Valentina Visconti, Duchess of Orléans

Not to be confused with Valentina Visconti, Queen of Cyprus

Valentina Visconti (died 4 December 1408) was the wife of Louis de Valois, Duke of Orléans, a younger brother of Charles VI of France.^[1]

She was born in Milan and was the daughter of Giangaleazzo Visconti, the first Duke of Milan, and his first wife, Isabelle of Valois (a daughter of John the Good).

She married her first cousin, Louis de Valois, in September 1389. Because of intrigues at the court of Charles VI and the enmity of the Queen, Isabeau of Bavaria-Ingolstadt, Valentina was exiled from the court and had to leave Paris. There were serious rumours at the time that Isabeau was having an affair with Louis and that Valentina was very close to the King, who was going through a period of madness.

A patroness of Eustache Deschamps, who wrote poetry in her honour, she was also the mother of one of France's most famous poets, Charles of Orléans.

Louis de Valois was murdered by his cousin and political rival John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy in 1407. Valentina outlived her husband by only a little over a year, dying at Blois at the age of 40.

Her children were:

• Charles, Duke of Orléans (1391–1465), father of King Louis XII of France
• Philip, Count of Vertus (1396–1420)
• John, Count of Angoulême (1400–1467), grandfather of King Francis I of France
• Margaret, Countess of Vertus (1406–1466), married Richard of Brittany, Count of Étampes
• Four boys and two girls who died in childhood

Among her later descendants was King Henry IV of France (1553–1610), founder of the House of Bourbon.^[2]

Ancestors

References