5 - The Wheel of Fortune

Summary

Abstract: Recruited by Pope Julius II due to his close and conflicting interests with the Bentivoglio, Marchese Francesco Gonzaga led a military expedition to regain Bologna. As a result, Genevra Sforza was forced into exile against custom and tradition with the downfall of the Bentivoglio (November 1506). Although Gonzaga led papal troops against the Bentivoglio, he and his wife, Isabella d’Este, hosted and covered for many Bentivoglio, including Genevra. In Mantua Genevra awaited direction from others while Julius II hounded her, forcing her out; she soon after died at the Pallavicino court in Busseto (May 1507). While elderly, sick with a fever and bleeding from a tumour, Genevra did not raise an army or encourage her sons to retake Bologna—as legends insist.

Keywords: Genevra Sforza de’ Bentivoglio, Bologna history, Gonzaga, Italian court culture, Italian family history, sixteenth-century Italy

Introduction

After examining many facets of Genevra Sforza in the previous four chapters, we will now turn to events that took place at the time of the fall of the Bentivoglio in Bologna and the last months of her life (November 1506–May 1507). Based on contemporary archival evidence, during those tumultuous times, we see how Genevra lived as a hostage to fortuna—in Bologna while the Bentivoglio awaited the arrival of Pope Julius II, in Mantua where she remained quietly for five months through grave illness and with papal interdicts aimed at her, and in Busseto for a few weeks at the Pallavicino court while fighting a fever on what would become her deathbed. As an elderly woman, and from those various locations, Genevra did not make plans for herself or her family. Not one letter written by her survives in any of the 1506–1507 archival deposits examined over the course of research undertaken for this book. What we can learn about the last months of Genevra's life comes from the people who lived around her and from what they chose to communicate about her as she was moved around and directed by others in sickness and old age. And the concept of fortuna (‘fortune’ or ‘luck’, and later understood to mean mostly ‘misfortune’ within this story), permeates the discussions and the correspondence regarding this final chapter of Genevra's life and the fall of the Bentivoglio.