Girolamo Riario
Lord of Italy (1443-1488)
Girolamo Riario (1443 – 14 April 1488) was Lord of Imola (from 1473) and Count of Forlì (from 1480). He served as Captain General of the Church under his uncle Pope Sixtus IV. He was one of the organizers of the failed 1478 Pazzi conspiracy against the Medici family, the rulers of Florence, and was assassinated 10 years later by members of the Forlivese Orsi family.
Biography
Born in Savona, Riario was the son of Paolo Riario and Bianca della Rovere. He was a nephew of Pope Sixtus IV, who in 1473 granted him the seignory of Imola, as a dowry for his marriage with Caterina Sforza (daughter of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan). In 1471, he was also appointed Captain General of the Church.
In 1478, he was one of the plotters behind the Pazzi conspiracy, a plan to assassinate the two most prominent members of the Medici family in Florence. In addition to conspiring, he was an intended beneficiary, once Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici had been killed. Riario would have become Lord of Florence. But the plot failed, as only Giuliano was killed.
Count of Forlì
In 1480 the pope made Girolamo Riario Count of Forlì, confiscating the lordship from the Ordelaffi.
“Girolamo Riario” enters the record as lord of Italy (1443-1488). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Girolamo, Riario and Lord can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q60127. VIAF identifies the subject as 18085909. The Library of Congress control number is n00008280. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1443, 1488, 1473 and 1480.
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This entry incorporates text from “Girolamo Riario” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.