Giovanni Sforza (5 July 1466 – 27 July 1510) was lord of Pesaro and Gradara from 1483 to 1510, succeeding Costanzo I Sforza and preceding Costanzo II Sforza. He was married to Lucrezia Borgia, Pope Alexander VI's daughter, from 1492 to 1497, when the marriage was annulled due to his impotence.
Biography[]
Giovanni Sforza was the illegitimate son of Costanzo I Sforza, and he was a member of the House of Sforza; this made him a distant cousin of Ludovico Sforza and Cardinal Ascanio Sforza. In 1489, he married Maddalena Gonzaga, the daughter of Federico I Gonzaga, the lord of Mantua, but she died a year later. On 12 June 1492, she married Pope Alexander VI's daughter Lucrezia Borgia by proxy, and they had a lavish and decadent marriage celebration in the Vatican in 1493. However, Sforza saw the wedding as a public humiliation after Cesare Borgia brought their mother, the courtesan Vannozza dei Cattanei, to the wedding, and Sforza abused and neglected Lucrezia on the first night of their marriage. Sforza was known to hardly speak to his wife, to not show any charm or love, and to beat both Lucrezia and several of his female servants. He later broke his leg after a fall from his horse, and Lucrezia had an affair with the stable boy, Paolo, over the course of the next few months.
Italian Wars[]
Sforza at his table
Sforza took more of a liking to Lucrezia after she constantly made overtures of good will towards him, and he decided to treat her slightly better. However, he offended her when he stated that she was no longer a Borgia, and that he would not find it dishonorable to remove the Borgias from the papacy as an ally of France during the Italian War of 1494-98. He was convinced to do so by the betrayals of his cousins Ludovico Sforza and Caterina Sforza, and he decided that removing the Borgias would be like removing swine from the Vatican. In 1497, the marriage with Borgia was annulled due to Sforza being declared "impotent" after a test of his potency with two fat courtesans, and he was excommunicated in 1500. During the Italian War of 1499-1504, Cesare Borgia conquered Pesaro, and Sforza could only return to power in 1503 after the death of the Pope and Borgia's illness. He died in Pesaro in 1510.