The House of Medici or Famiglia de' Medici (; or ) was a political dynasty, banking family and later royal house that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici in the Republic of Florence during the late 14th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of the Tuscan countryside, gradually rising until they were able to found the Medici Bank. The bank was the largest in Europe during the 15th century, seeing the Medici gain political power in Florence — though ''officially'' they remained simply citizens rather than monarchs.

The Medici produced four Popes of the Catholic Church, two regent queens of France and in 1531 the family became hereditary Dukes of Florence. In 1569, the duchy was elevated to a grand duchy after territorial expansion. They ruled the Grand Duchy of Tuscany from its inception until 1737, with the death of Gian Gastone de' Medici. The grand duchy witnessed degrees of economic growth under the earlier grand dukes, but by the time of Cosimo III de' Medici, Tuscany was fiscally bankrupt.

Their wealth and influence initially derived from the textile trade guided by the guild of the ''Arte della Lana''. Like other signore families they dominated their city's government. They were able to bring Florence under their family's power, allowing for an environment where art and humanism could flourish. They fostered and inspired the birth of the Italian Renaissance along with other families of Italy, such as the Visconti and Sforza of Milan, the Este of Ferrara, and the Gonzaga of Mantua.

The Medici Bank was one of the most prosperous and most respected institutions in Europe. There are some estimates that the Medici family were the wealthiest family in Europe for a period of time. From this base, they acquired political power initially in Florence and later in wider Italy and Europe. A notable contribution to the profession of accounting was the improvement of the general ledger system through the development of the double-entry bookkeeping system for tracking credits and debits. This system was first used by accountants working for the Medici family in Florence.

History.

Origins

The Medici family came from the agricultural Mugello region, north of Florence, being mentioned for the first time in a document of 1230.The origin of the name is uncertain, although ''Medici'' is the plural of ''medico'', meaning "medical doctor".

Rise to power

The Medici family was connected to most other elite families of the time through strategic marriages, partnerships, or employment, as a result of which the Medici family had a position of centrality in the social network: several families had systematic access to the rest of the elite families only through the Medici, perhaps similar to banking relationships. This has been suggested as a reason for the rise of the Medici family. Members of the family rose to some prominence in the early 14th century in the wool trade, especially with France and Spain. Despite the presence of some Medici in the city's government institutions, they were still far less notable than other outstanding families such as the Albizzi or the Strozzi. One Salvestro de' Medici was speaker of the woolmakers' guild during the Ciompi revolt, and one Antonio was exiled from Florence in 1396. The involvement in another plot in 1400 caused all branches of the family to be banned from Florentine politics for twenty years, with the exception of two: from one of the latter, that of Averardo de' Medici, originated the Medici dynasty.

15th century

Averardo's son, Giovanni di Bicci, increased the wealth of the family through his creation of the Medici Bank, and became one of the richest men in the city of Florence. Although he never held any political charge, he gained strong popular support for the family through his support for the introduction of a proportional taxing system. Giovanni's son Cosimo the Elder took over in 1434 as gran maestro, and the Medici became unofficial heads of state of the Florentine republic.

"Cosimo, Piero, and Lorenzo, three successive generations of the Medici, ruled over Florence through the greater part of the 15th century, without altogether abolishing representative government, yet while clearly dominating it." These three members of the Medici family had great skills in the management of such a "restive and independent a city" as Florence, but "when Lorenzo died in 1492, his son Piero proved quite incapable, and within two years he and his supporters were forced into exile [with] a republican government replac[ing] him."

Piero de' Medici (1416–1469), Cosimo's son, stayed in power for only five years (1464–1469). He was called "Piero the Gouty" because of the gout that infected his foot, and it eventually led to his death. Unlike his father, Piero had little interest in the arts. Due to his illness, he mostly stayed at home bedridden, and therefore did little to further the Medici control of Florence while in power. As such, Medici rule stagnated until the next generation, when Piero's son Lorenzo took over. Piero's illegitimate son, Lenihanio, fled from Italy and lived in the Alps for 15 years.

Lorenzo de' Medici (1449–1492), called "the Magnificent", was more capable of leading and ruling a city; however, he neglected the family banking business, leading to its ultimate ruin. To ensure the continuance of his family's success, Lorenzo planned his children's future careers for them. He groomed the headstrong Piero II to follow as his successor in civil leadership; Giovanni (future Pope Leo X) was placed in the church at an early age; and his daughter Maddalena was provided with a sumptuous dowry when she made the politically advantageous marriage to a son of Pope Innocent VIII. There was a conspiracy in 1478 to kill Lorenzo with his brother Giuliano during Easter services, the assassination attempt ending with the death of Giuliano and only injuring Lorenzo (later Giuliano and Lorenzo were buried together in the Medici Chapel). The conspiracy involved the Pazzi and Salviati families, who were both rival banking families seeking to end the Medici influence, the priest presiding over the church services, the Archbishop of Pisa and even Pope Sixtus IV to a degree. The conspirators approached Sixtus IV in the hopes of gaining his approval, as he and the Medici had a long rivalry themselves, which the pope refused to officially give but allowed the plot to proceed nonetheless without interfering, and, after the failed assassination of Lorenzo, also gave dispensation for crimes in the service of the church. After this, Lorenzo adopted his illegitimate son, Giulio de' Medici (1478–1535), the future Clement VII. Unfortunately, all Lorenzo's careful planning fell apart to some degree under the incompetent Piero II, who took over as the head of Florence after his father Lorenzo's death. Piero was responsible for the expulsion of the Medici from 1494-1512.

16th Century

This exile lasted only until 1512, however, and the "senior" branch of the family — those descended from Cosimo the Elder — were able to rule on and off until the assassination of Alessandro de' Medici, first Duke of Florence, in 1537. This century-long rule was only interrupted on two occasions (between 1494–1512 and 1527–1530), when popular revolts sent the Medici into exile. Power then passed to the "junior" Medici branch — those descended from Lorenzo the Elder, younger son of Giovanni di Bicci, starting with his great-great-grandson Cosimo I the Great. The Medici's rise to power was chronicled in detail by Benedetto Dei. Cosimo and his father started the Medici foundations in banking, manufacturing - including a form of franchises - wealth, art, cultural patronage, and in the Papacy that ensured their success for generations. At least half, probably more, of Florence's people were employed by them and their foundational branches in business.

However, the Medici remained masters of Italy through their two famous 16th century popes, Leo X and Clement VII, who were ''de facto'' rulers of both Rome and Florence. They were both patrons of the arts, but in the religious field they proved unable to stem the advance of Martin Luther's ideas. Clement VII was the pope during the sack of Rome by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, and later was forced to crown him. Clement frequently changed his alliances between the Empire and France, which eventually led him to marry off his first cousin, twice removed, Catherine de' Medici, to the son of Francis I of France, the future Henry II of France. This led to the Medici blood being transferred, through Catherine's daughters, to the royal family of Spain through Elisabeth of Valois, and the House of Lorraine through Claude of Valois. Another Medici became Pope: Alessandro Ottaviano de' Medici (Leo XI).

The most outstanding figure of the 16th century Medici was Cosimo I, who, coming from relatively modest beginnings in the Mugello, rose to supremacy in the whole of Tuscany, conquering the Florentines' most hated rival Siena and founding the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Cosimo purchased a portion of the island of Elba from the Republic of Genoa and based the Tuscan navy there. He died in 1574, succeeded by his elder surviving son Francesco. His inability to produce male heirs led to the succession of his younger brother, Ferdinando, upon his death in 1587. Francesco married Johanna of Austria, and had Eleonora de' Medici, Duchess of Mantua, and Marie de' Medici, Queen of France and of Navarre. Through the latter, every succeeding French monarch (bar the Napoleons) are descended from Francesco.

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 Leghorn. 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. To strengthen the new Franco-Tuscan alliance, he married his niece, Marie, to Henry IV of France. Henry explicitly stated that he would defend Tuscany from Spanish aggression, but later reneged. Ferdinando was forced to marry his heir, Cosimo, to Maria Maddalena of Austria to assuage Spain (where Maria Maddalena's sister was the incumbent Queen consort). Ferdinando sponsored a Tuscan expedition to the New World with the intention of establishing a Tuscan colony. Despite all of these incentives to economic growth and prosperity, the population of Florence at the dawn of the 17th century was a mere 75,000, far smaller than the other capitals of Italy: Rome, Milan, Venice, Palermo and Naples. 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.

17th Century

Ferdinando, despite no longer being a cardinal, exercised much influence at successive conclaves. In 1605, Ferdinando succeeded in getting his candidate, Alessandro de' Medici, elected Pope Leo XI. He died the same month, but his successor, Pope Paul V, was also pro-Medici. 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; his inaction in international affairs, however, would have long-reaching consequences down the line.

In France, Marie de' Medici was acting as regent for her son, Louis XIII. Her pro-Habsburg policy was repudiated by Louis in 1617. She lived the rest of her life deprived of any political influence.

His successor, Cosimo II, reigned for less than 12 years. He married Maria Maddalena of Austria, with whom he had his eight children, including Margherita de' Medici, Ferdinando II de' Medici, and an Anna de' Medici. He is best remembered as the patron of astronomer Galileo Galilei, whose 1610 treatise, Sidereus Nuncius, was dedicated to him. He died of tuberculosis in 1621.

As his successor, his elder son, Ferdinando, was not yet of legal maturity, Maria Maddalena and his grandmother, Christina of Lorraine, acted as regents. Their collective regency is known as the ''Turtici''. Maria Maddelana's temperament was analogous to Christina's. Together, they aligned Tuscany with the Papacy; re-doubled the Tuscan clergy; and allowed the trial of Galileo Galilei to occur. Upon the death of the last Duke of Urbino, instead of claiming the duchy for Ferdinando, who was married to the Duke of Urbino's granddaughter, and heiress, Vittoria della Rovere, they permitted it to be annexed by Pope Urban VIII. In 1626, they banned any Tuscan subject from being educated outside the Grand Duchy, a law later resurrected by Maria Maddalena's grandson, Cosimo III. Harold Acton, an Anglo-Italian historian, ascribes the decline of Tuscany to them.

Grand Duke Ferdinado was obsessed with new technology, and had several hygrometers, barometers, thermometers, and telescopes installed in the Palazzo Pitti. In 1657, Leopoldo de' Medici, the Grand Duke’s youngest brother, established the Accademia del Cimento; set up to attract scientists from all over Tuscany to Florence for mutual study.

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 died on 23 May 1670 of apoplexy and dropsy. He was interred in the Basilica of San Lorenzo, the Medici's necropolis. At the time of his death, the population of the grand duchy was 730,594; the streets were lined with grass and the buildings on the verge of collapse in Pisa.

Ferdinando's marriage to Vittoria della Rovere produced two children: Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and Francesco Maria de' Medici, Duke of Rovere and Montefeltro. Upon her death in 1694, her allodial possessions, the Duchies of Rovere and Montefeltro, passed to her younger son.

18th century: the fall of the dynasty

Cosimo'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. This union was exceedingly discontent. It produced 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.

In 1705, the grand ducal treasury was virtually bankrupt and the population of Florence declined by 50%, and the population of the grand duchy as a whole by an estimated 40%. The Medici lacked male heirs. Cosimo desperately tried to reach a settlement with the European powers. Tuscany’s legal status was very complicated, the area of the grand duchy formerly comprising the Republic of Siena was technically a Spanish fief, while the territory of the old Republic of Florence was thought to be under imperial suzerainty. Upon the death of his first son, Cosimo contemplated restoring the Florentine republic, either upon Anna Maria Luisa's death, or on his own, if he predeceased her. The restoration of the republic would entail resigning Siena to the Holy Roman Empire, but, regardless; it was vehemently endorsed by his government. Europe largely ignored Cosimo’s plan, only England and the Dutch Republic gave any credence to it, and the plan ultimately died with Cosimo III in 1723.

On 4 April 1718, England, France and the Dutch Republic (and later Austria) selected Don Carlos of Spain, the elder child of Elisabeth Farnese and Philip V of Spain, as the Tuscan heir. By 1722, the Electress was not even acknowledged as heiress, and Cosimo was reduced to spectator at the conferences for Tuscany's future. On 25 October 1723, six days before his death, Grand Duke Cosimo disseminated a final proclamation commanding that Tuscany shall stay independent; Anna Maria Luisa shall succeed uninhibited to Tuscany after Gian Gastone; The Grand Duke reserves the right to choose his successor. Alas, these stanzas were completely ignored and he died a few days later.

Gian Gastone despised the Electress for engineering his catastrophic marriage to Anna Maria Franziska of Saxe-Lauenburg, while she abhorred her brother's liberal policies; he repealed all of his father's anti-Semitic statutes. Gian Gastone revelled in upsetting her. On 25 October 1731, a Spanish detachment occupied Florence on behalf of Don Carlos, who disembarked in Tuscany in December of the same year.

The ''Ruspanti'', Gian Gastone's decrepit entourage, loathed the Electress, and she them. Violante, Gian Gastone's sister-in-law, tried to withdraw the Grand Duke from the ''Ruspanti'' sphere of influence by organising banquets. His conduct at these was less than regal, he often vomited repeatedly into his napkin, belched, and regaled those present with inappropriate jokes. Following a sprained ankle in 1731, he remained confined to his bed for the rest of his life. The bed, oft smelling of faeces, was occasionally cleaned by Violante.

In 1736, following the War of the Polish Succession, Don Carlos was disbarred from Tuscany, and Francis III of Lorraine was made heir in his stead. In January 1737, the Spanish troops withdrew from Tuscany, and were replaced by Austrians.

Gian Gastone expired on 9 July 1737, surrounded by prelates and his sister. Anna Maria Luisa was offered a nominal regency by the Prince de Craon until the new Grand Duke could peregrinate to Tuscany, but declined. Upon her brother's death, she received all the House of Medici's allodial possessions.

Anna Maria Luisa signed the ''Patto di Famiglia'' on October 31, 1737. In collaboration with the Holy Roman Emperor and Grand Duke Francis of Lorraine, she willed all the personal property of the Medici to the Tuscan state, provided that nothing was ever removed from Florence.

The "Lorrainers", as the occupying forces were called, were popularly loathed. The Regent, the Prince de Craon, allowed the Electress to live unperturbed in the Pitti. She occupied herself with financing, and overseeing, the construction of the Basilica of San Lorenzo, started in 1604 by Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, to the tune of 1,000 crowns per week.

She donated much of her fortune to charity; £4,000 a month. On 19 February 1743, Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici, Dowager Electress Palatine, died. The Grand Ducal line of the House of Medici died with her. The Florentines grieved her. She was interred in the crypt that she helped to complete, San Lorenzo.

The extinction of the main Medici dynasty and the accession in 1737 of Francis Stephen, Duke of Lorraine and husband of Maria Theresa of Austria, led to Tuscany's temporary inclusion in the territories of the Austrian crown. The line of the principi di Ottajano, an extant branch of the House of Medici who were eligible to inherit the grand duchy of Tuscany when the last male of the senior branch died in 1737, but for intervention of Europe's major powers which allocated the sovereignty of Florence elsewhere. Consequently, it became a secundogeniture of the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty. The first Grand Duke of the new dynasty, Francis I, was a great-great-great-grandson of Francesco I de' Medici, thus continuing the Medicean Dynasty through the female line on the throne of Tuscany. The Hapsburgs were deposed for the Bourbon-Parma in 1801 (themselves deposed in 1807), restored at the Congress of Vienna; Tuscany became a province of the United Kingdom of Italy in 1861. However, several extant branches of the House of Medici currently continue to exist including the Princes of Ottajano, the Medici Tornaquinci, and the Verona Medici Counts of Caprara and Gavardo.

Legacy

The biggest accomplishments of the Medici were in the sponsorship of art and architecture, mainly early and High Renaissance art and architecture. The Medici were responsible for the majority of Florentine art during their reign. Their money was significant because during this period, artists generally only made their works when they received commissions in advance. Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici, the first patron of the arts in the family, aided Masaccio and commissioned Brunelleschi for the reconstruction of the Basilica of San Lorenzo, Florence in 1419. Cosimo the Elder's notable artistic associates were Donatello and Fra Angelico. The most significant addition to the list over the years was Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564), who produced work for a number of Medici, beginning with Lorenzo the Magnificent, who was said to be extremely fond of the young Michelangelo, inviting him to study the family collection of antique sculpture. Lorenzo also served as patron to Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) for seven years. Indeed Lorenzo was an artist in his own right, and author of poetry and song; his support of the arts and letters is seen as a high point in Medici patronage.

After Lorenzo's death the puritanical Dominican friar, Girolamo Savonarola rose to prominence, warning Florentines against excessive luxury. Under Savonarola's fanatical leadership, many great works were "voluntarily" destroyed in the Bonfire of the Vanities (February 7, 1497). The following year, on May 23, 1498, Savonarola and two young supporters were burned at the stake in the Piazza della Signoria, the same location as his bonfire. In addition to commissions for art and architecture, the Medici were prolific collectors and today their acquisitions form the core of the Uffizi museum in Florence. In architecture, the Medici are responsible for some notable features of Florence; including the Uffizi Gallery, the Boboli Gardens, the Belvedere, and the Palazzo Medici, Medici Chapel

Later, in Rome, the Medici Popes continued in the family tradition of patronizing artists. Pope Leo X would chiefly commission works from Raphael. Pope Clement VII commissioned Michelangelo to paint the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel just before the pontiff's death in 1534. Eleanor of Toledo, princess of Spain and wife of Cosimo I the Great, purchased the Pitti Palace from Buonaccorso Pitti in 1550. Cosimo in turn patronized Vasari who erected the Uffizi Gallery in 1560 and founded the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno – ("Academy of the Arts of Drawing") in 1563. Marie de' Medici, widow of Henry IV of France and mother of Louis XIII, is the subject of a commissioned cycle of paintings known as the Marie de' Medici cycle, painted for the Luxembourg Palace by court painter Peter Paul Rubens in 1622-23.

Although none of the Medici themselves were scientists, the family is well known to have been the patrons of the famous Galileo Galilei, who tutored multiple generations of Medici children, and was an important figurehead for his patron's quest for power. Galileo's patronage was eventually abandoned by Ferdinando II, when the Inquisition accused Galileo of heresy. However, the Medici family did afford the scientist a safe haven for many years. Galileo named the four largest moons of Jupiter after four Medici children he tutored, although the names Galileo used are not the names currently used.

Titles

Designation and details

List of heads of the Medici

''Signore'' in the Republic of Florence

{| width=90% class="wikitable" ! width=8% | Portrait ! width=20% | Name ! width=7% | From ! width=7% | Until ! width=20% | Relationship with predecessor |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Cosimo de' Medici (''Pater Patriae'') ||align="center"|1434||align="center"|1 August 1464||son of Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici who was not as prominently involved in Florentine politics, rather more involved in the financial area. |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Piero I de' Medici (''Piero the Gouty'') ||align="center"|1 August 1464||align="center"|2 December 1469||eldest son of Cosimo de' Medici. |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Lorenzo I de' Medici(''Lorenzo the Magnificent'') ||align="center"|2 December 1469||align="center"|9 April 1492||eldest son of Piero I de' Medici. |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Piero II de' Medici(''Piero the Unfortunate'') ||align="center"|9 April 1492||align="center"|8 November 1494||eldest son of Lorenzo the Magnificent. Overthrown when Charles VIII of France invaded as a full republic was restored, first under the theocracy of Girolamo Savonarola and then statesman Piero Soderini. |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici ||align="center"|31 August 1512||align="center"|9 March 1513||brother of Piero the Unfortunate, second son of Lorenzo the Magnificent. Elected to the Papacy, becoming ''Pope Leo X''. |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Giuliano de' Medici, Duke of Nemours ||align="center"|9 March 1513||align="center"|17 March 1516||brother of Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, third son of Lorenzo the Magnificent. |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Lorenzo II de' Medici, Duke of Urbino ||align="center"|17 March 1516||align="center"|4 May 1519||nephew of Giuliano de' Medici, Duke of Nemours, son of Piero the Unfortunate. |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Cardinal Giulio de' Medici ||align="center"|4 May 1519||align="center"|19 November 1523||cousin of Lorenzo II de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, son of Giuliano de' Medici who was the brother of Lorenzo the Magnificent. Elected to the Papacy, becoming ''Pope Clement VII''. |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici ||align="center"|19 November 1523||align="center"|24 October 1529||cousin of Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, illegitimate son of Giuliano de' Medici, Duke of Nemours. |- |}

Duke of Florence

{| width=90% class="wikitable" ! width=8% | Portrait ! width=20% | Name ! width=7% | From ! width=7% | Until ! width=20% | Relationship with predecessor |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Alessandro de' Medici, Duke of Florence (''il Moro'') ||align="center"|24 October 1529||align="center"|6 January 1537||cousin of Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, illegitimate son of Lorenzo II de' Medici, Duke of Urbino or Pope Clement VII. Acting ''signore'' during imperial Siege of Florence, made Duke in 1531. |- |}

Grand Dukes of Tuscany

{| width=90% class="wikitable" ! width=8% | Portrait ! width=20% | Name ! width=7% | From ! width=7% | Until ! width=20% | Relationship with predecessor |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany ||align="center"|6 January 1537||align="center"|21 April 1574||distant cousin of Alessandro de' Medici, son of Giovanni dalle Bande Nere. ''dei Popolani'' line descended from Lorenzo the Elder, brother of Cosimo de' Medici. Duke of Florence, 1537—1569, until being made Grand Duke of Tuscany. |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany ||align="center"|21 April 1574||align="center"|17 October 1587||eldest son of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany ||align="center"|17 October 1587||align="center"|17 February 1609||brother of Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, son of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Cosimo II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany ||align="center"|17 February 1609||align="center"|28 February 1621||eldest son of Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Ferdinando II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany ||align="center"|28 February 1621||align="center"|23 May 1670||eldest son of Cosimo II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany ||align="center"|23 May 1670||align="center"|31 October 1723||eldest son of Ferdinando II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. |- |align="center"|85px||align="center"|Gian Gastone de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany ||align="center"|31 October 1723||align="center"|9 July 1737||second son of Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. |- |}

See also

Republic of Florence

Albizzi

Duchy of Florence

Alberti

Italian Renaissance

Lorenzo de' Medici Timeline

Medici Chapel

Michelangelo and the Medici

Medici family tree

Grand Duchy of Tuscany

Pazzi

List of popes from the Medici family

Footnotes

References

Further reading

Jean Lucas-Dubreton, ''Daily Life in Florence in the Time of the Medici.''

External links

The Medici Archive Project

The Medici Archive Project Documentary Sources for the Arts and Humanities in the Medici Granducal Archive: 1537-1743

Prince Ottaviano de' Medici:Solving a 417-year-old murder mystery (May 4, 2004)

The Moscow Florentine Society

Medici Family Tree, featuring portraits and bios of key members of the Medici Dynasty, 1400-1737

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Category:Tuscany Category:Papal families Category:European royal families Category:Culture in Florence Category:History of Florence Category:History of Italy Category:Business families

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Brian Sewell (born 15 July 1931) is a British art critic and media personality. He writes for the London ''Evening Standard'' and is noted for artistic conservatism and his acerbic view of the Turner Prize and conceptual art. Sewell has been described as "Britain's most famous and controversial art critic".

Early life

Sewell was born and brought up in Kensington, London, and was educated at the independent Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School. Offered a place to read history at Oxford, Sewell chose instead to enter the Courtauld Institute of Art, where he was tutored by Anthony Blunt and became his close friend. Sewell graduated in 1957 and worked at Christie's auction house, specialising in Old Master paintings and drawings. After leaving Christie's he became an art dealer. He did his National Service in the Royal Army Service Corps, in which he was commissioned. He has since been a regular commentator on the ITV series ''Bad Lad's Army'', offering insight into 1950s military life. Like most art critics, Sewell is not actually an artist.

Art criticism

In 1984, he became art critic of the ''Evening Standard'' (replacing avant-garde critic Richard Cork). He won press awards including Critic of the Year in 1988, Arts Journalist of the Year in 1994, the Hawthornden Prize for Art Criticism in 1995 and the Foreign Press Award (Arts) in 2000. In April 2003, he was awarded the George Orwell Prize for his column in the ''Evening Standard''.

In criticisms of the Tate Gallery's art, he coined the phrase, the "Serota Tendency", after its director Nicholas Serota. It was not until the late 1990s that he became a household figure through television, though he was on BBC Radio 4 before then. He is known for formal, old-fashioned diction and anti-populist sentiments. He offended people in Gateshead by claiming an exhibition was too important to be held only at the town's Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art and should be shown to "more sophisticated" audiences in London; he has also disparaged Liverpool as a cultural city.

In 1994, 35 art world signatories wrote a letter to the ''Evening Standard'' attacking Sewell for "homophobia", "misogyny", "demagogy", "hypocrisy", "artistic prejudice", "formulaic insults and predictable scurrility". Signatories included Karsten Schubert, Maureen Paley, Michael Craig-Martin, Angela and Matthew Flowers, Professor Christopher Frayling, Rene Gimpel, Susan Hiller, John Hoyland, Sarah Kent, Nicholas Logsdail, George Melly, Sandy Nairne, Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, Bridget Riley, Michelle Roberts, Richard Shone, Marina Warner, Natalie Wheen, and Rachel Whiteread.

He responded with comments on many of the signatories, saying that Paley was "the curatrix of innumerable silly little Arts Council exhibitions", and that Whiteread was "mortified by my dismissal of her work for the Turner Prize". A letter supporting Sewell from 20 other art world signatories accused the writers of attempted censorship to promote "a relentless programme of neo-conceptual art in all the main London venues".

Sewell's attitude to female artists has been controversial. In July 2008 he was quoted in ''The Independent'' as saying:

"The art market is not sexist. The likes of Bridget Riley and Louise Bourgeois are of the second and third rank. There has never been a first-rank woman artist. Only men are capable of aesthetic greatness. Women make up 50 per cent or more of classes at art school. Yet they fade away in their late 20s or 30s. Maybe it's something to do with bearing children."

Sewell does not hold his tongue regarding his opinions, and has frequently insulted the general public for their views on art. Consequently, he is more known for controversy than art criticism among many. He has issued quotes such as the following regarding public praise for the work of Banksy in Bristol:

"The public doesn't know good from bad. For this city to be guided by the opinion of people who don't know anything about art is lunacy. It doesn't matter if they [the public] like it."

He went on to assert that Banksy himself "should have been put down at birth." Clive Anderson has described him as "a man intent on keeping his Christmas card list nice and short."

Sewell is also known for his disdain for Damien Hirst, describing him as "fucking dreadful".

Television

In 2003, Sewell made a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, as a documentary called ''The Naked Pilgrim'', produced by Wag TV for Channel 5. Although he has not practised for decades, Sewell considers himself a Roman Catholic, prompting an emotional response to the faith of pilgrims at Lourdes. The series attracted large audiences and won the Sandford St. Martin Trust award for Best Religious Programme. Following ''The Naked Pilgrim'' Sewell presented on two more series for Channel 5: ''Brian Sewell's Phantoms & Shadows: 100 Years of Rolls-Royce'' in 2004 and ''Brian Sewell's Grand Tour'', 2006. Sewell also appeared as a guest film reviewer on Channel 5's ''Movie Lounge'', where he frequently savaged films.

In ''Dirty Dalí: A Private View'' on Channel 4 on 3 June 2007, Sewell described his acquaintance with Salvador Dalí in the late 1960s, which included lying in the foetal position without trousers in the armpit of a figure of Christ and masturbating for Dalí, who pretended to take photos while fumbling in his trousers. Sewell has appeared twice as panellist on the BBC's news quiz ''Have I Got News For You?'' and tried to teach cricketer Phil Tufnell about art in ITV's ''Don't Call Me Stupid''.

He acted as Big Brother during 2008's ''Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack''.

Sewell was the voice of Sir Kiftsgate in an episode of the children's cartoon ''The Big Knights''. He also has a programme on Voom HD Network's Art Channel: Gallery HD called ''Brian Sewell's Grand Tour'', in which he tours beautiful cities (primarily in Italy) visiting museums, towns, churches, historic sights, public squares, monuments, profound architectural spots and meeting a local to discuss culture and art. Sewell reflects the 18th century, giving the perspective of what it would have been like as a 'Grand Tourist'. Then he elaborates on what has become of these sights and lost throughout history.

In a 2009 BBC documentary about the so-called North-South Divide, presented by ex-Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, Sewell caused controversy by declaring that the solution to the divide was to send a pox or a plague upon the North so that the people there can all just die quietly.

Television credits

{|class=wikitable !Year!!Programme!!Role!!Broadcaster |- |2007 || Dirty Dalì: A Private View || Art critic || Channel 4 |- |2006 || Timeshift: The Da Vinci Code: The Greatest Story Ever Sold || Art critic || BBC |- |2006 || Movie Lounge || Film critic || Channel 5 |- |2006 || Brian Sewell's Grand Tour (10 episodes) || Presenter || Channel 5 |- |2004 || Brian Sewell's Phantoms & Shadows: 100 Years of Rolls-Royce || Presenter || Channel 5 |- |2003 || The Naked Pilgrim (6 episodes) || Presenter || Channel 5 |- |1996 || The Works: Minette Walters and the Missing Masterpiece || Art historian || BBC |}

Other activities

Sewell is a museum adviser in South Africa, Germany and the United States. He is also a patron of the British charity NORM-UK which raises awareness of circumcision and other forms of surgical alteration of the genitals. Sewell has also provided voice-overs for a variety of television commercials including the Victoria and Albert Museum and feta cheese.

Brian Sewell is also a noted aficionado of classic automobiles, a fan of stock car racing and over several decades has written extensively about cars, classic and contemporary, in the ''Evening Standard'' and elsewhere. In both his TV series, on the pilgrimage to Santiago and the Grand Tour (see above), he drove his venerable Mercedes-Benz 560 SEC coupé.

Personal life

In a television programme broadcast on Channel 4 on 24 July 2007, marking the 40th anniversary of the passing of the Sexual Offences Act 1967 which partially decriminalized homosexuality in England and Wales, Sewell said, "I never came out... but I have slowly emerged". Sewell is bisexual but rather chastises himself for this, describing his attraction to men 'as an "affliction" and a "disability" and [told] readers, "no homosexual has ever chosen this sexual compulsion"'. In the first episode of ''The Naked Pilgrim'' Sewell alluded to the loss of his virginity at the hands of a 60-year-old French woman "who knew what she was doing and was determined"; Sewell was 20 at the time.

In an interview for ''That's Mad'' website, Sewell revealed that he suffers from depression, and as a cure usually just sleeps for a long time during the more severe phases.

John Humphrys, in his book ''Lost for Words'', writes "They (people who deliberately speak 'poshly') try to speak like the Queen or even Brian Sewell, the only man I have ever met who makes the Queen sound common."

References

Category:1931 births Category:Alumni of the Courtauld Institute of Art Category:English art critics Category:English journalists Category:English television personalities Category:English writers Category:Bisexual writers Category:Genital integrity activists Category:LGBT journalists Category:LGBT people from England Category:LGBT television personalities Category:Living people Category:Old Haberdashers Category:People from Kensington Category:Royal Army Service Corps officers

name	Isabelle de Borchgrave
birth date	1946
birth place	Brussels, Belgium
nationality	Belgian
field	painting, paper sculpture, installation art, collage
training	Centre des Arts Décoratifs, Brussels, Belgium. Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium
website	}}

Isabelle de Borchgrave (born 1946 in Brussels, Belgium) is a prominent Belgian artist and sculptor, best known for her colorful paintings and intricately painted paper sculptures.

Early life

Countess Isabelle de Borchgrave d'Altena was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1946. Since early childhood, she had a passion for drawing. Pencils were her first toys, and she made drawings on everything in sight, including the walls and floor of her room. She began her studies at age 14 at the Centre des Arts Décoratifs, and, later – at Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, where her days were filled with drawing still-lifes and form models. De Borchgrave worked in advertising for less than a year after she had finished studying, and then made clothes for her friends before branching out into interior design. She later established her own studio, designing dresses, scarves, jewelry and accessories. In particular, de Borchgrave specialized in designing fabrics.

Career

Following a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1994, Isabelle dreamed up paper costumes. While keeping her brushes in hand and her paintings in mind, she worked on four big collections, all in paper and trompe-l'œil, each of which set the scene for a very different world. "Papiers à la Mode" (Paper in Fashion), the first, was a collaborative effort with the renowned Canadian costume designer Rita Brown and took a fresh look at 300 years of fashion history, from Elizabeth I to Coco Chanel. "Mariano Fortuny" dealt with the world of 19th century Venice, paying particular attention to the elegant plissés and veils. "I Medici" was a trompe-l'œil installation of famous Florentine figures in their ceremonial dress, who made the Renaissance a luminous period, with intricate gold-braiding, pearls, silk and velvet. Then came Sergei Diaghilev's "Ballets Russes," that paid tribute to the illustrious impressario, as well as the artists Pablo Picasso, Léon Bakst and Henri Matisse, all of whom designed costumes for this ballet company.

A major turning point in de Borchgrave's career came in 1998 with her exhibition, "Papier à la Mode," at Musée de l'Impression sur Etoffes in Mulhouse, France. It consisted of thirty lifesize outfits made of painted paper. "Papier à la Mode," which ''The New York Times'' called "pure delight", toured France, the United States and Asia. As it traveled, de Borchgrave expanded it - with costumes from the wardrobes of Queen Elizabeth I of England, Marie Antoinette and the Empress Eugénie, consort of Napoleon III, while it was in Japan, and adding Ottoman kaftans in Turkey.

Over the years, de Borchgrave's paper creations have ranged from an elaborate headdress in the shape of a caravel in full sail, worn by Marie Antoinette, to some oversized roses for John Galliano's haute couture show for Christian Dior, to a subtle, white on white wedding dress train worn by HRH Princess Annemarie of Bourbon-Parma at her wedding with Prince Carlos of Bourbon-Parma. She was also commissioned to recreate Jackie Kennedy's wedding gown for the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston. "It was dusty and fragile, wrapped up in black tissue paper," de Borchgrave recalls in a story in ''Daily Telegraph''. "The silk was dead, you couldn't touch it any more. It was preserved like a relic. The original is dead, but the paper one brings it to life again." In 2004, de Borchgrave designed and made a delicate, painted paper dress for Queen Fabiola of Belgium, which the queen wore to the wedding of Prince Felipe of Spain in Madrid.

In 2008, a colorful installation of over 80 pieces by Isabelle de Borchgrave opened at the Fortuny Museum in Venice, Italy. Entitled "Un mondo di carta - Isabelle de Borchgrave incontra Mariano Fortuny," ("A World of Paper: Isabelle de Borchgrave Meets Mariano Fortuny") the exhibition was spread over the historic palazzo's three floors and included versions of Fortuny's classic, finely pleated "Delphos" dress, as well as robes, accessories, shoes, boots, a stage set, an oriental tent, rugs, cushions, a lute and antique swords, often intermingling with the master's own works and collection, and all made of painted paper. Reviewing the installation for ''The World of Interiors'' magazine, author Barbara Stoeltie wrote, "Isabelle de Borchgrave freely shares her adventures in beauty – a beauty that, beneath her gaze and from her fingertips, pours out unstintingly. Tubes of paint, boxes of pastels, sheaves of brushes of all sizes and all kinds of glue gleefully take part in her marvellous game. The work itself rejoices."

In 2008, a lavishly illustrated hardcover monograph "Paper Illusions: The Art of Isabelle de Borchgrave" was published in the United States by Abrams. Within weeks, the book was declared by ''The New York Times'' to be one of "the best gift books of 2008" and "among the most unusual and fascinating... seen in a long time." The monograph was authored by the well-known writer and photographer duo, Barbara and René Stoeltie, with an introduction of Hubert de Givenchy, who said of de Borchgrave, "Isabelle is one of a kind; with a single sheet of paper, she creates the most beautiful dresses, the finest costumes, or, simply, a chain of white roses...Whether it becomes a shoe, a hat or a few strings of pearls, [Isabelle plays] with paper as a virtuoso plays an instrument."

In February 2011, a large scale installation entitled "Pulp Fashion: The Art of Isabelle de Borchgrave" opened to great acclaim at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco. The retrospective exhibition, described by the museum officials as "trompe l'oeil masterpieces," is presented in six sections: "The Artist's Studio" is recreated to provide insight into de Borchgrave's creative process; "In White" showcases the purity of craftsmanship in a selection of nine dresses devoid of color; "Papiers à la Mode" features iconic looks from key periods in fashion history, and legendary designers such as Charles Worth, Paul Poiret and Coco Chanel are represented by signature pieces; "Fortuny" is an immersive environment created under a paper tent populated by recreations of Fortuny's famed pleated and draped gowns; "The Medici" is the artist's most extravagant series, with elaborate velvets, needlework lace, ropes of pearls, and intricate coiffures transformed into paper sculptures, and "Inspiration"— de Borchgrave's latest body of work, inspired by four paintings from the Legion of Honor's collection that she admired during her visit to the museum in the summer of 2010. The paintings were: Massimo Stanzione, Woman in Neapolitan Costume, ca. 1635, Konstantin Makovsky, The Russian Bride's Attire, 1889, Jacob Ferdinand Voet, Anna Caffarelli Minuttiba, ca. 1675, and Anthony van Dyck, Marie Claire de Cory and Child, 1634. Quoted in the ''San Francisco Chronicle'', John Buchanan, the Museum's director, called the exhibition "pure poetry". "This is the coolest thing I've ever seen," he added. The installation, which Isabelle de Borchgrave called "a wink at history," will be on view through 5 June 2011.

In de Borchgrave's art, the starting point is almost always the same: sheets of paper one meter by one and a half meters (3.3 feet by 4.9 feet), which she sets to work on with her brushes and paints on an enormous linen-covered table in her studio in Brussels. "Her colors, reports ''The New York Times,'' "are very much inspired by her travels: reds from the roses of Turkey, earth hues from Egypt, blues from Greece...Borchgrave produces astonishing effects of scintillating color, weight, transparency and texture. Her renderings of diaphanous gauzes are especially astonishing."

Isabelle de Borchgrave's work has been widely collected by major museums and private collectors worldwide. She is represented in the U.S. by the Serge Sorokko Gallery.

Personal life

Isabelle de Borchgrave married Count Werner de Borchgrave d'Altena in 1975. They have two children – a son ( Nicolas ) and a daughter ( Pauline). The couple resides in Brussels, Belgium.

Museum Exhibitions

In 2011, a large scale exhibition "Pulp Fashion" opened at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco, California. In 2011, a paper crinoline dress by Isabelle de Borchgrave was on exhibit at the "Pour Rire ! Daumier, Gavarni, Rops" show at the Félicien Rops Museum in Namur, Belgium. In 2010, a large scale installation "I Medici" opened at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels, Belgium

In 2010, paper sculptures by Isabelle de Borchgrave were on exhibit at the "Shoe, Shoe...Shoes" exhibition at Izegem Museum in Izegem, Belgium.

In 2010, a paper dress by Isabelle de Borchgrave was included in the exhibition "Extending the Runway: Tatiana Sorokko Style" at the Phoenix Art Museum in Phoenix, Arizona. In 2009, "Medici - Il sogno ritorna: Isabelle de Borchgrave a Palazzo Medici Riccardi" exhibition opened at the Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence, Italy. In 2009, Isabelle de Borchgrave's Elizabethan costume created out of painted paper was on display at "Art and Illusions: Masterpieces of Trompe l'Oeil From Antiquity to the Present Day" exhibition at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, Italy. In 2008, a large scale installation "Rêves de Papier - Isabelle de Borchgrave interprète Mariano Fortuny" opened at the Musée des Tissus in Lyon, France, In 2008, "Papier à la Mode" exhibition opened at Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado in Sao Paulo, Brasil. In 2008, "Un mondo di carta - Isabelle de Borchgrave incontra Mariano Fortuny", a large, three floor installation opened at Fortuny Museum in Venice, Italy. In 2007, paper sculptures by Isabelle de Borchgrave, commissioned by the museum, went on exhibit at the "Decorative Arts of the Kings" exhibition at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2007, Isabelle de Borchgrave's paper recreation of Christian Dior's Bar Suit was included at "RRRIPP!! Paper Fashion," exhibition at the Benaki Museum, in Athens, Greece.

In 2005, an exhibition entitled "Papier à la Mode" opened at the Grand Ducal Palace in Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

In 2004, an exhibition entitled "Papier à la Mode" opened at Sadberk Hanım Museum in Istanbul, Turkey.

In 2004, an exhibition entitled "Papier à la Mode" opened at Mode Natie Museum in Antwerp, Belgium.

In 2002, an exhibition entitled "Papiers à la Mode" opened at the Kushiro Art Museum in Hokkaido, Japan.

In 2002, an exhibition entitled "Papiers à la Mode" opened at the Daimaru Museum in Osaka, Japan.

In 2002, an exhibition entitled "Papiers à la Mode" opened at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada. In 2000, an exhibition entitled "Papiers à la Mode" opened at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, UK.

In 2000, an exhibition entitled "Papiers à la Mode" opened at the Flanders Fashion Institute in Antwerp, Belgium.

In 1999, an exhibition entitled "Papiers à la Mode" opened at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts.

In 1999, an exhibition entitled "Papiers à la Mode: Illusions of Fashion," opened at the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, NY. In 1998, an exhibition entitled "Papiers à la Mode" opened at the Musée de l'Impression sur Etoffes in Mulhouse, France.

Bibliography

References

External links

Isabelle de Borchgrave: Recent Paintings and Sculptures at Serge Sorokko Gallery

New exhibit features fashions made from paper on ABC KGO-TV

Isabelle de Borchgrave on RTL TVI

IIsabelle de Borchgrave at Palazzo Medici Riccardi on Vimeo

Category:1946 births Category:Contemporary sculptors Category:Installation artists Category:People from Brussels Category:Belgian sculptors Category:Contemporary painters Category:Belgian painters Category:Contemporary artists Category:Women painters Category:Living people

fr:Isabelle de Borchgrave ru:Боршграв, Изабель де

name	Catherine de' Medici
full name	Caterina Maria Romula di Lorenzo de' Medici
succession	Queen consort of France
reign	31 March 1547 – 10 July 1599
coronation	10 June 1549
spouse	Henry II of France
issue	Francis II of FranceElisabeth, Queen of SpainClaude, Duchess of LorraineCharles IX of FranceHenry III of FranceMargaret, Queen of FranceFrancis, Duke of AnjouLouis of ValoisJoan of ValoisVictoria of Valois
house	House of ValoisHouse of Medici
father	Lorenzo II de' Medici, Duke of Urbino
mother	Madeleine de La Tour d'Auvergne
birth date	13 April 1519
birth place	Florence
death date	January 05, 1589
death place	Château de Blois, France
place of burial	Saint-Sauveur, Blois. Reburied at Saint-Denis in 1610.

Catherine de' Medici (Florence, 13 April 1519 – Château de Blois, 5 January 1589) was an Italian noblewoman who was Queen consort of France from 1547 until 1559, as the wife of King Henry II of France.

In 1533, at the age of fourteen, Caterina married Henry, second son of King Francis I and Queen Claude of France. Under the gallicised version of her name, Catherine de Médicis, she was Queen consort of France as the wife of King Henry II of France from 1547 to 1559. Throughout his reign, Henry excluded Catherine from participating in state affairs and instead showered favours on his chief mistress, Diane de Poitiers, who wielded much influence over him. Henry's death thrust Catherine into the political arena as mother of the frail fifteen-year-old King Francis II. When he died in 1560, she became regent on behalf of her ten-year-old son King Charles IX and was granted sweeping powers. After Charles died in 1574, Catherine played a key role in the reign of her third son, Henry III. He dispensed with her advice only in the last months of her life.

Catherine's three sons reigned in an age of almost constant civil and religious war in France. The problems facing the monarchy were complex and daunting. At first, Catherine compromised and made concessions to the rebelling Protestants, or Huguenots, as they became known. She failed, however, to grasp the theological issues that drove their movement. Later, she resorted in frustration and anger to hard-line policies against them. In return, she came to be blamed for the excessive persecutions carried out under her sons' rule, in particular for the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572, in which thousands of Huguenots were killed in Paris and throughout France.

Some historians have excused Catherine from blame for the worst decisions of the crown, though evidence for her ruthlessness can be found in her letters. In practice, her authority was always limited by the effects of the civil wars. Her policies, therefore, may be seen as desperate measures to keep the Valois monarchy on the throne at all costs, and her patronage of the arts as an attempt to glorify a monarchy whose prestige was in steep decline. Without Catherine, it is unlikely that her sons would have remained in power. The years in which they reigned have been called "the age of Catherine de' Medici".

Birth and upbringing

Catherine was born in Florence, Italy, as Caterina Maria Romula di Lorenzo de' Medici. The Medici family was at the time the ''de facto'' rulers of Florence: originally bankers, they came to great wealth and power by bankrolling the monarchies of Europe. Catherine's father, Lorenzo II de' Medici, was made Duke of Urbino by his uncle Pope Leo X, and the title reverted to Francesco Maria I della Rovere after Lorenzo's death. Thus, even though her father was a duke, Catherine was of relatively low birth. However her mother, Madeleine de la Tour d'Auvergne, the Countess of Boulogne, was from one of the most prominent and ancient French noble families; this prestigious maternal heritage was of benefit to her future marriage to a Royal Prince of France.

According to a contemporary chronicler, when Catherine de' Medici was born, her parents, were "as pleased as if it had been a boy". Madeleine died on 28 April and Lorenzo died on 4 May. The young couple were married the year before at Amboise as part of the alliance between King Francis I of France and Pope Leo against the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. King Francis wanted Catherine to be raised at the French court, but Pope Leo had other plans for her. He intended to marry her to his brother's illegitimate son, Ippolito de' Medici, and set them up to rule Florence.

Catherine was first cared for by her paternal grandmother, Alfonsina Orsini (wife of Piero de' Medici). After Alfonsina's death in 1520, Catherine joined her cousins and was raised by her aunt, Clarice Strozzi. The death of Pope Leo in 1521 interrupted Medici power briefly, until Cardinal Giulio de' Medici was elected Pope Clement VII in 1523. Clement housed Catherine in the Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence, where she lived in state. The Florentine people called her ''duchessina'' ("the little duchess"), in deference to her unrecognised claim to the Duchy of Urbino.

In 1527, the Medici were overthrown in Florence by a faction opposed to the regime of Clement's representative, Cardinal Silvio Passerini, and Catherine was taken hostage and placed in a series of convents. Clement had no choice but to crown Charles Holy Roman Emperor in return for his help in retaking the city. In October 1529, Charles's troops laid siege to Florence. As the siege dragged on, voices called for Catherine to be killed and exposed on the city walls. Soldiers made her ride through the streets on a donkey, jeered by an angry crowd. The city finally surrendered on 12 August 1530. Clement called Catherine to Rome and greeted her with open arms and tears in his eyes. Then he set about the business of finding her a husband.

Marriage

On her visit to Rome, the Venetian envoy described Catherine as "small of stature, and thin, and without delicate features, but having the protruding eyes peculiar to the Medici family". Suitors, however, lined up for her hand, including James V of Scotland who sent the Duke of Albany to Clement to conclude a marriage in April and November 1530. When Francis I of France proposed his second son, Henry, Duke of Orléans, in early 1533, Clement jumped at the offer. Henry was a prize catch for Catherine, who despite her wealth was from commoner origins.

The wedding, a grand affair marked by extravagant display and gift-giving, took place in Marseille on 28 October 1533. Prince Henry danced and jousted for Catherine. The fourteen-year-old couple left their wedding ball at midnight to perform their nuptial duties. Henry arrived in the bedroom with King Francis, who is said to have stayed until the marriage was consummated. He noted that "each had shown valour in the joust". Clement visited the newlyweds in bed the next morning and added his blessings to the night's proceedings.

Catherine saw little of her husband in their first year of marriage, but the ladies of the court treated her well, impressed with her intelligence and keenness to please. The death of Pope Clement VII on 25 September 1534, however, undermined Catherine's standing in the French court. The next pope, Paul III, broke the alliance with France and refused to pay her huge dowry. King Francis lamented, "The girl has come to me stark naked."

Prince Henry showed no interest in Catherine as a wife; instead, he openly took mistresses. For the first ten years of the marriage, Catherine failed to produce any children. In 1537, on the other hand, Philippa Duci, one of Henry's mistresses, gave birth to a daughter, whom he publicly acknowledged. This proved that Henry was fertile and added to the pressure on Catherine to produce a child.

Dauphine

In 1536, Henry's older brother, Francis, caught a chill after a game of tennis, contracted a fever, and died, leaving Henry the heir. As Dauphine, Catherine was now expected to provide a future heir to the throne. According to the court chronicler Brantôme, "many people advised the king and the Dauphin to repudiate her, since it was necessary to continue the line of France". Divorce was discussed. In desperation, Catherine tried every known trick for getting pregnant, such as placing cow dung and ground stags' antlers on her "source of life", and drinking mule's urine. On 20 January 1544, she at last gave birth to a son, named after King Francis.

After becoming pregnant once, Catherine had no trouble doing so again. She may have owed her change of luck to the physician Jean Fernel, who had noticed slight abnormalities in the couple's sexual organs and advised them how to solve the problem. Catherine went on to bear Henry a further nine children, seven of whom survived infancy, including the future Charles IX (born 27 June 1550); the future Henry III (born 19 September 1551); and Francis, Duke of Anjou (born 18 March 1555). The long-term future of the Valois dynasty, which had ruled France since the 14th century, seemed assured.

Catherine's new-found ability to bear children, however, failed to improve her marriage. In 1538, at the age of nineteen, Henry had taken as his mistress the thirty-eight year old Diane de Poitiers, whom he adored for the rest of his life. Even so, he respected Catherine's status as his consort. When King Francis I died in 1547 Catherine became queen consort of France. She was crowned in the basilica of Saint-Denis in June 1549.

Queen of France

Henry allowed Catherine almost no political influence as queen. Although she sometimes acted as regent during his absences from France, her powers were strictly nominal. Henry gave the Château of Chenonceau, which Catherine had wanted for herself, to Diane de Poitiers, who took her place at the centre of power, dispensing patronage and accepting favours.

The imperial ambassador reported that in the presence of guests, Henry would sit on Diane's lap and play the guitar, chat about politics, or fondle her breasts. Diane never regarded Catherine as a threat. She even encouraged the king to sleep with her and father more children. In 1556, Catherine nearly died giving birth to twin daughters. Surgeons saved her life by breaking the legs of one of the two babies, who died in her womb. The surviving daughter died seven weeks later. Catherine had no more children.

Henry's reign also saw the rise of the Guise brothers, Charles, who became a cardinal, and Henry's boyhood friend Francis, who became Duke of Guise. Their sister Mary of Guise had married James V of Scotland in 1538 and was the mother of Mary, Queen of Scots. At the age of five and a half, Mary was brought to the French court, where she was promised to the Dauphin, Francis. Catherine brought her up with her own children at the French court, while Mary of Guise governed Scotland as her daughter's regent.

On 3–4 April 1559, Henry signed the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis with the Holy Roman Empire and England, ending a long period of Italian wars. The treaty was sealed by the betrothal of Catherine's thirteen-year-old daughter Elisabeth to Philip II of Spain. Their proxy wedding in Paris on 22 June 1559 was celebrated with festivities, balls, masques, and five days of jousting.

King Henry took part in the jousting, sporting Diane's black-and-white colours. He defeated the dukes of Guise and Nemours, but the young Gabriel, comte de Montgomery, knocked him half out of the saddle. Henry insisted on riding against Montgomery again, and this time, Montgomery's lance shattered into the king's face. Henry reeled out of the clash, his face pouring blood, with splinters "of a good bigness" sticking out of his eye and head. Catherine, Diane, and Prince Francis all fainted. Henry was carried to the Château de Tournelles, where five splinters of wood were extracted from his head, one of which had pierced his eye and brain. Catherine stayed by his bedside, but Diane kept away, "for fear", in the words of a chronicler, "of being expelled by the Queen". For the next ten days, Henry's state fluctuated. At times he even felt well enough to dictate letters and listen to music. Slowly, however, he lost his sight, speech, and reason, and on 10 July 1559 he died. From that day, Catherine took a broken lance as her emblem, inscribed with the words "''lacrymae hinc, hinc dolor''" ("from this come my tears and my pain"), and wore black mourning in memory of Henry.

Queen mother

Reign of Francis II

Francis II became king at the age of fifteen. In what has been called a ''coup d'état'', the Cardinal of Lorraine and the Duke of Guise—whose niece, Mary, Queen of Scots, had married Francis the year before—seized power the day after Henry II's death and quickly moved themselves into the Louvre with the young couple. The English ambassador reported a few days later that "the house of Guise ruleth and doth all about the French king". For the moment, Catherine worked with the Guises out of necessity. She was not strictly entitled to a role in Francis's government, because he was deemed old enough to rule for himself. Nevertheless, all his official acts began with the words: "This being the good pleasure of the Queen, my lady-mother, and I also approving of every opinion that she holdeth, am content and command that ...." Catherine did not hesitate to exploit her new authority. One of her first acts was to force Diane de Poitiers to hand over the crown jewels and return the Château de Chenonceau to the crown. She later did her best to efface or outdo Diane's building work there. When the Guises heard of the plot, they moved the court to the fortified Château of Amboise. The Duke of Guise launched an attack into the woods around the château. His troops surprised the rebels and killed many of them on the spot, including the commander, La Renaudie. Others they drowned in the river or strung up around the battlements while Catherine and the court watched.

In June 1560, Michel de l'Hôpital was appointed Chancellor of France. He sought the support of France's constitutional bodies and worked closely with Catherine to defend the law in the face of the growing anarchy. Neither saw the need to punish Protestants who worshipped in private and did not take up arms. On 20 August 1560, Catherine and the chancellor advocated this policy to an assembly of notables at Fontainebleau. Historians regard the occasion as an early example of Catherine's statesmanship. Meanwhile, Condé raised an army and in autumn 1560 began attacking towns in the south. Catherine ordered him to court and had him imprisoned as soon as he arrived. He was tried in November, found guilty of offences against the crown, and sentenced to execution. His life was saved by the illness and death of the king, as a result of an infection or an abscess in his ear.

When Catherine had realized Francis was going to die, she made a pact with Antoine de Bourbon by which he would renounce his right to the regency of the future king, Charles IX, in return for the release of his brother Condé. As a result, when Francis died on 5 December 1560, the Privy Council appointed Catherine as governor of France (''gouvernante de France''), with sweeping powers. She wrote to her daughter Elisabeth: "My principal aim is to have the honour of God before my eyes in all things and to preserve my authority, not for myself, but for the conservation of this kingdom and for the good of all your brothers".

Reign of Charles IX

At first Catherine kept the nine-year-old king, who cried at his coronation, close to her, and slept in his chamber. She presided over his council, decided policy, and controlled state business and patronage. However, she was never in a position to control the country as a whole, which was on the brink of civil war. In many parts of France the rule of nobles held sway rather than that of the crown. The challenges Catherine faced were complex and in some ways difficult for her to comprehend as a foreigner.

She summoned church leaders from both sides to attempt to solve their doctrinal differences. Despite her optimism, the resulting Colloquy of Poissy ended in failure on 13 October 1561, dissolving itself without her permission. Catherine failed because she saw the religious divide only in political terms. In the words of historian R. J. Knecht, "she underestimated the strength of religious conviction, imagining that all would be well if only she could get the party leaders to agree". In January 1562, Catherine issued the tolerant Edict of Saint-Germain in a further attempt to build bridges with the Protestants. On 1 March 1562, however, in an incident known as the Massacre of Vassy, the Duke of Guise and his men attacked worshipping Huguenots in a barn at Vassy (Wassy), killing 74 and wounding 104. Guise, who called the massacre "a regrettable accident", was cheered as a hero in the streets of Paris while the Huguenots called for revenge. The massacre lit the fuse that sparked the French Wars of Religion. For the next thirty years, France found itself in a state of either civil war or armed truce.

Within a month Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Condé, and Admiral Gaspard de Coligny had raised an army of 1,800. They formed an alliance with England and seized town after town in France. Catherine met Coligny, but he refused to back down. She therefore told him: "Since you rely on your forces, we will show you ours". The royal army struck back quickly and laid siege to Huguenot-held Rouen. Catherine visited the deathbed of Antoine de Bourbon, King of Navarre, after he was fatally wounded by an arquebus shot. Catherine insisted on visiting the field herself and when warned of the dangers laughed, "My courage is as great as yours". The Catholics took Rouen, but their triumph was short lived. On 18 February 1563, a spy called Poltrot de Méré fired an arquebus into the back of the Duke of Guise, at the siege of Orléans. The murder triggered an aristocratic blood feud that complicated the French civil wars for years to come. Catherine, however, was delighted with the death of her ally. "If Monsieur de Guise had perished sooner", she told the Venetian ambassador, "peace would have been achieved more quickly". On 19 March 1563, the Edict of Amboise, also known as the Edict of Pacification, ended the war. Catherine now rallied both Huguenot and Catholic forces to retake Le Havre from the English.

Huguenots

On 17 August 1563, Charles IX was declared of age at the Parlement of Rouen, but he was never able to rule on his own and showed little interest in government. Catherine decided to launch a drive to enforce the Edict of Amboise and revive loyalty to the crown. To this end, she set out with Charles and the court on a progress around France that lasted from January 1564 until May 1565. Catherine held talks with the Protestant Queen Jeanne III of Navarre at Mâcon and Nérac. She also met her daughter Elisabeth at Bayonne near the Spanish border, amidst lavish court festivities. Philip II excused himself from the occasion. He sent the Duke of Alba to tell Catherine to scrap the Edict of Amboise and to find punitive solutions to the problem of heresy.

In 1566, through the ambassador to the Ottoman Empire Guillaume de Grandchamp de Grantrie and because of a long-standing Franco-Ottoman alliance, Charles IX of France and Catherine de Medicis proposed to the Ottoman Court a plan to resettle French Huguenots and French and German Lutherans in Ottoman-controlled Moldavia, in order to create a military colony and a buffer against the Hapsburg. This plan also had the added advantage of removing the Huguenots from France, but it failed to interest the Ottomans.

On 27 September 1567, in a swoop known as the Surprise of Meaux, Huguenot forces attempted to ambush the king, triggering renewed civil war. Taken unawares, the court fled to Paris in disarray. The war was ended by the Peace of Longjumeau of 22–23 March 1568, but civil unrest and bloodshed continued. The Surprise of Meaux marked a turning point in Catherine's policy towards the Huguenots. From that moment, she abandoned compromise for a policy of repression. She told the Venetian ambassador in June 1568 that all one could expect from Huguenots was deceit, and she praised the Duke of Alba's reign of terror in the Netherlands, where Calvinists and rebels were put to death in the thousands.

The Huguenots retreated to the fortified stronghold of La Rochelle on the west coast, where Jeanne d'Albret and her fifteen-year-old son, Henry of Bourbon, joined them. "We have come to the determination to die, all of us", Jeanne wrote to Catherine, "rather than abandon our God, and our religion". Catherine called Jeanne, whose decision to rebel posed a dynastic threat to the Valois, "the most shameless woman in the world". Nevertheless, the Peace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, signed on 8 August 1570 because the royal army ran out of cash, conceded wider toleration to the Huguenots than ever before.

Catherine looked to further Valois interests by grand dynastic marriages. In 1570, Charles IX married Elisabeth of Austria, daughter of Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor. Catherine was also eager for a match between one of her two youngest sons and Elizabeth I of England. After Catherine's daughter Elisabeth died in childbirth in 1568, she had touted her youngest daughter Margaret as a bride for Philip II of Spain. Now she sought a marriage between Margaret and Henry III of Navarre, with the aim of uniting Valois and Bourbon interests. Margaret, however, was secretly involved with Henry of Guise, the son of the late Duke of Guise. When Catherine found this out, she had her daughter brought from her bed. Catherine and the king then beat her, ripping her nightclothes and pulling out handfuls of her hair.

Catherine pressed Jeanne d'Albret to attend court. Writing that she wanted to see Jeanne's children, she promised not to harm them. Jeanne replied: "Pardon me if, reading that, I want to laugh, because you want to relieve me of a fear that I've never had. I've never thought that, as they say, you eat little children". When Jeanne did come to court, Catherine pressured her hard, playing on Jeanne's hopes for her beloved son. Jeanne finally agreed to the marriage between her son and Margaret, so long as Henry could remain a Huguenot. When Jeanne arrived in Paris to buy clothes for the wedding, she was taken ill and died, aged forty-four. Huguenot writers later accused Catherine of murdering her with poisoned gloves. The wedding took place on 18 August 1572 at Notre-Dame, Paris.

St. Bartholomew's Day massacre

Three days later, Admiral Coligny was walking back to his rooms from the Louvre when a shot rang out from a house and wounded him in the hand and arm. A smoking arquebus was discovered in a window, but the culprit had made his escape from the rear of the building on a waiting horse. Coligny was carried to his lodgings at the Hôtel de Béthisy, where the surgeon Ambroise Paré removed a bullet from his elbow and amputated a damaged finger with a pair of scissors. Catherine, who was said to have received the news without emotion, made a tearful visit to Coligny and promised to punish his attacker. Many historians have blamed Catherine for the attack on Coligny. Others point to the Guise family or a Spanish-papal plot to end Coligny's influence on the king. Whatever the truth, the bloodbath that followed was soon beyond the control of Catherine or any other leader.

The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, which began two days later, has stained Catherine's reputation ever since. The thinking was clear. Catherine and her advisers expected a Huguenot uprising to revenge the attack on Coligny. They chose therefore to strike first and wipe out the Huguenot leaders while they were still in Paris after the wedding.

The slaughter in Paris lasted for almost a week. It spread to many parts of France, where it persisted into the autumn. In the words of historian Jules Michelet, "St Bartholomew was not a day, but a season". On 29 September, when Navarre knelt before the altar as a Roman Catholic, having converted to avoid being killed, Catherine turned to the ambassadors and laughed. From this time dates the legend of the wicked Italian queen. Huguenot writers branded Catherine a scheming Italian, who had acted on Machiavelli's principles to kill all enemies in one blow.

Reign of Henry III

Two years later, Catherine faced a new crisis with the death of Charles IX at the age of twenty-three. His dying words were "oh, my mother ...". The day before he died, he named Catherine regent, since his brother and heir, Henry the Duke of Anjou, was in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, where he had been elected king the year before. However three months after his coronation at Wawel Cathedral, Henry abandoned that throne and returned to France in order to become king of France. Catherine wrote to Henry: "I am grief-stricken to have witnessed such a scene and the love which he showed me at the end ... My only consolation is to see you here soon, as your kingdom requires, and in good health, for if I were to lose you, I would have myself buried alive with you".

Henry was Catherine's favourite son. Unlike his brothers, he came to the throne as a grown man. He was also healthier, though he suffered from weak lungs and constant fatigue. His interest in the tasks of government, however, proved fitful. He depended on Catherine and her team of secretaries until the last few weeks of her life. He often hid from state affairs, immersing himself in acts of piety, such as pilgrimages and flagellation.

Henry married Louise de Lorraine-Vaudémont in February 1575, two days after his coronation. His choice thwarted Catherine's plans for a political marriage to a foreign princess. Rumours of Henry's inability to produce children were by that time in wide circulation. The papal nuncio Salviati observed, "it is only with difficulty that we can imagine there will be offspring ... physicians and those who know him well say that he has an extremely weak constitution and will not live long". As time passed and the likelihood of children from the marriage receded, Catherine's youngest son, Francis, Duke of Alençon, known as "Monsieur", played upon his role as heir to the throne, repeatedly exploiting the anarchy of the civil wars, which were by now as much about noble power struggles as religion. Catherine did all in her power to bring Francis back into the fold. On one occasion, in March 1578, she lectured him for six hours about his dangerously subversive behaviour.

In 1576, in a move that endangered Henry's throne, Francis allied with the Protestant princes against the crown. On 6 May 1576, Catherine gave in to almost all Huguenot demands in the Edict of Beaulieu. The treaty became known as the ''Peace of Monsieur'' because it was thought that Francis had forced it on the crown. Francis died of consumption in June 1584, after a disastrous intervention in the Low Countries during which his army had been massacred. Catherine wrote, the next day: "I am so wretched to live long enough to see so many people die before me, although I realize that God's will must be obeyed, that He owns everything, and that he lends us only for as long as He likes the children whom He gives us". The death of her youngest son was a calamity for Catherine's dynastic dreams. Under Salic law, by which only males could ascend the throne, the Huguenot Henry of Navarre now became heir presumptive to the French crown. Catherine sent Pomponne de Bellièvre to Navarre to arrange Margaret's return. In 1585, Margaret fled Navarre again. She retreated to her property at Agen and begged her mother for money. Catherine sent her only enough "to put food on her table". Moving on to the fortress of Carlat, Margaret took a lover called d'Aubiac. Catherine asked Henry to act before Margaret brought shame on them again. In October 1586, therefore, he had Margaret locked up in the Château d'Usson. D'Aubiac was executed, though not, despite Catherine's wish, in front of Margaret. Catherine cut Margaret out of her will and never saw her again.

Catherine was unable to control Henry in the way she had Francis and Charles. Her role in his government became that of chief executive and roving diplomat. She travelled widely across the kingdom, enforcing his authority and trying to head off war. In 1578, she took on the task of pacifying the south. At the age of fifty-nine, she embarked on an eighteen-month journey around the south of France to meet Huguenot leaders face to face. Her efforts won Catherine new respect from the French people. On her return to Paris in 1579, she was greeted outside the city by the Parlement and crowds. The Venetian ambassador, Gerolamo Lipomanno, wrote: "She is an indefatigable princess, born to tame and govern a people as unruly as the French: they now recognize her merits, her concern for unity and are sorry not to have appreciated her sooner". She was under no illusions, however. On 25 November 1579, she wrote to the king, "You are on the eve of a general revolt. Anyone who tells you differently is a liar".

Catholic League

Many leading Roman Catholics were appalled by Catherine's attempts to appease the Huguenots. After the Edict of Beaulieu, they had started forming local leagues to protect their religion. The death of the heir to the throne in 1584 prompted the Duke of Guise to assume the leadership of the Catholic League. He planned to block Henry of Navarre's succession and place Henry's Catholic uncle Cardinal Charles de Bourbon on the throne instead. In this cause, he recruited the great Catholic princes, nobles and prelates, signed the treaty of Joinville with Spain, and prepared to make war on the "heretics". By 1585, Henry III had no choice but to go to war against the League. As Catherine put it, "peace is carried on a stick" (''bâton porte paix''). "Take care", she wrote to the king, "especially about your person. There is so much treachery about that I die of fear".

Henry was unable to fight the Catholics and the Protestants at once, both of whom had stronger armies than his own. In the Treaty of Nemours, signed on 7 July 1585, he was forced to give in to all the League's demands, even that he pay its troops. He went into hiding to fast and pray, surrounded by a bodyguard known as "the Forty-five", and left Catherine to sort out the mess. The monarchy had lost control of the country, and was in no position to assist England in the face of the coming Spanish attack. The Spanish ambassador told Philip II that the abscess was about to burst.

By 1587, the Catholic backlash against the Protestants had become a campaign across Europe. Elizabeth I of England's execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, on 18 February 1587 outraged the Catholic world. Philip II of Spain prepared for an invasion of England. The League took control of much of northern France to secure French ports for his armada.

Last months and death

Henry hired Swiss troops to help him defend himself in Paris. The Parisians, however, claimed the right to defend the city themselves. On 12 May 1588, they set up barricades in the streets and refused to take orders from anyone except the Duke of Guise. When Catherine tried to go to mass, she found her way barred, though she was allowed through the barricades. The chronicler L'Estoile reported that she cried all through her lunch that day. She wrote to Bellièvre, "Never have I seen myself in such trouble or with so little light by which to escape". As usual, Catherine advised the king, who had fled the city in the nick of time, to compromise and live to fight another day. On 15 June 1588, Henry duly signed the Act of Union, which gave in to all the League's latest demands.

On 8 September 1588 at Blois, where the court had assembled for a meeting of the Estates, Henry dismissed all his ministers without warning. Catherine, in bed with a lung infection, had been kept in the dark. The king's actions effectively ended her days of power.

At the meeting of the Estates, Henry thanked Catherine for all she had done. He called her not only the mother of the king but the mother of the state. Henry did not tell Catherine of his plan for a solution to his problems. On 23 December 1588, he asked the Duke of Guise to call on him at the Château of Blois. As Guise entered the king's chamber, the Forty-five plunged their blades into his body, and he died at the foot of the king's bed. At the same moment, eight members of the Guise family were rounded up, including the Duke of Guise's brother, Louis II, Cardinal of Guise, whom Henry's men hacked to death the next day in the palace dungeons. Immediately after the murder of Guise, Henry entered Catherine's bedroom on the floor below and announced, "Please forgive me. Monsieur de Guise is dead. He will not be spoken of again. I have had him killed. I have done to him what he was going to do to me". Catherine's immediate reaction is not known; but on Christmas Day, she told a friar, "Oh, wretched man! What has he done?...Pray for him...I see him rushing towards his ruin". She visited her old friend Cardinal de Bourbon on 1 January 1589 to tell him she was sure he would soon be freed. He shouted at her, "Your words, Madam, have led us all to this butchery". She left in tears.

On 5 January 1589, Catherine died at the age of sixty-nine, probably from pleurisy. L'Estoile wrote: "those close to her believed that her life had been shortened by displeasure over her son's deed". He added that she had no sooner died than she was treated with as much consideration as a dead goat. Because Paris was held by enemies of the crown, Catherine had to be buried at Blois. Diane, daughter of Henry II and Philippa Duci, later had her body moved to Saint-Denis basilica. In 1793, a revolutionary mob tossed her bones into a mass grave with those of the other kings and queens. Eight months after Catherine's burial, a friar called Jacques Clément stabbed Henry III to death. At the time, Henry was besieging Paris with the King of Navarre, who succeeded him as Henry IV of France, ending nearly three centuries of Valois rule and bringing in the Bourbon dynasty.

Henry IV was later reported to have said of Catherine:

Patron of the arts

Catherine believed in the humanist ideal of the learned Renaissance prince whose authority depended on letters as well as arms. She was inspired by the example of her father-in-law, King Francis I of France, who had hosted the leading artists of Europe at his court, and by her Medici ancestors. In an age of civil war and declining respect for the monarchy, she sought to bolster royal prestige through lavish cultural display. Once in control of the royal purse, she launched a programme of artistic patronage that lasted for three decades. During this time, she presided over a distinctive late French Renaissance culture in all branches of the arts.

An inventory drawn up at the Hôtel de la Reine after Catherine's death shows her to have been a keen collector. Listed works of art included tapestries, hand-drawn maps, sculptures, rich fabrics, ebony furniture inlaid with ivory, sets of china, and Limoges pottery. There were also hundreds of portraits, for which a vogue had developed during Catherine's lifetime. Many portraits in her collection were by Jean Clouet (1480–1541) and his son François Clouet (c. 1510–1572). François Clouet drew and painted portraits of all Catherine's family and of many members of the court. After Catherine's death, a decline in the quality of French portraiture set in. By 1610, the school patronised by the late Valois court and brought to its pinnacle by François Clouet had all but died out.

Beyond portraiture, little is known about the painting at Catherine de' Medici's court. In the last two decades of her life, only two painters stand out as recognisable personalities: Jean Cousin the Younger (c. 1522–c. 1594), few of whose works survive, and Antoine Caron (c. 1521–1599), who became Catherine's official painter after working at Fontainebleau under Primaticcio. Caron's vivid Mannerism, with its love of ceremonial and its preoccupation with massacres, reflects the neurotic atmosphere of the French court during the Wars of Religion.

Many of Caron's paintings, such as those of the ''Triumphs of the Seasons'', are of allegorical subjects that echo the festivities for which Catherine's court was famous. His designs for the Valois Tapestries celebrate the ''fêtes'', picnics, and mock battles of the "magnificent" entertainments hosted by Catherine. They depict events held at Fontainebleau in 1564; at Bayonne in 1565 for the summit meeting with the Spanish court; and at the Tuileries in 1573 for the visit of the Polish ambassadors who presented the Polish crown to Catherine's son Henry of Anjou. Biographer Leonie Frieda suggests that "Catherine, more than anyone, inaugurated the fantastic entertainments for which later French monarchs also became renowned". The musical shows in particular allowed Catherine to express her creative gifts. They were usually dedicated to the ideal of peace in the realm and based on mythological themes. To create the necessary dramas, music, and scenic effects for these events, Catherine employed the leading artists and architects of the day. Historian Frances Yates has called her "a great creative artist in festivals". Catherine gradually introduced changes to the traditional entertainments: for example, she increased the prominence of dance in the shows that climaxed each series of entertainments. A distinctive new art form, the ''ballet de cour'', emerged from these creative advances. Owing to its synthesis of dance, music, verse, and setting, the production of the ''Ballet Comique de la Reine'' in 1581 is regarded by scholars as the first authentic ballet.

Catherine de' Medici's great love among the arts was architecture. "As the daughter of the Medici", suggests French art historian Jean-Pierre Babelon, "she was driven by a passion to build and a desire to leave great achievements behind her when she died." After Henry II's death, Catherine set out to immortalise her husband's memory and to enhance the grandeur of the Valois monarchy through a series of costly building projects. These included work on châteaux at Montceaux-en-Brie, Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, and Chenonceau. Catherine built two new palaces in Paris: the Tuileries and the Hôtel de la Reine. She was closely involved in the planning and supervising of all her architectural schemes.

Catherine had emblems of her love and grief carved into the stonework of her buildings. Poets lauded her as the new Artemisia, after Artemisia II of Caria, who built the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus as a tomb for her dead husband. As the centrepiece of an ambitious new chapel, she commissioned a magnificent tomb for Henry at the basilica of Saint Denis. It was designed by Francesco Primaticcio (1504–1570), with sculpture by Germain Pilon (1528–1590). Art historian Henri Zerner has called this monument "the last and most brilliant of the royal tombs of the Renaissance". Catherine also commissioned Germain Pilon to carve the marble sculpture that contains Henry II's heart. A poem by Ronsard, engraved on its base, tells the reader not to wonder that so small a vase can hold so large a heart, since Henry's real heart resides in Catherine's breast.

Although Catherine spent ruinous sums on the arts, most of her patronage left no permanent legacy. The end of the Valois dynasty so soon after her death brought a change in priorities.

Titles, styles, honours, and arms

Titles and styles

13 April 1519-1524: Lady Caterina de' Medici

1524-28 October 1533: Lady Caterina de' Medici, Countess of Auvergne

28 October 1533-10 August 1536: The Duchess of Orléans, Countess of Auvergne

10 August 1536-31 March 1547: The Dauphine of France and of Viennois, Countess of Auvergne

31 March 1547-10 July 1559: ''Her Most Christian Majesty'' The Queen of France, Countess of Auvergne

10 July 1559-5 January 1589: ''Her Most Christian Majesty'' The Queen Mother of France, Countess of Auvergne

Issue

Catherine de' Medici married Henry, Duke of Orléans, the future Henry II of France, in Marseille on 28 October 1533. She gave birth to ten children, seven of whom survived to adulthood. Her three oldest sons became king of France; two of her daughters married kings; and one married a duke. Catherine outlived all her children except Henry III, who died seven months after her, and Margaret, who inherited her robust health.

Francis II, King of France (19 January 1544 – 5 December 1560). Married Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1558.

Elizabeth, Queen consort of Spain (2 April 1545 – 3 October 1568). Married Philip II, King of Spain, in 1559.

Claude, Duchess consort of Lorraine (12 November 1547 – 21 February 1575). Married Charles III, Duke of Lorraine.

Louis, Duke of Orléans (3 February 1549 – 24 October 1549). Died in infancy.

Charles IX, King of France (27 June 1550 – 30 May 1574). Married Elizabeth of Austria in 1570.

Henry III, King of France (19 September 1551 – 2 August 1589). Married Louise of Lorraine in 1575.

Margaret, Queen consort of France and Navarre (14 May 1553 – 27 March 1615). Married Henry, King of Navarre, the future Henry IV of France, in 1572.

Francis, Duke of Anjou (18 March 1555 – 19 June 1584).

Victoria (24 June 1556 – August 1556). Twin of Joan. Died in infancy.

Joan (24 June 1556 – 24 June 1556). Twin of Victoria. Died in utero.

Ancestry

{{ahnentafel-compact5 |style=font-size: 90%; line-height: 110%; |border=1 |boxstyle=padding-top: 0; padding-bottom: 0; |boxstyle_1=background-color: #fcc; |boxstyle_2=background-color: #fb9; |boxstyle_3=background-color: #ffc; |boxstyle_4=background-color: #bfc; |boxstyle_5=background-color: #9fe; | 1 = Caterina Maria Romula di Lorenzo de' Medici | 2 = Lorenzo II de' Medici, Duke of Urbino | 3 = Madeleine de La Tour d'Auvergne | 4 = Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici | 5 = Alfonsina Orsini | 6 = John III, Count of Auvergne | 7 = Jeanne de Bourbon-Vendôme | 8 = Lorenzo de' Medici | 9 = Clarissa Orsini |10 = Roberto Orsini, Count of Tagliacozzo |11 = Caterina Sanseverino |12 = Bertrand VI of Auvergne |13 = Louise de La Trémoïlle |14 = Jean VIII, Count of Vendôme |15 = Isabelle de Beauveau |16 = Piero the Gouty |17 = Lucrezia Tornabuoni |18 = Jacopo Orsini, Lord of Monterotondo |19 = Maddalena Orsini |20 = Carlo Orsini, Lord of Bracciano |21 = Paola Orsini |22 = Amerigo Sanseverino, Count of Capaccio |23 = Margherita Sanseverino |24 = Bertrand V of Auvergne |25 = Jacquette du Peschin |26 = Georges de La Trémoïlle |27 = Catherine de L'Isle-Bouchard |28 = Louis, Count of Vendôme |29 = Jeanne de Laval |30 = Louis de Beauvau, Seneschal of Anjou |31 = Marguerite de Chambley }}

In popular culture

Film

Josephine Crowell - ''Intolerance'' (1916)

Marguerite Moreno - ''Pearls of the Crown'' (1937)

Françoise Rosay - ''La Reine Margot'' (1954)

Marisa Pavan - ''Diane'' (1956)

Isa Miranda - ''Hardi Pardaillan!'' (1964)

Virna Lisi - ''La Reine Margot'' (1994)

Evelina Meghnagi - ''The Princess of Montpensier'' (2010)

Television

Alice Sapritch - ''la Reine Margot'' (television film, 1961)

Joan Young - ''The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve'' (episode of ''Doctor Who'', 1966)

Maria Meriko ''La Dame de Monsoreau'' (mini-series, 1971)

Dominique Blanchar - ''Le Chevalier de Pardaillan'' (series, 1988)

Alice Sapritch - ''Catherine de Médicis : Le Tocsin de la révolution'' (television film, 1989)

Marie-Christine Barrault - ''Saint-Germain ou la Négociation '' (television film, 2003)

Notes

References

Babelon, Jean-Pierre. "The Louvre: Royal Residence and Temple of the Arts". ''Realms of Memory: The Construction of the French Past. Vol. III: Symbols''. Edited by Pierre Nora. English language edition translated by Arthur Goldhammer, edited by Lawrence D. Kritzman. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998. ISBN 0-231-10926-1.

Blunt, Anthony. ''Art and Architecture in France: 1500–1700''. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-300-07748-3.

Brantôme, Pierre de Bourdeille. ''Illustrious Dames of the Court of the Valois Kings.'' Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley. New York: Lamb, 1912. OCLC 347527.

Bryson, David M. ''Queen Jeanne and the Promised Land: Dynasty, Homeland, Religion and Violence in Sixteenth-century France.'' Leiden and Boston, Massachusetts: Brill Academic, 1999. ISBN 90-04-11378-9.

Carroll, Stuart. ''Noble Power During the French Wars of Religion: The Guise Affinity and the Catholic Cause in Normandy''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-521-02387-4.

Dimier, L. ''French Painting in the XVI Century.'' Translated by Harold Child. London: Duckworth, 1904. OCLC 86065266.

Frieda, Leonie. ''Catherine de Medici.'' London: Phoenix, 2005. ISBN 0173820390.

Guy, John. ''My Heart is my Own: The Life of Mary Queen of Scots''. London: Fourth Estate, 2004. ISBN 084115752X.

Hearn, Karen, ed. ''Dynasties: Painting in Tudor and Jacobean England, 1530–1630''. New York: Rizzoli, 1995. ISBN 0-8478-1940-X.

Heller, Henry. ''Anti-Italianism in Sixteenth-century France.'' Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003. ISBN 0-8020-3689-9.

Heritier, Jean. ''Catherine de' Medici''. Translated by Charlotte Haldane. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1963. OCLC 1678642.

Holt, Mack P. ''The French Wars of Religion, 1562–1629.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-521-54750-4.

Hoogvliet, Margriet. "Princely Culture and Catherine de Médicis". In ''Princes and Princely Culture, 1450–1650.'' Edited by Martin Gosman, Alasdair A. MacDonald, and Arie Johan Vanderjagt. Leiden and Boston, Massachusetts: Brill Academic, 2003. ISBN 90-04-13572-3.

Jollet, Etienne. ''Jean et François Clouet.'' Translated by Deke Dusinberre. Paris: Lagune, 1997. ISBN 0-500-97465-9.

Knecht, R. J. ''Catherine de' Medici.'' London and New York: Longman, 1998. ISBN 0-582-08241-2.

Knecht, R. J. ''The Rise and Fall of Renaissance France, 1483–1610.'' Oxford: Blackwell, 2001. ISBN 0-631-22729-6.

Lee, Carol. ''Ballet in Western Culture: A History of Its Origins and Evolution.'' London: Routledge, 2002. ISBN 0-415-94256-X.

Manetsch, Scott Michael. ''Theodore Beza and the Quest for Peace in France, 1572–1598.'' Leiden and Boston, Massachusetts : Brill Academic, 2000. ISBN 90-04-11101-8.

Morris, T. A. ''Europe and England in the Sixteenth Century''. London and New York: Routledge, 1998. ISBN 0-415-15040-X.

Neale, J. E. ''The Age of Catherine de Medici''. London: Jonathan Cape, 1943. OCLC 39949296.

Pettegree, Andrew. ''Europe in the Sixteenth Century''. Oxford: Blackwell, 2002. ISBN 0-631-20704-X.

Sutherland, N. M. ''Catherine de Medici and the Ancien Régime.'' London: Historical Association, 1966. OCLC 1018933.

Sutherland, N. M. ''The French Secretaries of State in the Age of Catherine de Medici.'' London: Athlone Press, 1962. OCLC 1367811.

Sutherland, N. M. ''The Massacre of St Bartholomew and the European Conflict, 1559–1572.'' London: Macmillan, 1973. ISBN 333136292.

Sutherland, N. M. ''Princes, Politics and Religion: 1547–1589.'' London: Hambledon Press, 1984. ISBN 0-907628-44-3.

Strong, Roy. ''Art and Power: Renaissance Festivals, 1450–1650.'' Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 1984. ISBN 0-85115-247-3.

Thomson, David. '' Renaissance Paris: Architecture and Growth, 1475–1600''. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. ISBN 0-520-05347-8. Retrieved 21 March 2008.

Tomas, Natalie R. ''The Medici Women: Gender and Power in Renaissance Florence.'' Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2003. ISBN 0-7546-0777-1.

Wilson, Ian. ''Nostradamus: The Evidence.'' London: Orion, 2003. ISBN 0-7528-4279-X.

Wood, James B. ''The King's Army: Warfare, Soldiers and Society during the Wars of Religion in France, 1562–76''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-521-55003-3.

Yates, Frances. ''The Valois Tapestries''. 1959. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1999. ISBN 0-415-22043-2.

Zerner, Henri. ''Renaissance Art in France. The Invention of Classicism.'' Translated by Deke Dusinberre, Scott Wilson, and Rachel Zerner. Paris: Flammarion, 2003. ISBN 2-08-011144-2.

Zvereva, Alexandra. ''Les Clouet de Catherine de Médicis.'' Paris: Somogy, Éditions d'Art; Musée Condé, Château de Chantilly, 2002. ISBN 2-85056-570-9.

Young, G.F. ''The Medici: Volume II''. 1920. London: John Murray. OCLC 288522172

External links

Portraits of Catherine de' Medici (in French).

''Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois'' Full text at Gutenberg. Retrieved 27 March 2007.

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Category:French queens consort Category:Regents of France Category:People of the French Wars of Religion Category:Anti-Protestantism Category:House of Medici Category:House of Valois Category:Queen mothers Category:Female regents Category:Dauphines of Viennois Category:Dauphines of France Category:Counts of Dreux Category:People from Florence Category:Duchesses of Brittany Category:Duchesses of Orléans Category:French Roman Catholics Auvergne, Countess of, Catherine de' Medici Category:French duchesses Category:1519 births Category:1589 deaths

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bgcolour	#6495ED
name	Anselm Kiefer
birth date	March 08, 1945
nationality	German
field	Painting
awards	}}

Anselm Kiefer (born March 8, 1945) is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Joseph Beuys and Peter Dreher during the 1970s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac. The poems of Paul Celan have played a role in developing Kiefer's themes of German history and the horror of the Holocaust, as have the spiritual concepts of Kabbalah.

In his entire body of work, Kiefer argues with the past and addresses taboo and controversial issues from recent history. Themes from Nazi rule are particularly reflected in his work; for instance, the painting "Margarethe" (oil and straw on canvas) was inspired by Paul Celan's well-known poem "''Todesfuge''" ("''Death Fugue''").

His works are characterised by a dull/musty, nearly depressive, destructive style and are often done in large scale formats. In most of his works, the use of photography as an output surface is prevalent and earth and other raw materials of nature are often incorporated. It is also characteristic of his work to find signatures and/or names of people of historical importance, legendary figures or places particularly pregnant with history. All of these are encoded sigils through which Kiefer seeks to process the past; this has resulted in his work being linked with a style called "New Symbolism."

Kiefer has lived and worked in France since 1991.

Early life and career

Kiefer was born in Donaueschingen, Germany on March 8, 1945, just a few months before the end of World War II. In 1951 he moved to Ottersdorf and attended grammar school in Rastatt. In 1966 he abandoned his law and Romance language studies at University of Freiburg to study at art academies in Freiburg, Karlsruhe, and Düsseldorf. In Karlsruhe, he studied under Peter Dreher, an important realist and figurative painter.

Work

Photography

Kiefer began his career as a photographer with performances in which he mimicked the Nazi salute on various locations in France, Switzerland and Italy calling for Germans to remember and to acknowledge the loss to their culture through the mad xenophobia of the Third Reich. In 1969 at Galerie am Kaiserplatz, Karlsruhe, he presented his first single exhibition "Besetzungen (Occupations)" with a series of photographs about controversial political actions.

Painting and Sculpture

By 1970 while studying informally under Joseph Beuys at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, his stylistic leanings resembled Georg Baselitz' approach. He worked with glass, straw, wood and plant parts. The use of these materials meant that his art works became temporary and fragile, which Kiefer himself is well aware of. The fragility of his work contrasts with the stark subject matter in his paintings. This use of familiar materials to express ideas was influenced by Joseph Beuys' art practice, in which Beuys used fat and carpet felt. It is also typical of the Neo-Expressionist style.

After many years away, Kiefer returned in 1971 to live and work in Donaueschingen. In the following years he incorporated German mythology in particular, and in the following decade he argued with the Kabbalah. He went on expanded journeys throughout Europe, USA and the middle east, in which the latter two journeys further influenced his work. Besides paintings, Kiefer created sculptures, watercolors, woodcuts, and photographs.

A series of paintings Kiefer executed between 1980 and 1983 depict looming stone edifices, referencing famous examples of National Socialist architecture, particularly buildings designed by Albert Speer and Wilhelm Kreis. By the mid-1980s, Kiefer’s themes widened from a focus on Germany's role in civilization to the fate of art and culture in general. His work became more sculptural and involved not only national identity and collective memory, but also occult symbolism, theology and mysticism. The theme of all the work is the trauma experienced by entire societies, and the continual rebirth and renewal in life. During the 1980s his paintings became more physical, and featured unusual textures and materials.

Kiefer's paintings of the 1990s explore the universal myths of existence and meaning rather than those of national identity. From 1995 to 2001, he started a cycle of large paintings of the cosmos. He also started to turn to sculpture, though lead still remains his preferred medium.

In 2006, Kiefer’s exhibition, ''Velimir Chlebnikov'', was first shown in a small studio near Barjac in the South of France then moved to White Cube in London and finished in the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in rural Connecticut. The work consists of 30 large paintings—six-feet high and around 10-feet long—hanging on two banks of 15 on facing walls of an expressly constructed grooved steel building that mimics the studio in which it was originally created. The work refers to the eccentric theories of the Russian futurist philosopher/poet Velimir Chlebnikov, who invented his own "language of the future" which he called "Zaum", and postulated, among other things, that cataclysmic sea battles shift the course of history once every 317 years. In his paintings, Kiefer’s toy-like battleships—misshapen, battered, rusted and hanging by twisted wires—are cast about by paint and plaster waves. The work’s recurrent color notes are black and white and gray and rust, and their surfaces are rough and slathered with paint and plaster and mud and clay.

In 2009, Kiefer mounted two exhibitions at the White Cube gallery in London. A series of forest diptychs and triptychs enclosed in glass vitrines, many filled with dense Moroccan thorns, was entitled ''Karfunkelfee'', a term from German Romanticism stemming from a poem by the post-war Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann. In ''The Fertile Crescent'', Kiefer presented a group of epic paintings inspired initially by a trip to India fifteen years earlier where he first encountered rural brick factories. Over the past decade the photographs Kiefer took in India "reverberated" in his mind to suggest a vast array of cultural and historical references, reaching from the first human civilisation of Mesopotamia to the ruins of Germany in the aftermath of the Second World War, where he played as a small boy. "Anyone in search of a resonant meditation on the instability of built grandeur", wrote the historian Simon Schama in his catalogue essay, "would do well to look hard at Kiefer’s ''The Fertile Crescent''".

Books

From 1969 Kiefer also worked on book design. Early examples are typically worked-over photographs; his more recent books consist of sheets of lead layered with the artist's characteristic materials of paint, minerals, or dried plant matter. For example he assembled numerous lead books on steel shelves in libraries, as symbols of the stored, discarded knowledge of history. The book ''Rhine'' (1981) comprises a sequence of 25 woodcuts, that suggest a journey downstream along the banks of the Rhine. The river is central to Germany's geographical and historical development, acquiring an almost mythic significance in works such as Wagner's Ring of the Nibelungs. Scenes of the unspoiled river are interrupted by dark, swirling pages that represent the sinking of the battleship Bismark in 1945, during an Atlantic sortie codenamed Rhine Exercise.

Studios

In 1991 Kiefer departed his studio in a large converted brick factory in Buchen, and spent time traveling in Japan, Mexico and India. In 1992 he established himself in Barjac, France, where he transformed his 35-hectare studio compound ''La Ribaute'' into a Gesamtkunstwerk. A derelict silk factory, his studio is enormous and in many ways is a comment on industrialization. He has created there an extensive system of glass buildings, archives, installations, storerooms for materials and paintings, subterranean chambers and corridors.

Sophie Fiennes filmed Kiefer's studio complex in Barjac for her documentary study, ''Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow'' (2010), which recorded both the environment and the artist at work. One critic wrote of the film: "Building almost from the ground up in a derelict silk factory, Kiefer devised an artistic project extending over acres: miles of corridors, huge studio spaces with ambitious landscape paintings and sculptures that correspond to monumental constructions in the surrounding woodland, and serpentine excavated labyrinths with great earthy columns that resemble stalagmites or termite mounds. Nowhere is it clear where the finished product definitively stands; perhaps it is all work in progress, a monumental concept-art organism."

Around 2008, Kiefer left his studio complex at Barjac and moved to Paris. A fleet of 110 lorries transported his work to a warehouse on the Périphérique, outside Paris, that had once been the depository for the La Samaritaine department store. A journalist wrote of Kiefer's abandoned studio complex: "He left behind the great work of Barjac — the art and buildings. A caretaker looks after it. Uninhabited, it quietly waits for nature to take over, because, as we know, over our cities grass will grow."

Exhibitions

In 1969, Kiefer had his first solo exhibition, at Galerie am Kaiserplatz in Karlsruhe. Along with Georg Baselitz, he represented Germany at the Venice Biennale in 1980. Comprehensive solo exhibitions of Kiefer's work have been organized by the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (1984); Art Institute of Chicago (1987); Sezon Museum of Art in Tokyo (1993); Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin (1991); Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (1998); Fondation Beyeler in Basel (2001); the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (2005); the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (2006); the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (2007). He was also featured in the 1997 Venice Biennale with a one-man show held at the Museo Correr, concentrating on paintings and books. In 2007, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao presented an extensive survey of recent work and Kiefer was commissioned to create a huge site-specific installation of sculptures and paintings for the inaugural "Monumenta" at the Grand Palais, Paris. With the unveiling of a triptych - the mural ''Athanor'' and the two sculptures ''Danae'' and ''Hortus Conclusus'' - at the Louvre in 2007, Kiefer became the first living artist to create a permanent site-specific installation in the museum since Georges Braque in 1953. In 2009, he directed and designed the sets for ''Am Anfang (In the Beginning)'' by Jörg Widmann at the Opéra National de Paris.

Kiefer is represented by Yvon Lambert Gallery in Paris, Gagosian Gallery in New York, White Cube in London, and Thaddaeus Ropac in Vienna. Before moving to Gagosian, he showed with Marian Goodman Gallery, New York.

Recognition

In 1990 he was awarded a Wolf Prize. In 1999 the Japan Art Association awarded him the Praemium Imperiale for his lifetime achievements. In the explanatory statement it reads:

''"A complex critical engagement with history runs through Anselm Kiefer's work. His paintings as well as the sculptures of Georg Baselitz created an uproar at the 1980 Venice Biennale: the viewers had to decide whether the apparent Nazi motifs were meant ironically or whether the works were meant to convey actual fascist ideas. Kiefer worked with the conviction that art could heal a traumatized nation and a vexed, divided world. He created epic paintings on giant canvases that called up the history of German culture with the help of depictions of figures such as Richard Wagner or Goethe, thus continuing the historical tradition of painting as a medium of addressing the world. Only a few contemporary artists have such a pronounced sense of art's duty to engage the past and the ethical questions of the present, and are in the position to express the possibility of the absolution of guilt through human effort."''

In 2008, Anselm Kiefer was awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. Art historian Werner Spies said in his speech, that Kiefer is a passionate reader who takes impulses from literature for his work. In 2011 Kiefer was appointed to the chair of creativity in art at the Collège de France.

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1983 Hans-Thoma-Preis

1990 Wolf Prize

1990 Goslarer Kaiserring

1997 International Prize by the Jury of the 47. Biennale di Venezia

1999 Praemium Imperiale

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2005 Federal Cross of Merit First Class

2005 Austrian Decoration for Science and Art

2008 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade

2011 Berliner Bär (B.Z.-Kulturpreis)

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See also

Holocaust memorial landscapes in Germany

References

Biography, Criticism, Catalogues, Mongraphs

Danto, Arthur. in "Anselm Kiefer". ''Encounter and Reflections: Art in the Historical Present''. New York: Farrar Strauss Grioux, 1990.

Auping, Michael. ''Anselm Kiefer: Heaven and Earth'' catalogue for exhibition of the same name, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, 2005. Munich: Preston, 2005.

External links

Yvon Lambert: Anselm Kiefer

Gagosian Gallery: Anselm Kiefer

Kiefer takes us round his London White Cube show (BBC Collective)

Anselm Kiefer at the Art Gallery of Ontario (2010)

Anselm Kiefer at SFMOMA (2007)

Anselm Kiefer at the Royal Academy (2007)

Anselm Kiefer at The Hirshhorn Museum (2006)

Anselm Kiefer at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1999)

Anselm Kiefer at Fundación Proa (1998)

''Telegraph'' review (2007)

''Guardian'' review (2007)

''Guardian'' review (2005)

Artnet review (2002)

Interview (2007)

Category:1945 births Category:Living people Category:People from Donaueschingen Category:Contemporary painters Category:German painters Category:Recipients of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade Category:Officers Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Category:Wolf Prize in Arts laureates Category:Kunstakademie Düsseldorf alumni

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