The beautiful Caterina spent her first twenty-two years as a gentlewoman, but with the death of Sixtus IV, the loss of papal favor, and the retreat to the family's possessions of Forli and Imola in Romagna, she increasingly emerged as a warrior and power politician. She fought the French invasion in 1494, the Venetian Republic, and finally, Cesare Borgia's papal and French soldiers. Includes an Index.

(Key Words: History, Caterina Sforza, Pope Alexander VI, Cesare Borgia, Florence, Imola, Medici Family, Naples, Riario Family, Venice).