Her own health gave way under the strain, and her indisposition pointed to apoplexy and to mental trouble. But deliverance came at last. On 20th April 1574, Cosimo breathed his last at Poggio a Caiano, in his fifty-fifth year. By his death-bed there watched only his chastened wife and his sanctimonious son. Of his other surviving children, Isabella—once his favourite—had suffered for sixteen years the misunderstandings and the heartburnings which her heartless marriage-contract had imposed; she was estranged from him and from Cammilla, and from the Cardinal. Piero was a wastrel, the exponent of his father’s worst passions—Piero, “Il Scandalezzatore” as he was rightly called. Francesco had borne ten years’ embarrassment as quasi-ruler of the State, subject to ceaseless cautions and contradictions: he was, in no sensuous or homicidal sense, his father’s son. All three stayed markedly away from Poggio a Caiano.
Almost the first act of the new Sovereign was the enclosure of his father’s young widow in a convent! He placed her first with the Benedictine nuns of the Vergine dell’ Annunziata delle Murate, and then in the noble sanctuary of Santa Monica, not with her poor cousin Eleanora degli Albizzi away at Foligno!
This certainly appears to the ordinary reader of romances a cruel and unjustifiable act, but to the student of diplomatic expediency, it was a foregone conclusion. The security of Francesco’s rule depended entirely upon the suppression of dynastic intrigues. The person of Ferdinando was unassailable; as a Prince of the Church he had prerogatives which could not be removed by any temporal sovereign. All that Francesco could do was to forbid his presence upon Tuscan territory, and this he did.
It does not appear that the unhappy Cammilla de’ Medici was harshly used; indeed her residence within the convent was made as agreeable as possible, and she had the privilege of receiving visitors, other than political. Madonna Costanza de’ Pazzi and eight other noble ladies were attached to her suite, with five Gentlemen of Honour and several domestics.
Cavaliere Antonio de’ Martelli pleaded in vain his right as father of Cammilla to take her and her child back under the parental roof. The Grand Duke was immovable in his resolution, he counselled the father to let the matter rest, and gave him and Madonna Fiammetta free access to their daughter, but, on no account, was she to visit them.
As in the case of Eleanora degli Albizzi, an inventory of jewellery and other treasures was made, and whilst Cammilla was permitted to retain certain articles, such objects as were regarded as the property of the reigning Grand Duchess were transferred to the Guardaroba of Bianca. Apparently Francesco determined that no action of his against his father’s widow should be construed into a menace against his Government.
Writing to the Grand Duke, on 7th August 1574, soon after Cammilla’s reception, the Very Reverend Abbess of Santa Monica humbly thanked his Serene Highness “for the generous treatment of the young widow, and begs remembrance of his good offices for her and for the convent generally.”
Trustees were appointed, under the presidency of Messer Roberto de’ Adimari, the Chancellor of the Monte de’ Pieta, for the administration of the one hundred and four thousand gold florins—the fortune left by Duke Cosimo to the Lady Cammilla, which produced an annual income of four thousand eight hundred gold florins a year, equal to about £2000.
Cammilla settled down as best she could to a life of leisured ease—a lonesome woman, a prisoner under close observation. News of the outside world she had, and when the report of the horrors of the year 1576 reached her, she was prostrated with grief. Indeed, her time seems to have been spent with repining, weeping and sickness—a piteous existence for a young woman of twenty-seven.