Editing Ferdinand II of Naples (section)

== Amorous Adventures ==
Unlike his father and grandfather, Ferrandino did not usually keep fixed lovers with him, and in fact the existence of his illegitimate children is not known, however, like his grandfather and father he had very free sexual customs. As proof of his physical prowess as well as the favor he enjoyed among women, an episode is known to have occurred during September 1494, while Ferrandino, then Duke of Calabria, was encamped at the city of Cesena.<ref>{{cite book |title=Giuliano de' Medici: il crepuscolo del Rinascimento|author=Rita Delcroix}}</ref>

The event is reported in a letter dated 4 October by Bernardo Dovizi from Bibbiena to Piero il Fatuo:Ferrandino was approached one evening by a "good man" named Mattio, who made him understand that he had to talk about a matter of enormous importance. Received by the duke the next day, Mattio reported to him that there was a "noble and beautiful woman [...] for nobility and beauty, the first girl in all of Romagna" who having admired four years ago a portrait of Ferrandino and having heard praise for his countless virtues, had fallen madly in love with him and with her own risk and had come to Cesena only to be able to see him; moreover, having seen him, she had become so inflamed of him that "she finds no rest or place or thing that brings any relief to so much its fire". Mattio therefore prayed that he would deign to "have compassion on those who die for you", and that he wanted to satisfy her in his desire, because otherwise "the life of the miserable would soon be missing". Ferrandino, as is reasonable, initially remained in doubt that it could be a plot against him and that the woman wanted to poison him during coitus, especially since he came from enemy territory, and therefore made her wait a few more days, meanwhile inquired about his identity, before being convinced that it was foolish on his part to doubt some danger and to consent to the meeting. Therefore, pretending to go out hunting, he went in great secrecy to a country house where the woman was waiting for her and where "he consumed the holy marriage with great sweetness of one side and the other".<ref>{{cite book |title=Rinascimento segreto. Il mondo del Segretario da Petrarca a Machiavelli|author=Marcello Simonetta}}</ref>

This woman, indicated in the letter with the name of Caterina Gonzaga, was perhaps a Gonzaga of the Novellara branch and perhaps daughter of that Giorgio Gonzaga who died in 1487 and therefore sister of that Taddea who married Matteo Maria Boiardo.<ref>{{cite book |title=Quaderno, Volumi 1-5|author=Rubiconia Accademia dei Filopatridi, Savignano}}</ref> Dovizi, who is very sceptical about the sincerity of the love professed by the woman, does not fail to write his impressions in this regard to Piero il Fatuo, judging that Caterina must perhaps have heard of the considerable size of Ferrandino's manly member, whom he describes in enthusiastic terms as "very honorable", and that therefore more than by love he was driven by lust.

[[File:Print,_B._Dovizi_da_Babbiena_(after_R._Sanzio),_ca._1750_(CH_18433787).jpg|link=https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Print,_B._Dovizi_da_Babbiena_(after_R._Sanzio),_ca._1750_(CH_18433787).jpg|thumb|Cardinal Bernardo Dovizi da Bibbiena in a print of the eighteenth century, Carlo Faucci.]]

Although Ferrandino has not then "for his conscience" revealed to anyone the relationship if not to a few people, including precisely the Dovizi (with whom he used to speak "freely of everything") and the Marquis of Pescara Alfonso II d'Avalos, the fame of the great beauty of this Catherine came to the ears of [[Ludovico Sforza|Ludovico il Moro]] who at that time was in Asti in the company of the King of France, who was always eager to have beautiful women around him. Ludovico then sent a put to Catherine inviting her to go to Asti to please the king and offered her in return the sum of over 3500 ducats that should have been used to pay for the trip. Caterina, however, outraged by the proposal, prayed to Ferrandino that he would help her to invent a good excuse to decline the offer, because "she neither wants nor can leave". He then decided, to the laughter of his friends, that Caterina promised the Moro to go and accept the offer in money, but that he instead stole the duchies from the man who would bring them to him and stay with him in Cesena.
Nevertheless Ferrandino, since he had been told that Piero il Fatuo had tried to obtain the woman without succeeding, showed himself very willing to lend it to him, saying: "I want these women's things, like the others, to be common among us". Dovizi replied by saying that the exchange offer to Piero would certainly not be agreed, as Piero had lovers with him while Ferrandino did not, he also judged that his availability was due to the fact that in truth he did not like Caterina's "meat", something that Ferrandino assured him not to be true, claiming "that he likes everything about her" and that indeed before leaving "he wants another feast".

From a subsequent letter from Dovizi, dated 9 October, we learn that Piero il Fatuo then sent certain letters to the camp with a portrait of Caterina herself, demonstrating that the woman had already been his lover. Dovizi reports that Ferrandino, after reading the letter with him, "laughed so much and so heartily that I could not say any more, and I swear to you that I have not seen him nor do I think I can ever see him in such joy as he was then", and he wanted it to be re-read several times even in the presence of the Avalos. Ferrandino then confessed that he had lied in saying that he liked the woman, believing that neither Piero nor Dovizi knew her, while in truth he had not liked it at all, if not for "a little manners", and that he was "more out of boredom than the devil". He also adds that if Caterina still wants him, then she will have to come herself to the military camp to find him, "otherwise she can scratch it so much that she coves the desire by herself", since he "will not move a step", and that "if she does not come to the camp, she can be hanged for him, who no longer plans to see him again, and if he came to the camp he would prove how heavy the Marquis weighs", or if he showed up in the military camp Ferrandino would offer it as much to his friend Alfonso d'Avalos. Dovizi concludes the matter by saying that Ferrandino also offered him to try the woman, but that he would never have allowed himself to lie with a woman with whom he had already lay his lord Piero, in fact "where the master has gone he would beware as much as the fire and the devil himself go there".<ref>{{cite book |title=Rinascimento: rivista dell'istituto nazionale di studi sul Rinascimento, volumi 5-6}}</ref>

[[File:Incisione di Ferdinando II d'Aragona di Napoli.jpg|left|thumb|Posthumous engraving Ferrandino, c. 1600-1700.]]

The letters of Dovizi of this period, overly stuffed with obscenity and double meanings, since the nineteenth century have been abundantly censored in all the works and essays that deal with the subject, however they are still preserved at the Medici state archive in Florence and digitally usable.

Certainly Ferrandino was aware of his physical qualities and did not exploit them only for his own personal gain, but also for those political-diplomatic issues that could benefit the state: in fact, he always writes the usual Dovizi, who in presenting himself in Forlì to countess Caterina Sforza, of whom he sought the alliance in the war against the French, Ferrandino "went tight and beautifully dressed in the Neapolitan style". In fact, he knew that Countess Catherine had a real passion for good-looking men and probably hoped to win their friendship. The attempt, perhaps, had a certain success, as Dovizi, in a specially enigmatic language, goes on to say that although Ferrandino the countess was not physically liked then very much, nevertheless "they shook hands scratching and at the same time noticed a lot of sparkling eyes", also the castellan Giacomo Feo, then a young lover of the same countess, showed himself quite jealous, in fact Ferrandino and Caterina "they stayed about two hours together but under the eyes of all, since the Feo wants she for himself".<ref name=":0"/>