The Knights of St Stephen of Tuscany

In the old days of Christendom, there were religious military orders subject to the Roman Pontiff, such as the Templars, as well as religious military orders subject to a particular dynastic house. One of these was the Order of St Stephen of the Italian Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Officially, the “Holy Military Order of St Stephen Pope and Martyr”, it was founded on October 1, 1561 by the first Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo I de’ Medici with the permission of Pope Pius IV. This could be seen as part of the normalization of the transition in Tuscany to monarchy, away from the city-state Republic of Florence, taking on more of the trappings associated with monarchy as Florence became the seat of power of a hereditary Grand Duke rather than a republican leadership. The order was named for Pope St Stephen the Martyr because his feast day (August 2) corresponded with the victories that Grand Duke Cosimo had won at the Battle of Montemurlo (August 2, 1537) against republican insurgents who wanted to restore the Florentine republic and the Battle of Marciano (August 2, 1554) in which the Medici grand duke had conquered the city-state Republic of Siena.

Grand Duke Cosimo I

Grand Duke Cosimo had actually been trying to establish such an order for some time and more than one attempt was thwarted by Church opposition, largely for political reasons which was typical of the period in which Italy was divided among feuding states. That, however, finally changed with the reign of Pope Pius IV who was a Medici. The primary purpose of the order was to combat the Islamic pirates who were raiding the Mediterranean at will and who had increasingly threatened the Tyrrhenian Sea where Grand Duke Cosimo had built a new, modern port at Livorno. He also wished to demonstrate his support for the cause of Christendom and to unite his people, including the more recently conquered regions such as Siena and Pisa, against a common, non-Italian and non-Christian enemy. The Grand Duke also hoped it would add prestige to his newly established grand duchy, standing alongside other dynastic orders and adding fame to the name of Tuscany and the House of Medici for fighting on the front-lines against the forces harassing Christendom.

Based on the religious rule of St Benedict, the order took as its symbol a red eight-point cross on a white background, incorporating the red and white colors of Florence, with a heraldic lily flower in between the arms of the cross, again using a symbol associated with Florence as well as that of the House of Medici due to their ties with the Royal House of France. Grand Duke Cosimo served as the first Grand Master of the order and, as it was a dynastic order, this would be passed on to every subsequent Grand Duke of Tuscany. The headquarters of the order were originally in Portoferraio but later moved permanently to the city of Pisa where one can still find the magnificent Palazzo dei Cavalieri and the church of Santo Stefano dei Cavalieri. The knights focused primarily on coastal defense but also took the fight to the enemy in cooperation with larger allies. The first of three, broad “campaigns” that the Knights of St Stephen fought was done in cooperation with the Spanish in their fight against the Ottoman Turks in the Mediterranean.

war galley of the Order of St Stephen

The Knights of St Stephen, with their own war galleys, fought alongside the Spanish (and other allied Italian states) at the siege of Malta in 1565 and the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. They also participated in the attack and capture of Annaba in Algeria in 1607 under Admiral Jacopo Inghirami in which the city was devastated. This phase in their campaigning was, such as at Malta and Lepanto, defensive and focused on stopping major Turkish offensives against southern Italy. However, once that was done, low level harassment on the part of Turkish and, more often, Barbary pirates remained a problem and the Order of St Stephen focused its second campaign on dealing with this problem. They also concentrated on areas closer to home with raids on the Turkish-held islands of the Aegean as well as launching attacks on Islamic forces in Dalmatia, Negroponte and the island of Corfu. These were successful enough that offensive military operations by the Knights of St Stephen decreased, their last major campaign, coming around the year 1640, during the reign of Grand Duke Ferdinando II, focused on coastal defense and aiding the Republic of Venice in their on-going struggle against the Ottoman Empire.

Grand Duke Ferdinando III

The year 1719 saw the last time that the Order of St Stephen was used in combat by Grand Duke Cosimo III. Later, in 1737, a major change came when the House of Medici was supplanted by the Austrian dynasty of Hapsburg-Lorraine. The second Hapsburg grand duke, Pietro Leopoldo I, formally ended the military aspect of the order and reorganized it as an order that would focus on education for the elites of Tuscany. It became more a feature of social status and no longer an order focused on war and military defense. The Order of St Stephen lost its fighting capacity under the Hapsburgs but things soon became even worse. In 1791 Emperor Leopold II abdicated the throne of Tuscany in favor of his son Ferdinando III who has the dubious distinction of being the first monarch to recognize the revolutionary First French Republic. However, that was not enough to save him. French expansion continued and the Austrians eventually agreed to hand over control of northern Italy to the French Republic in exchange for half of the territory of neutral Venice. The Grand Duchy of Tuscany was occupied by the French, the Grand Duke was forced to abdicate and the Order of St Stephen was suppressed.

Grand Duke Leopoldo II

Thankfully, that situation did not endure. In due time Napoleon was defeated and the Grand Duke of Tuscany was put back in his place in 1814 and, the following year, the Order of St Stephen was restored. It was, however, restored in its reformed form, not a military order but became more of a sign of favor with the grand ducal family. The French experience also seemed to have an affect on the Italian populace as so many years of division, feuding and foreign rule or foreign occupation prompted the growth and spread of a new Italian nationalism. It was an unfortunate period for the Grand Dukes of Tuscany, who were good men of good motives and intentions but their natural inclination to support their Austrian relatives was not matched by their subjects and many deserted the forces of Tuscany to join the Piedmontese and the Italian national movement in fighting to expel the Austrians from Italian soil. Grand Duke Leopold II, a noble and tragic figure, made the mistake of so many of his contemporaries in granting constitutional government, only to later revoke it and he was forced to abdicate. Grand Duke Ferdinando IV, his successor, ruled for only about a year before he too was forced out in 1859 by the Italian nationalists. In 1860 Tuscany was formally annexed to the Kingdom of Italy.

Neither the Kingdom of Italy nor the current Italian republic officially recognize the Order of St Stephen, though it does still exist but as a purely private organization under the leadership of the Hapsburg-Lorraine heirs of the former grand duchy. Prince Sigismund, Archduke of Austria, is the current Grand Master and the order is considered, by the Catholic Church, as a “public association of the faithful” with historic papal foundations. The Knights of Malta still recognize it but membership is extremely limited, mostly to close friends and family. One must have extensive documented proof of aristocratic ancestry to even be considered for membership and the costs required, as with most such orders today, ensure that only quite wealthy people could ever hope to be invited. Nonetheless, what exists today is a valuable reminder of what a glorious and formidable military-religious order the Knights of St Stephen once were and one can still see their educational facility and naval war college in Pisa, a testament to their past as one of the major forces on the front lines of defending Christendom in the Mediterranean area.

Italy and the American Revolution

There was, as most know, no united country called Italy at the time of the American Revolution. The Italian peninsula was still divided among a collection of minor states and the dominions of the Pope, most of them under the direct or indirect rule of some major European power, usually Austria. However, Italians played a considerable part in the American war and events in Italy, both historic and contemporary, inspired America's Founding Fathers. The independence movement in Corsica, first against Genoa and later against France, was something many Americans looked to and, of course, the historic legacy of the Roman Republic had a major influence on the establishment of the United States government.

On July 1, 1777 the U.S. government assigned Ralph Izard as Commissioner to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinando III, but he was never received and formal diplomatic recognition was never extended to the United States by Florence. That was most likely due to the opposition to the American war by the Austrian Emperor Joseph II who was concerned that his own subjects might follow their example. However, there was still a desire for commercial ties. Ragusa, in what is now Croatia, which had a large Italian presence, established trade links with the United States through Italian agents in France such as Francesco Favi and Giovanni Fabronni. The Grand Duchy of Tuscany never recognized the United States prior to the formation of the Kingdom of Italy. However, there were those who did, though some were quite late such as the Duchy of Parma which recognized the American government in 1850.

In 1796 the King of Naples officially recognized the United States of America, though full diplomatic relations were not established until 1832 due to the tumult caused by the French Revolutionary Wars. The Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia established diplomatic relations with the United States in 1802. The Papal States, while waiting a long time to extend official diplomatic recognition to the United States, did open its ports to American trade in 1784 and this was at the instigation of the Papal Nuncio in Paris, not by the Americans. The United States was also allowed to have a consulate in Rome from 1797. The Republic of Genoa recognized the United States in 1791 though that relationship did not last long since the republic was annexed by France in 1805. Oddly enough, one Italian state that was quite unfriendly to the new republic in America was the older Republic of Venice. The Venetian ambassadors in France and Spain were approached by the American envoys but Venice refused to recognize the American government and ignored an effort at correspondence with the Venetian ambassador in Paris. The only reason for this seems to have been a reluctance on the part of Venice to risk endangering their trade with Britain or upsetting the Austrians. As it turns out, the American republic received more support from the monarchies of Europe than from the republics, as surprising as most would probably find that today.

Alessandro de' Medici, Duke of Florence

One of the most unfortunate members of the Medici family to rule over Florence was Duke Alessandro, the recognized only son of Lorenzo II de‘ Medici. There has been some speculation as to his actual parentage and the identity of his mother is not known for certain at all. In any event, he was the recognized son and heir of Lorenzo II, Duke of Urbino which, as far as the law was concerned, is all that matters. He was born on July 22, 1510 but though he was the first to come to rule Florence based on heredity, as a monarch, that did not happen immediately after the death of his father in 1519. Rather, power effectively passed to the Medici who held the highest office of all Pope Clement VII who appointed Alessandro’s cousin, Ippolito de’ Medici, to rule Florence on his behalf. It was also Pope Clement who had arranged the marriage of Alessandro’s (legitimate) half-sister Catherine to King Henri II of France. Many accounts describe Alessandro as unprepossessing but not in a flattering way and he was the focus of a great deal of criticism both from within his own family as well as the republican and overall anti-Medici forces in Florence.

The papal representatives sent to oversee the boy were extremely unpopular with the anti-Medici faction as well as, again, elements within the family such as Clarice Strozzi, daughter of Piero di Lorenzo (“the Unfortunate”), who railed against Alessandro as being unworthy of the Medici family name and against his papal guardians as well. There would also been tensions between the cousins, Alessandro and Ippolito, when, later in life, Alessandro caught Ippolito in the arms of his half-sister Catherine as the two had a forbidden romance which was ended with her being sent to France and Ippolito into the service of the Church. The status of Alessandro as Gran maestro of Florence was largely nominal but wider events taking place in Italy would soon see him raised to a higher status but not before enduring quite an ordeal. For the time being, the power of Pope Clement VII kept him safe at home but the threat of an alliance between the Pope and the King of France invited the opposition of the formidable German Emperor Charles V, also King of Spain, who dispatched a powerful Spanish-German army to invade the Papal States and attack Rome to ‘teach the Pope a lesson he would never forget’.

That campaign culminated in the 1527 “Sack of Rome” which must rank as one of the most horrific acts of rampant savagery and horror in all of human history. The accounts are numerous and often too lurid to repeat such that the imagination itself would be overwhelmed in describing the barbarity that occurred. The Emperor himself, who was not present of course, was shocked but not so shocked as to fail to take advantage of the situation and force the Pope into submission. Likewise, in the city of Florence, the anti-Medici elements saw the sacking of Rome and the violent destruction of the power of the Pope as their great moment of opportunity. They took to the streets shouting slogans and singing songs in thanks to the downfall of the Pope. The papal envoy, Cardinal Silvio Passerini, took the Medici family and children, Alessandro as well as Ippolito, but leaving little Catherine behind for some reason, and quickly fled Florence for safer environs. An effigy of Pope Clement VII was torn to pieces in the street and a republican government was restored under a new anti-Medici leader.

This was not the first time that the effort at a Medici monarchy had been undone by a republican restoration in Florence (Piero di Lorenzo had presided over that dubious honor) and those with cool heads did have reason to hope. They had only been overthrown, after all, because the imperial troops had conquered Rome but the fact was that Pope Clement VII was still alive and, after having been put in his place by the Emperor, would have what amounted to German support rather than opposition so long as he did nothing to displease Hapsburg monarch. Indeed, Florence was never far from the thoughts of Pope Clement VII and as soon as he and Emperor Charles V concluded the Treaty of Bologna by which the Pope absolved the imperial forces for their actions in Rome, agreed to crown Charles V “Emperor of the Romans” by his own hand and, it went without saying, promising again not take sides with the French against Charles. In return, the Emperor gave the Pope territory taken from the Republic of Venice and agreed to help restore the Medici family to power in Florence.

That was good news for Alessandro, but he looked likely to have been in for a soft landing in any event as Emperor Charles V had entertained another ducal throne for him. The Sforza Duke Francesco II of Milan had been appointed to that position by the Emperor when the Emperor’s Spanish forces had driven out the French in the Italian Wars. However, Francesco II had turned against the Emperor in the latest unpleasantness, allying with Florence, Papal Rome, the French and so on. As a result, once his forces were victorious, the Emperor had considered placing Alessandro de’ Medici on the ducal throne of Milan but the Republic of Venice objected to the idea and, after paying the Emperor a considerable bribe, Francesco II was allowed to return. So, it was back to Florence after all for Alessandro but he would have an equal rank anyway. First, of course, was the detail of actually taking the city which was the last of the Italian states still holding out in opposition to the Emperor.

The siege of Florence began on October 24, 1529 with the German, Spanish and assorted Italian forces paid by the Pope all under the command of the Prince of Orange set to work building fortifications, bringing up artillery and shelling the city. The republican forces were considerable but not in the best frame of mind. Many of the well-to-do citizens had fled at the first sign of trouble and a number of the troops employed by the Florentine government deserted rather than face the imperial forces. After a time a relief army tried to come to the aid of Florence but was defeated by the Prince of Orange (though he was killed in the battle) and the fate of the city was sealed. On August 10, 1530 the city surrendered and the restored republic was promptly dismantled. For Alessandro de’ Medici it was his moment of glory, returning to power and being given the title “Duke of Florence” by Emperor Charles V. His enemies were executed or exiled, at least the most vocal and prominent ones, and the future looked promising for the frizzy-haired nineteen-year old. In fact, his uncle the Pope had also bought for him the title “Duke of Penne” from Charles V and hoped that he might pull off another advancement for the House of Medici by marrying Alessandro to the Emperor’s illegitimate daughter Margaret.

At first, Duke Alessandro acted with the advice of elected councils, trying to calm the nerves of the defeated republicans. However, he soon showed that he was not about to forget all that had transpired. He disarmed the populace, confiscating all weapons even if they were purely ornamental, and build a large new fortress to help ensure that he would not be chased out of town again. The large bell which had symbolized the republic in Florence (Americans might think of it as being in the same vein as the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia) was melted down and, you have to love this, cast into medals showing the figures and symbols of the House of Medici. The republican opposition, needless to say, became increasingly furious and just exactly what sort of man Duke Alessandro was depends almost entirely on whose side of the story you choose to believe.

Some wanted to assassinate him but the fear of another war which might be sparked by such a thing dissuaded the hot-heads and so the enemies of the Duke decided to send a representative to Emperor Charles V to implore him to give Florence justice by removing the man he had just set over them. To carry out this mission they chose Alessandro’s own cousin, with whom he was constantly feuding, Ippolito, by then a cardinal. However, he had not gone far when he fell ill and died which, of course, many attributed to poison given to him by Duke Alessandro. In any event, other delegates were dispatched and they made their case to Emperor Charles V. They described Alessandro de’ Medici as the most horrible tyrant, trampling their rights, killing their men, raping their women and just about every crime one could imagine. However, that Charles V might hear both sides of the story, one of Alessandro’s advisors, Francesco Guicciardini was on hand to paint a very different picture of the Duke. He said that he would not try to make reply to every horrific accusation made by the complainants, “but His Excellency’s virtue, his fame, the opinion of him held throughout the city, of his prudence, of his virtuous habits, are a sufficient reply”.

Historians have, themselves, debated which image of Alessandro is more correct. Emperor Charles V, if deemed a sufficient judge of character, seems to have found no merit in the accusations made by the critics of Alessandro. Not only were their charges not accepted but the Emperor fulfilled the wish of the late Pope Clement and agreed to have his fourteen-year old daughter Margaret married to Duke Alessandro; an illegitimate Hapsburg for an illegitimate Medici. The two were married in 1536 and, based on her later life, she might have been just the sort of woman Alessandro needed. However, the two would not have a long, married life together. As far as his private life was concerned, Alessandro had one mistress who gave birth to his three children, and was allegedly lured away by the promise of a romantic rendezvous with a famously beautiful widow, Laudomia, by her brother, Lorenzino de’ Medici (a distant cousin of Alessandro) who then assassinated Alessandro on January 6, 1537. He was only 26-years old but had lived quite a colorful life. Lorenzino said he had done the deed to restore the republic but, if genuine, it certainly did not work and he was killed in Venice several years later.

The ducal throne passed to Cosimo I de’ Medici, son of the famous “Giovanni of the Black Bands” who had died fighting against the imperial invasion on behalf of Pope Clement VII and the Italian states. The recently married and recently widowed Margaret of Austria was promptly married to the Farnese Duke of Parma (grandson of Pope Paul III) the following year. She was later put in nominal control of the Netherlands by her half-brother King Philip II of Spain and had he taken her advice might have averted rebellion there. As for Alessandro de’ Medici himself, again, an assessment of him is difficult as the most prominent accounts of him come from his enemies who describe him as harsh, incompetent and licentious yet this is to be expected. Historians, trying to take a more impartial view have argued back and forth as to what sort of man he really was with some concluding that he was a much better ruler than his detractors have claimed. However, he was certainly significant as the first Medici to be Duke of Florence and though his time in power was tumultuous the Medici would go on to solidify themselves and ultimately unite the surrounding region into the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.

King Ferdinando I of the Two-Sicilies

The reign of the Spanish over southern Italy and the island of Sicily, in its last instance, can be traced back to their seizure from the Austrian Hapsburgs during the War of the Polish Succession. At that time, the son of King Philip V of Spain, Charles, was placed on the throne. He had previously been Duke of Parma before moving to Naples as part of the constant struggles and trade deals between the great powers over the states of the Italian peninsula. Eventually, he succeeded his brother as King Charles III of Spain (Carlos III) and so he passed the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily to one of his sons, Ferdinand, who had been born in Naples on January 12, 1751. He was to preside over a time of immense tumult, trepidation and transition in the history of southern Italy, ending ultimately in the creation of a new political entity called the Kingdom of the Two-Sicilies. Little Ferdinand was only in his eighth year when he became King Ferdinand IV of Naples and III of Sicily when his father became King of Spain. King Charles III was forbidden by treaty from continuing to rule over all three kingdoms personally so choosing his third son to succeed him in Naples was a way of ensuring that the Spanish Bourbon dynasty would still retain the crown.

Obviously, as a small child at the time, actual power remained in the hands of the King of Spain or those officials appointed by him to administer southern Italy. At the head of the local government was a council of regency led by Bernardo Tanucci, a native of Tuscany and servant of the King of Spain who had fully embraced the “Enlightenment” ideas that were sweeping the educated elites of society in those days. Tanucci wanted to keep power centralized in his own hands, “reform” the Catholic Church and make government and society more “rational” as he saw it. His efforts to establish state supremacy over the Church earned him an excommunication from Pope Clement XIII, which he responded to by seizing a couple of Catholic monasteries. Unfortunately, his control of the government also gave him considerable power over the upbringing of his young monarch and he was certainly not a positive influence. Because he wished to hold on to power for himself as much as possible, he made sure that King Ferdinand IV learned only what he wished him to know. He encouraged the boy to be frivolous and concentrate on indulging rather than educating himself. Tanucci did, however, make sure that the King grew up with his sense of values.

Due to this, King Ferdinand IV was more adept at sports and other pleasurable pursuits than he was at administration by the time he reached his majority in 1767. As an absolute monarch, Ferdinand IV could rule as he wished but he still kept Tanucci on his council. His first action as King of Naples and Sicily was to expel the Jesuits from his domain, an act which undoubtedly pleased Tanucci greatly. His second priority was to find a suitable wife to ensure that the Bourbon reign would continue. The choice ultimately fell on Archduchess Maria Carolina, the daughter of Empress Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary (making her, of course the sister of Emperor Joseph II and Queen Marie Antoinette). More like her brother than her mother, Queen Maria Carolina was also receptive to the new ideas of the “Enlightenment” and favored what would become known in monarchial history as “enlightened despotism”. She was like her mother in that she was strong-willed and assertive. In 1768 she and King Ferdinand were married as part of an Austro-Spanish alliance and by the terms of the treaty the Queen was given a place on the governing council where she made her wishes known. This caused a clash with Tanucci, who was used to being in charge, but the Queen emerged triumphant over the old courtier.

Many came to believe that the Queen was the real ruler of Naples, a charge not without some facts to support it. King Ferdinand had been discouraged throughout his youth from taking much interest in government and was known among some of the public as il ré lazzarone which, while hard to translate exactly, could be understood as the ‘peasant king’ or someone who behaves in a very low-class way. He was not known for his great virtue but he and the Queen certainly had a productive marriage if not a happy one as they had eighteen children. Rather remarkable considering that both, at various times, said they found the other unattractive and stayed together only out of a sense of duty and obligation. Still, the King could have his fun while the Queen worked to consolidate her own position of power. Naples was effectively still being ruled by the King of Spain through Tanucci until the Queen succeeded in having him dismissed over the issue of the Freemasons (Tanucci banned them, the Queen wanted the ban lifted). The Queen took her advice from her Austrian homeland, such as strengthening the navy, and took the country much closer to Great Britain through the influence of an Englishman who was one of her favorites (and about whom there was no shortage of gossip). She also tried to patch up relations with the Catholic Church.

All of this caused a great deal of bad feelings amongst the Spanish Royal Family. The Queen had appointed an Englishman to power at around the same time King Charles III was going to war against Britain alongside France and the fledgling United States. Ties with Austria and Britain increased to the extent that one could easily wonder which country really held power over Naples. For the average Neapolitan, however, none of this might have mattered. They were used to doing things their own way and would ‘keep calm and carry on’ no matter which foreign dynasty happened to be ruling them at the moment. However, the experiments with the philosophy of the “Enlightenment” undermined traditional reverence for the monarchy. In some countries, this had no immediate effect so long as the country was well governed. Unfortunately, under King Ferdinand IV, Naples was not being well-governed. The Queen’s English favorite had actually done considerable harm to the administration of the country. So it was that a perfect storm was brewing in Naples when word came of the outbreak of the French Revolution, culminating in the horrific regicide of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette.

The effort, nominally by King Ferdinand IV, to be an “Enlightened Despot” came to a screeching halt and the King and Queen turned in a decidedly reactionary direction due to the alarming events in France. In 1793 Ferdinand IV pledged the Kingdom of Naples to the War of the First Coalition against republican France and began trying to root out any hint of republicanism or republican sympathy in southern Italy wherever it could be found. However, when he was obliged to make peace with France in 1796 revolutionary agitation at home started to increase again. Queen Maria Carolina persuaded King Ferdinand to declare war on France again in 1798 and though Neapolitan troops briefly marched north and occupied Rome, it was a complete fiasco with the army retreating at the first sign of a French advance (the Neapolitan army had a very poor reputation in this period). The revolutionary forces in Naples saw their chance and began to rise up in imitation of their radical French counterparts. The Royal Family, fearful of sharing the fate of the French King and Queen, immediately fled to Sicily with help from Britain.

Once ensconced in Palermo, King Ferdinand showed his fangs and began massacring any suspected republican he could get his hands on. However, back in Naples, the middle and upper classes that had supported him had been left to the bloodthirsty mob and so quickly called on the French for help. The result was the occupation of southern Italy by French forces and the establishment of the ridiculous contrivance known as the Parthenopaean Republic. In response to this outrage, and in an illustration of how far he had back-peddled from his “Enlightenment” days, King Ferdinand turned to one of the most dashing and fascinating characters of Italian history, the rich, religious, royalist reactionary Ruffo, that is His Eminence Fabrizio Cardinal Ruffo. I must admit here to my partiality as Cardinal Ruffo and his exploits have always been a favorite of mine. The Italian cleric landed in Calabria and raised a counterrevolutionary force of irregulars he dubbed the ‘Army of the Holy Faith’ (they were commonly known as the Sanfedisti). With artillery from Britain and some additional support from Russia, Cardinal Ruffo went after the revolutionaries Old Testament style and his cohorts of religious royalists soon had the whole of southern Italy in an uproar and eventually forced the French to agree to an armistice and wash their hands of the region. It was a glorious and unexpectedly successful operation that was also a colorful adventure, with pious as well as gruesome elements to it.

By July of 1799 King Ferdinand IV had moved from executing republicans in Palermo to executing republicans in Naples, so things were moving in the right direction. However, Napoleon was not going to permit a Bourbon monarchy to remain on the continent he wished to dominate and soon French troops were on their way back led by the Emperor’s brother Joseph. Once again, in 1806, King Ferdinand and his retinue fled to Palermo and Joseph Bonaparte was appointed King of Naples by his brother. Still, the French were constantly having to deal with guerilla attacks and were issued a stinging defeat by the British in the south though the British expedition withdrew afterwards. In 1808 Ferdinand IV received a new nemesis when Joseph Bonaparte was withdrawn to become King of Spain and replaced by Marshal Joachim Murat. He did not have much sense but he was more of a threat as he was more popular than his predecessor, mostly because of his ambition which pushed him toward Italian independence rather than French domination. This naturally led to problems with Napoleon and eventually Murat was defeated by the Austrians and after he fled to France, the Austrian Imperial Army marched in to Naples and announced the restoration of King Ferdinand IV to his throne.

During this time, the Bourbon King and Queen had been having problems of their own in Sicily. The British had given them a subsidy and a garrison to guard them and naturally expected no small amount of influence to coincide with this protection. They tried to steer the country in the direction of a Burkean constitutional monarchy, to encourage popular support for the establishment by having people invested in it rather than for fear of being shot. King Ferdinand was more of the “better dead than red” persuasion and ultimately this resulted in the Queen being exiled and the King forced to issue a classical liberal constitution and make his son regent. However, once Napoleon was defeated and the British had pulled out, King Ferdinand reversed all of that, went back to absolute monarchy, enlisted the help of Austria in regaining his throne in Naples and had Murat shot when he made a bid to restore himself.

At the Congress of Vienna, King Ferdinand IV of Naples abolished the Sicilian constitution and declared himself King Ferdinand I of the Two-Sicilies. All previous agreements were annulled, all enemies or potential enemies of the regime were executed and the Austrian army remained to garrison southern Italy and enforce his rule. He also appointed an Austrian commander-in-chief of the Neapolitan army. All of this caused increasing resentment among the populace and a growth in the revolutionary secret society known as the Carbonari. In 1820 there was a mutiny among the army and an attempted military coup led by General Guglielmo Pepe which forced King Ferdinand I to issue a constitution while at the same time sending troops to stamp down a rebellion for independence in Sicily. All of this chaos drew the attention of the great powers of the Holy Alliance who feared a revolutionary outbreak could spread. King Ferdinand repudiated, again, the constitutional concessions he had made, further damaging his credibility and winning himself no friends amongst the other crowned heads of Europe for his antics. In the end, Prince Metternich sent another Austrian army to occupy southern Italy, defeating the Neapolitan rebels and securing Ferdinand I on his throne once again.

In the end, as before, King Ferdinand abolished the constitution and tried his best to have all revolutionary elements executed but he depended on the Austrian military to sustain himself and, as before, this came at a price. By the end of his life, Austria was effectively ruling southern Italy in his name through the Austrian ambassador Count Charles-Louis de Ficquelmont. King Ferdinand I of the Two-Sicilies, at the age of 73, gave up the ghost in Naples on January 4, 1825. He had started his reign with his country being ruled from Madrid and had ended it with his country being ruled from Vienna. In the intervening years there had never been any shortage of people, all outsiders, wishing to do his job for him. At first he had been content to leave matters to his wife but the horror that swept Europe after the outbreak of the French Revolution  changed all of that. Today he is often remembered as a rather crude and brutal man, constantly being propped up by foreign bayonets to maintain himself. He is the man who ate spaghetti with his fingers at the opera and had lots of people executed. However, before judging him too harshly, one should keep in mind the fact that he was intentionally raised to be disinterested in government and not really prepared for the task. Thus, it is no great surprise that he wasn’t terribly good at it. Also, after going along with the “Enlightenment” trend, his later penchant for putting people to death was a reaction to a very real fear that what had happened to his fellow Bourbon monarch in France could happen to him. What is unfortunate is that he too often broke his own word, damaging his reputation among his subjects and the other courts of Europe. It was a tendency that would be repeated with his successors and the pattern of his reign would, unfortunately, be repeated in a number of ways until the Bourbon reign over the Two-Sicilies came to an end.

Queen Anne Marie d'Orleans

The first Queen consort of the Savoy reign over Piedmont-Sardinia was Anne Marie d’Orleans, a woman of impeccable pedigree whose bloodlines brought some interesting history and potential into the House of Savoy. She was born on August 27, 1669 at Chateau de Saint-Cloud in France, the daughter of Duke Philippe I of Orleans (younger brother the great King Louis XIV) and his wife the controversial Princess Henrietta of England (daughter of the martyred King Charles I). Less than a year after Princess Anne Marie was born her mother died (last rites being administered by the great Bishop Bossuet) but a year later the Duke of Orleans married Princess Palatine Elizabeth Charlotte who proved to be a good stepmother and Princess Anne Marie was very close to her. Even as a young girl Princess Anne Marie stood out for her kind and friendly nature as well as her virtue and firm principles. Of course, in those days, royal girls had to grow up fast and marriage tended to come quickly. Anne Marie was only fourteen-years-old when King Louis XIV decided to help maintain French influence in northern Italy by marrying his niece to Duke Victor Amadeus II of Savoy. A marriage contract was negotiated and signed by the two governments and a marriage ceremony by proxy was performed at Versailles on April 10, 1684 with Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, duc du Maine standing in for Vittorio Amedeo II.

In one of those odd twists that history often presents, this marriage was arranged in part by a countess who had been the mistress of Vittorio Amedeo II for about four years and who had given him two illegitimate children. Whether Anne Marie knew about this or cared she had little say in the matter with such royal marriages being a matter of state policy rather than personal preference. The Princess said her goodbyes, her father escorted her to the frontier and she finally met her husband at Chambery on May 6, 1684. The two were married in person by the Archbishop of Grenoble and later made their grand entrance into the Savoy citadel of Turin. She seemed a lovely but delicate girl, her fragility no doubt emphasized when next to a veteran soldier like Vittorio Amedeo II. Nonetheless, despite having a couple of years pass before she did her part for the succession and became pregnant, her first childbirth was a traumatic ordeal. She was only sixteen-years-old when she gave birth to her first child, Princess Maria Adelaide (later Dauphine of France) but it was so difficult that for a time she seemed close to death and even received the last rites before finally recovering from the ordeal. Ever dutiful though, she would go on to have five more children, a future queen and king among them. She was a good mother and also a devoted wife, patiently nursing Vittorio Amedeo II when he came down with smallpox, attending to every detail of his care.

In 1688 Anne Marie gave birth to another daughter, Maria Luisa of Savoy, who was eventually married to the Duke of Anjou, the new King Philip V of Spain. This set off the War of the Spanish Succession in which the Duke of Savoy took the side of the Austrians against France and Spain. It must have been a painful ordeal for Anne Marie with relatives on both sides of the conflict. She was herself half French and half British with France on one side and Britain on the other. Her husband was on the side of Austria and Britain while her daughter and half-siblings were on the side of Spain and France. The war began in 1701 and in 1706 Anne Marie had to take her young sons and flee Turin as it was besieged by French and Spanish forces led by her half-brother the Duke of Orleans and her son-in-law King Philip V of Spain while her husband stayed on to defend the city. It seemed hopeless but Vittorio Amedeo II was able to hold out long enough for the Austrians (under Prince Eugene of Savoy) and the Prussians to come to the rescue and win the battle. When it was all over in 1713 the Treaty of Utrecht rewarded Vittorio Amedeo II with a royal crown; the Kingdom of Sicily. However, he was later forced to trade that for the Kingdom of Sardinia. This was seen as a lesser prize, nonetheless, it brought recognized royal status to the House of Savoy and made Anne Marie Queen consort of Sardinia.

Yet, this was not the only royal connection to come along for Queen Anne Marie. The following year she became the heiress presumptive of the Jacobite legacy of the British Isles through the Stuart blood of her mother. With the death of Queen Anne of Great Britain in that year, she was the next closest relative of the “Old Chevalier” Prince James Francis Edward Stuart (“King James VIII & III to Jacobites) until the birth of his son Prince Charles Edward Stuart in 1720. The Jacobite legacy would be carried on by Prince Charles (and come closest to effecting an actual Stuart restoration) and his brother the Cardinal Duke of York in turn. After that, however, the legacy would pass to the House of Savoy because of the marriage of Queen Anne Marie and King Vittorio Amedeo II. No one was happier than the Duchess of Orleans, the stepmother of Queen Anne Marie, that she had achieved such royal status. Despite their having been on opposite side of the Spanish war, the Duchess wrote that, “one thing I shall enjoy is to see our Duchess of Savoy become a queen, because I love her as though she were my own child” which is a testament to the good nature of both royal ladies.

Queen Anne Marie sadly died at her villa on August 26, 1728 of heart failure, one day before turning 59. She had already outlived all but two of her six children and was buried at the Basilica of Superga in Turin next to all but the two who had been married off to France and Spain.

The Thousand Lands in Sicily

It was on May 11, 1860 that Giuseppe Garibaldi and his “Thousand” red shirts landed at Marsala on the island of Sicily to instigate the uprising against the Bourbon rule of King Francesco II. Although an independent operation, Garibaldi was certainly not without outside support or sympathy. Elements within the government in Turin certainly supported him (as did pan-Italian nationalists in general but this was a stateless group) and beyond the Italian peninsula there were numerous sympathetic governments, one of the most prominent being that of Great Britain (and not just because they appreciated the fashion-sense of his army). It helps to explain how such a seemingly hopeless and even farcical operation turned out to be such a stunning success. After all, it seems incredible that an invasion force of a thousand men could end up bringing down the entire Kingdom of the Two-Sicilies; that long-time Spanish bastion in the south of Italy. Actually, “The Thousand” were probably not even that numerous and they consisted, for the most part, of volunteers drawn from across northern Italy, unfamiliar with Sicily and unaccustomed to the harsher climate of the south. Some were not even Italians at all such as the Hungarian Legion of Italia which fought enthusiastically for the famous Garibaldi after having their own nationalist movement thwarted. How could such a rag-tag group be victorious?

The Kingdom of the Two-Sicilies certainly has the reputation of being a place one would not expect to find much sympathy for a revolutionary like Garibaldi. It has long been known as a very conservative, Catholic, absolute monarchy in traditional Spanish style. However, that proved to be part of the downfall of the kingdom and part of the reason for the lack of international support for the status quo and a pro-Garibaldi attitude from the British in particular. Ever since the Congress of Vienna the “Great Powers” had been most concerned with peace and stability, keeping rebellion from ever breaking out anywhere for fear of it spreading as in the past. The British (and most other northern European monarchies such as Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and even Prussia to a degree) firmly believed that the best way to ensure stability as through a constitutional monarchy that provided for some level of popular representation. Effectively, to give the people enough of a voice that they would feel they had some control over the national destiny but never enough to actually determine policy. This, the accepted thinking went, would make the public less susceptible to the arguments of the revolutionaries who wanted the people to rise up and overthrow the monarchy. This is why, in Spain, for example, the French and the British supported the liberal monarchists of the Queen mother rather than the absolute monarchists of Don Carlos. Or at least it was one reason.

King Ferdinando II of the Two-Sicilies, part of the Spanish Royal Family, annoyed the British by siding with Don Carlos. They were also concerned by the growing discontent in the Two-Sicilies and the increasing support for a republican revolution. Why were the British or French concerned at all? What was Sicily to them? The answer, of course, was that Sicily was right next to the British naval bastion of Malta and straddled the main seaway to the Suez Canal which was just starting to be built the year before Garibaldi and his men landed at Marsala. The French and British were therefore greatly concerned about any unrest that might disturb this enterprise upon which so much of global commerce was to depend. The British even sent warships to encourage the Neapolitan navy to stay away while Garibaldi and his men were landing (once the troops had disembarked the Neapolitans destroyed one ship and captured the other).

When Garibaldi landed, his forces were not opposed at all. The Neapolitan army, while not exactly having the best reputation in the world, should have been able to swamp such a tiny group with their massive numerical superiority if nothing else. However, King Francesco II inexplicably failed to take decisive action such as leading the army himself. Compounding the problem was the fact that his forces often did more to turn the local population against the monarchy than stopping the invaders. On May 14 Garibaldi declared himself ‘Duce’ of Sicily in the name of King Vittorio Emanuele II of Piedmont-Sardinia and the following day met the Neapolitan army for their first battle. The result was the unimpressive battle of Calatafimi which amounted to a victory for Garibaldi despite being outnumbered 2-to-1. It helped that the Neapolitan commanders seemed to be equal parts incompetent and vindictive. Previously, the one, reliable hardcore of the Bourbon forces had been the Swiss mercenary guard. However, they had earlier gone on strike for better pay and King Francesco II responded by having them all massacred; which was probably not the best idea.

Garibaldi captured Palermo and his ranks slowly grew as locals volunteered to join him. The Neapolitan army also had a problem with desertion. A key element was the local aristocracy who responded in various ways to the crisis, none of them very helpful to Francesco II. Some fled the island immediately as soon as Garibaldi landed and these were those most supportive of the Bourbon monarchy. Obviously, they would be no help. Most, however, considered the cause of Francesco II lost and decided to make common cause with Garibaldi who promised to respect their rights and privileges. This would later cause a degree of rebellion and banditry by those peasants who felt Garibaldi had sold them out by not tearing down the aristocracy completely and redistributing their lands. King Ferdinando II had shown that he would do whatever was necessary to maintain his rule, be it promising a constitution only to revoke it later or shooting down rebels and shelling entire cities to rubble. If he had still been around things might have been different but few had confidence that Francesco II was made of such tough stuff. The pragmatic types looked at the situation and reasoned that the Bourbons were doomed and their only options for the future would be a united Italy ruled by Giuseppe Mazzini and his radical republicans or a constitutional monarchy ruled by King Vittorio Emanuele II. Mazzini was unthinkable so these invariably suppressed their distaste for Garibaldi and supported his red shirt army to maintain the existing social order.

Rebel forces soon besieged Palermo, with disastrous consequences for the Neapolitan side. Political prisoners were broken out of jail, causing panic in the rear and the commanding Neapolitan general seemingly lost his nerve and ordered a retreat only to then order his artillery to shell the city indiscriminately, killing hundreds of civilians, many of whom must have been loyal to the Bourbon monarchy. Naturally, this made the cause of the King in Naples all the more unpopular (though he, of course, had nothing to do with it). Still, more Neapolitan troops arrived and the city might have been retaken but the commanding general, whether due to befuddled panic or simply corruption, decided to surrender. The Neapolitan troops began withdrawing from the island, even where they held the upper hand, and in their absence several peasant rebellions broke out. These were then suppressed by Garibaldi’s red shirts which, again, bewildered many of the locals who had envisioned him as their liberator. These rebels, however, were typical of the types who would have seized power and set up a revolutionary republic if not for the presence of Garibaldi who was moderating his more radical inclinations to win the support of powers like Piedmont-Sardinia and Great Britain.

In a last, desperate effort to avoid disaster and win back popular support, King Francesco II issued a constitution in June but it was to no avail. After the “now you see it, now you don’t” constitutions of his father, very few people were prepared to believe that the King was serious about constitutional government and simply ignored him. More volunteers joined Garibaldi though the Neapolitan army still had some sizeable garrisons on the island. In July Garibaldi captured Milazzo with 5,000 men after the overall Neapolitan commander refused to reinforce the garrison there. His caution did him no good and a few days later he surrendered Messina to Garibaldi by which time it was the rebels who held a significant numerical advantage and the remaining garrisons surrendered quickly. Throwing caution to the wind (and alarming the government in Turin) Garibaldi wasted no time and transferred his forces over to the mainland at Calabria. After that, a string of victories ensued as many Neapolitan forces deserted, some even joining the red shirts and most of those who did offer resistance did so with little support or coordination. The army and navy seemed to melt away, King Francesco II fled Naples and made his last stand at Gaeta.

The Neapolitans were still able to slightly outnumber the forces of Garibaldi and might have defeated him, at least temporarily, were it not for the arrival of the Piedmontese army under King Vittorio Emanuele II who was alarmed at how fast and far the red shirts were advancing and just a little concerned about how genuine their newfound monarchist sympathy was. Between them, Gaeta was doomed (though it would hold out until early the following year) and at the bridge of Teano on October 26, 1860 General Garibaldi and King Vittorio Emanuele II met, bringing their forces together and joining, from that time ever since, the north and the south of Italy together for the first time since the days of the old Roman Empire. In March of 1861 the unified Kingdom of Italy was officially proclaimed. It was not something that either the new King of Italy or even his first minister Cavour had planned for in advance. Even his royal predecessor, King Carlo Alberto, had only ever had ambitions to unite northern Italy. However, just as in those days, the drive to end foreign rule and unite the Italian people was such that it became a race between the republicans of Mazzini and the monarchists of the King of Piedmont to see who would accomplish the act and establish the first real Italian government since Roman times. There was plenty of tragedy along the way, but between those two competing ideologies, it is fortunate that it was the King who reached the goal first.

The Sicilian Kingdom of Africa

King Roger II

To hear many modern commentators, even some claiming to be historians, speak about the expansion of the Kingdom of Italy into North Africa in the early years of the last century, one would think that Italian troops had never set foot on the continent before. Any Italian alive during the colonization of Libya, for example, would have laughed at such an idea. The Italian presence in northern Africa goes back, of course, to the time of ancient Rome but, more than that, even after the fall of the Roman Empire, Italian forces were never long absent from the “fourth shore”. The Italian acquisition of the provinces that became Libya as well as the frustration at the colonization of Tunisia by France are often painted today as simple aggression, yet, when one understands the very long history of close Italian association with this region one can see why, when the Kingdom of Italy began to colonize at least part of northern Africa, the Italians were not “arriving” but rather “returning” to lands that had long been ruled from the Italian peninsula. One of the most overlooked periods that serves as one example was that of the Kingdom of Africa under the Norman King of Sicily Roger II.

The story, starts much earlier, with Norman-Sicilian forces making forays into northern Africa in 1123; the first of many. Even then, Count Roger I of Sicily was already keeping troops in Mahdia in Tunisia to collect export duties. By 1135 King Roger II already had what amounted to a defacto Sicilian protectorate over most of the north African cities closest to southern Italy based simply on their economic interdependence. Having conquered Pantelleria in 1123, Roger II captured the pirate island of Djerba in 1135. By 1142 he established a protectorate over Mahdia after they were unable to make their grain payments on time. The local emir remained on the throne but was forced to accept the King of Sicily as his overlord as he had already become deeply beholden to Roger II because of the vast sums of money he had borrowed from him. In 1146 Norman-Sicilian forces captured Tripoli which, after suffering a terrible famine, had fallen into civil war. After that, numerous other local chieftains came forward to recognize Roger II as their overlord, valuing the security and economic prosperity that came with association with the Kingdom of Sicily. In 1148 Norman troops led by George of Antioch conquered Tunisia after the emir of Mahdia rose against Roger II. The Sicilian forces soon took control of the entire north African coast between Bona and Tripoli.

The strongest support for Sicilian rule came from the Christian minority in north Africa and these people still spoke a local variation of Latin and were actually the remnants of the original population from the time of the old Roman Empire. This is something to keep in mind when people dismiss Italy pointing to the Roman roots of the Italian imperial presence. The links of the chain go right back to Rome and the original Roman communities lasted much longer than most realize. In any event, under Sicilian rule, the economy of north Africa prospered and there was a measure of religious freedom too. Once he took direct control of the area, Muslims had to pay a special tax for their right to worship, just as the Christians had been forced to do previously when under Islamic rule. However, it was less than the tax imposed on the Muslim refugees living on the island of Sicily itself. This was because the King wanted to encourage the Muslims in Sicily to resettle in north Africa, both to remove them from Sicily and because their presence would help show their co-religionists the way forward.

The rulers of Tunis feared a Sicilian attack and sent Roger II tribute in an effort to persuade him to desist (so that their own rule could continue) but, although he had planned further expansions in Africa, the King was diverted by a war with the Byzantines and died in 1154 without returning to his ambition to restore the former Roman lands of Africa to Christian rule. Roger II was succeeded by his son King William I and the reign of King William I was one marked by rebellions on the part of local nobles, both in the Kingdom of Sicily and the Kingdom of Africa. In Africa it came in the face of the rising power of the Almohad Caliphate out of Morocco. The local Muslim rulers were discontented because the Sicilians gave them little autonomy when it came to taxation and, as has long been the case the world over, whoever collects the taxes tends to become quite rich (somehow). With the Almohad forces gaining strength on the horizon, many decided to change allegiance, turn against the Sicilians and appeal to the Almohad Caliphate for protection.

At first, King William I was successful in suppressing native rebellions and even struck out at the Egyptian coast and launched raids on the Muslim-held Balearic Islands in an effort to disrupt the supply lines of the Almohad invasion force he knew was coming (already Christian refugees were pouring into Sicilian Africa as the Almohad forces advanced). However, the Sicilian position was quickly seen as a lost cause. The loyalty of local leaders could not be counted on, supplies were low from all the recent conflict and the Almohad forces seemed unstoppable. Soon, almost everything in north Africa had been abandoned save for Mahdia in Tunisia. In 1158 Tripoli fell and the following year Mahdia was besieged. It held out until January of 1160 when the walls were breached and the city taken. The conquerors gave the local Christian population a simple choice: convert to Islam or be executed. Christendom tended to blame King William for the atrocities, for not fighting harder to defend the Kingdom of Africa. Under the circumstances, however, there was little he could have done and few were willing to support him at the time. Indeed, many Christian powers had long been jealous of the success of King Roger II and his grand aspirations. Eventually, under King William II, Sicily and the Almohad Caliphate even became allies of a sort as they battled other Islamic forces that posed a threat to both of them.

Eleanor of Toledo, Duchess of Florence

It is probably a debatable point, but Eleanor of Toledo, Duchess consort of Florence, is usually pointed to as woman who set the standard for “First Ladies” all the way up to the present day. Eleanor was born in 1522 in Alba de Tormes, Salamanca, the second daughter of Don Pedro Alvarez de Toledo, Marquis of Villafranca who was the Viceroy of Naples on behalf of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V aka King Carlos I of Spain. At the age of seventeen she was married to Cosimo I de’ Medici, Duke of Florence who, in 1569, would become the first Grand Duke of Tuscany. It was an arranged marriage with Eleanor’s father expecting his daughter to gain some of the Medici wealth (which was more apparent than real) and the Medici hoping to gain some status and security by marrying someone highly placed in the Spanish aristocracy and related to the Hapsburg Holy Roman Emperor. With Spain dominating Florence and much of the surrounding area in Italy at that time, being on good terms with the House of Hapsburg was a necessity. Part of the agreement for the marriage was that it would be a show of loyalty to the Hapsburg Emperor sufficient enough to allow for the removal of the Spanish garrison.

However, arranged or not, the marriage was certainly a success as far as what was most required of royal couples; ensuring the survival of the Medici family by producing heirs. There was certainly no problem in securing the succession and Duchess Eleanor gave her husband eleven children between 1540 and 1554, two of whom would succeed their father as Grand Dukes of Tuscany in the future. Given the less than ideal birth status of the previous leaders of the House of Medici, Duke Cosimo was intent to present a new public image of respectability, stability and traditional values. His own large family would be the centerpiece of this new look and Duchess Eleanor was the most important part of it. As far as her public image went, there could not have been a better choice. Not only was Eleanor quite the fertile myrtle, she also had a lovely but reserved appearance which gave the impression of strength and stability to those who saw her. She was also quite religious and a patron of the Society of Jesus, still relatively new at that time. At first the people were inclined to dislike her because of her Spanish origins, and given what so many Italians had been through, that is hardly surprising, but her patronage of the Church, the arts and charitable causes soon won everyone over.

Duchess Eleanor was as conscious as anyone of putting her best face forward and took great care about her appearance, which included sitting for portraits as the prim and proper consort (and later mother of an heir to the throne) as well as wearing lavish gowns. This cannot be dismissed as mere vanity. It was an effort to inspire confidence among the people and visiting dignitaries as to the wealth, stability and power of the Medici monarchy. Nor was it merely an act. Duchess Eleanor was a serious and intelligent lady who ruled Tuscany as regent on behalf of her husband when he was absent. She was also sincerely pious and her devotion to the Church inspired her many acts of charity as well as her donations that allowed for building a number of new churches and her encouragement in bringing the Jesuits into Florence. There was more to her than her public face though and in private she was known for her great (if sometimes low-brow) sense of humor, great personal determination and love for games of chance. And, of course, she was always the perfect hostess, gracious, charming as well as being a close unofficial advisor to her husband in his rule of the duchy and later grand duchy.

Only relatively recently have researchers discovered what a tremendously tough woman Duchess Eleanor was. Studies done on her remains have shown that she suffered from a severe calcium deficiency that must have caused her immense pain. From the results we can surmise that her teeth must have given her a great deal of trouble and that her bones would have caused her incredible agony (she may have even shrank quite a bit over her life). Given all that she was going through, in addition to giving birth to eleven children and still always remaining the ideal consort, public figure, national hostess and even running the government when necessary, Duchess Eleanor emerges as an extremely remarkable woman. Sadly, her life was cut all too short when, at the age of only 40, she died on December 17, 1562 in Pisa during a malaria epidemic that also took the lives of two of her sons.

Grand Duke Ferdinando I of Tuscany

The third member of the House of Medici to hold the title of Grand Duke of Tuscany was born on July 30, 1549 to Grand Duke Cosimo I of Tuscany and Eleanora di Toledo, the daughter of the Spanish Viceroy of Naples. He was the fifth son to be born to the couple, though only the third to survive and, as such, he was not expected to ever take the grand ducal throne. However, there was always the need to keep up the family presence in the Sacred College, so young Ferdinando was expected to take on a religious vocation and was educated accordingly. In 1562, at the age of 14, he was elevated to the rank of Cardinal by HH Pope Pius IV (Giovanni Angelo Medici, a distant relative). Teenage cardinals were far from uncommon at the time and in those days a cardinal was not necessarily an ordained man. As it turned out, Ferdinando Cardinal Medici displayed remarkable organizational and administrative skills while working for the Church in Rome. In typical Medici fashion he was also a great patron of the arts and accumulated a remarkable collection at his home, called Villa Medici (now the home of the French Academy in Rome and owned by France). Most assumed that would be where Ferdinand would spend his life.

However, Grand Duke Cosimo I suffered many tragedies with the early deaths of his boys but he was succeeded by his eldest, Grand Duke Francesco I. However, the only son of Francesco died while still a boy and so when he passed away in 1587 it fell to his younger brother the cardinal to become the third Grand Duke of Tuscany. He packed up his art treasures and returned to Florence though he remained a Cardinal in the Church for the next two years until his marriage to Christina of Lorraine (daughter of Charles III of Lorraine and actually a granddaughter of Caterina de’ Medici) in 1589. Their wedding was a colossal and magnificently colorful occasion. Grand Duke Cosimo I, married to a Spanish lady, had been very close to Spain and the Hapsburg Empire and Queen Caterina de’ Medici had pushed for the marriage of Christina to Grand Duke Ferdinando to restore the House of Medici as allies of France rather than Spain and the Empire. There were lavish banquets, dances and even mock naval battles in a flooded courtyard. The wedding would influence the art of entertaining in royal courts across Europe for many years to come.

Grand Duke Ferdinando I brought about something of a revival in Tuscany. He and Grand Duchess Christina had five children over the years; two boys and three girls, and he worked to detach Tuscany from the influence of Spain and the empire. This made him very popular as the public had previously been taxed heavily to pay for contributions to the empire and their own laws had often been superseded by foreign statutes. Grand Duke Ferdinando reestablished the traditional justice system, took a great interest in the well being of his people and enacted many changes that boosted economic development. He established freedom of religion in Tuscany which caused many Jews and Protestants to flock to Livorno in particular and their industry was also a boost to the economy. Harbor improvements helped promote trade, irrigation projects improved agriculture and Florence became a center of banking with branches all across Europe. He took a similarly broad-minded approach to foreign policy but, in that area, was less successful.

To ease out Spanish and imperial influence and draw closer to France, he supported King Henri IV of France against the Catholic League of Guise family and the more belligerent Protestants after the assassination of King Henri III. King Henri IV was greatly helped by the money the Grand Duke loaned him and Ferdinando urged him, for the peace and stability of France as well as for his own good, to convert to the Catholic faith. He also used his connections in Rome to urge the Pope to accept a conversion on the part of the King of France, welcoming him into the Catholic fold. This, King Henri IV eventually did do, famously saying that, “Paris is well worth a mass” which has caused some to claim that his conversion was not genuine. However, there is ample evidence that his change of heart was sincere. However, King Henri IV returned no favors to Grand Duke Ferdinando who backed away from France after that point, maintaining the neutrality of the House of Medici which he thought paramount to secure their independence.

Unlike some, Grand Duke Ferdinando was not willing to ally with non-Catholic powers against those of his own faith. Despite his unwillingness to be ruled by Spain or the empire he still supported the Spanish in their war in Algeria, led by King Felipe III, against the Moors and he supported Hapsburg Emperor in his ongoing conflict with the Turks in eastern Europe. In fact, the war galleys of Tuscany won several crucial victories against the Muslim Barbary Pirates operating out of North Africa during his reign, though this commitment to the defense of Christendom did not come without cost and necessitated the raising of taxes, something the Grand Duke had not wanted to do. Nevertheless, he was always a man of vision who favored big ideas, ingenuity and entrepreneurship. His first thought was to follow up the victory of his fleet with the establishment of a domain for Tuscany in North Africa, however, this did not work out. Still, he remained eager to embrace other possibilities. Toward the end of his reign he commissioned the one and only official effort by an Italian state to colonize the Americas. In 1608 Grand Duke Ferdinando commissioned the English Captain Robert Thornton to lead an expedition to the coast of South America, around northern Brazil.

The ships reached the New World, explored the area and took on some native passengers before returning to Italy. The plan was to follow-up with the establishment of a colony around what is now Cayenne, to reach down to the Amazon and make the area a source of timber exports to Italy and a place of colonization for Italian settlers. A few decades later this area would be claimed and colonized by France, named French Guiana and it remains an overseas department of France to this day. The voyage was a success and Captain Thornton returned without losing a man. Unfortunately, he returned to find that Grand Duke Ferdinando I had died on February 17, 1609 at the age of 59. He prepared to launch the planned follow-up voyage but the new monarch, Grand Duke Cosimo II (Ferdinando’s son) saw no need for an Italian colony in America and called off the enterprise. Nonetheless, the reign of Ferdinando I is a bright spot in the history of the Medici family and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. He was a capable monarch who defeated his enemies, aided his allies and left his state more prosperous, more developed and more free and independent than he had found it.