Ginevra Sforza, suor Gerolama

Morta come suor Gerolama nel convento di Santa Chiara nell'isola di Murano.

Note: Year of marriage with Giovanni Sforza is not 1502, correct is 1503, see: Tav. III. - Famiglie celebri di Italia. Tiepolo di Venezia / P. Litta Litta, Pompeo (1781-1851). Auteur du texte.

In occasione delle sue nozze fu dichiarata figlia della repubblica di Venezia. Rimasta vedova, e spogliata la casa Sforza della signoria da Giulio II, si ritirò del monastero di s. Pier di Luco nel fiorentino. Contese colle monache intorno alla sua dote la indussero ad abbándonare l'asilo che aveva scelto, e ritornata in patria, si fece monaca nel monastero di s. Nicola di Murano. m 1503 Giovanni Sforza signor di Pesaro.

Translation:

On the occasion of her wedding she was declared daughter of the Republic of Venice. Left a widow, and the Sforza house was stripped of its lordship by Julius II, she withdrew from the monastery of S. Pier di Luco in the Florentine area. Disputes with the nuns regarding her dowry led her to abandon the asylum she had chosen, and upon returning to her homeland, she became a nun in the monastery of S. Nicholas of Murano. m 1503 Giovanni Sforza lord of Pesaro.

< "Convent networks in early modern Italy" > (Europa Sacra, 25)

... Letters also form the basis of Meghan Callahan’s analysis of networks forged by Suor Domenica da Paradiso, who founded the convent of La Crocetta in Florence (1511) in order to continue Girolamo Savonarola’s reform movement. Although Suor Domenica corresponded with male ecclesiastical and political authorities, Callahan’s chapter focuses on letters written to women in Florence and Tuscany and beyond, in Emilia Romagna and Le Marche, which created an epistolary network of nuns, convents, religious women, and laywomen of various social classes. As a tertiary, the charismatic Suor Domenica was not strictly cloistered and sometimes visited other convents. ...

... In a letter dated 19 April 1517 from Domenica to Ginevra Tiepolo, Domenica congratulated Ginevra on her entry into a convent (S. Pietro al Luco in Borgo San Lorenzo), assuring Ginevra that she had done the right thing ‘a fuggire el mondo et correre drieto a Jesu Cristo et pigliarlo per Vostro sposo’ (by escaping the world and running straight to Jesus Christ to take him for your husband).87 She encouraged Ginevra to persevere despite the misfortunes that she had experienced over the past years, and provided St Bridget as an example of a widow who found peace after taking Christ as her second husband. Domenica noted that Christ would not abandon Ginevra to widowhood, as her earthly husband had done.

Ginevra’s husband had been Giovanni Sforza, who married her and died in the same year, 1510. He could not have been an easy spouse, and was excommunicated by Pope Alexander VI for spreading rumours of incest about his first wife, the pope’s daughter Lucrezia Borgia.88 Domenica noted in her letter that Ginevra’s ‘earthly husband’ was ‘mancato et era un pezo di carne cogli occhi, era prigione, era ragazzo di quello el quale avete preso ora’ (the letter refers to the Camaldolese convent in Luco; this must have been S. Pietro al Luco in Borgo San Lorenzo, near Florence, though not mentioned in the letter.

‘Donna Ginevra daughter of Matteo Tiepolo, Patrizio Veneto, former consort of Giovanni Sforza Signore e Principe di Pesaro, flourished in 1513 in the mirror of sanctity’ at this convent, see Farulli, Istoria Cronologica del nobile, ed antico Monastero degli Angioli di Firenze, p. 251.  88 Tamalio, ‘Lucrezia Borgia’.

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References

1. "Sforza, Ginevra Tiepolo (fl. 16th c.) ." Dictionary of Women Worldwide: 25,000 Women Through the Ages. . Encyclopedia.com. 19 Dec. 2024 <https://www.encyclopedia.com>. Ginevra Tiepolo, noblewoman of Pesaro. Became 3rd wife of Giovanni Sforza (1466–1510), lord of Pesaro. Giovanni's 1st wife was Maddalena Sforza (1472–1490); his 2nd was Lucrezia Borgia.
2. https://www.kleio.org/en/history/famtree/vip/4776a/
3. Giovanni Sforza d'Aragona (5 July 1466 – 27 July 1510) was an Italian condottiero, lord of Pesaro and Gradara from 1483 until his death. He is best known as the first husband of Lucrezia Borgia. Their marriage was annulled on claims of his impotence in March 1497. ... He remarried to Ginevra Tiepolo, who gave him two sons, Ascanio (4 November 1505 - 24 November 1507) and Costanzo II (1510 - 1512), who succeeded him in Pesaro and Gradara. He had also two natural daughters: Battista (died in 1505) and Isabella (1503 - 1561), who married on 18 August 1520 Cipriano Sernigi (died in 1532, killed by Ottaviano Lampugnani) and in 1534 Francesco Carminati, son of Cecilia Gallerani, but the marriage was declared nullius for "spiritual relative".
4. Staley, Edgcumbe. "The dogaressas of Venice : The wifes of the doges" (1910) < Page 282 >. "A Daughter of Venice" was of course a Dogaressa in rank, hence brief stories of the three Venetian Queen-Graces, Ginevra, Caterina and Bianca. .. < Page 280 > That tender title had first been bestowed by the Republic upon Donna Ginevra, daughter of Messir Matteo Tiepolo, Podesta of Belluno, who was married in 1503 to Signore Giovanni Sforza, Lord of Pesaro. He died a few months after their nuptials and she entered the Convent of San Pietro de' Fiorentini. Girl-like she soon wearied of the life of the cloister, and, renouncing her vows, she once more entered the world of fashion and romance. Many a suitor offered her his hand, and heart and purse, but she would not be again a wife, and she ended her days the inmate of a convent — that of San Nicolo di Murano.
5. Page at condottieridiventura.it (in Italian) < link > "1504: Ott. Lo Sforza è costretto dai veneziani a condurre a Pesaro la moglie Ginevra Tiepolo."