Catherine de Medici’s Grand-Daughter.
Château royal de Blois
Catherine, painted as the wicked witch of the west by some biographers, was loved by her daughters Elisabeth and Claude, her son-in-law Charles (Claude’s husband) her sister-in-law Marguerite, Diane of France (Henry II’s illegitimate daughter) and Christine her beloved grand-daughter.
Christine was ten when her mother, Claude, died so Catherine raised her. She chose her fabulously wealthy Medici cousin, Ferdinand, The Grand Duke of Tuscany, for Christine’s husband.
1589. 5 January. When Catherine died in Château Blois, Christine rushed there and found the Court in chaos.
Just before Christmas, Catherine’s son, Henry III, had ordered the assassination of the duke of Guise and his brother Cardinal Guise in the Château. There was uproar throughout France.
Catherine, confined to bed with pleurisy, died two weeks later.
The Guise family warned Henry if he tried to bury his mother in The Royal Mausoleum in Paris, they would throw her corpse in the Seine. He buried her in St. Saveur in the Château grounds. At least a grieving Christine could visit her grave.
Although Ferdinand was waiting for her to join him in Florence for the wedding, Christine did not leave the Château until May. Could she not bear to be parted from her beloved grand-mother?
In her will, Catherine left Christine all her movable property which probably ended up in her new home, the Pitti Palace in Florence where Catherine was born.
When she finally reached her intended, Christine’s grand entry at Court impressed the royal houses of Europe. As well as the mandatory banquets and balls, a mock sea battle was fought in the flooded courtyard of the Pitti Palace. Christine was very public as The Grand Duchess of Tuscany.
The couple had eight children. They were happily married for more than thirty years. They carried on the Medici tradition of promoting the arts and keeping a magnificent, opulent Court.
Christine hired Galileo Galilei to tutor her eldest son, Cosimo.
Galileo studied velocity, gravity, relativity, inertia, motion, applied science and technology. He built an early microscope, invented military compasses and used the telescope for scientific observations of celestial objects.
Galileo gave Cosimo his home made telescope with which he discovered the four moons of Jupiter. He named them the ‘Medicean Stars’ after Cosimo and his three Medici brothers.
Galileo’s belief that the earth rotated daily and revolved around the sun was met with fierce opposition from the Vatican. Christine asked him how a moving earth was compatible with the teachings of the Holy Scriptures of a fixed earth and a moving sun. Galileo wrote to her saying that they were not intended to be taken literally.
His letter was brought to the attention of a furious Pope.
When Ferdinand died, Cosimo succeeded his father as Grand Duke of Tuscany. Christine stayed on at Court as The Dowager Grand Duchess.
1621. Cosimo died of TB. Christine’s grandson, Ferdinand II, inherited his title.
1632. Galileo was tried by the Inquisition. Found guilty of heresy, he spent the rest of his life under house arrest.
1637 Christine died. She was sixty-six.
1642. Galileo died. He was seventy-seven.
Ferdinand II wanted to bury him in the Basilica of Santa Croce next to the tomb of his father and to erect a marble mausoleum in his honour but the Pope vetoed it.
Post by Pamela (BA History of Art), Photography by Mark.
Read more about Catherine in these blog posts:
Out of the Shadows
The Ladies of Royal Château Amboise
