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.

Columbus Day

Today the United States celebrates Columbus Day, known in Latin America as "la Dia de la Raza" which is also the national holiday of the Kingdom of Spain. All to remember the voyage of discovery of probably the most famous and most significant Italian explorer in history. Christopher Columbus is in illustrious company alongside other Italian navigators who led the world in exploration, on land and sea, to bring Christendom into contact with the other continents of the world. Yet, it would be hard to say that any other had so great an impact on world history as Christopher Columbus. People, of course, have argued for years about Columbus not being the first to "discover" America and in the strictest sense that is, of course, true. Plenty of people who lived in the Americas knew their land existed (obviously) and the Vikings had visited the northernmost reaches of North America long before as well. However, it cannot be argued that these earlier voyages had little to no impact on the world at large, to the point that most were largely forgotten. It was the voyage of Columbus which enthralled Europe and which started the long process of the colonization of the Americas, eventually leading to the founding of New Spain, New France and New England among others which eventually became the modern countries we know today from Canada in the north to Chile in the south. So much of the world we know today would not be as it is today without Christopher Columbus.

Columbus and Queen Isabella

It is unfortunate that so many people, in recent years, have tried to blacken the reputation of Christopher Columbus and to blame him for any and all mistakes or crimes committed by any and all of the European powers who came to American shores in the aftermath of his discovery. It is unfair and utterly ridiculous that they do so and all due credit should go to the Italian-American community in particular for defending the reputation and good name of the great explorer all these centuries later. Columbus was a great man, a man of intelligence, learning (though self-taught), determination and vision. He was also a man of great faith who felt there was some divine plan in his very name "Christopher". Just as St Christopher carried the divine child Jesus across a stream, Columbus would carry the Christian message across the 'Ocean Sea' (as the Atlantic was known then) to people who had never heard it. Queen Isabella of Spain was also very specific that a key motivation for the voyage was to open up new lands (presumably in Asia, which is where they thought they were going) to the message of Christ. Columbus learned Latin, studied the Bible frequently and went to mass often. It was the last thing he and his men did before leaving Spain on their epic voyage.

Columbus lands in the New World

During the voyage itself, Columbus prayed several times each day and prayer was a regular part of the routine onboard ship. When bad weather would threaten the little flotilla, Columbus would order his men to pray -and if the danger did not subside he would order them, in a stronger voice, to pray harder! When land was finally sighted and Columbus landed, their first act was to thank God for their safe voyage. Columbus named the place where they landed San Salvador (Holy Savior) and as new islands were discovered he had crosses erected on them and usually named them after saints. When one of his ships was lost and used to build a fort where a group of the men would wait for the others to return from Spain, Columbus named the fort "La Navidad" (the Nativity) because it was so close to Christmas time. Of course, Columbus hoped to win fame and fortune by his voyage of discovery but it is wrong to claim that these were his only motivations. He was also motivated by his sincere faith and desire to spread civilization and Christianity to new lands. This was ultimately done and it is often noted that the Catholic Church gained about as many new converts in the Americas as they had recently lost in Europe as a result of the spread of Protestantism.

Columbus Day, as a holiday, took hold because of anti-Catholic bigotry in the United States. This caused Catholics to recall the voyage of Christopher Columbus to point out to their Protestant countrymen that it had been a Catholic who had discovered America and without whom their might be no United States at all. It is also worth remembering that the name "America" itself came from another (Catholic) Italian explorer, Amerigo Vespucci. The Italian-American community also seized on Columbus as a famous figure who was one of them and it helped when so many still viewed them as outsiders to point to the Italian who had been the "first" to discover America. Angelo Noce, an Italian-American living in Denver, Colorado lobbied the government to make Columbus Day a legal federal holiday and the cause was also taken up by the rising Catholic organization called the Knights of Columbus who pointed to the image of the great explorer in their demand of equal rights for Catholics, many of whom were Italian immigrants. The memory of Columbus was upheld as the symbol for their right to live in America. The world as it had been was changed forever because of Columbus and the world, especially Europe and the Americas, owe him a debt of gratitude.

Nurbanu Sultan, Italian Empress of Turkey

The girl who would become one of the most prominent women in the Ottoman Empire was born Cecelia Venier-Baffo, probably sometime in 1525, on the island of Paros, today a part of Greece but at the time a client state of the Republic of Venice. Some sources refer to her as Olivia, others as Rachel but it seems she was the natural daughter of a local noble named Nicolo Venier and a woman named Violante Baffo. As such she was the niece of His Serenity Sebastiano Venier, Doge of Venice. It was he who, prior to his election, commanded the Venetian fleet at the historic battle of Lepanto. Little is known about the earliest years of Cecelia Venier-Baffo but when she was only twelve years old events took place which changed her life forever. In 1537 the island of Paros was conquered by the Ottoman Turks and Cecelia, along with many others, was captured along with other Christians for the slave markets. But she was a pretty little girl and must have caught the eye of someone important as she ended up being taken to the palace and placed in the harem of Prince Selim II in Constantinople. She was converted to Islam and given the name “Afife Nur-Banu”. Other stories exist about her origins but this is probably the most common.

Prince Selim II was greatly taken with the young girl and soon decided that she would be the one to bear his children, a fact which would give her greater status than all the other concubines. In time she bore him four children; three daughters and one son and heir; Prince Murad. Nurbanu became the “first lady” of the princely harem and was promoted to leadership of the imperial harem when the Prince ascended the throne as Selim II, “Grand Sultan, Commander of the Faithful and Successor of the Prophet of the Lord of the Universe” in 1566. This made his son, Prince Murad III, heir to the throne and as such added to the prestige of Nurbanu Sultan as mother of a future sultan. Of course, Selim II took numerous other concubines but Nurbanu Sultan always remained his favorite for both her beauty and her brains. Although it was far from normal at the time, Selim II would often ask Nurbanu for her advice on various subjects because of his respect for her good judgment. She was a devoted wife and a very loyal mother as later events would prove. The Ottoman Empire was far from being very stable at the top and clashes over the imperial throne were common. It was also not uncommon for the loser to have his entire family massacred along with him to prevent any future challenge. Nurbanu Sultan was determined, however, that when the time came for her son to succeed his father, nothing would interfere with that.

Prince Murad had been sent to serve as Governor of Manisa on the Aegean coast and was there when Sultan Selim II passed away in 1574. This would have been the prefect opportunity for someone to seize power with the Sultan dead and his son away from the capital. Nurbanu realized this as much, if not more, than anyone and took quick action. Security and privacy in the harem were the most strict anywhere and no one knew when Selim II had actually died. Nurbanu told no one and hid the dead body of her husband in an icebox and sent to Manisa for her son to come to Constantinople immediately. All the while no one was the wiser that Sultan Selim II had actually departed this life. It was not made known publicly until twelve days later when Murad arrived and Nurbanu delivered up the body of her late husband. Her son became Sultan Murad III and Nurbanu became Valide Sultan (effectively “Queen Mother”), the highest position a woman could hold in the Ottoman Empire. She became a formidable figure with far-reaching influence during this time, so much so that it is regarded by some historians as the beginning of the so-called “Sultanate of Women”. According to some sources (Italian mostly, from Venetian accounts) Nurbanu Sultan effectively ran the government alongside the Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmet Pasha. Because women of the imperial household, no matter how lofty, were quite restricted in their movements, she depended on her long-time friend Esther Handali, a jeweler, to bring messages back and forth for her. The two became so close rumors began to surface about the nature of their relationship.

Venetian accounts are the most prolific in describing Nurbanu Sultan as a woman who never forgot her Venetian origins. For the nine years she served as regent of the Ottoman Empire, her foreign policies were reputedly so partial toward the Republic of Venice that their primary competitor, the Republic of Genoa, came to view Nurbanu Sultan as an enemy of their state. She corresponded with Catherine de’ Medici, Queen of France, and was always on the lookout for potential allies against the Hapsburg empire centered on Austria and Hungary that was the primary threat to the Ottoman Turks and the primary block to further European expansion. Nurbanu Sultan was also known for her charitable giving and her patronage of building projects, especially the construction of a magnificent building complex that included a mosque, madrassah and bath among other things. She was a beloved and respected figure when she died in her palace in Constantinople on December 7, 1583, presumably of natural causes though some (probably Venetian accounts) speculate that she was poisoned by a Genoese assassin.

Unfortunately, the Ottoman Empire did not fare so well after her loss as the reign of Sultan Murad III was generally one of decline, though certainly not resoundingly disastrous. Considering his mother’s correspondence with the Queen of France, one of the things Sultan Murad III is remembered for was his own correspondence with Queen Elizabeth I of England, arguing that the Protestants and Muslims had much in common and should unite against the Catholic powers, something the Queen very seriously considered during the war with Hapsburg Spain. In any event, both sides benefited from the sale of English tin and lead to the Ottoman Turks to update and expand their military arsenal.

Prince Ferdinando, 1st Duke of Genoa

HRH Prince Ferdinando di Savoia, first Duke of Genoa, lived a short life but one filled with promise. He is another one of the “might have beens” that appears in royal history on occasion and during his time he was one of the most respected and admired royal figures in Italy. He was born Prince Ferdinando Maria Alberto Amedeo Filiberto Vincenzo on November 15, 1822 in Florence, the second son of Prince Carlo Alberto of Carignan and Princess Maria Teresa of Tuscany. Only two years later Prince Carlo Alberto was recognized as heir to the throne by King Vittorio Emanuele I of Piedmont-Sardinia. This raised the profile of the young family and soon brought to the forefront the ideas of Prince Carlo Alberto in favor of constitutional monarchy. In 1831 King Carlo Felice died and Prince Carlo Alberto became King of Piedmont-Sardinia and, with his own promotion, he named Prince Ferdinand the Duke of Genoa. Like the other sons of the House of Savoy, Prince Ferdinand grew up being trained to be a soldier and inculcated with the long history the royal family. As a second son, it was expected that he would have a military career.

The Duke of Genoa embarked on such a career, becoming a general in the army and admiral of the Sardinian navy. He gained considerable respect for his role in the First Italian War of Independence (1848-1849) in which he commanded a division of the Piedmontese army. During the course of the conflict his heroism earned him the Gold Medal of Military Valor for his service. He was tall, very similar in appearance to King Carlo Alberto and always led from the front. His soldiers admired him greatly as an intelligent commander and one who would not hesitate to expose himself to danger. Like both of his parents he was also a devoutly religious man as well as a man of high ideals. Many others, evidently, thought the same and agreed with his vision of what a modern monarchy could or should be. In this regard, it is difficult not to underestimate the influence of the British model of constitutional monarchy among the moderate people who were unhappy with their political situation but too traditional to favor something with so poor a record as republicanism. Many people hoped to find success as well as political freedom equal to that of Great Britain by emulating the British model of mixed government with power divided between the people, nobility and monarchy rather than being concentrated at the top.

In 1848, starting in Palermo, the Sicilians rose up in revolt against the House of Bourbon. The nobles of Sicily had, during the Napoleonic Wars, (with British encouragement) forced King Ferdinando III of Sicily and IV of Naples to enact a constitution which gave the Kingdom of Sicily a more British-style government. However, this constitution was later revoked and discontent had spread. On January 11, 1848 rebellion erupted again and in a more violent fashion. The old constitution was restored, establishing a representative government with the central role being given to an elected parliament. Rebel forces took control of almost the whole island (not the Bourbon bastion of Messina) and even talked of establishing a pan-Italian confederation. They also began looking around for an appropriate prince to be the new sovereign of their new constitutional monarchy and, given the leadership shown by King Carlo Alberto in Piedmont-Sardinia, quickly turned to his son the Duke of Genoa. Knowing his temperament and background, the representatives of the British government were pleased with such a choice and encouraged the Duke to accept the offer, with the British ambassador in Turin promising that Britain would immediately recognize Sicilian independence once he did so.

By the summer everyone was well enough convinced and the Sicilian secessionist government voted unanimously to offer the throne to the Duke of Genoa. Since having another king named Ferdinand would have aroused some resentment, it was expected that he would reign as King Alberto Amedeo I of Sicily. However, when the Sicilian delegation came to Turin to make their formal offer, the Duke of Genoa was at the front with his troops and reluctant to leave them. King Ferdinand II of Naples had joined in the war against Austria alongside King Carlo Alberto, the Grand Duke of Tuscany and (for a time) even the Pope, but when he learned that the Duke of Genoa was being considered as his possible replacement on the throne of Sicily, he immediately broke off the alliance and recalled his troops. When the war ended in victory for the Austrians and defeat for the Piedmontese, the Duke of Genoa respectfully declined the offer of the Sicilian throne. Things also began to fall apart back in Sicily where the Neapolitan navy shelled Messina, killing many people, following by a massive campaign by Bourbon troops to retake the island. It took about nine months and was a very bloody affair but finally the rebel government was subdued and their leader forced to flee to the protection of the British on Malta.

That ended any chance of the Duke of Genoa becoming the King of Sicily. However, he proved his worth well enough on the field of battle with the Piedmontese army. At the disastrous battle of Novara, the Duke of Genoa fought like a lion and had four horses shot out from under him. But, in the end, the Piedmontese were defeated and King Carlo Alberto abdicated in favor of his son, King Vittorio Emanuele II. After the war, the Duke of Genoa was put in command of the Piedmontese royal artillery, a branch of the service he set about reorganizing and modernizing. The following year he also achieved some domestic happiness with his marriage to Princess Elizabeth of Saxony, daughter of King Johann and Queen Amalie Auguste of Bavaria. They married on April 22, 1850 in Dresden and the following year had their first child, Princess Margherita, who would go on to one day marry her cousin King Umberto I and become Queen consort of a united Italy. Their second child, Prince Tommaso, was born in 1854 and would go on to preside over the Italian government during the First World War. The Duke of Genoa remained a very respected military figure and when Piedmont-Sardinia joined in the Crimean War alongside the United Kingdom and Imperial France, he was to take command of the reserve corps in the expeditionary force being dispatched to Russia. However, despite being a young man still, he had fallen ill and was growing increasingly frail. He died on February 10, 1855 at the age of only 32 in Turin and was buried in the royal crypt, succeeded by his son Prince Tommaso who became the second Duke of Genoa.

Happy Birthday

A happy birthday to His Royal Highness Prince Amedeo, Duke of Aosta, born on this day in 1943, claimant to the leadership of the House of Savoy, as such potential heir to the throne of Italy and heir to the throne of the short-lived independent Croatia.

Queen Caterina de' Medici

The popular image of Catherine de Medici is one of the quintessential ‘wicked woman’. At a time when the French monarchy was in grave danger and France itself was violently divided between opposing religious forces, Queen Catherine is one figure both sides today seem to be mostly in agreement on with Protestants viewing her as the very embodiment of evil itself while most Catholics disavow her completely and even believe her to have been a witch and a Satanist. Those unfamiliar with her story and how history has treated her may be shocked by what is written about her. Her defenders are, unsurprisingly, few and most of those who do speak up on her behalf do so very guardedly and only up to a certain point, arguing that she may have had good intentions for doing terrible things or was being forced by events beyond her control to make difficult choices, though hardly anyway would deny that those choices included the unspeakably cruel. There is also no denying that she had little to no choice in the general direction that her life would take. The course of her life was set at a fairly young age by the political maneuverings of two powers.

Caterina Maria Romula di Lorenzo de’ Medici was born on April 13, 1519 in Florence, Italy to Lorenzo II who had been made Duke of Urbino by HH Pope Leo X (his uncle) and his wife Madeleine de La Tour d’Auvergne who was from a well placed French noble family. She was adored by her parents but within weeks her mother died of puerperal fever and a few days later Lorenzo II died of syphilis. Pope Leo X had arranged the match of her parents to secure a Franco-Italian alliance against the Hapsburg Emperor Maximilian I and intended little Catherine to marry within the Medici family, when the time came, to secure the family hold on Florence (in those days, stability was a precious commodity). Catherine was raised by her grandmother and later by an aunt. The family fortunes struggled a bit when Pope Leo X died but rose again with the election of another Medici to the Throne of St Peter; Pope Clement VII. She learned the rough world of Italian politics at a very young age when she was taken hostage by a rival family bent on ending Medici rule over Florence. It says a great deal that Catherine, held in a convent, found this the most calm, peaceful and happy period of her life. After Italy was invaded and Rome itself devastated by imperial troops, Pope Clement VII was obliged to formally crown the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V to enlist his help in securing Florence for the House of Medici as well as the liberty of young Catherine.

During the siege Catherine was under the greatest threat imaginable but survived unhurt to be delivered to Pope Clement VII in Rome who wept with joy upon seeing her, so great was his relief that she had been safely rescued. Immediately, the Pope determined to arrange a lofty marriage for the girl and, as usual, there were political considerations to be made as well. To counter the German domination in Italy of Emperor Charles V, the Pope turned to his erstwhile ally King Francis I of France who was also looking to shore up his position on the Italian peninsula. A marriage agreement was soon made between Catherine de Medici and the younger son of King Francis; Henri, Duke of Orleans. Both were only 14-years old and were married at Marseille on October 28, 1533. At first everything went well. Catherine was well treated at court, said to be bright and friendly but it all came crashing down when Pope Clement VII died and was succeeded by Pope Paul III who immediately broke off the French alliance in favor of closer ties with the Germans and refused to pay the dowry for Catherine agreed to by his predecessor. For Catherine, her warm welcome quickly turned to a cold shoulder. Prince Henri gave her little notice and enjoyed a string of mistresses while the childless Catherine was shamed for not producing a son for the House of France (which really required the cooperation of Henri).

Things became more intense when her brother-in-law Francis, Dauphin of France, died in 1536 making her husband Henri heir to the throne. As Dauphine of France, the pressure was greater than ever for Catherine to have a son. Nothing seemed to work and many advised the King to have his son divorce Catherine and find another wife. This drove Catherine to desperate measures, everything from prayers, fasting and pilgrimages to some truly disgusting home remedies said to increase fertility. For quite a while, nothing seemed to work but then, it all changed. Most attribute this to the inexplicable ways of nature, others to the advice of her doctor who told her and the Dauphin how to ’do things’ properly but still others say that Catherine turned to witchcraft and became a Devil-worshiper and it was after that point that she finally became pregnant in 1544 and had roughly a child every year thereafter. Be it the doc or the devil, Catherine was finally a mother, her position was secured and the means by which she would frequently be the effective ruler of France established. In 1547 she was crowned Queen consort alongside her husband who became King Henri II. However, he still lived mostly apart from her and generally treated his favorite mistress better than Queen Catherine.

Queen Catherine had a less than happy time as consort. The King rarely paid any attention to her other than to father more children and even this ended in disaster when the Queen suffered a terribly traumatic incident giving birth to twin girls. Catherine nearly died, one of the babies died in the womb and the other died short afterward and the Queen was never able to have children again. The only high point was finally ending the Italian Wars with the Holy Roman Empire when one of Catherine’s daughters was married to King Philip II of Spain. However, during the festivities, which included jousting, King Henri II was mortally wounded and died on July 10, 1559 nursed to the end by the wife he had always neglected. Catherine’s 15-year old son then became King Francis II of France but there was immediately a coup of sorts which saw real power go to the House of Guise. France was quickly becoming divided during this time by a 3-way struggle for power between the Protestants (led by the Bourbon family) on one side, the Catholics (led by the Guise family) on the other and the royal court in between. The Guise faction were quick to move against the Protestants but Queen Catherine (and many in the Catholic Church) promoted tolerance and reconciliation. King Francis II, however, did not live long enough to ever become a force of his own and Queen Catherine struck a deal with the Protestants to ensure that she would hold power in the name of her younger son who became King Charles IX in 1560 at age nine.

The Queen first tried to bring the Protestant and Catholic leaders together to work out a peace but was unsuccessful and soon the infamous Wars of Religion were raging across France. The Queen tried to appease the Protestants by enacting religious toleration and ‘toning down’ Catholic practices they found most objectionable (with the approval of the Pope) but it was not enough to stop each side from attacking the other. She also pressed the Church for more money to keep the Protestants in check and even tried to make a deal with the Ottoman Sultan to relocate French and German Protestants to Eastern Europe but the Sultan declined the offer. More powers became engulfed in the conflict. When the Protestant brought in German mercenaries to continue the fight, Queen Catherine brought in the Swiss but no side seemed strong enough to totally defeat the other two. Queen Catherine was, officially, on the Catholic side but stuck to trying to make peace and even allowed Protestants to hold high places at court and marry into the Royal Family. Gaspard de Coligny, a Protestant, soon became the top advisor to King Charles IX and he wanted to invade The Netherlands to fight the Spanish. The Catholics, naturally, opposed this and Catherine saw Coligny replacing her as the primary influence on the King. Coligny had to go. An assassination plot was arranged but Coligny survived and the Protestants were infuriated.

The King was outraged at the near murder of his friend and believed that the Guise family were responsible. But, the Queen assured him that if the Protestants took Paris it would not be only the Guise men who died but the Royal Family and the King himself as well. It was then that the plot was hatched to strike first and suddenly by killing Coligny themselves, a terrible blow to the Protestant leadership. When she threatened to leave France for the safety of Italy the King finally gave in and agreed but, in a parting comment, said that if Coligny was to die they would have to kill every other Protestant as well for if any were left alive they would surely want their revenge on him. So, on August 23, 1572, St Bartholomew’s Day, the massacre of Protestants began. For a week in Paris and other areas across France Protestants were killed though the actual number of victims in unknown, ranging from thousands to tens of thousands. Queen Catherine was undoubtedly involved as she made sure that those Protestants she favored were spared. It was not the only massacre of the religious wars of course, and there had been Protestant massacres of Catholics, but it was the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre that would become the most infamous episode of the Wars of Religion in France and the blackest mark against Catherine.

Prior to this, some Protestants had viewed Catherine de Medici as the reasonable member of the Royal Family, the voice of peace and moderation. After St Bartholomew’s Day she was portrayed by the Protestants as the “wicked Italian Queen” who conducted her affairs in the style of Machiavelli, callous, cruel and unprincipled. Less than two years later King Charles IX died and his brother became King Henri III (a rather odd fellow if ever there was one) with the Queen mother Catherine again named as regent. This was only because he was, at the time, serving as King of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth but he was soon back in France. Henri was Catherine’s favorite son but he did little right in her eyes. Still, he followed her course of reconciliation and made numerous concessions to the Protestants but the wars continued. This is what is sometimes known as the war of the three Henrys; King Henri III, Henri of Guise for the Catholics and Henri Navarre of the Protestants. King Henri III had Hanri of Guise killed and Queen Catherine was horrified and died on January 5, 1589 sorrowful and asking for prayers for her misguided son. She could not have a traditional royal burial as Paris was in the hands of her enemies and later, during the French Revolution, her remains were tossed in a mass grave with other royals. She had been called the most powerful woman in the world of her time and her time in power has been called the ‘Age of Catherine de’ Medici’ yet few, then or now, have a kind word for her.

Epilogue

This was a rather difficult profile to do. No matter the subject, I generally try to find something positive to say about the person in question, partly out of habit and partly because there is no shortage of those quick to condemn any royal figure, good or bad, and that library of work does not need added to. However, in the case of Catherine de’ Medici, this was a difficult task and, perhaps surprisingly, Catholic sources tended to be more critical of her than Protestant ones. The Protestant historians were no less condemnatory, castigating her as the author of their misfortunes and the butcher of St Bartholomew’s Day but it was the Catholic sources which accused her of extorting protection money from the Church and being a devil worshiper -not an everyday accusation. Her entry in the Catholic Encyclopedia, for example, describes her as, “Dictatorial, unscrupulous, calculating, and crafty” as well as being superstitious, egotistical and who even when serving the interests of the Church and malicious motives, putting the survival of the Crown before the cause of the Catholic forces. However, if she truly was as terrible as virtually everyone says she was, Catherine certainly paid considerably for her misdeeds even before what awaited her in the afterlife.

Forced into a loveless marriage she did not want, she was constantly being ridiculed, pushed aside and truly treated as nothing more than a ‘baby machine’ and not a terribly reliable one at that. She was faced with a divided country and a 3-way division which is the worst kind as no faction is hardly ever strong enough to defeat the other two. She also grew up in a time and place where political survival was a cut-throat business. Her earliest years were spent in a ‘kill or be killed’ environment where you got the other guy before the other guy got you. She had a husband who never loved her, traumatic pregnancies and children which were a constant source of sorrow and seemed all to have been ill-fated. Francis was dead at 16, Isabel (consort to Philip II of Spain) died in her early 20’s, Claude who was born crippled and died at 27, Louis, Jean and Victor all dead within a year of their birth, Charles, mentally unwell and dead at 24, Hercule who was deformed at died at 30, Marguerite who was said to have been the most beautiful woman in the world but who lived a rather immoral life and was never able to have children and finally Henri who caused such grief who was assassinated at age 38.

Certainly then, Catherine endured a great deal of anguish herself. There is no doubt, based on the evidence of her own hand, that she was capable of dealing mercilessly with any enemies, real or perceived. Yet, she was also thrust into a situation not of her own making, at least initially, and few doubt that without her, the House of Valois would have come to an earlier end. Especially today it seems odd to find so many who are critical of a queen whose overriding policy was always one of negotiating a peace, yet it is hard to dispute that those efforts prolonged the conflict by granting concessions in return for bad behavior and never hesitating to resort to underhanded measures when negotiating proved fruitless. Given her patronage of the arts, to glorify the monarchy and solidify the shaky House of Valois, she may have had good intentions and there should be no doubt that she was obsessed with securing the position and future success of her children, even if they often disappointed her. However, if she was only self-serving and utterly malicious through and through, it seems that God saw to her punishment and her children with her. Usually I feel almost compelled to sympathize with anyone who is disliked by everyone else, but in this case …

Marshal of Italy Pietro Badoglio, 1st Duke of Addis Abeba and 1st Marquess of Sabotino

Marshal Badoglio, a significant figure in the military history of the Kingdom of Italy from the time of World War I until the end of World War II. His shifting loyalties have left him reviled by Communists as well as Fascists, by Italian patriots and the enemies of Italy and by republicans as well as monarchists. Certainly, others in history have been known for changing allegiance, fighting for one side and then later opposing it, but usually they were being loyal to some greater cause, some noble principle, even if evident only to themselves. In the case of Marshal Badoglio however, it is hard to see any motivation other than a self-serving effort to shift blame, avoid responsibility and survive the consequences of what were often his own mistakes. It is hard to imagine anyone rising so high in the military while being to a considerable extent responsible for one of the worst defeats in Italian history and then rising to the top political position in the country despite being out of favor with all the major parties and distrusted by the King.

Pietro Badoglio was born in Grazzano Montferrat (later renamed Grazzano Badoglio) in Asti, Piedmont. He attended the military academy in Turin and joined the Royal Italian Army in 1892 as a lieutenant in the artillery, serving in Eritrea in 1896 and Libya in 1912. It was there that he first attracted the notice of his superiors for his meritorious service at the battle of Zanzur. He received a decoration for his service and a promotion to major. By the time Italy entered the First World War, Badoglio was a lieutenant colonel serving on the general staff of the Second Army with the Fourth Division. That unit was stationed in the Monte Sabotino sector, a bleak region that had been strongly fortified by the Austrians. Badoglio urged his superiors that Monte Sabotino be taken even though most considered the Austrian position impregnable. Badoglio, however, thought he had a better way. A frontal assault would have been all but suicidal so, instead, he proposed digging a network of tunnels underneath the Austrian lines and exploding them to disrupt their defensive line.

His plan approved, Badoglio was promoted to colonel while the engineers worked at digging the extensive tunnels as near as possible to the Austrian lines. In April of 1916, with Colonel Badoglio then serving as Chief of Staff of the Sixth Army Corps, the attack was made and was a stunning success with Monte Sabotino being taken by the Italians with only minimal losses. Because of this, by August he had been promoted to major general and he was later made Vice-Chief of Staff, widely believed to be because of the favor of General Luigi Capello who, like Badoglio, was a member of the Freemasons. By that time, Italian forces had suffered their worst defeat of the war at the Battle of Caporetto. The role that Badoglio played in this disaster is still a matter of some controversy, however, there is hardly any dispute that the commission charged with looking into the defeat after the war, to determine how such a thing could have happened, laid no small amount of blame at the feet of Badoglio. However, by the time the report was done, Mussolini was in charge and did not want any bad press for a top commander in the army and so mention of Badoglio was removed before the report was released.

In the end, this only served to tarnish his reputation further, perhaps even further than he deserved since most historians state that Badoglio was, otherwise, a competent staff officer. Still, it would not be the last time that his war record would be stained by controversy. He participated in the Italian delegation to the peace talks and served as Chief of Staff of the army from 1919 to 1921. Like some other officers, he tried to avoid politics in the turbulent years after the war and was not very supportive of the rising National Fascist Party. This stands out as there were many veterans in the ranks of the Black shirts and the Fascist message was tailor-made for many military veterans, decrying how, despite the sacrifice and heroism of the Italian soldiers, the promises Britain and France had made to them were not kept and that a stronger military was needed. Badoglio, however, tried to stay out of the turmoil and, at his request, was made Italian ambassador to Brazil until Mussolini requested his return to the post of Chief of Staff in 1925. He went along with the new government comfortably enough and the following year he was promoted to Marshal of Italy.

From 1928 to 1934 Badoglio served as Governor of Libya, taking harsh measures when necessary but requiring additional help to finally end rebellion in the colony. His greatest moment of triumph, but later more controversy, came when he was given command of the primary front in the war against Ethiopia. Mussolini had, at first, wanted the war to be a “Fascist war” with the bulk of the troops coming from his Black shirt militia and his senior Black shirt general, Emilio De Bono, in overall command. However, when De Bono proved too cautious and slow for Mussolini, he was promoted off the front line and Marshal Badoglio was called in to replace him. The Italian forces launched a renewed and more vigorous offensive which in 1936 culminated in the capture of the Ethiopian capital. Marshal Badoglio made a triumphant entry into the city and was quickly named the first Viceroy of Italian East Africa. Later, however, accusations of cruelty were made against the Marshal over the use of chemical weapons (poison gas) against the Ethiopians, in violation of the Geneva Convention. Blame for this is usually reserved for Mussolini but, according to some documents, Badoglio ordered the use of poison gas even before Mussolini himself had authorized it.

Mussolini grew to despise Badoglio more and more. He disliked having to share credit with him for the east African victory and he bristled when Badoglio advised against entering World War II, saying that the Italian army was not prepared for such a conflict, yet, at the same time, assuring the government that the Italian munitions industry was more advanced than that of the Germans. This prevarication, combined with hesitation over military policy while refusing to resign (he received the highest salary of any official at his level) earned him the wrath of Mussolini who still did not hesitate to blame Badoglio for never informing him of the true state of affairs after he plunged Italy into war while seldom seeking and never taking the advice of his Chief of Staff. Yet, there is evidence that it was Badoglio himself who proposed Mussolini being given direct command of the armed forces, perhaps in an effort to wash his hands of any responsibility. Similarly, Badoglio claimed that he advised against the invasion of Greece while other evidence indicates that he endorsed the decision with no objections. When things went wrong, Badoglio disavowed any connection with the campaign and after Fascist papers began to blame the Chief of Staff for the numerous setbacks, he finally resigned his position.

Marshal Badoglio remained quiet for a time until things began to go badly for Italy and many, even in the upper ranks of the Fascist Party, began to talk about the need to get rid of Mussolini and extricate Italy from a losing war. Badoglio began to involve himself in these talks and did not always show a great deal of loyalty, once boasting that at any given time he could overthrow Mussolini and even the monarchy if he so desired. In 1943 a majority of the leaders on the Fascist Grand Council decided that Mussolini had to go and the King was able to move against the doomed dictator. It retrospect, it is easy to wonder why Badoglio ended up being the man to replace the Duce when he was so disliked by the Fascist hierarchy and somewhat distrusted at court. The simple answer is that there seemed to be no better possible options. Badoglio had the reputation to command the army while not being tainted by recent setbacks. As a Piedmontese officer, royalists expected him to be loyal and he had distanced himself enough from the Fascists that the Allies could be expected to deal with him.

On July 25, 1943 the King dismissed Mussolini and Marshal Badoglio was appointed Prime Minister. However, there was immediate confusion as the Marshal addressed the people by telling them that the war would go on and that nothing had really changed. He told the Germans that Italy was still totally committed to the Axis while opening secret negotiations with the Allies at the same time. In September Badoglio signed an armistice with the Allies but failed to give any prior notice of this to the Italian armed forces, leaving many wondering if the news was genuine and many more cut off on foreign battlefields at the mercy of the Germans. Italy was forced to surrender unconditionally, a sore point for the King who had hoped that Italy would retain her colonies acquired prior to 1922 and maintain her territorial integrity. That would not be the case nor would the Allies commit to the maintenance of the monarchy. Even after Italy joined the Allied war effort under Badoglio this remained a point of contention. Some suggested that the King and Prince Umberto of Piedmont should abdicate their rights in favor of the young Prince Victor Emmanuel whom Badoglio would act for as regent. Badoglio, of course, favored this option but the King regarded this as almost an act of betrayal. He was also very displeased with the radical political figures Badoglio was dealing with to form a post-war government after the end of martial law.

The whole affair was badly handled and ended with the King and Badoglio being forced to leave Rome which was thereafter occupied by the Germans while the Allies fought their way up the Italian peninsula. In 1944 the increased opposition finally forced Badoglio to step aside in favor of a more leftist government. Some, particularly the Ethiopians, wished to see him tried for war crimes but by shifting to the Allied side Badoglio had ensured that he would be saved such a fate. He died on November 1, 1956 in Grazzano Badoglio at the age of 85.