Read about the other entries on the list.The Tigress of Forli: Renaissance Italy's Most Courageous and Notorious Countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de' Medici
by Elizabeth Lev
In this thrill-a-minute, jaw-dropping life of Caterina Sforza (1463 - 1509), female ruler of the province of Forlì, Elizabeth Lev puts us in the shoes of a Renaissance woman wielding never-before-seen power. During a period of fractious Italian politics, she managed to thrive, prosper, and succeed largely through force of will. Following Sforza from her youth in the Milanese court, through her marriage at the age of ten to the Pope's corrupt nephew, to her husband's assassination -- which forced Caterina to negotiate a deadly rivalry with the Borgias by herself -- Lev charts a bloody, survivalist career for her heroine that will both appall and inspire.
--Marshal Zeringue