Giuliano Dami: his age definitely is a powerful argument for him being unfairly blamed in the who corrupted whom stakes in Prague. Incidentally, for a moment I wondered how either Dami or Gian Gastone would find the beautiful young men in Prague at first, given that neither of them spoke German, let alone Czech, but then I recalled Gian Gastone at least was bound to be fluent in French and Dami probably picked up some German and French during the two preceding years.
Incidentally, Acton is really down on Franziska, Gian Gastone's wife, saying that the portraits of her German ancestors with their "piggy eyes" reveal how ugly she must have been (because her own portrait is rather flattering, but okay, that doesn't have to mean anything), and taking all of Gian Gastone's justifications (in letters to Dad) of how she was an ill tempered shrew on faith. And he mentions her talking to her horses as a sign of her being either stupid or really weird, when I don't own a horse, but my cousin's wife does, and she talks to it all the time when with it. And of course her liking the country life and agriculture makes her deeply stupid. Whereas when you filter out what was said vs what was done, what it comes down to that Franziska evidently was not willing to play the game of patient wives and straying husbands. She had undoubtedly heard how the marriage between her new parents-in-law had gone and how Marguerite-Louise had relentlessly campaigned to go home to France. And refusing to go with Gian Gastone to Tuscany as opposed to staying in her own territory where she called the shots and he was the stranger strikes me not as stupid but as great common sense. (I'm also impressed that even when Cosimo marshalled the Pope writing to her, she remained unmoved.) She might every well have been non-intellectual and not interested in culture, but stupid? I don't think so.
Also: as opposed to his older brother Ferdinando, who comes as across as bisexual leaning towards the gay end of the spectrum but with some female lovers whom no one forced him to have so still bi, Gian Gastone did not have a single mistress between all the boys, so: he was definitely completely gay, and only married in the first place because Dad frogmarched him and Ferdinando had syphilis. That marriage was doomed in any case, but at least Franziska managed to come out of it with her life intact and unruined, which is more than you can see for various other ladies of our aquaintance married to gay nobles.
Speaking of whom, an interesting parallel to the Hohenzollern brothers is that just as Fritz and Heinrich were able to be nice and supportive to unhappily married women they themselves were not married to, Gian Gastone had a good relationship with his sister-in-law Violante (remember, devoted to Ferdinando who found her dull) and she did a lot of the representing and some governing during his reign, and tried her best to get him back into society and attend some public banquets at least (not a good idea, since, see above), while Ferdinando was the only family member who tried to remain in contact with Marguerite Louise (he was after all the oldest of her children and had the most memory of her) and who while he was still compos mentis defended where whenever someone critiqued her. But to their own wives? Repeat after me: symbols of parental oppression forced on them.
As for the Florence the gang would find in your fixit story: no more bigotted anti-Jewish and anti-Protestant laws, on the one hand, and Violante and the Electress trying to restore some culture to the city; otoh, Ruspanti running wild. In RL Wilhelmine did visit Florence, I think, but that was in the 1750s, meaning Autrian-Lorraines ruled there (by distance, FS wasn't yet dead, and only after his death did son Leopold move to Tuscany), so her experience by necessity was very different than how it would have been in the early 1730s. (Other than the obvious art to admire, which tourists could even then.)
Acton makes an interesting comparison: if Cosimo III and his entire reign were like a caricature of Louis XIV in his later years (rigidly pious, impoverishing the country by wars badly managed economy, kicking out Protestants and in Cosimo's case Jews by super bigotted laws against them), Gian Gastone was like a caricature of Philippe d'Orleans the Regent and the Regency. I quote from the book:
Florence during Gian Gastone's reign might aptly be compared with Paris during the Regency. Florentine society was imitating the French . In France ‘ the flaunting vice of a clique is often represented as a natural reaction against the austerity of Louis XIV's later years'; in Florence it was the inevitable reaction against a whole century of gloom and bigotry. Gian Gastone was not solely responsible for this epidemic of licentiousness. The Regent d'Orléans, wrote Saint-Simon, was bored with himself from birth. He sought relief in wine and witty women; vice with him was neither passion nor fashion, but the tiresome habit of a tired man. Substitute Ruspanti for witty women, and the same applies to the last Grand Duke of the Medici.
Incidentally, Gian Gastone's last appearance outside his bedroom was in 1729, so our lot really could not have met him. Just the Ruspanti.
Re: Harold Acton: Last of the Medici I: How to make really bad marriages
Incidentally, Acton is really down on Franziska, Gian Gastone's wife, saying that the portraits of her German ancestors with their "piggy eyes" reveal how ugly she must have been (because her own portrait is rather flattering, but okay, that doesn't have to mean anything), and taking all of Gian Gastone's justifications (in letters to Dad) of how she was an ill tempered shrew on faith. And he mentions her talking to her horses as a sign of her being either stupid or really weird, when I don't own a horse, but my cousin's wife does, and she talks to it all the time when with it. And of course her liking the country life and agriculture makes her deeply stupid. Whereas when you filter out what was said vs what was done, what it comes down to that Franziska evidently was not willing to play the game of patient wives and straying husbands. She had undoubtedly heard how the marriage between her new parents-in-law had gone and how Marguerite-Louise had relentlessly campaigned to go home to France. And refusing to go with Gian Gastone to Tuscany as opposed to staying in her own territory where she called the shots and he was the stranger strikes me not as stupid but as great common sense. (I'm also impressed that even when Cosimo marshalled the Pope writing to her, she remained unmoved.) She might every well have been non-intellectual and not interested in culture, but stupid? I don't think so.
Also: as opposed to his older brother Ferdinando, who comes as across as bisexual leaning towards the gay end of the spectrum but with some female lovers whom no one forced him to have so still bi, Gian Gastone did not have a single mistress between all the boys, so: he was definitely completely gay, and only married in the first place because Dad frogmarched him and Ferdinando had syphilis. That marriage was doomed in any case, but at least Franziska managed to come out of it with her life intact and unruined, which is more than you can see for various other ladies of our aquaintance married to gay nobles.
Speaking of whom, an interesting parallel to the Hohenzollern brothers is that just as Fritz and Heinrich were able to be nice and supportive to unhappily married women they themselves were not married to, Gian Gastone had a good relationship with his sister-in-law Violante (remember, devoted to Ferdinando who found her dull) and she did a lot of the representing and some governing during his reign, and tried her best to get him back into society and attend some public banquets at least (not a good idea, since, see above), while Ferdinando was the only family member who tried to remain in contact with Marguerite Louise (he was after all the oldest of her children and had the most memory of her) and who while he was still compos mentis defended where whenever someone critiqued her. But to their own wives? Repeat after me: symbols of parental oppression forced on them.
As for the Florence the gang would find in your fixit story: no more bigotted anti-Jewish and anti-Protestant laws, on the one hand, and Violante and the Electress trying to restore some culture to the city; otoh, Ruspanti running wild. In RL Wilhelmine did visit Florence, I think, but that was in the 1750s, meaning Autrian-Lorraines ruled there (by distance, FS wasn't yet dead, and only after his death did son Leopold move to Tuscany), so her experience by necessity was very different than how it would have been in the early 1730s. (Other than the obvious art to admire, which tourists could even then.)
Acton makes an interesting comparison: if Cosimo III and his entire reign were like a caricature of Louis XIV in his later years (rigidly pious, impoverishing the country by
warsbadly managed economy, kicking out Protestants and in Cosimo's case Jews by super bigotted laws against them), Gian Gastone was like a caricature of Philippe d'Orleans the Regent and the Regency. I quote from the book:Florence during Gian Gastone's reign might aptly be compared with Paris during the Regency. Florentine society was imitating the French . In France ‘ the flaunting vice of a clique is often represented as a natural reaction against the austerity of Louis XIV's later years'; in Florence it was the inevitable reaction against a whole century of gloom and bigotry. Gian Gastone was not solely responsible for this epidemic of licentiousness.
The Regent d'Orléans, wrote Saint-Simon, was bored with himself from birth. He sought relief in wine and witty women; vice with him was neither passion nor fashion, but the tiresome habit of a tired man. Substitute Ruspanti for witty women, and the same applies to the last Grand Duke of the Medici.
Incidentally, Gian Gastone's last appearance outside his bedroom was in 1729, so our lot really could not have met him. Just the Ruspanti.