The Orsini were split up into many branches, but the family was one of the most ancient and honourable in Rome. Signore Girolamo d’Orsini, father of Paolo Giordano, was lord of Bracciano and Anguillaria, and of the country around Civita Vecchia. When only twelve years old, he had been named by Pope Leo X. to the honorary command of a Papal regiment of cavalry. When still in his teens the youth served with distinction in France and in the Neapolitan war; and, on attaining his majority, he was sent with a detachment of troops to the assistance of the Emperor Charles V., in the devastating war against the Turks in Hungary.
Created General and Marquis by the Emperor, the young commander returned to Rome in 1537, and took up his position as the acknowledged head of his family. He married Francesca, daughter of Bosso Sforza, heiress of the Counts of Anguillaria. Three sons and a daughter were born to them.
Paolo Giordano, born 1539, was adopted by his maternal uncle, Carlo, Cardinal Sforza da Santa Fiora, and became a protégé of Paul IV. Following his father’s profession of arms, he saw military service in Spain, but was recalled to Rome by the death of both his parents. On succession to the family estates the Pope created the Lordship of Bracciano a Duchy, and sent a message to Duke Cosimo, commending the young soldier to his notice, and suggesting a matrimonial alliance with one of his daughters.
Cosimo looked with favour upon the Pope’s proposition, and asked the young Duke to pay the Florentine Court a visit. The young people seemed made for one another: he was handsome, brave and rich, she was beautiful, talented, and lovable. Perhaps it was a case of love at first sight, anyhow they were betrothed in 1555, with the proviso that the nuptial knot should not be tied until Isabella had attained her sixteenth year.
In due course the marriage-contract was drawn up, signed and sealed, but it contained a condition which was as unnatural as it was impolitic. Duke Cosimo insisted that his dearly-beloved daughter should make his house her home for at least six months each year, and only pay occasional visits to her husband’s palace in Rome! Duke Paolo, quite rightly, resented this questionable arrangement, and only agreed at last on pressure from the Pope.
Whatever made Cosimo take such a weird course no one can really say, although horrible rumours were indeed rife in Florence about the relations between father and child! It was, however, a fatal bar to all marital happiness, and led to the one and only possible dénouement—tragedy. Certainly the Duke bestowed upon the young couple the splendid estate and villa of the Baroncelli, which had come into his hands, and which he enlarged and surrounded with a park. He added a munificent endowment and had the villa refurnished and redecorated throughout, according to his son-in-law’s wishes.
The marriage was celebrated on 3rd September 1558 in the private chapel of the Pitti Palace,—a Saturday, always considered, in Florence, an unlucky day for a wedding,—a few months after that of Prince Alfonso d’Este’s to Isabella’s younger sister—Lucrezia. After a brief honeymoon spent at their villa the youthful bride and bridegroom separated—an ominous repetition of a fateful error. Truth to tell, Duke Paolo took an intense dislike to his father-in-law: he distrusted him both in relation to his affection for Isabella, and also with respect to his tyrannical character generally. Florence also and the Florentines were distasteful in their excesses of ill-living, cruelty, and chicanery—not that the Court of Rome was a Paradise, or the young man a St Anthony!
The Duke went back to Rome and resumed his ordinary life there, without bearing with him any of the wholesome leaven of matrimony—a husband in name, and little more. Duchess Isabella, a mere child, wanton and wilful more than most, was thus left the uncontrolled mistress of a princely establishment, with no marital check to regulate her conduct. Surely as unstable a condition, and as conducive to infidelity, as can well be imagined.
Before leaving his wife at Poggio Baroncelli, Duke Paolo appointed her household, and made every provision for her comfort. A cousin of his, Cavaliere Troilo d’Orsini, was placed in charge of the Duchess as Chamberlain, or quasi-guardian—another false step, and embarrassing for all parties. He was a handsome and accomplished man, avowedly unmarried, young and of a sympathetic disposition, and manifestly not at all the sort of person to place upon terms of such close relationship with the attractive young Duchess.
Under its fascinating Castellana the Baroncelli villa became a busy little Court, the scene of constant festivities, gossip, and intrigue. Her mother’s Court at the Pitti was quite second in attractiveness. Duchess Eleanora if virtuous and conscientious, was rather dull and uninteresting. She cared much more for her Spanish connections than for her Florentine courtiers: much of her time she spent in the Cappella degli Spagnioli at Santa Maria Novella. What time she spared from her devotions she occupied in the establishment and patronage of the Accademia degli Elevati—“Souls,” for the encouragement of poetry.