🖌️🎨THE EVIL ROCK OF THE MEDICI SISTERS

 THE EVIL ROCK OF THE MEDICI SISTERS

When the elder branch of this powerful family, originating from Cosimo the Elder, was interrupted in 1537 with the death of Alessandro Medici, Duke of Tuscany, the younger branch of the Medci, originating from Lorenzo, brother of Cosimo the Elder, entered the “battle.”

The search for a candidate for the next duke led to Cosimo I, son of Giovanni de' Medici. Powerful by nature, he loved his daughters very much and carefully protected them from possible troubles, but this did not save them from the fate prescribed by heave

🖌️🎨Agnolo Bronzino
🖼️"Portrait of Maria (Cosimo I) de' Medici"
1551
Uffizi Gallery
Florence
Maria de' Medici, elder sister, died at 16
In Agnolo's portrait she is 14 years old. View of a blooming girl.

I. MARIA
1. Birth and upbringing
His firstborn and first daughter were raised by his mother, a Spaniard from the ancient Alba family, according to Spanish court etiquette and ceremony, like a real princess.
Her childhood was spent in the Palazzo Vecchio, where she received a good education.
Maria was fluent in Latin, ancient Greek, French and Spanish.
Her abilities surprised those around her: at the age of twelve, the girl read Homer, Aristotle, quoted the speeches of Cicero and the poems of Virgil.
2. Engagement and early death
In 1554, the parents officially betrothed their daughter to Crown Prince Alfonso d'Este, the future Duke of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio. The wedding was scheduled for 1557, but did not take place because the young princess fell ill with malaria and died.
3. Rumors

The premature death of the princess led to rumors that she was poisoned on the orders of her father for losing her virginity with a young page. This version is outlined in his historical notes by the 18th-century antiquarian Francesco Settimanni

4. Truth

Cosimo I was especially attached to his eldest daughter and grieved her loss.

🖌️🎨Agnolo Bronzino

🖼️"Portrait of Lucretia de' Medici" (1545 -1561).

Lucrezia de' Medici died at the age of 16 as Duchess d'Este. Agnolo Bronzino's portrait shows her at this age

🖌️🎨Agnolo Bronzino

🖼️"Portrait of Lucrezia de' Medici"

1560

North Carolina Museum of Art

Roles

II. Lucretia
1. Birth and upbringing
Like all the Duke's children, Lucrezia received a good education and was brought up in strictness, according to the Spanish court ceremonial, which her mother adhered to. The girls in this family could not leave their chambers without permission, where only chaperones could be with them. In addition to their father and brothers, elderly confessors were allowed to visit them.
2. Engagement and marriage
Since childhood, parents have been looking for a worthy match for their daughter. But several times the engagements were broken down for political reasons.
And when the elder sister Maria died before her wedding to the crown prince of the house of the Dukes of Este, Lucrezia was destined to take her place.
The marriage was delayed for a long time by the pro-French party at the groom's court.
They offered him as a wife either the sister of King Henry II of France or his daughter. Among the ambassadors of the house of d'Este, who arrived for negotiations in Florence and had not yet seen Lucrezia, rumors about her ugly appearance and poor health were deliberately spread. However, on April 13, 1558, a marriage contract was concluded in Pisa, according to which a dowry of 200,000 gold crowns was given to the bride.
Then only the ambassadors saw her for the first time and were pleased with her appearance. Then
Crown Prince Alfonso solemnly entered Florence, where on July 3, in the Pitti Palace, he and Lucrezia were married.
At the request of his mother-in-law, the crown prince agreed to postpone the wedding night until his wife became a girl. According to the agreement, three days after the wedding, Alfonso left Florence and went to the court of the French king, who promised to pay the sovereign debt to the Duchy of Ferrara in the amount of 300,000 ducats. Lucrezia, despite her father-in-law’s invitation to come to Ferrara, at her mother’s request, remained to wait for her husband in Florence.
3.Problems
Together with her sister Isabella, the crown princess lived in the chambers of the Duchess of Florence, isolated from the rest of the world. Lucretia was in love with her husband, but he was indifferent to her. Her numerous letters to him often went unanswered. While waiting for Alfonso, she ate practically nothing and spoke little, praying for a long time every day for his health.
It was only after the death of his father Duke Ercole II in October 1559, when Alfonso became Duke of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio under the name Alfonso II, that he left France and took his wife with him.
On February 17, 1560, Lucrezia solemnly entered Ferrara
4. Death
The Duchess did not live long in Ferrara, and almost all this time her presence was limited to her personal chambers. Less than a year after her arrival, she fell ill with pulmonary tuberculosis and died on April 21, 1561.
5. Rumors.
The marriage of 16-year-old Lucrezia was short and unhappy. The girl's premature death, as in the case of her sister Maria, aroused a flurry of suspicions. Among them are rumors that she was poisoned on the orders of her husband. The version of the murder inspired the English poet Robert Browning to create a dramatic monologue in verse, “My Last Duchess.”
6. Truth
Most likely, the illness and death were caused by love fever - a young girl waited for her husband for three years and became weak, as she ate practically nothing.
According to the conclusion of Dr. Andrea Pasquali, sent to the duchess by her father from Florence, throughout Lucrezia’s illness Alfonso was constantly interested in the state of her health. The same doctor's autopsy revealed that the Duchess died of a "rotten" fever.

🖌️🎨Agnolo Bronzino

🖼️"Portrait of Isabella de' Medici"

1552-1554

National Museum

Stockholm

Isabella de' Medici, the middle sister, the longest-lived among the sisters who died early, died at 36 years old. In Agnolo Bronzino's portrait she is 12 years old

🖌️🎨 Alessandro Allori

🖼️"Portrait of Isabella de' Medici"

1565

Palazzo Pitti

Florence

Isabella de' Medici, Duchess of Bracciano, was a mathematician and composer, and was a patron of artists and scientists. Many writers of that time dedicated their works to her, Stendhal mentioned her in the Italian Chronicles, she became the heroine of an opera by composer Renato Broggi

🖌️🎨Alessandro Allori

🖼️"Portrait of Isabella de' Medici, Duchess of Bracciano"

Around 1575

Uffizi

Florence

Isabella Romola de Medici (Italian: Isabella Romola de Medici; 1542-1576) was a princess from the House of Medici, daughter of Cosimo I, Grand Duke of Tuscany. Wife of Duke Paolo Giordano I of the House of Orsini; married - Duchess of Bracciano.

III. ISABEL
1. Birth and upbringing
Even in the womb, the princess showed such activity that the pregnant mother was sure that she would have a son, but the father, on the contrary, was expecting the birth of a daughter. The Duchess even made a bet with Cosimo that a boy would be born, and lost. The birth of a girl was greeted with great joy.
According to contemporaries, she was the most beautiful child in the family.
Isabella's childhood was spent between Palazzo Vecchio and Palazzo Pitti, in which the court of the duchy was located, moving from one palace to another.
At the age of five she began studying Latin and Greek and achieved amazing success in all sciences.
2. Marriage
When Isabella was eleven years old, her parents betrothed her to twelve-year-old Paolo Giordano from the House of Orsini.
The wedding ceremony took place in Florence on January 28, 1556, before Paolo Giordano left for Rome.
/A month before this event, Pope Paul IV appointed him military leader of the army of the Papal State and called him to war against the army of Spain and the empire/. The wedding celebrations took place in Florence on September 3, 1558, after the end of the war.
In honor of this event, composers Francesco Corteccia and Philippe de Monte wrote vocal works.
After the wedding, the newlyweds continued to live in Florence.
Isabella maintained informal diplomatic contacts with the wives of the heads of influential houses.
According to contemporaries, she was beautiful, intelligent and pious. In her home in Florence, she provided refuge to persons persecuted by the Inquisition; patronized scientists and artists; supported the work of composers and musicians.
In turn, scientists, composers and poets dedicated their works to her. Isabella wrote the music herself: the only composition of the duchess that has survived is the composition for lute “The Joy of Life.”
She seriously studied mathematics under the guidance of the famous astronomer and mathematician Ignazio Danti
The family of Paolo Giordano and Isabella did not have children for a long time. The Duke's military career was partly to blame for this. A famous condottiere, he participated in many battles and was even wounded at the Battle of Lepanto. After a series of miscarriages, the Duchess was able to carry and give birth to three children, two of whom survived
3. Circumstances of death
Isabella died on July 16, 1576 at the Villa Cerreto Guidi near Florence. The cause of death of the Duchess, who had previously been ill for a long time, was intermittent fever. The natural nature of death is confirmed by archival documents. From the surviving extensive correspondence between Isabella and her husband, it is clear that the Duke and Duchess loved each other and Paolo Giordano was worried about the health of his sick wife.
4.Rumors
However, almost immediately after the death of the Duchess
Rumors arose that she had been killed. Their sources, which described Isabella as a libertine and her husband as a cruel and selfish tyrant, were chronicles and openly slanderous anonymous pamphlets of opponents of the House of Medici. Rumors were deliberately spread through diplomatic correspondence from states hostile to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. It was officially announced that the Duchess died at the Villa Cerreto Guidi, where she was staying on the occasion of a hunt, that she died in the morning while washing her hair, and her husband found her dead on her knees.
The struggle of Isabella's relatives with slanderers contributed to the widespread spread of rumors. Several versions of the failed murder have emerged. According to one of them, the duchess, bored with male attention, took on a lover in her husband’s absence, who became her husband’s young cousin, who was looking after her. While the Grand Duke was alive, who, by the way, was also accused of having an incestuous relationship with his daughter, the Duchess of Brachchanskaya felt safe, but with the death of her father she lost support. The new Grand Duke, her elder brother, ordered the cuckolded husband to kill his unfaithful wife. The order was carried out, and the Duchess was strangled at the Villa Cerreto Guidi at noon in the presence of several witnesses. According to another version, the Duke fell in love with a married woman, killed her husband and decided to get rid of his wife, falsely accusing her of treason.
5. Truth
Already in the 18th century, the historian Jacopo Riguccio Galluzzi, in his “History of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany” (1781), pointed out the lack of documents and reliable evidence confirming the murder of Isabella. He suggested that the only reason for the rumors was the suddenness of the duchess’s death for her subjects. Recent research conducted by the head of the Capitol Historical Archives, historian Elisabetta Mori, has convincingly proven the natural nature of the duchess's death and the falsification of the story of her murder.

 Parents of Medici girls

🖌️🎨Agnolo Bronzino
🖼️"Portrait of Cosimo I in armor"
1545
Uffizi Gallery
Cosimo I de Medici (Italian: Cosimo I de Medici; 1519 -1574) - Grand Duke of Tuscany.
The first of the representatives of the Medici side line at the head of Florence.
Spouses:
Eleanor of Toledo;
Camilla Martelli
Children:
Maria,
Francesco I,
Isabella Medici,
Giovanni,
Lucretia,
Pietro,
Garcia,
Antonio,
Ferdinand I,
Anna,
Pietro,
Virginia,
Bia Medici,
Giovanni

🖌️🎨Agnolo Bronzino
🖼️"Eleanor of Toledo"
1545
Uffizi
Florence
Spouse:
Cosimo I de' Medici
Children:
Maria Medici,
Francesco I,
Isabella Medici,
Giovanni Medici,
Lucrezia de Medici,
Garcia Medici,
Ferdinand I,
Pietro Medici,
Pedricco de' Medici,
 Anna de' Medici,
Antonio de' Medici.

Eleanor of Toledo (Spanish Leonor de Toledo, Italian Eleonora di Toledo, Doña Leonor Alvarez de Toledo y Osorio; 1522-1562) - first wife of Cosimo I de' Medici, Duchess of Florence, mother of Dukes Francesco I and Ferdinando I, grandmother of the French queen Marie de Medici.