Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany

Francesco I de' Medici
Grand Duke of Tuscany
Francesco by Agnolo Bronzino.
Reign 21 April 1574 – 17 October 1587
Predecessor Cosimo I
Successor Ferdinando I
Spouse Joanna of Austria (1565-1578)
Bianca Cappello (1578-1587)
Issue
Eleonora, Duchess of Mantua
Maria, Queen of France
Father Cosimo I
Mother Eleonora di Toledo
Born 25 March 1541(1541-03-25)
Florence
Died 17 October 1587(1587-10-17) (aged 46)

Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (25 March 1541 – 17 October 1587) was the second Grand Duke of Tuscany, ruling from 1574 to 1587.

Contents

Biography

Born in Florence, he was the son of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and Eleonora di Toledo, and served as regent for his father starting in 1564.

Marriage to Joanna of Austria

On 18 December 1565, he married Joanna of Austria, youngest daughter of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor and Anna of Bohemia and Hungary, after among others Princess Elizabeth of Sweden had been considered. By all reports, it was not a happy marriage. Joanna was homesick for her native Austria, and Francesco was neither charming nor faithful. Joanna died at the age of thirty one in 1578.

Bianca Cappello

Soon after the Grand Duchess Joanna had died, Francesco went on to marry his Venetian mistress, Bianca Cappello, after aptly disposing of her husband, a Florentine bureaucrat. Because of the quick remarriage and similar occurrences among the Medici (Francesco's younger brother Pietro had reportedly killed his wife), rumors spread up that Francesco and Bianca had conspired to poison Joanna. Francesco reportedly built and decorated Villa Medicea di Pratolino for Bianca. She was, however, not always popular among Florentines. They had no children, but Francesco adopted her daughter by first marriage Pellegrina (1564- ?) and her son Antonio (29 August 1576 - 2 May 1621), who was first adopted as newborn child by Bianca Cappello with the intention to present him to Francesco as "own child" by means of changeling.

Like his father, Francesco was often despotic, but while Cosimo had known how to maintain Florentine independence, Francesco acted more like a vassal of his father-in-law, the emperor, and subsequent Holy Roman Emperors. He continued the heavy taxation of his subjects in order to pay large sums to the empire.

He had an amateur's interest in manufacturing and sciences. He founded porcelain and stoneware manufacture, but these did not thrive until after his death. He continued his father's patronage of the arts, supporting artists and building the Medici Theater as well as founding the Accademia della Crusca. He was also passionately interested in chemistry and alchemy and spent many hours in his private laboratory/curio collection, the Studiolo in the Palazzo Vecchio, which held his collections of natural item and stones and allowed him to dabble in amateur chemistry and alchemical schemes.

Francesco and Bianca died on the same day. Although the original death certificates mention malaria, it has been widely speculated that the couple was poisened, possibly by Francesco's brother, Ferdinando. While some early forensic research supported the latter theory,[1] forensic evidence from a study in 2010 found the parasite Plasmodium falciparum, which causes malaria, in the skeletal remains of Francesco I,[2] strongly bolstering the infectious theory and the credibility of the official documents.[3] (The whereabouts of Bianca's remains are unknown and therefore have not been tested.) Francesco was succeeded by his younger brother, Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany.

There is a famous portrait of Francesco as a child by Agnolo Bronzino, which hangs in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

Francesco's marriage to Bianca and the couple's death was exploited by Thomas Middleton for his tragedy Women Beware Women (published 1657).

Children

Francesco and Johanna had seven children:

Descendants

Descendents of Francesco I de' Medici, Grand duke of Tuscany, in three generations

Francesco I de' Medici
Grand duke of Tuscany		 Daughter:
Marie de' Medici
Queen of France		 Granddaughter:
Henrietta Maria of France
Queen of England		 Great-Grandson:
Charles II of England
King of England, Ireland and Scotland

Ancestry

References

  1. ^ Francesco Mari; Aldo Polettini, Donatella Lippi, Elisabetta Bertol (2006). "The mysterious death of Francesco I de' Medici and Bianca Cappello: an arsenic murder?". BMJ 333 (23–30 June 2006): 1299–1301. doi:10.1136/bmj.38996.682234.AE. PMC 1761188. PMID 17185715. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1761188. 
  2. ^ http://news.discovery.com/archaeology/medici-mystery-cold-case.html
  3. ^ http://pisa.academia.edu/documents/0098/7099/AJM10812main_1_.pdf

External links

Preceded by
Cosimo I de' Medici		 Grand Duke of Tuscany
1574–1587		 Succeeded by
Ferdinando I de' Medici