Francesco I de' Medici

Not to be confused with Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor.

Francesco I (25 March 1541 – 19 October 1587) was the second Grand Duke of Tuscany, ruling from 1574 until his death in 1587. He was a member of the House of Medici.

Francesco I de' Medici
Portrait by Alessandro Allori, c. 1580-1585
Grand Duke of Tuscany
Reign	21 April 1574 – 19 October 1587
Predecessor	Cosimo I
Successor	Ferdinando I
Born	25 March 1541 Florence, Duchy of Florence
Died	19 October 1587(1587-10-19) (aged 46) Medici Villa in Poggio a Caiano, Grand Duchy of Tuscany
Burial	Cappella dei Principi
Spouse	Joanna of Austria Bianca Cappello
Issue among others...	Eleanor, Duchess of Mantua and Montferrat Anna de' Medici Maria, Queen of France Philip, Grand Prince of Tuscany Don Antonio de' Medici (ill.)
House	Medici
Father	Cosimo I
Mother	Eleanor of Toledo
Religion	Roman Catholicism

Biography

Francesco I of Tuscany as a young boy, painted by Bronzino.

Born in Florence, Francesco was the son of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Eleanor of Toledo. He served as regent for his father Cosimo after he retired from his governing duties in 1564.

Marriage to Joanna of Austria

On 18 December 1565, Francesco married Archduchess Joanna of Austria, youngest daughter of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor and his wife Anne of Bohemia and Hungary. By all reports, it was not a happy marriage. Joanna was homesick for her native Austria, and Francesco was neither charming nor faithful. In 1578, Joanna died at the age of thirty-one, after falling down a flight of stairs while pregnant with their eighth child.

Bianca Cappello

Soon after Grand Duchess Joanna had died, Francesco went on to marry his Venetian mistress, Bianca Cappello, after aptly disposing of her husband, a Florentine bureaucrat. Because of the quick remarriage and similar occurrences among the Medici (Francesco's younger brother Pietro had reportedly killed his wife), rumours spread that Francesco and Bianca had conspired to poison Joanna. Francesco reportedly built and decorated the Villa di Pratolino for Bianca. She was, however, not always popular among Florentines. They had no legitimate children, but Bianca had borne him a son, Antonio (29 August 1576 – 2 May 1621), in his first wife's lifetime. Following the death of Francesco's legitimate son Filippo in 1582, Antonio was proclaimed heir. Francesco also adopted Bianca's daughter by her first marriage, Pellegrina (1564–?).

The "Apennine Colossus" in its niche

Francesco as a young man in a painting attributed to Alessandro Allori.

Like his father, Francesco was often despotic, but while Cosimo had known how to maintain Florentine independence, Francesco acted more like a vassal of the Habsburgs of Austria and Spain. He continued the heavy taxation of his subjects to pay large sums to the emperor.

Francesco had an avid interest in manufacturing and sciences. He founded porcelain and stoneware manufacture, but these did not thrive until after his death. He continued his father's patronage of the arts, supporting artists and building the Medici Theater as well as founding the Accademia della Crusca. Francesco was also passionately interested in chemistry and alchemy and spent many hours in his private laboratory and curio collection, the Studiolo in the Palazzo Vecchio, which held his collections of natural items and stones and allowed him to dabble in chemistry and alchemical schemes.

Francesco and Bianca died on 19 and 20 October, both at the Medici Villa in Poggio a Caiano. Although the original death certificates mention malaria, it has been widely speculated that the couple was poisoned, possibly by Francesco's brother Ferdinando. While some early forensic research supported the latter theory, forensic evidence from a study in 2010 found the parasite Plasmodium falciparum, which causes malaria, in the skeletal remains of Francesco I, which strongly bolstered the infection theory and the credibility of the official documents. Francesco was succeeded by his younger brother Ferdinando.

In 1857, all members of the Medici family were exhumed and reburied in the place where they still lie today, the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Florence. The painter Giuseppe Moricci attended the ceremony and depicted Francesco with a facial droop, a right claw hand appearance, the right shoulder internally rotated, the right calf muscle wasted and a right clubfoot confirmed by orthopaedic footwear within the coffin. These are the signs of a right-sided stroke possibly within the internal capsule. The presence of the orthopaedic footwear suggests that this stroke happened significantly before his death. During life, in his official portraits, the grand duke was always depicted as being in perfect physical condition. The cause of his stroke is not known, but malaria is known to cause this condition.

There is a famous portrait of Francesco as a child by Bronzino that hangs in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Francesco's marriage to Bianca and the couple's death was exploited by Thomas Middleton for his tragedy Women Beware Women, published in 1658.

Children

Francesco and Joanna had eight children:

1. Eleonora (28 February 1567 – 9 September 1611), who married Vincenzo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua (1562–1612)
2. Romola (20 November 1568 – 2 December 1568)
3. Anna (31 December 1569 – 19 February 1584)
4. Isabella (30 September 1571 – 8 August 1572)
5. Lucrezia (7 November 1572 – 14 August 1574)
6. Marie (26 April 1575–3 July 1642), who became Queen of France by her marriage to Henry IV in 1600
7. Filippo (20 May 1577 – 29 March 1582)
8. a son, died in a miscarriage

In fiction

• Francesco de' Medici is a secondary character in John Webster's 1612 play The White Devil.

Sources

• Arba, F; Inzitari, D; Barnett, HJ; Lippi, D (2012). "Stroke in Renaissance time: The case of Francesco I de' Medici". Cerebrovascular Diseases. 33 (6). Elsevier: 589–593. doi:10.1159/000338667. PMID 22699046. S2CID 19949701.
• Beem, Charles (2020). Queenship in Early Modern Europe. Bloomsbury Publishing.
• Boltanski, Ariane (2006). Les Ducs de Nevers et L'etat Royal: Genese d'un compromis (ca 1550 - ca 1600) (in French). Librairie Droz S.A.
• Campbell, Katie (2021). Cultivating the Renaissance: A Social History of the Medici Tuscan Villas. Routledge.
• Fornaciari, Gino; Giuffra, Valentina; Ferroglio, Ezio; Bianucci, Raffaella (2010). Mathiasen, Helle (ed.). "Malaria Was "the Killer" of Francesco I de' Medici (1531-1587)" (PDF). The American Journal of Medicine. 123 (6). Elsevier: 568–569. doi:10.1016/j.amjmed.2009.12.020. PMID 20569768. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 July 2010.
• Henderson, Paula (2022). "Gardens". In Griffey, Erin (ed.). Early Modern Court Culture. Routledge.
• Lorenzi, Rosella (2010). "Medici Family Cold Case Finally Solved : Discovery News". News.discovery.com. Archived from the original on 27 February 2011. Retrieved 18 March 2012.
• Mari, Francesco; Polettini, Aldo; Lippi, Donatella; Bertol, Elisabetta (2006). "The mysterious death of Francesco I de' Medici and Bianca Cappello: an arsenic murder?". BMJ: British Medical Journal. 333 (23–30 June 2006). BMJ: 1299–1301. doi:10.1136/bmj.38996.682234.AE. PMC 1761188. PMID 17185715.
• van Veen, Hendrik Thijs (2013). Cosimo I De' Medici and His Self-Representation in Florentine Art and Culture. Cambridge University Press.

External links

• Media related to Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany at Wikimedia Commons
• "The Medici Archive Project", from the Medici Archive Project
• "The Medici Archive Project Bio Page"
• "Toledo-de' Medici, Leonor de (Eleonora)", from The Medici Archive Project
• "Osorio Pimentel, María", from The Medici Archive Project