The Tigress of Forli by Elizabeth Lev Read Free Book Online

concluded and the festivities over, Pietro Riario left Milan, only to die three short months later at the age of twenty-seven. Contemporary chronicles relate that the "whole world wept" at the passing of this worldly and luxury-loving cardinal, and that the pope especially was heartbroken. Girolamo wasted no time laying claim to his brother's vast fortune as well as his high position at the papal court. Meanwhile, Caterina, the eleven-year-old countess of Imola, waited quietly in Milan for word from her husband.

3. THE COUNTESS-IN-WAITING
    W ITH THE LEGALITIES of the marriage settled and familial alliances consolidated, the oddly matched couple parted company for three years. Caterina was left to her father's care in Milan, to continue her studies until she turned fourteen, when she would join her husband in Rome. Girolamo, for his part, was not pining for his child bride. Not one letter was exchanged between the spouses between the hasty ceremony of winter 1473 and Caterina's departure for Rome in 1476. Girolamo, in fact, was consoling himself with several mistresses during those years and had produced an illegitimate son, Scipione.
    Caterina, meanwhile, was pursuing more innocent pastimes, alternating between schoolroom lessons and long hunting expeditions. She learned to play
palla,
a precursor to tennis, which had become the rage among the Milanese aristocracy. The duke was so enamored of the game that he outfitted his castle in Milan with its own indoor
palla
court, where the family could play, rain or shine. Caterina competed with her siblings, hitting the ball back and forth with her round racquet. The Sforza family practiced and promoted the sport to encourage good coordination, agility, and use of strategy. As months turned to years, Caterina grew from a pretty little girl into a slim, refined young woman, favored with fair hair, graceful limbs, and elegant features.
    Girolamo, meanwhile, was consolidating his authority in Rome, playing old family rivalries against each other. He gathered titles from his papal uncle but demonstrated little sense of the customary reciprocal relations of protection and loyalty between ruler and ruled. When he was named count of Imola, Girolamo didn't even bother to visit his latest acquisition—the possession ceremony took place by proxy. The sharp tongues of the rebellious Trastevere area of Rome began to call him the "Archpope," a sign that dislike for the arrogant upstart was growing every day.
    While Caterina's husband was making enemies in Rome, her father, Galeazzo, was alienating some of his own long-standing allies. The duke of Milan had thrown his military support behind the duke of Bourgogne, known as Charles the Bold, the mortal enemy of King Louis XI of France. This rash decision to turn against King Louis, his own cousin and brother-in-law, soon proved a mistake and Galeazzo swiftly returned his allegiance to France. At the same time, the marriage of Alfonso of Aragon, duke of Calabria, to Galeazzo's sister Ippolita Sforza had sealed an alliance between Milan and King Ferdinand of Naples, the father of the groom. Yet when Ferdinand confidently called on the duke to aid him in claiming the island of Cyprus for his son, he discovered, to his surprise, that the duke intended to support his rival, Venice. Galeazzo's decision was practical—he did not want to risk hostilities with the maritime republic that bordered his state—but the Neapolitan king, already furious with Galeazzo for pilfering his best singers, caustically rebuked his former ally. To be a good ruler, he warned, "it's not enough to declare 'I'm the duke of Milan, young, prosperous, rich, with a thriving state and strong soldiers.' The reputation and the dignity of a lord rest on his good government." 1 The duke shrugged off this wise counsel.
    On the domestic front, the duke's ardor for civic improvement in Milan was cooling. The program of frescoes for the Porta Giovia castle was abandoned, the