But Bianca, who had been so dreadfully bored, now had too much to do. Pietro’s affairs did not prosper, and after selling the jewels she had brought with her, she was obliged to work with her hands in his house, which was not at all what she had bargained for. Chance favoured her, however, and she helped chance as well as she could, and succeeded in attracting the notice of Francesco de’ Medici. He was the son of Cosmo, the Grand Duke, and the brother of Isabella, then not yet drowned in her own basin by Paolo Giordano Orsini, and of Cardinal Ferdinando, who afterwards poisoned his brother and became Grand Duke. Francesco lost his heart to the beautiful Bianca, and she had no objection to winning it; Pietro Bonaventuri, who was a man of business instincts, but not sufficiently cautious, had no objection either. But old Cosmo, the Duke, was much scandalised by his son’s behaviour, though he himself had been accused of nothing less than loving his own daughter Isabella, and he remonstrated with Francesco.
‘You know,’ he said, ‘that I do not wish to weary you with preaching, but when things go too far you must learn what I think of you.’
Francesco learned, but does not seem to have been much affected by the knowledge, for he presently installed Bianca and her complaisant husband almost under the same roof with his wife. Pietro, however, was really so superfluous that he was soon suppressed, after which his widow occupied an official position in
CASA WEIDERMANN
the court of Tuscany as the acknowledged mistress of the heir to the throne. Francesco now attempted to get a reversal of the sentence passed on Bianca by the Council of Ten, and employed an influential person to plead the cause; but it was thought improper that such a case should be treated in the name of old Cosmo while he insisted on ignoring Bianca’s existence. Cosmo died in 1574, but still nothing was done.
It may be doubted whether any woman in Bianca’s situation ever went to such extremes of treachery and effrontery. Her victim, the gentle Archduchess Giovanna of Austria, Francesco’s wife, died at last in 1578, possibly without being helped out of the world, and Francesco married Bianca secretly two months later; but the marriage was not announced to the people until the year of mourning was over. Bianca was Grand Duchess of Tuscany.
The effect of the news in Venice was magical. The Senate made the following curious declaration:—
‘The Grand Duke of Tuscany having deigned to choose as his consort the lady Bianca Cappello, of noble Venetian family, endowed with such great qualities that we judge her worthy of that dignity, it is but right that our Republic should exhibit its satisfaction at the honour conferred upon it by this important and prudent decision of the said Grand Duke. We therefore decree that the aforesaid illustrious and puissant lady, Bianca Cappello, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, be declared the adopted and beloved daughter of our Republic.’