SFORZA, COUNT CARLO (1872— ), Italian states man, knight of the Annunziata, was born at Lucca. He entered the diplomatic service, was secretary of embassy in London, then minister at Peking (1911), at Belgrade (1916), Italian high com missioner in Turkey (1918), and under secretary for foreign affairs (1919). In that year he was created senator. He became minister of foreign affairs in the Giolitti cabinet of June 16, 1920, was present at Spa (July, 192o), and negotiated the treaty of Rapallo between Italy and Yugoslavia (Nov. 12, 192o). He re mained foreign minister until the formation of the Giolitti cabi net on July 4, 1921, and in February, 1922 was appointed am bassador in Paris. On Mussolini's accession to power he resigned, and became one of the chief leaders of the anti-Fascist opposition in the senate. He is a member of the Order of the Annunziata. SFORZA, countess of Forll, was an illegitimate daughter of Galeazzo Maria Sforza. (See above.) In 1473 she was betrothed to Girolamo Riario, a son of Pope Sixtus IV., who was thus able to regain possession of Imola, that city being made a fief of the Riario family. After a triumphal entry into Imola in 1477 Caterina Sforza went to Rome with her husband, who, with the help of the pope, wrested the lordship of Forli from the Ordelaffi. Riario, by means of many crimes, for which his wife seems to have blamed him, succeeded in accumu lating great wealth, and on the death of Sixtus in August 1484, he sent Caterina to Rome to occupy the castle of St. Angelo, which she defended gallantly until, on Oct. 25, she surrendered it by his order to the Sacred College. They then returned to their fiefs of Imola and Forli, where they tried in vain to win the favour of the people. Riario's enemies conspired against him with a view to making Franceschetto Cybo, nephew of Pope Innocent VIII., lord of Imola and Forli in his stead. Riario thereupon instituted a system of persecution, in which Caterina was implicated, against all whom he suspected of treachery. In 1488 he was murdered by three conspirators, his palace was sacked, and his wife and children were taken prisoners. The castle of Forli, however, held out in Caterina's interest, and every in ducement and threat to make her order its surrender proved useless; having managed to escape from her captors she penetrated into the castle, whence she threatened to bombard the city, refus ing to come to terms even when the besiegers threatened to murder her children. With the assistance of Ludovico it Moro
she regained possession of all her dominions; she wreaked ven geance on those who had opposed her and re-established her power. She had several lovers, and by one of them, Giacomo Feo, whom she afterwards married, she had a son. Feo, who made himself hated for his cruelty and insolence, was murdered before the eyes of his wife in August 1495 ; Caterina had all the con spirators and their families, including the women and children, massacred. She established friendly relations with the new pope, Alexander VI., and with the Florentines, whose ambassador, Gio vanni de' Medici, she secretly married in 1496. Giovanni died in 1498, but Caterina managed with the aid of Ludovico it Moro and of the Florentines to save her dominions from the attacks of the Venetians.
Alexander VI., however, angered at her refusal to agree to a union between his daughter Lucrezia Borgia and her son Otta viano, and coveting her territories as well as the rest of Romagna for his son Cesare, issued a bull on March 9, declaring that the house of Riario had forfeited the lordship of Imola and Forli and conferring those fiefs on Cesare Borgia. Cesare attacked her with his whole army, reinforced by 14,000 French troops and by Louis XII. Caterina placed her children in safety and took strenu ous measures for defence. The castle of Imola surrendered (De cember 1499) with the honours of war. Caterina absolved the citizens of Forli from their oath of fealty, and defended herself in the citadel. Finally when the situation had become untenable and having in vain given orders for the magazine to be blown up, she surrendered to Antoine Bissey, bailli of Dijon, entrusting her self to the honour of France (January 12, 1500). She was after wards taken to Rome and held a prisoner for a year in the castle of St. Angelo, whence she was liberated by the same bailli of Dijon to whom she had surrendered at Forli. She took refuge in Florence until the death of Alexander VI. in 1503, when she attempted without success to regain possession of her dominions. She died in the convent of Annalena on May 20, 1509.
See Buriel, Vita di Caterina Sforza-Riario (Bologna, 1785) ; F. Oliva, Vita di C. Sforza, signora di Fora (Forli, 1821) ; Pietro Desiderio Pesolini Dall' Onda, Caterina Sforza (Rome, 1893) ; English translation by P. Sylvester (1898).