Grand Duchy of Tuscany

Native name	Granducato di Toscana
Conventional long name	Grand Duchy of Tuscany
Common name	Tuscany
Continent	Europe
Region	Italy
Country	Italy
Life span	1569 – 18011815 – 1859
Year start	1569
Date start	27 August
Year end	1859
Date end	8 December
Date event3	9 June 1815
Event end	Merged to form the United Provinces of Central Italy
Event1	End of Medici rule
Date event1	9 July 1737
Event2	Abolished
Date event2	21 March 1801
Event3	Reestablished
Event4	Deposition of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine
Date event4	16 August 1859
P1	Duchy of Florence
Image p1
P2	First French Empire
Flag p2	Flag of France.svg
P3	Duchy of Lucca
Image p3
S1	Kingdom of Etruria
Flag s1	Flag of the Kingdom of Etruria.svg
Image coat	Coat of arms of the House of de' Medici.png
S2	United Provinces of Central Italy
Flag s2	Flag of Italy (1861-1946).svg
Flag type	The Flag of Tuscany under the Medici
Image map caption	The Grand Duchy of Tuscany (green) in 1700
Capital	Florence
National anthem	"La Leopolda"
Government type	Monarchy
Common languages	Italian
Title leader	Grand Duke
Leader1	Cosimo I de' Medici (first)
Year leader1	1569–1574
Leader2	Leopold II (last)
Year leader2	1824–1859
Stat pop1	1096641 [1]
Footnotes	[1] United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; House of Commons, John Bowring, 1839, p 6
Stat year1	1801
Currency	Tuscan lira (−1826)Tuscan fiorino (1826–1859)

The Grand Duchy of Tuscany (, ) was a central Italian monarchy that existed, with interruptions, from 1569 to 1859, replacing the Duchy of Florence. The grand duchy's capital was Florence. Until the advent of the House of Lorraine, Tuscany was nominally a state of the Holy Roman Empire until the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.

The grand duchy, initially, was ruled by the House of Medici until its extinction in 1737. Under the Medici, Tuscany thrived, while not as internationally renowned as the old republic, it bore witness to unprecedented economic and military success under Cosimo I and his sons, until the reign of Ferdinando II; whose reign saw the beginning of the state's long economic decline. It peaked under Cosimo III. The Medici's only advancement in the latter days of their existence was their elevation to royalty, by the Holy Roman Emperor, in 1691. The senior branch of the Medici line went extinct in 1737.

In the Medici's place, Francis Stephen of Lorraine ascended the throne. Tuscany was governed by a viceroy, Marc de Beauvau-Craon, for his entire rule. His descendants ruled, and resided in, the grand duchy until 1859, barring one interruption, when Napoleon Bonaparte gave Tuscany to the House of Bourbon-Parma. Following the collapse of the Napoleonic system in 1814, the grand duchy was restored. The United Provinces of Central Italy, a client state of the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont, annexed Tuscany in 1859. Tuscany was formally annexed to Sardinia in 1860, following a landslide referendum, in which 95% of voters approved. The grand duchy succeeded the Duchy of Florence, which had been established by Cosimo's predecessor, Alessandro de' Medici (proclaimed Duke by his alleged father, Pope Clement VII). Alessandro was succeeded by his distant relative Cosimo when he was assassinated in 1537. During Cosimo's reign, Florence purchased the island of Elba from the Republic of Genoa (in 1548) Cosimo instigated naval reforms: the duchy began the development and construction of a large, well-equipped and powerful naval base on Elba. Cosimo banned the clergy from holding administrative positions and promulgated laws of freedom of religion, which were unknown during his time. Cosimo I ruled over Florence from 1537 to 1569, before being given the title of grand duke.

The international reaction to Cosimo's elevation was bleak, with Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor and King Philip II of Spain reacting quite angrily, as Florence was still technically under Imperial suzerainty. The two Habsburg monarchs declared Pius V's actions to be invalid. Cosimo's relative, Queen Catherine of France, only viewed him with the utmost disdain. Rumours circulated at the Viennese court that had Cosimo as a candidate for King of England, as by Catholic reckoning England had devolved on the Papacy with the death of Mary I in 1553. Maximilian eventually confirmed the elevation with an Imperial diploma in 1576.

During the Holy League of 1571, Cosimo fought against the Ottoman Empire, siding with the Holy Roman Empire, whose influence had brought him to the throne of Florence. The Holy League inflicted a crushing defeat against the Ottomans at the Battle of Lepanto. Cosimo's reign was one of the most militaristic Tuscany had ever seen.

Cosimo experienced several personal tragedies during the later years of his reign. His wife, Eleanor of Toledo, died in 1562, along with four of his children due to a plague epidemic in Florence. These deaths were to affect him greatly, which, along with illness, forced Cosimo to unofficially abdicate in 1564. This left his eldest son, Francesco, to rule the duchy. Cosimo I died in 1574 of apoplexy, leaving a stable and extremely prosperous Tuscany behind him, having been the longest ruling Medici yet.

Francesco and Ferdinando I

:''See also: Francesco I de' Medici and Ferdinando I de' Medici Francesco had little interest in governing his realm, instead participating in scientific experiments. Francesco is best remembered for dying on the same day as his second wife, Bianca Cappello, spurring forth rumours of poisoning. He was succeeded by Ferdinando de' Medici, his younger brother, whom he loathed.

Ferdinando eagerly assumed the government of Tuscany. He commanded the draining of the Tuscan marshlands, built a road network in Southern Tuscany, and cultivated trade in Livorno. To augment the Tuscan silk industry, he oversaw the planting of Mulberry trees along the major roads (silk worms feed on Mulberry leaves). He shifted Tuscany away from Habsburg hegemony by marrying the first non-Habsburg candidate since Alessandro de' Medici, Duke of Florence, Christina of Lorraine, a granddaughter of Catherine de' Medici. The Spanish reaction was to construct a citadel on their portion of the island of Elba. Francesco and Ferdinando, due to lax distinction between Medici and Tuscan state property, are thought to be wealthier than their ancestor, Cosimo de' Medici, the founder of the dynasty. The Grand Duke alone had the prerogative to exploit the state's mineral and salt resources. The fortunes of the Medici were directly tied to the Tuscan economy. Ferdinando's pro-Papal foreign policy, however, had drawbacks. Tuscany was overcome with religious orders, all of whom were not obliged to pay taxes. Ferdinando died in 1609, leaving an affluent realm; however, his inaction in international affairs drew Tuscany into the provincial yolk of politics.

Cosimo II and Ferdinando II

Ferdinando's elder son, Cosimo, mounted the throne following his death. Like his uncle, Francesco I, government held no appeal for him, and Tuscany was ruled by his ministers. Cosimo II's twelve year reign was punctuated by his contented marriage with Maria Maddalena and his patronage of the revolutionary astronomer Galileo Galilei, whose ideas landed him in trouble with the Pope. His death, while his elder son, Ferdinando, was still a minor, prompted a regency. Dowager Grand Duchess Christina, his paternal grandmother, and Maria Maddalena were appointed regents. The former was a vehement supporter of the Papacy, and it was she who enticed the clergy to flock back into the before empty monasteries. Harold Acton ascribes the long decline of Tuscany to their joint regency. Cosimo I had previously proscribed clergy from holding administrative roles in government, but Christina decided to lift the ban.. She dominated her grandson long after he came of age until her death in 1636. His mother and grandmother arranged a marriage with Vittoria della Rovere, a granddaughter of the then incumbent Duke of Urbino, in 1634. Together they had two children: Cosimo, in 1642, and Francesco Maria de' Medici, Duke of Rovere and Montefeltro, in 1660. Tuscany participated in the Wars of Castro (the last time Medicean Tuscany proper was involved in a conflict) and inflicted a defeat on the forces of Urban VIII in 1643. The treasury was so empty that when the Castro mercenaries were paid for the state could no longer afford to pay interest on government bonds. The interest rate was lowered by 0.75%. The economy was so decrepit that barter trade became prevalent in rural market places. Ferdinando was obsessed with new technology, and had several hygrometers, barometers, thermometers, and telescopes installed in the Pitti. In 1657, Leopoldo de' Medici, the Grand Duke's youngest brother, established the Accademia del Cimento, which set up to attract scientists from all over Tuscany to Florence for mutual study. Ferdinando II died in 1670, succeeded by his elder surviving son Cosimo.

Cosimo III

Cosimo III's reign was marked by a sharp conservative reaction. He persecuted the Jewish population of Tuscany and imposed crippling taxes upon the populace. Tuscany's decline climaxed in his reign. He married Marguerite Louise d'Orléans, a granddaughter of Henry IV of France and Marie de' Medici. Their union wrought a high level of discontentment, but despite the tension they had three children, notably Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici, Electress Palatine and the last Medicean grand duke of Tuscany, Gian Gastone de' Medici.

Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine, Anna Maria Luisa's spouse, successfully requisitioned the dignity Royal Highness for the Grand Duke and his family in 1691, despite the fact that they had no claim to any kingdom. Cosimo frequently paid the Holy Roman Emperor, his nominal feudal overlord, exorbitant dues. He sent munitions to the Emperor during the Battle of Vienna.

The Grand Duke was a zealous puritan, and instituted several laws censoring education, banning May celebrations, forcing prostitutes to pay for licenses and, beheading sodomites. The Tuscans had new anti-Semitic laws forced onto them by the ever-radical Cosimo III, while the country's population as a whole continued to decline. By 1705, the grand ducal treasury was virtually bankrupt, and the population of Florence had declined by approximately 50%, while the population of the entire grand duchy had decreased by an estimated 40%. The once powerful navy was reduced to a pitiful state.

The future of the dynasty itself painted a similar picture: Cosimo's eldest son, Ferdinando, was an alcoholic and epileptic, while his younger son, Gian Gastone, according to historian Paul Strathern, was simply not appropriate material for the role of sovereign to the collapsing grand duchy. Tuscany was neutral during the War of the Spanish Succession, partly due to Tuscany's ramshackle military; a 1718 military review revealed that the army numbered less than 3,000 men, many of whom were infirm and elderly. Meanwhile, the state's capital, Florence, had become full of beggars. Europe heard of the perils of Tuscany, and Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor asserted his remote claim to the grand duchy (through some Medici descent). However, he died in 1711, but Tuscany would not be able to escape Imperial ambitions for much longer.

Without any ostensible heir, Cosimo contemplated restoring the Republic of Florence. However, this presented many obstacles. Florence was nominally an Imperial fief, and Siena a Spanish one. The plan was about to be approved by the powers convened at Geertruidenberg when Cosimo abruptly added that if himself and his two sons predeceased his daughter, the Electress Palatine, she should succeed and the republic be re-instituted following her death. The proposal sank, and ultimately died with Cosimo in 1723.

The last years of the Medici

Cosimo III was succeeded by his son, Gian Gastone, who, for most of his life, kept to his bed and acted in an unregal manner, rarely appearing to his subjects, to the extent that, at times, he had been thought dead. Gian Gastone would repeal his father's puritan laws. In 1731, the Powers gathered at Vienna to decide who would succeed Gian Gastone. They drew up the Treaty of Vienna, which gave the grand ducal throne to Don Carlos, Duke of Parma. Gian Gastone was not as steadfast in negotiating Tuscany's future as his father was. He capitulated to foreign demands, and instead of endorsing his closest male relative's, the Prince of Ottiano, claim to the throne he allowed Tuscany to be bestowed upon Francis Stephen of Lorraine. Don Carlos became King of Naples shortly after his arrival in Florence in 1735, by the Treaty of Turin. Soon after, Francis Stephan of Lorraine became heir to the Tuscan throne. Gian Gastone had no say in events and had become quite attached to the Spanish Infante. The Tuscans despised the new occupying "Lorrainers", as they interfered with the Tuscan government, while the occupying Spaniards had not done so. On July 9 1737, Gian Gastone died; the last male Medici of the Grand Ducal line.

The House of Habsburg-Lorraine

Francis Stephen

Francis I (as Francis Stephen became known) lived in Florence briefly with his wife, the Habsburg heiress Maria Theresa, who became Tuscany's grand duchess. Francis had to cede his ancestral Duchy of Lorraine in order to accommodate the deposed ruler of Poland, whose daughter Marie Leczinska became Queen of France and of Navarre in 1725. Marie's father Stanisław Leszczyński ruled Lorraine as compensation for his loss of the Kingdom of Poland. Francis was reluctant to resign the duchy, but Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor (Maria Theresa's father) stated that if he didn't relinquish his rights to Lorraine, he could not marry Maria Theresa. Francis did not live in his Tuscan realm, and lived in the capital of his wife's realm, Vienna. He was elected Holy Roman Emperor in 1745. He died at Innsbruck from a stroke in 1765; his wife pledged the rest of her life to mourning him, while co-ruling with her son, and Francis' imperial successor Joseph II. Tuscany passed to another son, Leopold. The administrative structure of the grand duchy itself would see little change under Francis I.

Reform

with his children and wife, 1776]] , Tuscany's successor state during the Napoleonic Wars]] Francis' second surviving son Leopold I became grand duke of Tuscany and ruled until his brother Joseph's death without a male heir. Leopold gave his all in reforming his small Italian realm. He was unpopular among his subjects, but his reforms brought the Grand Duchy to a level of stability that had not been seen in quite a while. He revamped the taxation and tariff system.

Leopold also approved and collaborated on the development of a political constitution, said to have anticipated by many years the promulgation of the French constitution and which presented some similarities with the Virginia Bill of Rights of 1778. Leopold's concept of this was based on respect for the political rights of citizens and on a harmony of power between the executive and the legislative. However, it could not be put into effect because Leopoldo moved to Vienna to become emperor in 1790, and because it was so radically new that it garnered opposition even from those who might have benefited from it. Leopold had to return to Vienna in the year 1790 due to his succession to the Austrian dominions of his family. His son Ferdinand became ruler of the Grand Duchy. Leopold died in 1792.

Tuscany during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars

Leopold was succeeded by Ferdinand III. Ferdinand was the son of the incumbent Grand Duke, and Grand Duchess Maria Louisa. He was forced out by the French during the French Revolutionary Wars, first in 1799, and then after the Treaty of Aranjuez, becoming instead Elector of Salzburg, ruling the territory of the former Archbishopric. The Grand Duchy was then dissolved, and replaced by the Kingdom of Etruria under the house of Bourbon-Parma, in compensation for their loss of Duchy of Parma. Etruria was, in its turn, annexed by the French in 1807, becoming the départements of Arno, Méditerranée, and Ombrone. Napoleon Bonaparte bestowed the title Grand Duchess of Tuscany upon his sister Elisa Bonaparte.

Tuscany restored and its final demise

(r. 1824–1859) in the uniform of an Austrian Field Marshal, 1828, after Pietro Benvenuti]] The Napoleonic system collapsed in 1814, and the following territorial settlement, the Congress of Vienna, ceded the State of Presidi to a restored Tuscany. Ferdinand III resumed his rule, and died in 1824. Italian nationalism had exploded in the post-Napoleonic years, leading to the establishment of secret societies hell-bent on a unified Italy. Whence these leagues arrived in Tuscany, a concerned Ferdinand requisitioned an Austrian garrison, from his first cousin Emperor Francis of Austria, for the defence of the state. Ferdinand aligned Tuscany with Austria.

Following Ferdinand's demise, his elder son, Leopold II, succeeded him. Leopold was contemporarily acknowledged as a liberal monarch. Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia captured Tuscany in its entirety, and held it for the duration of the conflict; Leopold fled Tuscany as a result. The Peace of Villafranca allowed Leopold to return once more. Upon arrival, he abdicated in favour of his elder son, Ferdinand. Ferdinand IV's hypothetical reign didn’t last long; the House of Habsburg-Lorraine was formally deposed by the National Assembly on 16 August 1859. On 12 August 1530, the Emperor created the Medici hereditary rulers (capo) of the Republic of Florence. Pope Clement VII willed his relative Alessandro de' Medici to be the monarchical ruler of Florence, and went about requisitioning that dignity carefully; he wanted to give the impression that the Florentines democratically chose Alessandro to be their monarch. To be eligible, one had to be male and a noble. The Council of Two Hundred was a petitions court; membership was for life. This constitution was still in effect through the Medicean grand duchy, albeit the institutions decayed and powerless by the rule of Ferdinando II.

Over time, the Medici acquired several territories. They were: the County of Pitigliano; purchased off the Orsini family in 1604, the County of Santa Fiora, acquired from the House of Sforza in 1633, Spain ceded Pontremoli in 1650, Silvia Piccolomini sold her estates, the Marquisate of Castiglione at the time of Cosimo I, Lordship of Pietra Santa, and the Duchy of Capistrano and the città di Penna in the Kingdom of Naples.

Gian Gastone, the last Medici, resigned the grand duchy to Francis Stephen of Lorraine. Under him, Tuscany was ruled by a viceroy, Marc de Beauvau-Craon, Prince de Craon. Gian Gastone secured Tuscany's independence from the Holy Roman Empire, and Francis Stepehen altered the laws of succession in 1763, when he declared his second son, Leopold, heir to the grand duchy. If Leopold's line were to become extinct, it would revert to the main line. Every grand duke after Leopold resided in Florence. The grand duke Leopold II agreed to ratify a liberal constitution in 1848. The grand duke was briefly deposed by a provisional government in 1849. He was restored the same year by Austrian troops. The government was totally dissolved upon its annexation to the United Provinces of Central Italy in 1859.

Bibliography

Acton, Harold: The Last Medici, Macmillan, London, 1980, ISBN 0-333-29315-0

Strathern, Paul: The Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance, Vintage books, London, 2003, ISBN 978-0-099-52297-3

Hale, J.R.: Florence and the Medici, Orion books, London, 1977, ISBN 1-84212-456-0

Frieda, Leonie: Catherine de' Medici, Orion books, London, 2005, ISBN 0-75382-039-0

Booth, Cecily: Cosimo I—Duke of Florence, University Press, 1921

Woolrych, Humphry William: The history and results of the present capital punishments in England; to which are added, full tables of convictions, executions, etc., Saunders and Benning, 1832, (pre-dates use of the ISBN)

Jackson-Laufer, Guida Myrl: Women Rulers Throughout the Ages: An Illustrated Guide, ABC-CLIO, 1999, ISBN 978-1576070918

Parliamentary papers, Volume 16 By the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Parliament. House of Commons – Report on the Grand Duchy of Tuscany – John Bowring – 1839

Citations

See also

History of Tuscany

List of rulers of Tuscany

List of Tuscan consorts

Grand Princes of Tuscany

Grand Princesses of Tuscany

Line of succession to the Tuscan throne

External links

Information on Medici Family Members

The Papal Bull that created the Grand Duchy

Category:1859 disestablishments Category:States and territories established in 1569 Category:Tuscany * * * Category:History of Austria