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The
de' Medici Dynasty
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| The family's history parallels Italy's history. I've divided it into sections listed in the left column. | This concise history is a helpful guide to read before traveling to Florence and the Vatican. | |
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The End of Florentine IndependencePope Clement VII (Giulio de' Medici), Alessandro, and Caterina de' MediciGiulio de' Medici (1478-1534) was his cousin's advisor all through his papacy as Leo X, so he understood the situation of church and politics when he was elected to the position, after the death after only two years as Pope, of Adrian VI in 1523. Giulio took the name Pope Clement VII. He reluctantly made12-year-old Ippolito the nominal head of the de' Medici family interests in Florence, over his own illegitimate son Alessandro, because Giulio was illegitimate too, giving his illegitimate son less claim on the title. He made Alessandro the Duke of the Italian city Penne, in compensation.
All Giulio's experience didn't mean he was a particularly skilled Pope from our point of view. But from his point of view, there wasn't much he could do but try to walk a tight-rope between the two other great European powers at the time:
Giulio also tried to straddle the fence on the Lutheran problem. He and the other Cardinals had opposed Pope Adrian II's attempts to reform the Catholic Church from within to counter the Lutheran points. They continued this opposition under Pope Clement VII. So when Henry the VIII of Britain wanted a divorce, they stuck to the letter of the current law and denied it, being especially angered by his betrothed's sympathies with the Lutherans. This denied divorce resulted famously in the schism that established the Church of England. Giulio, as Pope Clement VII, didn't neglect his artistic duties to his family. He had Michelangelo design and create a building worthy of the de' Medici library, begun by Cosimo the Elder. The beautiful Laurentian Library still stands today and is open to the public. Charles V sacked Rome in 1527 when the mercenaries under Giovanni delle Bande Nere, a de' Medici from the junior branch, was defeated. Giovanni died defending Rome. During the resulting sack of Rome, thousands were murdered and tortured, and the Vatican was looted of it's art and books.
Pope Clement VII was held prisoner in Castel Sant'Angelo until the Pope bribed some guards and managed to escape to Tuscany dressed as a peddler. This print ridicules the situation which does suggest something of the surreal about it.
Filippo Strozzi happened to be with the Pope at the time, and the Pope turned him over to the enemy in the hopes of his own release. Strozzi was shipped off to prison in Naples. Another reason for the Strozzi to dislike the de' Medici, as if they needed one.
Castel Sant'Angelo, Rome During all the confusion, the republican element in Florence reasserted itself and re-established the Florentine Republic. Alessandro and Ippolito fled with their protector, the Cardinal of Florence, but they left behind their 8 year-old cousin Caterina who was studying in a convent in Florence. The republican forces took possession of all the de' Medici property and they took Caterina de' Medici captive, keeping her locked up in the convent. Florence was immediately hit by an epidemic that killed thousands of people. The Republic lasted only 3 years this time. Pope Clement VII signed a truce with Charles V and together they laid siege to Florence. Michelangelo, who was in Florence during this time working on the de' Medici crypt and library, joined the republican forces and supervised defenses that helped keep out the advancing armies. His defensive earthworks meant that the city was not overrun, but put under siege, a siege that lasted nearly a year. Pope Clement VII demanded the safe release of his grand-niece Caterina. But the republicans were undecided whether to either place the child on the city walls exposed to the de' Medici artillery bombardments, or give her to the soldiers to dishonor. Tough choice! What a lovely era!
Catherine de' Medici as a child Eventually, the Pope entered the city personally to collect Caterina and bring her to safety. His forces finally retook the city in 1530. Clement VII ordered that Michelangelo, a childhood friend, be spared death and be allowed instead to return to work on the family tombs and library. But Michelangelo knew that he'd made an enemy of the younger de' Medici, and the failure of the Florentine Republic hurt him deeply. Clement VII and Charles V then made a deal:
Alessandro took Caterina into his care as new head of the de' Medici family. Alessandro's nickname 'Il Moro' means 'the Moor', and was given to Alessandro because of his dark skin from his North African mother. She was a serving girl in a de' Medici Palace when she conceived Alessandro with then Cardinal Giulio. There are competing theories that she was either a black-African or of mixed parentage.
Alessandro de' Medici by Pontormo A bit later on, Clement VII managed to get Charles V to sell a Dukedom to Alessandro making him the first Duke of the new Duchy of Florence in 1532. Clement VII hoped the title and protection of the Holy Roman Emperor would make Alessandro appear more legitimate to the Florentines. This was a huge miscalculation. The Florentines still harbored hopes of regaining their Republic, and the annexation of Florence by Charles V, angered many republicans, including members of the junior branch of the de' Medici family.
Duke of Florence Alessandro by Vasari A part of the deal, Charles V offered to Alessandro in marriage Charles's illegitimate daughter, Margaret, then 9 years old. Alessandro married her in 1533 but kept the woman he loved as his mistress. His only children to live to adulthood were fathered with her and were named Giulio and Giulia de' Medici, after his father. Alessandro's father, Pope Clement VII, hired Michelangelo, to paint the Last Judgment on a wall of the Sistine Chapel, but the Pope didn't live to see it completed. Clement VII served as Pope until 1534, when he died from eating a poisonous mushroom. That's not really as suspicious as it sounds in a time when there was little industrial mushroom production. Pope Clement VII was Michelangelo's protector against Alessandro, who hated the artist for his republican beliefs. So when Pope Clement VII died in 1534, Michelangelo decided to remain in Rome rather than return to his beloved Florence. Michelangelo was 54, and he was to live to be nearly 100 in Rome, never returning to Florence until after his death, brought there by another de' Medici for burial and royal honors, but more about that in the next section.
Caterina de' Medici, Queen of France And what of little Caterina? Caterina's great-uncle, Pope Clement VII, married her off in 1533 at the age of 14, with Alessandro's approval and assistance, to the second son of Francois I the King of France, the Henry the Duke of Orleans, also 14. This was a strategic move by the Pope, trying to keep a foot in both camps, the French House of Valois, and the Holy Roman Emperor through Alessandro's link to Charles V. For Caterina, in the long run, it was probably for the best. Her mother was of the House of Tour de Boulogne and was closely linked to the French royal families. Her mother also left Caterina great personal wealth. And Caterina was actually:
Early on, Caterina had a low position in the rich French court, and her position was even more precarious after the death of her uncle, the Pope, in 1534. But when the King's first son, the Duke of Albany, died of poisoning, Caterina's husband became the next in line for the French crown, the Dauphin, and Caterina's stature rose as well. The death of the Duke of Albany is very suspicious especially since his cup-bearer was brought over by Pope Clement VII on the same ships that brought Caterina. Alessandro had introduced the man, who was trained as a doctor, to his father the Pope. The doctor had been formerly in the service of the French enemy Charles V, and...well, when the de' Medici are involved, and they really, really wanted Caterina to be French Queen, anything is conceivable. So many conceived it possible, that the man was arrested, tortured and tried. But he never confessed to working for the de' Medici. It served the French King, Francois I, to implicate his enemy Charles V, and when the prisoner confessed to this, he was killed. Years later, Caterina would kill an enemy in much the same way the Duke of Albany was killed, with perhaps the same poison. One of the more popular, if gruesome, exhibits in France is Caterina de' Medici's poison cabinet.
Alessandro Il Moro, Duke of Florence After his father, Pope Clement, died, Alessandro felt less secure of his position. In response to his insecurity and a weak nature, he took more and more power into his own hands. And as it's known to do, the absolute power corrupted him absolutely. Alessandro tried to secure his position by having his cousin Ippolito, now Cardinal de' Medici, poisoned, in 1535. Although Ippolito officially died of malaria, en route to Charles V to complain about Alessandro's rule of Florence, few doubt Alessandro had a hand in assassinating his cousin. Ippolito was only 24 years old, and was widely respected for his regal bearing and intelligence.
Ippolito de' Medici, he just missed out an being head of the family, and by all accounts he would have been a worthy one Alessandro began to indulge all his illicit desires, leaving himself vulnerable to hangers-on and courtiers who supplied him with whatever he desired. Alessandro's cousin Lorenzino became one of those courtiers, but with ulterior motives. One of Alessandro's whims, was to take possession of the Villa della Petraia, which wasn't much of a villa at all at the time. It was a medieval fortress and farming estate. Alessandro died before he could do much with it. It's rebuilding was taken on by a later de' Medici.
All this bad feeling gave the junior side of the de' Medici family an opportunity. They saw that they could finally take control of the family empire. Lorenzo de' Medici, the father of the junior line of de' Medici, had a great-grandson, Lorenzino (1514-1548), the same Lorenzino who had befriended Alessandro. Lorenzino used his courtier status and false friendship to lure Alessandro undefended to his death. Lorenzino had his assassins stab Alessandro to death in 1537, as Alessandro arrived for an assignation with his beautiful cousin, Lorenzino's sister.
Alessandro, born in 1510, died at the very young age of 27, and was buried in his uncle's tomb, Lorenzo the Duke of Urbino, in the New Sacristy made by Michelangelo. The reason he was buried in his uncle's tomb was because the de' Medici family had always put forth the lie that Alessandro was the Duke of Urbino's illegitimate child. This was meant to save Cardinal Giulio the shame of fathering a child. Lorenzino escaped to Venice and wrote an account of the killing called Apologia (Apology), which he had published and sold throughout Europe. In his Apology, he said he killed his cousin to give the Florentine Republic a chance to return to power. Perhaps this is true, perhaps not. Coming from a de' Medici, especially one from the devious junior branch of the family, many dismiss this claim. The claim was beside the point, because the republican revolt never happened. Lorenzino had killed the last viable de' Medici from the senior line, leaving himself, at age 23, the next in line to take over the family interests, so no one believed his Apology. Granted that history is written by the victors, but Lorenzino's assassination of his own cousin, head of the de' Medici family, caused in his own lifetime for his nickname to become Lorenzaccio, the Bad Lorenzo. He had another nickname given by many people, Brutus Lorenzino, and this bust of Brutus, one of the men who killed Caesar, is by Michelangelo from 1540. It's said Michelangelo was inspired by Lorenzaccio when he crafted the expression of contempt and arrogance.
Filippo Strozzi Just so you know: Not everyone condemned Lorenzino. Filippo Strozzi, a longtime business rival of the de' Medici, and supporter of a republican Florence, ordered his sons to marry the daughters of Lorenzino to ensure his grandchildren would inherit his cunning, determination and courage for the sake of liberty.
Filippo Strozzi Strozzi's sons did as their father wished. Oddly enough, they lived in France at that time, attached to the court of Caterina de' Medici, who was their cousin by marriage, even before they married into the junior branch of the de' Medici family. Many years back, Filippo Strozzi had married Caterina de' Medici's aunt in a bid by the de' Medici to buy him off. It didn't work. And Strozzi loved his wife, Clarissa, deeply.
Strozzi's beloved wife Clarissa de' Medici, Caterina de' Medici's aunt, in a classic pose signifying love, supposedly love for Filippo Strozzi On Clarissa's death, Strozzi returned to Florence, renewed ties with the de' Medici family, and eventually had became head of Caterina de' Medici's household when she went to France to marry Henry de Valois. Strozzi returned to Florence after the death of Pope Clement VII, and possibly helped orchestrate the death of Alessandro. Filippo Strozzi was among the group who put the de' Medici back in charge of Florence after Alessandro's death, with the hopes that the de' Medici from the junior branch of the family would live up to their republican talk. Caterina de' Medici And Caterina de' Medici? She became Queen of France in 1547 and eventually bore Henri II 10 children in 10 years, despite his continuing affair with his a mistress Diane de Poitiers, and his early inability to father children. It's been suggested that his repeated impregnation of a wife he didn't want, was a plot by Henry II to kill Caterina the way her own mother had died, in childbirth. But the plot failed. Others say the pregnancies were a plot by Henry's mistress, Diane, to keep Caterina in maternity confinement for years and years so Diane and Henry II could run the country together. This plot succeeded. Interesting to note how times change, Diane was ridiculed for keeping herself young and attractive for her much younger lover Henry II, by using false teeth and false hair and much makeup and fancy dress. An awful lot of work to keep this not-so cheery-looking fellow, if you ask me, but I'm not a power junkie.
Caterina waited patiently for a chance to gain some influence for herself and her children. And she maintained contact with her relations in Italy, but was careful not to have Italians in her retinue in France, to avoid any accusations of being a traitor to France. After Henry II's illness that led to his death in 1559, Caterina banished his mistress and proceeded to take their reigns of power in France. Caterina held the country together under the House of Valois during the tumultuous:
Caterina spent much of her time planning the marriages of her children, all for political gain, of course.
Caterina's third and favorite son, Alencon d'Anjou, was offered to Queen Elizabeth of England. But Elizabeth objected to his young age and pockmarked face from an earlier bout with small-pox, a common condition in those days, one that Elizabeth herself had suffered leaving similar scars. When the English physicians offered to treat the scars to lessen then, Caterina told them to test the treatments on a court page first. If the page lived, and the cure worked, they could then use them on her son. Sweet lady. In the end, Elizabeth rejected Alencon, scars or no scars, as she rejected all her suitors. This was most probably because under the terms of her father, Henry VIII's, will, Elizabeth lost all power and all her wealth if she married. Sounds like Henry wanted her to be the Virgin Queen she turned out to be. Caterina was a famous spreader of Italian culture from cuisine, couture and makeup to perfumes, to the use of secret poisons to eliminate enemies over cocktails and dump them through trap doors in the floor. Caterina was also, like all the de' Medici, a patron of artists and architects, leaving grand buildings around Paris with her and her husband's initials on them, including The Louvre Museums and the Tuileries. Caterina died at the age of 70 in 1589, while giving political advice to her son Henry III, even on her deathbed.
Here's a link to a biography of Caterina de' Medici, if you'd like to read more about her.
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