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and returned to Florence with increased power. And now | keen-witted and aspiring, strong and handsome in person, heir Alessandro indulged unchecked in the lowest excesses of tyranny, to the enormous wealth of the Medici, and, by the terms of the and although so recently a bridegroom gave way to increased libertinism. His whole time was passed vicious haunts and in scandalous adventures. In order to conceal the obscurity of his birth, he left his mother to starve, and it was even asserted that he finally got rid of her by poison.

Lorenzino

His constant associate in this disgraceful routine was his distant kinsman Lorenzo, generally known as Lorenzino dei Medici. Of the younger branch of the Medici, the del Medic latter was second cousin of the Cosimo already mentioned as the son of Giovanni delle Bande Nere He had much culture and literary talent, but led an irregular life, sometimes acting like a madman and sometimes like a villain. He was a writer of considerable elegance, the author of several plays, one of which, the Aridosio, was held to be among the best of his age, and he was a worshipper of antiquity. Notwithstanding these tastes, when in Rome he knocked off the heads of some of the finest statues of the age of Adrian, an act by which Clement VII. was so incensed that he threatened to have him hanged. Thereupon Lorenzino fled to Florence, where he became the friend of Duke Alessandro, and his partner in the most licentious excesses. They went together to houses of ill-fame, and violated private dwellings and convents. They often showed themselves in public mounted on the same horse. All Florence eyed them with disgust, but no one foresaw the tragedy that was soon to take place.

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imperial patent, was Alessandro's lawful successor. Charles V. approved the nomination of Cosimo, who without delay seized the reins of government with a firm grasp. Like Alessandro, he was named head of the republic; and Guicciardini and others who had worked hardest in his cause hoped to direct him and keep him under their control. But Cosimo soon proved that, his youth notwithstanding, he was resolved to rule unshackled by republican forms and unhampered by advisers disposed to act as mentors. The Florentines had now an absolute prince who was likewise a statesman of eminent ability.

On learning the death of Alessandro and the election of Cosimo, the exiles appreciated the necessity for prompt action, as delay would be fatal to the overthrow of the Medicean rule. They had received money and promises from France; they were strengthened by the adhesion of Filippo Strozzi and Baccio Valori, who had both become hostile to the Medici through the infamous conduct and mad tyranny of Alessandro; and Strozzi brought them the help of his enormous fortune and the prowess of that very distinguished captain, his son Piero. The exiles assembled their forces at Mirandola. They had about four thousand infantry and three hundred horse; among them were members of all the principal Florentine families; and their leaders were Bernardo Salviati and Piero Strozzi. They marched rapidly, and entered Tuscany towards the end of July 1537. Cosimo on this occasion displayed signal capacity and presence of mind. Informed of the exiles' movements by his spies, he no sooner learned their approach than he ordered Alessandro Vitelli to collect the best German, Spanish and Italian infantry at his disposal, and advance against the enemy without delay. On the evening of the 31st of July Vitelli marched towards Prato with seven hundred picked infantry and a band of one

On the evening of the 5th of January 1537, after a day passed in the usual excesses, Lorenzino led the duke to his own lodging, and left him there, promising shortly to return with Assassina- the wife of Leonardo Ginori. Alessandro, worn out Alessandro, by the exertions of the day, fell asleep on the couch while awaiting Lorenzino's return. Before long the latter came accompanied by a desperado known as the Scoron-hundred horse, and on the way fell in with other Spanish foot concolo, who aided him in falling on the sleeper. Roused by their first thrusts, the duke fought for his life, and was only despatched after a violent struggle. The murderers then lifted the body into a bed, hid it beneath the clothes, and, Lorenzino having attached a paper to it bearing the words vincit amor patriae, laudumque immensa cupido, they both fled to Venice. In that city Lorenzino was assassinated some ten years later, in 1548, at the age of thirty-two, by order of Alessandro's successor. He wrote an Apologia, in which he defended himself with great skill and eloquence, saying that he had been urged to the deed solely by love of liberty. For this reason alone he had followed the example of Brutus and played the part of friend and courtier. The tone of this Apologia is so straightforward, sometimes even so eloquent and lofty, that we should be tempted to give it credence were it possible to believe the assertions of one who not only by his crime but by the infamy of his previous and subsequent career completely gave the lie to his vaunted nobility of purpose. By Alessandro's death the elder branch of the Medici became extinct, and thus the appearance of the younger line was heralded by a bloody crime.

Cosimo I.

When the duke's absence from his own palace was discovered on the morning of the 6th of January he was at first supposed to have spent the night with one of his mistresses; but soon, some alarm being felt, search was made, and Cardinal Cybo was the first to discover the murder. Enjoining the strictest secrecy, he kept the corpse concealed for three days, and then had it interred in the sacristy of San Lorenzo. Meanwhile he had hastily summoned Alessandro Vitelli and the other captains, so that, by the time Alessandro's death was made public, the city was already filled with troops. The cardinal then convoked the council of forty-eight to decide upon a suc. cessor. Alessandro's only issue was a natural son named Giulio, aged five. The cardinal favoured his election, in the hope of keeping the real sovereignty in his own hands. But he speedily saw the impossibility of carrying out a design that was ridiculed by all. Guicciardini, Vettori and others of the leading citizens favoured the choice of Cosimo, the son of Giovanni delle Bande Nere. He was already in Florence, was aged seventeen, was

soldiers who joined the expedition. At early dawn the following morning he made a sudden attack on the exiles' advanced guard close to Montemurlo, an old fortress converted into a villa belonging to the Nerli. Having utterly routed them, he proceeded to storm Montemurlo, where Filippo Strozzi and a few of his young comrades had taken refuge. They made a desperate resistance for some hours, and then, overwhelmed by superior numbers, were obliged to yield themselves prisoners. The main body of the army was still at some distance, having been detained in the mountains by heavy rains and difficult passes, and, on learning the defeat at Montemurlo, its leader turned back by the way he had come. Alessandro Vitelli re-entered Florence with his victorious army and his fettered captives. Cosimo had achieved his first triumph.

All the prisoners, who were members of great families, were brought before Cosimo, and were received by him with courteous coldness. Soon, however, a scaffold was erected in the Piazza, and on four mornings in succession four of the prisoners were beheaded. Then the duke saw fit to stay the executions. Baccio Valori, however, and his son and nephew were beheaded on the 20th of August in the courtyard of the Bargello. Filippo Strozzi still survived, confined in the Fortezza da Basso, that had been built at his expense. His family was illustrious, he had numerous adherents, and he enjoyed the protection of the French king. Nevertheless Cosimo only awaited some plausible pretext to rid himself of this dreaded enemy. He brought him to trial and had him put to the question. But this cruelty led to nothing, for Strozzi denied every accusation and bore the torture with much fortitude. On the 18th of December he was found dead in his prison, with a blood-stained sword by his side, and a slip of paper bearing these words: exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor. It was believed that, having renounced all hope of his life being spared, Strozzi had preferred suicide to death at the hands of the executioner. Some, however, thought that Cosimo had caused him to be murdered, and adopted this mode of concealing the crime. The young prince's cold-blooded massacre of his captives cast an enduring shadow upon his reign and dynasty. But it was henceforward plain to all that he was

of Tuscany

a man of stern resolve, who went straight to his end without | at last obtained Siena and Porto Ferraio by giving up his claim scruples or half-measures. Before long he was regarded by many to a sum of 200,000 ducats that he was to have received from as the incarnation of Machiavelli's Prince, inasmuch as he Charles V. joined daring to talent and prudence, was capable of great In 1559 Cosimo also captured Montalcino, and thus formed the cruelty, and yet could practise mercy in due season." Guicciar-grand-duchy of Tuscany, but he continued to govern the new dini, who still pretended to act as mentor, and who on account state-i.e. Siena and its territories-separately from of his many services had a certain influence over him, was obliged the old. His rule was intelligent, skilful and des- Grand-Duchy to withdraw from public life and busy himself with writing his potic; but his enormous expenses drove him to raise formed. History at his villa of Arcetri. He died in this retreat in 1540, large sums of money by special contrivances unsuited and it was immediately rumoured that the duke had caused him to the country and the people. Hence, notwithstanding the to be poisoned. This shows the estimation in which Cosimo genius of its founder, the grand-duchy held from the first the was now held. He punished with death all who dared to resist elements of its future decay. Cosimo preferred to confer office his will. By 1540 sentence of death had been pronounced against upon men of humble origin in order to have pliable tools, but he four hundred and thirty contumacious fugitives, and during his also liked to be surrounded by a courtier aristocracy on the reign one hundred and forty men and six women actually Spanish and French pattern. As no Tuscan aristocracy any ascended the scaffold, without counting those who perished in longer existed, he created new nobles, and tempted foreign ones foreign lands by the daggers of his assassins. He reduced the to come by the concession of various feudal privileges; and, to old republican institutions to empty forms, by making the magis- turn this artificial aristocracy to some account, he founded the trates mere creatures of his will. He issued the sternest edicts knightly order of St Stephen, charged with the defence of the against the rebels, particularly by the law known as the "Pol- coast against pirates, which in course of time won much honour verina," from the name of its proposer Jacopo Polverini. This by its prowess. He also established a small standing army for law decreed not only the confiscation of the property of exiles, the protection of his frontiers; but he generally employed German but likewise that of their heirs, even if personally acquired by and Spanish troops for his wars, and always had a foreign bodythe latter. Cosimo ruled like the independent sovereign of a guard. At the commencement of his reign he opposed the popes great state, and always showed the capacity, firmness and in order to maintain the independence of his own state; but later, courage demanded by that station. Only, his state being small to obtain help, he truckled to them in many ways, even to the and weak, he was forced to rely chiefly upon his personal talent extent of giving up to the Inquisition his own confidant, Piero and wealth. It was necessary for him to make heavy loans to Carnesecchi, who, being accused of heresy, was beheaded and the different European sovereigns, especially to Charles V., the burnt in 1567. In reward for these acts of submission, the popes most rapacious of them all, and to give enormous bribes to their showed him friendship, and Pius V. granted him the title of ambassadors. Besides, he had to carry on wars for the exten- grand-duke, conferring the patent and crown upon him in Rome, sion of his dominions; and neither his inherited wealth nor the although the emperor had always withheld his consent. The large sums gained by confiscating the estates of rebellious measure most injurious to Tuscany was the fiscal system of subjects sufficed for all this outlay. He was accordingly com- taxes, of which the sole aim was to extort the greatest possible pelled to burden the people with taxes, and thus begin at once to amount of money. The consequent damage to industry, comdiminish its strength. merce and agriculture was immense, and, added to the devastations caused by the Sienese War, led to their utter ruin. Otherwise Cosimo did not neglect useful measures for the interior prosperity of his state. He was no Maecenas; nevertheless he restored the Pisan university, enlarged that of Siena, had the public records classified, and also executed public works like the Santa Trinità bridge. During the great inundations of 1557 he turned his whole energy to the relief of the sufferers.

Lucca and

Cosimo bore a special grudge against the neighbouring republics of Siena and Lucca. Although the latter was small and weak, and the former garrisoned by Siena seized. Spaniards, yet the spectacle of free institutions at the frontiers of his own state served as a continual incitement to subjects disaffected to the new régime. In fact Francesco Burlamacchi, a zealous Lucchese patriot, had conceived the design of re-establishing republican government in all the cities of Tuscany. Cosimo, with the emperor's help, succeeded in having him put to death. Lucca, however, was an insignificant state making no pretence of rivalry, whereas Siena was an old and formidable foe to Florence, and had always given protection to the Florentine exiles. It was now very reluctantly submitting to the presence of a Spanish garrison, and, being stimulated by promises of prompt and efficacious assistance from France, rose in rebellion and expelled the Spaniards in 1552. Cosimo instantly wrote to the emperor in terms that appealed to his pride, asked leave to attack Siena, and begged for troops to ensure the success of his enterprise. As no immediate answer arrived, he feigned to begin negotiations with Henry II. of France, and, by thus arousing the imperial jealousy, obtained a contingent of German and Spanish infantry. Siena was besieged for fifteen months, and its inhabitants, aided by the valour of Piero Strozzi, who fought under the French flag, made a most heroic resistance, even women and children helping on the walls. But fortune was against them. Piero Strozzi sustained several defeats, and finally the Sienese, having exhausted their ammunition and being decimated by famine and the sword, were obliged to capitulate on honourable terms that were shamelessly violated. By the varied disasters of the siege and the number of fugitives the population was reduced from forty to eight thousand inhabitants. The republicans, still eager to resist, withdrew to Montalcino. Cosimo now ruled the city and territory of Siena in the name of Charles V., who always refused him its absolute possession. After the emperor's abdication, and the succession of Philip II. to the Spanish throne, Cosimo

In 1539 he had espoused Eleonora of Toledo, daughter of the viceroy of Naples, by whom he had several children. Two died in 1562, and their mother soon followed them to the grave. It was said that one of these boys, Don Garcia, had murdered the other, and then been killed by the enraged father. Indeed, Cosimo was further accused of having put his own wife to death; but neither rumour had any foundation. He now showed signs of illness and failure of strength. He was not old, but worn by the cares of state and self-indulgence. Accordingly in 1564 he resigned the government to his eldest son, who was to act as his lieutenant, since he wished to have power to resume the sceptre on any emergency. In 1570, by the advice of Pope 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 I., born in 1541, began to govern as his father's lieutenant in 1564, and was married in 1565 to the archduchess Giovanna of Austria. On beginning to reign on his Francesco I. 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 every one aloof, he carried on the government with the assistance of a few devoted ministers. He compelled his step-mother 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

a

Such was the life of Francesco dei Medici, and all that can be said in his praise is that he gave liberal encouragement to a few artists, including de Giovanni Bologna (q.v.). He was the founder of the Uffizi gallery, of the Medici theatre, and the villa of Pratolino; and during his reign the Della Cruscan academy was instituted.

Ferdinand I.

himself like a vassal at Austria's feet. He reaped his reward by | prepared a poisoned tart for the cardinal, and that, when he obtaining from Maximilian II. the title of grand-duke, for which suspiciously insisted on the grand-duke tasting it first, Bianca Cosimo had never been able to win the imperial sanction, but desperately swallowed a slice and followed her husband to the he forfeited all independence. Towards Philip II. he showed tomb. even greater submissiveness, supplying him with large sums of money wrung from his overtaxed people. He held entirely aloof from France, in order not to awake the suspicions of his protectors. He traded on his own account, thus creating monopoly that was ruinous to the country. He raised the tax upon corn to so high a rate that few continued to find any profit in growing 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 scandalous 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 fewer 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 hearing 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 confiscated, and the " Polverina" law applied, so that the conspirators' heirs were reduced to penury, and the grand-duke gained more than 300,000 ducats.

Next year Isabella dei Medici, Francesco's sister, was 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 the 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 in 1587, and was ostentatiously welcomed by Bianca, who was most anxious to conciliate him. On the 18th of October 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

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Ferdinand I. was thirty-eight years of age when, in 1587, he succeeded his brother on the throne. A cardinal from the age of fourteen, he had never taken holy orders. He showed much tact and experience in the management of ecclesiastical affairs. He was the founder of the Villa Médici 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. Occasionally, 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 independence 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 heretics, which led to the settlement of many foreigners in that city. He also improved the harbour and facilitated communication with Pisa by means of the Naviglio, a canal into which a portion of the water of the Arno was turned. He nevertheless retained the reprehensible custom of trading on his own account, keeping banks in many cities of Europe. He successfully accomplished the draining of the Val di Chiana, cultivated the plains of Pisa, Fucecchio and Val di Nievole, and executed other works of public utility at Siena and Pisa. But his best energies were devoted to the foreign policy by which he sought to emancipate himself from subjection to Spain. On the assassination (1589) of Henry III. of France Ferdinand supported the claims of the king of Navarre, undeterred by the opposition of Spain and the Catholic League, who were dismayed by the prospect of a Huguenot succeeding to the throne of France. He lent money to Henry IV., and strongly urged his conversion to Catholicism; he helped to persuade the pope to accept Henry's abjuration, and pursued this policy with marvellous persistence until his efforts were crowned with success. Henry IV. showed faint gratitude for the benefits conferred upon him, and paid no attention to the expostulations of the grand-duke, who then began to slacken his relations with France, and showed that he could guard his independence by other alliances. He gave liberal assistance to Philip III. for the campaign in Algiers, and to the emperor for the war with the Turks. Hence he was compelled to burden his subjects with enormous taxes, forgetting that while guaranteeing the independence of Tuscany by his loans to foreign powers he was increasingly sapping the strength of future generations. He at last succeeded in obtaining the formal investiture of Siena, which Spain had always considered a fief of her own.

During this grand-duke's reign the Tuscan navy was notably increased, and did itself much honour on the Mediterranean. The war-galleys of the knights of St Stephen were despatched to the coast of Barbary to attack Bona, the headquarters of the corsairs, and they captured the town with much dash and bravery. In the following year (1608) the same galleys achieved their most brilliant victory in the archipelago over the stronger fleet of the Turks, by taking nine of their vessels, seven hundred prisoners, and jewels of the value of 2,000,000 ducats.

Ferdinand I. died in 1609, leaving four sons, of whom the eldest, Cosimo II., succeeded to the throne at the age of nineteen. Cosimo II. He was at first assisted in the government by his mother and a council of regency. He had a good disposition, and the fortune to reign during a period when Europe was at peace and Tuscany blessed with abundant harvests. Of his rule there is little to relate. His chief care was given to the galleys of St Stephen, and he sent them to assist the Druses against the Porte. On one occasion he was involved in a quarrel with France. Concino Concini, the Marshal d'Ancre, being assassinated in 1617, Louis XIII. claimed the right of transferring the property of the murdered man to De Luynes. Cosimo, refusing to recognize the confiscation decreed by the French tribunals, demanded that Concini's son should be allowed to inherit. Hence followed much ill-feeling and mutual reprisals between the two countries, finally brought to an end by the intervention of the duke of Lorraine.

Like his predecessors, Cosimo II. studied to promote the prosperity of Leghorn, and he deserves honour for abandoning all commerce on his own account. But it was no praiseworthy act to pass a law depriving women of almost all rights of inheritance. By this means many daughters of the nobility were driven into convents against their will. He gave scanty attention to the general affairs of the state. He was fond of luxury, | spent freely on public festivities and detested trouble. Tuscany was apparently tranquil and prosperous; but the decay of which the seeds were sown under Cosimo I. and Ferdinand I. was rapidly spreading, and became before long patent to all and beyond all hope of remedy. The best deed done by Cosimo II. was the protection accorded by him to Galileo Galilei, who bad removed to Padua, and there made some of his grandest discoveries. The grand duke recalled him to Florence in 1610, and nominated him court mathematician and philosopher. Cosimo died in February 1621. Feeling his end draw near, when he was only aged thirty and all his sons were still in their childhood, he hastened to arrange his family affairs. His mother, Cristina of Lorraine, and his wife, Maddalena of Austria, were nominated regents and guardians to his eldest son Ferdinand II., a boy of ten, and a council of four appointed, whose functions were regulated by law. After Cosimo's death, the young Ferdinand was sent to Rome and Vienna to complete his education, and the government of Tuscany remained in the hands of two jealous and quarrelsome women. Thus the administration of justice and finance speedily went to ruin. Out of submissiveness to the pope, the regents did not dare to maintain their legitimate right to inherit the duchy of Urbino. They conferred exaggerated privileges on the new Tuscan nobility, which became increasingly insolent and worthless. They resumed the practice of trading on their own account, and, without reaping much benefit thereby, did the utmost damage to private enterprise.

In 1627 Ferdinand II., then aged seventeen, returned to Italy and assumed the reins of government; but, being of a very gentle Ferdinand II. disposition, he decided on sharing his power with the regents and his brothers, and arranged matters in such wise that each was almost independent of the other. He gained the love of his subjects by his great goodness; and, when Florence and Tuscany were ravaged by the plague in 1630, he showed admirable courage and carried out many useful measures. But he was totally incapable of energy as a statesman. When the pope made bitter complaints because the board of health had dared to subject certain monks and priests to the necessary quarantine, the grand-duke insisted on his officers asking pardon on their knees for having done their duty. On the death in 1631 of the last duke of Urbino, the pope was allowed to seize the duchy without the slighest opposition on the part of Tuscany. As a natural consequence the pretensions of the Roman curia became increasingly exorbitant; ecclesiastics usurped the functions of the state; and the ancient laws of the republic, together with the regulations decreed by Cosimo I. as a check upon similar abuses, were allowed to become obsolete. On the extinction of the line of the Gonzagas at Mantua in 1627,

war broke out between France on the one side and Spain, Germany and Savoy on the other. The grand duke, uncertain of his policy, trimmed his sails according to events. Fortunately peace was re-established in 1631. Mantua and Monferrato fell to the duke of Nevers, as France had always desired. But Europe was again in arms for the Thirty Years' War, and Italy was not at peace. Urban VIII. wished to aggrandize his nephews, the Barberini, by wresting Castro and Ronciglione from Odoardo Farnese, duke of Parma and brother-in-law to Ferdinand. Farnese marched his army through Tuscany into the territories of the pope, who was greatly alarmed by the attack. The grandduke was drawn into the war to defend his own state and his kinsman. His military operations, however, were of the feeblest and often the most laughable character. At last, by means of the French intervention, peace was made in 1644. But, although the pope was forced to yield, he resigned none of his ecclesiastical pretensions in Tuscany. It was during Ferdinand's reign that the septuagenarian Galileo was obliged to appear before the Inquisition in Rome, which treated him with infamous cruelty. On the death of this great and unfortunate man, the grand-duke wished to erect a monument to him, but was withheld by fear of the opposition of the clergy. The dynasty as well as the country now seemed on the brink of decay. Two of the grandduke's brothers had already died childless, and Ippolito, the sole survivor, was a cardinal. The only remaining heir was his son Cosimo, born in 1642.

Like nearly all his predecessors, Ferdinand II. gave liberal patronage to science and letters, greatly aided therein by his brother Leopold, who had been trained by Galileo Galilei, and who joined with men of learning in founding the celebrated academy Del Cimento, of which he was named president. This academy took for its motto the words Provando e riprovando, and followed the experimental method of Galileo. Formed in 1657, it was dissolved in 1667 in consequence of the jealousies and dissensions of its members, but during its brief existence won renown by the number and importance of its works.

Cosimo III. succeeded his father in 1670. He was weak, vain, bigoted and hypocritical. In 1661 he had espoused Louise of Orléans, niece of Louis XIV., who, being enamoured Cosimo III. of duke Charles of Lorraine, was very reluctant to come to Italy, and speedily detested both her husband and his country, of which she refused to learn the language. She had two sons and one daughter, but after the birth of her third child, Giovan Gastone, her hatred for her husband increased almost to madness. She first withdrew to Poggio a Caiano, and then, being unable to get her marriage annulled, returned to France, where, although supposed to live in conventual seclusion, she passed the greater part of her time as a welcome visitor at court. Even her testamentary dispositions attested the violence of her dislike to her husband.

Cosimo's hypocritical zeal for religion compelled his subjects to multiply services and processions that greatly infringed upon their working hours. He wasted enormous sums in pensioning converts-even those from other countries-and in giving rich endowments to sanctuaries. Meanwhile funds often failed for the payment of government clerks and soldiers. His court was composed of bigots and parasites; he ransacked the world for dainties for his table, adorned his palace with costly foreign hangings, had foreign servants, and filled his gardens with exotic plants. He purchased from the emperor the title of "Highness" in order to be the equal of the duke of Savoy. He remained neutral during the Franco-Spanish War, and submitted to every humiliation and requisition exacted by the emperor. He had vague notions of promoting agriculture, but accomplished no results. At one time he caused eight hundred families to be brought over from the Morea for the cultivation of the Maremme, where all of them died of fever. But when, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, French Huguenots offered to apply their labour and capital to the same purpose, the grand duke's religious scruples refused them refuge. So ruin fell upon Tuscany. Crime and misery increased, and the poor, who only asked for work, were given alms and sent oftener to church. This period

witnessed the rise of many charitable institutions of a religious | thought on ascending it was to regain strength enough to pass character under the patronage of the grand-duke, as for instance the congregation of San Giovanni Battista. But these could not remedy the general decay.

Cosimo's dominant anxiety regarded the succession to the throne. His eldest son Ferdinand died childless in 1713. The pleasure-loving Giovan Gastone was married to Anna Maria of Saxe-Lauenburg, widow of a German prince, a wealthy, coarse woman wholly immersed in domestic occupations. After living with her for some time in a Bohemian village, Giovan Gastone yielded to his dislike to his wife and her country, withdrew to France, and ruined his health by his excesses. After a brief return to Bohemia he finally separated from his wife, by whom he had no family. Thus the dynasty was doomed to extinction.

the remainder of his days in enjoyment. He dismissed the spies, parasites and bigots that had formed his father's court, abolished the pensions given to converts, suppressed several taxes, and prohibited the organized espionage established in the family circle. He wished to live and let live, and liked the people to be amused. Everything in fact bore a freer and gayer aspect under his reign, and the Tuscans seemed to feel renewed attachment for the dynasty as the moment of its extinction drew near. But the grand-duke was too feeble and incapable to accomplish any real improvement. Surrounded by gay and dissipated young men, he entrusted all the cares of government to a certain Giuliano Dami, who drove a profitable trade by the sale of offices and privileges. In this way all things were in the hands of corrupt

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Cosimo had a passing idea of reconstituting the Florentine | republic, but, this design being discountenanced by the European powers, he determined to transfer the succession, after the death of Giovan Gastone, to his sister Anna Maria Louisa, who in fact survived him. For this purpose he proposed to annul the patent of Charles V., but the powers objected to this arrangement also, and by the treaty of 1718 the quadruple alliance of Germany, France, England and Holland decided that Parma and Tuscany should descend to the Spanish Infante Don Carlos. The grand-duke made energetic but fruitless protests. Cosimo III. had passed his eightieth year at the time of his decease in October 1723, and was succeeded by his son Giovan Gastone, then aged fifty-three. The new sovereign was in bad health, worn out by dissipation, and had neither ambition nor aptitude for rule. His throne was already at the disposal of foreign powers, and his only

Giovan Gastone.

Anna Maria Luis, 1667-1743 John William of the Palatinate.

individuals; while the grand-duke, compelled to pass the greater part of his time in bed, vainly sought diversion in the company of buffoons, and was only tormented by perceiving that all the world disposed of his throne without even asking his advice. And when, after prolonged opposition, he had resigned himself to accept Don Carlos as his successor, the latter led a Spanish army to the conquest of Naples, an event afterwards leading to the peace of 1735, by which the Tuscan succession was transferred to Francesco II., duke of Lorraine, and husband of Maria Theresa. Giovan Gastone was finally obliged to submit even to this. Spain withdrew her garrisons from Tuscany, and Austrian soldiers took their place and swore fealty to the grand-duke on the 5th of February 1737. He expired on the 9th of July of the same year. Such was the end of the younger branch of the Medici, which had found Tuscany a prosperous country, where art, letters, commerce, industry and agriculture flourished,

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