Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/823

Rh MEDICI of strength. He was not old, but worn by the cared of state and self-indulgence. Accordingly in 1561 he resigned the government to his eldest son, who was to act as his lieutenant, since he wished to remain the virtual head of the state and have power to resume the sceptre on any emergency. In 1570, by the advice of Pius V., he married Camilla Martelli, a young lady of whom he had been long enamoured. In 1574 he died, at the age of fifty-four years and ten months, after a reign of thirty- seven years, leaving three sons and one daughter besides natural children. These sons were Francesco, his successor, who was already at the head of the government, Cardinal Ferdinand, and Piero. Francesco Francesco L, born in 154-1, began to govern as his father s lieutenant in 1564, and was married in 1565 to the arch duchess Giovanna of Austria. On beginning to reign on his own account in 1574, he speedily manifested his real character. His training in the hands of a Spanish mother had made him suspicious, false, and despotic. Holding everyone aloof, he carried on the government with the assistance of a few devoted ministers, He compelled his stepmother to retire to a convent, and kept his brothers at a distance from Florence. He loved the privileges of power without its burdens. Cosimo had known how to maintain his independence, but Francesco cast himself like a vassal at Austria s feet. Ha reaped his reward by obtaining from Maximilian II. the title of grand-duke, for which Cosimo had never been able to win the imperial sanc tion, but he forfeited all independence. Towards Philip II. he showed even greater submissiveness, supplying him with large sums of money wrung from his over-taxed people. He held entirely aloof from France, in order not to awake the suspicions of his protectors. In short, under his rule the history of Tuscany was reduced to a mere record of local and municipal events. To increase his funds, he traded on his own account, thus creating a monopoly that was ruinous to the country at large, and led to an enor mous number of failures. He raised the tax upon corn to so high a rate that few continued to find any profit in grow ing it, and thus the Maremme, already partly devastated during the war with Siena, were converted into a desert. Even industry declined under this system of government; and, although Francesco founded porcelain manufactories and pietra dura works, they did not rise to any prosperity until after his death. His love of science and letters was the only Medicean virtue that he possessed. He had an absolute passion for chemistry, and passed much of his time in his laboratory. Sometimes indeed he gave audience to his secretaries of state standing before a furnace, bellows in hand. He took some useful measures to promote the rise of a new city at Leghorn, which at that time had only a natural and ill-sheltered harbour. The improvement of Leghorn had been first projected by Cosimo I,, and was carried on by all the succeeding Medici. Francesco was a slave to his passions, and was led by them to scandaloti.3 excesses and deeds of bloodshed. His example and neglect of the affairs of the state soon caused a vast increase of crime even among the people, and, during the first eighteen months of his reign, there occurred no less than one hundred and sixty-eight murders. In default of public events, the historians of this period enlarge upon private incidents, generally of a scandalous or sanguinary kind. In 1575 Orazio Pucci, wishing to avenge his father, whom Cosimo had hanged, determined to get up a conspiracy, but, soon recognizing how firmly the Medicean rule had taken root in the country, desisted from the attempt. But the grand-duke, on hear ing of the already abandoned plot, immediately caused Pucci to be hanged from the same window of the Palazzo Vecchio, and even from the same iron stanchion, from which his father before him had hung. His companions, who had fled to France and England, were pursued and murdered by the ducal emissaries. Their possessions were con fiscated, and the &quot; Polverina &quot; law applied so that the con spirators heirs were reduced to penury, and the grand-duke gained more than 300,000 ducats. Next year Isabella dei Medici, Francesco s sister, waa strangled in her nuptial bed by her husband, Paolo Giordano Orsini, whom she had betrayed. Piero dei Medici, Francesco s brother, murdered his wife Eleonora of Toledo from the same motive. Still louder scandal was caused by the duke s own conduct. He was already a married man, when, passing one day through the Piazza of St Mark in Florence, he saw an exceedingly beautiful woman at the window of a mean dwelling, and at once conceived a passion for her. She was the famous Bianca Cappello, a Venetian of noble birth, who had eloped with a young Florentine named Pietro Buonaventuri, to whom she was married at the time that she attracted the duke s gaze. He made her acquaintance, and, in order to see her frequently, nominated her husband to a post at court. Upon this, Buonaventuri behaved with so much insolence, even to the nobility, that one evening he was found murdered in the street. Thus the grand-duke, who was thought to have sanctioned tht crime, was able to indulge his passion unchecked. On the death of the grand-duchess in 1578 he was privately united to Bianca, and afterwards married her publicly. But she had no children, and this served to poison her happiness, since the next in succession was her bitter enemy, the cardinal Ferdinand. The latter came to Florence iu 1587, and was ostentatiously welcomed by Bianca, who was most anxious to conciliate him. On October 18th of the same year, the grand-duke died at his villa of Poggio a Caiano, of a fever caught on a shooting excursion in the Maremme, and the next day Bianca also expired, having ruined her health by drugs taken to cure her sterility. But rumour asserted that she had prepared a poisoned tart for the cardinal, and that, when he suspiciously insisted on the grand-duke tasting it first, Bianca desperately swallowed a slice and followed her husband to the tomb. Such was the life of Francesco dei Medici, and all that can be said in his praise is that he gave liberal encourage ment to a few artists, including Giovanni Bologna, who executed for him the group of the Rape of the Sabines. He was the founder of the Uffizi gallery, of the Medici theatre, and the villa of Pratolino ; and during his reign the Delia Cruscan academy was instituted. Ferdinand I. was thirty-eight years of age when, in 1587, Fenlinar he succeeded his brother on the throne. A cardinal from the T - age of fourteen, he had never taken holy orders. He showed much tact and experience in the management of ecclesi astical affairs. He was the founder of the Villa Medici at Rome, and the purchaser of many priceless works of art, such as the Niobe group and many other statues afterwards transported by him to Florence. After his accession he retained the cardinal s purple until the time of his marriage. He was in all respects his brother s opposite. Affable in his manners and generous with his purse, he chose a crest typical of the proposed mildness of his rule, a swarm of bees with the motto Majestate tantum. He instantly pardoned all who had opposed him, and left his kinsmen at liberty to choose their own place of residence. Occa sionally, for political reasons, he committed acts unworthy of his character ; but he re-established the administration of justice, and sedulously attended to the business of the state and the welfare of his subjects. Accordingly Tuscany revived under his rule and regained the independ ence and political dignity that his brother had sacrificed to love of ease and personal indulgence. He favoured commerce, and effectually ensured the prosperity of Leghorn, by an edict enjoining toleration towards Jews and