Catherine de Medici | Page 9

On the subject of power they held the same doctrine now professed by
Russia, namely: to whichever head the crown goes, he is the true, the
legitimate sovereign. Mirabeau had reason to say: "There has been but
one mesalliance in my family,--that of the Medici"; for in spite of the
paid efforts of genealogists, it is certain that the Medici, before
Everardo de' Medici, /gonfaloniero/ of Florence in 1314, were simple
Florentine merchants who became very rich. The first personage in this
family who occupies an important place in the history of the famous
Tuscan republic is Silvestro de' Medici, /gonfaloniero/ in 1378. This
Silvestro had two sons, Cosmo and Lorenzo de' Medici.
From Cosmo are descended Lorenzo the Magnificent, the Duc de
Nemours, the Duc d'Urbino, father of Catherine, Pope Leo X., Pope
Clement VII., and Alessandro, not Duke of Florence, as historians call
him, but Duke /della citta di Penna/, a title given by Pope Clement VII.,
as a half- way station to that of Grand-duke of Tuscany.
From Lorenzo are descended the Florentine Brutus Lorenzino, who
killed Alessandro, Cosmo, the first grand-duke, and all the sovereigns
of Tuscany till 1737, at which period the house became extinct.
But neither of the two branches--the branch Cosmo and the branch
Lorenzo--reigned through their direct and legitimate lines until the
close of the sixteenth century, when the grand-dukes of Tuscany began
to succeed each other peacefully. Alessandro de' Medici, he to whom
the title of Duke /della citta di Penna/ was given, was the son of the
Duke d'Urbino, Catherine's father, by a Moorish slave. For this reason
Lorenzino claimed a double right to kill Alessandro,--as a usurper in
his house, as well as an oppressor of the city. Some historians believe
that Alessandro was the son of Clement VII. The fact that led to the

recognition of this bastard as chief of the republic and head of the
house of the Medici was his marriage with Margaret of Austria, natural
daughter of Charles V.
Francesco de' Medici, husband of Bianca Capello, accepted as his son a
child of poor parents bought by the celebrated Venetian; and, strange to
say, Ferdinando, on succeeding Francesco, maintained the substituted
child in all his rights. That child, called Antonio de' Medici, was
considered during four reigns as belonging to the family; he won the
affection of everybody, rendered important services to the family, and
died universally regretted.
Nearly all the first Medici had natural children, whose careers were
invariably brilliant. For instance, the Cardinal Giulio de' Medici,
afterwards Pope under the name of Clement VII., was the illegitimate
son of Giuliano I. Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici was also a bastard, and
came very near being Pope and the head of the family.
Lorenzo II., the father of Catherine, married in 1518, for his second
wife, Madeleine de la Tour de Boulogne, in Auvergne, and died April
25, 1519, a few days after his wife, who died in giving birth to
Catherine. Catherine was therefore orphaned of father and mother as
soon as she drew breath. Hence the strange adventures of her childhood,
mixed up as they were with the bloody efforts of the Florentines, then
seeking to recover their liberty from the Medici. The latter, desirous of
continuing to reign in Florence, behaved with such circumspection that
Lorenzo, Catherine's father, had taken the name of Duke d'Urbino.
At Lorenzo's death, the head of the house of the Medici was Pope Leo
X., who sent the illegitimate son of Giuliano, Giulio de' Medici, then
cardinal, to govern Florence. Leo X. was great-uncle to Catherine, and
this Cardinal Giulio, afterward Clement VII., was her uncle by the left
hand.
It was during the siege of Florence, undertaken by the Medici to force
their return there, that the Republican party, not content with having
shut Catherine, then nine years old, into a convent, after robbing her of
all her property, actually proposed, on the suggestion of one named
Batista Cei, to expose her between two battlements on the walls to the
artillery of the Medici. Bernardo Castiglione went further in a council
held to determine how matters should be ended: he was of opinion that,
so far from returning her to the Pope as the latter requested, she ought

to be given to the soldiers for dishonor. This will show how all popular
revolutions resemble each other. Catherine's subsequent policy, which
upheld so firmly the royal power, may well have been instigated in part
by such scenes, of which an Italian girl of nine years of age was
assuredly not ignorant.
The rise of Alessandro de' Medici, to which the bastard Pope Clement
VII. powerfully contributed, was no doubt chiefly caused by the
affection of Charles V. for his famous illegitimate daughter Margaret.
Thus Pope and emperor were