Caterina Sforza Quotes

Fortune helps the intrepid and abandons the cowards. I am the daughter of a man who did not know of fear. Whatever may come, I am resolved to follow that course until death.

In the Renaissance world of arranged marriages, there were no romantic proposals on bended knee—only notaries and contracts.

Stung by his misreading of the situation, he showed his shock and hurt through both his words and gestures, betraying his inexperience. Only later would Machiavelli learn to conceal his true thoughts behind a mask of wit and irony.

Michelangelo’s David had just been hauled into place in front of the Palazzo dei Priori in the center of town, where Caterina would have seen it as she marched to face her opponents in the legal arena.

They say the bottles lined up along her shelves contain aphrodisiacs, poisons and perfumes, but that only she knows which ones are safe and which lethal, for they carry no labels, and that when she starts to prepare death for someone, the man or woman for whom it is intended feels a terrible shiver run through them, as if they have already been touched by the clammy cold of the grave. Or so they say. They say a great many things about Caterina Sforza. But though there is

Vor uns erhoben sich die Mauern und Türme der Stadt, die mein Schicksal werden würde. Der Stadt, deren Name bis heute mit dem meinen eng verbunden ist: Forlì.

As the Venetian humanist Francesco Barbara noted in his early fifteenth-century treatise On Wifely Duties, "We ought to follow the custom that our wives adorn themselves with gold, jewels, and pearls, if we can afford it.