6 - Making and Dispelling Fake History

Summary

Abstract: For over 500 years Genevra Sforza has been known in the historiographical tradition through a series of misogynistic stories that explain the ruin of the Bentivoglio and the downfall of Renaissance Bologna. Devised as part of a Roman damnatio memoriae campaign, legends have portrayed her as an evil genius who arranged killings, manipulated her husbands and sons and ruined the Bentivoglio. The circulation and credibility of such stories in the concordant historiography (that historians have been forced to rely on) shielded Genevra from investigation while facts about her were left unexplored in contemporary materials. Finally, the story of Genevra's ‘black legends’ is compared to those of other unaccepted women of power including Lucrezia Borgia, Caterina Sforza, Alfonsina Orsini, and Catherine de’ Medici.

Keywords: Genevra Sforza de’ Bentivoglio, Bologna history, Renaissance Italy, damnatio memoriae, historical social justice, Italian women's history

Introduction

So far this book has focused on contemporary facts uncovered in numerous archives, libraries and museums that have been woven together, set in context, and analysed in an attempt to create a vibrant and historically accurate biographical sketch of an early modern Italian woman, Genevra Sforza (ca. 1441–1507), who until now has never been studied in an academic fashion. Born to an unknown mother yet recognised as a child of Alessandro Sforza, Genevra was placed at a young age with no dowry but in a position of immense privilege in Bologna as consort to two successive Bentivoglio de facto signori. In a nutshell, Genevra dedicated her long life to the development of the Bentivoglio family into which she married, conducting herself as a courteous court-like woman who followed traditional societal and gendered norms practiced by ruling-class females across fifteenth-century Italy. Her prolific style of motherhood distinguished her—and her actions and reputation during her lifetime were linked to the promotion of her large family.

Despite such truths related to Genevra's long and traditional life, after her death she quickly became the subject of a steadily expanding ‘black legend’ developed first by anti-bentivoleschi and then by many subsequent non-contemporaries—and their stories about her have grown in diverse directions and have been recycled in many creative ways, repeating themselves and feeding off of one another in the historiography now for over 500 years.