Katherine de' Medici

“ Popular error has done more injury to the memory of Catherine de' Medici than to that of any other woman famous in history. To understand Catherine, and the part she played on the stage of French politics, her training and the position she held must be understood. It is one thing to look upon her on the obverse as wholly without heart, a trafficker in human life, a ghoul who smiled with complacency on the victims of her hate, and another to look on the reverse of the medal. ”

“ It was no longer, however, the figure of Catherine de Medici that presented itself, but the homely person and somewhat unmeaning face of a good lady, dressed in the habit of a prioress. Behind her, again, was a lay-sister, and beside them both the attendant who was accustomed to wait upon the young Count. ”

“ I am certain that our citizens will unite to protect their liberty, so that by the grace of God it will be defended as was always done by our fathers. I go full of hope, and with no other object than the good of the city, and I pray God to give me grace to perform what is the duty of every man towards his country. I commend myself humbly to Your Excellencies of the Signoria.—From San Miniato on the 7th day of December 1479. Your Excellencies’ Servant,
Laurentius de Medicis. [272]
Lorenzo de’ Medici to Antonio Montecatino, Ambassador to Florence of the Duke of Ferrara ”

“ The weak and undecided government of Catherine de’ Medici tried several times, but in vain, to prevent or repress these savage explosions of passion and strife amongst the people; the sterling moderation of Chancellor de l’Hospital was scarcely more successful than the hypocritical and double-faced attentions paid by Catherine de’ Medici to both the Catholic and the Protestant leaders; the great maladies and the great errors of nations require remedies more heroic than the adroitness of a woman, the wisdom of a functionary, or the hopes of a philosopher. ”

“ Catherine de’ Medici
This queen is extracted, on the father’s side, from the race of the Medici, one of the noblest and most illustrious families, not only in Italy, but in Christendom. Whatever may be said, she was a foreigner to these shores because the alliances of kings cannot commonly be chosen in their kingdom; for it is not best to do so; foreign marriages being as useful and more so than near ones. ”

“ These two words are dominion and astrology. Catherine de' Medici was excessively ambitious; she had no passion but for power. Superstitious and a fatalist, as many a man of superior mind has been, her only sincere belief was in the occult sciences. Without this twofold light, she must always remain misunderstood; and by giving the first place [Pg 240] to her faith in astrology, a light will be thrown on the two philosophical figures of this Study.
There was a man whom Catherine clung to more than to her children; this man was Cosmo Ruggieri. ”

“ As many persons know nothing of the state of affairs, complicated by the multiplicity of parties which then racked France, each leader having his own interests in view, it is needful to devote a few words to describing the dangerous crisis in which the Queen-mother had become entangled. And as this will show Catherine de' Medici in a new light, it will carry us to the very core of this narrative. ”

“ But I suppose this does not interest you, as you have no use for doctors," she concluded, archly.
"Indeed, it does interest me," said Katherine, earnestly, "and I hope you do not think that Scientists hold physicians in contempt. We all know that there are many noble men among them, who are devoted to their profession and are most conscientious in the practice of medicine."
"But I suppose you would not employ one under any circumstances?"
"No; I could not."
"You have such faith in your mother's healing power, you would trust her before the most noted practitioner of materia medica?" ”

“ This will show how all popular revolutions resemble each other. Catherine’s subsequent policy, which upheld so firmly the royal power, may well have been instigated in part by such scenes, of which an Italian girl of nine years of age was assuredly not ignorant.
The rise of Alessandro de’ Medici, to which the bastard Pope Clement VII. powerfully contributed, was no doubt chiefly caused by the affection of Charles V. for his famous illegitimate daughter Margaret. Thus Pope and emperor were prompted by the same sentiment. At this epoch Venice had the commerce of the world ”

“ He gained the goodwill of his fellow-citizens by his unselfishness and generosity—truly not too common in the bearing of men of his time. He served the office of Prior in 1402, 1408, 1411; he was ambassador to Naples in 1406, and to Pope Alessandro V. in 1409; and, in 1407, he held the lucrative post of Podesta of Pistoja.
In 1421 Messer Giovanni de’ Medici was elected Gonfaloniere di Giustizia, as the representative of the middle classes, and in opposition to Messeri Rinaldo degli Albizzi and Niccolo da Uzzano, the Ghibelline nominees. The Republic sighed for peace, the crafts for quietness ”

“ He is very well and gay, and so is Bernardo. [145] Tell Nannina this. Our party is as when we left all good friends and obedient; we have had no drawbacks, for not even a nail is wanting. We have had no delays or frauds. All goes well and happily: please God we shall find you the same, to whom we all commend ourselves.—The 18th day of July 1469. [146]
Lorenzo de’ Medici to his wife Clarice
I have arrived here safely and am well. ”

“ First of all, they treated of the question of faith, and a bull was read for the repression of heresy, and to hinder things from coming to a greater combustion (une plus grande combustion) than they are in already. Then was performed the marriage ceremony between the Duc d'Orléans, the King's second son, and Catherine de' Medici, Duchess of Urbino, [Pg 27] his Holiness' niece, under conditions the same, or nearly the same, as had been formerly proposed to the Duke of Albany. The said marriage was concluded with great magnificence, and our Holy Father married them. ”

“ You may think how I love him; particularly when his joyous neighs resound and rejoice all the neighbourhood. I owe you and I send you many thanks for such a fine gift, and I shall try and repay you by becoming what you wish. Of this be sure. I promise you that I shall try with all my heart. We are all well, and we all long for your arrival. God save you.—1479. [257]
Your son Piero at Gagliano. [258]
Antonio Pucci to Lorenzo de’ Medici at Cafaggiuolo
Magnifice Frater honorande,—That priest from Imola has been interrogated. ”

“ Ferdinando, born 1549, was now wearing the Cardinal’s red hat, which hapless young Garzia’s hunting-knife had caused to fall from his brother Giovanni’s head in the Maremma. Ambitious, jealous, but, perhaps, less depraved than his father, the Cardinal de’ Medici made no secret of his dislike of his brother Francesco and his innamorata, Bianca Buonaventuri. ”

“ At the time when Catherine was born, history, if related from the point of view of honesty, would seem an impossible romance. Charles V., while forced to uphold the Catholic Church against the attacks of Luther, who by threatening the tiara threatened his throne, allowed Rome to be besieged, and kept Pope Clement VII. in prison. This same Pope, who had no more bitter foe than Charles V., cringed to him that he might place Alessandro de' Medici at Florence, and the Emperor gave his daughter in marriage to the bastard Duke. ”

“ Till now I have by her two children, a daughter called Lucrezia ... years old, and a son called Piero ... months old. King Ferrante is the godfather of the girl. She is again with child. God spare her to us for a long time and preserve her from all ill” (see p. 153) .
The following description of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s wedding is taken from a contemporary manuscript existing in Codex 574, Class xxv. of the Strozziani MSS. in the National Library of Florence. ”

“ Perhaps she thought that lovers as young as the king and herself could never struggle successfully against the queen-mother. As the daughter of Jean Touchet, Sieur de Beauvais and Quillard, she was born between the burgher class and the lower nobility; she had none of the inborn ambitions of the Pisseleus and Saint-Valliers, girls of rank, who battled for their families with the hidden weapons of love. Marie Touchet, without family or friends, spared Catherine de’ Medici all antagonism with her son’s mistress; the daughter of a great house would have been her rival. ”

“ Such was the state of things in the Medicean domestic circle in the summer of the year 1576; when the working together of all these passions, and all these ill–conditioned and depraved wills culminated in one of those catastrophes which have rendered the name of Medici infamous throughout all time, and made it a beacon to warn off mankind from any approach towards that condition of social system which rendered the production of such hideous phenomena possible. ”

“ Poliziano accompanied Piero de’ Medici to Rome to meet his bride Alfonsina Orsini, to whom he had been married by proxy at Naples in February the year before. His mother Clarice, who was very ill, had been in Rome since November hoping, as consumptive people do, that the milder air would cure her. With her had gone her favourite daughter, “the eye of her head,” Maddalena, affianced to the Pope’s illegitimate son Francesco Cibò. Piero and his wife, Clarice and Maddalena, all returned together to Florence, Lorenzo having begged the Pope and Cibò to allow Maddalena to come with her sick mother. ”

“ As she spoke these words, Catherine fixed her eyes on Charles IX. with the fascinating gaze of a bird of prey on its victim. The daughter of the Medici was beautiful in her way; her real feelings illumined her face, which, like that of a gambler at the green-table, was radiant with ambitious greed. ”

“ Catherine de Medici, his mother, with the acquiesence of parliament, administered the affairs of government. Although a bigoted Catholic, yet having no principle but the love of sway, she was ready to support any faction or creed that administered to her power, or removed an obstacle to her ambition. Without profound views of policy, she was incapable of either originating a great national object, or of supporting it by adequate measures. So indomitable was her passion for dominion, that it as much obdurated her maternal feelings as it disqualified her for a judicious regent. ”

“ Youth gave way to middle age, and middle age to the crepuscule of life, and the seasons came, and the seasons went, and one life in that sanctuary seemed fated to go on for ever. Forgotten and unvisited, Eleanora, the druda of Cosimo I., cast off and spurned; the innamorata of Piero de’ Medici, wronged and despised; the wife of Carlo de’ Panciatichi, divorced and cloistered, lived on and on, far beyond the scriptural limit of threescore years and ten—the pathetic victim of a callous world. ”

“ She admired the good-looking boy, his talents for music, and his skill in gentlemanly exercises. The Venetian ambassador at the Vatican remarked, in a letter to his Government: “We have here a little Medici princess, Caterina, the only child of the late Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino. She and Don Ippolito, the bastard son of Duke Giuliano, are inseparable companions. The boy is very fond of his young cousin, whilst she is devoted to him. She has confidence in nobody else, and she asks him only for everything she wants.” ”

“ From Nice, Garibaldi went to Genoa, where he took a last leave of his friend Anzani, who returned from exile not to fight, as he had hoped, [Pg.125] but to die. The day before he expired, Medici arrived at Genoa; he was very angry with the Chief, in consequence of some disagreement as to the place of landing. Anzani said to him entreatingly: 'Do not be hard, Medici, on Garibaldi; he is a predestined man: a great part of the future of Italy is in his hands.' The counsel from dying lips sank deep into Medici's heart ”

“ The Cavaliere raised his head once more under the guilty rule of Grand Duke Francesco’s murderer, the unscrupulous Cardinal Ferdinando, and by him was appointed a Gentleman of Honour and a member of the new Grand Ducal Council of Two-Hundred. He died long before his doubly-wronged, unhappy wife, Eleanora, on the 27th February 1620.
With Cammilla de’ Martelli came the end of the prosperous reign and the end of the profligate life of Cosimo de’ Medici, last Duke of Florence and first Grand Duke of Tuscany. ”

“ The unshrinking dignity with which she opposes without descending to brave the Cardinal, the stern rebuke addressed to the Duke of Buckingham's surveyor, are finely characteristic; and by thus exhibiting Katherine as invested with all her conjugal rights and influence, and royal state, the subsequent situations are rendered more impressive. She is placed in the first instance on such a height in our esteem and reverence, that in the midst of her abandonment and degradation, and the profound pity she afterwards inspires, the first effect remains unimpaired, and she never falls beneath it. ”

“ At Lyon, and at Mouvans in Dauphine, a body of Reformers, under command of the most enterprising prince of the house of Bourbon had endeavored to incite the populace to rise. Such audacity, after the bloody executions at Amboise, astonished the Guises, who (no doubt to put an end to heresy by means known only to themselves) proposed the convocation of the States-general at Orleans. Catherine de’ Medici, seeing a chance of support to her policy in a national representation, joyfully agreed to it. ”