The Ghost Of Girolamo Riario. Ivo Ragazzini
that. The Pope, Riario and his followers organized it in Rome during a mass in the cathedral of Florence”, replied the witness. Then he added:
“The impact, the outrage and resentment at what a Pope and his nephew had organized in a church during a public mass, was enormous even at the time. And the reaction and revenge of the Florentines and Lorenzo de' Medici was equally proportionate to what had happened, so much that he set up a company of assassins or ‘ucciditori’19 with the aim of making a list of the people involved to take revenge on the conspirators who had taken part in that assassination”.
“And what about Riario?” asked the researcher.
“Riario was at the top of that list of murderers”.
“And what was the difference between a company of assassins and a company of ‘ucciditori’?”
“Not to much. At the time, assassins were considered murderers in the service of someone, while the ‘ucciditori’ were secret avengers with the task of settling crimes and avenging the work of conspirators and murderers. But apart from these small details, more or less both did the same things and operated in very similar ways”, replied the witness.
“So that book of prophecies was true?”
“Only in part, because it was not born as a real book of prophecies but as a kind of mocking in macabre verses that mocked and narrated the end that Riario should have and the fate that would fall over Forli, immediately after his death”, replied the test.
“At the beginning, that book came from Florence and told facts and things that had to happen to Girolamo Riario and our city until 1500. They were more or less nothing else but the plans for revenge and the conquest of Forlì by Florence, disguised as verses and prophecies to take revenge for the conspiracy of the Pazzi in Florence”.
“What did that monk and that astrologer have to do with it?”
“Those Florentine verses were given to some friars of Florence and the surrounding area, as normal political propaganda of the time. So they would narrate and make well known to the people of those parts, the end that the enemies of Florence had to receive”.
“After a while these verse were also given to an astrologer followed and known in Romagna, so that he could read in the stars and explain scientifically to everyone what was about to happen to the Medici's assassins, because at that time astrology was considered by the people as science.
“Unbelievable”, replied the researcher.
“Not even that much. In truth, it was normal preparatory black propaganda, followed by the military conquest policy of the time”.
“And then what happened?” asked the researcher.
“Then, as the years went by and nothing of what the stars said was realized, someone ordered the Company of executors to realize what maybe was also written somewhere in the heavens, but for various reasons never happened on earth”, explained the witness.
“So what was Riario?” the researcher tried to ask.
“Girolamo Riario was the one who had organized the assassination of the Medici on behalf of his uncle Pope Sixtus IV”.
“And he was to take command of Florence, in place of Lorenzo the Magnificent, once he was assassinated. And that's why he ended up at the top of that company's list of killers or ucciditori if you prefer”, explained the witness.
“But why did Riario try to do such a thing?”
“For various reasons. One because he was Captain General of the Church20 and the Pope had ordered him to take Florence”.
“The other, is that was interested in taking Florence and unite it with his lordships of Imola and Forlì and thus make a unique grand duchy adding Faenza, which stood between Imola and Forlì. at the time property of Florence”.
“That plan failed and only Giuliano de' Medici died, while Lorenzo the Magnificent saved himself from the attack of two priests assassin and you will soon understand the rest of the show”, replied the witness.
“Carry on”, nodded the researcher.
“Returning to the book of prophecies, before Riario's death mysterious inscriptions alluding something was found in Greek, on a column of the high altar of the church of San Mercuriale in Forlì and this made someone suspicious.”
“What was that inscription in the church alluding to?”
“According to many people of the time, they alluded to his death”.
“However the chronicler Leone Cobelli, took that book in verses that they had given him, wrote hesitantly about it and in fact talked about it doing, among other things, propaganda for the enemies”.
“But several suspected that it was a trick of the conspirators to disguise the murder they were preparing for he and bury Riario under a kind of damnatio memoriae,21” explained the witness.
“What is a damnatio memoriae?” asked the researcher.
Damnatio memoriae: The condemnation to be forgotten by history
“Have you ever wondered why you know a lot of things and facts about someone, while about others you only know some little things existed or happened but little or nothing is really well known about or what happened?” asked the witness.
“Yes, but I think it's due to the fact that in the place where he lived or where something happened, there were no good writers or reporters who decided to write the events. And so the memory of someone or something was lost”, replied the researcher.
“It may be almost true, but you said well at the end of your answer: in the end the memory of someone or something was lost”.
“Well, this is also possible for various reasons”.
“Yes, it is possible. But there are also some ways to make this succeed. It's almost impossible that something happen in one place and no one seeing nothing happen or forgetting all about, unless someone hard work to forget facts or make someone else forget everything”, replied the witness.
“I'm listening, continue your speech”.
“In contrast to events and characters from the past, of which we always know something, almost nothing is left about Riario and his exploits, including most of the official documents he wrote and signed”.
“Even the memories, sayings and tales that are usually handed down orally about someone, seem to be no longer present for Riario, while for his wife Caterina Sforza there are letters, written stories, sayings and memories that go on in time”.
“What's the cause?”
“Damnatio Memoriae, so the Latin people called it. It was a condemnation to be forgotten and removed from historical memory.”
“A practice that Romans and Egyptians had been doing for a long time and was used even after them to erase someone from history”, explained the witness.
“Basically every memory and thing the person had done in life was erased. Every writing he wrote, every image in which he was portrayed, every coat of arms and everything that remembered he. If the person had had coins minted with his name or image, it was forbidden to use them and they had to be handed over to be melted down or minted again in another form”.
“Even his properties were razed to the ground and stripped of all memory and that's what they did with Riario”.
“That was also what Caterina Sforza did in revenge for Riario's murderers when she took them and razed their houses and their property. So all memories and things about them would also disappear and they would be erased and forgotten from history too”.
“And where are these things written now?” asked the researcher.
“I