LUCREZIA--ELEANORA--ISABELLA
_Three Murdered Princesses_
"Shall I go in, or shall I not?" asked Isabella de' Medici, Duchess of
Bracciano, with a catch in her voice.
Donna Lucrezia de' Frescobaldi, her first Lady of Honour, made no reply,
but grasped her mistress' arm convulsively. The two women stood pale and
trembling at the door of the Duke's bedchamber, in their charming villa
of Cerreto Guidi, a few miles out of Florence.
There was something uncanny in the air, which caused the Duchess and her
lady instinctively to draw back. It was not the Duke's voice, for that
was pitched in an unusually tender key, and yet, its very unusuality
might have caused their trepidation. There was something indefinable in
the situation, which produced apprehension and alarm.
Doubtless their nerves were overstrained by the terrible event at
Cafaggiuolo. Eleanora, the Duchess's sister-in-law, had seen and felt
the cold steel dagger, struck out from behind the arras, by her
husband's hand--she was dead! Every titled woman, and many another
too, felt instinctively that she was walking on dangerous ground: murder
seemed to lurk everywhere, and marriage appeared to spell assassination!
* * * * *
The remorse of Cosimo de' Medici for the murder of his dearly-loved
child Maria, his first-born, did not hinder his policy of
aggrandisement. He was determined to keep the whip-hand over Ferrara,
and to maintain the precedence of his house over that of the Estensi. He
had already sacrificed one daughter, not only to his parental passion
but to his sovereign will, and one daughter still remained unbargained;
he would use her to hold what he had got.
Lucrezia was no more than twelve years old when Maria passed to
Paradise. Prince Alfonso was twenty-two, and his father, Duke Ercole
II., had apparently no fiancée in view for him, and the lad seemed not
to be in a marrying mood. At the moment Ferrara was isolated, but
Cosimo, seizing a favourable opportunity, through his relationship with
the King of Spain, contrived to arrange a treaty between that kingdom,
Tuscany and Parma, which he adroitly extended to include Ferrara.
It was a powerful combination, and Cosimo had his price, and that price
was the betrothal of Alfonso and Lucrezia. The Duke of Ferrara yielded,
and in the same month, March 1558, the treaty of alliance was signed at
Pisa, and the two young people were affianced there by proxy.
To be sure, there was trouble with Rome. Julius III., in 1552, had
bespoken Lucrezia for his bastard nephew, Fabiano Conte Del Monte--a man
without resources and of no recognised position nor of good
character--it was just a selfish whim of the Pope--the children never
saw each other. Cosimo, with his usual daring, brushed the whole project
aside, and made a liberal contribution to Peter's Pence that year!
If Lucrezia was somewhat less fair and less clever than Maria, she was,
all the same, an attractive girl. Thin in figure--as all growing
girls--tall, well-formed, with the promise of a well-proportioned
maturity, she had an oval face and a high forehead, well-clustered with
curly auburn hair. There was a peculiarity about her eyes--black they
were or a very dark brown--they had something of that cast of optic
vision which was remarkable in Cosimo, "_Il Padre della Patria_" and in
Lorenzo, "_Il Magnifico_," as well as in other members of the family.
"She had a pretty mouth and a dimpled chin, and always wore a pleasing
expression indicative of good-nature and resolute affection. Very unlike
her elder sisters, Maria and Isabella, she was somewhat reserved in
manner; she spoke little, but expressed her opinion with flashes of her
eyes." Her father admired her firmness of resolution greatly, and
generally spoke of her as "_La Mia Sodana_," "my little strong-willed
daughter."
"She is quite a chip of the old block," he was wont to say of her,
"quite one of us--a Medico in frocks!" Lucrezia shared the lessons of
her brother, and had been brought up specially with the idea of a
brilliant foreign marriage, and her maid was a girl from Modena who knew
Ferrara well.
One condition of the marriage-contract was most unusual--namely, that
the bridegroom should be free to leave Florence upon the third day after
the nuptials had been celebrated! This was necessary, the Prince
averred, in order that he might keep an appointment he had made, with
his father's consent, with the King of France--the enemy of the
quadruple alliance!
Prince Alfonso troubled himself very little about his fiancée. He was
devoted to selfish pleasures, and, when his energies were called into
play, they were devoted to the service of arms. His betrothal to Maria
de' Medici, without his consent, her untimely and suspicious death, and
the character Duke Cosimo bore for tyranny, ambition, and greed, were
undoubtedly deterrent to the young man's wish to cultivate another
Medici alliance.
His own father, Duke Ercole, resembled his prospective father-in-law in
many respects. The Estensi, with the Malatesti of Rimini and Pesaro, the
Sforzai of Milan, and the Medici of Florence, were classed as "families
of tyrants." Duke Ercole was a man of strong will and forceful action--a
tyrant in his own family and cruel to his unhappy consort--he could not
brook any disobedience to his behests. He commanded his son to set forth
at once from Ferrara and claim his bride in Florence.
Accompanied by a glittering retinue, which included a dozen Lords of the
Supreme Council, Prince Alfonso took his way over the Apennines, along
the Bologna road. On 18th June the cavalcade was discerned from the
heights of Olivets, wending its way through Boccaccio's country to the
city walls.
He was received with great distinction by the Duke and Duchess, attended
by the whole Court; and his welcome by the citizens was very cordial.
Florentines always loved a spectacle. Everyone, however, remarked the
Prince's haughty bearing, and the coldness with which he returned
Cosimo's greeting. He bore himself as a man in presence of a foe whose
every action must be watched intently. The Duchess, with all her Spanish
sensibility, perceived at once the disfavour of their guest, and sought
to interest him in the scene around him and in the happiness in
prospect.
Alfonso was quite unmoved. He met Lucrezia's greeting with a cold
handshake, and begged that the marriage ceremonies might be hurried
forward, as "he had not much time to spare." Cosimo joined in the
Duchess' entreaties that the uncanny condition, in the
marriage-contract, might be observed in the breach.
"My word is pledged to the King of France," he replied disdainfully,
"and go I must."
Duke Ercole, in a letter delivered to Cosimo by Alfonso, urged the
former not in any way to dissuade his son from carrying out his
intention. It was common knowledge, however, in Ferrara, and reported by
members of the Prince's retinue to the courtiers of Florence, that Henry
II. of France had made known to Duke Ercole his intention of repaying
the three hundred thousand gold ducats he owed Ferrara. A condition
accompanied the proposal, namely, that the Duke should withdraw from the
alliance, and despatch his son at once to Paris, to assure the _bona
fides_ of the new arrangement.
Moreover, Henry hinted not only at the advisability of separating the
too youthful couple, and of giving the Prince military employment until
his young wife attained a more mature age; but suggested that some way
should be found, even at the eleventh hour, of allying Alfonso to a
French princess.
Nevertheless, Alfonso claimed his Florentine bride, whilst Lucrezia
appears to have conceived an attachment for the warlike young Prince,
who caused a courier to inform his father that the Princess "seemed to
like" him. Duke Ercole replied as follows: "I am much pleased that your
bride is satisfied with you. I would rather have heard your own state
of mind in regard to the matter...."
Letters to the Duke from the chief members of the Prince's suite assured
him that the Prince really fell in love with the Princess at first
sight, but there is no word of Alfonso's extant which shows that he
cared in the least for the bride State policy had assigned for him.
Duchess Eleanora was exceedingly provoked by the young Prince's
demeanour and his insistence upon the observance of the unnatural
condition. Moreover, she protested to the Duke her wish that the
marriage might at least be postponed, pointing out, with a woman's
intuition of trouble, that no good could come out of such an uncanny
arrangement.
She, of course, was Spanish, and she seems to have forgotten that French
blood flowed in Alfonso's veins--his mother, Duchess Renata, or Renea,
being a daughter of Louis XII. Duke Ercole added to the trouble by
deeply wounding the Duchess' susceptibilities with a suggestion that the
young bride should be sent to Ferrara, immediately after the nuptial
ceremony, under the care of chosen proxies for his son.
Haughtily she answered the Duke's representative: "A married daughter of
the Medici, and of Spain, remains at her parents' palace until her
husband, and no one else, takes her away."
The day fixed for the marriage was 3rd July--a Sunday--and the wedding
Mass was celebrated in the private chapel of the Palazzo Pitti, by the
Bishop of Cortona. One hundred and one comely Florentine gentlewomen
formed a beauteous guard of honour for the bride, each arrayed
splendidly in silk brocade and covered with costly jewels. As many young
nobles, with the accompaniment of music and dancing, performed a
gorgeous pageant of Greeks, Indians and Florentines. In the Piazzo di
Santa Maria Novella a State exhibition of the popular Florentine game of
_Il Calcio_ (football), was given by sixty of the best-looking and most
noble youths, attired in cloths of gold and silver.
The bride and bridegroom retired late at night to the Palazzo Medici in
the Via Larga, set in order for them, but, on the third day, Prince
Alfonso, as good as his word, set off for France! Don Francesco,
Lucrezia's eldest brother, accompanied him as far as Scarperia, on the
Bologna road, and there bade him a not too friendly farewell. The young
man had made a very bad impression in Florence; he had kept himself
entirely to himself, and had gone through his part of the ceremonials
like a puppet.
Lucrezia moved like the fabled princess in a dream. Her eyes were wet
with weeping, and, although she restrained her emotion, her
disappointment and distress caused her silent and bitter suffering.
Accustomed as she was to obey implicitly the commands of her autocratic
father, she knew that she must submit to the harshness of her spouse,
and make the best of a most unfortunate and embarrassing situation.
Alfonso had forbidden her to write to him, but appointed a faithful
follower of his, Francesco da Susena, as confidential Chamberlain of the
youthful Princess. He was to provide funds and disburse them for the
expenses of the Princess, and to keep his master well posted in all that
transpired, and, in particular, to inform him of every word and action
of his forsaken girl-wife!
Ten days after the departure of the Prince from Florence, he wrote a
letter to Lucrezia, which he bade da Susena read, and then give her. The
Court was at Poggio a Caiano in _villeggiatura_, and the Chamberlain was
in the company. He gave the Princess her husband's letter, and made the
following report to his master:--
"I was taken to the slope of a hill, where Her Highness the Princess was
walking with the Duchess Eleanora, who is always with her. I gave her
the letter, which she took greedily, with exceeding joy, and retired
apart with it. She read it over and over again, and then she questioned
me about your Highness.... I told her that she had no occasion to fear,
for your Highness would run no more risk than the king himself. She
appeared much comforted, and told me to beg your Highness, in her name,
to hasten your return to Florence." Within six months of Lucrezia's
ill-fated marriage, Duke Ercole died at Ferrara, and her husband
succeeded as Alfonso II. The life of Ercole and his Duchess Renata had
been anything but happy. He was as ambitious as he was unscrupulous:
Lord of Modena and Reggio and Papal Vicar of Ferrara, his possessions
stretched from the Adriatic to the Apennines. Extravagant and devoted to
amusement, he spared neither time nor money in the full enjoyment of
pleasure.
The Court of Ferrara became under him the most splendid Court in
Europe--famous for the excellence of its music and its dancing and the
superiority of its theatre--Carnival lasted from New Year's Day to Ash
Wednesday. Duchess Renata never loved her husband nor his people. Until
she fell under the influence of Calvin she was discontented, passionate,
and bigoted. The Duke scouted her ill-humour and treated her cruelly.
"_Peu d'amys, qui conques est loing d'eulx_" was said of unhappy Renata.
She gave her disposition to her son, but he did not follow her religious
predilections. He enclosed her in a convent--the sanctuary of princely
widows and orphans--where she died in 1597.
Duke Alfonso sent to Florence for his consort early in 1560, but, true
to her determination, Duchess Eleanora required him to come for Lucrezia
in person! With perhaps less frigidity than he had exhibited the year
before, but with very little more friendliness, Alfonso made his second
appearance in Florence. He was accompanied by Cardinal de' Medici, his
brother-in-law--so soon to come to a tragical and untimely end in the
Maremma--and a princely escort of two thousand five hundred horsemen.
The young Duchess, not yet sixteen, mounted upon a cream-white palfrey,
rode out of the Porta San Gallo, by the side of her husband. The day was
gloomy and the purple and white crocuses, which children scattered
before her, betokened, so it was said, disaster.
Anyhow, it was a sorrowful parting with her parents, and with Florence.
Never again was she destined to see them or it. The days of her
childhood, spent happily enough with her brothers and sisters, were
over: the fatigues and intrigues of a hostile Court were before her,
and, already, trouble had marked her young life with scars--more were to
follow.
The Duke and Duchess entered Ferrara in full State, on 21st February,
but their reception was as cold as was the weather. The dynastic
dispute, whilst ostensibly healed at its head, still affected the limbs
of the Duchy. The people were, to a man, and perhaps to a woman,
anti-Medicean, and showed their disapproval of their Sovereign's
consort, by abstaining from taking their share in the festivities.
One's heart bleeds for this child-bride of seven months introduced
unguarded to the gayest, maddest, and most corrupt Court in Italy. Of
the Ferrarese it has been justly said: "By nature they are inclined only
for pleasure and revenge." True enough, happiness and tragedy are close
partners in life's story. No one loved Lucrezia de' Medici in
Ferrara--least of all her husband.
Perhaps the position may be succinctly stated--"the bride of three
nights was not _enceinte_! Had she only possessed the attributes of
coming motherhood, Lucrezia's origin might have been condoned. But
surely it was foul cruelty which fixed the fault on her alone. As it
was, the poor young Duchess was accorded at her husband's court the
position of a '_Cosa della lussuria_'--to be set aside as soon as the
novelty had passed away!"
The Duchess determined, possessed as she undoubtedly was, though so
young, of much of the force of character of her family, to put a good
face upon things. Her letters to her parents, written during the
Carnival, are full of pleasant details of her new life. She was
enjoying, with girlish zest, the gaieties around her, and entering fully
into the merry prospects of the Court masquerades. Whether her
expressions are quite sincere, is, perhaps, immaterial under the
circumstances--she knew her father's disposition too well to make
complaints.
The anniversary of her wedding came round to find her childless and
devoid of any prospect of issue. Duke Alfonso was far too much engaged
in politics and pleasure to give his due to his wife, who yearned in
vain for the fulfilment of the conjugal vow. Duchess Renata had her
party at Court, a party opposed, as she was, to anything and everything
Florentine: her son gave heed to her cautions, and thus the breach
widened.
Alfonso's long absences from home, and his disinclination for his wife's
society, left Lucrezia to seek necessary consolations elsewhere. She did
not fail of admirers in that giddy Court: the wonder is that she
maintained her dignity as well as she did. The Duke became jealous, of
course, of his neglected wife--all faithless husbands are the same. He
paid spies to report to him the daily occupations of the Duchess, with
the names of her visitors and friends. Thus evil eyes and ears were
opened, and evil tongues began to wag, until they caused the utter
undoing of the innocent young Duchess.
Alfonso, in vain, tried to fix the lovers of his wife--she was as
tactful as they were prudent--but he was not without means to his end.
The Duchess early gave symptoms of ill-health. In Florence she was the
strongest of all her father's family, but at Ferrara she became delicate
and a victim to incessant sickness. What could it be?
The Court physician hinted at pregnancy, but the Duke knew that was
impossible, so far as he was personally concerned, nevertheless it
served its purpose. The winter came on and the Duchess was confined to
her apartments in the palace, suffering from continual fever and nausea.
Maestro Brassavola--of good report as a specialist in feminine
ailments--treated her unsuccessfully. Unhappy Lucrezia--no mother to
console her, no friend to speak to her, all alone in the big palace with
unkindly attendants--nearly sobbed herself to death. Daily bleedings and
cuppings further diminished her strength. Some say that Don Francesco,
her brother, was urged, by his mother, to pay Lucrezia a visit, but the
bad terms upon which he stood with Duke Alfonso was an effectual bar to
his mission. Whether from craven fear or premeditated cruelty, the Duke
never entered the sick-room, and seemed entirely indifferent to his poor
young wife. Indeed, he continued his life of prodigality and
self-indulgence unrebuked, as we must suppose, by his conscience.
At last the Duchess' condition became so critical that the physicians
could no longer disguise the danger, and they intimated to the Duke the
approach of death. Then, and then only, Alfonso found his way to his
wife's bedside. With a sorrowful, stricken face she greeted him
affectionately, and remorse seemed, at length, to have brought him to
his senses. He became the most tender of nurses and watched by his dying
wife day and night--but the _poison_ had worked its cause!
At midnight, 21st April 1561, after months of cruel suffering,
neglected, affronted, and wronged, the innocent soul of poor young
Lucrezia, Duchess of Ferrara, passed into another world. She was not yet
seventeen years old--in bitter experience of life's hardships she was
seventy. At the autopsy of her body Maestro Pasquali of Florence
declared that death was caused by putrid fever! Thus was the Duke's
duplicity preserved.
Funeral honours due to her rank were rendered, and her shrunken little
body was buried in the Estensi chapel of the convent church of Corpus
Domini. A marble slab before the high altar reads thus:
"_Lucretia de' Medici--moglie di Alfonso II., Duca di Ferrara_"--and
that is all--as curt and as cruel as possible. The Duke's show of grief
was as insincere and hypocritical as could be. He shut himself up in his
palace with a few chosen cronies for seven days; meanwhile sending off
Bishop Rossetto, a court chaplain, to Florence, to communicate the sad
tidings to Duke Cosimo and Duchess Eleanora.
Very soon after the death of Lucrezia the Marchese Creole de' Contrari,
a prominent Ferrarese noble, was cast into prison upon an unstated
charge, but it was given out by his jailor, that he had aspired to the
hand of an Estensi princess. He was never seen alive again, for he was
strangled in Duke Alfonso's presence--who caused his name to be vilely
linked with that of the poisoned Duchess! Cosimo and Eleanora made a
show at least of grief, and a splendid _Requiem_ was sung for Lucrezia
at the Medici church of San Lorenzo. At the same time Cosimo made known,
in most heartless fashion to Alfonso that, whilst he was resigned to the
will of Heaven, he assured him of his sincere affection, and expressed a
fervent wish that nothing should loosen their bonds of true and solid
friendship! Devout Duchess Eleanora's indifference is harder to explain
than Duke Cosimo's nonchalance. Perhaps in her case evil associations
had corrupted good manners, or, more likely, the memory of her child
Maria's terrible death compelled discretion in her dealings with her
husband--"Tyrant of tyrants." It might be her turn next to feel that
cold steel!
And what about Duke Alfonso? Well, very soon he forgot all about
Lucrezia, and found consolation, though actually he needed none, in a
second marriage. This union, however, led to the resurrection of the
hatchet of discord, which Cosimo and Ercole had agreed to bury
underground.
The new Duchess was Barbara d'Austria, sister of the Archduchess
Giovanna, bride of Don Francesco, poor Lucrezia's brother. A double
wedding was fixed at Trento in August 1565, but a fracas occurred at the
church doors between the Medici and Estensi suites for precedence. The
two princely couples were married separately by the Emperor Maximilian's
command, each in the capital of the bridegroom's dominions. Duke
Alfonso died in in 1597.
* * * * *
One notable effect of the foreign marriages of the Medicean princes was
the settling of aliens, in considerable numbers, in Florence. With
Clarice and Alfonsina d'Orsini had come greedy Roman adventurers; with
Margherita and Giovanna d'Austria many enterprising Germans;
self-seeking Spaniards came with Eleanora de Toledo.
From one point of view this foreign immigration was advantageous--it
tended to revive the falling fortunes of Florentine commerce. On the
other hand aliens were introduced into prominent positions at the Court
and in the city, whose speculations robbed the citizens of their fame
and fortune.
In the suite of Duchess Eleanora de Toledo were several young relatives,
bound to her by ties of affection and looking to her for patronage and
advancement. The ranks of these dependants were constantly being
recruited by young people of noble birth, for whom the exceptional
educational advantages obtainable in Florence were strong attractions.
One of these was the Duchess's niece and godchild--Donna Eleanora, the
daughter of her brother, Don Garzia de Toledo. Born in 1553 in Naples,
where her father kept his Court as Viceroy for the King of Spain, the
child lost her mother when she was only seven years old. The Duchess
Eleanora adopted her and sent to Naples for her, and little Eleanora de
Garzia was brought up with the children of Cosimo and Eleanora, and she
was regarded by them as their sister.
Upon the Duchess' melancholy death in 1562, her daughter Isabella,
Duchess of Bracciano, acted the part of mother, young as she was, and
only just two years married. She had no child of her own, and,
apparently, no promise of one, anyhow by her husband; and the lively,
pretty little Spanish girl, nestling upon her knee, much consoled her in
her disappointment.
At fourteen, Eleanora de Garzia was, as Antonio Lapini has described
her: "Beautiful, elegant, gracious, kindly, charming, affable, and,
above all, possessed of two eyes rivalling the stars in brilliancy." She
was also a clever girl, and her studies had been carried on in
companionship with the younger children of her aunt--Garzia, Ferdinando,
and Piero. The strictness of their control was loosened when the Duke
became a widower, and he does not seem to have done anything to guard
the morals of his young children.
The Court of Florence was not the place in which to rear, in ways of
obedience and steadiness, young boys and girls, and Eleanora and her
"brothers" were left pretty much to themselves, save for the indulgent
guardianship of their tutors and attendants. To be sure, Don Ferdinando
was sent off to Rome when he was fourteen, and was enrolled in the
Sacred College. Don Garzia's tragic death in 1562 left Don Piero the
sole playmate of little Eleanora--a strange act of Providence.
Duke Cosimo was not quite inconsolable for the loss of his Spanish wife;
he had, during her lifetime, set an evil example in Florence for
libertinage and unchastity. Every good-looking girl, in city or at
Court, in one way or another, received his amorous attentions; and the
halo which surrounded his first acclamation as Duke, and which he earned
well, be it said, became dimmed by the execrations of many disgraced and
suffering households. Men and women saw the bad days of Duke Alessandro
revived, and Florence, after a temporary purgation, became once more the
sink of iniquity.
When the Duke laid aside, in 1564, his sovereignty, it was that he might
give reins to his passions, and, of the many girls he ruined, probably
not one he loved better or longer than Eleanora degli Albizzi. At Villa
del Castello he had his harem. This was the example Cosimo de' Medici
set his wayward, precocious son Piero, and the lad followed it to his
heart's content, until his escapades became so notorious, and raised up
such a storm of resentment amongst the citizens, that his father was
forced to intervene.
At fifteen, young Piero was sent off to Pisa and attached to the staff
of the Admiral of the Florentine fleet, Cavaliere Cesare Cavanglia. In
various encounters with Turkish galleons and the barques of buccaneers,
the young Medico proved himself no coward--indeed the Admiral reported
of him most favourably. Well for his fame had Piero remained before the
mast and upon the quarter-deck.
The lad was practically his own master, and the memories of Florentine
gallantries filled his mind with desires for their resumption. Two years
of naval-military discipline were quite enough for him, and he returned
home again. He found Donna Eleanora de Garzia a grown woman and a woman
of the world; an arrant flirt, like her protectress, the Duchess
Isabella; dividing her time between the Villa Poggio Baroncelli and his
father's villa at Castello.
Rumours of illicit intercourse between her and the Grand Duke were
current all over Florence, and evil gossips at Court affirmed that the
_liaison_ had been of long continuance, wherein, too, the Duchess
Isabella was herself implicated. Cosimo seems to have been conversant
with the tittle-tattle, and, fearing the evil effect it might have for
all concerned, determined to take the bull by the horns, so to speak,
and to keep the scandal within the family.
His son Piero--who was walking closely in his father's footsteps, and
leading a free and fast, wild life, heavily in debt and habitually
intoxicated, and the companion of loose women and gamesters--should be
his scapegoat. He would marry him to his cousin! At the beginning of
the negotiations Piero refused stoutly his father's proposition,
asserting his intention not to marry. By dint of ample offers of
enlarged pecuniary emoluments and by tempting promises of exculpation
from the consequences of his lustful extravagances, Piero at last
yielded an unwilling assent to the betrothal. How far he was influenced
by threats we can well imagine.
Piero de' Medici and Eleonora de Garzia de Toledo were married in the
private chapel of the Pitti Palace on the morning of 21st April 1571.
That very night his young wife revealed the fact that she was
_enceinte_, and she named his father, Duke Cosimo, as her ravisher! The
Prince was too much taken up with his own pleasure to care very much
about this revelation: he would go his own way, and his wife might go
hers--such was the morality of the day! Still, this discovery was the
first page in the tragic history of beautiful Eleanora di Piero de'
Medici.
Very shortly after the marriage Eleanora, who was then at Pisa, was
delivered of a child, whom, in the absence of her husband, she named
Cosimo--a significant nomenclature! She caused letters to be written to
the Grand Duke Francesco, her brother-in-law, to acquaint him with the
birth of the child, and to crave protection for _his father's son_!
Following the unhappy example of Paolo d'Orsini and Isabella de' Medici,
and being absolutely their own masters, Piero and Eleanora agreed to
live separate lives--he, a boy of seventeen and she just eighteen. What
more disastrous beginning can be imagined for two young wedded lives,
and yet it was inevitable. Piero did not care a bit for Eleanora, and
Eleanora hated and despised Piero.
The marriage was but a brief break in evil associations, for the boy
returned to his boon-companions in the city, and the girl sought the
solace of her lovers. It was in vain the Grand Duke pointed out the
errors of their ways--Piero retorted with a "_Tu quoque frater_!" He had
every bit as much right to console himself with a mistress, one or more,
as Francesco did with his "_Cosa Bianca_!" Moreover, he became urgent in
his demand for a still more liberal allowance, which the Grand Duke
weakly conceded--as he had done in the case of his other grasping
brother, the Cardinal.
Everything and everybody at the Court of Florence seemed to be demented.
To enjoy the basest pleasures and to indulge in the foulest passions,
such was the way of the world; and Eleanora was but a child in years,
but a woman in experience--and that experience not for the honour of her
life, alas! Sinned against, she sinned like the rest. How could a
lovely, talented, warm-hearted girl, with the hot blood of Spanish
passion coursing through her veins, resist the admiration, the flattery,
and the embraces of the gay young cavaliers of the Court? She merely
followed the vogue, she was no recluse; and when, in 1575, she was
enrolled as a "Soul" in the _Accademia degli Elevati_, she assumed the
name of "_Ardente_"--a true title--a correct epithet!
One of the captains of the palace guard--himself a remarkably handsome
and gallant soldier--Francesco Gaci, had a prepossessing young son,
Alessandro, a cadet of the same regiment, who fell violently in love
with Don Piero's fascinating young wife. Unable to restrain his boyish
ardour, one day he seized Donna Eleanora's hand, covered it with kisses,
and professed himself ready to die for love of her. The Princess, pining
for love, looked with favour upon her infatuated lover, and granted him
something of what he wished.
Alas, for love's young dream! The Grand Duke caught wind of it, and
without making much ado, promptly stopped the intrigue. Alessandro Gaci
was removed summarily from his commission and enclosed in the monastery
of Camaldoli; whilst to the Princess was administered a smart rebuke and
warning.
Eleanora's haughty spirit rose at the interference of her brother-in-law
in matters of her heart, and she determined to act in opposition to his
commands. She had scarcely got off with the old love before she was on
with the new. This time she appears to have made the first advance. At
all events, in the entourage of the Grand Duchess Giovanna, was an
attractive and youthful knight of the Order of St Stephen of Pisa--Duke
Cosimo's new naval-military order. He was a court chamberlain with the
military rank of lieutenant--Bernardino, the son of Messer Sebastiano
degl' Antinori, who had translated Boccaccio's works for Cosimo.
The young cavaliere had the misfortune to kill, quite accidentally, in a
friendly game of "_Calcio_," a great friend of his--Francesco de'
Ginori. The game was played in presence of Princess Eleanora and many
ladies of the Court. Bernardino wore Eleanora's favours, as he usually
did, making no secret of his passion for Don Piero's neglected,
beauteous wife, and of the return of his love by his fair
_innamorata_--it was indeed the talk of the town.
The Ginori, an ancient and lordly family, intimately connected with the
Medici, claimed satisfaction at the hands of the Grand Duke for what
they chose to call the assassination of their young relative. Francesco
judged that the _liaison_ between his sister-in-law and the so-called
"assassin" required regulation, especially as she had failed to comply
with his previous admonition. The two offences would be best judged by
the banishment of the cavaliere, whose rank forbade his inclusion in a
monastery. Consequently Bernardino was sent off, under guard, to a
fortress in the Isle of Elba, and Princess Eleanora was confined,
during the Grand Duke's pleasure, to her apartments in the Medici
Palace.
The old tale that "love laughs at locks" had now one fresh telling! An
amorous correspondence began between the parted lovers, which was
carried on for a considerable time without detection. At last there came
a day when the secret was out, through the carelessness of Bernardino's
brother Filippo, the intermediary in the love affair. Watching his
opportunity of dropping a letter into the hand of the Princess, as she
passed through the corridor connecting the Pitti and the Uffizi--just
completed by Duke Cosimo's orders--Captain Filippo had the curiosity to
read the _billet-doux_ himself. He failed to notice that a brother
officer was standing close by, who also glanced at the contents of the
letter.
Captain Giulio Caccini was Master of Music and conductor of the palace
orchestra, and when he had a favourable opportunity he confided to his
master what he had seen--doubtless he considered himself well on towards
the receipt of a reward for his mean services.
Francesco was furious: he might, as Sovereign, have his love passages
with whom he willed--although be it said, truly, he had one and only one
love, Bianca Cappello Buonaventuri--but he could not tolerate any amours
between a princess of his house and a subaltern of his guard.
Captain Bernardino was ordered to be brought back to Florence
immediately, and, after a stormy interview with the Grand Duke, he was
consigned to the condemned-criminal dungeon of the Bargello.
The same night the prisoner's cell was entered by a _Frate_--a
confessor, who acquainted him that he had been sentenced to death!
Expostulation was vain, and his asseverations of innocence and promises
of submission to the Grand Duke's will were rudely interrupted by the
appearance of the headsman! Forced upon his knees, the unhappy young
officer mumbled out his confession, and then the executioner, passing a
stout cord about his throat, strangled him--struggling and crying out
piteously for mercy!
When Antinorio was dead, Francesco was informed, and, sending for
Eleanora, he told her what had become of her second lover, and warned
her that a like fate might easily be hers if Don Piero was made
acquainted with the intrigue--surely a fell prophecy of coming tragedy!
Piero, too, was sent for to the palace, and again reprimanded for his
evil life and for his cruel desertion of his charming young wife. He
took his brother's words in an entirely wrong sense, abused him soundly
for his interference, and left his presence in a violent passion.
At once he caused an intimation to be made to the Princess that he
wished to see her about a matter which concerned them both intimately,
and required her to meet him out at the Villa di Cafaggiuolo. It was
the 20th of July, in the year 1576, that Eleanora received her husband's
commands--just ten days after the brutal murder of her lover--during the
course of which she gave way to uncontrolled grief. This summons she
knew presaged dire consequences to herself, and she had no friend to
seek for consolation and advice. The Grand Duke was out of the question,
and Duchess Isabella d'Orsini, who had proved herself no friend of good
omen, was in a plight very much like her own!
No, she had to fight the battle of her life and death alone, this girl
of twenty-three. She replied that she was quite prepared to meet Piero,
but she asked for a short delay. She spent it in weeping by the cradle
of her little son, Cosimo, and arranging her worldly affairs--she was
quite prepared for the worst.
Leaving Florence in the middle of a hot summer's day, the course to
Cafaggiuolo was trying to her horses--one indeed fell and died on the
way--an evil omen for poor Eleanora! As night was coming on she reached
the villa, more dead than alive with fright, and accompanied only by two
faithful ladies of her household. To their surprise the house appeared
to be deserted: there were no lights in the windows, and no one seemed
to be about.
The great doors were wide open, and with much trepidation the Princess
mounted the marble steps. The door of every room also was open and the
arras pulled aside, but nowhere could she see or hear her husband. Very
uncanny everything felt, the silence was almost suffocating, and the
darkness threw weird shadows athwart her and her companions.
At the entrance of the room, which she deemed to be Piero's--they had
never cohabited there, or indeed anywhere, she knew not where he
slept--Eleanora paused, affrighted. She had heard a rustle! she had seen
something! it was a hand held beyond the arras!--and there was a
poignard within its grasp!
E'er she could cry out or take a step backwards, a sudden, savage blow
struck her breast--she fell!--stabbed to death! The hand was the hand of
Piero de' Medici!
Eleanora was dead! Her life's blood crimsoned, in a gory stream, the
marble lintel, and Piero gazed at the victim of his desertion, lust, and
hate--he was mad!
Kneeling upon his knees in the hellish darkness, he tried to stanch that
ruddy stream. Then he laved his hands in her hot blood and conveyed some
to his raging lips! Reason presently asserted herself; and, throwing
himself prostrate along the floor, he banged his head, thereupon calling
out in a frenzy of remorse for mercy for his deed!
"God of Heaven," he pleaded, "judge between my wife and me--I vow that I
will do penance for my deed, and never wed again."
The short summer's night early gave place to the dawn--not rosy that
sad morning, but overcast--gloom was in everything. Piero was still
praying by his dead wife's side when the tramp of footsteps upon the
gravel outside the house fell upon his ears. Swiftly he ran and closed
the entrance-doors, and then calling in a creature of his--a base-born
_medico_--he ordered him to make, there and then, an autopsy of the
corpse, and report according to his express instructions.
"Death from heart failure and the rupture of an artery," such ran the
medical certificate of death! Miserable Eleanora di Piero de' Medici was
buried ceremoniously in the family vault at San Lorenzo, and Piero made
a full confession to his brother, the Grand Duke.
Francesco counselled him to leave Florence at once, and seek a temporary
home at the Court of Madrid, where he might inform his kinsman by
marriage--the King of Spain--of the truth about Eleanora's death. It was
reported at the time that Piero gained possession of Eleanora's child,
Cosimo, and took him away with him from Florence; but what became of the
unfortunate little fellow no one ever knew--probably he went home to his
mother in Paradise just to be out of the way!
Don Piero was appointed by King Philip to a command in the war with
Portugal, but, whilst he distinguished himself by bravery and ability
during the campaign, on his return to Madrid he began the evil life he
had left behind in Florence. The religiously disposed courtiers were
shocked and outraged by his enormities, and, at last, the King requested
his unwelcome visitor to go back to Tuscany.
The Grand Duke very unwillingly allowed Piero to settle once more in
Florence. His house in the Via Larga--it had been occupied by the
scapegrace assassin, Lorenzino--again was a nursery of immorality, as
well as the headquarters of the enemies of his brother. Piero became the
ally of the scheming Cardinal Ferdinando, but his depraved and evil life
was to the end given over to the basest uses of human nature, and he
died miserably, as he well deserved, in 1604, having outlived his second
wife--Beatrice, daughter of the Spanish Duke of Meneses--two years. Of
legitimate offspring he left none, but there survived him eight natural
children by two Spanish nuns in the grand ducal convent of the Santa
Assunta delle Murate.
* * * * *
After the death of Maria, his eldest daughter, Duke Cosimo centred his
paternal affection in his second daughter, Isabella Romola. She was born
in 1542, just a year younger than his eldest son, Francesco Maria. Her
Spanish name endeared her especially to the Duchess Eleanora, who built
many "_Castelli en España_" for her child.
The young Princess was a bonnie, precocious little girl. At her
christening it was said, greatly to his embarrassment, she kissed the
ascetic bishop who held her at the font; this was taken as an omen of
her success in the service of Prince Cupid! Brought up with her two
sisters and her brothers, Francesco and Giovanni, she very early gave
evidence of charming and peculiar talent.
Merry as a bird and playful as a kitten, the young girl was singing,
singing the livelong day, and dancing with the utmost grace and freedom.
She greatly astonished her parents by her musical gifts and by her
talent as an _improvvisatrice_. She composed, when only ten years of
age, some really excellent _canzone_ and, more than this, she set them
to her own tunes for the lute and pipe, and arranged a very graceful
ballet.
At Court, Isabella was now known as "_Bianca la Seconda_," her
attainments and her person recalling those of Bianca, "the tall
daughter" of Piero and Lucrezia de' Medici. She had, as well, a
remarkable taste for languages: she rivalled her sister Maria in Latin,
which she wrote and spoke with ease. Spanish seemed to come to her
naturally, greatly to the delight of her mother the Duchess, and French
she acquired with similar success.
With her facile pen she could design and draw what she willed, with as
great freedom as she applied to musical notation. Indeed, there seemed
to be no art in which she could not distinguish herself, and she
received encouragement from all the most famous artists of her father's
Court. One of her panegyrists has written thus of Princess Isabella:
"Suffice it to say, that she was esteemed by all--strangers as well as
those about her--a perfect casket of virtue and knowledge. She was
greatly beloved, not only by her parents, but by the whole of the people
of Florence."
Added to her mental accomplishments, which developed with her physical
growth, the Princess exhibited all the charm of a beautiful face and
graceful figure, and, when she reached the ripe age,--for Florence,--of
twelve, she was the most lovely and attractive young girl in Italy.
Reports of her beauty and talent were current in all the Courts of
Europe, and many princely fathers of eligible sons made inquiries about
her fortune; whilst many an amorous young Prince found his way to
Florence, to judge for himself of the charms of the fair young girl.
Duke Cosimo was not the man to give his comely daughter away at random:
indeed he cherished the thought of keeping her in Florence and by his
side, so courtly refusals of proffered hands, and hearts, and crowns,
were dealt out to one and all the suitors. Pope Paul IV., who was on the
best of terms with Duke Cosimo, and never forgot what he owed in his
elevation to the Papal throne to his friend's influence, conceived a
matrimonial project for youthful Isabella. At his Court was a young man
of illustrious descent, good attainments, the heir to vast possessions,
and a devoted adherent of the Holy See--Paolo Giordano d'Orsini.
The Orsini were split up into many branches, but the family was one of
the most ancient and honourable in Rome. Signore Girolamo d'Orsini,
father of Paolo Giordano, was lord of Bracciano and Anguillaria, and of
the country around Civita Vecchia. When only twelve years old, he had
been named by Pope Leo X. to the honorary command of a Papal regiment of
cavalry. When still in his teens the youth served with distinction in
France and in the Neapolitan war; and, on attaining his majority, he was
sent with a detachment of troops to the assistance of the Emperor
Charles V., in the devastating war against the Turks in Hungary.
Created General and Marquis by the Emperor, the young commander returned
to Rome in 1537, and took up his position as the acknowledged head of
his family. He married Francesca, daughter of Bosso Sforza, heiress of
the Counts of Anguillaria. Three sons and a daughter were born to them.
Paolo Giordano, born 1539, was adopted by his maternal uncle, Carlo,
Cardinal Sforza da Santa Fiora, and became a protégé of Paul IV.
Following his father's profession of arms, he saw military service in
Spain, but was recalled to Rome by the death of both his parents. On
succession to the family estates the Pope created the Lordship of
Bracciano a Duchy, and sent a message to Duke Cosimo, commending the
young soldier to his notice, and suggesting a matrimonial alliance with
one of his daughters.
Cosimo looked with favour upon the Pope's proposition, and asked the
young Duke to pay the Florentine Court a visit. The young people seemed
made for one another: he was handsome, brave and rich, she was
beautiful, talented, and lovable. Perhaps it was a case of love at first
sight, anyhow they were betrothed in 1555, with the proviso that the
nuptial knot should not be tied until Isabella had attained her
sixteenth year.
In due course the marriage-contract was drawn up, signed and sealed, but
it contained a condition which was as unnatural as it was impolitic.
Duke Cosimo insisted that his dearly-beloved daughter should make his
house her home for at least six months each year, and only pay
occasional visits to her husband's palace in Rome! Duke Paolo, quite
rightly, resented this questionable arrangement, and only agreed at last
on pressure from the Pope.
Whatever made Cosimo take such a weird course no one can really say,
although horrible rumours were indeed rife in Florence about the
relations between father and child! It was, however, a fatal bar to all
marital happiness, and led to the one and only possible
_dénouement_--tragedy. Certainly the Duke bestowed upon the young couple
the splendid estate and villa of the Baroncelli, which had come into
his hands, and which he enlarged and surrounded with a park. He added a
munificent endowment and had the villa refurnished and redecorated
throughout, according to his son-in-law's wishes.
The marriage was celebrated on 3rd September 1558 in the private chapel
of the Pitti Palace,--a Saturday, always considered, in Florence, an
unlucky day for a wedding,--a few months after that of Prince Alfonso
d'Este's to Isabella's younger sister--Lucrezia. After a brief honeymoon
spent at their villa the youthful bride and bridegroom separated--an
ominous repetition of a fateful error. Truth to tell, Duke Paolo took an
intense dislike to his father-in-law: he distrusted him both in relation
to his affection for Isabella, and also with respect to his tyrannical
character generally. Florence also and the Florentines were distasteful
in their excesses of ill-living, cruelty, and chicanery--not that the
Court of Rome was a Paradise, or the young man a St Anthony!
The Duke went back to Rome and resumed his ordinary life there, without
bearing with him any of the wholesome leaven of matrimony--a husband in
name, and little more. Duchess Isabella, a mere child, wanton and wilful
more than most, was thus left the uncontrolled mistress of a princely
establishment, with no marital check to regulate her conduct. Surely as
unstable a condition, and as conducive to infidelity, as can well be
imagined.
Before leaving his wife at Poggio Baroncelli, Duke Paolo appointed her
household, and made every provision for her comfort. A cousin of his,
Cavaliere Troilo d'Orsini, was placed in charge of the Duchess as
Chamberlain, or quasi-guardian--another false step, and embarrassing for
all parties. He was a handsome and accomplished man, avowedly unmarried,
young and of a sympathetic disposition, and manifestly not at all the
sort of person to place upon terms of such close relationship with the
attractive young Duchess.
Under its fascinating _Castellana_ the Baroncelli villa became a busy
little Court, the scene of constant festivities, gossip, and intrigue.
Her mother's Court at the Pitti was quite second in attractiveness.
Duchess Eleanora if virtuous and conscientious, was rather dull and
uninteresting. She cared much more for her Spanish connections than for
her Florentine courtiers: much of her time she spent in the Cappella
degli Spagnioli at Santa Maria Novella. What time she spared from her
devotions she occupied in the establishment and patronage of the
_Accademia degli Elevati_--"Souls," for the encouragement of poetry.
Duchess Isabella d'Orsini was hailed as "_La Nuova Saffo_" by those who
gathered round her. She was by nature an arrant flirt--as most pretty
women are--for she inherited her father's amorous disposition; and she
was impulsive,--an added charm where beauty reigns,--worldly-minded, and
dreadfully extravagant; moreover, she dressed to perfection.
The Duke of Bracciano paid rare visits to Florence, but the Duchess, in
compliance with her marriage-contract, spent a portion of each year with
her husband in Rome. These visits were not occasions of happiness and
satisfaction. The two had scarcely any interests in common, and the
infrequency of intercourse entailed unfamiliarity and embarrassment. The
good-byes were never unwelcome on either side!
The Duke took up, once more, his military duties, following in the
footsteps of his father as commander, in 1566, of a division of the
Imperial army against the Turks. For his bravery at the battle of
Lepanto, he was made Field-Marshal of the Emperor and a Count of the
Holy Roman Empire. In other respects he had his consolations for his
enforced separation from his wife--and Isabella, naturally, had hers
too!
It was said that every man fell in love with her, and she, on her part,
did not restrain her passion. There was no one to advise, no one to
check, no one to help her to keep in the path of wifely fidelity.
Reports of _liaisons_ were made to the Duke by his Chamberlain from time
to time, but these were couched in words which concealed his own part
therein. He and the Duchess were accustomed to be much alone together.
He was a musician and a linguist, a scholar and an artist like herself,
and a most attractive companion. She helped him in his great literary
work--_Lezione della Lingua Toscana_--perhaps the only serious
occupation she ever undertook.
An intimacy, with such a similarity of tastes, ripened naturally into a
romantic attachment--certainly quite in accord with the tenets of
Platonic humanism, and perhaps something more! That Duke Paolo was
conversant with the relations of his wife with his cousin was well
known, but he made no complaint, and took no action to check them.
Likely enough he had that "easy-going contempt of everything and
everybody" which Niccolo Macchiavelli has stigmatised as the prevailing
tone of Italian society.
Probably the sad deaths of Princess Maria and Duchess Lucrezia d'Este,
and the tragic events in the Maremma of 1562, affected Isabella greatly,
but they only tended to increase her husband's detestation for
everything Florentine. No doubt he judged that Cosimo's hand slew both
Maria and Garzia--might it not strike Isabella or himself! When a man,
in an autocratic position such as that made by Cosimo I., yields to
unguarded passion, reason and right alike are at a discount. Isabella's
husband had taken the measure of her father--alas, that he was destined
to follow his example!
For Isabella a new interest was created when, in 1564, Bianca
Buonaventuri became "_La cosa di Francesco_,"--her brother. She, so to
speak, clasped the lovely young Venetian to her bosom. She entered into
the romance of the elopement, and of her brother's infatuation, with all
her heart. Isabella de' Medici and Bianca Cappello-Buonaventuri became
inseparable friends.
During Duchess Eleanora's life the gaieties and the follies of the court
had been kept within something like bounds, but she had hardly been laid
in her tomb within San Lorenzo than Duke Cosimo gave reins to his
passions, and the Palazzo Pitti and the various Medicean villas became
the scenes of unbridled lust and depravity. In 1564 the Duke deputed
most of his sovereign power to his son Francesco, who became Regent and
virtual ruler of Tuscany.
The grave scandals which distracted Florentine society began to raise up
in the minds of the people violent antipathy for a Sovereign whose
private example was so abominable, and whose discharge of public duties
was so basely marked by turpitude. A revolution of a drastic description
seemed to be inevitable, and, really, Cosimo had no other course than
abdication.
The Florentine rendering and observance of Platonism favoured illicit
connections between the sexes. The palaces of the nobles and of the
wealthy merchants were nothing more or less than harems. The manners and
traditions of the Orient took root, not only in Florence, but in all the
other Italian States, and the normal strictness and restrictions of
lawful married life had everywhere all but disappeared. Every household,
not only of the noble but also of the middle class, had among its
number a _cicisbeo_, or two or more,--"unofficial wives"--we may call
them, possessed of almost equal rights and position as the lawful
spouses.
* * * * *
The great event of the year 1562 was the marriage of Prince Francesco
and the Archduchess Giovanna d'Austria. Quite certainly the Duke and
Duchess of Bracciano were among the notable personages present at the
nuptials. Indeed that year the Duke spent more of his time than usual in
Florence, and was very busy buying and rebuilding the Villa Cerreto
Guidi, and laying out the park and gardens--the former for the pursuit
of deer-hunting, the latter by way of rivalry to Pratolino--Francesco
and Bianca's plaisance.
The Grand Duchess Giovanna was something like her predecessor, Duchess
Eleanora, a serious-minded sort of woman, with no pretensions to beauty
or ability, not at all the sort of sovereign for that gay and dissolute
court. The _beau monde_ took themselves off to the Orte Oricellari--to
pay their devotions to the lovely Venetian mistress of their Sovereign;
and to Poggio Baroncelli--where Duchess Isabella reigned as queen of
fashion and frivolity.
Cosimo and Cammilla de' Martelli--whom he married secretly and took away
to his favourite Villa del Castello--lived in strict retreat, rarely
came into Florence, and kept no sort of state. At the same time two
sons of his were sources of keen anxiety.
Ferdinando, born 1549, was now wearing the Cardinal's red hat, which
hapless young Garzia's hunting-knife had caused to fall from his brother
Giovanni's head in the Maremma. Ambitious, jealous, but, perhaps, less
depraved than his father, the Cardinal de' Medici made no secret of his
dislike of his brother Francesco and his _innamorata_, Bianca
Buonaventuri. He became a thorn in his father's and brother's sides on
account of his extortionate and presumptuous demands. His young
stepmother--only two years his senior--favoured his pretensions, and so
brought trouble upon herself, as we shall see later on.
Piero, Cosimo's youngest legitimate son, was but a boy of fourteen when
his father married his second wife. Of course she was far too young and
inexperienced to be of any use in guiding his growth and tastes.
The Court was thus divided: the two parties were headed respectively by
the Grand Duchess Giovanna, the titular Grand Duchess-dowager,--so to
call Cammilla,--with the Cardinal de' Medici; and by Bianca Cappello di
Pietro Buonaventuri and Duchess Isabella of Bracciano.
With respect to the latter coterie, its influence was vastly augmented
by the assassination of Pietro Buonaventuri in 1572. Duchess Isabella
gave her whole heart's support to the beauteous young widow. She wrote
to her the most affectionate letters, in one of which, if not in more,
she says she loves Bianca "more than sister," and bids her retain her
position as "the loving helper of my brother."
Bianca heartily returned her "more than a sister's" affection, and she
repeatedly spoke of Duchess Isabella in her letters to her cousins in
Venice. "I had," she says, for example, on 17th July 1574, "the
illustrious Domina Isabella to dine with me in my garden, and with her
came my good friends her brother Don Piero and his young wife...."
Beautiful, accomplished, and light-hearted, Isabella and Bianca were the
dearest and most constant of companions. They lived apparently only for
admiration and adulation, but the Duchess' position was infinitely more
free and unconventional than that of the Venetian: the latter lived for
one man's love alone--Francesco--Isabella dispensed her favours where
she willed!
Duke Paolo grew suspicious of his wife's liberty of action. His
protests, at first couched in deprecatory language, were met with
girlish _insouciance_; but, when he began to complain arrogantly,
Isabella replied with spirit and determination. His jealous reprimands
were met by like charges and, truth to tell, there was not a pin to
choose between the two.
The Grand Duke Cosimo before his death in 1574, and the Grand Duke
Francesco, were alike irritated by Bracciano's cool, calculating
conduct; and both upheld Isabella against her husband's ill-humour and
harsh judgments. Duke Paolo, however, kept his own counsel, and by means
of spies discovered that Troilo d'Orsini's monthly reports were at least
open to doubt as to their truthfulness with respect to his wife's
conduct in private. Matters, however, drifted--he was too intent upon
his own affairs in Rome and elsewhere to disturb rudely the state of
things at Poggio Baroncelli.
His suspicions at length were brusquely confirmed, and the uneasy peace
of evil deeds was broken by portentous news from Florence. A courier in
his pay arrived one evening, in July 1576, breathless, at the Bracciano
Palace, with the intelligence that the trusty chamberlain had stabbed to
the heart an attractive young page, Lelio Torello, attached to the
household of the Grand Duke; and had, moreover, at once taken flight
precipitately from the Villa!
Bracciano knew exactly what this purported--young Torello was a lover of
his wife as well as Troilo d'Orsini! Without a moment's delay, he
started off for Florence to tax the Duchess with unfaithfulness. At the
Porta Romana he was staggered by the news which greeted him--Piero de'
Medici had killed his wife, Eleanora de Garzia de Toledo, at
Cafaggiuolo!
He tarried not to pay his respects to the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess
at the Palazzo Pitti hard by, but galloped off post-haste to his wife's
villa, and, unannounced, surprised Isabella in the midst of
preparations for a sudden journey! If, as some maintained, she meant to
follow her fleeing lover, Troilo, at all events she was determined to
seek the Court of France, and throw herself upon the sympathy of Queen
Caterina, her kinswoman, and crave her protection for herself and her
babe!
Several letters had already passed between the two illustrious women.
Isabella, on her part, says: "I have asked pardon of God for my sins,
and have resolved to let things take their course"; but she implores
Catherine to protect her little son. In the last of these letters she
writes:--"Let your Majesty think of this letter as the last words of a
person bound to you by the ties of blood, and consider them as the
confidence of one who is about to die, resigned and repentant, who
otherwise could only end her life in despair and desperation."
The Duke judged his wife guilty, before she had offered any explanation
of the tragic doings at the Villa, and his impulse was to dishonour her
before her whole household. The spirit of duplicity, which had haunted
their married life, during eighteen random years of misunderstanding,
distaste and estrangement, still ruled them both--but Bracciano
restrained his passion for a while.
He noted the preparations for hasty flight--indicative of Isabella's
guilt--but, what more than all else enraged him almost beyond the power
of self-control, was the cry of an infant within Isabella's apartments!
That child was not his. Whose was it?
Isabella met her husband perfectly unabashed, and, if she expected an
immediate explosion, she was agreeably though somewhat misgivingly
surprised at his cordial greeting. He asked her where she was going, and
suggested that they should go away together. Isabella of course
prevaricated--truth is a negative quality between those who doubt each
other! Then, to her great surprise, Bracciano began to express himself
in terms at once tender and apologetic.
"The faults, and faults there are, have been all on my side," he said,
"but I wish to alter all this and begin a new course, happy, and
well-regulated. I suggest that bygones be bygones, and that we mutually
agree to bury the past. Let us, Isabella, begin an entirely new course
of life and live henceforth only for each other." His fair words were
matched by the mild expression he contrived to put into his face, and,
although the Duchess distrusted them, or at least her sense of hearing,
she met his advances handsomely.
The day passed over pleasantly, the _rapprochement_ seemed to be real
and sincere, and when the Duke invited her to accompany him upon a
hunting expedition to Cerreto Guidi, on the morrow, his wife expressed
her pleasure and acquiescence. He himself set off early in the day, it
was 10th July, and he asked Isabella to follow with her maidens
leisurely.
Whether from innate distrustfulness, or presage of coming evil, the
Duchess put off her journey till quite late, and only arrived there as
night was coming on. At the entrance to the Villa the Duke met her,
holding in a leash two splendid hare-hounds, which he begged her to
accept and use on the morrow.
The dinner-party was numerous and merry, but not one of the company was
gayer than the host. Isabella sat beside him, and he offered her many
lover-like attentions. Everybody remarked these excellent and unusual
relations between the Duke and Duchess, and wondered greatly thereat.
After a very pleasant musical evening the company separated for the
night, and the Duke, passing into his own bedchamber, invited his wife
to enter with him.
Was it instinct or was it second sight, which caused Isabella's steps to
falter on the threshold? She trembled as her husband held aside the
arras, turned deadly pale, and, retreating for a moment, she whispered
to her lady-in-waiting, Donna Lucrezia de' Frescobaldi--"Shall I enter,
or shall I not?" Bracciano's voice again was raised in gentle
persuasiveness, and taking her by her hand, clammy cold as it was, he
asked her, laughingly, why she held back.
She bade Donna Lucrezia good-night very tremulously, and then the
curtain fell, and Isabella was alone with her lord. The room was in its
usual state, but truth to tell, she had not lain there for many a long
night, and, as the Duke continued to talk affectionately, and to prepare
for bed, she began to feel less alarm. Without more ado she flung
herself into a deep lounging-chair and began to meditate and to chatter.
Seating himself by her side, Bracciano began to caress her hands and to
fondle her in his arms, and when he noted that she had given herself
entirely to his will and pleasure, as an amorous, faithful wife once
more, he swiftly reached down for a _corda di collo_--a horse's
halter--which he had placed behind the chair. Implanting an impassioned
kiss upon those lovely lips, which had so long yearned for a husband's
embrace, he adroitly threw the rope round his wife's neck, and pulling
it taut in a wild access of rage, he strangled her--holding on until her
struggles ceased!
Then he cast her fair body from him, and spurned it with his foot, as
though it had been some foul and loathsome thing. Thus perished, in her
thirty-sixth year, Isabella de' Medici, wife of Paolo Giordano
d'Orsini--as sinful as she was lovely, but much more sinned against than
sinning after all.
Before the dawn of day the Duke, accompanied by one attendant only, rode
into Florence, and left at the Palazzo Pitti a heartless message for the
Grand Duke, requesting him to despatch the brethren of the
_Misericordia_ to Cerreto Guidi, where was "something which required
their attention"--then he continued his course straight on to Rome.
Florence was aghast at this horror, but the Grand Duke Francesco kept
his own counsel, and no pursuit followed the murderer. An official
announcement was made to the effect that "The Duchess of Bracciano died
in a fit of apoplexy." This nobody for a moment believed: whether her
brother was privy to the deed is perhaps open to doubt, for he and
Isabella were devoted to one another.
It has been said that it was due to Bianca Buonaventuri's persuasion
that the Grand Duke took no steps to vindicate his sister's honour or
dishonour. The punishment of assassins mostly leads to further
assassinations, and the "_La cosa di Francesco_" had reason to fear for
her own life, seeing that her husband and her two dearest friends in
Florence had been done brutally to death.
What became of the child, whose cries the Duke of Bracciano had heard,
at Villa Poggio Baroncelli, no one seems to have recorded, nor are there
any statements extant as to who his father actually was--a boy he was
anyhow, and, though his name is uncertain, he was spoken of by the
Duchess as "_il mio becchino_," "my little kid."
We may father him as we like--and at least three claimants for that
honour are known--Troilo d'Orsini, the Duke's cousin and the Duchess'
companion; Lelio Torello, the comely young _Calcio_ player, and the
favourite page of the Grand Duke Francesco; and, be it said in terms of
doubt and horror, the Grand Duke Cosimo! If the latter, then this
"Tragedy" is the culmination of all the abominable orgies which have
blackened the character of the greatest tyrant and monster of his epoch!
Another story affects the career of the Chamberlain Troilo d'Orsini. He
sought sanctuary in France and was befriended by Queen Catherine, to
whom his mistress, the unhappy Duchess of Bracciano, had commended "the
little kid." Whether he accepted the rôle of father to save the fame of
the defunct Grand Duke is not known, but the unfortunate, if guilty,
fugitive was stabbed in the streets of Paris by bravoes sent after him
in the pay of the Duke of Bracciano.