cahn | Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 39

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Last post, along with the usual 18th-century suspects, included the Ottonians; changing ideas of conception and women's sexual pleasure; Isabella of Parma (the one who fell in love, and vice versa, with her husband's sister); Henry IV and Bertha (and Henry's second wife divorcing him for "unspeakable sexual acts"). (Okay, Isabella of Parma was 18th century.)

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From:

mildred_of_midgard

Huh! I wasn't familiar with this episode (if you mentioned it, I have long since forgotten), so seeing it from a detailed historiographical perspective was neat.

So if I were a member of the jury, I might not think there's enough to convict, but I would have still my doubts Pier Luigi didn't do something that people noticed. Not a gang rape or a gang beating with ensueing rape, maybe, but he could have made a pass?

Yeah, that seems reasonable. Smoke doesn't always mean fire, but after reading this account, I have a lot of questions.

the young Bishop is hardly unique in dying of a fever in Italy

Trufax! Cahn, if you listen to the podcast, you will get an example almost every episode. (A while back, after listening to a bunch of those episodes, my wife wanted to know how the Normans even survived setting up a kingdom in southern Italy. I said, probably the same way the Normans survived everywhere: the men showed up, spread their Y chromosomes, and procreated with the local women. Their descendants presumably had all the same mutations that allowed the locals to survive malaria in great enough numbers to sustain a population. Then I started reading this article on the history of malaria in southern Europe, because getting sidetracked is a way of life. :'D)

Morryson, who at this point lives in England and is cut off from his earlier connections to Pole's household, gives us lengthy dialogue between Pier Luigi and the bishop, and Pier Luigi and his men, he's clearly making things up since he can't have witness reports on these.

Yeah, and I admit, "If I canne not obteyne by fayre meanes, I intende to use your helpe, and have it by force" immediately made me suspicious, because people don't usually admit up front to their victims that they're not using fair means, they will usually try to rationalize why their use of force would be justified. Especially if they're trying to get said victim to give in without the immediate use of force.

another from the chancellor of the Florentine embassy detailing a man-hunt he had mounted in Rome to search for a youth who had refused his advances.

Wow, a manhunt? That's not just rape, that's a sense of entitlement and inability to take no for an answer that's hardcore.

Interesting, thanks for sharing!

From:

selenak

Wow, a manhunt? That's not just rape, that's a sense of entitlement and inability to take no for an answer that's hardcore.

Yep. Mind you, "a youth" is different from "a Bishop" (i.e. prince of the church, noble with connections), and it's not like Pier Luigi couldn't think strategically. He had a fairly successful career as a condottiere before his father ever became Pope. The Farnese even managed to play their cards right during the Sacco di Roma - Pier Lugi fought for the Imperials, his brother Rannuccio for Pope Clement, when the imperial troops took the city, Pier Luigi "occupied" the family palace, thereby ensuring it wasn't sacked (while pretty much everyone else's palaces were), but because his brother meanwhile was holed up with the Pope (and Cardinal Dad Farnese) in San Angelo, Clement had no room for complaints against the general Farnese loyalty when the dust was settling.

However, no one I've seen is making the case Pier Luigi was anything but a ruthless Renaissance thug either before or after his father made Pope, and if he had good qualities, his Dad must have been the only one to see them. (Note: Alessandro Farnese the future Pope Paul III seems to have had all his known children with the same woman, Silvia Ruffini, and there are no other known mistresses, either. Which probably intensified the family bod. Also Alessandro/Paul III was nothing if not loyal; he defended and spoke well of his original patron, Rodrigo Borgia/Alexander VI, till his dying day, when it had been convenient for everyone else to pretend the Borgia had been the worst (as opposed to Spaniards daring to successfully interfere where only the Italian nobility wanted to go) and to distance themselves.) Pier Luigi's death was also one of these spectacularily nasty Renaissance events where he got stabbed to death and then his body was hung out of the window of his own palace. Since Charles V. (by then having joined the ranks of Pier Luigi's multitudes of enemies) had at the very least known about the conspiracy leading up to this, and likely greenlighted it, which grieving father Paul III. promptly accused the Emperor of in public, life for Margaret must have been very difficult. (Especially since her grandfather-in-law the Pope was the only one of her in-laws whom she actually got on well with and liked, and vice versa.)

(Margaret's two marriages: featuring two of the more infamous murders of the Renaissance.)

I admit, "If I canne not obteyne by fayre meanes, I intende to use your helpe, and have it by force" immediately made me suspicious, because people don't usually admit up front to their victims

Indeed. It sounds like the outline of drama scene more than like a real life event. What I found interesting isn't that Morryson has the whole event ending by poison (as opposed to a broken heart/soul like Varchi), but that he has the Bishop threaten to appeal to the Emperor in order to motivate the poisoning. Why do I find this interesting? Because if his pamphlet is from 1539, this is BEFORE the official fallout between Charles and the Farneses, and it's not like Charles "No, you're not divorcing my Aunt" V. was a good guy as seen by Morryson's patron Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII - there was no money in presenting him as a higher authority, either, you want your English readers to root for Henry as the ultimate authority in everything, after all.

From:

cahn

the young Bishop is hardly unique in dying of a fever in Italy

Trufax! Cahn, if you listen to the podcast, you will get an example almost every episode.

Gosh, I knew this happened (though not with that frequency) -- but I didn't know it was malaria!

From:

mildred_of_midgard

You will, you will! At least if the listening in the car works, you will never forget that it's malaria. It gets to the point where he starts saying things like, "It's summer in Italy, and listeners of this podcast know what that means: malaria!"