The Ordelaffi family had come to power…
1507 CE
The Ordelaffi family had come to power in Forlì in 1302; its most most renowned was Pino III, who held the Signiory of Forlì from 1466 to 1480.
Pino, a ruthless lord, nevertheless enriched the city with new walls and buildings and was a sponsor of the arts.
When he died at age forty, under suspicion of poisoning, the situation of Forlì had been weakened as factions of Ordelaffi fought one another until Pope Sixtus IV claimed the signory for his nephew Girolamo Riario.
Riario was married to Caterina Sforza, the indomitable Lady of Forlì, whose name is associated with the city's last independent history.
Forlì had been seized in 1488 by the Visconti and in 1499 by Cesare Borgia, after whose death in 1507 it becomes more directly subject to the pope than ever before (apart from a short-lived return of the Ordelaffi in 1503–1504).