Riario family

In one of the rags-to-riches stories of the Renaissance the Riario became signori of Imola and Forli solely as a consequence of papal nepotism and the marriage of Paolo Riario of Savona to Bianca, sister of Sixtus IV. Sixtus was particularly fond of her two sons Pietro and Girolamo. Pietro (1445-74) followed his uncle into the Franciscan order and was created cardinal. He accumulated benefices on a scale remarkable even for a papal nephew, and lived a luxurious and immoral life. He was, however, a generous patron of the arts and scholarship.

After Pietro's death, Girolamo became the Pope's closest adviser and was the prime mover of the Pazzi conspiracy. In order to provide for Girolamo, Sixtus repurchased Imola from Giangaleazzo Maria Sforza of Milan in 1473, and married Girolamo to the Duke's illegitimate daughter Caterina. In 1480 the couple were also invested with Forli. The rule of Riario cannot be accounted a success, and he proved incapable of coping either with the hostility of his own leading citizens or with the enmity of Lorenzo de' Medici. It was probably with the knowledge, if not the complicity, of Lorenzo that Girolamo was assassinated on 14 April 1488. Caterina did not panic during this crisis. She seized the fortress of Forli, recovered the city, and governed it and Imola on behalf of her son, Ottaviano, until they were captured by Cesare Borgia in 1499-1500.

The third of Sixtus IV's nephews, Raffaello (1461-1521), was the son of Valentina Riario and Antonio Sansoni. He also was a notorious pluralist, and was created cardinal in 1477. In 1478 he nearly perished in the reaction against the Pazzi conspirators in Florence. In 1517 he was implicated in the Petrucci conspiracy against Leo X, but was pardoned after paying a heavy indemnity. The Riario family subsequently became one of the leading families of Bologna.

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