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Girolamo Riario — Description

Girolamo Riario was a man whose entire life was defined by one quest and one quest only: to fill the hole in his empty little soul left behind by daddy's enormous wallet. On paper, he was born in Savona on February 27, 1443 to Paolo Riario and Bianca della Rovere, but no one would bat much of an eye if it came out that he was actually the son of his mother's brother, Francesco, known to most as Pope Sixtus IV. This nepo-baby clung to this luxurious family tree as an extension of his brother, Pietro, the Pope’s favorite nephew, an extremely competitive position to obtain. Pietro had a reputation for rummaging both hands into the tithing tray to support his debaucherous rich asshole lifestyle and giant mansion, in return for making sure the Vatican ran like a functioning kingdom. When he died in January 1474, Pope Sixtus was debilitatingly grief stricken for several months… until he realized that Girolamo would work just as well as a political chess piece, then he cheered right up and started transferring all the inheritance onto Girolamo. What a fortunate turn of events!
The first thing Girolamo had to do to earn Uncle Pope's love (and money) was to get hitched to Caterina Sforza, daughter of the Duke of Milan, from whom Sixtus purchased the city of Imola from back in 1473. Because this was the past and everything in the past took an eternity to do, the wedding wasn't commenced until January 1477, and Caterina didn't arrive in Rome to actually see her husband face to face for the first time until May. She was only thirteen, and Girolamo was thirty-three. That's pretty fuckin gross, but clearly Girolamo was a man who had absolutely no moral value as a human being anyway, because his next big move was murdering someone in the middle of church. Not just any someone, either, but Lorenzo de’ Medici, the most powerful man in Florence. See, Lorenzo had been the original bidder whom the Duke of Milan had intended to sell Imola to. Sixtus had then swept in with the marriage arrangement, and that was a deal the Duke couldn't turn down. Not only did Lorenzo get completely screwed out of a shiny new city, but then the Pope had the gall to ask the Medici Bank to cover the expenses of the transaction anyway. Lorenzo, dumbfounded, gave a curt “uhmmmmm… fuck you?” and after taking a long thoughtful contemplation over the Good Book full of passages about turning the other cheek and loving thy neighbor, the Papal family could only come to one logical conclusion: shiv the bitch and his shit weasel brother too while we're at it!
Though Riario is often only tangentially mentioned in accounts of the Pazzi Conspiracy, mainly because he couldn't even be bothered to be in Florence that day, he was very much the brains behind the operation. He's the one who got in contact with the eponymous Pazzi family, the Medici's greatest rivals ever since the Pope took away Lorenzo's Papal finance privileges after his little hissy fit. Before he could send other people to wield the knives for him though, he had to ask Uncle Pope for his blessing. Sixtus, of course, got all aghast like “Whaaaat! Nooooo! Girolamo, my boy, you know my holy office could never condone murder, I mean what would Jesus think? But uhhhm… you know… if… someone just so happened to remove Lorenzo from the board totally independent of my permission then I'm sure God wouldn't be that mad. Cough cough wink.” So it was, 100% definitely without the approval of the church, Lorenzo's brother was stabbed to death by the Pazzi's patsies on April 26, 1478. Notably, however, Lorenzo was not. Il Magnifico escaped to his palazzo and turned an angry mob on the assassins, stringing them up by their necks for treason. Lorenzo's survival dragged Sixtus into an all out war with Florence. While the Vatican thought they had their enemy by the balls, Sixtus completely forgot that Lorenzo quite literally had more money than God and could just pay off the more powerful kingdoms on Sixtus's side.
Clearly, the family motto of “if you want something done right, send someone else to do it for you” was not compatible with reality. After Sixtus died a total loser in 1484, the College of Cardinals started squinting at Riario threateningly. Uncle Pope had made Riario the new Lord of Forlì in 1480, and the Cardinals, frankly, disagreed. “That's all well and good,” said Riario, “but counterpoint: I have a giant fuck off army and the hottest firebrand of a wife who is ready and willing to carpet bomb St. Peter into a second grave if we don't get what we want”. Persuaded by this logic, the Vatican agreed that fine, Riario could keep Imola and Forlì but for God's sake man at least gtfo of here and go govern it in person so that we don't have to look at your stupid face. Riario found this arrangement agreeable, and his wife rode him all the way to Romagna. Riario's reign in his new home was dominated primarily by one glaring problem: he didn't have as much money as he did yesterday! Oh no! Oh well thankfully now he has all these peasants he can tax into oblivion! That was literally the only part of governing he really bothered to get involved with. Caterina wore the pants when it came to everything else like diplomacy, executing criminals, and making people like her more than her parasitic husband. It's perhaps unsurprising then that Riario's story ends with a knife embedded in his chest.
The head of the trio that ambushed Riario in his own palazzo was one Checco d’Orsi, who owed Riario a fuck load of money. That's hilarious, because Riario also owed Checco a fuck load of money. Checco was under the understanding that his appointment as administer of the meat tax (because butchers are absolutely the sort of people you wanna piss off) would cancel out his arrears, but that stingy bastard Riario said nah bro fuck you I still want your money. The only rational response at this point was “well… then… fuck you man?” I know that sounds like dialogue I'd make up for comedic effect but that's actually not much of an exaggeration. After dinner, on April 14, 1488, Checco, along with accomplices Giacomo Ronchi and Ludovico Pansecco, found Riario in his chambers just chilling on the window sill like he'd never done a single goddamn thing wrong in his life. Upon seeing them, Riario smiled, offered to shake hands, and went hey “How goes it, my Checco?” Checco then replied by shivving the fat hog through with his sword and quipping “that way goes it”. The conspirators chucked his naked corpse out that very window, and started shouting “Liberty!” to the people, the common call for open rebellion in Renaissance Italy. Riario's butler, Ludovico Ercolani, meanwhile ran to tattle on them to Caterina, whose dommy mommy power flashing ultimately kept her and her children from being overthrown too, but that's a story best left to whatever the orange version of DeviantArt is. Wait… wait hold on… no that's… that's still just DeviantArt, nevermind. Go read my other blurbs, you horny animals.
Design notes, the internet has all of two images featuring Riario in any capacity: Botticelli's The Youth of Moses and Melozzo's rendition of the foundation of the Vatican's Library which I mentioned in the blurb on Sixtus. Let me tell ya, this fucker did not want to cooperate with me. That light shade of blue was murder on my scanner, and I kinda had to wing the bottom half of his armor, to minimal satisfaction. Frankly, I'd want this useless rich kid bastard stabbed too after how difficult he was to draw. I don't really like how this one came out, but then again I don't really like Riario as a person, so really who cares? Imma go jerk off to his bangin’ wife.