More Malatesta Murders

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0:42Romberto Malatesta loved a good banquet. He had long thought nothing could top the magnificent banquet he had thrown with his cousin, Farentino, and his uncle, Pandolfo, back in 1324. On that occasion, they had invited Ramberto's other cousin, Uberto, who had not only become an obstacle for them politically, but had also represented the deep-cutting betrayal perpetrated by Uberto's father, Paolo, against Ramberto's own father back around 1285. They all had a lovely meal together, and then they killed Uberto. Ramberto was very proud of that little bit of well-executed political intrigue, and he had thought it cemented a good relationship with his other cousin Farentino and uncle Pandolfo.

1:43So it's no surprise, really, that two or so years later, when Pandolfo died and cut Ramberto out of the line of succession of Rimini, the oh-so-successful banquet they had all thrown together was on Remberto's mind. What better revenge, he must have thought, than to stage a repeat performance. So Remberto planned another banquet and invited his entire family to join in the revelry. This time there would be no one left to sully his good name or challenge his power. Ramberto was going to kill them all. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood.

2:40Uberto Malatesta grew up in the shadow of his father's death. When Uberto was a teenager, his father, Paolo, was killed alongside his lover, Francesca de Polenta. The murder was perpetrated by Paolo's own brother, Gianciotto, who also happened to be Francesco's husband. Gianciotto had caught them in flagrante after what was apparently a years-long passionate affair. After the murder of Uberto's father, Uberto was brought, along with his mother and younger sister, into the household of his father's murderer, where Uberto lived under Gianciotto's tutelage. This was, evidently and understandably, an unbearable arrangement.

3:30By 1297, Uberto fled Rimini, and he took refuge with a family of Ghibellines, enemies of his Guelph-sympathizing family. Just as a reminder, the Ghibellines and Guelphs were rival groups here, with the Guelphs supporting the Pope and the Ghibellines supporting the Holy Roman Emperor. In Uberto's new surroundings, he developed a Ghibelline leaning that mixed well with his desire for revenge against his family. He participated in numerous military campaigns with the Ghibellines, including one in 1300, in which he defeated his own uncle Malatestino, conquering the city of Cesena. A few years later, Uberto became the Podesta and captain of Cesena, although he was apparently run out of the city not long after for showing some tyrannical tendencies.

4:29Some sources say that in 1304, Uberto got the ultimate revenge by killing his uncle Gianciotto, Supposedly, he was able to hide the murder by killing his uncle in battle, under the guise of their Guelph Ghibelline animosities. In a bloody moment in Italian history, it would have been the perfect murder, really, hidden in plain sight. Unfortunately, though, we're pretty sure of Gianciotto's date of death, and we have no sources verifying how he died or the role Uberto may or may not have played in it. But the fact that the story has endured speaks to the dangerous ways political and familial tensions could, and did, intersect during this period.

5:22In any case, for the next couple of decades, Uberto seems to have committed himself to conquering more and more land on behalf of the Ghibelline faction, and of course himself. In 1321, he allied with the Montefelto family in an attack on Rimini. By then, Uberto's uncle Pandolfo had become the city's podesta, and he had appointed Uberto's cousin Forantino to lead in the defense against the invasion. They defeated Uberto and his Ghibelline forces handily. This was the last straw. For Uberto, dealing with his family had felt like one betrayal after another. And so, a plan began to form in his head, the ultimate retribution.

6:16For a few years, he continued to operate as usual, but all the while he was dreaming of taking over Rimini. Finally, in 1324, he decided to put his plan into action. He reached out to his cousin, Rumberto. Rumberto was the son of Gianciotto by his second wife, Zambrasina de Zambrasi. We don't know his exact birth year, but it's possible that he was born while Huberto was still under his uncle's care. They might have been living in the same house. By now, Ramberto would have been at least 19 years old. Ramberto had evidently inherited the power-hungry tendencies of his male family members, and Uberto bet that he could get him to turn on the family.

7:12Together, the two cousins made a plan to depose their uncle Pandolfo and take Rimini for themselves. But, as we know if you remember the names in the introduction, Ramberto had other plans. He informed Pandolfo and Farentino of Uberto's treacherous proposal, and together they planned to exact their revenge for Uberto's various betrayals of the family, and by proxy, his father's. They invited Uberto to a banquet. Uberto came thinking that he was the one in cahoots with Ramberto. It was a double cross. He was wrong.

8:00The assassination of Uberto Malatesta Complete, the three murderers, Ramberto, Farentino, and Pandolfo, quickly set about covering up their crime. Although they were, between the three of them, powerful enough to get away with murder, it was still important to be smart about it, especially given that the person that they had just murdered was not only their kinsman, but also an ally of their most powerful enemy, the Montefeltro family. The three of them cleaned up the banquet and placed Uberto's body in a sack before burying him in a nearby town. Ramberto, Farentino, and Pandolfo don't seem to have ever faced any consequences for the cold-blooded murder they committed.

8:52It's likely the murder, scandalous as it was, simply faded into the background of ever-present violence, much of it straddling the boundaries between personal and political. Was it murder or was it warfare? And who was going to prosecute the murder. The magistrates in charge were the very people who were murdering their relatives to gain political power. In any case, with their crime unpunished, the murderers went about their business fighting the Ghibellines and attempting to expand their power in various bloody ways. Remberto was sure that he had cemented his good standing in the family by foiling his wayward cousin's treasonous plot.

9:39How could he not have? He had had a chance to betray them when Umberto proposed his plan, and he didn't take it. He double-crossed Umberto. Surely he would be rewarded for his loyalty with the rest of the family. Two years after Umberto's death in 1326, Pandolfo Malatesta died. He was the last remaining son of Malatesta de Verrocchio. After Paolo and Gianciotto, the adulterous and murderous brothers, the only other son, Malatestino, had died about ten years earlier. And so Pandolfo had inherited the better part of the Malatesta dominions. Before he died, he dictated his wishes for the successions of his vast holdings, and, most importantly, the lordships of Pissarro and Rimini.

10:37He left the lordship of Pissarro to his own son, Malatesta II. Rimini he left to his nephew and co-conspirator in the murder of Uberto, Ferrantino. To Ramberto, he left nothing. We don't know why Ramberto was excluded in this way. He does seem to have been something of a rogue element of the family. We have no clear evidence that he ever married, and while he clearly held several properties and engaged in all sorts of military campaigns and intrigue, he doesn't seem to have ever held any real power. His father had been the Lord of Pissarro. Perhaps he might have inherited it himself had he been older at the time of his father's death.

11:28But he was just a child, and unlike the monarchies in northern Europe, where a child could inherit a throne with a regency during this period, in the Italian city-states, it was more common for another family member to, well, just take the power for themselves outright. And so, when Pandolfo died, Ramberto was left with nothing. In a cruel twist of fate, perhaps now he knew how Uberto must have felt, deeply betrayed by his own family and angry enough to retaliate. Where Uberto had gone off and joined his family's political enemies in warfare, however, Ramberto decided to make his revenge a little more personal.

12:21In July 1326, not long after Pandolfo's death, Ramberto planned another banquet, this time at his home right in Rimini. He invited practically the whole family, or at least any member of the family who could either inherit anything or exact vengeance, that is, all of the men. Historians agree that his plan was most likely to execute a mass family murder, a brutal, bloody, and theatrical end to any branch of the Malatesta line but his own. But his plan quickly hit a snag. Farentino showed up along with his family members, but Malatesta II was away fighting Ghibellines along the eastern shores of the Marque, although a few of his family members still attended.

13:20Ramberto knew he could not execute his plan while someone was still alive to avenge the murders, especially not someone as powerful as Malatesta II, not to mention as ruthless. He had to think on his feet. He couldn't kill them, but maybe there was another way this could all work out. He decided to try to leverage his captives, to get Malatesta to help him get what he felt he deserved. Ramburto began by releasing the members of Malatesta's family. Maybe he thought he could get Malatesta to align with him willingly against Farentino to take Rimini. And, of course, he could just deal with Malatesta himself later.

14:10It's possible Malatesta considered his cousin's proposal. It would certainly not have been the first time he double-crossed a relative. But we'll never know for sure, because as it would turn out, Ramberto's half-baked plan was foiled not by Malatesta or by Ferentino, but by one of the female relatives he seems to have completely forgotten about. Polentissana de Polenta, the wife of Farentino's son, Malatestino Novella, apologies, really, for all of these names, but just know that this woman took to the streets of Rimini. She rallied the people against her cousin-in-law. He was holding her family, his own family, hostage.

15:00He planned to take Rimini for himself with not a thought for its people. It seems the support of the people, plus pressure from Polentasana's powerful family of origin, who were, as it happens, relatives of the long-since-murdered Francesca de Polenta, convinced Malatesta to bring an army into Rimini, cornered Ramberto, freed his family members slash hostages, and fled to one of his estates in the country. But he wouldn't stay away from Rimini for long.

15:43Ramberto was reconciled with his family about a year after his attempted family mass murder coup in 1327, with the help of Cardinal Bertrand de Pouget, a papal diplomat. We don't know exactly how this truce came to be, but we can nonetheless appreciate the diplomat's clear skill. If a TV show had a priest character bringing a man who had only a year before attempted a mass murder of his whole family back into the fold, I think we would call it unrealistic writing. And yet, here we are. And the craziest part is, this happened twice. A year or so after this papal diplomat's masterful reconciliation, Ramberto made another attempt on Rimini.

16:37This time, he went more by the late Uberto's playbook and allied with a political enemy of the Malatestas. He was aided by his brother, the archpriest Guido Malatesta, about whom we know very little, but who clearly also wished to topple his family's dynasty in Rimini. As you can probably guess, the attempted takeover of Rimini did not go well. Ramberto, Guido, and their supporters were soundly defeated and run out of the city. But before long, the wayward Malatesta brothers were once again inexplicably accepted back into the fold of their family, their trespasses apparently forgiven. Perhaps Rumberto thought it was odd that he was given so many chances by his family.

17:32He had seen several of his relatives slaughtered for offenses much less grievous than his own. Maybe he thought that his failures to execute his various treacherous plans made them somehow less treacherous or less likely to be punished. When Malatestino Novello, the son of Ramberto's cousin, Farentino, both of whom, let's remember, he had imprisoned in his home just a few years prior, invited Ramberto to his hunting lodge at Pugiano in 1330 for a few days of hunting and hawking, Perhaps Ramberto thought he might finally really have a chance to truly and fully be restored to his family's good graces.

18:19As sources would later tell it, Ramberto arrived at the lodge in the early evening. Malatostino wasn't there. It was January, and so Ramberto sat by the fire, staving off the chill, waiting for his host to arrive. When Malatestino finally strolled in as dusk settled over the palazzo, Remberto fell to his knees before him. He begged Malatestino's forgiveness for the kidnapping, for the treachery, for all of it. Did he mean it? Was he truly sorry? To Malatestino, it didn't matter. As he placed one hand on his cousin's shoulder, he used his other hand to reach for his dagger. At this point, Ramberto must have realized this invitation had been a trap.

19:14The banquet murderer had lost at his own game. While the rest of the family had, sincerely or otherwise, made amends with Ramberto, Malatocino had long since decided that he had had enough of the endless plots, machinations, and betrayals. He had lured Remberto here with promises of a good hunt, a good meal, and perhaps forgiveness, but this had been the plan all along. Without a word, Malatocino plunged his dagger into Remberto's neck, killing him almost instantly. It was a fitting end for a man who represented a gruesome and dramatic era of his family's history. He lived his life tangled in the personal and the political, his violence guided by a craving for power and a thirst for vengeance that he shared with nearly every member of his family, much as they might have denied it.

20:18He had a flair for the theatrical. perhaps inherited from his father, whose murder of his own wife and brother became one of the best-known stories of star-crossed lovers in history, and had set the tone for half a century of Parasite.

20:40That's the end of the story of the many murders and betrayals plaguing the Malatesta family, but keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear about a few more for good measure.

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22:38I would love to end this episode by saying that Ramberto's murder closed the chapter of bloody violence in this family's history, but it very much did not. It would only be a few years before the Malatestas turned on each other again. Malatesta II, an uncle of Remberto's, was known for much of his life by a nickname, Guastafamilia. As with Gianciotto before him, whose nickname was Scancato, which was a reference to his supposed ugly appearance, Guastafamilia's nickname was a nod to his most notable attribute. It means family ruiner. As it would turn out, Ramberto was not the only member of the family with designs on Rimini.

23:28Perhaps harboring some resentment that his cousin Ferrantino had inherited the powerful dominion upon his father's death, in 1330, he, this family ruiner, concocted a series of intrigues to have the papal legate ban Ferrantino from Rimini and allow him to take control of the city. That worked well enough until April 1333, when Malatesta and his brother, Gagliotto, who seems to have managed to stay out of the previous decades of family drama, were both captured in battle. When they were freed sometime later, they had to reconquer Rimini, and they fought alongside the papal troops to expand the family's dominion to Fossumbrone and Fano.

24:17In the meantime, they temporarily reinstated Farentino as Lord of Rimini. Farentino ruled Rimini again from 1334 until 1335, when Malatesta made his move. He captured Farentino, his son Malatestino Novello, the one who, if you remember, had murdered Remberto, knife in the neck, and his grandson, Guido. It's likely that Malatesta murdered Malatestino and Guido during their imprisonment. Ferentino was eventually freed by Nolfo de Montrefelto, the latest in a long line of Montefeltro enemies of the Malatesta family, and that sparked a war that ended in papal intervention. In 1342, Malatesta and Gagliotto signed a peace with the Pope, confirming Gagliotto as Lord of Fano, Malatesta Lord of Rimini, and his sons were given dominion in Pissarro.

25:20Farentino was left out in the cold. His last dominion, Montiano, would be taken not long after by Malatesta and Gagliotto when they themselves betrayed the Pope and allied with the Ghibellines. It's all very complicated, but what you need to know is Farentino died in 1353, having lost pretty much all of his power, but also having seemingly managed to avoid being murdered by his cousin. Malatesta and Gagliotto continued their bloody crusades, even having to pay a ransom in 1350 to retain Rimini after one of their enemies attacked it in vengeance. In something of a twist, in 1363, Malatesta retired, leaving Rimini to be shared between his sons and his brother Gagliotto.

26:15Gagliotto, it turns out, would go on to outlive his nephews, the normal way, not the classic Malatesta murder way, and he would inherit the entirety of the Malatesta dominions. With the line of succession now much simpler, contained in one set of sons, rather than spread between brothers and nephews and cousins, it seems that the infighting between Malatestas finally ceased. And so, instead, they began to turn their gaze outward, to patronage of literature and the arts, a series of advantageous political marriages, legitimizing children they had out of wedlock, fighting in all manner of wars, and hosting banquets where nobody got murdered.

27:16Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manke. Noble Blood is hosted by me, Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Courtney Sender, Amy Height, and Julia Milani. The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer Rima Ilkayali, and executive producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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