Gian Gastone de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany
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Gian Gastone de' Medici (May 24, 1671 – July 9, 1737) was the last Medici Grand Duke of Tuscany (1723-1737) and the last direct scion of the line of Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and Marguerite Louise d'Orléans, except for his sister Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici.
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[edit] Early years
Born in Florence and baptised Giovanni Battista Gastone, he was introverted and inclined to solitude as a child. He was raised essentially motherless, by a father that never thought much of him. Indifferent to public affairs, he loved the arts and sciences - especially botany.
His older sister Anna Maria Luisa, who loved him fondly, felt obliged to arrange a marriage for him. It was a well-intentioned gesture that would have disastrous results for Gian Gastone, who began to show homosexual tendencies from a very young age. She set her eye on Anna Maria Franziska, daughter of the Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg. The young woman was widowed by the Palatine Count Philip of Neuberg, younger brother of Anna Maria's husband Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine, who - it seems - took to drinking in order to forget about his plain, simple wife, who was and would always remain completely absorbed in hunting and other outdoor activities.
Anna Maria Franziska doggedly opposed the marriage, probably realizing that she was not cut out for conjugal life, but in the end she was compelled to surrender to the collective wills of Cosimo III, elector Palatine Johann Wilhelm and his wife. The wedding was celebrated in Düsseldorf in 1697, and it was decided that Gian Gastone would live in his wife's homeland.
Here, as could well be predicted, the difficulties emerged almost at once. Anna, who lacked any inclination whatsoever for the arts or sciences, lived in a small and dismal castle near Reichstadt, a tiny village perched in the mountains of Bohemia. Exiled at the side of a wife who by far preferred the pleasures of hunting to those of the nuptial bed, and surrounded by a hostile countryside, Gian Gastone became more melancholy than ever, and after spending some time in Hamburg, where he met Georg Frideric Handel, he fled to his mother in Paris. Compelled by Cosimo to return to Bohemia, he took to frequenting Prague to get away from Anna Maria Franziska. Here he would pass his time not, as one might imagine, in the libraries or laboratories, but in the pubs. In short, Gian Gastone would end up an alcoholic.
Meanwhile in Florence, Prince Ferdinando was dying. The elderly Cosimo called his youngest son, the future Grand Duke, back to the homeland, and for ten years (1698-1708) tried in vain to bring back his wife as well.
[edit] Grand Duke
He came to power at age 57, over a Florence in decline, and although he made a start on needed reforms, reducing the taxation on corn, discontinuing public executions, rescinding restrictions on Jewish life, encouraging the sciences, and reducing the power of the Church which it had gained during his father's later years[1], his inherent indolence soon overtook him.
He was known to have a hired agent procure young male prostitutes for his pleasure. They were called the "ruspanti" because they were paid a fee from one to five ruspi for their services. In the last years of his life Gian Gastone had around 370 ruspanti Sometimes he would order his ruspanti to adopt pompous attitudes and he would call them by the well-known names of grave counselors and revered matrons.
Also known for drunkenness, he went to a reception given by his brother's widow, Violante of Bavaria (1673-1731), and became so drunk that he uttered all kinds of obscenities and was pushed vomiting into his coach, wiping his mouth with his wig. In contrast to his father's religious fanaticism, Gian Gastone's contempt for the Church became notorious.
In 1730 Gian Gastone sprained his ankle and took to his bed and from then on he left it only on some very rare occasions. His bed became the centre of his existence. In his later years Gian Gastone became nearly blind and could hardly walk anymore. He let his fingernails, toenails and beard grow. Gradually he became senile. In June 1737 he became seriously ill, suffering from a large stone in the bladder and died within a month.
On his death, the Grand Duchy passed to Francis, Duke of Lorraine, whom the European powers had picked to replace Gian Gastone, without troubling to consult anyone in Florence. Florence became part of the Habsburg Empire.
[edit] Ancestors
[edit] References
- Cesati, Franco (2005). "The twillight of the dynasty", in Monica Fintoni, Andrea Paoletti: The Medici: Story of a European Dynasty. La Mandragora s.r.l., 131-132.
- Hibbert, Christopher (1979). "The last of the Medici", The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici. Penguin Books, London.
- Dean, W. & J.M. Knapp (1996) Handel's Operas 1704-1726. Clarendon Press Oxford.
[edit] Notes
- ^ C. Hibbert, p307.
| Preceded by Cosimo III de' Medici |
Grand Duke of Tuscany 1723–1737 |
Succeeded by Francis II Stephen of Lorraine |
