Born: 1463, Italy
Died: 28 May 1509
Country most active: Italy
Also known as: NA
The following is excerpted from “Female Warriors: Memorials of Female Valour and Heroism, from the Mythological Ages to the Present Era,” by Ellen C. Clayton (Mrs. Needham), published in 1879 and shared online by Project Gutenberg.
Most of the great Sforza’s immediate descendants were more or less distinguished for military talents. Caterina, or Catherine, the natural daughter of Galeas Sforza, was remarkable for valour, military skill, and also for her personal beauty. She was the wife of Jerome Ricario, Prince of Forli; and some time after their marriage he was assassinated by Francis Del Orsa, who had revolted against him. Caterina and her children fell into the hands of the assassin, but she soon escaped to Rimini, which still remained faithful. She defended the town, in 1466, with such determination that the besiegers, to frighten her into a surrender, threatened to put her children to death.
Caterina was at last restored to sovereign power, and married John de’ Medici, a man of noble family, though not very distinguished for genius or bravery. In 1500 she defended Forli against the talented Cæsar Borgia; being compelled to surrender, she was imprisoned in the castle of San Angelo, at Rome. Soon, however, she was restored to liberty; but her dominions were never given back to her. She died shortly after her release.
The following is excerpted from A Cyclopædia of Female Biography, published 1857 by Groomsbridge and Sons and edited by Henry Gardiner Adams.
CATHARINE SFORZA, Natural daughter of Galeas Sforza, Duke of Milan, in 1466 acquired celebrity for her courage and presence of mind. She married Jerome Riario, Prince of Forli, who was some time after assassinated by Francis Del Orsa, who had revolted against him. Catharine, with her children, fell into the hands of Orsa, but contrived to escape to Rimini, which still continued faithful to her, and which she defended with such determined bravery against her enemies, who threatened to put her children to death if she did not surrender, that she was at length restored to sovereign power. She then married John de Medicis, a man of noble family, but not particularly distinguished for talents or courage. Catharine still had to sustain herself; and, in 1500, ably defended Forli against Cæsar Borgia, Duke Valentino, the illegitimate son of Pope Alexander the Sixth. Being obliged to surrender, she was confined in the castle of San Angelo, but soon set at liberty, though never restored to her dominions. She died soon after. She is praised by a French historian for her talents, courage, military powers, and her beauty.
The following is republished from the National Endowment for the Humanities. This piece falls under under public domain, as copyright does not apply to “any work of the U.S. Government” where “a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. Government as part of that person’s official duties” (See, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 105).
Caterina Sforza, the infamous fifteenth-century Italian regent of Forlì and Imola, was also an early scientist who experimented with chemistry and medicine. On the cover of Meredith K. Ray’s NEH-supported Daughters of Alchemy, a portrait of her, reproduced and seen above, shows her holding a bowl filled with jasmine, a botanical staple for curing common ills and making perfume since the Middle Ages.
Sforza is best known for her legendary response to an enemy’s threat to kill her hostage children, words that Machiavelli preserved for posterity. “Do it, if you want to: hang them even in front of me,” she declared, lifting her skirts, “here I have what’s needed to make others!”
However, Sforza did care enough to will her highly guarded book called Experimenti, in which she recorded a lifetime of study in alchemy, to her son, Giovanni dalle Bande Nere. He would become the father of Cosimo I de Medici, a grand duke from the family that made its name in banking and governed Florence for centuries. Caterina’s manuscript (there is only one copy now remaining in a private archive) contains a method for making false gold, among other chemical recipes, that was attributed to Cosimo the Elder, who had been a political ally of her grandfather.
Her Experimenti recorded 454 recipes, most for medicines, others for cosmetics or alchemical processes. Her son treasured the manuscript as much as she had. Giovanni wrote about it to a correspondent, “We find missing from the strongboxes in Rome a handwritten book of recipes for many and various things: we must find it, because one way or another, we want it.”
Sforza’s lifeblood for this work was her apothecary, Ludovico Albertini, to whom she owed 587 florins at the time of her death, in 1509. In later generations, she wouldn’t have had that kind of bill for ingredients. In 1545, her grandson Cosimo I, who built a foundry for experiments in Palazzo Vecchio, also established a botanical garden in Florence—the third oldest botanical garden in Italy—to grow plants and herbs for medicinal purposes.