Caterina Sforza: Survivor, Executioner, Fighter

Bride at 10, widow at 25, general, tyrant, cosmetologist, mother, countess, botanist, and war leader, Countess Caterina Sforza di Riario led the most interesting life of any woman of the Italian Renaissance. Trained to fight by a powerful Milanese warlord, she learned that a Renaissance woman’s duty is to support her husband – whether in the home, or by providing medicines to peasants during the plague, or galloping on horseback to take command of a castle. She aimed cannons from the battlements of Rome and cowed cardinals into recognizing her husband’s legal rights. She survived assassination plots, executed traitors, and fought papal armies led by the Borgia pope’s son, Cesare. Mingling with da Vinci and Botticelli, out-negotiating Machiavelli, Caterina defined the woman warrior leader of 15th century Italy. Actor Nathalie Emmanuel joins father-daughter history team Jon & Emily Jordan to tell the story of Caterina Sforza. Find us on social: @warqueenspodcast Learn more about War Queens: diversionaudio.com/podcast/war-queens Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Om Podcasten

Game of Thrones and Fast & Furious actor Nathalie Emmanuel presents: Every week father-daughter team Jon and Emily Jordan examine the incredible stories of history’s most powerful female battle leaders, the brilliant methods and maneuvers history’s "killer queens” used to defend themselves and their people from enemy forces—and both father and daughter find out something about each other and how each generation appreciates these incredible women. From ancient Persia to modern-day Britain, experience the daunting thresholds these exceptional women had to cross and the clever, sometimes violent ways in which they smashed obstacles in their paths. History’s killer queens come in all colors, ages, and leadership styles, and from countries and cultures around the world. Elizabeth Tudor and Golda Meir played the roles of high-stakes gamblers who studied maps with an unblinking, calculating eye. Angola’s Queen Njinga was willing to shed (and occasionally drink) blood to establish a stable kingdom in an Africa ravaged by the slave trade. Caterina Sforza defended her Italian holdings with cannon and scimitar, and Indira Gandhi launched a war to solve a refugee crisis.