The Tigress of Forli: Renaissance Italy’s Most Courageous and Notorious Countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de ‘Medici. Elizabeth Levi. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012.

Not until the end of the 19^th and early 20^th century were women considered anything other than property to bought and sold.  So it was that Caterina, the illegitimate child of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, was sold at age ten to her first husband, a debauched 30-year-old nephew of the Pope, who demanded consummation of the marriage immediately before he left for Rome, leaving this bride still in the care of her father.

At age 13, Caterina travelled to Rome to live with her husband in the Papal Palace.  She soon realized that there was no substance to her husband although he managed to get her pregnant five times in nine years.

After the assassination of her husband, Caterina began to goven her husban’s lands in Forili and keeping would be kidnappers at bay.  It was at this time that she fell in love with Giacomo Feo, a glorified stable boy whom she knighted and married.  When he was murdered, Caterina “went ballistic” killing at least thirty-eight people and torturing, exiling, or imprisoning many others.  Soon afterwards, she married for the third time a Medici, Giovanni di Pierfrancesco.  After his death, her fortress was attached by Venice.  As she had been trained to fight as a young girl, it was not an unusual thing to see her in armor welding a sword against her foes.  Defeated by Cesare Borgia, she was imprisoned until she won her freedom.  She died soon afterwards at the age of forty-six.

As a student of powerful women in history, Caterina shines among those who was true to herself, even though she lost all of her power and possessions. 

Reviewer: Dorothy Pittman