Isabella de' Medici

Isabella Romola de' Medici (31 August 1542 – 16 July 1576) was the daughter of Cosimo I de' Medici, first Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Eleonora di Toledo.

With her siblings, Isabella was raised in Florence and at a country estate, educated in a humanist manner, and from an early age showed a great love of music and dancing. Her father arranged for her to be married to Paolo Giordano I Orsini to secure a relationship with the powerful Roman Orsinis. The marriage was consummated when Isabella was 16, but in an unconventional move, her father arranged for her to stay in his household after her marriage, giving her an unusual degree of independence for a woman of her period.

Biography

She was born in Florence where, with her brothers and sisters, she lived in the Palazzo Vecchio, the Palazzo Pitti, although the children spent much of their time at their father's ancestral country home, Villa di Castello.^[1] The Medici children were educated at home by tutors in a range of subjects such as classics, languages, and arts. From an early age Isabella showed a great love for music, which in her adulthood she used as means for self-expression, according to biographer Caroline Murphy.^[2] A great beauty, she had a lively, high-spirited and impulsive character that was commented on by courtiers.^[3]

In 1553, when she was 11 years old, in an effort to secure his southern border and to secure a liaison with the ancient Roman Orsini family, Cosimo negotiated Isabella's betrothal to 12 year old Paolo Giordano Orsini, in line for the Duchy of Bracciano in southern Tuscany.^[4] The two married in 1558, in a semi-private ceremony, at Villa di Castello.^[5] Paolo left the following day. Concerned by the spending habits of his new son-in-law, Cosimo decided to keep his daughter and her 50,000 scudi dowry in Florence, giving her greater freedom and control over her own affairs than was customary for Florentine women of the time.^[6]

Following her mother's death, she acted as first lady of Florence for a time, displaying the de' Medici aptitude for politics. She suffered several miscarriages and remained childless until her late twenties, which also meant that she had more freedom than most women her age. Her daughter Francesca Eleonora (known as Nora), was born in 1571^[7] and eventually married her cousin Alessandro Sforza. Her son Virginio was born in 1572 and eventually inherited his father's dukedom.

Isabella allegedly had a free-spirited personality which created rumours with regard to the nature of her relationship with Troilo Orsini, Paolo Giordano's cousin, who was charged with looking after her while the Giordano was away tending to military duties. Paolo Giordano was eventually informed of Isabella's infidelity. Her powerful father having died, the duke had Isabella strangled in the Villa di Cerreto Guidi, near Florence,^[8] probably with the complicity of her brother Francesco, the new Grand Duke. Troilo was also murdered in the same fashion in Paris a few months later.

Ancestry

Notes

References

• Murphy, Caroline P. Murder of a Medici Princess. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-19-531439-7
• Reiss, Sheryl; Wilkins, David. Beyond Isabella: Secular women patrons of art in Renaissance Italy. Truman State University Press, 2001. ISBN 0-9435-4988-4