Have now finished the book. Since selenak has given you the forest, and I'm a tree person, here are some trees from the book!
* Cosimo visits England and has an interesting experience:
Cosimo was given a very warm reception by Charles and his Court, and by the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, chiefly it appears for the strange reason that his father was supposed to have protected Galileo against Papal persecution. Cosimo, who certainly did not consider any resistance to Papal authority as one of his family's noblest qualifications, had to hear himself extolled at length on this subject by the most eminent college professors.
:D
* Grand Duke Ferdinando II, father of Cosimo, reminds you why you don't want to live in the 17th century:
Since the Grand Duke had derived no advantage whatever from the medicine he had taken on the previous day, the cupping-glasses were used again, and another ounce was removed from his bladder. Polvere Capitale was forcibly thrust down his nose, and four live pigeons were ripped open and, covered with this same powder, were put on his forehead. A cauterizing iron was later applied to his head , but with no success, and as his condition grew worse towards midday, the Nuncio arrived at the palace and gave him the papal benediction. Next morning, although his pulse was still beating, there was little hope for his life, and his confessor, seeing how very weak he was, had several reliquaries placed about him at ten o'clock. At 13 3/4 o'clock he died, at the age of 59.
* Marguerite-Louise about to set out on her long-awaited return to France:
France and Spain were at war, and Cosimo was nervous lest his wife's galleys should come in contact with Spanish ones. Such an adventure would have been welcome to Marguerite-Louise, who said she longed to take part in a naval combat. But Cosimo preferred not to put her valour to the test, and all the members of her suite were provided with Tuscan passports.
Who else can TOTALLY see ML in a naval combat? She missed her calling! (As Selena said, we can only imagine what she could have accomplished if she'd been allowed to apply her strength of will to a goal *other* than trying to get out of an unwanted marriage.)
* ML, now in France, hopes that Charles of Lorraine (her true love, remember, and FS's grandfather) dies childless, so that she can inherit Lorraine.
She tells everybody at all times that if the Duke of Lorraine should die without offspring, the duchy reverts to herself. So Madame d'Harcourt was resolved to tell her that the said Queen was big with child, and thus put an end to her hopes . But she retorted that it did not matter. By suborning the midwife it was not difficult to make the infant die. This had happened in one of the Empress's deliveries, when the babe was caused to perish as soon as she gave it birth: she knew the very woman who had contrived this affair. The midwife had been corrupted by a goodly sum of money, and was living at Avignon now. Beside which it was so easy to accomplish: you had merely to prick the new -born's head with a pin for its death to be a certainty. And she discoursed in similar fashion before another nun, who was highly scandalized.'
...Perhaps we should be glad she missed her calling.
* While she was in France being a nun, having affairs, and otherwise behaving scandalously, Louis and the Abbess were desperately trying to downplay her activities to avoid scandals becoming public. But Cosimo, who can't let her go even now that he's let her go, has a guy named Gondi spying on her and reporting everything he finds to his master.
A conspiracy of silence, '[the Abbess] concluded, 'is the sole antidote to the depravity and disgraceful excesses of this woman.' Which explains the scarcity of references to Marguerite Louise in gazettes and memoirs of this period. But for Gondi, whom Cosimo goaded on to pry into all the details of her life, these would have been consigned to oblivion .
In other words, we gossipy sensationalists owe Gondi a debt of gratitude!
* Speaking of gossipy sensationalism, here's some:
Cosimo imposes customs duties on goods imported into Florence, in an effort to do something about the economy he's running into the ground. But enforcing this on members of the clergy proved a vain effort, as the following anecdote shows:
Once upon a time, a Florentine family bought bridal jewelry in the countryside for an upcoming marriage, but they didn't want to have to pay the required duties when bringing the jewels into the city. So they entrusted the jewels to a Franciscan friar who had promised to smuggle them into the city. The friar put the jewels in a case in his breeches, which are of course, under his robe. When asked at the gates if he has anything to declare, he laughs, pats his breeches, and says naughtily, like it's a dirty joke, "Yes, the 'family jewels' [fornimento di sposa]."
The customs officials are horrified at such behavior from a friar. They shoo him into the city and threaten to tell his superior on him. Once he's safely past the gate, he takes out the jewelry case, shows it to them, and says, "Here it is, gentlemen, I did not lie to you."
Did this happen? Idk, but it's a great story.
* Gian Gastone's sister, the Electress, supposedly contracted an STD from her husband. She gave orders that her body was not to be embalmed, but since it was supposed that she gave the order out of modesty, her wishes were ignored.
What I want to kow is whether there are signed testimonies about the state of her genitalia. ;) More seriously, we talked about why Fritz gave the order that he wasn't to be embalmed, and it seems that people did that out of modesty, and were sometimes ignored. Since we know he was very reluctant to show his body even to the servants, it seems likely that he would be upset by the signed testimonies that was his motivation as well.
* When Violante, Ferdinando's unwanted wife (Gian Gastone's sister-in-law, whom he befriended out of sympathy) and the Electress, her sister-in-law, are both having to be in Florence at once and are of the opinion that the city is too big for both of them (the Electress outranks Violante, but Violante has gotten used to being the highest-ranked female and resents being supplanted), they have to work out elaborate rules of etiquette that allow them to coexist. Comments Acton, "it is amusing to note that in these allowance was still made for the long-absent Grand Duchess Marguerite-Louise."
Every time I think 17th and 18th century formal etiquette can't get more ridiculous, it does. She's not coming back, guys!
* ML finally dies, but not without a final flourish:
Her legacy proved her persistent hatred of the Medici. She left her property to Princess d'Epinoy, a distant relative, thus violating the compact she had signed at Castello, wherein she had agreed that all she might die possessed of should descend to her children. Marguerite-Louise must have foreseen the tedious lawsuit this would involve. Even if Cosimo won it (as he did ) she wished to annoy him after her death, and bequeath him some bitter reminder of the past.
* Now it's Cosimo's turn:
Cosimo selected Monsignor Francesco Frosini, the Archbishop of Pisa, to minister to him on his death-bed. They held frequent conversations, and after one of these the Archbishop declared, on leaving the Grand Duke's chamber, that 'this Prince required little assistance in order to die well, for he had studied and cared for nothing else throughout the long course of his life, but to prepare himself for death'. The Archbishop's remark is profound: although he did not intend it as such, it was at once a criticism of Cosimo's life and reign, a condemnation and an epitaph.
Memento Mori, Mort m'est Vie, was verily his motto, for to his mind death was the central and dominating theme. Cosimo's reign, longer than that of any other Medici, had been but a preliminary for it — he had fostered and nourished death — and that of Tuscany besides his own.
* Gian Gastone's schedule as Grand Duke, and his sense of humor:
The Grand Duke's levee was at noon, when those who had business with him were summoned to his bedchamber. He constantly dined at five o'clock in the evening, and supped at two in the morning. He always ate alone, and generally in bed. The history of one day is the history of a year. In summer he lived on the ground-floor of the Pitti: every year a donkey came laden with peaches for the Grand Duke—a gift from the community of San Gimignano—and it was Gian Gastone's humour to have the donkey ushered into his bedroom.
* It turns out 1729 was the last public appearance of GG, the one at which he vomited profusely and finally passed out. After that, there are a couple more times when he left the palace just to get from point A and point B, and while he was in his dressing gown rather than properly dressed, he doesn't appear to have been as drunk as during the appearance in 1729. So it does seem likely that he drank more than usual on that occasion, because he was distressed at the throught of appearing in front of a crowd, and that that accounts for the amount of vomiting, which wasn't the norm for him (whereas being intoxicated certainly was).
* Of relevance to Knobelsdorff's visit, GG started dying in January 1737.
The agony was slow. In June he sank into an extraordinary languor. The Prince de Craon, as the Duke of Lorraine’s representative, arrived in Florence that month, on the 8th of which he wrote his master: 'I found this Prince in a condition worthy of pity; he could not leave his bed, [Me: I wonder if he knows that it's been like this for many years?] his beard was long, his sheets and linen very dirty, without ruffles; his eyesight dim and enfeebled, his voice low and obstructed, and altogether the air of a man who had not a month to live.' He could digest nothing, but never lost his presence of mind.
His sister, with whom he's on bad terms because he's never forgiven her for her role in his marriage (sound familiar?) wants to visit him on his deathbed. At first GG curses at her and tells to go away, but he relents after hearing that he'd made her cry. Then she got him to "convert," i.e. stop being a skeptic and accept final unction. Acton seems to give his death date as July 12, which contradicts the July 9 date in Wikipedia, but the one thing I learned from reading the War of the Spanish Succession and the bio of Philip V and trying to put together a chronology was that half the dates were off by anywhere from 1-6 days, so I finally gave up trying to figure out which one was "correct." (And the Julian calendar is off by 11 days in this period, so it's not that, which is the first thing that should always come to mind when you have a date discrepancy in the 18th century.)
And so the Medici pass not with a bang but a whimper, and Acton tells a good tale.
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Re: Harold Acton: Last of the Medici I: How to make really bad marriages
Date: 2021-06-27 09:20 pm (UTC)* Cosimo visits England and has an interesting experience:
Cosimo was given a very warm reception by Charles and his Court, and by the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, chiefly it appears for the strange reason that his father was supposed to have protected Galileo against Papal persecution. Cosimo, who certainly did not consider any resistance to Papal authority as one of his family's noblest qualifications, had to hear himself extolled at length on this subject by the most eminent college professors.
:D
* Grand Duke Ferdinando II, father of Cosimo, reminds you why you don't want to live in the 17th century:
Since the Grand Duke had derived no advantage whatever from the medicine he had taken on the previous day, the cupping-glasses were used again, and another ounce was removed from his bladder. Polvere Capitale was forcibly thrust down his nose, and four live pigeons were ripped open and, covered with this same powder, were put on his forehead. A cauterizing iron was later applied to his head , but with no success, and as his condition grew worse towards midday, the Nuncio arrived at the palace and gave him the papal benediction. Next morning, although his pulse was still beating, there was little hope for his life, and his confessor, seeing how very weak he was, had several reliquaries placed about him at ten o'clock. At 13 3/4 o'clock he died, at the age of 59.
* Marguerite-Louise about to set out on her long-awaited return to France:
France and Spain were at war, and Cosimo was nervous lest his wife's galleys should come in contact with Spanish ones. Such an adventure would have been welcome to Marguerite-Louise, who said she longed to take part in a naval combat. But Cosimo preferred not to put her valour to the test, and all the members of her suite were provided with Tuscan passports.
Who else can TOTALLY see ML in a naval combat? She missed her calling! (As Selena said, we can only imagine what she could have accomplished if she'd been allowed to apply her strength of will to a goal *other* than trying to get out of an unwanted marriage.)
* ML, now in France, hopes that Charles of Lorraine (her true love, remember, and FS's grandfather) dies childless, so that she can inherit Lorraine.
She tells everybody at all times that if the Duke of Lorraine should die without offspring, the duchy reverts to herself. So Madame d'Harcourt was resolved to tell her that the said Queen was big with child, and thus put an end to her hopes . But she retorted that it did not matter. By suborning the midwife it was not difficult to make the infant die. This had happened in one of the Empress's deliveries, when the babe was caused to perish as soon as she gave it birth: she knew the very woman who had contrived this affair. The midwife had been corrupted by a goodly sum of money, and was living at Avignon now. Beside which it was so easy to accomplish: you had merely to prick the new -born's head with a pin for its death to be a certainty. And she discoursed in similar fashion before another nun, who was highly scandalized.'
...Perhaps we should be glad she missed her calling.
* While she was in France being a nun, having affairs, and otherwise behaving scandalously, Louis and the Abbess were desperately trying to downplay her activities to avoid scandals becoming public. But Cosimo, who can't let her go even now that he's let her go, has a guy named Gondi spying on her and reporting everything he finds to his master.
A conspiracy of silence, '[the Abbess] concluded, 'is the sole antidote to the depravity and disgraceful excesses of this woman.' Which explains the scarcity of references to Marguerite Louise in gazettes and memoirs of this period. But for Gondi, whom Cosimo goaded on to pry into all the details of her life, these would have been consigned to oblivion .
In other words, we gossipy sensationalists owe Gondi a debt of gratitude!
* Speaking of gossipy sensationalism, here's some:
Cosimo imposes customs duties on goods imported into Florence, in an effort to do something about the economy he's running into the ground. But enforcing this on members of the clergy proved a vain effort, as the following anecdote shows:
Once upon a time, a Florentine family bought bridal jewelry in the countryside for an upcoming marriage, but they didn't want to have to pay the required duties when bringing the jewels into the city. So they entrusted the jewels to a Franciscan friar who had promised to smuggle them into the city. The friar put the jewels in a case in his breeches, which are of course, under his robe. When asked at the gates if he has anything to declare, he laughs, pats his breeches, and says naughtily, like it's a dirty joke, "Yes, the 'family jewels' [fornimento di sposa]."
The customs officials are horrified at such behavior from a friar. They shoo him into the city and threaten to tell his superior on him. Once he's safely past the gate, he takes out the jewelry case, shows it to them, and says, "Here it is, gentlemen, I did not lie to you."
Did this happen? Idk, but it's a great story.
* Gian Gastone's sister, the Electress, supposedly contracted an STD from her husband. She gave orders that her body was not to be embalmed, but since it was supposed that she gave the order out of modesty, her wishes were ignored.
What I want to kow is whether there are signed testimonies about the state of her genitalia. ;) More seriously, we talked about why Fritz gave the order that he wasn't to be embalmed, and it seems that people did that out of modesty, and were sometimes ignored. Since we know he was very reluctant to show his body even to the servants, it seems likely that
he would be upset by the signed testimoniesthat was his motivation as well.* When Violante, Ferdinando's unwanted wife (Gian Gastone's sister-in-law, whom he befriended out of sympathy) and the Electress, her sister-in-law, are both having to be in Florence at once and are of the opinion that the city is too big for both of them (the Electress outranks Violante, but Violante has gotten used to being the highest-ranked female and resents being supplanted), they have to work out elaborate rules of etiquette that allow them to coexist. Comments Acton, "it is amusing to note that in these allowance was still made for the long-absent Grand Duchess Marguerite-Louise."
Every time I think 17th and 18th century formal etiquette can't get more ridiculous, it does. She's not coming back, guys!
* ML finally dies, but not without a final flourish:
Her legacy proved her persistent hatred of the Medici. She left her property to Princess d'Epinoy, a distant relative, thus violating the compact she had signed at Castello, wherein she had agreed that all she might die possessed of should descend to her children. Marguerite-Louise must have foreseen the tedious lawsuit this would involve. Even if Cosimo won it (as he did ) she wished to annoy him after her death, and bequeath him some bitter reminder of the past.
* Now it's Cosimo's turn:
Cosimo selected Monsignor Francesco Frosini, the Archbishop of Pisa, to minister to him on his death-bed. They held frequent conversations, and after one of these the Archbishop declared, on leaving the Grand Duke's chamber, that 'this Prince required little assistance in order to die well, for he had studied and cared for nothing else throughout the long course of his life, but to prepare himself for death'. The Archbishop's remark is profound: although he did not intend it as such, it was at once a criticism of Cosimo's life and reign, a condemnation and an epitaph.
Memento Mori, Mort m'est Vie, was verily his motto, for to his mind death was the central and dominating theme. Cosimo's reign, longer than that of any other Medici, had been but a preliminary for it — he had fostered and nourished death — and that of Tuscany besides his own.
* Gian Gastone's schedule as Grand Duke, and his sense of humor:
The Grand Duke's levee was at noon, when those who had business with him were summoned to his bedchamber. He constantly dined at five o'clock in the evening, and supped at two in the morning. He always ate alone, and generally in bed. The history of one day is the history of a year. In summer he lived on the ground-floor of the Pitti: every year a donkey came laden with peaches for the Grand Duke—a gift from the community of San Gimignano—and it was Gian Gastone's humour to have the donkey ushered into his bedroom.
* It turns out 1729 was the last public appearance of GG, the one at which he vomited profusely and finally passed out. After that, there are a couple more times when he left the palace just to get from point A and point B, and while he was in his dressing gown rather than properly dressed, he doesn't appear to have been as drunk as during the appearance in 1729. So it does seem likely that he drank more than usual on that occasion, because he was distressed at the throught of appearing in front of a crowd, and that that accounts for the amount of vomiting, which wasn't the norm for him (whereas being intoxicated certainly was).
* Of relevance to Knobelsdorff's visit, GG started dying in January 1737.
The agony was slow. In June he sank into an extraordinary languor. The Prince de Craon, as the Duke of Lorraine’s representative, arrived in Florence that month, on the 8th of which he wrote his master: 'I found this Prince in a condition worthy of pity; he could not leave his bed, [Me: I wonder if he knows that it's been like this for many years?] his beard was long, his sheets and linen very dirty, without ruffles; his eyesight dim and enfeebled, his voice low and obstructed, and altogether the air of a man who had not a month to live.' He could digest nothing, but never lost his presence of mind.
His sister, with whom he's on bad terms because he's never forgiven her for her role in his marriage (sound familiar?) wants to visit him on his deathbed. At first GG curses at her and tells to go away, but he relents after hearing that he'd made her cry. Then she got him to "convert," i.e. stop being a skeptic and accept final unction. Acton seems to give his death date as July 12, which contradicts the July 9 date in Wikipedia, but the one thing I learned from reading the War of the Spanish Succession and the bio of Philip V and trying to put together a chronology was that half the dates were off by anywhere from 1-6 days, so I finally gave up trying to figure out which one was "correct." (And the Julian calendar is off by 11 days in this period, so it's not that, which is the first thing that should always come to mind when you have a date discrepancy in the 18th century.)
And so the Medici pass not with a bang but a whimper, and Acton tells a good tale.