A Decade of Italian Women, vol. 1 (of 2) — Story, Setting & Ideas

Fortress Politics and Shifting Alliances

Trollope repeatedly frames Catherine Sforza's agency through the language of fortification and military strategy. When describing her negotiations between the King of Naples and the French, he emphasises the 'pause' in army movements while both sides courted her alliance. The historians of Forlì, he notes, insisted on the 'high position and authority' this indecision implied. Yet Trollope undercuts the flattery: the alliance Catherine finally chose she 'was very quick to break' when the French gained ground.

The narrative lingers on the material costs of such manoeuvring. French troops stationed at Forlì as 'friends' were so expensive to feed that their departure brought 'no small satisfaction.' Trollope's eye for logistical detail—the difficulty of provisioning soldiers, the ravaging of countryside by retreating forces—grounds Catherine's decisions in practical survival rather than abstract statecraft. Her changing sides appears less as betrayal than as a desperate attempt to keep her 'little state' from total ruin.

The Fatal Gift: Rank, Marriage, and Violence

A recurring pattern in these biographies is the sudden intrusion of violence into domestic or celebratory settings. Catherine's husband Giacomo Feo, having just received the title of baron from the French king, is murdered on a hunting excursion. Trollope presents the sequence with deliberate irony: Feo was 'beyond measure elated' by the honour, and Catherine pleased to have 'gratified him with it.' But the gift proves 'fatal.'

The assassination itself is described with clinical precision: seven conspirators—'some nobles, some priests, and some peasants'—posted themselves within the city walls, letting Catherine's carriage pass before striking. Trollope does not moralise; he simply notes that the murderers had 'sworn together' to kill the favourite. This juxtaposition of courtly advancement and sudden death recurs throughout the volume, suggesting that proximity to power in Renaissance Italy carried inherent peril.

Movement Between Scenes: The Hunt as Narrative Device

Trollope uses physical movement—journeys, processions, military marches—to structure his biographies and signal shifts in fortune. The hunting excursion that ends in Feo's murder is one such scene; another is the French army's crossing of the Apennine to join King Charles at Florence. These movements are never merely scenic. They mark turning points: the French departure from Forlì ends a period of uneasy peace, while the hunt's return to the city becomes an ambush.

The carriage itself functions as a stage. Catherine and her sons ride inside; Feo follows on horseback. The assassins let the carriage pass, targeting the exposed rider. Trollope's staging emphasises the vulnerability of those outside the protected space—a visual metaphor for the precariousness of favour. Throughout the excerpts, similar transitions—from court to battlefield, from negotiation to betrayal—are signalled by characters crossing thresholds, entering or leaving cities, or changing sides.

Recurring Images: The 'Little State' and the 'Constellation'

Trollope returns to two contrasting images: the 'little state' and the 'constellation of stars.' The first appears in Catherine's story, where Forlì is repeatedly called 'her little state' or 'so small a principality.' This diminutive framing heightens the drama of her negotiations with much larger powers. The second image appears in the preface, where Trollope describes Renaissance Italy as producing 'constellations of such stars'—women whose brilliance suggests favourable social conditions.

Yet the biographies undercut the romanticism of the constellation metaphor. Catherine's 'little state' survives only through constant vigilance, bribery, and sudden reversals. The stars, Trollope implies, shine against a dark background of violence and instability. His prose oscillates between admiration for his subjects' resourcefulness and a sober recognition of the costs. The 'fascinating dawn time' of the Renaissance, he suggests, was also a time of extreme danger for those who wielded power.

Trollope's method—moving from broad historical claims to precise, often violent episodes—requires readers to attend to the gaps between his preface's idealism and the biographies' pragmatism. The women he profiles are not paragons but actors in a world where alliances shift as quickly as seasons. Pay attention to the moments when Trollope pauses over a detail: the cost of feeding troops, the route of a hunting party, the exact rank of a title. These are the hinges on which his narratives turn.