The Tigress of Forli (14 page)

Sadly, Caterina saw little improvement in her husband's behavior. While Roberto Malatesta led his troops in the battle, fearlessly throwing himself into the fray, Girolamo stayed at his camp to "guard the tents." Although he tried to take credit for the victory, too many people knew of his cowardice; therefore Pope Sixtus ceded the honors of war to Malatesta. Like the great generals of antiquity, Roberto triumphantly entered Rome on the same road Scipio Africanus had taken after conquering Hannibal. One cardinal walked before the victor, holding the bridle of his warhorse, while the rest of the College of Cardinals marched behind him in a scarlet train. The streets of the city resounded with the cries of Romans hailing their liberator. The pope came out on the steps of Saint Peter's to meet Malatesta and personally accompanied him into the basilica for a Mass of thanksgiving.

With Girolamo exposed as a coward, Caterina, humiliated, retired in disappointment. Instead of seeing her consort parading through the streets like a caesar of old, she now saw him relegated to the retinue. And the worst was yet to come. Nine days after the battle, Roberto Malatesta, hero of Campo Morto, died of dysentery. The pope himself came rushing to administer last rites to the dying man and ultimately erected a monument to him in Saint Peter's. Most people thought that Roberto had contracted the illness on the battleground, but malignant voices insisted it was poison, administered by the envious Girolamo. Theories of foul play gained credence when Girolamo galloped to Rimini in a vain and shameful attempt to usurp the dead warrior's state from his infant son. Florence moved quickly to block this attempt, and the thwarted count returned empty-handed yet again. In fact the pope himself, knowing nothing of Girolamo's plans, had already confirmed the rights of Malatesta's son Pandolfo the day after the warrior's death.

The Battle of Campo Morto temporarily dulled the appetite for conflict among the states of Italy. By November, Milan, Florence, Ferrara, Naples, and the Papal States had agreed to an armistice, and on December 13, 1482, the return to tranquility was celebrated in the pope's new church, Santa Maria della Pace—Saint Mary of Peace—built to commemorate the end of this war.

By Christmas 1482, Caterina realized that despite her husband's high position and ornately trimmed garments, nothing of substance existed within.

I
N
1484,
THE ROMAN CHRONICLER
Stefano Infessura recorded that a local painter was arrested for a peculiar offense. While living on retainer in the Orsini stronghold in Montegiordano, the artist had executed a large mural portraying the military exploits of Count Girolamo and the papal armies. Brightly colored camps and vivid depictions of combat made the work a visual treat. The pope, however, took such umbrage at the painting that he ordered the young man to be apprehended and executed. Some observers maintained that the pontiff was offended by the fact that the papal armies appeared ineffectual in the clashes. Others more maliciously suggested that the papal ire had been provoked by what was going on inside the commander's tent: a woman was being amorously embraced by a man who wore the tonsure and brown robe of a Franciscan friar.
¹
Ultimately, the offending artist was freed after ten strokes of the
corda
because, as everyone knew, "he was a little crazy."

Infessura slipped this little anecdote into his diaries to foment damaging gossip about the family he hated most in Rome, the Riarios. Pope Sixtus was of the Franciscan order, and Caterina was the wife of the commander of the papal armies; some would interpret the suggestive little vignette as alluding to an affair between the pope and his nephew's wife. Many contemporaries noted that the elderly pope enjoyed the young woman's company, and small wonder, for she was the most accomplished and interesting of all his nieces-in-law. Stories of the special favor that Caterina had won at the papal court even reached the ears of people who never came to Rome, one of whom noted that the most powerful princes of Europe soon learned to voice their requests through the young girl sitting by the pope's feet, for "he could deny her nothing."
²
While no evidence whatsoever suggests that an affair ever transpired between nineteen-year-old Caterina and her sixty-eight-year-old uncle-in-law, the idea of the austere Franciscan friar seduced by his nephew's youthful bride was bandied about in the kind of titillating whispers that still feed gossip columns today.

The storyteller Infessura, however, had much more than amusement in mind. A staunch promoter of a republic in Rome, he despised the papacy. By hinting at and later openly making accusations of sexual misbehavior, he was making use of an ancient theme familiar to all Romans: the kidnapping of the ruler Menelaus's wife, Helen, started the Trojan War; the rape of the Roman matron Lucretia spelled doom for the Etruscan kings; and the host of Christian virgins who chose death over dishonor played a part in the downfall of the Roman Empire. Sexual scandal could topple kingdoms and almost invariably left an indelible mark. That Sixtus would come in for more than his fair share of salacious rumors was part of what it meant to sit on a throne. It didn't help that he came from an unknown family, and was scorned for it. Born Francesco della Rovere in 1414, Sixtus IV was a rarity in the Renaissance papacy: a self-made man. Malicious courtiers and political enemies would maintain that he was the son of a Ligurian fisherman. In fact he was born of a fairly well-to-do merchant family in Savona, a town on the border of the Republic of Genoa and the Duchy of Milan. The second of seven children, Francesco was destined for the church from birth, and from the moment he joined the Franciscan order in 1428, he flourished in his vocation. By the age of twenty-five, he had already acquired a reputation as a passionate and persuasive speaker. Five years later, he earned his doctorate at the prestigious University of Padua. His debating skills and excellence in teaching soon brought him to the attention of the erudite Cardinal Giovanni Bessarion, a dynamic Greek prelate who served as the right-hand man of Pope Paul II. Bessarion transferred the brilliant young Franciscan to the archbishopric of Perugia, where he served as the cardinal's personal confessor.

At the age of fifty, Francesco was made superior general of the Franciscan order. In 1467, again through the offices of Cardinal Bessarion, Pope Paul II appointed him a cardinal. Unlike many scions of noble families or wealthy merchants, Francesco did not win his red hat in exchange for cash or lands; he earned it through his abilities as a theologian and administrator. Four years after he moved to Rome, Francesco della Rovere was elected pope in 1471 and took the name Sixtus IV. Vatican pundits were amazed that an unknown Franciscan from Liguria could have risen above the numerous cardinals attached by birth and rank to the Italian nobility or those who had years of curial service under their scarlet sashes. Envious conjecture attributed his success to bribery or bizarre sexual favors—anything but merit. But Sixtus, a frugal man of austere personal habits, was guilty of neither. Many cardinal-electors seemed impressed by his abilities. Among Sixtus's strongest and most influential supporters was Caterina's father, Galeazzo Maria Sforza, the duke of Milan. In a certain sense Caterina's destiny was decided on August 9, 1471, the day of the papal coronation.

The new pope chose his name in honor of an illustrious predecessor, Saint Sixtus III, the fifth-century pope and theologian who had triumphed over the Nestorian heresy at the Council of Ephesus. Sixtus III was also a builder who constructed Rome's most elegant basilica, Saint Mary Major, and an able administrator who labored to reunite a church torn apart by heresies.

Having lived in Rome for only four years before his election, Sixtus IV found himself at a grave disadvantage. He was unacquainted with most of the ecclesiastics in Rome and knew little of the political alliances that linked local clans. To remedy this, Sixtus brought down members of his own family from Savona and raised them to high political and curial offices. Of the thirty-four clerics whom he elevated as cardinals during his reign, six were his own nephews. The important positions of governor of Rome and captain of the papal armies, moreover, were given to other family members. Most of his cardinal nephews revealed themselves to be profligate spenders, however, scandalizing Rome with lavish banquets and retinues. Pietro Riario spent 300,000 ducats in two years as cardinal—more than the amount budgeted by Sixtus for the war against the Turks! Others, like Girolamo, not only spent extravagantly but also used papal protection to bully and extort the Romans. Only Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere appeared worthy of his newfound eminence, serving his uncle as legate to Avignon and attempting to dissuade Girolamo from his plots to assassinate Lorenzo de' Medici.

Unlike most of the pope's relatives, Girolamo's young and beautiful wife lived up to expectations. Well educated, Caterina could appreciate the efforts the pope put into creating the Vatican library. After nine years of Sixtus's pontificate, the collection boasted thirty-five hundred volumes, triple the size of even the celebrated Medici library.
³
Caterina read voraciously and was particularly interested in historical and devotional literature. Stories of heroes strengthened her will, while stories of saints sustained her spirit. She managed to find time for reading among her duties to her family and the court, where her principal job was to intercede with one relative or another as requested by various parties. Her intervention saved several Milanese men from capital punishment in Rome and gained important positions for Romans in Milan. On one occasion she was even able to overturn Count Girolamo's decision to hang a member of the Manfredi clan.
⁴
Numerous letters from this period testify to the influence of the busy countess.

During most of her years in Rome, Caterina was either pregnant or recovering from childbirth. These confinements often kept her from her beloved outdoor pastimes. Particularly from 1479 to 1481, when she had three children in two years, she spent hours in the papal palace. During this period, Sixtus was working on his most ambitious decorative projects. The Sistine Chapel had just been completed, and within the forbidding fortresslike brick walls Sixtus envisioned a cycle of the most beautiful murals in the world.

Fulfillment of that dream came from a surprising quarter. In 1481, despite Girolamo's botched assassination attempt and Sixtus's warmongering, Lorenzo de' Medici offered a remarkable olive branch to his old nemesis: the finest painters from his own circle to decorate the pope's chapel. Rome was abuzz with exhilaration awaiting the arrival of the dream team of Florentine art. The elite group included Sandro Botticelli, painter of the celebrated
Birth of Venus;
Domenico Ghirlandaio, who would soon receive the young Michelangelo as an apprentice; and Pietro Perugino, the creator of solemn and dignified altarpieces throughout central Italy, and destined to tutor to greatness the as yet unborn Raphael. The great masters prepared their drawings and set about creating frescoes in the chapel.

The Florentine painters began with three panels around the altar in 1481. By the time the cycle was complete in late 1482, it included fourteen scenes drawn from the Old Testament, known collectively as
The Stories of Moses,
which were paralleled by the New Testament series,
The Life of Christ;
they would delight the papal court as well as future generations. Above these panels, the same artists depicted the first thirty-two Roman pontiffs, the sainted predecessors of Sixtus IV. The vault boasted golden stars against a lapis sky; twenty-eight years later, Michelangelo would transform it into
The Stories of Genesis.
The lowest level of the chapel was painted to resemble tapestries interwoven with the coat of arms of the della Rovere family: an oak tree and acorns. The sumptuous gilding around the rich crimson and cornflower hues echoed the magnificent liturgical vestments of the court. Other panels celebrated the achievements of Sixtus IV.

As the artists worked, this solemn liturgical space was transformed into the hottest social scene in Rome. Courtiers vied to be immortalized in one of the frescoes. From crowned heads to the endless series of Riario relatives, notables flowed through the papal chapel, eager to be included, and many were. Numerous sovereigns grace the walls of the chapel. King Ferdinand of Naples (an ally at the moment) and the papal
condottiere
Federico di Montefeltro have pride of place in
Christ Delivers the Keys to Saint Peter,
while Charlotte, queen of Cyprus, whose island state had been taken by the Turkish fleet and who was living in exile in Rome, listens to Christ in
The Sermon on the Mount.
Members of the Italian intelligentsia are also showcased, from the papal secretary Andrea de Trebizond to Francesco Filefo, the former tutor of Caterina and her brothers. Even the canines of the court found a place in these splendid masterworks. One courtier managed to get his lapdog depicted in
The Last Supper.
The little terrier frolicking on its hind legs in Cosimo Rosselli's panel was the beloved pet of one of Sixtus's nobles.

Few visitors to the chapel would have overlooked the Turkish costume worn by the pharaoh in
The Crossing of the Red Sea,
placed to the left of the papal throne. Terror of the Ottoman Turks and their invincible fleet had salved political rifts throughout Europe. Since the rise of Mehmed II and his expansionist policies in the mid-fifteenth century, the Turks had snatched the Holy Land, Cyprus, and, most fatefully, Constantinople from the Christians. In this dramatic image, the waters of the Red Sea engulf soldiers in Turkish attire, while men in armor stand around Moses, representing the knights who fought to defend Otranto in the terrible battle that cost twelve thousand lives. Sixtus also paid homage to the man who had helped put him on the throne of Saint Peter; he had a posthumous portrait of Cardinal Bessarion added to the picture. The snowy-bearded prelate carries a reliquary in memory of his own triumphal arrival in 1462 bearing the relic of Saint Andrew's head to Rome.