Margherita de' Medici, Regent of Parma and Piacenza

Margherita de' Medici, duchess and regent of Parma and Piacenza (born 31 May 1612)

Margherita de' Medici was the daughter of Maria Magdalena of Austria, grand duchess and regent of Tuscany, and Cosimo II de' Medici, archduke of Tuscany. Like her mother, Margherita would become regent for her minor son after the death of his father.

Margherita de' Medici, c. 1628,
about the time of her marriage,
by Justus Sustermans

Born on 31 May 1612, Margherita was given an excellent humanist education, worthy of a woman of her social class and family status--in religion, art, classical literature, music, statecraft, and science, as well as in Latin. As the product of this education, she could compose odes and epigrams in both Italian and Latin.

Although Marie de' Medici, dowager queen of France, hoped to marry her son, Gaston, duke of Orléans, to Margherita, the Florentine girl was promised instead to Odoardo Farnese in 1620, when they were both eight years old--Odoardo had been born just a month before Margherita. 

Odoardo's father, Ranuccio I Farnese, was the duke of Parma, Piacenza, and Castro, and the alliance between his son and a daughter of the archduke was intended to strengthen the alliance between Parma and Tuscany.*

Odoardo Farnese succeeded to his title when he was still a child, in 1622, at the time of his father's death. His uncle was regent of Parma until 1626, and after he died, the young Odoardo's regent was his mother, Margherita Aldobrandini.** She continued as regent until her son reached his majority, in 1628, when he and Margherita de' Medici were married in a spectacular ceremony in the Florentine cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore.

In Parma, Margherita de' Medici, now duchess of Parma and Piacenza, gave birth to eight children, the first in 1629, a year after her marriage, the last in 1641. During his frequent absences in pursuit of his territorial ambitions, Odoardo trusted at least some of the political duties to his wife. In 1635 he appointed her governor of Piacenza, for example. (As for Odoardo's ambitions--among other failures, he was excommunicated in 1641 and lost the Farnese fief of Castro, though it was eventually returned to him in 1644 as part of a peace negotiation with the Barberini family. After his death, however, papal forces razed Castro.)

As Adelina Modesti notes, Margherita was able to "[use] her cultural background, family connections, and force of personality to navigate successfully the transition between her natal and marital families, enabling her to gain an extraordinary degree of political power and cultural influence, which she used to enhance the interests of her marital family without losing her sway with the family she left behind."

Margherita de' Medici,
duchess of Parma and Piacenza,
copy of a portrait by Sustermans,
Galeria Nazionale

In August 1646, the dowager duchess and former regent of Parma, Margherita Aldobrandini, died. A month later, in September, Margherita de' Medici's husband, Odoardo Farnese, died. Since her eldest son was still a minor, Margherita de' Medici, now herself dowager duchess of Parma and Piacenza, became regent for her son. Her regency lasted until 1648, when her son, Ranuccio II of Farnese, achieved his majority.

As Modesti notes, however, Margherita de' Medici continued to exert a great deal of influence even after her son became duke, acting as his "political advisor and diplomatic ambassador even after he became an adult, married three times, and ruled officially in his own right."

Margherita de' Medici lived another thirty years. She died on 6 February 1679, aged sixty-six, noted as "a woman of extraordinary talent with good taste in the arts: mourned by the people and the court, she was greatly famed for her acute judgement, eminent compassion, and exquisite traits."

The most complete treatment of Margherita de' Medici, duchess of Parma and Piacenza, is Adelina Modesti's “Margherita de’ Medici Farnese: A Medici Princess at the Farnese Court,” in Medici Women: The Making of a Dynasty in Grand Ducal Tuscany.

*There is some evidence to suggest that the marriage negotiations at first involved the eldest Medici daughter, Maria Christina, but she seems to have been born with some kind of physical disability--when the duke of Parma discovered this, he insisted on renegotiating the alliance. Maria Christina lived in the Florentine convent of the Holy Conception (Santissima Concezione), founded by her great-grandmother, Eleanor of Toledo, duchess of Florence (wife of Cosimo I de' Medici). She remained there until her death, at age twenty-three, in 1632.

**Whose story is an interesting one! The granddaughter of Pope Clement VIII, Margherita Aldobrandini was married to the thirty-year-old Ranuccio I Farnese when she was just twelve years old. She remained childless for a decade, leading Ranuccio to the conclusion that she had been cursed! Or he was . . . Or something. When at long last a child was born to Ranuccio and Margherita, the baby was deaf. Convinced that his wife was cursed, Ranuccio had a former mistress, Claudia Colla and her mother, Elena, tried for witchcraft--and executed in 1611. And Odoardo was born, as I said, in 1612 . . . 

Christina of Lorraine, Regent of Tuscany

Christina of Lorraine, Grand Duchess and Co-Regent of Tuscany (died 19 December 1637)

If you've studied Galileo Galei, chances are you have encountered his Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina (1615), in which he defends himself and his scientific views in a carefully worded explanation of the relationship between science and religion--specifically, the Catholic religion and religious authority. 

Christina of Lorraine, as Grand Duchess,
c. 1588

The woman to whom he addressed this letter is Christina of Lorraine, then regent of Tuscany. As Grand Duchess of Tuscany, she had been married to Ferdinando, Grand Duke of Tuscany, head of the Medici family. After his death in 1609, her son Cosimo assumed his father's title, but when Cosimo died in 1621, Christina and her daughter-in-law, Maria Magdalena, became co-regents for Christina's grandson, then ten years old.

Christina was well-prepared for her role. She was the favorite granddaughter of Catherine de' Medici, who had served as regent of France on many occasions, notably the minority of her son, Charles IX (1560-63), and, after his death, before Henry III succeeded to the throne. Christina's paternal grandmother, Christine of Denmark, had been regent of Lorraine for her son (Christina's father) from 1545 to 1552, during his minority. 

And so the Dowager Duchess of Tuscany was not unfamiliar with the role of the regent. She and her daughter-in-law coordinated their efforts and, despite the insults of contemporary chroniclers, they managed their partnership without conflict or dispute.

With an exceptional education overseen by Catherine de' Medici, Christina of Lorraine was a notable patron of both science and religion. It was she who invited Galileo to the Tuscan court in 1605, where he became the tutor of her son, Cosimo. When he discovered the moons of Jupiter, the "Medicean stars," Galileo named them after Christina's sons.

As a religious patron, Christina was a supporter of a number of institutions, especially female monasteries. 

Born in Nancy on 16 August 1565, Christina of Lorraine, Dowager Duchess of Tuscany, died at the age of 72 on 19 December 1637.

For an excellent essay, see the entry in Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia, which you can access by clicking here.

Francesca Caccini, Composer, Singer, Poet, Teacher

Francesca Caccini (born 18 September 1587)

Francesca Caccini was born into a musical family: her father, Giulio Romolo Caccini, was a performer and composer for the Medici court, particularly supported by Francesco de' Medici, grand duke of Florence; Francesca's mother, Lucia Gagnolanti, her younger sister, Settimania, and, eventually, her step-mother (Giulio's second wife), Margherita della Scala, were also noted performers, the women sometimes performing together, at times referred to as "le donne di Giulio Romo[l]o."

A cameo engraving of 
Francesca Caccini

Francesca Caccini not only received an excellent and multi-faceted musical education--as a virtuosa singer and performer, who played guitar, lute, harp, and keyboard--but also a literary education. She studied the classical languages, modern languages and literature, and mathematics. 

In 1604, she traveled with her family to the court of Henry IV of France--the queen, Marie de' Medici, offered Francesca a place as an official court singer, which included a salary and a substantial dowry.

However, Francesca was not released from the service of the grand duke, so, along with her family, she returned to the Florentine court, where she remained as a performer, composer, and teacher until 1627.

In Florence, she was also able to enjoy the patronage of two powerful women, the Grand Duchess Christina of Lorraine and her daughter-in-law, Maria Maddalena of Austria. Christina of Lorraine was the granddaughter of the French queen Catherine de' Medici, Maria Maddalena the granddaughter of Anna Jagiellon, queen of Poland. The two women together, as the "Tutrici," were acting as regents of Tuscany following the Francesco's death.

At the Medici court, Francesca Caccini married Giovanni Batista Signorini in 1607, giving birth to Margherita, named after Caccini's stepmother, in 1622. In 1626, after the death of her husband, Caccini left Florence for Lucca, where she married again and where, in 1628, gave birth to a son, named Tomaso Raffaelo, after his father. 

Widowed in 1634, Francesca and her children returned to Florence, where she again entered the service of the Grand Duchess Christina of Lorraine. Although Maria Maddalena had died in 1631, and her son, Ferdinando II had married in 1633 (making Vittoria della Rovere the new grand duchess), Christina of Lorraine remained very influential at the Medici court until her death at the end of 1637.

Caccini and her daughter performed together at the court of the grand duchess, but in 1638, worried about the effect it might have on her daughter's reputation, Francesca refused to allow her daughter to perform publicly in a commedia; in 1642 Margherita Signorini became a nun in the Franciscan convent of San Girolomo in Florence, a convent known for its music and, despite edicts of the Inquisition, for public performances by the convent's inhabitants.

There, according to one contemporary observer, "crowds raced to hear her sing divine praises by herself, and sometimes in ensemble with other skilled virgins who are her companions, notwithstanding the church's inconvenient location on a steep hill."

(In the 1660s and 1670s, Margherita Signorini taught many young women being educated in the convent, including her niece, Maria Francesca Rafaelli, as well as several young women who would go on to serve in the court of the Grand Duchess Vittoria della Rovere. Margheriti Signorini died in 1689.)

Francesca Caccini is "the most prolific composer of her time," and the first woman known to have composed opera. In 1618 she published The First Book of Music for One and Two Voices (II primo libro delle musiche a una e due voci), a collection of thirty-two solo songs and four duets for soprano and bass voices. But only one opera survives, The Liberation of Ruggiora from the Island of Alcina (La liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d'Alcina), commissioned by Maria Maddalena of Austria and first performed on 3 February, 1625. 

Francesca Caccini's date of death is unknown, though guardianship of her son was transferred to Girolomo Raffaeli, her husband's brother, in February 1645, suggesting a likely date for Caccini's death.

For Francesca Caccini's biographical entry in The Norton/Grove Dictionary of Women Composers, click here. This entry includes a comprehensive list of Caccini's known works, including those that have not survived, as well as an excellent bibliography.

Nate Zuckerman's biographical essay, from Italian Women Writers, is available here. But long before the Internet made information available with the click of a mouse, I discovered Francesca Caccini in Diane Peacock Jezic's Women Composers: The Lost Tradition Found, first published by The Feminist Press in 1988.

There are also a couple of excellent performances available on YouTube, such as this one or this, an instrumental featuring guitar, violin, harpsichord, and viola da gamba.