Noble Blood - More Malatesta Murders

Episode Date: September 23, 2025

The bloody murder of an adultrous brother and wife was just the beginning for the Malatesta family, whose family tree would be dotted with murders and betrayals for decades.Support Noble Blood:— Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon— Order Dana's book, 'Anatomy: A Love Story' and its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story'See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. This is Amy Rovock alongside T.J. Holmes from the Amy and T.J. Podcast. And there is so much news, information, commentary coming at you all day and from all over the place. What's fact? What's fake? And sometimes what the F. So let's cut the crap, okay? Follow the Amy and T.J. podcast, a one-stop news and pop culture shop to get you caught up and on with your day. And listen to Amy and T. T.J. on the TV. And listen to Amy and T. the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Ramberto Malatesta loved a good banquet. He had long thought nothing could top the magnificent banquet he had thrown with his cousin Ferrentino 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 Paulo against Rambarto's own father back around 1285. They all had a lovely meal together, and then they killed Uberto. Rambarto 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 Farantino and uncle Pendolfo. So it's no surprise, really, that two or so years later, when Pendolfo died and cut Ramberto out of the line of succession of Rimini, the, oh so successful banquet they had all thrown together, was on Rambardo's mind. What better revenge, he must have thought, than to stage a repeat performance. So Ramberto 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. Huberto Malatesta grew up in the shadow of his father's death.

When Huberto was a teenager, his father, Paolo, was killed alongside his lover, Francesca de Palenta. The murder was perpetrated by Paolo's own brother, John Choto, who also happened to be Francesco's husband. John Choto 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 Gianchoto's tutelage. This was, evidently and understandably, an unbearable arrangement.

By 1297, Uberto fled Rimony, and he took refuge with a family of Gibilines, enemies of his Guelph sympathizing family. Just as a reminder, the Ghibolines and Guelphs were rival groups here with the Guelphs supporting the Pope and the Ghibelines supporting the Holy Roman Emperor. In Uberto's new surroundings, he developed a Ghiboline leaning that mixed well with his desire for revenge against his family. He participated in numerous military campaigns with the Gibilines,

including one in 1300 in which he defeated his own uncle Malatistino, conquering the city of Chezina. A few years later, Uberto became the Podesta and captain of Chezna, although he was apparently run out of the city not long after for showing some tyrannical tendencies. Some sources say that in 1304, Uberto got the ultimate revenge by killing, his uncle, John Choto.

Supposedly he was able to hide the murder by killing his uncle in battle, under the guise of their Guelph Ghiboline 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 John Choto'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. In any case, for the next couple of decades, Uberto seems to have committed himself to conquering more and more land on behalf of the Ghiboline faction, and of course himself.

In 1321, he allied with the Montrafelto 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 Farentino to lead in the defense against the invasion. They defeated Uberto and his Ghiboline 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. For a few years he continued to operate as usual,

but all the while he was dreaming of taking over Rimony. Finally, in 1324, he decided to put his plan into action. He reached out to his cousin Ramberto. Rumberto was the son of John Choto by his second wife, Sambrazina de Zambrasi. We don't know his exact birth year, but it's possible that he was born while Uberto 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. Together, the two cousins made a plan to depose their uncle Pandolfo and take remony for themselves. But, as we know, if you remember the names in the introduction, Rambarto 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 fathers. They invited Uberto to a banquet. Uberto came thinking that he was the one in cahoots with Remberto. It was a double cross.

He was wrong. 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 kinsmen, 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. It'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 Ghibolines and attempting to expand their power in various bloody ways.

Ramberto was sure that he had cemented his good standing in the family by foiling his wayward cousin's treasonous plot. How could he not have? He had had a chance to betray them when Iberto proposed his plan, and he didn't take it. He double-crossed Uberto. Surely he would be rewarded for his loyalty with the rest of the family. Two years after, Uberto's death in 1326, Pandolfo Malatesta died. He was the last remaining son of Malatesta de Virukio. After Paolo and John Choto, the adulterous and murderous brothers, the only other son Malatestino had died about 10 years earlier. And so Pandolfo had inherited the better part of the Malatesta dominions. Before he died, he dictated. He dictated. He dictated.

dictated his wishes for the successions of his vast holdings, and most importantly, the lordships of Pissarro and Rimini. He 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 Ramberta 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. But 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, Ramberta was so. 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. In July 1326, not long after Pendolfo'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, 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 Ghibolines along the eastern shores of the Marque, although a few of his family members still attended. Ramberto 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. Ramberto 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 Rimony.

And, of course, he could just deal with Malatesta himself later. It'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 Farentino, 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 street of Rimini. She rallied the people against her cousin-in-law. He was holding her family, his own family, hostage. He planned to take Rimini for himself with not a thought for its people. It seems the support of the people, plus pressure from Palentasana's powerful family of origin, who were, as it happens, relatives of the long-since-murred Francesca de Palenta, 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. Ramberto was reconciled with his family about a year after his attempted family mass murder coup in 1327, with the help of Cardinal Bertrand de Puget, 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.

This time, he went more by the late Uberto's playbook and allied with a political enemy of the Malatestas. He was aided by his brimony. brother, the arch priest 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 Rimbardo thought it was odd that he was given so many chances by his family. He 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 Rambarto'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 Pujano in 1330 for a few days of hunting and hawking, perhaps Rambarto thought he might finally really have a chance to truly and fully be restored to his family's good graces. As sources would later tell it, Ramberto arrived at the lodge in the early evening. Malatestino 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, Ramberto fell to his knees before him. He begged Malatastino's forgiveness, for the kidnapping, for the treachery, for all of it. Did he mean it? Was he truly sorry?

To Malatastino, 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. The banquet murderer had lost at his own game. While the rest of the family had, sincerely or otherwise, made amends with Ramberto, Malatacino had long since decided that he had had enough of the endless plots, machinations, and betrayals. He had lured Ramberto here, with promises of a good hunt, a good meal, and perhaps forgiveness, but this had been the plan all along.

Without a word, Malatistino plunged his dagger into Ramberto'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 violent 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.

He 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. That'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. This is Amy Rovock alongside T.J. Holmes from the Amy and T.J. podcast. And there is so much news, information, commentary coming at you all day and from all over the place. What's fact? What's fake? And sometimes what the F. So let's cut the crap, okay? Follow the Amy and T. podcast, a one-stop news and pop culture shop to get you caught up and on with your day. And listen to Amy and TJ on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I 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 Malatistas turned on each other again. Malatesta the second, an uncle of Ramberto's, was known for much of his life by a nickname, Guasta Familia. As with John Choto before him, whose nickname was Scanchato, 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, Rambarto was not the only member. of the family with designs on Rimini, perhaps 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 we were. Malatesta and his brother, Gallioto, 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 Fosumbrone and Fano. In the meantime, they temporarily reinstated Farentino as the Lord of Remini. Farentino ruled Rimony 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 Ramberto, 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 Gallioto signed a peace with the Pope, confirming Gallioto as Lord of Fano, Malatesta, Lord of Rimini, and his sons were given dominion in Pissarro. Farentino was left out in the cold. His last dominion, Montiano, would be taken not long after by Malatesta and Gallioto,

when they themselves betrayed the Pope and allied with the Ghibolines. 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 Gallioto continued their bloody crusades, even having to pay a ransom in 150 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 Gallioto.

Gallioto, it turns out, would go on to outlive 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 Malatesta's finally ceased. And so, instead, they began to turn to, 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.

Noble Blood is a production of I-Heart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky. 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 Il Kali and executive producers Aaron Manky, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hey there, folks, Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes here.

And we know there is a lot of news coming at you these days from the war with Iran to the ongoing Epstein fallout, government shutdowns, high-profile trials, and what the hell is that Blake lively thing about anyway? We are on it every day, all day. Follow us, Amy and TJ for news updates throughout the day. Listen to Amy and TJ on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.