Re: dates, the Julian/Gregorian discrepancy wouldn't apply to an event in Catholic Florence anyway
No, not as recorded there, but I always entertain the possibility that our sources are indirect and have passed through the hands of envoys and archives in other countries, so I always at least *look* for an 11-day difference.
Anyway, I could imagine people deriving exact date of Gian Gastone's death from similarly ambiguously phrased reports.
Yeah, and all the other numerous events during the Spanish Succession, where numerous dates are slightly different in my two sources.
his lead up sentence to this makes it sound at first glance that he's saying Elizabeth told him two days before Amy's actual death or so
That's hilarious, I didn't know that!
Is the dazzle of "foreign/Italian prince" really that influential on perception
Wouldn't surprise me. I recall Acton saying Cosimo was a lot more popular overseas during his travels than he ever was at home.
and if so, what does this say about the realiability of other descriptions?
Oh, I always assume descriptions are less than reliable unless I have a good reason to believe they're not. People have said all sorts of things to my face about my appearance that only make sense if the person is saying what's socially expected of them.
Except for Eugene, who you'd think would qualify due to his military fame, but all the descriptions I've seen quoted mention he wasn't a looker, even in his youth. Perhaps the difference between him and Cosimo as perceived by observers was that Eugene didn't have a Duchy to rule and people were more honest about male non-monarchs?
Did anyone ever say Fritz was good-looking? All the examples I can think of are: beautiful and striking eyes, expressive mouth (you can see them trying hard to find something positive here), his hair is okay (young Fritz), covered in snuff (old Fritz), facial features and body are...okay at best.
Does reincarnated Fritz in your unwritten stories ever come across their existence?
Weeellll, you have to understand that reincarnation!AU grew out of a desire to make Fritz as happy as possible while allowing him to work through therapy for his past issues (i.e. not reincarnation without memories of the past, which might be much happier but less satisfying for me), so I try to limit the amount of things that make him unhappy. ;)
So while my Katte absolutely devours every trace of evidence he can find for what happened to Fritz after November 6, 1730, Fritz is assuming people are going to talk shit about him and praise him for all the wrong things, and trying to avoid finding out the details. In general he knows how his image evolved over the generations, but diving into the details of his autopsy is, in his mind, defeating the purpose of having a second life where he can actually pretend he's at Rheinsberg for the rest of his life, and has no obligation to be politically or militarily active.
So no. Solely for the sake of making this unwritten AU enjoyable for me, he doesn't. Whether real Fritz would have been able to resist the temptation, I don't know.
re: Marguerite Louise - in the AU where cousin Louis marries her off to Russia instead and she becomes a Czarina, I'm sure both frightening and interesting things occur...
Good god. That would definitely have been interesting in the sense of "may you live in interesting times"!
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Re: Harold Acton: Last of the Medici I: How to make really bad marriages
Date: 2021-06-28 10:41 pm (UTC)No, not as recorded there, but I always entertain the possibility that our sources are indirect and have passed through the hands of envoys and archives in other countries, so I always at least *look* for an 11-day difference.
Anyway, I could imagine people deriving exact date of Gian Gastone's death from similarly ambiguously phrased reports.
Yeah, and all the other numerous events during the Spanish Succession, where numerous dates are slightly different in my two sources.
his lead up sentence to this makes it sound at first glance that he's saying Elizabeth told him two days before Amy's actual death or so
That's hilarious, I didn't know that!
Is the dazzle of "foreign/Italian prince" really that influential on perception
Wouldn't surprise me. I recall Acton saying Cosimo was a lot more popular overseas during his travels than he ever was at home.
and if so, what does this say about the realiability of other descriptions?
Oh, I always assume descriptions are less than reliable unless I have a good reason to believe they're not. People have said all sorts of things to my face about my appearance that only make sense if the person is saying what's socially expected of them.
Except for Eugene, who you'd think would qualify due to his military fame, but all the descriptions I've seen quoted mention he wasn't a looker, even in his youth. Perhaps the difference between him and Cosimo as perceived by observers was that Eugene didn't have a Duchy to rule and people were more honest about male non-monarchs?
Did anyone ever say Fritz was good-looking? All the examples I can think of are: beautiful and striking eyes, expressive mouth (you can see them trying hard to find something positive here), his hair is okay (young Fritz), covered in snuff (old Fritz), facial features and body are...okay at best.
Does reincarnated Fritz in your unwritten stories ever come across their existence?
Weeellll, you have to understand that reincarnation!AU grew out of a desire to make Fritz as happy as possible while allowing him to work through therapy for his past issues (i.e. not reincarnation without memories of the past, which might be much happier but less satisfying for me), so I try to limit the amount of things that make him unhappy. ;)
So while my Katte absolutely devours every trace of evidence he can find for what happened to Fritz after November 6, 1730, Fritz is assuming people are going to talk shit about him and praise him for all the wrong things, and trying to avoid finding out the details. In general he knows how his image evolved over the generations, but diving into the details of his autopsy is, in his mind, defeating the purpose of having a second life where he can actually pretend he's at Rheinsberg for the rest of his life, and has no obligation to be politically or militarily active.
So no. Solely for the sake of making this unwritten AU enjoyable for me, he doesn't. Whether real Fritz would have been able to resist the temptation, I don't know.
re: Marguerite Louise - in the AU where cousin Louis marries her off to Russia instead and she becomes a Czarina, I'm sure both frightening and interesting things occur...
Good god. That would definitely have been interesting in the sense of "may you live in interesting times"!