Bianca Cappello

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Bianca Cappello (1548 - October 17, 1587) was a Grand Duchess of Tuscany

[edit] Biography

She was the daughter of Bartolomeo Cappello, a member of one of the richest and noblest Venetian families, and was famed for her great beauty.

At the age of fifteen she fell in love with Pietro Bonaventuri, a young Florentine clerk in the firm of Salviati, and on November 28, 1563 escaped with him to Florence, where they were married and in 1564 she had a daughter named Virginia. The Venetian government made every effort to have Bianca arrested and brought back; but the Grand Duke Cosimo de' Medici intervened in her favour and she was left unmolested.

However, she did not get on well with her husband's family, who were very poor and made her do menial work, until at last her beauty attracted Francesco, the grand duke's son, a vicious and unprincipled rake. Although already married to the virtuous and charming Archduchess Johanna of Austria, he seduced the fair Venetian and loaded her with jewels, money and other presents. Bianca's accommodating husband was given court employment, and consoled himself with other ladies; in 1572 he was murdered in the streets of Florence in consequence of some amorous intrigue, though possibly Bianca and Francesco were privy to the deed.

On the death of Cosimo in 1574 Francesco succeeded to the grand duchy; he now installed Bianca in a fine palace close to his own and outraged his wife by flaunting his mistress before her. As Giovanna had borne Francesco only one son, Filippo (20 May 1577 - 29 March 1582) who died as a juvenile, Bianca was very anxious to present him with an heir, for otherwise her position would remain very insecure. But although she resorted to all sorts of expedients, even to that of trying to pass off a changeling as the grand duke's child (Don Antonio de Medici 1576-1621), she was not successful.

In 1578 Giovanna died; a few days later Francesco secretly married Bianca, and on June 10, 1579, the marriage was publicly announced. The Venetian government now put aside its resentment and was officially represented at the magnificent wedding festivities, for it saw in Bianca Cappello an instrument for cementing good relations with Tuscany. But the long expected heir failed to come, and Bianca realized that if her husband were to die before her she was lost, for his family, especially his brother Cardinal Ferdinand, hated her bitterly, as an adventuress and interloper.

Francesco and Bianca died on the same day, possibly poisoned, or as many historians believe, from malarial fever. In 2007, forensic and toxicology experts at the University of Florence reported evidence of arsenic poisoning in a study published in the British Medical Journal^[1]