![]() ![]() Given an excellent education, she was also trained as a warrior, joining the boys when they rode off to hunt. ![]() ![]() She was a controversial figure: celebrated and admired, but also reviled and feared.īorn in 1463, Caterina was the illegitimate child of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, heir to the duchy of Milan, but she lived in unparalleled luxury, swathed in pearl-embroidered silks. Even as her own people turned on her and both papal and ducal hallways echoed with plots against her, she managed to raise a brood of healthy (if bratty) children and fend off her enemies’ intrigue. But there’s much to admire, in our postfeminist times, about the subject of Elizabeth Lev’s meticulous biography, “The Tigress of Forlì.” Caterina was bold, brave and big-hearted she was adroit in diplomacy and dynamic on the battlefield. ![]() O.K., perhaps disemboweling one’s enemies isn’t quite the modern method of anger management. Attention, sisters! Tired of office politics? Sick of petty intrigue, backstabbing and gossip-filled boardrooms? Disheartened by the bombastic spectacle of national political campaigns? Confused about how women are supposed to have it all - motherhood, military might, the presidency - and wondering why you would even want to? Meet the Renaissance countess Caterina Riario Sforza de’ Medici. ![]()
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