A Decade of Italian Women, vol. 2 (of 2)

by Thomas Adolphus Trollope

The Duchess Giovanna and her sorrows.—An heir is born.—Bianca in the shade.—The "Orti Oricellari."—Bianca entertains the Court there.—A summer night's amusement in 1577.—The death of Giovanna.

The conduct of the Grand Duke in neglecting his wife, a daughter of the proud house of Austria, while he abandoned himself to the seductions of a comparatively low–born adventuress, had not failed to expose him to urgent and very disagreeable remonstrances from the family of the Duchess. At the death of her brother Maximilian, negotiations were pending between the Imperial Court and that of Tuscany on two subjects. The first had reference to the full execution of the Imperial diplomas and decrees, which had conferred on the Grand Duke precedence over the other princes of Italy. This had never been admitted by them, especially by the house of Este. And Francesco ceased not to clamour for the due recognition of his rank. The other matter concerned the position of the Grand Duchess Giovanna. Rodolph, Maximilian's successor in the Empire, was anxious to remain on good terms with Francesco. And one of his first cares was to send an ambassador to Florence for the purpose of arranging these matters amicably.

The grounds of complaint against the Grand Duke on the part of Giovanna were sufficiently well founded. But she seems to have brought forward one accusation, from which her husband was able to defend himself satisfactorily. She complained that the pecuniary means allowed her were most insufficient; and that the mortifications to which she was thus exposed, were embittered by the lavish expenditure permitted to the vile woman for whose sake her husband neglected her. Now the truth was, that Giovanna was herself inordinately extravagant. It was easy for her to show that she had been driven to pledge her jewels and other valuables by need of money. But the Imperial lady did not seem to be aware that any limits ought to be placed to her power of disbursing. Living, as she did, wholly in a little court of her own Germans, her principal pleasure seems to have consisted in enriching them. And Francesco was able to show the Imperial ambassadors that if Giovanna was in debt, it was because she had spent more than the abundant income allowed her. As usual in all disputes, the Grand Duchess, by being wrong in this one point, made it the more difficult for her friends to insist upon right being done her in regard to those other matters, concerning which her complaints were clearly just.

However, a certain amount of reconciliation was brought about between her and Francesco; and what contributed far more than the exhortations of the Imperial Court, to make it for the moment genuine, was the birth of a son in 1577. This event was to the Grand Duke a subject of infinite rejoicing, and to Bianca a proportionably great humiliation. She found herself obliged to withdraw into perfect retirement, and even to leave Florence for awhile. The immense difference in her position, which was felt by herself and all Florence to result from the birth of this legitimate heir to the Duchy, is a measure of the importance of the fraudulent introduction of Don Antonio, and of the probability felt by all parties that means would have been found to secure for him the succession to the throne.

UNDER A CLOUD.

Philip II. of Spain graciously acceded to the Grand Duke's request that he would be godfather to Giovanna's child; and it was accordingly named after him.

During the first flush of the Grand Duke's triumph and rejoicing at the birth of his son, Bianca remained prudently in perfect retirement; and Giovanna flattered herself that she should at last hold the place in her husband's affections and in his court which were her due. But the hold that Bianca had established on Francesco's mind was too strong for him to be able to free himself from it. The need of her had become habitual to him, as is ever the case in associations between a weak character and a strong one. The illusions of poor Giovanna lasted but a very short time. Even the interest attaching to her boy, important as he was to the fortunes of the house of Medici, could not avail to prevent Bianca's re–appearance on the scene.

She returned to Florence, and soon found means of showing, by the accumulated marks of the Grand Duke's munificence towards her and her son, that the Florentines were mistaken if they had imagined that her reign was over.

One of the most notable, and it may be said, one of the most scandalous, manifestations of this renewed favour, was the gift of a palace and gardens in Florence, which had already acquired an historical celebrity of a widely different kind from that which was now to be added to it as the scene of many of Bianca's more or less disreputable orgies.

The property in question has since that time passed through several hands, and the traveller who has visited Florence will be most likely to remember it by the name of its last proprietor, as the Palazzo Strozzi. He will probably not have forgotten the large gardens which stretch behind it, and which through all changes have kept their original name, being still known as the "Orti Oricellari." These gardens, with the dwelling attached to them, were in the latter years of the fifteenth century the property of Giorgio Rucellai, the celebrated philosopher and historian. The house was then a "casino," belonging to the gardens, instead of being, as it now is, a palace, to which they are an appendage. And the writers of the time, who have frequently spoken of them, call them a "selva;" so that we must picture the place to our imaginations as very different from the trim garden which we now see.