Now, independent from this once his father had died Cosimo had started the longest reign any Duke of Tuscany would ever have (52 years, all in all). And it was a terrible one on every level. Scientists and artists were either banished or so poorly paid they went on their own initiative. The economy became so poor that there was bartering on the streets instead of paying with coins. And bigotry ruled. Complete with old school religious antisemitism. Cosimo started to persecute Jews. He forbade Christian/Jewish marriages, forgave Christians and Jews to live in the same house together, forbade Jews to serve in Christian households and Christians to serve Jews. Any type of sexual intercourse between Christians and Jews was forbidden. Etc. And even the Christians were supposed to denounce each other for not being Christian enough if needed.
(There are, however, two examples of laws Cosimo created which our author does approve of. I quote from the book:
Youthful sinners were punished with corresponding severity: in some cases, however, one must applaud the method. Settimanni writes, in October, 1690 : 'A peasant boy between five and six years old, from the district of Pistoia, was castrated in the hospital of S. Maria Nuova, for killing a little girl of three with a stone. He had wanted to remove a medal that she wore about her neck, whence she began to scream , and he stoned her to the ground, striking her head in such wise that it killed her. Seeing that she was dead, he dragged her to a ditch , and covered her face with his clothes . For so much craftiness (malizia ) it was well judged that he should not be allowed offspring in this world, and therefore he was castrated .' Cruelty to animals was also punished in a manner we might emulate : a scoundrel was put in the pillory by the column in the market-place, with a collar and placard , ‘ for being a murderer of cats ' , and two of his dead victims were appended on his neck .)
Meanwhile, Cosimo also kept up on news about his ex in France, via the Tuscan emissary, who sent regular reports on Marguerite Louise. Having achieved her life goal, Marguerite Louise was a bit at a loss at what do with herself. Technically, she did stay in a nunnery. De facto, she was at Versailles most often, gambling huge sums away (which lead to regular arguments for her pension via letter with Tuscany). She had an affair with her groom. (She also hit her servants when the mood struck her. Sex or beatings, it could be either.) She bathed in the nude. (When Cosimo complained about this to Louis via envoy, Louis basically reacted with a shrug.) When the Abbess of the convent where she was living, Montmartre, had died and a new Abbess was appointed, the new Abbess tried to lay down the law. Fat chance. Marguerite Louise threatened to kill her with a hatchet and a pistol. In the end, an agreement with Cosimo and Louis was reached that Marguerite Louise would move to a new convent (Sainte Mande).
For a while, Marguerite Louise had kept up correspondence with her oldest son, Ferdinando when he'd become a rebellious teen writing her letters, and once when Cosimo became ill she told everyone at Versailles it wasn't Tuscany she'd hated, only her husband, and immediately after his death she would "she would fly to Florence to banish all hypocrites and hypocrisy and establish a new government". In the end, Cosimo outlived her, but Marguerite Louise never stopped surprising people till her end. Having moved to Sainte-Mande, she declared it a "spiritual brothel" in need of reform, and she had a point; there were five or six nuns with illegitimate kids and several lovers, and the Abess was present only some months in the year and with her lover otherwise. Marguerite Louise threw herself into her last transformation into a sincere reformer, overhauled the convent, kicked out the Abess and the wayward nuns and next threw herself into charity. She had two strokes which partially incapacitated her, and by then, Louis was dead and Philippe d'Orleans Regent. In another surprising turn of events, the aging Marguerite Louise had become pals with his mother, Liselotte, and so Philippe allowed her to buy a house in Paris and live out her live there, which she did.
As for her children. The oldest, Ferdinando, had some of the good Medici gifts of old - he was a musician and composer, and openly bisexual (this included an affair with a castrato and with a hot musician, but he also had female lovers). Cosimo, despite all evidence to the contrary thinking marriage was just the thing, and argueing with this rebellious son all the time, much like FW insisted him marrying. A very nice girl, as it happened, Violante of Bavaria, who was devoted him. Alas, Ferdinando found her dull and didn't requite her feelings. (Stop me if this sounds familiar.) During his regular trips to Venice, he managed to get infected with syphilis, and not the type to stop at stage 2. He died of it, eventually.
This made brother Gian Gastone the heir, though Dad Cosimo also tried to heighten his chances by making his own younger brother, the frolicking playboy Cardinal (remember him) leave the clergy and marry. His brother did that, and promptly died. Gian Gastone (named after his scheming French grandfather Gaston d'Orleans) had been married at Dad Cosimo's orders in Ferdinando's life time already since it was evidence that tertiary syphilis suffering Ferdinando would never rule. (And had no children by Violante.) With an unerring instinct, Cosimo's wife of choice for Gian Gastone was.... Anna Maria Franziska of Saxe-Lauenburg, in Bohemia. She'd already been married and widowed. This may have given her the self confidence to do absolutely NOT what either her husband or his father wanted. Gian Gastone had travelled to Osnabrück to marry her there and had expected to return with her to Tuscany forthwith. Instead, she insisted they'd go to her estate in Bohemia. He hated it there and found it deadly borin. She was a passionate horsewoman and into agriculture, and they shared absolutely nothing. He attempted to flee to Paris; Dad ordered him back. He also ordered Franziska to come to Tuscany, but fat chance. She stayed where she was, and where she made the rules and had the power. Gian Gastone started to drink, massively, and became an alcoholic who was rarely seen sober for the rest of his life. He also gambled away huge sums of money in Prague. Cosimo enlisted the help of the Pope to order his daughter in law to come to Tuscany with her husband, but she only said there was no point, since Gian Gastone was impotent in addition to being a useless gambling drunk. At which point Cosimo III. caved and allowd Gian Gastone to come home alone.
By now, it was glaringly obvious to Cosimo that he had a succession problem. One son dying of syphilis, the other impotent according to his wife, drinking himself to death and staring up to the stars (he did that, it was a thing). He tried to petition that his daughter, who'd been married to the Elector Palatine, would be allowed to succeed. But alas.
Charles VI, HRE: Cosimo, my friend, let me point out two things for you. Firstly, the Palatinate is a principality within the HRE, which means I'm your daughter's husband's boss, and I decide about any additional title any of my Electors get. Secondly, and as importantaly, do you remember why Tuscany is a duchy now? Which it sure as hell was not in the days of Lorenzo the Magnificent? Because my ancestor Charles V. took the quondam Republic of Florence and made it into the Duchy of Tuscany, appointing your ancestor its Duke. You know, when his troops were in Italy and Rome got sacked and the Florentines debated either letting child!Catherine de' Medici be raped by the troops or put her out in a cage in front of the city walls so Charles' canons would hit her. Those days. Anyway, since your ancestor from the younger Medici line accepted Tuscany as a Duchy from the hands of the Holy Roman Emperor, it means any Duke of Tuscany is the vassal of the HRE and if your dynasty is about to die out, well, I've got an idea...
Cosimo: I hate you. How about I pick Don Carlos, son of Elisabetta Farnese, Queen of Spain and of Philip V. instead? Charles VI (having spent years of his life fighting Philip V.) : I don't think so.
Cosimo dies. Gian Gastone ascends, the literal last of the Medici, save for his sister. He's so drunk all the time that he throws up out of his chaise when carried through Florence, so he rarely is. At meals he's not better - vomiting into his napkin, wiping his mouth with his periwig. But: he immediately gets rid of the anti-Jewish and anti-Protestant laws his father had made, threw out corrupt churchmen from the government, and revoked the banishment of "new" (i.e. Galilelean) ideas from the university of Pisa. He also separated Medici property from state property, being aware that despite his efforts, neither his sister nor Don Carlos would succeed him, and this way his sister could at least inherit the family posessions. Amazingly given thie condition he already was in by the time he took over, he managed a reign of 13 years before his alcoholilsm at last killed him. Because of his reforms, he was sincerely mourned. But the story of the Medici was over for good.
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Harold Acton: Last of the Medici 2: This is the end, my friend...
Date: 2021-06-16 07:59 pm (UTC)(There are, however, two examples of laws Cosimo created which our author does approve of. I quote from the book:
Youthful sinners were punished with corresponding severity: in some cases, however, one must applaud the method. Settimanni writes, in October, 1690 : 'A peasant boy between five and six years old, from the district of Pistoia, was castrated in the hospital of S. Maria Nuova, for killing a little girl of three with a stone. He had wanted to remove a medal that she wore about her neck, whence she began to scream , and he stoned her to the ground, striking her head in such wise that it killed her. Seeing that she was dead, he dragged her to a ditch , and covered her face with his clothes . For so much craftiness (malizia ) it was well judged that he should not be allowed offspring in this world, and therefore he was castrated .' Cruelty to animals was also punished in a manner we might emulate : a scoundrel was put in the pillory by the column in the market-place, with a collar and placard , ‘ for being a murderer of cats ' , and two of his dead victims were
appended on his neck .)
Meanwhile, Cosimo also kept up on news about his ex in France, via the Tuscan emissary, who sent regular reports on Marguerite Louise. Having achieved her life goal, Marguerite Louise was a bit at a loss at what do with herself. Technically, she did stay in a nunnery. De facto, she was at Versailles most often, gambling huge sums away (which lead to regular arguments for her pension via letter with Tuscany). She had an affair with her groom. (She also hit her servants when the mood struck her. Sex or beatings, it could be either.) She bathed in the nude. (When Cosimo complained about this to Louis via envoy, Louis basically reacted with a shrug.) When the Abbess of the convent where she was living, Montmartre, had died and a new Abbess was appointed, the new Abbess tried to lay down the law. Fat chance. Marguerite Louise threatened to kill her with a hatchet and a pistol. In the end, an agreement with Cosimo and Louis was reached that Marguerite Louise would move to a new convent (Sainte Mande).
For a while, Marguerite Louise had kept up correspondence with her oldest son, Ferdinando when he'd become a rebellious teen writing her letters, and once when Cosimo became ill she told everyone at Versailles it wasn't Tuscany she'd hated, only her husband, and immediately after his death she would "she would fly to Florence to banish all hypocrites and hypocrisy and establish a new government". In the end, Cosimo outlived her, but Marguerite Louise never stopped surprising people till her end. Having moved to Sainte-Mande, she declared it a "spiritual brothel" in need of reform, and she had a point; there were five or six nuns with illegitimate kids and several lovers, and the Abess was present only some months in the year and with her lover otherwise. Marguerite Louise threw herself into her last transformation into a sincere reformer, overhauled the convent, kicked out the Abess and the wayward nuns and next threw herself into charity. She had two strokes which partially incapacitated her, and by then, Louis was dead and Philippe d'Orleans Regent. In another surprising turn of events, the aging Marguerite Louise had become pals with his mother, Liselotte, and so Philippe allowed her to buy a house in Paris and live out her live there, which she did.
As for her children. The oldest, Ferdinando, had some of the good Medici gifts of old - he was a musician and composer, and openly bisexual (this included an affair with a castrato and with a hot musician, but he also had female lovers). Cosimo, despite all evidence to the contrary thinking marriage was just the thing, and argueing with this rebellious son all the time, much like FW insisted him marrying. A very nice girl, as it happened, Violante of Bavaria, who was devoted him. Alas, Ferdinando found her dull and didn't requite her feelings. (Stop me if this sounds familiar.) During his regular trips to Venice, he managed to get infected with syphilis, and not the type to stop at stage 2. He died of it, eventually.
This made brother Gian Gastone the heir, though Dad Cosimo also tried to heighten his chances by making his own younger brother, the frolicking playboy Cardinal (remember him) leave the clergy and marry. His brother did that, and promptly died. Gian Gastone (named after his scheming French grandfather Gaston d'Orleans) had been married at Dad Cosimo's orders in Ferdinando's life time already since it was evidence that tertiary syphilis suffering Ferdinando would never rule. (And had no children by Violante.) With an unerring instinct, Cosimo's wife of choice for Gian Gastone was.... Anna Maria Franziska of Saxe-Lauenburg, in Bohemia. She'd already been married and widowed. This may have given her the self confidence to do absolutely NOT what either her husband or his father wanted. Gian Gastone had travelled to Osnabrück to marry her there and had expected to return with her to Tuscany forthwith. Instead, she insisted they'd go to her estate in Bohemia. He hated it there and found it deadly borin. She was a passionate horsewoman and into agriculture, and they shared absolutely nothing. He attempted to flee to Paris; Dad ordered him back. He also ordered Franziska to come to Tuscany, but fat chance. She stayed where she was, and where she made the rules and had the power. Gian Gastone started to drink, massively, and became an alcoholic who was rarely seen sober for the rest of his life. He also gambled away huge sums of money in Prague. Cosimo enlisted the help of the Pope to order his daughter in law to come to Tuscany with her husband, but she only said there was no point, since Gian Gastone was impotent in addition to being a useless gambling drunk. At which point Cosimo III. caved and allowd Gian Gastone to come home alone.
By now, it was glaringly obvious to Cosimo that he had a succession problem. One son dying of syphilis, the other impotent according to his wife, drinking himself to death and staring up to the stars (he did that, it was a thing). He tried to petition that his daughter, who'd been married to the Elector Palatine, would be allowed to succeed. But alas.
Charles VI, HRE: Cosimo, my friend, let me point out two things for you. Firstly, the Palatinate is a principality within the HRE, which means I'm your daughter's husband's boss, and I decide about any additional title any of my Electors get. Secondly, and as importantaly, do you remember why Tuscany is a duchy now? Which it sure as hell was not in the days of Lorenzo the Magnificent? Because my ancestor Charles V. took the quondam Republic of Florence and made it into the Duchy of Tuscany, appointing your ancestor its Duke. You know, when his troops were in Italy and Rome got sacked and the Florentines debated either letting child!Catherine de' Medici be raped by the troops or put her out in a cage in front of the city walls so Charles' canons would hit her. Those days. Anyway, since your ancestor from the younger Medici line accepted Tuscany as a Duchy from the hands of the Holy Roman Emperor, it means any Duke of Tuscany is the vassal of the HRE and if your dynasty is about to die out, well, I've got an idea...
Cosimo: I hate you. How about I pick Don Carlos, son of Elisabetta Farnese, Queen of Spain and of Philip V. instead?
Charles VI (having spent years of his life fighting Philip V.) : I don't think so.
Cosimo dies. Gian Gastone ascends, the literal last of the Medici, save for his sister. He's so drunk all the time that he throws up out of his chaise when carried through Florence, so he rarely is. At meals he's not better - vomiting into his napkin, wiping his mouth with his periwig. But: he immediately gets rid of the anti-Jewish and anti-Protestant laws his father had made, threw out corrupt churchmen from the government, and revoked the banishment of "new" (i.e. Galilelean) ideas from the university of Pisa. He also separated Medici property from state property, being aware that despite his efforts, neither his sister nor Don Carlos would succeed him, and this way his sister could at least inherit the family posessions. Amazingly given thie condition he already was in by the time he took over, he managed a reign of 13 years before his alcoholilsm at last killed him. Because of his reforms, he was sincerely mourned. But the story of the Medici was over for good.