they occupied ; the most able-bodied labourers had been recruited, and the peasantry were in desperate case. The Count re- mitted the meat tax for the whole of the following year. On October 30, in the midst of the rejoicing for these remis- sions, Catherine gave birth to a son, who, in honour of Forli, was christened Giovanni Livio.'- The Fortress of Ravaldino was completed, and close to it arose a princely palace for the Riario and their Court ; barracks for the accommoda- tion of 2000 men were built, store-houses for provisions and ammunition, and the fortress was surrounded by a moat so ^ Letter of Pandolfini to Lorenzo Medici, Sept. 4, 1484. - He died in 1496. CATHERINE LEAVES ROME 87 deep and wide as to render it impregnable. The churches, began both at Forh and Imola, were completed, and the convents enlarged ; nothing was denied to monks and nuns. Thus Riario strove to win the favour of the people, save him- self from his enemies and win God's pardon for the sacri- legious spoliation of Rome. Instead of this, the effects of the designs of his enemies became apparent. The Zampeschi — whose castles of San Mauro, Giovedio, and Talamello had been seized by Sixtus in favour of Girolamo — encouraged by Lorenzo, the new Pope and others, attacked and took San Mauro, slaying the governor, and also recaptured Giovedio and Talamello. Girolamo was for dispatching Tolentino to recapture the castles immediately, but Catherine said: "Hector Zampeschi is in the pay of the Church; herein I see the finger of the Pope; no Roman tribunal will decide in our favour. Besides, the Zampeschi, in the execution of their design, must needs have passed through Florence, therefore with the sanction or knowledge of Lorenzo Medici. Let us not move in the dark, but rather fortify ourselves at home. In that we can never be mistaken." According to Catherine's advice the fortress was provisioned and ammunitioned as for a siege ; the city was surrounded by troops, and the palace so filled with them that it was proof against any attack. The advice was good, for they were tired of waiting in Rome, and had decided to kill the Count before the fortress could be ready for his habitation, or, should he enter it, the Pope had promised the funds for a siege. But the rumour of these armaments discouraged them from an attempt that might fail. Enemies of Riario at Forli warned Lorenzo Medici and Savclli that it would be useless, for the Riario were hemmed in by soldiers. Lorenzo, far from desisting, then encouraged Taddeo Manfredi to seize Imola. The latter, with a few men-at-arms, crossed the States of Lorenzo, and arriving at I'aenza, planned the assassination of the Vice- Governor of Imola, who discovered the plot in time to catch the spies and scouts of Taddeo, who then took to flight. Of the thirteen spies, who were all Imolcsc, two were ex- posed hung by the neck, one by the feet, and two were tied 88 CATHERINE AND THE RIARIO to a horse's tail and dragged round the city. The Riario were consoled by the knowledge that all the conspirators had been of the humblest class, unaided by any of the nobles. A year later, on December i8, 1485, a year of apparent peace and festivity, but of real and insidious danger, Catherine gave birth to another child, who was christened with stately ceremonial at St. Mercurial on January 18, i486, by the name of Galeazzo. The presence of the representative of Lorenzo Medici among those of the other Italian princes, which created some surprise, was a result of that personal policy initiated by Catherine without detriment to her co- operation with that of her husband, against the consequences of whose excesses guards and coats-of-mail might not always prevail. Were lie to succumb in the struggle with Lorenzo, Catherine, who had constrained the latter to an exchange of courtesies, chose that in a possible future Lorenzo should rather regard herself as the sister of his ally than as the widow of Girolamo. Lorenzo might well have combined with his hatred of Girolamo a sentiment of affection and admira- tion for the fair and sagacious lady of Forli, and sent a representative to the christening of her son. Catherine had, meanwhile, perceived that the policy of the Pope and the Florentine was not solely dictated by venge- ance. The downfall of Girolamo Riario would spring from the principle to which he owed his fortune. Among the sons whom Pope Innocent did not trouble to represent as nephews was the evil, stunted Franceschetto, to whom the Pope des- tined those States which Sixtus had not been able to bestow on Girolamo. In furtherance of this design, the nuptials of Franceschetto with Maddalena, daughter of Lorenzo Medici, were celebrated in the Vatican on January 20, 1488. This connection rendered indissoluble the alliance between Riario's worst enemies ; the daggers for his heart were sharpened, but how to drive them home .'' He lived in an impregnable fortress, or travelled surrounded by armed men. Every at- tempt at sedition had miscarried, and every intrigue patiently prepared in Florence and Rome, Patience to his enemies ! Led by an unlucky star, he himself would pave the way for their vengeance. CHAPTER X THE TAXES OF FORLI Splendour and careless gaiety continued to prevail at the Court of Forli. But Count Girolamo, although he had achieved his ideal, which was to be regarded as a generous, magnificent and renowned prince, became every day more grim and silent. Priests, monks and nuns saw their churches rebuilt, and their convents enlarged. The pay of the soldiers was (by an exception rare among the little principalities of the time) not only paid punctually, but increased ; the pre- lates and great warriors, who had been received with almost regal hospitality, had divulged that few of the Courts of Italy could vie with the splendour of the Riario. But despite the smiles of fortune, Girolamo became more grim from day to day. The fact was, that he was short of money, and did not know where to turn for the expenses attendant on his dignity. He no longer held the keys of the treasure of the Church, and all the money that he had brought from Rome was gone. Catherine, the secret spring of counsel to her husband, is credited with causing a renewal of the old taxes, and thereby causing a bloody catastrophe. Cobelli relates how the people of Forli — with the exception of certain citizens accustomed to live on public stipends — had triumphed in their immunities, of which one effect had been to abolish public offices, with the exception of the charge of castellane or governor, to which the Count appointed his relations, personal friends, and servants. There were a few others in the guards and the customs on merchandise and those payable by foreigners. Some clamoured for office, and others for arrears of pay. "What is to be done.'" said the Count. "I have no revenue from 90 CATHERINE AND THE RIARIO Forli." And they had gone back dissatisfied and menacing, leaving the Count agitated and confused. At this stage the narrative of CobelH assumes the form of dialogue, gaining in verisimihtude by his frequent quotation of namcs.^ Nicolo Panzechi proposed the re-estabHshment of those taxes that had been aboHshed at the suggestion of Sixtus. "And what of my vow ? " queried Girolamo. " What will be said of me, who am cavalier and count ? " '' Leave it to me," replied Panzechi. " It will suffice to put the matter before the council." In the evening Panzechi returned, and the Count ended by accepting his advice. Yet in the morning he summoned the chief magistrate, Dr. Andrea Chelini, and explained the difficulties of his position. Chelini dissuaded him, with some warmth, from tampering with the liberties of the people. As for himself, he would never give his bean- against their interests. The Count turned his back on him, Chelini went away ill and soon after died, it was thought, although none dared to say it, from the poison of Girolamo. Then, perhaps goaded to it by his daring wife, the Count disclosed his intention to his favourite, Ludovic Orsi. " Abstain," cried Ludovic, " for the love of God ! Why did you swear (to these remissions) ? The people are poor and, I fear me, capable of some rash act!" The Count turned away from him, and again summoned Panzechi, to whom he confided the obstinate opposition of Orsi. " Oh, you are afraid ! " replied Panzechi. " You are afraid of these people of Forli — the vilest rabble of Romagna ! The Lord Pino (Ordelaffi) would not have been foiled by them. They are as cowardly as cur-pups." "We have honour, and could not endure blame." " Summon the council and leave the rest to me," replied Panzechi. "Of whom are you afraid.-^" said Catherine.^ "Are the people of Forli to be the only ones in the world who do not pay taxes ? Shall we govern and defend them and, alone 1 Cobelli, p. 285. - The vote of the council was cast with white and black Ijeans. •* Bernardi, baste 448. THE TAXES OF FORLI 91 among princes, give our own substance to our subjects, who give us nothing ? Who can reproach you with your vow, if they for whose good you made it absolve you of it ? The poor citizens clamour for office, because they are in want ; the officers claim their arrears of pay, and you have nothing to give them. Is every one to die of hunger because of your vow ? " And Catherine was to her husband as a sword that drove him to hasten his decision. The council met on December 27. " Now I," writes Cobelli, who on that day enjoyed the privileges that now belong to representatives of the Press, " desiring to hear and record the truth, entered, in spite of great difficulty, which was only permitted to me by the ministers of him (the Count), who, knowing that I wrote chronicles, were content, and so I entered and heard everything." On entering the hall, he saw the Count seated in the midst of the doctors and knights who formed the Magistracy of the Ancients (Upper House), in all forty councillors. Nicolo Panzechi spoke first, in the name of the Count, described his position, and recalled the tribulations of the people under Pino Ordelaffi, "who ate our hearts and tore our entrails from our bodies; and persecuted us like dogs." "But now," he continued, "we have here our lord the Count Girolamo, who is an angel sent by God : a benign and clement lord, and a lamb without flaw. From him we have had many exemptions, and, but that the revenue of Forli is insufficient for his office and the State, he w^ould fain confirm us in them. It has never sufficed ; that which he has, he brought with him from Rome, and he will not spend it in our stead. Yet must he live as our lord. Therefore, let us restore the ancient taxes to the Count, here present." At these words Girolamo rose to his feet and said with other things that " if the prince owed help to his subjects, justice willed that the subjects should help the prince in his need," concluding by reminding them that when they "had no better entertainment his house had at all hours been free and open to welcome them, nor had his purse been ever closed in avarice." More generous than provident, he was 92 CATHERINE AND THE RIARIO now reduced to the absolute necessity of providing a remedy for his embarrassment, and after much thought could find none better, howsoever painful to him, than the modification, in times that had so sadly changed, of those concessions made in a time of opulence and boundless prosperity. He said : and sadly turned to leave the hall. But his words, none of which had been lost, had seemed so sincere, and his bearing so dignified, that a sense of compassion per- meated the council, so that when he would have left, the councillors, with gentle violence, detained him. Others spoke who queried : " Why should they deny to the Riario that which had always been given to the Calboli, Orgogliosi and Ordelaffi ? If the council renounced its privileges, the Count could no longer be bound by his vow." "Then," continues Cobelli, " Ser Nicolo Panzechi did cry Hor sii ! Gentlemen, say yes or no : who wills that it shall be, and who wills it not. Hoy su, o/tr." The council appeared to be stupefied and all those present : and Ser Nicolo again asked, saying " Su ! with one accord. To your feet ! " Then all rose to their feet, and somewhat unwillingly made their renunciation in favour of the Count. Panzechi at once requested the notary, who stood by his side, to obtain the signatures of the assembly, after each member had been sworn. " Oh, reader, for certain, many did sign with tears and sighs. God alone knows how willingly they renounced ! " adds Cobelli. The Count then thanked each orator respectively, and having thanked the council collectively, left the hall. On January i, i486, the tribute became due. The eldest son of Nicolo Panzechi was appointed notary to the com- mune, the }'ounger writer to the customs, and later head factor. And every man who went to the toll said: "Accursed be thy soul, oh Nicolo Panzechi!" And they who carried the wood cried, when they entered the gate, " Oh, Ser Nicolo Panzechi, may your end be evil ! " " Oh, Ser Nicolo Panzechi," said others, " you have three offices this year, and the enmity of all these people ! " And all wondered at his impudence. At first the general hatred vented itself on Panzechi, without reaching the Count and Catherine, on whom, indeed, the THE TAXES OF FORLI 93 benefits of the revenue from the taxes had not yet rained like manna from heaven. A way was yet to be found to levy them with certainty and the least possible vexation. At last the taxes were farmed out for a year, during which the factors would have nothing to pay ; but at the end of the year they were bound to deposit the whole sum in the Count's treasury. These transactions neither entailed danger nor mystery, for an innate sense of justice and gratitude led the citizens to pity and excuse the difficulties of the Riario, who could not be said to have fattened on their subjects, or to have given cause for complaint to any class among them. The first difficulty came from the peasants, once more sub- jected to the tax known as balia. As in other parts of Romagna, the county of Forli was divided into villc : each villa being taxed according to its size and produce by persons who rode from villa to villa, and were appointed by the peasantr}' to levy their tithes, and pay them into the treasury. As it would have been difficult to collect the taxes in years of dearth, the peasantry had created a deposit that sufficed for the dues of the treasury, without subjecting them- selves to any annoyance. The prince in return pledged himself to protect the land and all the harvests. This pro- tection and surveillance were carried out by a corps of mounted yeomen, who went about from one place to another obliging those \\\\o caused any damage to indemnify the losers. In doubtful cases, they laid the matter before the balia (a sort of tribunal composed of a few nobles), whose judgments were enforced by a commissioner. When the peasants heard that the Riario were impoverished and about to impose the old tribute on them, they, fearing that it would be worse for them than before, and that they would suffer more than the citizens, began to murmur and threaten. The Count wished to pacify them, and at last it was settled that they should be exempt from the tax and the expense attendant on the charges of the county, of which they would henceforward be themselves in charge on payment to him of 1200 lire. This freed the Count from the obligation of maintaining the yeomanry, and the auditor and the balia 94 CATHERINE AND THE RIARIO from a number of appeals and intricate and wearisome law- suits. On the other hand the peasants preferred to defend themselves, rather than be defended by venal swashbucklers, who had fallen upon them when and how they pleased, eaten and drunk their substance, and in return for tyranny had exacted bribes and presents. It was Good Friday, and the Count looked down into the square from a window of the palace ; with him was a citizen, who, pointing with his finger, said : " Do you see that man who is carrying a lamb on his shoulders ? He is Antonio Butrighelli of Forlimpopoli, and your enemy, a bad and dangerous man— seize him at once," Butrighelli was taken, and on him was found a letter from Antonio Ordelaffi to his partisans. He confessed that on that day Ordelaffi was to have entered Forli with six hundred men, kill the guard at the Gate of San Pietro and the Riario, and take possession of the city. Butrighelli was hanged at the Gate of St. Peter on the 3rd, but none of the accomplices he had named, or those to whom the letter was addressed, were molested. In September i486, Alfonso of Aragon, Duke of Calabria, arrived at Forli, with the flower of the Neapolitan army, in pursuit of Robert Sanseverino, who had been sent by the Venetians to fight for the Pope. In the peace which had been concluded between the King of Naples and the Pope, on August 15, the former had pledged himself not to attack Sanseverino within the papal States. The Duke was there- fore waiting to throw himself upon him as soon as he passed the border ; but Sanseverino crossed the Ronco, and retired on Ravenna. The Duke had followed him as far as Imola, returning, after three days, to Forli. His arrival enlivened the people, and the Riario, courteously inclined to the loser of the glorious day of Campo Morto, pressed their hospitality upon him. But he had fallen upon evil times ; plague and famine, despite the succour of Catherine, had left sad traces behind them, and the Count, whose pecuniary embarrassments had been common talk, was ill in bed. The Duke thanked them; ]iI.\N(A MAKIA SI'OK/.A. Front the painting by Leonardo da I'inct. 95 96 CATHERINE AND THE RIARIO he preferred to put up at a hostelry close to the Bologna Gate, with his suite, but chivalry impelled him to accept the invitation of the Countess to supper on the 13th. He was accompanied by Virginio Orsini, Giangiacomo Trivulzio, Antonio della Mirandola and the Florentine commissioner. The Count left his bed to receive his illustrious guests. A frugal supper, without music or decoration, awaited them in the Hall of the Nymphs (so called from the paintings on its walls). It would seem as if the Riario, who with lavish magnificence had catered for popularity, had become almost ostentatiously penurious to excuse the recent taxation. No invitations had been issued, for the Duke, desirous of avoiding trouble to his hosts, had informed them that he would take his leave soon after supper, so that he might depart at dawn, with the troops. Catherine loved to recall the modest feast that had been graced by such distinguished guests, and the pleasure she had in receiving the great warrior who had suffered defeat on the day when her husband usurped the name of conqueror. Nor could the Duke and his companions forget Catherine, whose interest in military matters bore witness to her enjoyment of their society. She was simply dressed and wore no jewels, but to those present appeared more beautiful than ever.^ On returning to his hostelry, the Duke was surrounded by a friendly multitude bearing so many torches, that with the many illuminated windows, they made " night brighter than day." In the following November the Milanese Orator, Francesco Visconti, brought Catherine an invitation to the marriage of her sister, Bianca Maria, who was then betrothed to the son of the King of Hungary, but who eventually married Maximilian, Emperor of Germany. Riario was penniless, and he and his wife shed tears in the presence of the Orator. Visconti writes further, that the Countess had gone secretly to his room,- and there said to him : " You cannot imagine ^ She had refused to appear at the Court of Milan without her jewels, whicli were in pawn. - State Archives of Milan (Foreign Powers). THE TAXES OF FORLI 97 the life I lead with my husband. It has often caused me to envy those who die." In January 1487, the nuptials of Hannibal Bentivoglio with a daughter of the Duke of Ferrara were celebrated. The Riario, lords of a neighbouring State, could not absent them- selves from a ceremony at which the importance of the re- spective powers was gauged by the strength of their men and horses, the number and sumptuousness of the suite. They were represented by a commissioner, with seventy horses and eighty " mouths." No other State, except those of Milan and Florence, sent so many. The Riario relied on the taxes for this unexpected and extraordinary expenditure. But there were serious disturbances at Forli, where some honest folk paid their dues without murmuring, while others not only refused to pay, but spread calumny and disaffection among the populace. Girolamo alternately feared the evil that might accrue from indulgence and impunity, and the bitterness that would be caused by repression. As usual, he fled from the centre of sedition, leaving the governor to administer justice, and bear the brunt of reprisals. Before the tumult had caused any bloodshed, Girolamo left for Imola with Catherine. Domenico Ricci, his brother-in-law, was sent to Forli, where his prudence and honesty enabled him to levy the taxes, and to obtain a sort of truce. Riario, when he found he could no longer maintain his favourite character of a liberal and splendid prince, out-stepped the bounds of decency. He raised the tax on flour from six to ten qiiattrini per hundred- weight, at Imola, and, what w'as worse, he mulcted each citizen of twenty bolognini for the maintenance of four hundred horse, whereas he only kept a hundred, so that the Imolese were fain to perceive that by means of this deception their lord extorted from them about 1000 ducats. He coveted some mills that belonged to one Astorgio Bonmercati, forced him to sell them to him for a nominal price, and com- mitted other acts of violence by means of decrees, threats, confiscations and condemnations ; so that many lips formu- lated the words tyrant and death: words that arc apt to follow each other in formidable succession. H CHAPTER XI CATHERINE AND INNOCENZO CODRONCHI Lorenzo dei Medici exulted in the ever-increasing dan- gers that encompassed Girolamo : at last he was certain of the ruin of the Riario ; the course of events did but second his vengeful design. Catherine convinced herself that, despite the amicable nature of their relations, she could no longer hope that Lorenzo would renounce his vengeance in deference to her. A more potent factor was needful to attain that end, such counsel as might, should he turn a deaf ear to it, be converted into menace. She therefore went to Milan to obtain the co-operation of her brother, Duke Gian Galeazzo, and of her powerful uncle, Ludovico il Moro, giving as an ostensible reason for her departure her desire to revisit her family and her birthplace, in which there had been so many- changes since she left it, as a maiden of fifteen, ten years ago, and also to see her mother Lucrezia Landriani, and her sister Stella. She added that she hoped to bring them back to live with her in Romagna, so that she might have some of her own people about her. In the beginning of April she arrived at Milan, with a numerous escort. In May she heard that Girolamo had fallen ill at Imola. Catherine did not hesitate a moment in leaving Milan and the dear delights of the Court Neither the persuasions of her relations, nor the weakness inherent on her condition, could dissuade her from hurriedly riding back to Imola. She was at her husband's bedside on May 31. The Count had been given up by the doctors. " But," says Bernardi, " no sooner had her ladyship arrived, (although) it appeared that nothing had been left undone, (than) she sent 98 CATHERINE AND INNOCENZO CODRONCHI 99 all over Italy for the best physicians, who came from Bologna, Milan and P^errara." The castellane of the Fortress of Rivaldino at Forli was one Melchior Zocchejo of Savona, an old ex-pirate and perse- cutor of poor Christians, whom the Count, his countryman and creditor, had placed there because he had no other means of repaying him. This castellane was an incubus to Girolamo, who therefore resorted to the daring of his wife to rid himself of him. One night, when the Count was still ill, Catherine mounted her horse, rode to Forli and approaching the fortress, called the castellane. The castellane came to the battlements and cried, " Oh, Madonna, what is your will ? " Madonna replied, saying, " Misser Marchonne," [the spell- ing is Cobelli's] " I come on behalf of my lord, that you may surrender the fortress to me. Here is the countersign. I would enter." Replied the castellane : " And what of the Count ? I have heard that he is dead." Said Madonna: '' Jllo (sic), that is not true. I left him of good courage." Replied the castellane : " Report hath it that he is dead. If he be dead, I will hold the fort for his sons ; if alive, I will give it up to him ; if he would turn me out to put another in my place, I would that he should give me my money that I lent unto him, and then I will give up the fort according to my will and pleasure." Without another word he turned and left the battlements, and Catherine "rode sadly back to Imola." In those days there abode in Forli that same Innocenzo Codronchi who, in the reign of Sixtus, had been constable of St. Angelo, whence he had been dismissed by Catherine. The Count had restored him to favour, appointed him Captain of his guard and Castellane of Ravaldino until the threats and importunities of Melchior Zocchejo induced (iirolamo to re- place him by the ex-pirate. By order of the Count, Codronchi still came and went within the fort, never losing sight of the loo CATHERINE AND THE RIARIO castellane, Avith whom he often dined, supped and threw dice. The castellane, unconscious of this surveillance, had the utmost confidence in Innocenzo, one of whose relations lived with him in the fort. On August lo, Codronchi, according to his wont, dined with the castellane, and threw dice for the dinner of the following day, Codronchi being purposely the loser. Next morning he sent quails, partridges and capon to the fort by a soldier named Moscardino, to whom he also gave certain secret instructions. When the castellane saw Moscardino coming, he caused the doors of the fortress to be opened to him, and while the game was being plucked Moscardino " did as he had been bidden." At the appointed hour Codronchi entered the fort and dined with the castellane. After dinner the castellane rose to his feet. Codronchi,^ springing up suddenly, clutched him by his middle. A slave (probably a Turk captured by Zocchejo on the high seas) stabbed him two or three times, while Moscar- dino aimed at his head. Then Codronchi left hold of him and finished him with a blow from a scimitar. Then with his kinsman, the slave and Moscardino (who told the story to Cobelli), Codronchi took possession of the watch-tower, and raising the draw-bridges, remained isolated therein. Calling on the soldiers and household of the murdered castellane, who were in the court below, he cried — " Away with you ! away ! or, by my troth, we shall cut you in pieces." When they had all fled before a sudden shower of stones and other missiles, Codronchi carefully closed the fort, and with the help of his accomplices threw the body down a well, within a dungeon by the draw-bridge. Meanwhile the terrified guards and servitors ran to the governor, and in a moment the city rang with the news, which reached the Riario just as Girolamo was convalescent and Catherine near to child-bed. " On that same day," says Cobelli, "Madonna mounted her horse, and by dint of spur and bit, was at Forli by midnight, and rode through the city, to the foot of the fortress, and called Nocente. . . . Then Nocente came to the battlements and saw ]\Iadonna, and said, 1 Cobelli. CATHERINE AND INNOCENZO CODRONCHI loi " O Madonna, whom do you seek ? " Said Madonna, " O Nocente, for whom do you hold this fort ? " RepHed Nocente, " For the Lord Octavian." Said Misser Domenico Riccio/ " Then is Octavian lord and not the Count ? " " Dead or alive, I hold this fort for the Count and his sons." Then, according to Bernardi, Catherine asked why he had killed the castellane. " Madonna, the fort should be confided to a man of brains, and not to drunkards." He here repeated what he had said to the governor. Then Catherine implored him to surrender the fort. Codronchi, full of pity for her condition, replied, gently, " Dear Madonna, for the present I can give you no other reply. . . . O Madonna, go and take your rest and fear nothing. There was no need for Your Ladyship to come hither on this errand. I pray you to dine here with us to-morrow." Then Catherine returned to the city, and having ordered a guard to watch the fort, entered her palace. Simulating prudence, for fear of poison, she ordered a dinner to be carried to the fort for her on the morrow and went to bed at dawn. " They that were with her do aver that Madonna did not sleep that night," says Cobelli. Next day Codronchi intimated that the Countess could only be attended by one maid of honour. Catherine, showing no sign of fear and followed by the maid of honour carrying her food, entered the fort. Codronchi is said to have told every detail of the story at table, where together they concerted a mock surrender and Catherine left the fort, whither she returned after three days, with Tommaso Feo of Savona. To him Codronchi surrendered the fort, and Catherine leaving Feo within, passed out, followed by Codronchi. The courtyard was crowded with an impatient populace. At last Catherine appeared. "The fort," she said, " was lost to me and you, in the hands of this man, from whom I have taken it, leaving in his stead a castellane of my own choosing." The citizens would willingly have learnt more, but that was not vouchsafed to them. The Countess rode away with Codronchi at her side, and behind her a long line of horsemen. This cruel and ingenious comedy faitlifully reflects the ' Domenico (jentilc Ricci, husband of Violantina Kiario and Governor of Forli. I02 CATHERINE AND THE RIARIO spirit of the policy of a time that has been defined by Machiavelli in the words : " A statesman must know how to play the fox and the lion." Catherine, one of the hardest- headed politicians of her day, would not be deterred by any scruple from the suppression of her castellane, if he displeased her, nor from having him treacherously assassinated if that means assured the end. As for the consummate strategy of this betrayal, we must remember that the end and aim of human action was enjoyment by means of beauty. The sense of beauty had become the sole factor and criterion of the Italian conscience, whether manifested in art, pleasure, resistance, government, or rascaldom. The people of that day did not understand that a crime can never be beautiful. The ferocity of Ferdinand of Naples, in the conspiracy of his barons, seemed to them horribly beautiful ; the perfidy of Caesar Borgia at Sennigallia, is represented as a masterpiece by Machiavelli, and as tin bellissivw inganno by Monsignor Paolo Giovio. There is no mention anywhere, after this event, of Innocenzo Codronchi. Did he meet his death by the hand of an enemy or of Riario, whose secret would thus be buried with him .'' Even that was then possible. On the morning after her return to Imola, the sun having risen on August 17, Catherine, who on the previous day had ridden ten miles (and more, if, as was her wont, she avoided Faenza and took the long, rugged mountain road), gave birth to a boy, who was named Francesco Sforza and afterwards surnamed Sforzino. CHAPTER XII THE CONSPIRACY OF THE ROFFI Ix the following September, Count Girolamo, who was of a heavy, lymphatic temperament, and had not completely recovered from his illness, had again taken to his bed, when a messenger arrived from the Governor of Forli. Ordelafifi had struck another blow, by means of certain Rofifi, sturdy peasants of Rubano, who had great influence and many adherents among its rural population. They had taken the Cotogni Gate, which had been retaken : five rebels had been hanged and others lay in chains in the fortress. Catherine, who was recovering from childbirth, could not be held back from hurrying to the spot ; she sprang into her saddle, threw the rein on her horse's neck and reached Forli in an incredibly short time. Domenico Ricci, ex-governor of Forli, a man of mature age, but a bold and skilful rider, could scarcely keep up with the Countess. Giuliano Feo, the new governor, who rode to meet her " neither dead nor alive from fear," ^ accompanied her to the palace and gave an account of what had happened. The Countess said that she should without delay proceed to further inquiry, but not on that day, as it was Sunday. Early next morning she entered the fort and cross-examined the rebels. They confessed everything. " Why," said Catherine, " did you cry ' San Marco, Church and Ordelaffi ' ? " " Because," they replied, " we thought that part of the people would have risen to that cry." Nino, one of the Roffi, related that on a certain day he had met another ^ Cobelli, wlio with Bernardi was an eye-witness of the events narrated in this chapter. 103 I04 CATHERINE AND THE RIARIO peasant, named Passi, to whom he had divulged the plot, and that the same Passi had entered into it. Catherine remanded the accused and ordered Passi to be brou<^ht into the fort. On the following day the poor wretch was caught, bound and brought into Forli, In the presence of Catherine, Nino recognized him and repeated the accusation. " Now do you lie in your throat," said Passi, "ribald glutton that thou art. I have not set eyes on you for eight months. And this I am wilhng to prove by the test of the rope." The Countess at once ordered Nino to be hung. Nino gave himself up for lost, and not daring to address the Countess, retracted to the podesta his statement, adding, " Madonna, for the sake of the relations (of Passi, who were many and influential), will pardon him and me, who have accused him. . . . The drowning man catches at a straw." At these words the Countess rose from her seat, and with smiles and some emotion approached Passi, whom she led by the hand out of the fort, saying to him, in the presence of the assembled people, " Go, return in peace to your wife and children. And," adds Bernardi, "she gave him her blessing for a true and faithful servant." Catherine sent a written account of the second trial to her husband, whose answer was delayed for three days ; at last he wrote, saying that as he had sent her in the interests of true justice she might do as it seemed best to her. That was enough for this woman of twenty- five, convinced as she was of her duty in the dispensation of divine justice, which had been pressed, so to speak, into the service of her political needs. Part of this duty was the punishment of those who attacked the rights of the House of Riario, "And then in the name of God," said Bernardi, " the Countess had the heads of six malefactors struck off in the square, and their bodies quartered." Much against his will, and to his infinite mortification, the corporal who had lost the Cotogni Gate to the rebels was made their executioner. The mutilated corpses were left on the ground until evening, when three of the heads were raised on lances and the bodies hung from the Cotogni Gate, and three others from the Gates of San Pietro and Ravaldino. When THE CONSPIRACY OF THE ROFFI 105 this came to the ears of the Countess, she ordered that the horrid sight be at once removed from the eyes of the populace and showed herself as lenient in her treatment of the lesser culprits as she had been inexorable to the ringleaders. Many were set free, but the kinsmen of the Roffi were for- bidden the city. Count Girolamo did not recover until the beginning of November. He was so weak physically, and so weighed down mentally, that for many months none but Catherine entered his room. The report of his death, which was supposed to be kept secret for political reasons, gained such credence that as soon as he could sit his horse, he rode all over Imola, to show himself, and for this purpose went to Forli on November 3. There he soon perceived that his presence inflamed the general dissatisfaction with the taxes. Since he had no longer the means to be generous, he made another bid for popular favour by solicitude for the public weal, and this gave rise to a singular episode. On the evening of November 18, a young hermit, blond and haggard, holding in his hand an iron cross, arrived at Forli. He was from Sienna, and was called Giovanni Novello. He halted in the burying-ground of St. Mercurial and began to preach, recommending the building of a Monte di Pieta, a house where the poor might pledge their things for money. He was soon surrounded by a crowd. While he preached. Count Girolamo stood at a window of the palace with the Milanese Orator. At another, Catherine, with her children, her eye fixed on the preacher, listened attentively. By order of the Riario, all the shops had been closed ; silence reigned and the voice of the hermit filled the vast square. The Count ordered the hermit to preach a second time at the church of San Francesco and, through him, announced that he would contribute three hundred gold ducats towards the erection of the Monte di Pietd. He also sent him to the council to renew the offer, and his auditor to speak in praise of it. But the council received these overtures as an attempt to coerce them, and the proposal was io6 CATHERINE AND THE RIARIO not accepted. The Count was more embittered by this repulse than he would have been by a rebellion, while Catherine recognized in it a discourteous manifestation of civic independence, intended to teach the Count that they were not to be won over by his liberality. CHAPTER XIII THE ASSASSINATION OF GIROLAMO RIARIO In January 1488, the peasantry, instigated by the emissaries of Lorenzo Medici, came in troops to Forh and demanded of the Count that they should be reHeved from the taxes requir- ing that each znlla, or parish, should furnish a certain number of cartloads of wood, barley, forage and straw for the use of the lord and the soldiers of his guard. When he heard that they had sold their lands to the citizens,^ and that they neither owed nor owned the wherewithal to pay, he said — " This is a just demand ; you cannot pay for what you do not own ; I will do the best I can to set the matter right." And he cast about for advice, but the councillors and the city were divided among themselves. " He who persuades you to listen to the peasants is prompted by the devil to lead you to break your neck and ours and bring about a revolution. Give no heed to him. Your lordship has it all your way ; what do you want more .-' The populace is quiet, asking no more than its daily bread, and to be your friends and partisans. Do not mind the peasants, for so long as the citizens and artisans agree, the others will dree their weird. Let those pay who are accus- tomed to pay, give them good words, and take no further heed. . . ." " O, Messer Ludovico," replied the Count, " there never was a wash but that you soiled it ; God help us ! I believe that you grudge me my life." And having said this, he turned upon his heel and went into his chamber. Ludovico Orsi ^ The citizens were divided into two classes, nobles and artisans, there being no middle-class. 107 io8 CATHERINE AND THE RIARIO hastened home, where (in the presence of CobelH, who was giving a dancing lesson to the youthful daughter-in-law of Checco) he repeated this conversation to his brother. In Lent Girolamo summoned Checco Orsi and asked him for the two hundred gold ducats due from him on the meat tax of the pre- ceding year. Orsi replied that he had lost by it, and after a violent altercation, went home in a rage, which he communicated to his brother Ludovic, who was still smarting under his own grievance. " The flea was already in their ears," says Cobelli, who here interpolates a series of serio-comic anecdotes on the growing disquietude of the Orsi, to whom the agents of Medici interpreted every word that fell from the Count's lips as por- tending their death. One day, Checco Orsi ventured out of doors and whom should he meet in the square but the Count, who was returning from mass. " Don't you think it is time .-*" said the latter, alluding to the debt. " I'm expecting the money from clay to day," replied Checco. Then the Count flew into a violent passion, and crying, " Checco, Checco, you will drive me to commit an act of folly," angrily turned into the palace. Soon after, Giacomo Ronchi, captain of a squadron, pre- sented himself, and begged for, at least, a part of his pay, adding that his family was dying of hunger. The Count, who had not yet recovered from the recent meeting in the square, replied — " Get out of my sight, or I will have thee hanged." " My Lord," retorted the soldier, " thieves and traitors are hanged, of which I am neither. I deserve to die sword in hand, like the valiant man-at-arms that I am." Some time passed, when a certain Ludovico Panzechi, a captain of infantry, who had been employed by Girolamo in the conspiracy of the Pazzi, came, in ignorance of the storm in the air, and also asked the Count for some arrears of his pay. "Ah! you want to levy blackmail," said the Count, thinking that they had agreed among themselves to coerce him. Panzechi did not reply, but went away biting his lips. The narrow social margin of the little city soon brought THE ASSASSINATION OF GIROLAMO RIARIO 109 about a meeting between the two ofificers and the Orsi. And the devil in hell rejoiced to see his design marching to its end, says the " eye-w^itness." ^ Each told his tale to the others and caught fire from one another ; individual fear and tremors melted into the common terror. "That man will hang us," said the two soldiers, who regretted, Panzechi to have left the Florentine, and Ronchi the Calab- rian service, for that of Riario, who threatened them wath the gallows when they asked for their pay. Checco Orsi had even more cause for complaint. " He had served Riario, with horse and foot, without pay ; he had leased that cursed meat tax to right himself, was ruined by it . . . and the Count wanted money into the bargain." " O Checco," said Panzechi, with a significant gesture, " shall we give him the money that he needs .'' " And so, with few w'ords, they agreed to kill him, and the three, arm-in-arm, went to seek Ludovico Orsi, who had not dared to leave his house. Ludovic, who at first was like one dazed with horror, at last ejaculated — " And if we fail .' " " Better to die sword in hand than by hanging, " replied the other three. " It is better to do so to him than that he should do it to us." " Onward then ! " said Ludovic, " and success attend us ! " " I am sure of the result," said Ronchi. ..." The people hate the Count because of the taxes. . . . Arm your friends in secret. Watch and wait. We will hasten the matter. When all is ready, we will come out with your following to the cry of ' Liberty ! Liberty ! ' We will sack the palace and you will take the square. At that cry all will join us, and we shall have won the day." The four conspirators were anxious to strike the blow before their adherents had time to cool down, or the secret to leak out, and to that end kept an eye on the Count from the following morning (Sunday in albis, April 13), but without success. On April 14, at dinner-time, Ronchi parted from his friends and went to see his nephew, Gasparino, a youth in the ^ Leone Cobelli. no CATHERINE AND THE RIARIO household of the Count. " Gasparino," he said, " you know how often wc have wanted to talk to the Count about our own affairs and how we have always been withheld by the presence of one or the other. At what hour could I speak to him without witnesses to talk over our grievances ? " " To-night," replied Gasparino, " after supper the Count will be alone, the household and the equerries will be at supper ; I shall be on guard at the door of his chamber. So you can come to-night to talk over matters with the Count." " Good. But how shall I know when ? " "I will signal to you when the time comes; be ready in the square." Ronchi informed the others of his appointment. Towards sunset armed partisans made their way one by one to the square. Checco Orsi, captain of the guard, stationed them as he pleased, without fear of opposition, and sent his cousin, Deddo, to occupy the staircase that led to the tower com- municating with the apartments of Catherine. Doctor Ludovico Orsi was stationed at the foot of the grand stair- case. The fatal hour had struck. The Count was still at supper with his wife ; the three assassins (Checco Orsi, Panzechi and Ronchi), armed to the teeth, paced forwards and backwards in the square without showing themselves to those in the palace window, yet keeping an eye on it. At last Gasparino, waving his beret, signed to Ronchi to come. The three companions moved resolutely towards the palace door, climbed the stairs and stood at the door of the Hall of the Nymphs ; the Count was within. The Orsi, foremost among the citizens and intimates of the Count, had a right to enter unannounced, they held, according to the phrase of the day, the gilded key. Checco, leaving his two companions to listen outside, boldly opened the door. The Count, with his back to the open window, his elbow resting on the sill that looked towards Ravenna, was enjoying the cool of the evening, with his kinsman, Corradino Feo, of Savona, his chancellor, Girolamo of Casale, and Nicolo of Cremona, who was in waiting. The Count was chatting with his friends and was unarmed, his countenance merry and jovial. ... It would have been the right moment to ask a favour of him, so well THE ASSASSINATION OF GIROLAMO RIARIO iii disposed did he seem to listen and to grant it. Indeed, as soon as he perceived that Checco had entered the room, he stretched out his right hand to him, saying with cordiahty — " How goes it, my Checco ? " " I have a letter that I would show you," replied Checco; "we shall soon have the money . . . and I shall be able to pay Your Lordship. . . ." While he was speaking, Orsi grasped the dagger that he had hidden about his person, and the Count felt his blade in the left breast, which, in offering his hand, he had exposed to the blow. " Ha, traitor ! " cried the wounded man, who would have sought refuge by dragging himself to Catherine's chamber, but that the two listeners behind the door, hearing his cry, broke into the room and seizing the victim by the hair, dragged him back to the spot where the first blow had been struck. The wound was not mortal, but in his horror and dismay, Checco was incapable of striking another. The two soldiers who knew their business better, and that in these affairs it is not well to stop midway, crushed him to the ground between door and window and barbarously finished him with murderous blows on his head and every vital part. Not a word could escape the lips of the wretched man, who struggled for escape for a fevv seconds, until his dying eyes were fixed upon the assassins; while, more ferocious and savage than Ronchi, Ludovico Panzechi still steeped his blade in the blood of the victim. Ten years earlier, in that same month of April, Girolamo Riario, who was hatching the famous conspiracy of the Pazzi, had paid money, and made promises to Ludovico Panzechi to plunge that same dagger into the heart of Lorenzo Medici. This was the end, at the age of forty-five, of Girolamo Riario, who in the lifetime of Sixtus, while he was yet the omnipotent nephew of the Pope and master of the armies and treasure of the Church, had been a villain, yet whose rule in Romagna must, on the whole, be considered a mild and beneficent one. Danger had taught him prudence; prudence had taught him humanity. Yet all his greatness was the devil's harvest ; he had sown too much evil to reap anything but thorns and tribulations. All his efforts were tardy and 112 CATHERINE AND THE RIARIO unavailing ; the agents of the new Pope — who, hke Sixtus, had a nephew of whom he would have made a prince — represented him to the people, whose fidelity Riario had wooed by his benevolence, in the most odious colours. Besides, the Medici still coveted Imola ; above all they would have wrested it from Riario who had sought to compass their annihilation when he coveted Florence for himself. His State had teemed with Florentine spies and emissaries, sent to prepare the vengeance of Lorenzo Medici. Generosity, which was then considered necessary to the art of government, had brought about the financial ruin of Girolamo, of which the question of the taxes was the inevitable consequence, as well as the opportunity awaited by his enemies. Even as the Pazzi, in 1478, had been the emissaries of Riario in the plot against the Medici, so on the evening of April 14, 1488, the Orsi, with Panzechi and Ronchi, became the emissaries of the Medici in the assassination of Girolamo Riario. BOOK IV CATHERINE'S WIDOWHOOD CHAPTER XIV CATHERINE AND THE ASSASSINS The murder was committed in a few seconds. The suspicions of the chancellor and of Nicolo of Cremona were not awakened by the entrance of Orsi, but when the two others broke into the room they realized what was happening and took to flight. Nicolo ran to the apartment of Catherine and in a choking voice told her that Orsi, Panzechi, and Ronchi had murdered the Count. There was no time to lose in tears. There was no doubt that they meant to exterminate the whole family . . . they must save themselves. Catherine sprang to her feet, succeeded in blocking the door with chests, arm-chairs, and cabinets of prodigious weight, and ordered all the servants to arm themselves and pursue the assassins, so that none of them might escape with his life. And, counting on help from the people, she placed the women, children, and defenceless people at the windows, to cry : " Help ! Help ! They have murdered the Count ! They are trying to murder Madonna ! Help ! Help !" While the widow of the murdered man gave such evidence of promptness and foresight, the murderers, dazed and con- fused, had not left the body. Corradino Feo, son and lieutenant of the castellane of Ravaldino, heard the Count's cry from the room next to the Hall of the Nymphs and returned to it, but lost his voice when his eyes fell upon the dreadful sight. As soon as he recovered, he placed himself at the head of four servants of the Countess, and calling to arms, prepared to attack the assassins. The palace was full IIS Ii6 CATHERINE'S WIDOWHOOD of rushing sounds, cries and the clank and clash of arms. Gasparino, who, in his ignorance, had given the fatal sign, first realized its meaning when he saw his uncle, fully armed, place himself outside the Count's door. At the same moment he heard the cry of the victim, and Ronchi, before he entered, told him to inform Ludovico Orsi, who was waiting at the foot of the stairs, that the Count had been dispatched. In blind obedience, Gasparino had descended the stair and with terror and amazement said to Ludovico : " They are killing him ! .... he must be dead already ! " Then came the cries of Catherine. The blow had been struck, it behoved Ludovic to save his friends, and he went out to summon in their defence those who waited in the square. Meanwhile Agamemnon degli Orsi, son of Checco, im- patient with standing in passive custody of the grand staircase, hastened to the protection of his father, meeting, as he mounted the stair, the affianced husband of Stella Landriani, Andrea Ricci, whose rooms were at the top of the staircase. Hearing cries of " Help ! Help ! " he had seized his arms and was on his way down-stairs before he knew what had happened. But he instantly realized it and did not hesitate to strike Agamemnon, who died from his wound twelve days later. Ricci, although wounded, succeeded in joining Corradino and the four servants, and with them entered the Hall of the Nymphs and surrounded the three assassins who stood over the body of their victim. They would have been cut to pieces in a moment, but for the arrival of Ludovico Orsi and his followers, who broke into the Hall, to the cry of " Liberty ! Liberty ! Long live the Orsi ! " Corradino Feo and Andrea, who were both wounded, had to retire before overwhelming numbers. The new cry, different to the one that had issued from the windows of Catherine, announced to the whole city that the conspirators were masters of the palace and that the fortunes of the Riario were fallen. As the news spread, men armed with pikes and clubs and the usual herd of the curious, who never fail to put in an appearance on occasions of terror or rejoicing, poured into the square, from every corner of it. Among the latter was the CATHERINE AND THE ASSASSINS 117 chronicler, Leone Cobelli,\vho in his eagerness to see, "so tliat he might write," had pushed his way through the crowd until he found himself standing under the great doorway of the palace, where stood Checco Orsi, wearing a coat of mail and holding a partisan. He was soon joined by Ludovic, and all, as they arrived, kissed them on the face and congratulated them, saying : " Fear nothing, we, all of us, will defend you ; we have determined, for your sakes, to meet death and destruction ! " And they cried, " Liberty for ever ! Long live the Orsi, true Fathers of our Country ! " The crowd whence came these cries was entirely composed of artisans. None of the nobles had appeared in the square. They awaited the end of the tumult behind closed doors, in fear and trembling of the Orsi. Cobelli pushed his way into the courtyard and there he saw " Madonna, la Contessa, weeping and crying at her window, with her women. All her servants were in flight. And," he continues, " I soon found myself at the corner of the loggia where the well is at the foot of the grand staircase, and suddenly I beheld Messer Antonio de Montechio, the bargello (lieutenant of police), flying before a murderous gang of artisans. He had but mounted three stairs, when he was laid low by a hundred blows from partisans, pikes, spears and swords." Cobelli heard a cry from the window, and raising his eyes saw Catherine desperately calling : '■' Forbear, for- bear ! do not kill him ! " But none gave heed to her cry. Instead, they stripped the body to its shift, and dragging it, before it was yet cold, to the well, set fire to the beautiful hair of which the poor bargello had been so proud. Then some peasants came upon the scene, who, although they saw that he was dead, tore the flesh from his body. " Then," continues Cobelli, " I saw Checco de I'Urso with the whole gang and Matio de Galasso mount those stairs and enter the chamber of Madonna." Catherine was alone, with her mother, sister, children and two nurses. The dcor was barricaded, but the conspirators burst it open and seized Catherine and her children. It is recorded that before she moved, she kissed each of her children and then went on in front, between Checco Orsi Ii8 CATHERINE'S WIDOWHOOD and Galasso. The crowd, awed by the majesty of that dehcate and beautiful face, made way in silence for the Countess. Neither insult nor violence was offered to her or hers. Only one of the ruffians in the suite of Checco Orsi thrust his hand in the bosom of Stella's gown in the search for hidden jewels. The young girl pushed him back with all the strength of her left hand, dealing him with her right so vigorous a blow that she nearly knocked the wretch's teeth out. Thus, on foot, at dead of night, Catherine was conducted to the house of the Orsi, which stood on the site of what is now the Monte di Pieta, and Checco Orsi was lord of the city. After the horrid murder of the bargello, the soldiers of the guard and other members of the household had withdrawn to the fortress, whither went also Corradino Feo, Andrea Ricci, Francesco Paolucci, and in haste and secrecy a certain Ludovico Ercolani, with the mission of enjoining on Tommaso Feo, the castellane, to write informing Bentivoglio of Bologna and the Duke of Milan of the murder of the Count, entreating them in the name of the Countess to send sufficient troops to quell the revolution and reinstate her. No sooner had Catherine left the palace than the plunder began ; one seized a chest, another a casket, every one some- thing. The treasury of the customs and taxes was plundered, even to the chains and ropes of the clock on the tower. Gold, silver, and linen, " with the exception of the body-linen of Madonna and her children," all disappeared, and the horses and mules were taken from the stables. While Cobelli was looking at the sacking of the palace he perceived a strange and terrible sound. The body of Count Girolamo had been thrown into the square. Three of his (the Count's) favourite men-at-arms, Ciccolini, Carlo of Imola, and Scossacarri, had entered the Hall of the Nymphs and thrown the corpse to the people, crying : " This is that traitor who so persecuted us ! " Hardly had they done so when a certain Pagliarino, nephew to Ronchi, dragged the body on the ground to where, despite a cry of horror from those present, it was stripped and mutilated, as had been that of the bargello. Some monks of the order of the Black Flagellants placed the two corpses on CATHERINE AND THE ASSASSINS 119 the same bier and carried it to the sacristy of their church which, says Burriel, "is the same that is now known as the Church of the Nuns of Corpus Domini." It was night, and none barred the way to the bier. This sinister spectacle caused a short interruption in the sacking of the palace, which soon began again with renewed clamour and rapacity. Doors and windows were wrenched from their hinges, every one robbed and destroyed all that he could lay hands upon ; the Orsi, abetted by their retainers, I'AI.ACE OF THE !'< IDKS TA. robbed more than any one else. When the intoxicated crowd happened to light upon money, plaudits and hurrahs for the Orsi, Fathers of the People, rent the air. Later, the Orsi summoned the council : Chccco, in a pompous harangue, boasted of having put to death a ferocious tyrant, and declared that the city should be given to none but the I'opc, and only to him in nominal suzeraint)-. lie offered the people of Forli autonoiny and self-government. I20 CATHERINE'S WIDOWHOOD The chief magistrate, Nicolo Tornielli, repHed with spirit and wisdom that the Duke of Milan was capable of becoming the avenger of his sister's wrongs ; that in Rome there were many cardinals who were related and allied to the Riario, and that the Pope himself appeared well disposed towards them. Autonomy and liberty may have flourished in the city in by-gone times ; but the liberty so eulogized by the Orsi had begun in bloodshed, would not last eight days, and would make Forli and its magistracy the laughing-stock of the proletariat of every other Italian city. Whatever be the resolution they came to, it had best be " one that would not further irritate nor wound the Countess. That would not only be barbarous and inhuman, but would draw down fatal con- sequences upon the city, she being of subtle mind and of that high courage that was known to all, indomitable of spirit and inexorable in vengeance." He added that the only course open to them lay in submission to the Pope, as their direct and immediate sovereign, without grimace of popular liberty. The city should, with all due and legal formality, be consigned to Monsignor Savelli, protonotary and papal governor of Cesena. The council unanimously applauded and accepted the suggestion of Tornielli, to the indignation of the populace and the Orsi, who were still blinded and intoxicated by their victory. The act of allegiance was immediately drawn up and sent to Cesena. It surprised and perplexed Savelli who, however, recognizing the seal of the city and the signatures of the councillors, sent his auditor to Forli on the 15th. The latter, in the presence of the assembled council, took posses- sion of the city in the name of the Governor of Cesena, by the ancient rite of walking several times round the square, and returned to that place. Savelli, on hearing the account of the auditor, determined to conclude that which had been begun, and arriving at Forli before nightfall, proceeded at once to Casa Orsi, to pay his respects to the Countess, both because of her great misfortune and because, as the Pope's representative, it behoved him to recognize the sovereign rights of the Riario as vicars of the Church. He expressed to the Countess, whom he had known CATHERINE AND THE ASSASSINS 121 in Rome, his horror and sorrow at the appalHng event, and excused himself for the haste of his coming in that as the Pope's legate, he could not appear to neglect the unsought gift which the city had made of itself to the Holy See. On the other hand, although he had been constrained to accept this gift from the people of Forli to the Pope, there was nothing to prevent His Holiness from confirming the children of the Count in the investiture of their father's dominions .... and next to his obedience to the Pontiff, there was nothing nearer to his (Savelli's) heart than his desire to render aid, service, and all that was possible of solace and comfort to the Countess. The sincere ring of these words of pity and respect so far mitigated her bitterness that Catherine,^ with modest integrity and directness, made such reply as her circumstances demanded, in words few and serious, and in no wise offensive. The sight of the young mother, to whom clung six terrified orphans whom she strove to comfort and console, — for in the house of her husband's murderers they were surrounded on all sides by guards armed with pikes and halberds, — so moved the worthy prelate that no sooner had he left them than he could not restrain himself from declaring to those concerned that "the Orsi were wild beasts in human form, than whom no Turks could have worse entreated Madonna." And having mounted his horse and ridden once round the square to confirm the possession taken of the city by his auditor, he passed onward to the Gate of St. Peter. There he relieved the guard by another composed of twelve artisans commanded by three noblemen who were held in high esteem in the city, and at the same time personally devoted to the Countess. Bartolomeo Capoferri, Bartolomeo Serughi and Francesco Dehti were soon to prove themselves worthy of his confidence. Savelli further enjoined on the Orsi to hold Catherine no longer a prisoner under their own roof, but to immediately conduct her to the Fort of St. Peter and there confide her to the honourable custody of the three gentlemen by him instructed to treat her with the respect due to her rank and ' Ijiirricl. 122 CATHERINE'S WIDOWHOOD her misfortunes. These considerations had not withheld another priest, a partisan of the Orsi, from forcing his way into Catherine's room during Savelli's short absence, and seeking by intimidation to obtain the surrender of the Fortress of Ravaldino. " Count Girolamo's sins had found him out," said this priest to the widow ; " therefore, my sister, make up your mind to yield up this stronghold to us ; for you will neither cat nor drink until you have caused it to be surrendered to us, and we shall let you die of hunger." Catherine, in her anguish, could find no voice to answer him, but at last, regaining her power of speech, was able to cry : " O Misser Ludovico, I pray you, for the love of God, deliver me from this priest ! " Catherine, who in happier times recounted this episode to her friends and retainers, was wont to say that the words of this priest had hurt her almost more than the m.urder of her husband. Catherine was then led by Ludovico and Checco Orsi, Panzechi, and Ronchi, before the papal governor (Monsignor Savelli) to be publicly interrogated, and as she was now awaiting the succour she had demanded from Milan and Bologna, was able, in calm expectation of the result of her foresight, to make such promises and replies as were imposed upon her under penalty of death. She was next conducted to the Fortress of Ravaldino, which she had secretly in- structed Tommaso Feo to hold at any cost. When, there- fore, the latter appeared at the battlements the Countess cried : " Surrender the fortress to these people, to save my life and the lives of my children ! " "They can take me from here in pieces!" replied the castellane. " I will not yield an inch." " They will murder me ! " " Whom will they murder .-' They have too much reason to fear the Duke of Milan." At these words he disappeared from the battlements, but the late captain of Catherine's guard, who knew her as well as did the castellane, fixed his eyes upon her face and the point of his partisan on her breast. CATHERINE AND THE ASSASSINS 123 "O Madonna Caten'na," he cried, "if you chose he would give it to us, but 'tis you who will not let him surrender ; I have a mind to bore thee through and through with this partisan, and to make thee fall down dead." The Countess replied, without sign of anger or alarm — " O Jacomo da Ronco, do not frighten me ; deeds canst do unto me, but canst not frighten, for I am daughter to one who knew no fear. You have killed my lord, you may as well kill me, who am a woman." Finding that they could do nothing with her, the con- spirators reconducted her to their house. Meanwhile Mon- signor Sav^elli superintended the works for the capture of Ravaldino, which were continued throughout the night. On the following morning, April 16, the same scene was re-enacted under the walls of the Fort of Schiavonia. " Castellane, give up the fort to these people," cried Catherine to Bianchino and his brother, who held it, " and I shall be content." "O Madonna, Your Ladyship will forgive us, you never gave us this fortress, nor will we give it to you, nor to any one. Retire, or we shall shoot. O Messer Ludovico, retire ! " At that moment the great parish bell rang to assemble the council, to which Monsignor Savelli, as papal governor, was also bidden. As no succour had as yet arrived from the Pope, it was decided to send some citizens to Rome to invoke it. Soon after, according to the orders of Savelli, Catherine and her family were conducted to the Fortress of St. Peter, where they were received with reverent pity by the three gentlemen to whom they had been confided by Savelli. Catherine, her six children (the two youngest in the arms of their nurses), her mother, her half-sister Stella and Scipio (a natural son of Count Girolamo), were all confined in a small room, built in the thickness of the wall of a tower which rose above the gate. The terrors of the night had dried uj) the nurses' milk, the children sobbed and cried, and there was no change of linen, nor bedding for Sforzino, the youngest babe. In her despair the haughty Countess implored the compassion and help of her neighbours, and a cradle was immediately 124 CATHERINE'S WIDOWHOOD brought her from the house of a certain Achille Bighi. Even the guards were touched with pity. " Who could be so hard of heart," says Bernardi, " but that he would not have felt some compassion for the said poor Madonna ! " At last Catherine was able to quiet her babies, but the elder children still clung in terror to their mother, while her mother and sister started at every sound, dreading the entrance of armed men and the nearness of death. But Catherine, delivered from the clutches of the Orsi, spoke brave words to her children, her sister, and her mother. And she was heard to comfort them, saying, that they "should fear no more, for they were no longer in the hands of traitors, but in the care of men of honour, whom she knew. Danger was over ; they nmst neither have nor show fear, which was worse. . . . Muzio Attendolo and Duke Francesco, their forebears, had never been known to lose their fortitude ; they had not known the meaning of fear . . , and that is why they had always been proof against steel, fire and treason, and in their day had been great princes and great condottieri. . . . Their uncle, the Duke, would send hundreds and hundreds of armed men, with cannon and guns and famous captains to their rescue. Her father, like theirs, had also been assassinated in her childhood. Yet she had not lost courage . . . neither should they!" When Catherine had somewhat comforted her people, she began to think how she could turn the change in her cir- cumstances to her advantage. She was now guarded by honourable citizens, faithful to their charge, yet kindly and reverently minded to her. She realized that Savelli and the Orsi coveted the possession of the fortresses, and that, through her, they would again attempt to persuade the castellanes to surrender. Could she but find a pretext to enter the fortress of Ravaldino ! That and the arrival of help from Milan would be fatal to the plans of her enemies. Absorbed in this thought, she confided in a loyal servitor, who fortunately happened to be near her at the time, says the historian Bernardi, in a manner which permits us to infer that he was CATHERINE AND THE ASSASSINS 125 himself this loyal servant. Him she dispatched to the castellane, to warn him that she would certainly be again led in front of the fortress, which, if she could but enter, would save the situation. She therefore enjoined on him to concert with Francesco Ercolani, who was with him at Ravaldino, as to her possible mode of entrance. They agreed that upon the following day, Ercolani would see the governor, and inform him that the Castellane of Ravaldino, considering the great danger to which the Countess was exposed, and the impossi- bility of holding the fort against the impending army of the Pope, was ready to surrender, but as he came of a stock in which there had been no traitor, he would neither be nor appear one. He would therefore do the bidding of the Countess, and give up the fortress, but before doing so he demanded an interview with Madonna to settle his affairs, receive his salary, and receive from Madonna a written certificate of his honourable service, so that he might show himself in any company and none would dare to call him traitor. Having thus agreed, Ercolani hastened to communicate the agreement to Catherine, who approved it, and to the Governor, who promised not only that Catherine should enter the fort, but that he would induce the Orsi to take her there on that same morning. Ercolani, on leaving Savelli, proceeded to the Orsi, who, knowing Catherine too well to trust her within the fort, absolutely refused her any private colloquy with the castellane. They would take her outside, where she could speak with him, as before, in public. Ercolani then appeared before Tornielli and the magistracy to acquaint them with the proposals of the castellane. " Now our blockheads believed his words to be the truth," says Cobelli, and promised that they would do all that was necessary, " and more," to carry out this plan. " Then," adds Cobelli, " I went away to dinner, for it was late." Meanwhile two confidential persons, Luca d'Este and a certain Luigi, came and went at will, to inform Catherine of everything that happened, a proof that the severity of her custody was somewhat rela.xed, and that her jailers closed 126 CATHERINE'S WIDOWHOOD one eye. Even Savclli, who went forwards and backwards on the ramparts, directing the work of the batteries, perceived this coming and going without preventing it. At about eleven in the forenoon the Orsi, accompanied by Ercolani and their usual escort of conspirators, went to conduct Catherine by the road outside the walls to the fortress. The castellane appeared at the battlements. Catherine, almost weeping, entreated him to surrender the fort to Monsignor the Governor, the Pope's representative. The castellane repeated that he would do nothing of the kind. "Ah!" said Catherine, "if I might but enter the fortress and speak to you without witnesses, I would explain to you how things stand, and persuade you to surrender!" "In that case," said the castellane, " I know not what I might do, but in any case I should be guided by the conditions you might propose to me. Besides, I have already declared to the Governor and every one that, to make an end of it, I am willing for you to enter the fortress, on condition that you come alone." When the Orsi heard this they loudly opposed those who advocated sending the Countess within. They knew her too well . . . they feared her too much. Once within her fortress, would she come out of it again ? But, says Bernardi, they took heart of grace, remembering that she would leave her children in their hands, and yet could not make up their minds. " What are you afraid of? " queried Ercolani. " Have you not all her children in your hands? Do you think she would abandon them ? Give her three hours with the castellane. If, when that time has elapsed, the Countess does not return, do what you will to her children, her mother and sister. Do not these hostages suffice .-' I offer you my children as well. If the Countess is not here at the appointed time you can butcher them all together." "Where is the need that you should offer your children to us?" replied the Orsi. "Are you not, as well as your children, in our hands ? " This discussion, which took place in the presence of Catherine, so grew in length and violence that at the sound of the contending voices Monsignor Savelli, who CATHERINE AND THE ASSASSINS 127 never left the neighbourhood of the fortress, appeared upon the scene. His authority decided the question, and gave Catherine the right of entry to the fort. He announced that he ]iad observed certain persons going to and fro from the fort to Catherine, and he was aware that the castellan e had already agreed to surrender. And it behoved them, above all, to deprive the Duke of Milan of the slightest pretext for dis- pleasure, such as might arise from the prolonged imprisonment of his sister, or a refusal to permit her to treat for the surrender with the castellane. The Orsi could not, dared not, withstand this order, but they swore, cursed, and were consumed with anger. Three hours and no more were granted to Catherine in which to settle everything with her castellane. In a second Catherine's countenance underwent a complete change. Rising to her full height, she resolutely approached and crossed the draw-bridge ; then turning to hurl a gesture of insult at the assassins, proudly entered the castle, followed by a single attendant, her faithful Luca d'Este.^ ^ Cobelli had "gone to dinner, because it was late. But one way, or another, Madonna entered the fort . . . and according to Ludovico Hercolano, no sooner had the Countess mounted the bridge than siie turned and .... When I bad dined, I picked up my lance and returned to the fort, where Misser Ludovico and Checco, Jacomo da Ronco, and Ludovico Fansecco waited for Madonna to come out. They had a good waiting. " — p. 322. CHAPTER XV THE LEGEND OF THE FORT TOMMASO Feo and Corradino, his son, who awaited Catherine within the fortress, were her husband's kinsmen and her personal friends. An atmosphere of safety and loyalty revived her spirits, while her presence inspired the whole garrison with renewed courage. Her first thought was to so dispose the artillery (cannon, bombs and mortars) as to command the city. Savelli had confided the custody of her dear ones to three loyal citizens, but in the event of their being overpowered by the conspirators, she would show that she was ready for terrible reprisals, and able to bombard the whole town. For a time, the Countess and the castellane occupied themselves with the transport and disposal of guns and ammunition. At last, when the churches and principal houses of the town were at her mercy, she sat down to dinner with Thomas and Conrad Feo, and was soon joined by Ercolani, who had succeeded in escaping from the Orsi and their braves, and to whose congratulations Catherine replied with thanks for the timely service he had rendered her. After dinner, the castellane persuaded her to take some repose in an isolated room at the top of the vmschio, or central tower, where no sounds from outside could reach her. Catherine undressed, and youth and fatigue triumphing over her anxieties, was soon asleep in the bed she had found prepared for her. When the three hours had expired, the Orsi began to ask why she did not return, and to call her clamorously. Corradino replied from the ramparts that if 128 THE LEGEND OF THE FORT 129 they sent Luffo Numai and Lorenzo Orselli as hostages for Catherine and her children, the castellane would send the Countess to them, otherwise he would keep her in the fortress. The rage of the Orsi at this suggestion was un- bounded ; Numai and Orselli were among the principal citizens ; the demand for them seemed an additional insolence. At last Savelli, the Orsi and their myrmidons, irritated at having been made fools of by Catherine, returned to the city, and there was once more silence outside the fort. Ercolani having left its precincts and imprudently shown himself in the square, would have been put to death by the knives and partisans of the conspirators, but that he was rescued and conducted to his house by his brother-in-law, Matteo Galasso and the latter's followers. The legend runs otherwise. In the Hove di rccreatione ^ of Messer Ludovico Guicciardini, we learn that " the Lady having entered the fortress . . . appeared at the battlements and with exceeding bitter words, reproached the conspirators with the death of her husband, threatening them with every kind of torture. . . . Then they (the Orsi) having taken her children by the hand, did with a knife make pretence of slaying them in her presence if she broke her word with them. But the dauntless Countess, with unchanged counten- ance, gazed at them defiantly, and lifting her skirt said to them : ' E non vi pare egli, stolti, cJiio abbia le forvie da fame degP altri P' " This is the reply repeated by almost every historian. Turn we, therefore, to the records of Cobelli and Bernard i who were present during the stormy episodes of that day. The only means which Savelli, in concert with the Orsi, could devise to compass the surrender of the fort by Catherine, was to threaten to murder her children, mother and sister, under her eyes. Checco Orsi, followed by many others, went to San Bietro, and in the names of the governor and the council, demanded the mother and sister of Catherine, her two eldest children and a nurse who was particularly dear {<> the Countess. They were led to weep and cry in the ' Consiglio Ji;mi)iiiio csscr lalhora di ^raiivalorc, p. 20S. I30 CATHERINE'S WIDOWHOOD moat of Ravaldino. First the nurse, then Stella, and finally Octavian were employed to entreat Madonna to " surrender the fort to Monsignore and for the love of God to save their lives." Instead of Catherine, who was asleep in the remote recesses of the castle, the castcllane replied by threat to threat, not to the poor women, whose cries could not waken their lady, but to those who dictated their appeal. But the shrill screams of Octavian made his hair stand on end. What if a mother's love were to sharpen her ears ; she would sur- render, and all would be over ! A subterfuge dawned upon him by which he might deaden all sounds from without, and he ordered all his available soldiers to cry : " Away with you ! away I or we shall kill you all," ^ at the same time sending others to make a loud noise under the windows of the tower where Catherine slept. Neither the conspirators nor the crowd who followed them moved an inch. The castellane, in despair, fired a few shots - which dispersed them in terror, when the conspirators turned back and reconducted Catherine's family, unharmed, to the Gate of St. Peter. These cries had awakened the Countess, who from the seclusion of the maschio thought she could hear her name. . . . She listened, the better to distinguish the sounds, but instead of her name, heard from the draw-bridge a deafening noise and the sound of blows ; this was surely the beginning of a battle. . . . She suddenly sprang from her bed and out of the room. In the scanty clothing in which she had slept, with unbound hair and bare feet, she quickly descended the spiral stair that is still to be seen in the chief tower, stopped for a moment at the bottom, and hearing shots ... in her impatience to know, see, and meet the emergency, crossed the court}'ard that was crowded with soldiers, like lightning, and flew to the small tower where the castellane stood by the big cannon. The castellane perceived her, guessed what had happened, and went to meet her. " What did she fear ? . . . wh\- leave ' Bernardi, p. 148. - Vecchiazzani, Storia di Foiiimpopoli,-^. 168. THE LEGEND OF THE FORT 131 her room ? Enemies ! Attacks ! A handful of drunken soldiers had had a scrimmage among themselves, and he had been obliged to fire a few shots. . . . Yes, the Orsi had come to fetch her, but had gone away peacefully . . . very frightened at the Duke of Milan ! " Reassured by the pious lie of the castellane, she was soon seen to retire to her apart- ments. Her face was calm, she passed serenely in front of the soldiers and soon disappeared. It would appear that the Countess on reaching the battle- ments of the tower by the gate was observed by those who stood outside the fortress. In any case, many soldiers of the garrison had seen her in her scant attire. Catherine's admir- able defence of the Castle of Forli soon became a sort of epopee, adorned by popular fancy and enriched by the boastful additions of those who had taken any part in it. It was this version that reached Machiavelli, who was only to make Catherine's personal acquaintance eleven years later : he believed it, and delighted in handing it down to history in its most cynical form. But the narrative of Machiavelli cannot stand against the absolute silence of such contemporaries as Cobelli and Bernardi. The person who appeared and who spoke to the crowd was the castellane ; Catherine was not on the battlements, but in bed, and when she did appear, wore, not armour, but her shift, which she was probably the last to perceive. At that moment the dauntless Countess was not alarming, but alarmed. Cobelli relates that when evening came, Ludovico Orsi called his brother and their associates away from the fort, saying : " Let us go to supper." Savelli remained to direct the work of the barricades, but Cobelli followed the others home, where the supper-tables were laid. Andrea Orsi, the octogenarian father of Ludovico and Checco, arrived from his country house at Casa Murata and seeing his sons with Panzcchi and Ronchi washing their hands before they went to table began by saying : " O my sons, what have you done.!"' " We have done well," replied Ronchi," for did not the preacher say : 'Who will be that mouse that will bell the 132 CATHERINE'S WIDOWHOOD cat ?' We have belled the cat and freed the poor mice. We have freed this earth from the hand of Pharaoh!" . . . "O my Father ! " added Ludovico, " we have but done to him as he would have done to us/' And he told him how the Count had been put to death, and of all the events that had happened up to that moment. Old Orsi, although he had just recovered from a severe illness and looked as if he were in his dotage, replied, with much wisdom : " My sons, to my mind you have neither done well nor done bravely, but have rather done ill, twice over. First, since you had killed the Count, you should have finished the others or have penned the whole family alive and kept them prisoners. Then you have let Madonna into the fort, to wage deadly war with you, and have banished the Marcobelli and Orzioli, who will return with fire and sword. God help you ! I would not have been drawn into it ! You have behaved like drivelling infants and will repent and suffer for it ; would that others need not suffer, nor I, who am old and ill ! I foresee where you will end ! " " O Orsi ! " cried his hearers, " doubt not but that we know what we have to do ! " " No ! you know not yet," insisted the old man. " Since you have killed the Count you should have finished them all." These words of Andrea Orsi, repeated to Catherine, enraged her more than ever, confirming her in her belief that all her troubles were due to the bloodthirsty old man, who had encouraged his sons to dye their hands in the blood of the Riario. On April 17, Catherine, trembling for her children's safety, and knowing of no other means to insure it but the display of her power to avenge them, fired on the town from time to time, by day and night. Several private houses, among which was that of Giovanni Battista Oliva, the great- grandfather of Fabio, Catherine's future biographer, were injured. It w^as hastily decided to raise barricades and bat- teries for the protection of the town, and to send to Cesena for battering-rams and a cannon. Monsignor Savelli sum- moned all the papal soldiers from Cesena and within his jurisdiction. On the following day, these troops arrived THE LEGEND OF THE FORT 133 under the command of Count Guido di Bagno, Count Carlo Pian di Meleto and Hector Zampeschi. Since the night of April 15, Savelli had invested eight citizens with full authority, who were to reside day and night in the palace. This was the Council of Eight, of which Mdso Maldenti was president. Some of the members were bold and truculent, others silent and at heart uncertain of the issue, with a fore- boding that the Pope would turn a deaf ear, and the sense that the sword of Milan hung over their heads. Catherine, stronger and more wily than all of them, had seized the fort, whence she could bombard the whole city. All hope of frightening or touching her was at an end. CHAPTER XVI THE FLIGHT OF THE ORSI Giovanni Bentivoglio, Lord of Bologna and Catherine's ally, was anxious to avoid displeasing Lorenzo Medici, whom he knew to be the instigator of her husband's death : he also knew that the Florentine was personally favourable to her, and therefore wTote him as follows : " The death of the quondam (sic) Count Hieronymus having occurred in the mode and form of which I know Your Magni- ficence to be aware, on the said death I will for the present express no opinion, either in praise or blame, preferring to be guided by the wisdom of Your Magnificence. . . ." The ducal orator, resident in Bologna, had begged him to do his utmost to sav^e the States for the c.iildren of the Count : he had therefore ridden to Castel San Pietro, five miles from Lnola, with Light Horse and infantry, and would "fain know what (under the circumstances) would seem meet to Your Magnificence, and what you consider should be done in the matter. . , ." Lorenzo did not reply, and Bentivoglio wrote him again on the 19th, from Castel Bolognese, "repeating his prayer, that he might be pleased to communicate to him (Bentivoglio) an inkling of his wise decision and opinion. . . ." These letters prove that Lorenzo was the soul and centre of these intrigues. Why therefore did he not trouble to reply to Bentivoglio .-' The conditions were altered : the conspiracy of the Pazzi, origin of these feuds, had occurred ten years earlier, and vengeance had fallen when perhaps it was least desired. 134 THE FLIGHT OF THE ORSI 135 Besides, even if he had willed and worked the death of Girolamo, he now desired to avoid the odium of the assassin- ation. Meanwhile the news of it continued to reach him from other sources. Stefano of Castrocaro wrote him on the 19th, from Faenza, relating a conversation in which Galeotto Manfredi had asserted " that all had happened with the knowledge of Lorenzo." This he, Stefano, had defied him to prove. He added Galeotto's account of the assassination, and ended by stating that the body had been interred in "uncon- secrated ground." Galeotto had already, in a letter of the 17th, informed Lorenzo that Bentivoglio had shamefacedly asked his assent to the passage of forces he was sending to the defence of Catherine, but that, " to avoid responsibility," he had replied that he was too busy to see him, and had refused him a right of way through Faenza. He had learned that Bentivoglio would be followed by the Milanese forces : he would write Lorenzo everything that occurred, and would establish a service of couriers by the Marradi road, to carry letters backwards and forwards. He added that Catherine Sforza had entered the fort, and had given out that she would die there ; she was regardless of her children's danger, and had opened fire on the city.^ On the following day, he wrote again saying that " pending the ebullition," he begged Lorenzo to send a confidential person to him with whom he might confer in any circum- stance whatever. He referred to the endurance with which Catherine held the fort. Lorenzo had already received similar information, regarding Catherine, from Migliore Cresci, captain of Castrocaro, con- firmed by three letters of Corbizzi,- who wrote that the assassins of the Count looked to him, Lorenzo, for protection. The most important letters arc, however, those from Ludovico and Checco Orsi. The assassins did not spare the memory of their "iniquitous and accursed" victim, "whom we will not call Lord, for of that he was unworthy." They openly alluded to the pait played by Girolamo in the conspiracy of ' Doc. 258. -' Docs. 260, 261, 267. 136 CATHERINE'S WIDOWI lOOlJ the Pazzi, as a pretext for the assassination. God had in- spired them ; in spite of all risks success had so attended them that they were constrained to recognize divine intervention. Not a drop of blood except that of the accursed one and a bargello of like nature had been spilled. " We announce these things to Your Magnificence, because having been sorely offended, Your Lordship will surely rejoice thereat." They had had good reasons of their own for putting Girolamo to death, but foremost had been their love for Lorenzo, whose help and counsel they now entreated. The accursed brood of the Riario would soon be stamped out : they hoped to take one of the two fortresses on that day, and to soon oblige the other to surrender. Thanks to their patriotism, love and peace now prevailed at Forli. . . . To this letter Lorenzo vouchsafed no response, merely telling the envoy who delivered it that he wished to live in peace for the short span that was yet allotted to him, and that no consideration in the world would induce him to dabble in such matters. Yet he still held the thread of the skein, and sent Stephen of Castrocaro to explore the humours of the assassins. Stefano, having, " according to orders received, spoken separately with each" (Ludovico and Checco Orsi), wrote that he could not describe the cordiality of his re- ception. " I therefore told them that Your Magnificence having sent me to the Lord of Faenza had requested me to confer with them also, and to assure them that Your Lordship was naturally disposed to do all that lies in your power in their favour and for their benefit." They prayed Lorenzo to induce the Pope to come to the help of the people of Forli, who were still horrified by the memory of the Count, and determined to no longer tolerate the rule of tyrants. Here follows the assassin's account of the assassination. The Orsi declared that at the sacking of the palace they had found no money, but jewels and plate to the value of 60,000 ducats ; everything had passed through their hands, but they had kept nothing for themselves. Checco's gravest assertion was that he had done the deed co7iscio poiitifice. The cry of all was Chicsa I neither would THE FLIGHT OF THE ORSI 137 they hear of the Ordelaffi, " nor any other private Lord. . . . Come Milan, or any other potentate," they had continued, "we will be drawn and quartered, one by one, sooner than submit to a tyrant, for we have faith in the support of the Pope:" a transparent protest against the possibility of Forli being given to Franceschetto Cibo.^ Stephen added that the Fort of Ravaldino, one of the finest he had seen, was ammuni- tioned for ten years. Having asked the Orsi what would be done with the Count's children, they replied that they were in a place where they would never be seen again, whence he concluded that they had killed them. The Orsi professed themselves well pleased that Madonna was in the fort, soon to fall into their hands. Thus the Orsi, by suppressing facts and their real feelings, contrived to present a brave front to the envoy of Lorenzo Medici. Checco Orsi had concluded by saying that he "and all his house were the slaves of the Magnificent Lorenzo, and had I done nought else, should be content to have avenged that innocent blood of his brother ;"^ he had no other desire than " the certainty of Lorenzo's favour ; " a few words in his writing would suffice him. In short he wanted a few strokes in black and white as well as words. But Stephen knew his master's humour too well to promise anything of the kind. " I replied, that without any other testimony, he could believe and I certify , . . ." He here remarked, in the current of his letter, that if possession were taken by the Church, Lorenzo would no longer be able to dispose of Forli as if it were his own, having previously assured the Orsi that "they need not fear that his master, who desired but to end his days in peace, would attempt to impose upon them the Lord Francesco Cibo as ruler." And the Pope? Innocent VIII., ambitious but irresolute, had married his s(jn to the daughter of Girolamo's deadliest enemy, and the envoys of the city, lately freed from the tyrant, had been graciously received at the Vatican. Yet, the Pope's lack of confidence in the appeal would tend to ^ Son of Innocinl VIII. .iin! son-in-law to Lorenzo ]\rc(lici. ^ (liuliano Mcilici, kilk-il in liic consiiiiai-y fif the I'a/.zi. 13S CATHKRINprS WIDUWIIUOD prove that he had no hand in the assassination, and was besides most probably deterred by fear from coming to any decision, since Catherine had so promptly called the Lords of Bologna and Milan to her aid. Wc learn from two letters of Giovanni Lanfredini, Florentine Orator in Rome, addressed to the Otto di Pratica} that the Pope had written to Forli that Catherine and her children were to be protected and taken to the Fortress of Cesena, and that having assembled all the orators of the league he had caused a letter from the Gov^ernor of Cesena and one from the Commune of Forli to be read, which set forth that the citizens would no longer tolerate tyrants, that Pope Sixtus had deceived them, that the Count's rule had been detestable, and that they craved the protection of the Church. The Milanese Orator had enjoined on the Pope the protection of the widow and children, and the punishment of the assassins. The Pope's instructions to his envoy at Milan betray the fears and indecision that consumed him. He sought to dissuade the Duke from sending forces for the defence of his sister, he wondered that the Duke could not entrust her defence to him, although he could not have done otherwise than accept the dominion offered by Forli to the Church. . . . What was nearest his heart was the peace of Italy, menaced as it was by the Turk,- After this protest, seeing that matters did not shape them- selves to his intentions, the Pope was deaf and blind to the affairs of Forli, which may have been due to the all-powerful influence of Cardinal Julian della Rovere.'^ The Cibo family were of too lymphatic a temperament to bend the Cardinal to their will or to enforce their authority on the whole Curia: they limited themselves to the accumulation of treasure, especially by usury. Unlike the Riario before, and the Borgia after them, they knew not how to extract profit for themselves from the political relation of the papacy with the affairs of the world in general. ' State Archives of Florence, Doc>. 274, 275. - Secret Archives of the Vatican, Instr. IV. Vol. 55, Doc. 2S3. ^ A near relation of the Riario. THE FLIGHT OF THE ORSI 139 On April 18, a herald of Bentiv^oglio arrived at Forli, requiring, of the Council of Eight, the reinstatement of the Riario. He warned them to do no harm to the children of Catherine under penalty of reprisals from the Duke of Milan. Savelli replied that there was nothing to fear for the children, especially if Catherine surrendered the fort : it would be impossible to reinstate her, because the city had offered itself spontaneously to the Pope, and had already dispatched orators to Rome. If the Countess surrendered, she might retire to her city of Imola. On returning to the square, the herald was met by Checco Orsi with words of insult for Bentivoglio and Bologna. These incidents caused some excitement in the city : Savelli, surrounded by his guard, appeared in the square, some voices cried CJiiesa ! Chiesa ! but these demonstrations were due to bribery, and soon ceased. On the following day Savelli banished many suspects from Forli, sent for some partisans of the Orsi from Imola, and, to rid himself of the incumbrance of Catherine's mother and sister, summoned them to his presence, married Stella to her betrothed, Andrea Ricci, and sent them under honourable escort to Cesena. Checco Orsi, hearing that many artisans had been admitted to the fort to share in Catherine's defence, went in fury to their houses, dragged forth their wives, and led them to the fort where he forced them to call on their husbands, saying, that unless they came out the Orsi would kill their children. One of these women imitated the device of the Countess. " Could I but speak alone to my dear husband, Bernardino," she said, " I am sure I could persuade him to return with me." No sooner had she entered the fort than she declared she would never leave it. At the same time, the men cried from within, that they had sworn allegiance to their lady, and that neither promises nor threats would induce them to abandon her. On the morning of the 20th a courier from Bentivoglio arrived with a letter for Savelli from the Duke of Milan ; towards evening another brought one for the council, l^oth I40 CATHERINE'S WIDOWHOOD condemned the presence of the papal governor, and demanded the reinstatement of the Riario. The reph'es were kept secret. There was no sign of lielp from the Pope, and the most influential citizens were heard to say that His Holiness was not even cognizant of what had happened. To avoid a panic Savelli had recourse to the publication of two forged bulls purporting to have come from Rome, by which the Pope's thanks were conveyed to the people of Forli for having given themselves to him, promising them support. On the 2 1st, the Duke of Milan's first envoy, accompanied by a trumpeter of Bentivoglio, entered Forli. They were on horseback, and when they arrived at the bridge known as Del Pane, close to the square, they were met by Checco Orsi and his followers, to whom their guide, instead of leading them to Savelli and the council, presented them. There, in the presence of the crowd, the envoy said, in a loud voice, that he had been sent by the Duke of Milan to request Orsi to bring to his presence the children of Girolamo. He must see them with his eyes. He added that Bentivoglio was at Castel Bolognese with his forces, and would soon be joined by those of the Duke. " We have already put them to death," replied Checco ; " we neither will nor can show them to you, and I tell you to begone quickly, lest we hang you by the throat. We neither fear Bentivoglio, nor the Duke of Milan. Within three days, the Pope will send us sufficient forces to send them back whence they came." The envoy replied that the rank of the prince he served sufficed to protect him against their insults, but Orsi, ordering his myrmidons to take the horses by the bridle, confined both horses and riders in a neighbouring inn. Towards evening, two men were captured who brought letters to Catherine from Bentivoglio and the leaders of the Milanese forces. The Orsi would have put them to death, but Savelli saved them. On the following day an orator arrived from the Duke of Milan protesting against the detention of his envoy and the violation of the liberty of the people. The council apologized. THE FLIGHT OF THE ORSl 141 laid the blame on Orsi, and immediately liberated the envoy and his companion. Other things the orator said, but they were kept secret, and secret were the words that Ludovico Orsi had whispered in his ear. Savelli, in the absence of news from head-quarters, con- tinued to contribute forged bulls for the encouragement of the citizens : the Eight, who relied more on their artillery than on the Pope, dragged ?i passavolante^ from the Fort of Schiavonia to a watchman's box that commanded the Valverde road and placed bombs in a house that stood near it, and on the 24th an edict of Savelli ordered both citizens and foreigners to bring in a bundle of wood for the barricades : the peasants brought two each, but none were willing to work at the barricades nor to guard the cannon. As a bait to the populace, the Orsi prevailed upon the council to provide each workman at the barricade with a ticket, in return for which they could demand a pawned article from any of the Jews. But the Orsi reserved to themselves the promulgation of this edict. On the 26th, the artillery of the Orsi opened fire on the Fort of Ravaldino, which suffered little and replied vigorously, damaging the palace tower in several places, but neither touching that of St. Mercurial nor of the Dome. There were only two victims, the Countess being minded rather to frighten than to injure the city. On the 27th, one Battista of Savona, a relative of the late Count, and castellane of Forlimpopoli, actuated less by avarice than the conviction that Catherine's fortunes were fallen, gave up that fortress to Savelli for 4000 ducats : with his son and son-in-law as hostages while awaiting the payment of this sum. On April 29, the ducal army which had joined the forces of Bentivoglio (about 12,000 strong without counting the adventurers and camp-followers) encamped at Cosina, five miles from Forli. It was led by Galeazzo Sanseverino, Count of Caiazzo, the future son-in-law to Ludovico il Moro and the ' Passavolantc — an old Italian ])iccc (jf artillery used, before the invention of [gunpowder, to hurl stones and other minute projectiles. 142 CATHERINE'S WIDOWHOOD Lords of Bergamo, Mantua and Bologna, who had determined in council to send Giovanni Landriani, an officer of mark, to treat with the citizens of Forli. He arrived there at the twenty-first hour and was received by the Council of Eight, of which Savelli was president. He eloquently denounced the murder of Count Girolamo, and pointed out the political illegality of the act whereby the city had given itself to the Pope, since Sixtus IV. had given the lordship thereof to Girolamo Riario and his heirs forever, until the extinction of his line. His widow and children were the representatives of his rights, which would be enforced by the 12,000 men, led by the Lord of Bologna and the generals of the Duke of Milan, brother of the Countess. Savelli had no right to accept the city on behalf of the Church and the league of the powers of Milan, Naples, Ferrara, Mantua and Bologna demanded the restoration of the Riario. Savelli replied firmly that the Riario had forfeited their rights by non-payment of the dues of the Church, wherefore the city had been justified in giving itself to the Church, and the Eight, to whom he appealed, were unanimous in support of his argument, declaring with one voice that it was impos- sible to undo that which had been done. Ludovico Orsi imprudently added that Count Girolamo had but had his deserts and that he congratulated himself even more on having freed the city from such a tyrant than on having given it to the Church. . . . Within six days Ludovico Orsini, Count of Pitigliano with Ser Domenico Orio and the papal army, strengthened by the forces of Malatesta of Rimini, would disperse the troops of the Duke of Milan, and the people of Forli would be left at peace in their city. " The dues of the Church, forsooth ! The late Count was a creditor of the apostolic treasury for enormous sums," replied Landriani, after he had patiently listened to all that had been said. " If you hold to your decision," continued Landriani, " the Duke, my lord, proposes that the government of Forli be confided pro tein. to two commissioners, one on his own behalf, one for Holy Church, with the Pope as arbitrator. If he decides in favour of Forli I pledge my word as Ambassador THE FLIGHT OF THE ORSI 143 that the Captains and soldiers of Milan and Bologna will return whence they came, and not another word will be said of the Duke's demands, the murder of the Count, the imprison- ment of the Countess and the rights of their children." Savelli contemptuously refused, the councillors applauded. His reply and their applause were too much for the patience of Landriani, who cried that they would bitterly repent and that the Duke of Milan would hasten in person to avenge the wrongs of his nephews, sparing neither the possessions nor the lives of the people of Forli. He bowed and left the hall. He was met in the square by cries of " Chiesa ! Long live the Church ! " for a certain Guriolo (brother-in-law to Ludovico Orsi) had ridden in by the Cotogni Gate, crying, " Good news, good news ! succour is at hand ! " and the news that the Count of Pitigliano had arrived at Ronco so strengthened the determination of the Eight that the orator was recalled to hear once more that they would stand and fall by the Church. The cries in the square may have been derisive, for, " I was in the square," says Cobelli, " when all the populace laughed, saying : ' This is really a hoax like the Ordelaffi used to treat us to ! ' ' O poor people of Forli,' cried a bag- gage-varlet, who was also in the square, ' the lords in the Milanese camp know better than that. No one cares to move a hand for us ! ' The truth was that everything was known in the Milanese camp. Many inhabitants of Forli, either fearing that their property at the Cosina was endangered, or in spite to their rivals, reported everything that occurred at Forli, at the camp at Cosina. Landriani, aware of the measures taken by the league to intercept help for Forli, could not believe that Pitigliano was at its gates. "At last, from afar, a troop of horse became visible in a cloud of dust. ... At the Cotogni Gate, instead of entering, they turned to the left and entered the fort. They were fifty horsemen sent by a cardinal who was related to Catherine, in her defence." The leaders of the army hastened to communicate Savelli's reply to Catherine, proposing at the same time, with her 144 CATHERINE'S WIDOWHOOD consent, to advance and sack the city. But Catherine, who was ah'eady in possession of the facts, ordered those captains to do nothing for the present but to approach the fortress by the hills in the neighbourhood of San Martino and Busecchio. It was impossible to move the whole army to the city on that day, but every company had marching orders and the whole camp was in movement, folding tents, packing luggage and burnishing arms. Spies, of whom many hovered about the camp, ran to Forli with the news that the army was on the march to put the city to fire and blood during the night. A sudden, irresistible terror possessed the citizens : there was neither time nor in- tention, nor possibility of warding off the terrible blow ; they could only weep and curse. The distracted populace paced the streets, calling those traitors and assassins of their country whom they had erstwhile exalted as liberators and by whom they had sworn to stand till death. Ludovico Orsi, Ronchi and Panzechi were wild with rage when they found them- selves abandoned by the people and their partisans. Ludovico, less audacious than his brother, was seen by his familiars to weep. " Oh ! had we but listened to the voice of the people, at first, and called ' Ordelaffi and St. Mark' [i.e. the Venetians who at that time colonized Ravenna) as they sent to tell us, we should not now find ourselves in this labyrinth. . . . We would have nought but Church and Pope, and a pretty Pope we have got ! . . . I can remember the army of the Pope encamped outside Forli and yet unable to take it ; and now that he could have had it without breaking a lance, he would have none of it. We have been gulled ! " He was joined by Panzechi, with a few followers, and later by Ronchi ; all were pale and bewildered. None dared to approach Checco Orsi ; the enraged populace cast threatening looks at him, he kept silent and apart. " I saw how things were going," says Cobelli, "and said to certain friends : 'they are in bad case, they have neither tail nor wings left and cannot fly ! ' . . . I looked on for a while and then went to supper." A new and secret terror added to the discomfort of the Orsi. Catherine, who had means of learning whatever happened in the city, had, on THE FLIGHT OF THE ORSI 145 hearing the drift of their replies to Landriani, fired certain spiked bombs into the streets, on whose spikes were threaded placards that bore the following inscription : — " People of Forli ! My people ! Punish ; put to death all my enemies ! I promise to hold you ever after as my good brothers. Strike quickly and fear nothing. The Milanese army is at our gates ; soon you will reap the reward and they the chastisement that are deserved." These projectiles carried the placards to every quarter of the town, where they were eagerly read by the populace ; the assassins felt that their hour was come. Night was at hand, the army would enter with the dusk and surprise the city, they would be among the first to be taken. . What was to be done ? Throw themselves at the feet of the captains, imploring pity ? Too proud were the words they had spoken to their orator ; there was no hope of pardon. Either they would be treacherously done to death by the citizens or beheaded in the square on the following morning as an example to the people. It was not possible to save either the city, their property or their families : the utmost they could attempt was to save their lives. Unanimous on this subject they ceased from quarrelling and once more became friends, willing to forget all else if they might but escape. Savelli did not fall so low : conscious of his rank, and mindful of his dignity, he refused to talk of flight. While they were considering the course still open to them, one of them remembered that they still had control of the children of the Countess. "With those children in our hands, her 12,000 defenders may become useless to her ... all is not yet lost ! " But they would be caught if they attempted to escape with six children and two nurses. Therefore, since they were constrained to fly the persecutions of the populace and the Duke's army, leaving behind them their families and property, they determined to adequately avenge themselves on Catherine, cause and origin of their ruin and despair, by slaying her children. If they could not complete the butchery at once, 146 CATHERINE'S WIDOWHOOD they would drag them with them to be put to death at their leisure, or keep them as hostages for Catherine's submission to their threats. This is additional proof that the mother had not made light of the value of her children's lives b\^ the reply attributed to her in the legend. That night, at the second hour. Doctor Ludovico Orsi wended his way to the little fortress at the Gate of St. Peter. He was followed at a respectful distance by fifty armed men, lead by Giacomo Ronchi. Silently and cautiously they trod in the darkness and were soon hidden in the vicinity of the fort. Orsi called through the grating that he must see those in comm»and at once. Capoferri, Serughi and Denti, accom- panied by two soldiers, answered the summons and led Orsi into a room on the ground floor, close to the grating. " Brothers," said Orsi, " I come on behalf of Monsignore to demand of you the children of Madonna. To these children we must look for the salvation of our city, our lives and even the life of Monsignore. He will send them under proper escort to Cesena." " Gaffer," replied Capoferri, " we are not going to give them up to you. I and my brother have travelled the world over long enough to see through your device. You have to fly and, like mad dogs, would fain set your teeth here and there. You shall not have the children to kill." His words were echoed by Denti and Serughi and all put their hands to their swords. Meanwhile Giacomo Ronchi had approached the grating, whence he saw and heard everything. He hastily summoned a handful of his men-at-arms and waited, intending to profit by the moment that the grating would open to give egress to Ludovic. Then he would enter with a rush, exterminate the guard and carry away the children. He had thought it out fairly well, but did not succeed in sufficiently muffling his steps and those of his followers, which, despite the noise inside, were audible to the sentinel in the tower, who immediately apprised Capoferri of the guet-apcns. Capoferri ordered Ronchi to depart at once, unless he and his people preferred to be put to death where they stood. Ronchi cried out that Catherine's children had been taken there by THE FLIGHT OF THE ORSI 147 Savelli and the Orsi, that Capoferri could not detain them against their will and that he would shatter the gate with a beam and seize the children. Tiles and stones then began to rain on Ronchi's men, and one of his servants was mortally wounded. " I will ring the alarm-bell," replied Capoferri ; " the people will come and tear you to pieces ! " At this threat, Ronchi took to flight : the conspirators no longer dared to face the people. Ludovico Orsi was allowed to pass out, joined Savelli at the Fort of Schiavonia, and with him entered the square, where silence reigned and the terrified citizens awaited the plundering of the city, according to the orders of the Duke of Milan to his captains. This sacking (with Catherine's assent) was to the soldiers the aim and essence of victory, and they looked forward to it with avidity. The Orsi went home and prepared for flight. They carried with them jewels, plate and gold snatched from the Jews and all they had been able to accumulate elsewhere ; for knowing who had seized the most valuable of the Riario property, they had sent to demand it of the spoilers. Short had been their reign of terror, but while it lasted, none had withstood their demands. Ludovico and Checco, with two married sons, two cousins and a brother-in-law, gained the Cotogni Gate, where they were met by Ronchi and Panzechi and the kinsmen and partisans of the latter at two o'clock, after midnight. The fugitives were seventeen in number, and wishing to keep in touch with Forli, halted at Cervia, then held by Venice. But the Venetian podesta and captain, at Ravenna, refused to tolerate the presence of the murderers of Girolamo Riario, a senator and patrician of Venice. The conspirators, on being ejected from Cervia, dispersed, In the deserted house at Forli, the old father and the unhappy wives ot the Orsi were abandoned to their fate. CHAPTER XVII THE RESTORATION After the flight of the conspirators, " our town, which had been bh'nd, was illuminated," says Bernardi. " None of the inhabitants had slept, the Milanese forces might have entered at any hour, people kept behind their well-closed doors." Among these was Leone Cobelli. But after the departure of the conspirators, Antonello, a follower of Panzechi, came to call him and told him of the flight of the Orsi, and that several citizens had gone to Ravaldino to tell the Countess that they were ready to assemble the people and give back the State to her and to Octavian by acclamation. A counter- revolution was at hand. Devoured by curiosity, Cobelli " hurried to the square," which was empty, then to the Custom House, where he found only the chief ofificer, Gian Griffone of Bologna, with two or three of his men. Then on to the Ponte de Cavalieri and the Canto dei Numai, where he saw many people of threatening aspect. . . . Alarmed, he joined his cousin, Guasparra de' Numai, and stood waiting, when there appeared Tommaso Palmeggiani and Ludovico Ercolani, followed by a troop, and upon their heels Tommaso degli Orcioli, returning from the fort. At this sight Gian Griffone sprang into his saddle, and meeting the approaching company sternly queried of its leader, Thomas Palmeggiani, " Who are these people ? " Palmeggiani, turning to the others, said, " Shall we kill this poltroon .'' " and then in reply, " We are the ill that God sends you." When he heard these words, Gian Griffone put 148 THE RESTORATION 149 spurs to his horse and fled to the Ponte del Pane. And while he fled and his men dispersed, the crowd began to cry, Ditca ! Djica ! Octavian ! Octaviim ! and in a moment there was a revolution in favour of Catherine. All this happened in the night. Orcioli, accompanied by the others, returned to the house, where he wrote the terms of the transfer of the city and dispatched them to the camp at Cosina. From Casa Orcioli the revolutionists returned to the square, crying Octa- vian ! Octavian ! louder than ever. At every window lights appeared, and the great bell of the commune summoned the populace ; a festive population invaded the square from every direction, and cheers and applause rent the air until they resounded in the fort, where Catherine, no longer a prisoner, was sovereign lady. The exulting cries of the people were heard as far as Cosina, in the Milanese camp, but it is doubtful whether they were appreciated by the army, to whom orders had been issued for the sacking of the town in case opposition were offered to the restoration of the Riario. They were, however, forbidden to strike a blow without the consent of the Countess. Cobelli relates that Francesco Numai, Orcioli and other citizens had that night found the Countess so irritated with the populace that she was half inclined to allow the city to be sacked, yet feared that this course would increase the difficulty of recovering the property which the populace had pillaged from the palace, and being also, says Cobelli, " in- spired to leniency by our blessed Saint Mercurial, and above all, mindful of the honour of women and maidens," decided that there should be no sacking. This, with the attendant horrors of fire and armed violence, had been looked upon as inevitable, when suddenly the rumour spread that " Madonna would have none of it," although the Milanese army was near enough to strike the first blow at dawn. Catherine's decision, continues Cobelli, "saddened and astonished" some of the Milanese captains, causing others to curse and swear most horribly, for on the faith of being permitted to sack Forli, they had come away without a penny in their purses, and had kept their men together by dint of ISO CATHERINE'S WIDOWHOOD " good words and fine promises." Troops were massed under the walls of Ravaldino, while the bulk of the infantry camped outside the Schiavonia, Cotogni and San Pietro Gates ; but Catherine only permitted two companies to enter the city, so that Brambilla had no chance of playing the game of the Duke of Milan, which, it appears, would have been to seize Forli for himself. ..." But he could not," says Cobelli, " for Madonna was too wise to admit many men-at- arms. O reader, observe ! U)ia nc pcnsa il gJiiotto e laltra il tavernaroy ^ Here the glutton would stand for the Duke and the innkeeper for Catherine. Catherine fully deserves the praise of Cobelli for defending her city against her defenders. Yet his satisfaction is a curious trait in one who had supped with the Orsi two nights earlier, and who on that very night had gone the round of the town with one of the assassins, to see its sights. At dawn, when the first cries for Catherine were heard, one hastened to the house of the Orsi with the news that the people were crying, Djica I Duca ! "Fly!" he said, "your sons have already fled." Poor old Orso, with his daughters- in-law and the daughters-in-law of his sons, taking with him what little he could, sought refuge in San Domenico. The monks declared that the old man hid himself in an empty grave, weeping, and crying, " Accursed children, whither have you brought me ? " Among the seven unhappy women whom the Orsi had abandoned, was the widow of Agamemnon, who died of wounds received on the night of the Count's murder. She was left with two infants, one of whom was but six months old, whom she hid in the basket of a servant sent to Cesena, thus saving his life. At sunrise on April 30, 1488, the Signori of the council (not the Eight appointed by the Orsi) and the magistracy waited on Catherine at Ravaldino to tender their allegiance. They were introduced into a hall in the fort, where she immediately appeared, dressed in deep mourning. " Her Ladyship," says Bernardi, " as ever, forgetful of evil and only ^ The glutton is of one mind and the innkeeper of another. THE RESTORATION 151 mindful of good, gave hearty thanks to all," and permission to fetch Octavian from the Fort of St. Peter. But although he was to be carried in triumph, the captains of his guard would not consent to his going unless accompanied by Serughi and other men-at-arms. In this order, the magis- tracy led him three times round the square to the cheers of the populace, which continued along the road to Ravaldino. Catherine, who had set aside her garb of woe and was magnificently attired for the solemn reception of her first- born, clasped him to her breast, hiding her face and her emotion in this embrace, while the child, delivered from past terror, sobbed aloud in her arms. His mother comforted and pacified him. Feo and all who were present encouraged him until the boy dried his tears, again and again embracing his mother, spoke to them with childlike affection, and showed his joy at sight of the friendly face of Tommasino Feo ; while, according to contemporary writers, tears were shed by those who witnessed the scene. Says Bernardi, " Discreet reader, I leave you to judge of the joy of that moment." The magistracy, with Catherine's consent, returned to St. Peter's for the other children, and an hour later there appeared five children with two nurses, so surrounded by the guards of Capoferri that the}' might have been taken for prisoners. The Countess, after warmly thanking him and the Signori, ordered bread and provisions in the largest possible quantities to be taken to the Church of the Pianta for the Milanese soldiers. When Catherine was alone with her children, Capoferri and Serughi (who, while compelled to assume acquiescence with the Orsi, had been all along devoted to her cause) told her how, after the hostages had been brought back to them from under the walls of Ravaldino, they had sworn never to lose sight of them again until they could restore them un- harmed to their mother ; of the final attempt of the Orsi to snatch them from them, and of their own anxieties while they repulsed the conspirators with shot and stones. Each of them had a wife and children in the city, who might have been murdered by the baffled assassins. Yet had they been 153 CATHERINE'S WIDOWHOOD faithful to their trust, for which, says Vecchiazzani, " Catherine thanked them effusively, as if she had been mad for joy." She afterwards continued to load these tried friends with favours, which often consisted in the pardon of others, and nothini^ that she could do for them seemed to her enough. On that day began the reign of Catiierine Sforza, and in the state apparel in which she had welcomed her Octavian, seated in her massive arm-chair, she dictated her first com- mands to her secretary. She sent a courier to the Count of Caiazzo ordering him to immediately place his troops under the fort on the mountain side. She ordered Monsignor Savelli, papal governor, and the Counts Guido di Bagno and Pian di Meleto, papal generals, to be seized and imprisoned in the fort, and put a heavy ransom on the head of Zampeschi, who had jumped off the walls and fled. Savelli could not believe his ears at the sound of the people's cries, until some men-at-arms, with the words " Monsignore, you are a prisoner of Madonna the Countess," explained to him the untoward fact. Catherine ordered Captain Rubino, who had been sent to her aid by a friendly cardinal, with fifty horse, to lead them to Forlimpopoli, of which she had already appointed him castel- lane, and of which he was to obtain possession by force or strategy. The former castellane, who had sold his trust for a bribe, was to be brought with his officers under strong escort to Forli. The houses of Andrea Orsi and Graziolo, his brother, were to be ruined and pillaged by the populace, and old Andrea and all the conspirators, whether male or female, wheresoever they might be found, taken and imprisoned in the fort. The families of Ronchi and Panzechi were to be imprisoned, and their houses, with those of Galasso, demolished. Catherine further ordered that the three who had thrown the corpse of Girolamo from the window be taken, as well as Pagliarino, who had brutally dragged it on the ground. Finally she ordered Gian Giffone, head of Savelli's guard, Pietro Alba- nese, Antonio da Modigliana, and many others of humble origin who had taken part in the assassination or revolution, to be taken and cast into prison. THE RESTORATION 153 Patrols were seen to leave Ravaldino, disperse within the city, and led by officers and spies, hunt for the culprits, invading the houses of those assassins who had escaped to drag their unhappy families in chains to the fort. A second summons reached the army at Cosina before it had time to obey the first. Soon after, the troops were on the road to Forli, and the Captains waited on Catherine at the fort. Here they were met by Catherine, ready for her State entry. She desired two squad- rons of Light Horse to precede and await her in the square in front of the palace, four companies of infantry to follow her, and the road between Raval- dino and the Cotogni Gate to be lined with troops. She ordered Bentivoglio and Ru- dolph of Mantua to surround the Parish della Pianta. When the army had been thus disposed of, she sprang into her saddle, with Sanseverino on her right and Brambilla on her left, followed by Landriani and Carlo Gratti, left the fort and rode in triumph towards the town. The victorious lady was splendidly attired, the helmets of the condotticri who rode at her side, the coats of mail of the men-at-arms, glittered in the sun. Catherine, content and at case, rode between the troops that like two walls of steel lined the way, and who, forgetful that she had deprived them of the pillage, gloried in defending the heroic woman who had so well fou^jht her own battle. THE CHURCH (,JK ST. MERCURIAL. 154 CATJIERINK'S WIDOWHOOD At the Cotogni Gate the cries and rejoicings began. The streets, windows and balconies were crowded with people, entranced at sight of the intrepid widow who had freed herself from the toils of her enemies and was more in- domitable and formidable than ever. 'I o fear and admire her was synonymous with the populace. The feast of St. Mercurial, patron of the city, fell on that day. Every year it had been the custom to celebrate it with public rejoicing, but it had never been before, nor w^as it after, so great a feast. The Milanese army was not only the strongest, but without comparison the most imposing of all Italy. Its burnished arms were famous, as were the gilded trappings of its power- ful horses. On the appearance of the Countess, the serried ranks of pikemen in front of the palace presented arms and stood at ease, and as Catherine passed through the thicket of lanceSj the standards were lowered in homage, while the bells rang out the signal for her to dismount and enter St. Mercurial. Here she heard the thanksgiving service for her and her children's deliverance. . . . Pnpilluni et siduam auscipict ; and, on leaving the church, caused Octavian, with the usual ceremonies, to be once more acclaimed Lord of Forli and the other paternal States. She gave Sanseverino permission to return to the camp, and requested the Provost Orcioli to remain on guard at the palace with all the troops that then stood there, so as not to permit a single soldier to move from his place. Accompanied by Brambilla and other captains, among whom were Landriani and Gratti, and escorted by two companies of infantry, she proceeded on foot to the Fort of Schiavonia, which had not yet surrendered. *' And on the way," says Bernardi, " many of our women embraced her, condoling with her affliction," for a woman whose first exer- cise of power was for the protection of other women had not, till then, been seen among them. Catherine halted at the Parish of the Trinity, sent Gratti to warn the castellane not to fire, and on his return continued her way to a house close to the fortress, whence she dispatched THE RESTORATION 155 Brambilla to demand surrender. The castellanc replied that Monsignor Savelli had confided the fort to him, and that without an order from him he would not giv^e it up. " Monsignore is a prisoner of the Countess at Ravaldino." " No matter ; without his order I will not surrender the fort." On being invited to send a person in whom he could con- fide to Savelli, he replied that he had no one, that all his property was situated at Cesena, a city of the Pope. If he surrendered, his possessions would be confiscated, his family impoverished, and himself branded as a traitor. He therefore craved the compassion of the Countess. Catherine, who wished to come to an arrangement that would not ruin the poor man, sent Gratti and Landriani to treat with him, and per- mitted them to visit Monsignor Savelli to save the castellane from the effects of the papal wrath, Alberico Denti, son of the castellane, left the fort, and on behalf of his father, offered the stronghold, by request of the magistracy, to the Countess. While Gratti, Landriani and Denti proceeded to Ravaldino to confer with Savelli, Catherine chatted confidentially with Brambilla, of whom she inquired why the army had not moved at her first summons. Brambilla told her that at that moment a great part of the cavalry had arrived from Castel San Pietro, so exhausted, that it would have been impossible for them to march, but that they would have come as soon as possible without needing a second summons. " Our chief," he said, " had decided, with God's will, to plant a May-tree (a palm) at the palace, on the site of the Count's murder on the first of May." This reply pleased the Countess, to whom a man-at-arms who had been in the service of the Count now said — " Madonna, the poor have sacked the cellar of the Orsi ; its contents have been emptied and dispersed, with the excep- tion of the largest barrels, which I have succeeded in saving for Your Ladyship ; the Orsi have caused the dispersion of your whole cellar, and it is only fair that you should be some- what compensated by theirs." " I thank you for your thought and deed," said Catherine, "but let the poor enjoy the whole of that wine, for I will have 156 CATHERINE'S WIDOWHOOD nought that has belonged to those people, I trust in God, that even if I leave the wine to the poor, He will not let me nor mine want for aught. The only loss to which I am sensible is that of my lord, who cannot be given back to me, of which I know the poor, of whom you speak, to be guiltless." "Madonna!" exclaimed a knight, George of Tossignano, " I could neither speak nor act as you do. I have taken two loads of valuables from the wives of those assassins and vivaddio ! I will restore nothing to them ! I could make tunny-fish of them!"^ "That you will not do," replied the Countess, "for I wish well to women. . . . Not they have murdered my lord, but their traitorous husbands. And now that these women are in my hands, they shall suffer no injustice." " Madonna, you speak like the wise woman that you are," said Brambilla, who encouraged her in her merciful inten- tions. " The murder of the Count," he added, " had been the work of miscreants, but if he had ever overtaxed his subjects, he (Brambilla) implored her to remove any pretext for discontent and earn their love." Catherine thanked him, and replied that her sole aim was the welfare of the people, of which the placards sent into the town from Ravaldino bore witness ; therein she had ordered that the guilty be put to death, and promised peace and security to the others. Catherine's words " much pleased Brambilla and all of us who were present," writes Bernardi. Provost Orcioli next approached the Countess to tell her that Bentivoglio was at the Gate of St. Peter, whence for excellent reasons he would not advance, yet having urgent need of speech with her, he begged her of her grace to go to meet him. Catherine mounted her horse and proceeded to the fortress at the gate, where she talked at length with Bentivoglio, who with Brambilla accompanied her on horse- back to the house of Francesco Numai, where she was to dine. Numai had been the first to present himself at Raval- dino, the first to openly offer her allegiance after the nocturnal ^ Bernardi. THE RESTORATION 157 flight of the Orsi ; it was he who had initiated the happy change, and for this reason Catherine chose to enter his house before she crossed any other threshold in ForH. BentivogHo would not stay, and returned to his soldiers. Madonna went to dinner, where she was joined by Gratti and Landriani, who had returned from their interview with Savelli. Their con- versation was interrupted by the arrival of a squadron leader sent by Rubino from Forlimpopoli, who presented the castel- lane Battista in chains, with thirteen of his accomplices, to the Countess. The Countess ordered " each of them to be covered with a mantle in sign of shame, and handed over to Thomas Feo to be consigned to the dungeons." ^ Having assured herself of the possession of Forhmpopoli, she resumed her discussion of the surrender of Schiavonia, and concluded by leaving the matter to the judgment of Bentivoglio. Gratti, seeing that the populace, not content with pillaging the house of the Orsi, intended to raze it to the ground, ventured to insinuate that it was too great an ornament to the town to meet with such a fate. "Your Ladyship," he said, " might keep it for one of your sons, or for the reception of great personages, when they come to visit you at Forli. . . ." He was curtly interrupted by Brambilla, who declared that " Her Ladyship could not, in this matter, set aside the com- mands of the Duke of Milan, who on the moment of their leaving for Forli had enjoined on them to raze the houses of the traitors to the ground, in imperishable memory of his vengeance." The Countess at this began to jest,- saying in a very sweet voice to Gratti — " If it pleases you to stay at Forli, despite the orders of the Duke, my brother, I will take upon myself to avert the destruction of that house and will keep it for you, and for you I will even re-adorn it. . . ." Gratti, giving jest for jest, replied "that he would come willingly, not for covetousness of the fair house, but that the honour of living near Madonna would render a hovel accept- able to him." These courtesies were interrupted by a half- witted bricklayer, named Stradiotto, who was permitted to address persons of every rank on equal terms. ^ licrnardi. '^ Ibid. 158 CATHERINE'S WIDOWHOOD "Dear My Lad\'," he said boldly to Catherine," I want you to entirely demolish that house, and not to listen to Messer Gratti, for it is an accursed house, at which I and other poor fellows have worked for a long time . . . and there are still five gold ducats due to me, and I don't know how to turn without them." In speaking he had seized the Countess by the hand, squeezing it violently, while he proceeded — " Give, O give me leave, Madonna, that I may put the first hand to the ruin of that house ! " Madonna gave him leave ; Stradiotto disappeared and ran until he reached the house of the Orsi. But for all his haste he was not the first: the whole house had been sacked, Stradiotto, not satisfied that the great door had been torn down, hammered at the tiles in which the hinges were set. . . . At last he succeeded in knocking one out, falling backwards with the rebound of the hammer, and his skull coming in contact with the opposite wall, he died of the shock in two days. His case provoked both hilarity and compassion. Francesco Sassatelli, with many other Imolese, offered the homage of her city to their lady in Casa Numai. She thanked them, "touched the hands of each," and assured them of her " affectionate benevolence." When dinner was over, Catherine, discussing the day's work with Francesco Numai, told him that she had never hesitated a moment to stop the sacking of the town, having always abhorred to let loose a licentious soldiery on defenceless citizens, and mounting her horse, she returned by the same road and u'ith the same escort to Ravaldino. Here she summoned her chancellors and dictated various edicts, fore- most among them being the decree by which, in obedience to her brother, the Duke of Milan, she appointed Brambilla governor of the city and commander of the troops that were stationed in the square, which she afterwards relegated to the suburb of Ravaldino. On the same evening, before sunset, an edict was read in the square ordering those who, though banished by Count Girolamo, were still in the city, to leave it within three hours under penalty of the gallows. A second edict required all the superiors of charitable institutions (priests, monks, nuns, THE RESTORATION 159 chapels and confraternities) who had sheltered enemies, traitors, or stolen property, to immediately give up persons and chattels, under penalty of their Lady's displeasure. When this was done, Catherine applied herself to "her last and heaviest task." On learning that the battered corpse of her unhappy husband had not even been received by the canons of Santa Croce, and having been refused burial in the Dome, had been laid in unconsecrated ground near to a column in the outer portico ; remembering the many benefits conferred by him on that church, where his arms had been placed in sign of gratitude, that on the Feast of St. Laurence, the day of his investiture, Girolamo had always made a handsome donation and had promised to remove the slaughter-houses and women of ill-repute from that neighbourhood, and to enlarge the Dome, Catherine was indignant " that the wicked men who are in the world " were capable of such ingratitude. " I put my trust," she said, " in the Courts of Heaven," where he (her husband) would be rewarded for the good he had done "and enter into blessedness." She would not even be indebted to those canons for a burial-place, but that night had the body carried to the Church of St. Francis, where the coffin was deposited in the monks' choir in a " casket covered with black velvet." On the following morning, which was Monday, May i, after stately obsequies, the body was buried in a large chapel of that church, under a monument in terra-cotta, surmounted by a fine baldaquin. But it only remained there three days, for the Commune of Imola claimed the body, reminding the Countess " that in case of future trouble, these people of Forli were capable of insulting Her Ladyship by unearthing the body and treating it as shamefully as before." So that on May 4 the body of the Count was taken to the ancient Dome at Imola and buried in the Riario chapel. This was destroyed at the end of the last century, when the Cliurch of San Cassiano was erected. The stone with its Latin inscription, which had been placed there in 1558 by Giulio di Galeazzo Riario, nephew to Girolamo, was then incrustcd over the i6o CATHERINE'S WIDOWHOOD door of the sacristy. An error in the inscription places his death in 1487. Catherine, during the twelve years of her reign, never forgave those canons, who, in cowardly sub- mission to the assassins, had repulsed the body of their benefactor, nor did she ever again set foot in the Dome of Forli. CHAPTER XVIII CATHERINE'S VENGEANCE On May i, an edict was hung up in the square, by which the Countess, under penalty of the gallows, demanded the restitution of everything that had been plundered from the palace. The citizens vied with each other in their zeal to be among the first inscribed as having made restitution, so that in a few hours Catherine had recovered everything except that which the conspirators had taken with them. This was not the most, but the best. In the dungeons and damp vaults beneath the towers, under the feet of the Countess, radiant in her beauty and triumph, the guilty pined in chains, and, alas ! with them their innocent families. Sometimes their cries could be heard in the halls above, to the annoyance of Catherine, the incarnate soul of mediaeval rule, sentient, or choosing to be sentient, rather of power in the inexorable duty of retribution than of pity for the vanquished, who, on their side, neither expected mercy nor mitigation of their punishment. And, as torture and other penalties of the law were a different science to that of military slaughter, it became necessary to find a bargello, or captain of myrmidons, accomplished in this special art. A certain Matteo, surnamed Babone, arrived from Castel Bolognese, and to him was confided the execution of justice. " By Our Lady ! O reader ! " exclaims Cobelli, " to mc he did not seem of Christian aspect, but a wild and horrible Turk." The dungeons were full, yet they lacked one who could be less dispensed with than any other: old Orsi, father of the i6i M i62 CATHERINE'S WIDOWHOOD assassins. The new bargello soon learned that he was hidden at San Domenico, where the monks neither dared, nor were able, to save him. Orso, " poor weeping mortal," was, with every species of insnlt, with a knotted rope round his neck, spat upon in the face and beaten, dragged to the citadel and finally imprisoned to await his execution. The next to be seized by Babone were Marco Scossacarri, Pagliarino, nephew of Ronchi, and Pietro Albanese. The others were sought for, but had fled. Then as Madonna was to dine with Francesco Numai, and the other traitors could not be captured, she said, " Let justice take its course." She ordered the Milanese troops to deploy in front of the palace of the podesta. The inexorable justice of the Countess became hourly more terrible to the populace. Babone brought the victims from the secret dungeons of the fort and led them one by one to the place of execution, where Cobelli was so much impressed with the impending horror that " he felt like one lost," yet has not spared posterity a single one of the sickening details that made his blood run cold.^ " O reader," he says, finally, " certes, they who named that square the Lake of Blood, told no lie ! " On the morrow at dawn of May 2, the populace, summoned by an edict, crowded, bent on destruction, round Casa del Orso. Old Andrea had been dragged from the dungeons and with a " rope round his neck, unbuttoned, with only a red vest over his shirt ; with one stocking on, and the other hanging in rags, his hands tied behind his back, he was pushed forward by the torturers, and repeatedly struck by Babone until he came in sight of the ruins of his palace. I followed," says Cobelli, " to see what they would do with him." Four hundred of the rabble were pulling down the walls of Casa del Orso with beams, hooks, and pikes — " the green chamber, the beautiful dovecot, and the little garden room facing the orchard," had been pierced with holes in which bundles of wood were now set alight. They came down with ^ See pages 289-292 of tlie original, vol. i. Calcrina Sforza, di Pier D.'sideria Pasolini. Roma, Loescher. CATHERINE'S VENGEANCE 163 a great crash, and Babone turning to Andrea said — " O Orso, do you see the arrangement of your palace ? " And Orso, sighing deeply, cried — " O accursed children, to what have you brought me ! " and then said no other word. Twenty-six years later, in 15 14, the Motite di Pieta arose on the site of those ruins, where it still stands. But to the populace, that spot was always known as // Guasto degli Orsi. The unhappy Andrea, who was eighty-five years old, of small stature, with a fine head, and whose hands on that morning trembled from agitation, was led to the window of the palace of the podesta, whence according to ancient custom he was made to admonish the populace to be wiser than he had been if they would escape his fate, and ask them to "say a pater-noster for his soul." But his voice was so weak and the balcony so high that the people could not hear his words, which were repeated by another. He was then led below, where Babone tied him to a plank by the feet and the middle, leaving his head hanging. The plank was tied to the tail of a horse that was driven three times round the square by hired ruffians. The horse was then caught, and the mangled and bleeding body dragged under the window of the podesta, where it underwent the same indignities as were practised on the delinquents of the previous day. " One of those dogs of soldiers tore the heart from the body, put his teeth to it, and having bitten it like a dog, threw it into the square." The fragments of the body were cast about the square and only collected seven hours later by a pitying hand and secretly buried in the cemetery of St. Mercurial. This execution left a pall of gloom upon the terrified city. Babone pulled down more than two hundred houses, chiefly inhabited by artisans, in the suburb of Ravaldino, and caught and imprisoned ten other victims, whom he hanged from the battlements of the fort. It is not clear wliat were the powers of Babone, nor how many of these executions depended on the personal will of Catherine, but it is certain that by her express command, the women of the House of Orsi were treated with the utmost respect, and that the day of their father's dreadful execution, unhappy but unharmed, they i64 CATHERINE'S WIDOWHOOD left the fort. The property of the Orsi was neither confiscated nor given away. The Countess had declared that she would have nothing that had belonged to them, and the populace had been limited to the destruction of their palace. On May 3, the four leaders of the army of deliverance were invited to dine with the Countess in the citadel. The banquet was held in the " fourth hall, beginning from the door and going towards the fort." Ruined by time, and by the pacific work of a transforming civilization, rather than by wars, hidden by immemorial ivy, are the walls wherein Cath- erine sat at table with Galeazzo d'Aragona Sanseverino, Count of Caiazzo, Count Giovanni of Bergamo, surnamed Brambilla, Rudolph Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, and Giovanni Bentivoglio, Lord of Bologna, the flower of Italian chivalry. After dinner, the four Captains-general passed into another hall, and Catherine remained alone with her notary, Francesco Paladini. In obedience to an edict which bade all assemble at the eighteenth hour to receive the com- mands of Madonna, great numbers had already arrived, who were now called and presented in batches of twenty-fiv^e. Catherine was seated in her great arm-chair, and before her stood a desk, on which stood a great parchment missal. The notary, as the citizens were called, informed them that they had been summoned on behalf of the Duke of Milan, to make oath of allegiance to Octavian their lord, and to Madonna Catherine, his mother. Regent of the State. He explained, in few words, the duties and advantages of good subjects, and the dangers and misfortunes which beset the disloyal. Then each passed before the Countess — ever silent and motionless in her throne-like chair — and placing their hands upon the missal, where the great initial painted in flowers and images symbolized the principle of the Gospel, made their oath of allegiance to her. Thus Madonna looked her subjects one by one in the face, and one by one she looked at those right hands that were to carry arms in her defence. Then they were conducted slowly into the other hall, where these simple folk were amazed to find themselves thanked and CATHERINE'S \'ENGEAN'CE 165 praised in the name of the Duke of Milan by the Lords of Caiazzo, ]\Iantua, Bologna, and their new governor ; great princes and famous captains, who, with the exquisite courtesy of their birth and time, deigned to assure them of Catherine's love for her people, and of the peace and happiness assured to them under her rule. In this direct and familiar form of government, every citizen felt himself close to his sovereign, who, although she might become formidable, yet by the power of an individual fascination, bound them to her person. On the same day, a second edict decreed that all soldiers whose names had not been entered in the lists, should lay aside their uniforms, and leave the barracks, within three hours. Madonna, with a love of order and discipline that was inherited by her illustrious son, Giovanni delle Bande Nere, the first re-organizer of Italian forces, refused to recognize as soldiers any but those whose names had been regularly inscribed and thus legally enlisted. On the following, which was Sunday, Catherine ordered a solemn procession from the Dome to the fort " in thanks- giving to God, to whom alone she owed her victory." To- wards evening the Countess, accompanied by the four Captains-general, went to the square, where, in presence of the assembled people, the ceremonial of taking possession was repeated. After this act Catherine wished that there should be peace among her people. Arms might no longer be carried, under penalty of ten lire and three strokes of the whip, nor might they walk abroad in the city after the great bell had rung, with or without light. She made public that, henceforward, no more inquiries would be held, nor would she listen to spies, nor did she care to know what this or the other may have said in the terrible days that were past. Yet the affairs of the recent disturbances were not all settled. Monsignor Savelli and the papal generals were still imprisoned in the fort, where they had learned the cruel fate of Andrea Orsi, and trembled for their own. But i66 CATHERINE'S WIDOWHOOD Catherine was not forgetful that Savelli had confided her children to those loyal gentlemen who had saved their lives. By means of Bentivoglio, an exchange was arranged with those prisoners who had been sent to Cesena from Forli, and IMonsignore and his two companions left the fort, with all their possessions, on the day of the return of the hostages. Neither could she forget the assassins who had fled, for each of whom, living or dead, she offered a prize of looo gold ducats, the restitution of any loss sustained through the death of the Count and the real and landed estate of the criminal who might be consigned to her, with the promise of office or pension for the rest of the captor's life. Catherine deemed the departure of the Milanese army a good opportunity for sending into exile the remaining guilty or suspected persons. Of the eight who had governed the city during her imprisonment, four, Simon Fiorini, Nicolo Panzechi or Pansecco, Antonio Montese, and Guido Orselli (the latter with a son), were condemned to perpetual confine- ment in Milan, after they had been confronted with the Countess, and listened to the expressions of her indignation, in public audience, from her own lips. Their property was sequestered, their houses turned into barracks, and themselves sent under strong escort to Milan, On May 7, the ducal army departed for Milan, and with it Octavian, whose mother wished the young Lord of Imola to enter that city under the auspices of the four famous captains. Although the Countess had repeatedly said that she would have no more to do with the spies, nor suspicion, nor condem- nations, such things still obtained, possibly against her will. Two other accomplices of Ronchi were sentenced by the podesta, another heavily fined, and another imprisoned, while a measure that concerned two eminent citizens occasioned unfavourable comment. Catherine's gratitude to Capoferri, Serughi and Denti, who had saved her children, and to Ercolani, who had been instrumental in admitting her into the fort, had been proved on every available occasion since her accession. Those members of the Council of Eight who CATHERINE'S VENGEANXE 167 had remained at Forli unmolested, when their colleagues were banished, owed their liberty and other immunities, like many other citizens, to the all-powerful intercession of Capoferri and Serughi. But certain envious and malignant persons never ceased from reminding the Countess that, after all, Serughi was a son of a daughter of Andrea Orsi and that Ercolani was brother-in-law to Matteo Galasso, for whose capture, alive or dead, she had offered looo ducats ; also that " blood will boil without fire." At last she was induced, under pretext of providing Octavian with faithful counsellors, to banish Serughi and Ercolani to Imola, where, accompanied by some of their relations, they established themselves. Catherine had later cause to bitterly regret a measure which deprived her of these faithful friends. Meanwhile, the allied cardinals who had already befriended the Riario, sent the youngest representative of their order^ Cardinal Raphael, to congratulate his aunt, and to offer her moral support. He arrived on May 21 at the Forlimpopoli, where he was met by Catherine, accompanied by many nobles, with whom he returned to Forli, On July 19 he was present at the legal nomination of Catherine as guardian to her children ; three days later he went to Imola, where he abolished certain usages that were more obnoxious to the people than useful to the prince, and lowered the scale of rent and taxation. While his lavish expenditure, his frequent appearance in public, his largesse and his cavalcades en- deared the government of Octavian to the people of Imola, the other cardinals related to Catherine obtained from Innocent VIII. (who had been so adverse to her), the invest- iture of the States for Octavian and his heirs, Catherine celebrated the happy event " with the solemnities of bells and fire," (illuminations) on July 13. She would willingly have associated this investiture with an act of generosity, yet did nothing at the time, lest it be ascribed to Cardinal Raphael, who was already so popular. But no sooner had he departed for Rome (October 19) than she summoned the council and declared her desire to lighten the taxes of her subjects. An edict was immediately " cried " which lessened them by one- i68 CATHERINE'S WIDOWHOOD third, and the council, not to be outdone, renounced part of their ancient right to a share in the wheat-tax. Early in June Brambilla, who had remained at Forli as governor of the city, perished in a fray at Faenza, whither Catherine sent him, with the flower of her troops, to the relief of the widow and infant heir of Galeotto Manfredi, its murdered lord.' In December of the same year she lost another friend in Francesco Sassatelli, murdered on his return to Imola after visiting Catherine at Forli, to confer with her on her own affairs. Neither the perpetrators nor the cause of this crime were ever discovered. Catherine, in the time that intervened between these two deaths, had been warned anonymously that, unless she beheaded or banished every member of the families of Marino Orzioli and Bartolomeo Marcobelli, there would be no peace for her nor her subjects. But the Countess had seized that occasion to make a final and official declaration that the time of suspicion and punishment, of which she was so weary, was over. She expressed her contempt for anonymous calumnies, and added, that her only thought henceforward was to con- sole her people and lighten their burdens. In which she was more generous than prudent. ^ Francesca Manfredi had been, under strong provocation, an accomplice in the murder of her husband, but she was a daughter of Bentivoglio, one of Catherine's deliverers, and therefore entitled to her support. BOOK V A CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE CHAPTER XIX THE CASTELLANE OF RAVALDINO Towards the summer of 1488 a rumour gained credence that Catherine was about to marry Antonio Maria degU Ordelaffi, a young, brave, and handsome gentleman who hved in obscurity at Ravenna, on a subsidy of three hundred ducats that were paid to him by the Signory of Venice. This marriage would have strengthened the position of the former and present lords of Forli by uniting the two houses, without injury to the little Riario. Had not Catherine Imola to bestow on them ? The hope of this alliance formed the staple of conversation in all the inns and market-places of Forli. Heavy wagers were staked, liveries and outfits ordered, and sticks were painted with the combined arms of the Riario and Ordelaffi. Several persons even went to Ravenna to offer congratulations to Ordelaffi, who received them with enthusiasm. On the 22nd of the preceding April, Antonio Maria had already written the Duke of Ferrara that he " had heard that the Countess had a mind to choose him for her husband, so that he might avenge her wrongs and his," and that he had even written her two letters suggesting this course. He had not entrusted these letters to messengers, but had tied them to arrows that had been shot into the fort. He con- cluded " with tears in his eyes " by entreating the Duke to keep his secret. These rumours exasperated Catherine, who caused the most persistent of their disseminators to be imprisoned. One 171 172 A CLANDESTIXK MARRIACIK offender was only released from the fort on payment of a heavy fine, to another four strokes of the whip were administered in the square. To the fort went also that Leone Cobelli, whom we have chosen as our faithful guide, because, as he has often told us, he went abroad on purpose to see and write of all that happened at Forli. Cobelli, who, besides being a musician and historian, was a teacher of dancing and painting, had recently painted many sticks, escutcheons, arms and other objects, the arms of the Riario being quartered thereon with those of Ordelaffi. Catherine would have kept him in the fort but for the intercession of Thomas Feo, to whom, at length, he owed his liberty and the privilege of returning to his old haunts. Cobelli, incensed by his im- prisonment, would have burned his chronicles, and thus consigned to ashes the praise he had lavished on his cruel lady. From this he was prevented by friends, but the episode turned her admiring historian into an adverse critic. On the demand of Catherine, and on information of the annoyance to which she had been subjected, the Venetian Senate banished Ordelaffi to Friuli, where he lived for ten years, until they sent him back to Ravenna, in 1498, to harass the Countess and prevent her from sending help to the Florentines in their u^ar with Pisa. She had, however, her- self given rise to the rumours of which she so bitterly com- plained. Ordelaffi had ever been the enemy of her house ; in his name conspiracies had been hatched and blood had flown ; with him had originated the conspiracy of the Roffi, which had been punished by her earliest sentences. Yet Ordelaffi had paid long visits to Catherine, and had even been her guest at the Giardino, a villa she possessed near to Imola. Thither went Catherine in October of that year to superin- tend the building of her new sanctuary of the Piratello. She was preceded by her children, who were received with the honours due to their rank by Giovan Andrea of Savona, castellane of the fortress. When, a few days later, the Countess crossed the city and halted at the Rocca, the castellane refused to admit her. Catherine threatened and insisted in vain, the draw-bridge was not lowered nor the door opened. THE CASTELLANE OF RAVALDINO 173 At last she was permitted to enter, but with only five or six of her suite. Faithful to the memory of Count Girolamo, the rumour of her intrigue with Ordelaffi had aroused the indig- nation of this castellane who believed her to be capable of handing over the fort to Ordelaffi, Catherine, smarting under the humiliation she had endured in the presence of the whole population of her own city, sent a courier to summon her nephew. Cardinal Raphael, from Rome. On his arrival, seven days later, the castellane sub- mitted to Catherine, who established her right to the fortress. Accompanied by the cardinal and her children she went in state to the Piratello, but according to ancient popular tradition she and her maids of honour were barefoot. On February 1,1 490, the magistracy complained to Catherine that, since the exile of the Jews, money was not obtainable on any security ; immediate steps were therefore necessary. Catherine praised their zeal and sympathized with their embarrassment ; then with an air of virginal candour, repeated to them, word for word, the objections they had raised when she and Girolamo had suggested the erection of a Monte di Pietd. The Countess, when she had sufficiently diverted her- self with the confusion of the members of council, who, to their mortification, recognized their own words in her discourse, changed her tone and consented to the admission of eight citizens to the council who were experienced in such matters. In the name of the Countess and the council, a rich Jew of Bologna was invited to Forli, where, the council having given security for his capital, he accordingly established himself Hearing that much blood had been shed at Imola, Catherine sent eighty Light Horse to the governor, Guglielmo dal Todesco, who enforced peace among the families of Tartagni, Calderini and Vaini, and maintained it by the exile of one Giulio Mcrcati, who had begun the feud by wounding a Tartagni. Thomas Feo had so ably defended Ravaldino that he began to look upon the fort as his own, while Catherine "wished to 174 A CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE be free to nominate or dismiss her castellane." She had never yet succeeded in ridding herself of any of them. In the case of Thomas Feo, the difficulty was increased by his relationship and personal merit. She therefore gave him her half-sister Bianca to wife, with a dowry of 15,000 gold ducats, in the hope that a young wife, bred in pleasure and luxury, would induce him to leave of his own accord, sooner than condemn her to a seclusion that was almost imprisonment. For a castellane could never leave his post. But Tommaso, obstinate as ever, stayed in the fort, and as before, was lord and master therein. Evil tongues averred that Catherine's efforts and the castellane's obstinacy might be ascribed to a love-affair between the Countess and his younger and handsomer brother Giacomo, whom she wished to install in his place. It was added that she had already married him in secret, lest she should lose the guardianship of her children and the regency of the State. The relations of the castellane to his Lady were apparently unchanged. One morning the Countess, accompanied by Octavian and Giacomo, entered the fort, and leading Tommaso away from the others, she invited him to inspect with her the new gardens she was laying out towards Bertinoro. They walked together for a long time, and Catherine's words became ever kinder, while with sweet voice and look she held the bewildered castellane spell-bound. It was about the fourteenth hour, and the heat was intense. They sought the shade of a fig-tree and ate some of its fruit. Tom- maso's eyes were riveted to the face of his beautiful sister-in-law. When Catherine felt assured that he would follow and obey her, she graciously asked the castellane to lend her his arm to her chamber, which at that time was situated outside the fort. The castellane was taken by surprise, he became taciturn, hesitated . . . and refused. But Catherine's entreaties were so flattering, she moved forward, yet cast a glance behind her, that Feo followed in her steps. They crossed the whole length of the gardens, and then climbed a winding stair that led to Catherine's apartment, she in front, and Feo following in her steps. No sooner had his foot crossed the threshold of the ante-room than two iron-srloved hands seized and held him. The voice THE CASTELLANS OF RAVALDINO 175 of Giovanni Ghetti, captain of the great tower by the gate, said — "You are the prisoner of Madonna the Countess ; fear no harm." With these words he was deprived of his sword. The desperate cries of Feo brought a servant, — who had followed him, — and who afterwards narrated what he had seen in the garden, to his rescue. When his master was imprisoned, he ran to the fort, swam across the moat, where a friend gave him a hand, and both climbed up to the loaded cannon and pointed them towards Catherine's window, in the belief that she was murdering Feo. A ball passed over her head without even causing her to start. Tommaso was placed under strict guard in the tower by the gate. Catherine then summoned Giacomo, informed him of what had happened (which he knew), and offered him his brother's post. Giacomo was seen to blush (for which he had good reason), and heard to refuse, but none of those present believed in his sincerity. He enlarged on the loyalty with which his father and uncle had served the Riario ; if a taint of treachery were discovered in Tommaso, he could no longer look his Lady in the face. The Countess reassured him ; she meant no harm to Tom- maso, but circumstances obliged her to change castellanes. Giacomo at last consented, on condition that his brother should depart unmolested and in honour, "so that none might speak lightly of him, in the fort or in the town." Catherine pro- vided him with a guard of honour of forty Horse as far as Bologna, whence he and his young wife proceeded to Savona. Catherine soon recalled them to Forli ; later she appointed Thomas Feo Governor of Imola, where his gentle wife died and was buried in 1496, mourned by the people to whom she was known as the " Mother of Orphans." Catherine wrote her own version of the dismissal of Tommaso to the Dukes of Fcrrara and Milan ; the latter sent an envoy to Catherine with congratulations and an order of knighthood for Giacomo Feo. Catherine's joy in the honours and elevation of her favourite confirmed the rumour that she was secretly married to him. Cobclli relates that a son was born to them on whom 176 A CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE Catherine conferred knighthood. " There was murmuring in the city " which reached the ears of Madonna, who sent for a poor old man named Maestro Sante di Sole, and asked him how he dared to spread the report " that this child of Messer lacomo Feo is my child ? " This the poor man denied, but Cobelli accuses Catherine of " finding a false witness," to whose testimony Maestro Sante owed a whipping of which he died. " And many were hanged for the same cause." Cobelli, who was now Catherine's enemy, is more trustworthy when he describes Giacomo Feo — " Many and many a time have I seen this lacomo, brother THE MIRACLE OF THE FOWLS. Fresco in the Chttrch of San Girolamo at Forli. Among the figures arc represented Catherine, her husband, her son Ottavio, and Giacomo Feo. to Messer Tommasino, come to the palace of Count Girolamo ; since the death of the count I have seen him in the fort . . . soberly attired and wearing a black cloak and un- attended he went about Forli. He was a j-outh of twenty years or little more, fair, beautiful, and good to look upon. Now when Fortune beckoned him, he followed, and Madonna made a knight of him — Captain of all her men-at-arms, vice- regent of Forli and Imola, so that he may make or mar as if he were indeed lord. And now when he rides abroad, it is with a goodly company a hundred strong, armed with THE CASTELLANE OF RAVALDINO 177 partisans, lances and pikes. . . . Truly, Fortune has exalted him into the heaven of Venus and Mars. , . . There be those who say that Madonna has committed an enormity in taking her poor servant for a husband. Now I reply for Madonna," adds the sly chronicler, " ' Nan a bcllo quelle die e hello, e bello quello cJie place : '^ and I say that when Madonna saw Messer lacomo Feo, young, handsome, virtuous, wise, honest, and apt for her service, she loved him." When the castellane of Imola heard what had befallen Tomasso Feo, he resigned his post, lest he too should fall into Catherine's nets, and left her States. Catherine replaced him by Giampietro Landriani, the husband of her mother Lucretia, and gave the place he had vacated at Forlimpopoli to Pietro Landriani, his son, and her half-brother. The power and favour of Giacomo Feo soon became a source of envy and danger. He resigned his post at Ravaldino to his uncle Cesar Feo, and on September 2 accompanied the Countess as Commander-in-Chief of her forces and fortresses, to Imola, and would have followed her to Tossignano but that Catherine's coachman was killed in the night during a quarrel with a groom, so that she did not go there. The Tartagni and Vaini, with other citizens of Imola, had meanwhile conspired at Tossignano to demand of Catherine the surrender of that fortress. If the Countess refused to surrender, she and Feo were to be put to death. The con- spirators were taken and confessed that, having heard of dissension between Catherine and Octavian, they had deter- mined to imprison the Countess and put Feo to death lest Octavian, their rightful lord, be deprived of his own. The castellane of Tossignano and others were unanimous in declaring that they had intended to protect the rights of Octavian against the favourite of his mother. The houses of the Vaini and Tartagni were razed to the ground, and the conspirators imprisoned in the dungeons of Ravaldino. Two sons of the Tartagni were sent to the same fortress as hostages. The podesta of Imola was summoned to Forli to repeat their indictment, which, after the procecd- ^ Tliat wliich is beautiful is less beautiful than that which pleases. N 178 A CLANDESTINE ^lARRIAGE ings had lasted ten days, resulted in sentence of death. Catherine, however, who did not choose that the severity of this punishment should be construed into fear and lend im- portance to a petty conspiracy, commuted the sentence into detainment at her pleasure in the fort. Enea Vaini had succeeded in escaping- to Massa Lombarda, but Catherine never rested until he was caught and confined with the others at Ravaldino, whence all were liberated some three years later. The moment seemed, to Antonio Ordelaffi, opportune for an attempt to regain his ancestral dominions. But with his usual want of forethought, he omitted to murder a certain castellane. One of his agents named Salumbrini was hanged at the Fort of Schiavonia and a man named Montanari was led out to execution in the square and there set free. The condition of the city and territory of Forli was not prosperous. Although the land-tax due from the peasantry to the council had been lowered, the peasants continued to sell or make mock sales of their property to the citizens to avoid paying it. Hence a diminution in the public funds and the necessity of new taxes. Catherine, who remembered that with the complaints of the peasantry had begun the downfall of Count Girolamo, made personal inquiries and summoned the council to her aid. On December 28, 1491, she published an edict which rendered illegal any sale of peasant property at the request of citizen creditors, but should such sale be suggested to the manifest advantage of the proprietor, her sanction would be needed to legalize it. The burden of the tax would remain attached to the property, and would pass from vendor to buyer. On learning that several peasants had been obliged to sell their possessions to defray their debt to the Treasury, and that many artisans had sold their working utensils to escape from judicial exaction, she published a second edict whereby all her debtors, whether in the city or among the rural population, were summoned to appear before her auditor. According to the nature of the debt, and especially according to the con- dition of the debtor, they were granted time, abatement, or complete remission. CHAPTER XX CHARLES VIII. IN ITALY Pope Innocent VI IL died on July 25, 1492, and the elevation of Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia to the Papal See, under the name of Alexander VI., was announced in August. This event was celebrated in Catherine's States by three days' illuminations and thanksgiving services in all the churches. Cardinal Borgia had been vice-chancellor to Sixtus IV., and a frequent guest at her house in Rome ; he was, besides, god- father to her eldest son. The new Pope graciously received Catherine's envoys, assuring them that he would be a father to Octavian, and that Catherine might rely on him as she had done on her uncle Sixtus. He granted to the people of Forli a three years' jubilee. The handsome person, fine manners and personal fascin- ation of Alexander VI. have been described by Gasparo da Verona, Porzio, and others. The Milanese writer, Del Maino, praises the " noble aspect, serene brow, regal expression, the countenance in which were blended majesty and liberality, the genial and heroic composure" of this Pontiff, who was in reality both mean and prodigal, frugal and dissolute. Among his four sons was the ambitious Caesar, soon to become his master and master of the Church. Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, brother to Ludovico il Moro, all- powerful at the Court of Rome because of his co-operation in the election of Alexander VI,, used his influence with the latter to alienate him from King P^erdinand of Naples, and, unknown to the P'lorentincs, to draw him into a league 179 i8o A CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE with the Duke of Milan and the Venetians. In May, small detachments of Lombard troops passed through Romagna. " They cannot do any harm," wrote the Florentine com- missioner at Faenza to Piero de' Medici, " for between Faenza and Cesena is the State of Forli, the Madonna whereof keeps most vigilant guard . . . not permitting a single man of them to enter P'^orli. Should such an one enter, none may house him without forfeiting his head." He added that Ravaldino was amply provisioned with wheat, wine and wood, and rendered all but impregnable by recent changes in its fortifications. It was common talk that if Ludovico il Moro did not intend to occupy the State he would find means to remove " that Messer lacopo (Giacomo Feo) who governs it." . . . At Imola they guarded the square by night, and fear prevailed everywhere, " for none knew what support Madonna could count upon . . . who, if she be not upheld by Florence, doth stand alone, and is therefore in great danger." Henceforward the history of Catherine becomes ever more one with that of Italy, or rather with that of Europe. Every- thing conspired to summon Charles VIII. to Italy, and especially to Naples. His desire to supplant the House of Aragon by that of Orleans, the exhortations of Alexander VI., transmitted to him by Cardinal Julian della Rovere, and, above all, the prayers of Ludovico il Moro, who, despite the threats of the Court of Naples, still persisted in governing for his nephew, the Duke of Milan (who had wedded Isabel of Aragon). He therefore resolved on an expedition by sea and land. King Ferdinand prepared his defences, and sought the alliance of the Powers of Italy ; he sent orators to Catherine who refused to bind or compromise herself; the Pope and the Florentines, less circumspect, did not hesitate to throw in their lot with the King of Naples. In June, the Duke of Milan (or rather Ludovico, who governed for him) wrote requesting Catherine not to ally herself with Naples, but with Charles VIII., who was about to invade Italy with great forces by sea and land. Catherine CHARLES VIII. IN ITALY i8i replied that she did not deny an interchange of courtesies with the King- of Naples ; " having been for months and months without help in the world." This must be ascribed to her isolation, "not to any desire to offend Your Excellency, to whose advice I ever bow." Both the French and Neapolitan generals had received instructions not to advance until Catherine had declared her- self for one side or another. Eernardi writes that all one day " the ambassadors of the opposing Powers stayed with Her Ladyship, praying her that she would ally herself with them." But it had been impossible for either of them to extract from her a promise, a word, or a sign. Cardinal Raphael Riario, being sent by the Pope to pre- pare quarters for the troops, arrived at Forlimpopoli. The Countess went to meet him with Octavian, Giacomo Feo, and a company of nobles. She refused to yield to his persuasions to ally herself with Naples, declaring that, for the present, she must remain neutral, but promising to inform him of any change in her policy before acting upon it. With this reply he was obliged to return to Rome, while an envoy returned to Forli who had already been despatched by Catherine to Florence to announce the state of affairs in Romagna, and to keep her informed of the strength of the French and the intentions of the Florentines, to whom she had also declared her neutrality. On the return of this envoy, the Countess displayed a feverish energy. An edict commanded the rural population to take steps to insure their own safety, as French and Nea- politan troops might any day invade the country. The mer- cenaries of France encamped at Bologna were chiefly Italians under the command of the brothers Sanseverino. These left Bologna for Cotignola. Catherine then fortified the castles of Imola, Mordano and Bubano, sending thither her most ex- perienced soldiers from Forli and Forlimpopoli, and recruited as many others as she could. The ambassadors of Naples and Milan again tried to win her favour for their respective masters, but were courteously dismissed by Catherine, who secretly summoned her councillors, and with them decided i82 A CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE on continued neutrality so long as that should be possible. If obliged to ally herself with any one, she would decide for the King of Naples, who was unjustly attacked. On September 4, the Neapolitan ambassador returned to Forli, while the Count of Caiazzo(Sanseverino) sent his envoy to persuade the Countess to side with the French. Catherine resolutely maintained her neutrality, and " Misser Francesco del Ouartieri," like his Neapolitan rival, " departed where God listed, with his trumpets in his bag." . . . Small was the State of Catherine, and meagre its resources, but the lustre of her name was such that each party felt her alliance would infuse new strength. At last Giacomo Feo was empowered to inform the Nea- politan ambassador that Catherine espoused his cause and the Pope's. The ambassador had been instructed to accede to any proposition of the Countess. He informed Feo that on the following morning the Neapolitan army would occupy Villafranca. Feo returned with the conditions signed ; the Countess dismissed the French envoys, and sent Giacomo Feo to complete the armaments of Imola, Tossignano and Mordano. Rome, Naples and Florence agreed to contri- bute 16,000 ducats towards these expenses. Pope Alexander characteristically demurred to paying more than a quarter of this sum, sa}ang that " if he had consented to pay a third it had not been in spirit, but in words." ^ On September 18, Giacomo Feo, having completely forti- fied the territory of Imola, returned to Forli, where he was appointed Governor-general and Vice-regent of the State, re- turning on the following day with Octavian, on horseback, to Imola. On the 23rd, Dovizi, surnamed Bibbiena (author of the Calandrd), wrote Piero de' Medici that " to-day occurred the meeting of My Lord Duke (of Calabria) with the divine Madonna of Forli, and I need not tell you that His Excel- lency was point device and sumptuously habited in the Nea- politan fashion. She came to meet him an arrow's throw ^ Letter of Puccio Pucci, dated Rome, August 23, 1494, to Piero Medici, Arch. Med. a. Fr. Filza XMII. CHARLES VIII. IN ITALY 183 from Bagnara, where they were to dine. They were together two hours at Bagnara, but videntibus omnibus, for Pheo will keep her for himself. His Excellency returned well pleased. He does not care much for the face, . . . yet the rogue told me there had been warm hand-clasps and much flashing of eyes. . . ." The Countess, accompanied by a single maid of honour, had proceeded to Imola, whence she despatched Thomas Feo as governor to Forli, pending more peaceful times. She then came to an unexpected decision. The French had taken the little Castle of Mordano, put its heroic garrison to the sword, and ill-treated the villagers without regard to age or sex. Catherine, nothing doubting, on hearing of their approach, had sent word to the Duke of Calabria to hasten to the suc- cour of the two hundred brave men who were fighting his cause. But the Duke, who but a week earlier had valorously attacked the French when they were in small numbers, and had eluded him, was deaf to this appeal now that they were 14,000 strong, although the battle lasted fifteen hours, and he was near at hand. Catherine, betrayed and abandoned, cursed the hour when she had joined hands with the enemies of the House of Sforza. Three fine letters from her to Alfonso of Calabria, Piero dei Medici, and the Marquis of Mantua announce her change of policy and allies. She had done her duty, and more, " but what had been her reward .'' " And over the smoking and blood-stained ruins of Mordano she swore to leave the treacherous and cowardly allies who had deserted her. The Duke of Calabria left Faenza under a dripping rain, and retired on Cesena. The Countess, on joining the French, had stipulated that he should be allowed to pass through Forli unmolested. But Alfonso, distrustful and chagrined by Catherine's defection, went round by the hills, devastating the country, where he only met with those rebellious peasants who had disobeyed Catherine's edict. On the following day he liberated his prisoners, and, still under a heavy downpour, led his tired and drenched troops forward on their disastrous march. i84 A CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE While the troops of the Duke of Calabria had been distin- guished for their discipHne and general good conduct, the behaviour of the French army was deplorable. To avoid bloodshed the Governor of Forli closed the gates of Forli to them ; but the French reappeared at the gate of Schiavonia, and threatened to scale the walls. The shopkeepers fled in terror, losing their money and their goods, while one citizen was wounded and another killed in the confusion. On the following days the French ravaged the country round Forli and Ravenna, burning, maiming, sacking the houses of the poor, whose stolen bedclothes and furniture they sold in the city for the price of rubbish. Catherine wrote to the Governor, requesting him to forbid citizens to buy anything of the soldiers, and commanded that persons who had suffered loss, or who knew of these thefts, should appear before the Governor to denounce them. The Governor read a letter^ to the Ancients, in which the Countess deplored the persecutions " of these French, who, albeit our friends, are bestial and lawless, having no respect for their superiors. These I know disapprove of their conduct, yet are powerless to hinder it. Wherefore continue to keep vigil and guard, lest neglect entail greater public evil than could be measured by any private loss of mine, who am ever ready to risk all my possessions and privileges for your well- being, as you will see, and as is meet and fitting. Therefore, on your side, watch, labour, and doubt not ; for these troubles cannot last many days." As the French still persisted in attempting to scale the walls of Forli, every gate was closed except that of Ravaldino, the approaches to which were guarded by armed citizens, bands of whom enrolled them- selves in each parish. Thomas Feo — whom Bernardi de- scribes as "night and day on guard, in a coat of mail, with a stout club in his hand, giving great blows to those French, without respect to persons, for in truth they swarmed up the walls like cats " — was foremost among the defenders of Forli. Several leaders went to the fort to ask the Governor and council for provisions, who replied that it was difficult to 1 See p. 347, vol. i. of Catcrina S/orza, di Pier Desidcr'u Pasolini. Roma, Loescher. CHARLES VIII. IN ITALY 185 supply the wants of an army that sacked the country and paid no one. The French captains replied that their king did not sanction such violence, and guaranteed the security of the mills, provided the commune would purvey the army. The Count de Ligny ordered all his soldiers to evacuate Forli under penalty of the gallows. On the 1 8th, Charles VIII. entered Florence, and instructed D'Aubigny to cross the Apennines, and to join the other French division which was concentrating in Tuscany. When Catherine heard that the departure of the French was fixed for the 23rd she returned to Forli to entertain the generals (among whom were D'Aubigny, Ligny, the Lords of Carpi and Mirandola, the Marquis of Mantua, and the two Sanse- verino). They were amazed at the splendour of the banquet, and declared that they had never seen nor imagined a woman to be compared with Catherine. Catherine made use of this admiration in favour of her beloved Giacomo Feo, on whom King Charles, who was encamped at Siena, conferred the rank of a Baron of France. Catherine's existence now became complicated by anxiety for her brother, whose days were numbered, and the necessit}^ of temporizing with her uncle, who continued to usurp his power. When Charles VIII. had recovered from the small- pox, which had detained him at Asti, he went to stay with Giovanni Galeazzo, Duke of Milan, at his Castle of Pavia. The beautiful and unfortunate Isabel of Aragon — to the extermination of whose house King Charles had been sum- moned to Italy — cast herself weeping at the feet of the King, and Charles had left Pavia, touched by her tears, but unable to console her by any promise. On arriving at Piacenza with the Moro, on October 20, he learned that the Duke of Milan was dead. Documentary evidence is not wanting to contradict the contemporary rumour that Ludovic poisoned his nephew, but it cannot defend his action in supplanting his nephew's heir, and in causing himself to be proclaimed Duke by the terror- i86 A CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE ized citizens. The unhappy Isabel, with her four children, was interned in the Castle of Pavia. Ludovic, in announcing her brother's death to his niece Catherine, added that the citizens "had entreated him to be pleased to assume the burden of being their Lord." Catherine could not venture on direct recrimination, but many of her letters betray a repulsion that may not always be attributed to political causes. Outwardly, she was con- strained to mark the assumption of Ludovic with rejoicing and the customary illuminations and ringing of bells at Imola and Forli. The coronation of Ludovic was fixed for May 20. Cather- ine's envoy conv^eyed to him at the same time her congratula- tions, and her entreaty that she might not be coerced in co-operating in the war with France, which the Moro, now in league with the Pope and Venetians, was contemplating. Charles VIII. had seized Naples without laying hand to his sword. " For no man had shown his face to him . . . they all fled like vile effeminates ; and the King of Naples and his son, the Duke of Calabria, took to flight without waiting to be chased," writes Cobelli ; " and Ludovic having made himself Duke of Milan, he feared that if the King of France assumed the crown of Naples, he would become Lord and Emperor of Italy. Then it was that the Lord Ludovic, Duke of Milan, wrote to the Pope and the Signory (of Venice) that these French were so puffed up with pride that they were capable of supplanting all the princes of Italy, whom it therefore behoved to provide . . . ct cetera . . ."^ It was in vain that Ludovic, by means of Francesco Quar- tieri, persuaded Catherine to adhere to the side espoused by Milan, rather than to Florence, which, in his opinion, was too much divided against itself, owing to discord in the House of Medici, to be of help to other States. Catherine's sym- pathy with Florence, and her regret for the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent, "the like of whom could not be reproduced by Nature," were unceasing. The Moro would have preferred ■^ Cobelli, [). 36S. CHARLES VIII. IN ITALY 187 to find in Catherine a docile and unquestioning ally, while Catherine would neither renounce the support of the House of Sforza, nor her personal policy. She was then buoyed up by faith in the Pope. "The Pope," she said, "will do more for me than I could ask of him : would that it were so with those of my blood." CHAPTER XXI THE ASSASSINATION OF GIACOMO FEO Catherine, in the midst of danger from within and without, had succeeded in securing and pacifying her Httle State, which seemed compact of order, civic concord, and reverent love for the sovereign Lady. But the worm was at the core. The secret correspondence of a Florentine commis- sioner with Piero de' Medici gives some insight into the domestic Hfe of Catherine under these precarious conditions. Bello da Castrocaro, sent by Puccio Pucci from Faenza to ForH, to question the Countess as to the passage of some Milanese troops, was admitted to her presence. Her youthful lover, in a scarlet satin coat with a short cloak of cloth-of-gold negli- gently thrown across his shoulders, was seated on a window- sill. Near to him sat Catherine on a " cathedra," or heavy wooden chair, wearing a loose gown of white brocade with a black scarf "In beauty, they were like two suns." On that day, some soldiers, a page of Catherine's and one of Messer Jacopo had tilted and fenced for their amusement. Catherine's page had been victorious until the end, when the other had overpowered him, and " Maestro Lazaro, Jiebreo, who was prodigiously learned in surgery, had been summoned to mend his head, arm, and leg." Bello was graciously received by the Countess on another occasion, but always in the presence " of Messer Jacopo, without whose presence she will not speak; indeed what Madonna says is either confirmed, or the reverse, by Messer Jacopo." In discussing the current subjects of the hour they had both expressed an opinion that 1 88 THE ASSASSINATION OF GIACOMO FEO 189 all the soldiers who came from Lombardy to Romagna were sent "to drive away Messer Jacopo." But both Catherine and Giacomo were prepared to face extermination; "Madonna would see her subjects, her children and her chattels buried, and they will give their souls to the devil and the State to the Turk, sooner than abandon each other." And woe to Bello if he had betrayed this conversation to another than the Florentine commissioner ! She would have sought him to the world's end and had him cut to pieces. In another letter to Piero Medici, Pucci writes that — "The Fort is in the hands of Messer Jacopo, whose uncle is castellane thereof, and Madonna may not enter the Fort unless she is unattended ... all the money and revenues pass through the hands of Messer Jacopo ; he pays the soldiers, rides abroad with the pomp and circumstance of a reigning sovereign, and all appeals are received and replied to by him. This Jacopo is so hated at Rome and Milan, that, while his power lasts, Catherine will be obliged to lean on the Florentines and their allies, for there be none other whom she can trust. A catastrophe is imminent, and one of these three things cannot fail to happen : either Catherine will assassinate her lover, the lov^er will assassinate Catherine and her children, or Octavian, who appears to be a lad of spirit, will, on coming of age, put his mother and her lover to death. . . . If therefore Messer Jacopo has the wit with which he is credited, he will provide his own salvation without waiting for Octavian to reach man's estate." This letter bears the date of May 25, 1493. The fire smouldered under ashes for two years longer, during which Giacomo Feo became more odious to many, foremost among whom were the Marcobelli and Orcioli, who had earned the Countess's gratitude by the part they had played in her restoration, so that they became almost masters of the State and of herself They cherished a mortal hatred of her favourite. Feo, conscious of their envy, most scrupu- lously avoided giving them offence, hoping to appease them by dint of prudence and affability, but they had become as I90 A CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE powerful as the Orsi under Count Girolamo, so that their ill-fecHng could not long remain secret. At Forlimpopoli, in the presence of Cardinal Raphael, the OrcioH had so vehemently abused Feo that the Countess, who could not feign ignorance, was obliged to imprison them in the Castle of Brisighella. Her affection for them was so great that she soon recalled them, and as a proof of renewed confidence, sent one of them to Forlimpopoli to intercept the inroads of the Neapolitan troops. The Orcioli, who came out of prison with renewed hatred of Feo and the determination to remove him, were soon in league with the Marcobelli. A former servant of the Orcioli, now in the service of Feo, kept them informed of his move- ments, but their first attempt on his life at Santa Croce miscarried. The cloud thickened, the storm threatened, but Feo kept guard on himself, and the bolt did not fall, though Catherine's position became daily more painful and precarious. All her pride and courage had not availed to save her from becoming completely subject to the caprices of her lover in matters public or domestic. She screened them as best she could, but felt herself at fault and dared not murmur ; her children, no less enslaved and victimized than their mother, were sore and rebellious at heart. None could cross her threshold without a thrill of abysmal horror. The astute Florentine had divined the approaching crisis. Octavian, now sixteen, was surrounded by zealous partisans who fanned the flame by representing Feo as an arrogant intruder whose undue influence had sullied and alienated his mother; they reminded him he was the prince, the real head of the State ; it was time to be up and doing. One day that Feo had provoked him beyond the ordinary bounds, the boy retorted with all the venom that embittered him, and Feo struck him in the face. Catherine stood by and shuddered ; her bosom heaved and her eyes shone with unshed tears, but she dared not speak. How could she defend her son_[against her lover ? She was conscious of her fault, degraded and ill at ease. THE ASSASSINATION OF GIACOMO FEO 191 Her other children and her guards were present: there was angry silence ; the fatal spark had reached the mine. Gian Antonio Ghetti,of Imola, an armour-bearer to Octavian, presented himself in the name of Catherine's children to the Orcioli and Marcobelli, to gain their support against Feo, whom he had helped to supplant his brother at Ravaldino, but who had refused to pay what he owed him. "You will never succeed in touching him," he said to these implacable enemies of the favourite. " I must make an end of it. If you are willing, I will kill him for you. . . ." He enlisted the services of a relative, Domenico Ghetti ; his friends, the Mazzolani, lent him an active peasant who was no novice in such matters, and he had a trusty servant who was an expert in them. They were joined by Filippo dalle Selle of Bologna and Don Domenico da Bagnacavallo and Don Antonio, surnamed Pavagliotta, two priests of evil fame, who were easily persuaded that their services would be acceptable to Cardinal Raphael Riario and to Octavian in delivering the unhappy Countess from the usurper. It was August 27, 1495. The Countess, with her daughter Bianca and some of her women, was returning in her chariot from the chase, at the hours of vespers. She was followed by her sons, Octavian and Cjesar, by Giacomo Feo, and a great number of equerries and men-at-arms ; a joyous party laden with spoil and singing merry songs. The traitors had secreted themselves behind the Bogheri Bridge. Gian Antonio Ghetti came forward to meet Giacomo Feo, who threw him a familiar "How goes it, Gian Antonio, where do you come from.''" " Well, well, my Lord." And while the traitor said these words, his servant speared Feo through and through. Then Gian Antonio fell upon him. " Alas ! I am a dead man 1 " cried the poor knight. Don Domenico seized his horse by the bridle and dragged it to the church of St. Bernard where the two priests fell upon him until he dropped from the saddle. "O Lord! O Madonna, I am murdered !" cried the victim, while the assassins struck him across the face. They dragged the unhappy Feo, mutilated beyond recognition, but still 192 A CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE living, and threw him into a pit, where, says Bcrnardi, '' the poor captain, praying the Eternal to forgive him his sins, gave up the ghost." As soon as Catherine heard the noise, she turned, and, as if she had divined the horrible occurrence, sprang from her carriage, and leapt on to a soldier's horse. She fled, followed by Csesar and Octavian, to the citadel. But her sons, feeling they might be regarded as accomplices, did not dare to enter it with their mother, and took refuge under the roof of Paolo Denti. The men-at-arms, equerries and servants had vanished, terrorized. Two only of the suite had turned and perceiving what had happened, had bravely returned to the bridge. They were Francesco Tomasoli of Forli and Bartolomeo Martin- engho. Tomasoli struck a blow at Ghetti, who was unhurt, because of his coat of mail. He turned calmly to his two assailants saying, " That which we are doing is done by command of Madonna and the Lord Octavian," Tomasoli and Martinengho, amazed by this repl}', were no less surprised when they beheld the two priests dyed with the blood of Feo, who confirmed what had been said. And when the latter cried " Octavian .' Octavian ! " they, believing that they were empowered to act and to cry, raised their voices in unison with those of the assassins. Soon these voices were blended with the cries of the populace; and a great crowd, headed by the conspirators, poured into the square, to the cries of " Caterina ! Caterina ! Ottaviano ! Ottaviano ! " The news spread throughout the city, from every corner of which citizens poured into the square. " People, people of Forli!" roared the assassins; "come forth! we have already killed that traitor who was Giacomo Feo ! Forth ! Come forth ! " Catherine's auditor heard the cries from the palace. He came out and was met by Ghetti, who boldly accosted him, saying that in obedience to the Countess and Octavian, he had been obliged to put Feo to death. The auditor, who as inspector of police was well versed in Court mysteries, asked himself whether Catherine had been driven to this desperate step to free herself from a position that was incompatible with her sovereign and maternal duties. THE ASSASSINATION OF GIACOMO FEO 193 ... In such a position as hers the dreadful fact was not inadmissible. The auditor would neither sanction nor punish without the Regent's instructions. . . He accordingly- slipped through the crowd, and, beckoning to a son of the notary Aspini, bid him fly to the citadel to acquaint the Countess with the communication imparted to him by Ghetti and the tenor of the people's cries. The youth returned with the news that the Countess, in despair at the murder of her lover and rage at the audacious calumny of the murderers, demanded instant and condign vengeance. Catherine's wishes could not have tallied more completely with those of the auditor, who had never lost sight of Ghetti. He sprang upon him and seized him, crying, " Accursed traitor, what have you told me ? " and as Ghetti struggled to free himself, he added, " Hold ! liar, hold ! Come to Madonna in the Fort!" Ghetti shook himself free. " A hundred ducats in the name of Madonna to him who will deliver to her or prove that he has killed Gian Antonio Ghetti ! In the name of Madonna the Countess ! A hundred ducats ! " cried the auditor, while Ghetti tried to disappear in the crowd. Don Antonio, Filippo dalle Selle, and Bernardino Ghetti gained the walls and leapt from them ; Don Domenico hid himself in a chest in the house of his brother-in-law ; and covered with wounds, Gian Antonio Ghetti, followed in his desperate flight by the crowd, was struck dead by a blow that cut his head in two, close to the loggia of the Dome, by Bernardo Mangianti. " He had lost all human semblance," writes Cobelli, who, "being in the square, had run in haste to see." A little later, he says that he entered the church of the Black Flagellants, whither some pious persons, having recovered the mangled body of the late Vice-regent from the pit by the bridge, had conveyed it. " And there I saw Messer lacomo Feo dead, on a bier. Oh! the pity and the cruelty of it ! Oh, reader, certes I never saw the like of that face that had been so beautiful. It looked like a pomegranate that had been torn open and hacked. I could not refrain from weeping, remembering him so fair and white and clean, who now lay hideous in his clotted blood, wrapped in his bedraggled coat 194 A CLANDESTINE ^LARRIAGE of cloth-of-gold. . . Never had man been feared as was this man, at Forli. . ." That night Catherine sent word to Thomas Feo, who had resumed his post at Imola,that his brother had been murdered, and requested that his sisters be sent from Imola and Bologna to Forh . . . also "that the house of Antonio da Ghia (Gian Antonio Ghetti) be destroyed and his wife (once a favourite and favoured woman of the Bed-Chamber to Catherine), his children, and any of his relations they could lay hands upon, be put to death." According to Cobelli, who herein differs from the Sassatelli and other Imolese, who had their own reasons for blackening her memory, this order did not emanate directly from Catherine. One relativ^e of Ghetti's was hanged and afterwards quartered at Imola ; the unhappy wife of Gian Antonio, the beautiful Rosaria, was dragged to the Fort of Forli, and there, with her two little children, thrown down a spiked well. On the evening of the 28th, pending the arrival of the invited mourners, the body of Giacomo Feo was quietly transferred to the church of San Girolamo, where a temporary monument was erected. In the square a great catafalque supported a bier covered with cloth-of-gold and surrounded by many torches. At the hour of vespers on the following day, thirty crosses — followed by the religious of their various orders, each bearing a torch — were carried into the square. The magistrates, with their wives, proceeded to the fort to attend the Countess's guests. The first to leave the fort was Paolo dall' Aste, the bishop's vicar, in whose suite were Scipio, natural son of Count Girolamo and Bernardino, the son of Catherine and Feo, five years old, who had been re-named Charles in grati- tude to the King of France for making his father a baron. Then came the auditor of the Countess, followed by the magistracy, the gentlemen of Catherine's household, the rela- tives of Giacomo, his sisters with the noble ladies of Forli, the ladies and maids-of-honour of the Countess, twelve pages clad in mourning and three others in gold and silver, on THE ASSASSINATION OF GIACOMO FEO 195 superbly caparisoned horses, one of whom carried the sword and gold spurs, another the helmet, and the third the cuirass of the dead knight. In this order the cortege, with a great number of men-at-arms in gorgeous liveries, entered the church, where, after solemn obsequies, Fra Ludovico of Forli pronounced an oration in praise of the deceased. On the following day, Catherine notified to her subjects that Giacomo Feo had been her legitimate consort. The body of Gian Antonio Ghetti was hung to a pole under an archway of the palace. Don Domenico da Bagna- cavallo was taken from the shelter of his brother-in-law's, house, and was tortured by fire until he revealed the names of his accomplices and the motive of the conspiracy, into which he had been inveigled by Ghetti's statement that the Countess, the Lord Octavian, and the Cardinal Raphael wished Feo to be put to death. To this Catherine replied that the Riario had never been traitors, neither had the Sforza been known to hire assassins, when they wished to rid themselves of a man. The punish- ment of the wretched priest would therefore be of a nature to prove how the Riario loathed treachery. It is certain that had Catherine chosen to rid herself of Feo he would have disappeared in the fort and never more been heard of, but would not have been assassinated in a street. If Catherine's revenge passed all bounds, some of its excesses may be ascribed to her determination to wipe out this calumny. In avenging Girolamo, Catherine did not pass the bounds of the justice of her day. Now she was no longer a sovereign with the murder of her consort to avenge, but a woman hardened by the habit of command, of bloodshed and strife, a woman maddened to fury by the assassination of her lover, turning like a tigress on his murderers and their kin, revelling and exulting in their blood. The names of the Marcobelli and Orcioli were conspicuous in the long list of the priest's accomplices ; Catherine's amazement at their ingratitude lent a new zest to her revenge. 196 A CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE On the conclusion of the priest's trial by the podesta the ^vretched man was handed over to a brutal executioner named Mongiardini, who stripped him and tied him by the feet to -a horse's tail and thus dragged him to the bridge where Feo had met his fate, and thence to the square, where the soldiers, tired of chasing the horse, battered out what life remained in him, while with his last breath he muttered words of penitence and prayer. His body was strung up under the .arch where hung that of Gian Antonio Ghetti. His house and that of his brother-in-law were sacked, and Giacomo dalle Selle, his two sons, and the sons of Filippo dalle Selle (the latter had escaped) cast into the dungeons of Ravaldino. Mongiardini and his myrmidons knocked at the door of Bernardino Ghetti, brother of Gian Antonio, who had escaped, took his wife and three children in his stead and thrust them into the dungeons. Mongiardini then learnt that a child of five, belonging to Gian Antonio, was still in charge of his nurse ; he ferreted him out, dragged him to the fort and there " immediately cut his neck." ^ On the same morning of the 28th an edict was proclaimed ordering those who harboured conspirators or their property to give them up to justice, under penalty of the gallows. A few hours later, to the blare of trumpets, a second edict promised a thousand gold ducats and the possessions of the captive to him who brought one of the assassins, alive or dead. The public crier had no sooner read their edict, when a beautiful girl was dragged into the fort ; she was the paramour of Don Pavagliotta with whom were three of the profligate priest's children. " They were immediately put to death," says Cobelli, " as also the children of Filippo dalle Selle," and it was rumoured, "two children of the House of Orso," who had been taken after the murder of Count Girolamo, The executioners had forced the Regent's hand ; the punishment outstepped the offence. Pietro Bosi and Giovanno Caroli (the latter master of the pantry to Catherine) were implicated and throw^n into chains, and Don Pavagliotta was captured between Ravenna and 1 Cobelli. THE ASSASSINATION OF GIACOMO FEO 197 Ferrara, subjected to torture until he denounced the innocent with the guilty and then put to death with the same horrible refinements of cruelty to which Don Domenico had been subjected. The Marcobelli had imprudently remained at Forli. Two' of them perished in a scuffle with their jailers that nighty and a third, named Agostino, was grievously wounded. The Countess, who heard cries of " Ottaviano ! Ottaviano ! " from her apartments, asked the meaning of these sounds at that hour. She appeared distressed by the occurrence^ and ordered that every care be taken of Agostino. This benevolence was not extended to other members of the family, for soon afterwards his prison was shared by his brother Francesco. The sumptuous houses, large properties and lucrative warehouses of the Marcobelli and Orcioli were stripped and sequestrated, and the proceeds, which amounted to a considerable fortune, " given to whom Madonna chose."^ The women of these families were hunted from their empty houses by the auditor. Caglianello, castellane of Schiavonia, a former dependent of Cardinal Raphael Riario, with whom he was known to have been in correspondence, Pietro Bosi, and Fra Ilario,. once tutor to Catherine's sons, were imprisoned. The latter was liberated, but not before he had been so dislocated by torture that he went on crutches ever after. Catherine does not appear to have interfered with the liberty of public opinion ; the only persons who suffered punishment for it were a peasant who had said, in a shop, that the conspirators were unwise in sparing Catherine when they killed Fco, and another Avho, at an inn, had dilated on the grounds the conspirators might have had for killing the Countess. They were imprisoned for inciting their hearers to sedition ; one survived his punishment and was ultimately liberated, the other died of the damp and stench of the dungeon into which he had literally been thrown. Catherine had fought the murderers of Girolamo, for and with her children, but in the death of Fco she must have felt they had a hand. They had sought refuge, away from 198 A CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE her, under the roof of Paolo Denti, the populace had fawned on them, paid homage to them, carried them to the palace and there again acclaimed them rightful lords. Two days passed before Catherine sent for them, and the people of Forli seized this occasion for what would now be termed a demonstration. Indignant with Catherine, they surrounded her children — who were led trembling to the fort, as into the lion's den — determined to protect them against their mother, to show them to her and to lead them in safety to the city. But the draw-bridge was let down, the great door opened and vomited a body of foot soldiers, armed to the teeth and covered with shining armour who charged the howling and retreating populace. When the people stopped the soldiers came up with them and cleared the way with their pikes to where the young lords, surrounded by their most zealous partisans, stood : they were hurried into the fort like prisoners of war, while the populace from whom they had been torn, continued to raise piercing cries. Then the cannon roared and the frightened crowd rushed back to the city. Soon, in every house and inn at Forli the Countess was slandered as a woman and accursed as a ruler. When night fell, the dungeons and secret places of the fort were filled with poor wretches who had been captured by force or strategy. Scipio, natural son of the late Count, raised his voice in protest against these cruelties, for which he was thrown into a dungeon, where he languished in chains for eighteen months. Lamed and ruined in health, he left his prison to take service with Catherine's enemies, the Venetians. Catherine realizing that the blow struck at Octavian had cost Feo his life, confined the former in the fort. He was her eldest-born and the head of the State, but she chose to avenge her lover without let or hindrance. All Romagna trembled, neighbouring Powers shuddered with horror, the Milanese Orator wrote from Bologna that he could not but grieve "that so much infamy be attributed to the Countess of Imola, seeing that she is of the House of Sforza." And Pope Alexander, hitherto not prone to scruple, lost faith in Catherine. " His Holiness," wrote Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, THE ASSASSINATION OF GIACOMO FEO 199 " wonders and sorrows that she should venture to attack a cardinal and chamberlain (Cardinal Raphael Riario, who had helped to save the State for herself and her children) of the Holy See, thinking perhaps thereby to justify the unheard- of bloodshed committed within the last few days to satisfy a passion which, had she rightly governed herself, she should have buried." This hecatomb brought no peace to Catherine, who could never forget that the blood of innocent children had mingled with that of the guilty. From the blood of the first victims a kind of vapour, that blinded the sight, unhinged the brain of those who decreed, pronounced, and executed sentence, would seem to have arisen. The subter- raneans of Ravaldino were turned into abodes of lamentation and death ; the hall where the podesta examined prisoners rang with the clank of instruments of torture and the desperate cries of the victims ; the air was polluted by the stench of burned and scalded flesh. Small wonder if the voices and phantoms of the victims robbed Catherine of her sleep, and that in the watches of the night she was heard to call upon the children of Orso ! CHAPTER XXII CATHERINE AND LUDOVICO IL MORO Towards the end of 1495 Catherine sent troops, under Achille Tiberti of Cesena and Cicognano of Castrocaro, against Guidoguerra, Count of Chiaggiolo, from whom they took Castelnuovo, Tudoranno, MoHno Vecchio, Cosercoh", and other castles which he had taken from the Archbishop of Ravenna. The Venetians sent troops to recapture Castel- nuovo, to the amazement of Catherine, who wrote the Milanese Orator in Bologna that she marvelled "they should so doggedly attack a petty castle, and for its sake utter such threats, that were I of a fearsome nature, I should have died of them . . . perchance to-day they give battle, but they need not think to win it with a cry of their stradiottiy Catherine, having made her protest, handed the useless castle over to the pontifical president at Cesena, saying that it was more the Pope's affair than hers to impede the progress of the Venetians in Romagna, and that to the protector of her family and the god-father of Octavian she made a free gift of Castelnuovo. Of this the president took no notice, while the castellane, possibly bribed by the Venetians, surrendered to them. In that same year Catherine's troops, in conjunction with those of Venice and Bologna, repulsed Octavian Manfredi, who had been liberated by Charles VIII. after six years' imprisonment at Pisa. With the help of Vincenzo Naldi and the men of Valdilamone, Octavian Manfredi attempted to depose his cousin Astorre, Lord of Faenza (a minor, then betrothed to Catherine's daughter, Bianca). Naldi was pur- CATHERINE AND LUDOVICO IL .MORO 201 sued as far as Brisighella, where his property was laid waste, and Octavian, poor and friendless, retired to Florence. In 1496 Bernardi, among other phenomena, records a rain of stones, five of which he saw in the palace of the Lord of Valdinoce, who sent a fragment of one, weighing a pound and a half, as a present to Catherine. On these stones the learned and the astrologers wrote many dissertations. The year was otherwise memorable for floods that carried away bridges, winds that unroofed towers, famine and pestilence which the Countess alleviated as far as in her lay. She also embellished the fort by a beautiful park and partly destroyed the official palace, so that she need no longer look upon the walls wherein her first husband had met his death and she had been a prisoner of his assassins. The chiefs among them died in exile within a few months of each other : Checco Orsi as chief officer, and Ludovic as Podesta of Camerino, it was rumoured of poison, with their wives, children and remaining relatives. " It would have been much better for them," remarks Bernardi, " had they not taken the trouble to assassinate the aforenamed Count, for then had they died in their beds. . . ." Astorre Manfredi, the boy Lord of Faenza, had accepted the Venetian Protectorate, in virtue of which the Signory agreed to pay him 8000 ducats yearly and to defend his State. The Countess wrote to Ludovic, Duke of Milan, that the Venetian Resident was " so haughty, it seemed as if there were no lord but he . . . he cared for nothing but to capture the good-will of the populace." Fortunately the castellane was of another mind. Although not afraid of the enmity her words might provoke, she prayed the Duke not to mention either herself or her letters to the Venetians. A council summoned by the resident had determined on re- moving Astorre and the seat of Government to the palace, the official residence of the resident, "to which the Lord Astorgio, albeit a child, would not consent." Yet the die was cast, and the Venetian wife of the castellane would end in persuading him to retire in favour of a Venetian patrician, and the Signory would appoint one of their own captains at 202 A CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE Val da Lamone, In this manner the Venetians would absorb the State (of Faenza). Catherine did not think the Floren- tines had any designs on Faenza, but liad promised herself to be vigilant on behalf of her future son-in-law, "w^ho stood to her as a son." Astorrc sent an account of his grievances to Venice, and the Signory replied that despite their resident's urgent request, he might remain in the fort — the matter of the castellane was still under consideration. This question Catherine — persuaded that an enemy of Astorre would be appointed — held to be very grave, for his guardians had prohibited his removal from the fort during his minority, and the young lord had declared that nothing but force would induce him to leave the fort. Catherine wrote again that the Venetians were " ill-dis- posed towards that castellane, and that the resident was lying in wait to play him a trick against which there would be no redress. And this castellane was the key to everything . . . it avails not, in such danger as this, to send Astorre's envoy to Venice. . . ." She could not sufficiently impress on the Duke "that the Venetians hanker after what is ours." That morning the Podesta of Ravenna had come to dine at a sanctuary on her territory on his way to Castelnuovo, which they had taken from her last winter. . . . Although it was but a paltry place, the Venetians " had their arms painted on it . . . and would hold and fortify it." At the same time they were intriguing to obtain possession of the State that had belonged to Guidoguerra ..." to extend their posses- sions to these our hills. Now I submit to your judgment," the Countess added, "that if they be careful of these hovels, how much more eagerly will they set their minds to things of real importance ? " Meanwhile the house of Giovanni Kentivoglio, Lord of Bologna, had become a den of robbers in which Catherine's enemies from Rome and elsewhere conspired against her. Yet she wrote her uncle that she was comforted and of good cheer, knowing that the ducal orator had expressed his CATHERINE AND LUDOVICO IL MORO 203 master's displeasure to Bentivoglio. Though she confided in the Duke's protection, she was constantly pre-occupied by the inimical attitude of the Lord of Bologna. " I accept the counsel, given me by Your Lordship, which is in every way worthy of your wisdom and goodness, not to follow the example of others in avenging my wrongs, but rather to forgive them. Be therefore assured that had I not been more than once provoked and harried beyond measure, I would have tolerated this last occurrence as I have done before many times ; sed furor fit sacpius laesa patientia, and the not resent- ing so many injuries would encourage the wicked in evil doing. . . . Still I will so far restrain myself as the conduct of others may permit me to lean rather towards forgiveness than vengeance. . . ." She dared no longer write to the ducal orator at Bologna on the subject of Faenza, for there were not wanting fresh proofs of Bentivoglio's ill-will. A mere ne'er-do-weel, who had run away for debt, had offered to reveal to her the names of persons who betrayed her trust in them ; she thought this a silly fact in itself, yet a proof of bad feeling. . . . She had learned from Trachedini that Bentivoglio complained of her. It might well be that months ago, under provocation from Bentivoglio, she had said that she would give shelter to the Malvezzi who had conspired against him. Worse things might happen. Yet she had not done it. . . . " They com- plain of words who would not have me complain of deeds." She had not entertained any of his enemies, yet he had received the Broccardi and Vaini, exiled by her, and those who had conspired against her person ; " my words are sins against the Holy Ghost, but their deeds are venial. . . ." The letter of gravest import is dated March 27, 1496. Bentivoglio had intimated to Duke Ludovic that the Countess had sent persons who were in her confidence to murder Giovanni Battista de Broccardi at Bologna. " I will not deny the truth," replied Catherine to her uncle's queries. " If Messcr Giovanni hath naught but hate for me, some people there are who love me, and knowing that man to be con- spiring against my life, under the roof of Messcr Giovanni, 204 A CLANDESTINE ^lARRIAGE many of my trusty ones came to me offering to deliver Broccardi . into my hand, alive or dead. I, having been offended by him, and desiring to have him in my power, to the confusion of my enemies, did not refuse either offer, which I confess to have been ill done, as Your L^xcellency says. . . . But this should be matter for small marvel to Messer Giovanni, an he remember that I am composed of the same elements as himself, who hath persecuted those who offended him less grievously than did Broccardi me . . . even in holy places. We all feel our own grievances, where- fore he should cease to wonder if one day it be understood that I am not dead." On April 9 Catherine wrote the Duke that she "had done her utmost to live on neighbourly terms with Messer Giovanni Bentivoglio": "Your Excellency is aware how willingly I con- sented to become related to him (Astorre Manfredi, betrothed to Bianca Riario, was grandson to Bentivoglio). Why should he conspire v/ith Cardinal San Giorgio (Raphael Riario) for my ruin .'' Why lend himself to intrigues to depose me ? I will have nothing more to do with him, either as a kinsman or in any other capacity, and will henceforward show myself to him as he is to me, doubting not that when his ears have been sufficiently pulled by Your Excellency, he will no longer interfere with me nor mine. And I, unless I be provoked, will not interfere in the affairs of others." But how could she avoid being entangled in the affairs of others? Her neighbour's houses were on fire. In the pre- ceding July, the Tiberti of Cesena had stirred up a tumult in the town. "Yesterday," wrote the Countess to the Duke of Milan, " they hanged the house-steward of the Archbishop of Aries and helped Guidoguerra to capture the old fort, to the cry of ' Chicsa, CJiicsa ! ' " Of this the Countess hastened to inform the Pope (being, as she said, the better able to gauge events that were happening so near to her), and as he was in great danger of losing Cesena she added that it behoved him to take immediate measures. She concluded : " I have no other end in appealing to Your Holiness but CATHERINE AND LUDOVICO IL MORO 205 the immense zeal and affection I bear to Holy Church, and especially to the person and honour of Your Holiness, of whom I have ever been, and shall remain to my life's end, the devoted daughter and servant." In August Pope Alexander sent the Archbishop of Aries to restore order at Cesena, asking for the co-operation of Catherine and her neighbours against Guidoguerra and other disturbers of the peace. Catherine replied that, " hold- ing as We do this Vicariat, I will do all that is possible, promptly and willingly." She knew not what would happen next ; Guidoguerra was then mining the Nev/ Fort. Mean- while he had quarrelled with the Tiberti, " who hitherto had been as one with him," and, suspecting them of designs on his life, had slain a chief of their party, while his people had killed seven others. The Tiberti had retired to the fort, and their houses had been sacked. One night the Martinelli of Cesena assailed a castle of the Tiberti, took it, with the wife and children of Messer Polidoro (Tiberti), and threatened to turn the whole brood out of Cesena, " The Tiberti," wrote Catherine to Ludovic, " have ever been devoted to me and my State." Seeing that the quarrel between the two families was not com- plicated by the intervention of "principalities and powers," Catherine had permitted some of her soldiers to side with the Tiberti, who were joined by those sent by the Duke of Urbino, and the castle was besieged. The besieged, failing the succour they expected from the Lord of Rimini, sur- rendered on condition that all aliens within the walls should leave with a safe-conduct. Some of the Martinelli with their braves threw themselves unconditionally on the mercy of the Commune. "But no sooner had ^ my people and those of Urbino retired," wrote the Countess, "than a Commissioner sent by the Commune had them all hung up to the battle- ments : a most horrible spectacle." Meanwhile, Catherine's most bitter anxieties came to her from Rome. "Were it not for my hope and faith in Your Excellency," she wrote the Duke of Milan, " I should have 2o6 A CLANDESTINE .MARRIAC.E to think of going to drown myself." Once the cardinals of her blood had been her refuge, now everything was reversed. Her nephew, Cardinal Raphael, had turned so violently against her that Ludovic had confiscated his Lombard revenues. Catherine thanked him, adding that "within three or four days she would send full account of those who had participated in the said machinations." She entreated him to instruct his orator in Rome to see to it that a certain conspirator be conscientiously examined, and to prove to the Pope that she is as a daughter to the Duke, whom if she be in error, none other may presume to correct. Cardinal Ascanio, instead of defending her, was in league with Cardinal Raphael . . . who even during the lifetime of Count Girolamo had begun to repay his benefits with the money of ingratitude. She added that for many reasons she would wish to have gone to Milan, but " that daughter of mine (Bianca betrothed to Astorre Manfrcdi) is growing up; neither would the times, nor affairs of State permit my absence." Gianfrancesco Gonzaga, menaced by Bentivoglio, sought to ally himself with Catherine, whom he knew was exposed to the same danger, by the marriage of his daughter to Octavian. Catherine, without committing herself to refusal, replied that "the prevailing turbulence and bad case of Italian affairs obliged her to set aside every consideration but the preserva- tion and weal of her State." The Gonzaga appealed to Ludovic, Duke of Milan, to whom the Countess reiterated — " Until I see the things of Italy take a better turn, I am not minded to giv^e a wife to my son, in whose marriage I cannot overlook my own advantage." When she had con- sented to the betrothal of Bianca to the grandson of Benti- voglio, Messer Giovanni " had attempted to govern us over here . . . therefore I must adequately consider the matter and then ask Your Excellency's advice." The times were indeed troublous, and Catherine was torn between her desire to hold to her alliance with her uncle's State and the sympathy which drew her ever closer to the Florentine Republic — a sympathy which, since the arrival of Giovanni Medici the Florentine envoy, was strengthened by a new and personal CATHERINE AND LUDOVICO IL MORO 207 element. Despite her impetuous but loyal nature, the Countess found herself enmeshed in the most difficult of all policies, that of dissimulation. " I wonder," she wrote the Duke, " that Your Lordship should write me that you hear that I am treating with Florence for the levying of troops. . . . Had I thought of such a thing, I should have written to Your Lordship for advice. Am I then so wanting in good faith, love and reverence that I could so deceive one to whom I would fain be as a daughter ? And had I not been minded to accept Your Lordship's advice, I would have frankly said so, as to a father. ... I have no business in Florence, unless it be to buy stuffs and to try and recover certain things I have there in pawn. Forget not to provide my son Octavian with an honourable opening, of which for every reason he is as deserving as any other in Italy. For in idleness there is neither use nor honour." On this " opening for Octavian " she insists in a second letter, in which she expresses her pleasure in the Duke's approval of her neutrality and his refusal to give credence to rumours anent her alliance with Florence. Her trust in him was such that " had she one thought more than another, she would have declared it to him." But in November all traces of this confidence and filial pliancy had vanished. "We have never ceased to remind you to avoid giving offence to the Most Holy League," wrote Duke Ludovic, " yet have you heedlessly persevered in doing only that which seemed good to you." After reproaching her for permitting an export of wheat from Forli to Florence, the Duke proceeds—" We have not failed to entreat you as we should a daughter or sister, therefore we pray Your Lady- ship will hold us excused should aught occur which you wish to avert, for We have not failed to admonish and advise you for your good as if it had been Our own : for if Your Lady- ship thinks that conceding to the Florentines that of which the League seeks to deprive them, so that thereby they may be obliged to join it, is a small matter, you are mistaken, for it will offend the League. . . ." " Doubt not," he continued. 2o8 A CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE on November I3, "that We will willingly do all We can for you and yours. But we do not hide from you that in not sending your orators to the King, and in permitting the Florentines to draw forage from your land, We cannot think you love Us as you should, which We regret the more for your own sake," Now timid, now daring, Catherine strove to emancipate herself from her uncle's tutelage and to cast in her lot Avith Florence, centre of her hopes and aspirations. Giovanni Medici, once her neighbour, was now her guest, her friend, lover, counsellor, and the arbiter of her State. For him she was ready to imperil that sovereign power she had both used and abused. She was on the eve of another secret marriage. BOOK VI THE HOUSE OF MEDICI CHAPTER XXIII GIOVANNI POPOLANO Giovanni di Pierfrancesco Medici, born in 1467, was the handsomest and one of the most accomplished Florentines of his short day. During the lifetime of Lorenzo il Magnifico, Giovanni had presumed to love a lady beloved by his cousin Piero, and a lawsuit, instigated by the hatred and jealousy of the future head of the republic, had resulted in the confine- ment of Giovanni and his brother Lorenzo to their respective villas of Cafifaggiolo and Castello, under the pretext of alleged secret negotiations with France. To put an end to this ill-feeling, Lorenzo il Magnifico purposed giving a daughter in marriage to one of his nephews, but she had died, it was rumoured, of poison administered by a brother, to frustrate the marriage project and the reconciliation. The nature and extent of the brothers' negotiations with Charles VIII, were never fully elucidated : the Florentine people were dissatisfied with their imprisonment and anxious for their delivery ; a wish soon to be gratified by their flight. Giovanni joined Charles VIII. at Vigevano, and succeeded in persuading him that the Florentines were favourable to him and would ally themselves with him if he found means to rid them of his tyrannical cousin, Piero de Medici. The king therefore advanced on Naples by the Tuscan road, the Florentines dismissed Piero, and Giovanni, on recovering his civic rights, changed his surname to that of Popolano, in gratitude to the republican party. 212 THE HOUSE OF MEDICI In 1496 and 1497 he was appointed Ambassador to Imola and Forli and Commissioner for all the Florentine possessions in Romagna, where the political effects of his presence were soon apparent in Catherine's rule. " In the year 1498," says an ancient writer,^ "she contracted an alliance with the Florentines by means of the Magnificent Giovanni de Medici, with whom our lady the Countess was so infatuated that she would hear of no other power." According to Cobelli, " every one thought of him as a mere ambassador, and as such he has, for many months, sojourned in the citadel : since then our Illustrious Madonna has had a chamber nobly painted and adorned near to her own apartment and there has lodged the Magnificent Giovanni. . . ." The Milanese Orator in Bologna, who had been instructed to watch Catherine, had written the Duke on October 10, 1496, that Giovanni Medici was staying with the Countess, by whom he was treated with marked favour, and that competent persons had told him that, in all probability, she had married him. Giovanni Bentivoglio fanned the flame by telling the ducal orator that Catherine had liberated prisoners at the intercession of Giovanni Medici, whom she would marry " as soon as she had built herself a safe nest." A few days later, Count Nicolo Rangoni informed the orator that Catherine had a secret understanding with the King of France relative to her marriage. Alarmed at this news, Ludovic instructed the orator to send a confidential person to his niece, informing her of current rumours, which he (the orator) "did not dare repeat to the Duke without her sanction." " You do well," wrote Catherine to the orator, " not to give credence to the gossip of Bologna . . . which, however, does not surprise me, as these are not the first slanders that have been fabricated in that place to do me an injury. . . . May God give them enough to think of for themselves, so that they may forget to gossip about others. According to them I have already taken to myself many husbands : yet an I chose to have one, I would that he be given me by my Lord Duke, my uncle, who alone hath that right. But I am no ^ Storia di Komagna, MS. GIOVANNI POPOLANO 213 longer of an age to be governed by such juvenile appetites, and the government of my State occupies my whole thought. Yet the wicked, who have never ceased from persecuting me in my honour and person, will not stay their fabrications ; perchance, one day their malignity will be recognized and punished ... if not in this world, in the next. I have neither married, nor sent Giovan Bettino to France, neither have I trafficked nor treated with anyone: had I wished to do so, it would not be without the consent of the afore-named Lord Duke my uncle, whom I revere as a father as in duty and propriety bound. . . . Forli, vij November 29. . . ." The orator communicated the whole correspondence to the Duke, adding that he had pretended to believe in Catherine's assertions. He had sent his letter to Forli by his secretary, Anton Bugado, " habited like a cavalier "... a wily man on whom he had enjoined to deftly sift the matter, but he had returned saying that it was not spoken of in public either at Forli or Imola. Benedetto Aldrovandi, Podesta of Forli and brother-in-law of the late Giacomo Feo, had neither affirmed nor denied the fact, saying that within a few days he would be in Bologna and would tell the orator " verbally of what had happened." Before Bugado had left, the Podesta had recalled him and said — "You will convey the reply of the Countess to the ducal orator, but supposing it were true, what would happen ? " " Were it true it would have to stand, but Madonna's marriage with a merchant citizen would be derogatory to her. . . . Oh, nobody would cavil at that, but rather for some other reason," the Podesta had replied, with a subtle smile. It was the custom of Giovanni Medici, after hearing mass, to go to the Countess in the fort, and after discussing with her any letters that might have arrived, to return to dine in his own apartment, which was the one which had been occupied by Feo, and it was there that after dinner he received the secretary and auditor of Catherine : all those who desired audience of her sought it through Giovanni, who settled every question, as if he had been her lieutenant. He lived there with sixteen servants and twenty-five horses and 214 THE HOUSE OF MEDICI mules. Bugado had not been able to sec the Countess, who had kept her room from an attack of fever. Those Venetians who discussed matters with the Milanese Orator, said that Catherine owed the stability of her State to Milan and Venice and that she must look to these powers for her future salvation, instead of those (the Florentines) to whom must be ascribed her past adversities (the murder of Girolamo). The Doge had said that " the nature of her sex, which had often led her into error, must be her excuse, but she must not be permitted by her uncle to persevere in her present mistaken enterprise." Meanwhile, Catherine wrote her uncle that she would never cease to be, unto him, an obedient daughter, and would never take any important decision without consulting him ; her greatest sorrow was that the wicked had the power to make him doubt her. But soon he w^ould realize her affection for him and the malignity of her enemies, for the orator would explain everything to him. . . . Indeed, Trachedini had been requested to go in person to Forli, and Catherine had sent Octavian to meet him two miles outside the town, and that evening, accompanied by her children, she received him in the apartment lately built for Octavian, The orator on presenting his letters, said that he had matters of importance to discuss wath the Countess. The Countess then gave every one but himself permission to retire and they were left alone. The orator said that although the Duke his master did not believe the current rumour of her alliance with France and P'lorence, he had charged him to learn directly, from her own lips, whether she intended to side wath France, or with the League, as it was her interest and duty. . . . The Countess gently and graciously replied, it pained her that the Duke should imagine things to be possible that were absolutely the reverse . . . such as the supposition that she thought of marriage for herself or her children without first consulting him, who was to her as a father . . . and ignoring her union with Feo, added that " until now she had never thought of taking a husband since she had been widowed of the Count her consort." GIOVANNI POPOLANO 215 The Florentines had made advances to her, but she distrusted them, and it seemed to her " a noble sport " to be a spectator of passing events, with her State at peace under the protection of the Duke her uncle. To be with whom was to be with the League : she would neither ally herself, unless obliged to do so, with France nor other powers : for her children she wished that they might owe their career and advancement to him, rather than to others. " And here took God to witness that she laid bare to me the core and innermost of her heart : if it be otherwise she is willing for Your Excellency to deprive her of her State and even of life." . . . The Countess then wished him good-evening, as if to dismiss him, but the orator continued to convey to her the Duke's expressions of good-will, and then, as if of his own accord, entered " on rumours that were to her discredit "... the prolonged stay of Giovanni Medici ... of which the Orator spoke in a manner " opportune and consistent, from the lips of a devoted servitor." Catherine replied that Giovanni Medici was not there to interfere in her government, but as a guest to whom she owed courtesy for service rendered. He had lent and procured for her about 10,000 ducats, to redeem jewels and plate that from the time of Count Girolamo had been partly at Modena and partly in the hands of Domenico Ricci of Genoa. She had given Giovanni about 6000 sacks of wheat. The Florentines had asked him for some of it for forage, but as yet he had not given them any. At first she had welcomed him for his evident devotion to the Duke of Milan, then he had given her to understand that he wished to stay away from Florence for some time to avoid the clash of party, perhaps because he disapproved of the present democratic government. True, he had a suite of sixteen persons and some horses, but his great liberality repaid the expense of entertaining him. To Bianca, he had given brocade that was worth more than three hundred ducats, to her brothers velvets and silks of even greater value. With Giovanni was his friend Filippo Ridolfi and another Florentine named Corbizo, who was useful to her in supervising the accounts of her factors. 2i6 THE HOUSE OF MEDICI Ridolfi had discovered that she had "been eaten" and preyed upon and had obliged some of them to disgorge two or three thousand ducats : others, to avoid exposure, had fled. The Countess ended the audience by saying that Giovanni Medici would have the honour of paying his respects to her uncle's envoy. " I," wrote the orator, " being in the citadel of Forli, where sojourned also Giovanni de' Medici, on the morning of the New Year (1497) he came to visit me at my lodging, first, he said, to pay his respects to the representative of the Duke of Milan, and to renew, in the person of the orator, that friendship which had ever subsisted between the two houses. Without waiting to be questioned, he at once proceeded to justify his presence at Forli, repeating, ' but with less art and grace,' Catherine's explanation, almost word for word. It would not always be thus, the day would come when he and his would be able to prove their affection for the House of Sforza ; but this was not the moment, although he and his house were as ever ready to stake their life and power for the former, so intimately were the fortunes of the two families bound together . . . showing that not a hair grew on him that was inclined to PVance. . . . On departing, he declared to me," continues Trachedini, " that he preferred meanwhile to be the guest of Madonna than any one else's, feeling as he did so much at hom.e under the roof of one of your blood : Madonna to him represents Your Excellency, for whose sake he helped her in the loan she needed, as well as for old friendship's sake and to mark his appreciation of her gracious hospitality." He added that he never thought of going to France, there was no foundation for the Florentine rumour. Trachedini "thanked and praised him exceedingly." Giovanni inquired if he had news of the return of Charles VHI. ... "I replied cautiously, /^r verba genemlia,t\\dX I rather disbelieved than believed in it, for had the King intended to come he would not have waited for his kingdom to be lost and the number of his friends lessened. . . . This argument appeared to him GIOVANNI POPOLANO 217 unassailable and he said no more, save 'perdition seize the King of France and those who love him.' ... I, however, am not so credulous to take for granted these fair words of Giovanni, whom I have known for years, as I also know the Countess your niece to be too astute for me to pin my faith to their assertions." A few days later, Battista Sfondrati, ducal orator at Venice, wrote the Duke that the reply of the Countess had pleased the Doge, who yet had said that " Priests are not to be trusted . . . neither should you pin your faith to women." Yet another few days and Trachedini wrote Duke Ludovic that Giovanni Bentivoglio had confided to him that he knew from an intimate friend of Giovanni de' Medici that " for certain the said Giovanni had married the illustrious Countess of Imola, and for excellent reasons the alliance will be kept secret for some time. ... I know not what to say . . . ntsi maledictus homo qui co}ifidit in hoiiiine ct iiiaximc in vaihcre." A month later Benedetto Aldrovandi wrote Catherine from Bologna that the Milanese Orator had told him that her marriage had again been spoken of as an accomplished fact. She replied that there was no foundation for this calumny. Catherine persisted in her denial, yet the report she denied was either true, or on the eve of becoming true. " Giovanni de' Medici," writes Vecchiazzani,^ "had long served Catherine with the chivalry inherent to his illustrious birth. This gratified her, inasmuch as it is of great good fortune to princes to be served by nobles, and her gratitude was so vehement that it became love." She wedded her beloved, and was universally pitied for the enforced secrecy of this union, necessitated, as it was, by State reasons. The child to whom she gave birth, on April 6, 1498, was christened Ludovico, in honour of the Duke of Milan, but he lives in history as Giovanni delle Bande Nere, with the additional surname of Italia, because of the glory his country owes him, through whom the blood of Catherine was transmitted to the royal houses of England, France, Spain and Portugal. But, as ' Storia di Forlimpopoli. 2i8 THE HOUSE OF MEDICI Cobelli wrote, "none dared speak" of this event, for Catherine had taught her good people of ForH the danger of discussing her affairs. Her third marriage did not bring her the discredit that had attended her union with Giacomo Feo, and she so ably- demonstrated the political opportuneness of this alliance that it was sanctioned by Duke Ludovic and her eldest son. The Signory of Florence, on being acquainted with the marriage, conferred the freedom of the city on the Countess and her GIOVANNI DE' MEDICI DELI.li BANDE NEKE {after Titian). children, born or unborn, without any mention of Giovanni, lest the secret should transpire and supply Cardinal Raphael Riario with a pretext for depriving her of the regency and the guardianship of her children. In 1497 Catherine built the Fort of Bubano, around which soon rose many private houses. In November of that year she, with the help of Maestro Bruchello, added other buildings to these, and^ finally a church, which, with great solemnity, she dedicated to the Virgin. The ancient fort was restored, strengthened, and completed by a wall with towers and GIOVANNI POPOLANO 219 bastions, which surrounded the village, henceforward to be called Castello delta Contessa " under penalty of a ducat." Catherine's idea, judged at the time to be a mere freak of fancy, was wholly strategic, for in 1494 the garrison of Bubano, thanks to its commanding position, had been able to stem the French invasion, thus closing Imola and a great portion of the territory to the invaders, who retired on Mordano. This did not prevent the Sassatelli and others who wanted to extort compensation for losses sustained in war, from Catherine's children, by blackening their mother's memory COSIMO DE' MEDICI, SON OF GIOVANNI. from stating in a memorial that she had " erected the fort ^ ... at the expense of the poor peasants who had been forced to drag the cement and other material to the site, while the master-carpenters and masons had to work gratis at the construction of the fort ... as at Imola citizens had been obliged to draw water from the fort for the use of the soldiers (their defenders), to turn the grain belonging to Catherine (forage) to save it from moth, and to render other services it were shameless to write, so piteous was the servitude in which they lived until they were freed by Alexander VI., ^ Lawsuit between the Riario, the Commune, and some citizens of Imola. Arckivio Sassatelli Imola. 220 THE HOUSE OF MEDICI the Vicar of Divine Justice, and Duke Valentino (Caesar Borgia), its minister." "... I am not minded for the present to give a wife to the Lord Octavian, my son, and when I am so minded I shall have to think of finding a person suitable for the main- tenance and prosperity of the house . . ." wrote Catherine, on January i8, to Duke Ludovic, who, "in reiterated letters," enjoined on her to give the daughter of the late Giovan Francesco Gonzaga to wife to her eldest son, adding that she united to other advantages that of being the grandchild of the King of Naples. Catherine thanked him for the honour- able alliance suggested by his paternal affection, but reminded him that to himself, to Gasparre Sanseverino (better known as Fracasso) and to twelve monks sent to her by the maiden's mother, she had always declared that she would have none of this marriage. She was convinced that the Duke's letters were dictated by the importunities of others. She had said : " now let him convey her decision to the family of the maid once and for all." In the following May the Bishop of Volterra arrived at Forli to offer Catherine, on behalf of Alexander VI., the greatest alliance that was then available in Italy. Would she accept his daughter, Lucretia Borgia, as a wife for her son Octavian ? . . . What was there that she might not ask of the Pope? Cities, provinces, other States: the Riario would once more command the treasures of the Church, as they did under Sixtus IV. This proposal was made at the time that the most horrible accusations were levelled at Lucretia and especially at the Pope. In 1493 Lucretia had wedded Giovanni Sforza, Lord of Pesaro. In 1497 the Pope wished to annul this marriage, but to this his daughter's husband would not consent. One evening Giacomino, page or servant to Giovanni Sforza, was in the room of Madonna Lucretia ; he heard the approaching steps of her brother Caesar, and Giacomino, at her bidding, hid himself behind a portiere. Caesar entered, and in the course of conversation told his sister that he had eiven orders to kill her husband. When GIOVANNI POPOLANO 221 Caesar left, Lucretia said to Giacomino, " Hast heard ? Go ! tell him." Giacomino obeyed, and Giovanni Sforza mounted his Arab, which in twenty-four hours flew to Pesaro, where, on arriving-, it fell dead. Thus Giovanni escaped the daggers and poison of his brother-in-law. In the following June, the body of the Duke of Gandia, elder brother of Caesar, was found in the Tiber, and every one credited Caesar with the assassination of his brother. In September Pope Alexander assembled a commission, which included two cardinals, to annul the marriage of Lucretia and Giovanni Sforza, and sentence to that effect was passed on December 20 amid the ridicule and scandal of all Italy. The Bishop of Volterra, who was now the Pope's envoy to Catherine, was intimate with Giovanni de' Medici, and through him the Borgia hoped to gain their ends. He told every one of the new, vast, and splendid States that were reserved for the Riario, but did not venture to speak of them directly to the Countess, who was too wise not to have seen through his design. She heard of them through persons in whom the Bishop had confided, in the hope of finding co-operators among courtiers sufficiently ambitious to persuade Catherine to fall in with his views. For the rest, he held that the consequences of her acceptance were self-evident : she and hers would once more be arbiters of Italian politics and masters of the treasures of the Church. The consequences of her refusal were the enmity of the Pope, the possible loss of her States, and the probable dagger and poison of the Borgia. Catherine's very soul revolted at the suggestion. " I under- stand," she wrote her trusty Christofero Ricerboli, " that their plan is to remove me from here. I have replied that as my son is about to travel to perfect himself in the art of war, I do not intend to entangle him in this labyrinth at the outset of his career, but intend him to be free to become a man. Nor do I believe that the afore-named lords, my uncles, would foist upon me the wife of another, who for three years had shared the bed of one of our House. This could not be unless I could believe ... in the shame and infamy of Their 222 THE HOUSE OF MEDICI Lordships, They know too well that all my past anguish and dangers merit other remuneration, and I am capable of enduring anything before I will submit to leave this, unless of my own will. " I am writing fully to the afore-named Lord Duke, my uncle, so that when he is applied to he will know how to answer. When I wish to give a wife to my son I shall not choose a person prejudicial to my needs and peace. . . . His Holiness will take offence at my refusal, but to that I give little thought, being careful We should not be wanting in the duty We owe to him of faithful vicars. . . ." Catherine had saved the State for her son, and had guarded it for him, but now Octavian was of an age to acquire experi- ence, and to make a reputation for himself. His mother realized that without this all her efforts and strategy would be vain ; she grieved that he should grow up fat and lymphatic, with the sluggish temperament of his father. She longed to emancipate him, and an occasion presented itself where least she had expected it. The Pisans, Avishing to retain the liberty granted them by Charles VHL, had obtained help from the Venetian Senate to resist the Florentines, who were attemptinsf to subjugate them anew. The Venetians intended to establish a protectorate over the Republic of Pisa, and thus obtain a port in the Mediterranean, and they also intended replacing Piero de' Medici, who for four years had lived in exile. War had raged for some time, when in 1498 the Florentines, who had hitherto been unfortunate, were signally defeated at Santo Regolo. Florence, in dismay, sought aid from the Baglioni of Perugia, the Vitelli of Citta di Castello, and the Bentivoglio of Bologna. Catherine, known to have long trafficked in arms and ammunition, to have levied and trained foot and horse, was requested to place her son Octavian, with a good company, in the service of the Republic. To this Catherine agreed without hesitation, happy to combine her son's interest with that of the husband to whom she could refuse nothing, while Giovanni Medici was glad to help his country and put an obstacle in the way of Piero, his cousin and rival. GIOVANNI POPOLANO 223 The diaries of Sanuto prove that no event in Italian poHtics was long unknown at Venice. When the Venetians learnt that the Countess was sending her son to the relief of their enemies, they tried to terrorize her. They strengthened their battalions at Ravenna, and spread the rumour that Antonio Ordelaffi, the most dangerous enemy of the Riario, would be sent against her and her future son-in-law, the young Lord of Faenza. " But little - heed pay I to this gossip," wrote Catherine, on June 6, to Ludovico il Moro. The Venetians had already sent Naldi and Ordelaffi to hinder the departure of Octavian. " But for all that," she wrote, " I do not desist from sending the Lord Octavian, my son, on his journey, both because I will not fail to my given word, and because I think but little of the coming of the man Antonio. ... I do not think myself so lightly bound to these States that I need consider it much. Would to God I had more hope in other places where they know the government to be weak and have, perchance, laid deeper plans. ... If without prejudice to her State she sent Octavian to learn soldiering with the Florentines, that was no reason why the Venetians should attack or insult her, and if even they so did, I have the spirit wherewith to defend myself." A few days later, she wrote that she had dispatched her son with her best soldiers to the service of the Signori of Florence. " I have provisioned the fortresses, and provided for the other needs of this State in such wise that at the first shot fired we can count not only upon the services of our own men, but on those of the Florentines who are on this side of the Alps." Stern guard was kept at Forli within, as without. A wretched citizen was suspected of abetting Antonio Ordelaffi ; he was promptly condemned to death by the Countess, and was soon afterwards seen hanging to the battlements. Catherine, sooner than break her word to the Florentines, had not hesitated to irritate the Venetians, but if she was daring, she was not foolhardy. Abandoned by Fracasso, her chief stay, without the help promised by Ludovic, alone and menaced on every side, she wrote her uncle : " War is not for women and children, like my sons." 224 THE HOUSE OE MEDICI Octavian, owing to his mother's passion for arms and military pomp, entered Florence with a suite which seemed worthy rather of a king than of a minor prince. He was received with great rejoicing in Florence, accompanied in state to San Giovanni, and twice reviewed his troops by request of the SigJioj'i, so great was their admiration of the pageant. Catherine continued from afar to direct these soldiers she had trained and exercised, and minutely regulated their administration. " Her Excellency Madonna desires that the lists be kept in the accustomed order, and that man and horse be catered for discreetly and moderately," runs a letter to Christofero Ricerboli, dated June 24. Catherine OCTAVIANO RIARIO. Medal coined by Nicolo Fioroitino. sent her husband and Giovanni Corradino, castellane of Forli, to join Octavian in camp at Pisa, on whom, despite his poor capacity, fortune smiled under the guidance of these experi- enced warriors. Catherine, in the delight brought her by tidings of her son's first victory, struck the equestrian medal which represents him equipped as a captain-general. But while Catherine triumphed as a sovereign and exulted as a mother, Giovanni Medici fell ill and returned to Forli. What would befall Octavian without him .-' One fear trod on the heels of another, and Catherine's short-lived happiness was drawing to its end. Her husband became rapidly worse, GIOVANNI POPOLANO 225 and was sent by his physicians to San Piero in Bagno. After writing his wife as to a commercial agreement with a certain Maestro Ambrosio of Milan, he continues, " Your Ladyship will send me one or two of my black barets (berets) to change when I perspire, and also two other double pinkish ones, large, hollow, and light, to wear the days I take my bath, and sufficient cloth of Lucca for two skull-caps; a little more of that wax for my head, and some of that hemp wadding to wear under the baret. ... I have already bathed two days in the women's bath, and, thank God, up to now everything agrees with me ; I hope to completely recover my wonted health. I commend myself to Your Ladyship with the Piovano (Fortunati), who to-day is better. . . . Written in my rooms at the Baths die 2 Sett., 1498." On the eleventh he wrote again, instructing his wife how to write to him, and begging her to be advised in all things by Simone Ridolfi, without mention of his health. Suddenly he grew worse. Catherine, summoned by a courier, hastened to his side and found him dying, but still conscious. In the night of September 14 he expired in her arms. Bernardi relates that his brother Lorenzino conveyed the body to Florence, and on the following, which was a Saturday, " his beautiful wife, our Madonna, returned home." The deepest mourning was observed in her household and court, to the wonder of many of her subjects, to whom the marriage had remained a secret. " To my mind," adds the historian, " the affairs of the great are difficult to fathom." Catherine's grief was profound. "The Florentines," says Machiavelli in the Fragments, "sent Andrea dei Pazzi to the Countess of Imola, partly to condole with her on the death of her husband, Giovanni dei Medici, partly to keep her well-disposed towards our republic. As they could not levy soldiers here, they sent her 5000 ducats to enable her to place 3000 foot in the company of Signor Fracassa, officer of the Duke of Milan, who was here at the time with a hundred men-at-arms and a hundred mounted archers." "Stunned by mortal grief," wrote Lorenzo Bossi (Fra 226 THE HOUSE OF MEDICI Lauro) to Duke Ludovic on September 17, " I entreat Your Excellency to send some one immediately to the Madonna of Forli, for she is in danger, without any one to sustain her . . . and I know what I say." He had heard from the Venetian orators that the Signory of Venice was determined to profit by the grief which had overwhelmed Catherine, to demand passage for the soldiers they were sending to Tuscany through her dominions. The Venetians had reinforced their garrison at Faenza to coerce her, and the advice of Bentivoglio was to yield to their numbers and accede to their demands. But the Venetian Proveditore asked in vain for the right of way from Faenza to Florence ; Catherine, once again a dauntless widow, decisively refused it to him. In August of the following year, when the designs of Alexander VI. on the whole of Romagna were no longer secret, the Medici asked Catherine to provide for the safety of their little cousin and nephew, Giovanni, by entrusting him to their guardianship. Catherine replied that there was nothing but her child that she could refuse to the House of Medici. The Medici contended that she was not justified in exposing an innocent child to the ruin which menaced her, and that if she insisted on keeping him with her she must find sureties for his safety. To this Catherine acceded, and on August 14 the Medici arrived at Castrocaro, where they were met by Catherine, accompanied by Octavian, Luffo Numai, the notary Aspini, and several nobles of Forli. Ser Giacomo Aldobrandini of Florence had already drawn up a deed which conferred the guardianship of the infant Giovanni and his property on Catherine, who in return gave them personal securities ; Octavian, in solidiun with Lufifo Numai, being sureties for 25,000 gold ducats. The Medici complained that the marriage of Catherine to Giov^anni Popolano was still kept secret, there being nought in this alliance but what was honourable to her and the House of Medici. They argued that secrecy was no longer of any use to Catherine's policy, while it was prejudicial to the interests of the infant Giov^anni. The Medici were becoming indignant at Catherine's hesitancy, when, moved by the thought of her child, she GIOVANNI POPOLANO 227 consented to deposit in the public archives a document by which she declared herself the widow of Giovanni de' Medici. As a memorial of their marriage she struck a medal on which her portrait was surrounded by the inscription Cathariiia Sfortia JMediccs. CHAPTER XXIV THE FLORENTINE ALLIANCE Catherine, who despite her anxiety did not recall Octavian from the camp at Pisa, occupied her early widow- hood in repairing the wall of Forli towards Ravenna — for which she lent the necessary funds to the commune — in drilling her soldiers and providing new arms and copious supply of ammunition. She levied 4000 troops for the Duke of Milan. The Venetians, who were being reinforced at Ravenna, threatened to deprive her of her State in favour of Antonio Ordelafifi and intimated to her to cease levying soldiers. Catherine, deaf to their threats, continued to levy soldiers for Milan and Tuscany. Her manner of raising a levy was singular. Two citizens were deputed to make a census of able-bodied men and notify them to present themselves at the fort Scarcely any one appeared. Catherine, infuriated, ordered her deputies to go, at the fifth hour of the night, to the houses of all those who had not appeared and to order them to present themselves at a stated hour at the fort, under penalty of the gallows. " Our Madonna caused six bombs to be fired," says Bernardi, " so that all our people might be informed." (October 4, 1498.) These rigorous measures had the effect of putting to flight the few who had already presented themselves — one alleged that his ignorance of warfare would make him an incumbrance to the army, another that he had a family and no mind to abandon it for the "fine eyes" and political intrigues of the 228 THE FLORENTINE ALLIANCE 229 Countess, yet another that it was a great mistake for Forli to pit herself against Venice, which fed her commerce. It was therefore very difficult to find recruits, but at last they were obtained from the neighbouring castles. Some Venetian troops having entered the territory of Forli, the Countess sent a protest to the Podesta of Ravenna, through her son Caesar. True, the Riario were in the pay of Florence, but this had nothing to say to the politics of either State. Had Venice demanded their services in time, they w^ould have given them on the same terms. The Podesta appeared convinced and replied courteously, yet the inroads were repeated. A sentinel was then posted on the tower of the commune who rang a bell at the approach of the enemy, its numbers being indicated by the strokes of the bell, w^hich hung there from 1498 to 1788, when on its removal, the following inscription was found on its inner rim, Sfortiades laetor Catharinae tempore facta Quae populum vigilem reddo, el arma voco. On the outer rim was : Opus Bernardini Gongonzolae MCCCCLXXXXVIII. with the arms of the commune on one side and those of Catherine on the other. On October 24, a priest whose curi- osity had led him to climb the tower of the Dome, perceived the enemy's troops, and tolled the bell. Armed citizens rushed to the Gate of Schiavonia, \vhere they found Catherine, vigilant and self-possessed, who posted them along the city wall. The Venetians, seeing them so well defended, turned back and were pursued but not overtaken by Fracassa. Catherine then granted a safe-conduct to all exiles — except those condemned for rebellion — with the restoration of their confiscated property. They returned in great numbers and the Christmas festivities were more than usually joyous. Unprotected against daily and increasing insults and menace ..." If I be more timorous than is needful," she wrote the Duke of Milan, " Your Excellency must ascribe it to my being a woman and therefore of a fearsome nature." Dangers, indeed, multiplied on every side. The numbers 230 THE HOUSE OF MEDICI of the Venetian troops had so augmented, that soon they would be all-powerful in Romagna. Not one horse had arrived of all those promised by Ludovic. " The not having sent two hundred men-at-arms in time, has caused us to lose Faenza," she wrote him ; " may tardy provision against so /Ji (a- in/UvTuTK /o jrx/^ ^ A/t>u*' ■ -r*^ »»»• Y»& tfttvtto HAine .- -mA. twuUa ■ fiAAxxfsnvt tJ. ^ ^k»M-W^ aL f ■ -C»«