Abstract: Contemporary documentation uncovered in numerous archives, libraries and museums testifies that Genevra Sforza (ca. 1441–1507) lived her life and fashioned her public identity as a traditional Italian courtly figure strongly supporting the Bentivoglio cause in Bologna. Duke Francesco Sforza placed her there as wife of two consecutive de facto signori, Sante then Giovanni II; and as Bentivoglio consort, Genevra lived at the apex of society, contributing to her family and city in positive and traditional ways. Facts about Genevra uncovered in a wide variety of contemporary sources concur that she acted appropriately for her gender, social condition and era, and that she was liked by contemporaries—in contrast to legends repeated about her in Bolognese historiography for 500 years.

Keywords: Genevra Sforza de’ Bentivoglio, women's biography, Bologna history, early modern biography, fifteenth-century Italy, Renaissance Italy

Introduction

The Bentivoglio dominated Bologna on many levels, and the Bolognese saw them involved in all sorts of projects and events. Due to their mere de facto status, the Bentivoglio made an extra effort to be noticed in order to gain fame, power and security. As the faces of the Sedici, Sante and Giovanni II carefully calculated their behaviours, and their names and actions fill the pages of the city's chronicles as they struggled to balance theoretical political subordination to the pope with the enjoyment of significant civic power and independence. For decades they walked a fine line amidst other family heads vying for power and sometimes invidiously operating in their shadows. Giovanni II worked especially hard to propagandise his position as the wealthiest and most powerful man in Bologna, always hoping to move beyond de facto status. Consequently, chroniclers witnessed his deeds and wrote about him more often than any other man in town. The woman most often mentioned within the body of Bolognese chronicle literature was also a Bentivoglio: Genevra Sforza.

What was important to most chroniclers boiled down to public, political events: marriage alliance information and related festivities for leading families, military feats, arrivals and departures of ambassadors, deaths of members of the Anziani, and information that reached Bologna from afar about popes, cardinals and various rulers. Voices spoke in awe of the great order of certain events, and most showed an intense interest in quantitative detail.