Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/217

Rh decree of the senate, invested with this rank; and in their answers to the obliging letters of the duke, stiled grand-duchess; though it cannot be proved, that Francesco intended her that dignity at the time when he married her. Nor can we infer, from the first letters of Bianca, that she at that time had any notion of being elevated to the throne. But they affected to suppose, the pompous title of a daughter of the Republic would not otherwise have been sued for in her behalf.

This important measure being thus resolved on, it was the wish of the grand-duke to see Bianca's coronation as a daughter of the Republic, and her presentation as grand-duchess, performed with the greatest pomp and solemnity; he therefore requested the Venetians to send ambassadors to Florence to assist at her coronation; and report says, that they, even in the most glorious epochas of their commonwealth, never sent so splendid an embassy before.

On the thirteenth of October, 1597, she was publicly proclaimed grand-duchess of Tuscany, crowned daughter of the republic of Venice, and received the oath of allegiance, in the presence of the Florentine nobility, and a number of foreigners of distinction. Burring the stay of the ambassadors at Florence, Francesco displayed all his splendour; and his expences on the occasion are said to have amounted to one million of scudi. Bianca's father received a considerable annual pension, and she presented each of the ambassadors who were present, with a ring of the value of one thousand five hundred scudi. Francesco thanked the Venetian senate in a private letter, and, in the most obliging expressions, promised the Republic all the obedience a son owes to his parent.

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