ABSTRACT
Attaining and maintaining power among the elite in Early Modern Italy required a high level of engagement in cultural activities. Nobles led splendid lifestyles, commissioned works of art and architecture, and embellished their homes with lavish decorations to demonstrate their beneficent, pious, intelligent, and therefore authoritative personae. This book investigates the cultural endeavors of one such noble, Caterina Sforza (1462/63-1509), and explores the ways gender and culture were central to the invention of the self in Renaissance Italy. Like most of her peers, Caterina was fully aware that the visual world-encompassing not only art but also spectacle and performance-offered a significant means to exercise power in the princely courts. She participated in civic and religious ritual, commissioned works of art and architecture, collected elaborate clothing, jewels, and household furnishings, and supported intellectual and religious endeavors as she mediated the social and gender norms of her times. Through these activities, Caterina reinvented herself in the different phases of her life as wife, mother, widow, and regent, and her own self-fashioning continues to shape her legendary status.1
