The Tragedies of the Medici

CONTENTS

When Alexandre Dumas wrote his Crimes of the Borgias —and other “Crimes”—he fully intended to compile a companion volume, treating of episodes in the great family of the Medici. With this project in view, he collected much material, and actually published, tentatively, two interesting brochures: Une Année à Florence —in 1841, and Les Galeries de Florence —in 1842.
Nothing, however, came of his more ambitious “idea,” and, until to-day, no one has taken in hand to write The Tragedies of the Medici . My attention was first directed to the omission during the preparation of my Guilds of Florence , published in 1906; and I determined to address myself to the forging of that lurid link in the catena of Florentine romance.
In the following pages my readers will see that I have entirely departed from the conventional conceits of the ordinary historian. I have sought to set out the whole truth—not a garbled version—whilst I have fearlessly added decorative features where facts were absent or were too prosaic.
The short “Introduction,” dealing with the rise and progress of the house of Medici, will be useful to my public, and the “Chart of the Tragedies” will assist students and others in their appreciation of my enterprise—it is my own compilation and as complete as possible.
The “Bibliography” will help serious readers to a wider reading of my authorities, and the Illustrations—the best procurable—will fix in all my readers’ minds something of the actual personalities of my “Tyrants” and my “Victims.”

The origin of the Medici family is lost in the mists of the Middle Ages, and, only here and there, can the historian gain glimpses of the lives of early forbears. Still, there is sufficient data, to be had for the digging, upon which to transcribe, inferentially at least, an interesting narrative.
Away towards the end of the twelfth century,—exact dates are wholly beside the mark—there dwelt, under the shadow of one of the rugged castles of the robber-captains of the Mugello in Tuscany, a hard-working and trustworthy bonds-man—one Chiarissimo—“Old Honesty,” as we may call him. He was married to an excellent helpmeet, and was by his lord permitted to till a small piece of land and rear his family.