Caterina Sforza: Survivor, Executioner, Fighter

Bride at 10, widow at 25, general, tyrant, cosmetologist, mother, countess, botanist, and war leader, Countess Caterina Sforza di Riario led the most interesting life of any woman of the Italian Renaissance. Trained to fight by a powerful Milanese warlord, she learned that a Renaissance woman’s duty is to support her husband – whether in the home, or by providing medicines to peasants during the plague, or galloping on horseback to take command of a castle. She aimed cannons from the battlements of Rome and cowed cardinals into recognizing her husband’s legal rights. She survived assassination plots, executed traitors, and fought papal armies led by the Borgia pope’s son, Cesare. Mingling with da Vinci and Botticelli, out-negotiating Machiavelli, Caterina defined the woman warrior leader of 15th century Italy.

Actor Nathalie Emmanuel joins father-daughter history team Jon & Emily Jordan to tell the story of Caterina Sforza.

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