Pageant and dirge trip up each other often enough in the course of human life! The lives especially of sovereigns, through the strong light ever beating upon their thrones, are always exposed to vicissitudes of fortune. The Papal Mission had scarcely passed out of recollection, and everything in Florence was happy and prosperous—sunshine is always brightest before eclipse—when the spectre of tragedy again cast its dark shadow over the path of the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess.
A right merry party was that which set off from the Palazzo Pitti to the Villa Poggio a Caiano one bright morning in October 1587. The “hunter’s moon was up,” for the harvest had been gathered in, and the new luscious grapes were in the vat. Pheasant awaited the coming of the sportsmen in the home-coppices, wild boar in the thickets of Monte Ginestra, and other game was ready for the hawk-on-wrist and the dog-in-leash along the smiling valley of the Ombrone.
Hunting and sporting parties were now quite in the Grand Duchess’ way. Unused to such exploits upon the canals and lagunes of Venice, she had, from the moment of her elevation, sympathetically entered into the joys of horsemanship and the pastimes of the countryside. Few could beat her in point-to-point—she feared no obstacle, nor dreaded accident, the charge of wild game terrified her not.
“Magnificent,” she wrote, on 15th November 1586, “was the sport.... I actually saw four very large boars fall dead at my feet.” The Grand Duke, of course, as became “a perfect gentleman,” was at one with Bianca in love for, and skill in, all exercises in the open air. His seat was firm, his aim was good, and he revelled in the chase.
Still of Poggio a Caiano he had unpleasing memories, for there he met Giovanna of Austria, and had the first taste of her ill-humour as he rode by her side at her scornful entry into Florence, twelve years before. But Bianca had wrought a vast change in his disposition and environment. She had interwoven fancy and reality, and Francesco was now serenely happy. Often did he sing tender madrigals as they together sauntered in the woods and indulged in pastoral pursuits.
“Sing! sing! ye birds I am wide awake
Tho’ silent ‘mid your tender harmony;
And yet I would fain join your sweet concert,
Whilst upon the face of fair Bianca,
‘Mirror of Love’—I fix my yearning eyes.”
The Cardinal was one of this particular hunting party—indeed, the hunt had been arranged entirely in his honour, and he expressed himself as charmed with everything—and especially with the Grand Duchess. This was his first State visit to his brother’s Court and his affability knew no bounds. Bianca, on her part, laid herself out to entertain her brother-in-law, and made herself especially attractive and gracious. The presence of the Archbishop of Florence added greatly to her satisfaction and Francesco’s. Very wisely, young Antonio was sent to Pratolino with his governor and tutors, and in the merry company no personality could, in any way, recall unhappy incidents of the past. The days were passed in the exhilaration of sport, and the evening repasts were followed by animated conversation, ballets, music and recitations. All the brightest ornaments of the Court were present at the Grand Duchess’ behest.
Bianca, herself, in the highest spirits, dressed, sang, and danced, bewitchingly. The frolics of the Orte Oricellari were transferred to the delightful hunting-box, and everybody and everything was as gay as gay could be, and no one troubled about the morrow.
Alas, when the merriment was at its height, a sudden stop was put to all the festivities, for, during the night of 8th October, the Grand Duke was taken ill with severe spasms and violent sickness. The Grand Duchess was summoned to his side, and full of alarm and devotion, she at once despatched a mounted messenger into Florence to command the attendance of the Court physicians—Messeri Giulio Agnolo da Barga and Ferdinando Cino da Roma.
They assured her that their princely patient was merely suffering from an error in diet—the dish of mushrooms, of which he had partaken freely overnight, had not been well prepared—but they considered that all ill effects would disappear as suddenly as they had arisen. The report of Francesco’s illness reached the Vatican, and the Pope addressed a kindly letter to the Grand Duchess, conveying a good-natured homily to the Grand Duke upon the evils of gluttony!