A Virago of the Renaissance

Among the illustrious women of the Italian Renaissance, there is no more striking figure than that of Caterina Sforza, Lady of Forli and Imola. In her we see one of the most remarkable instances of that development of individual character which was so marked a feature of the revival, "a product," in Bishop Creighton’s words, "of the emancipation of ideas produced by the new learnings."

As Isabella d’Este and Elizabeth Gonzaga represent the refined culture and artistic feeling of the movement, as the deeper yearnings and religious aspirations of the age find a voice in Vittoria Colonna and Duchess Ren6e, so Caterina Sforza is the living type of that martial ardour and heroic spirit which was the theme of Ariosto and Tasso’s song. She is the true virago, the donna uomo in whose person the beauty and courage of Clorinda are combined. In the lips of Machiavelli or Marino Sanuto, the term, as Burckhardt points out, implied no reproach. It was, on the contrary, the spontaneous expression of the universal admiration aroused by a courage and energy seldom seen in any of her sex. Such a title might well be applied to the woman who, alone among Italian princes, dared resist the triumphant march of a Borgia, and who, deserted by friends and allies, held the citadel of Forli against the combined armies of the Pope and King of France, until the walls were literally battered to the ground. Thirty years ago, Adolphus Trollope introduced her to English readers in a lively chapter of his "Decade of Italian Women."

And now an accomplished Italian scholar, Count Pasolini, has given us a full and admirable biography of this famous Madonna of Forli. Himself a native of Romagna, the descendant of a noble mediaeval family, Count Pasolini has spared no pains to make his work as complete as possible. He hasransacked the public and private archives of Italian cities, and has discovered manuscriptsrelating to the Sforzas and Riarios in the Bibliotheque Nationale and in the British Museum. No less than five hundred letters from Caterina herself have thus been brought to light, besides a vast number of scarcely less valuable missives from foreign envoys at her court. Some idea of the magnitude of the task may be obtained from the author’s Appendix, a volume of eight hundred and fifty pages, containing a complete register of the unpublished documents of which he has availed himself in the course of his work.

Thus seen for the first time in the light of modern research, Caterina Sforza is a more interesting figure than ever before. The halo of legendary romance with which the admiration of her contemporaries invested her, made her appear in the character of an armed Amazon. flera e crudele, at once the wonder and terror of all Italy. But her latest biographer reveals a new and different aspect of her character. He lifts the veil and shows us Caterina as the true woman that she was, with the faults and weaknesses, the passions and virtues of her sex. No part of his carefully planned work is more interesting than the pages which he devotes to her private and domestic affairs, and brings her before us in the different relations of family life as daughter, wife, and mother. Many are the precious details he has to give concerning her tastes and habits, her love for dogs and horses, the delight she took in building splendid palaces, and laying out parks and gardens, her interest in alchemy and medicine. A true child of her age, Caterina’s character presents a curious mixture of manly courage and capacity, womanly superstition on the one hand and of vanity on the other.

Though she rode out in all weathers and appeared habitually in public wearing a man’s belt and dagger at her side, she took the greatest care of her complexion, which was remarkable

*"Caterina Sfurza." By Count Pier Desiderio Pasolini. Roma: Ermanno Loescher & Cot, 1893.