Ferdinando I de’ Medici 1549-1609 Maiestate Tantum
Museum of the Medici Chapels, Florence, May 2 – Nov 1 2009
This elegant show, commemorating the 400th anniversary of the death of Ferdinando I de’ Medici was inaugurated appropriately enough, on Thursday April 30, 2009, 420 years to the day of the entry of his bride Christina of Lorraine into Florence. The tenth of eleven children of Cosimo I de’ Medici and Eleonora di Toledo, Ferdinando was never expected to rule Tuscany, rather he was intended for a career in the church, made a cardinal at the age of 14. At 38 years old, Ferdinando was catapulted into the dukedom by the sudden and mysterious deaths of his older brother, Francesco I de’ Medici and his wife Bianca Cappello in 1587. Shortly after, Ferdinando unburdened himself of his cardinal’s robes in order to continue the Medici dynasty, marrying Christina in 1589. This exhibition celebrates the patronage of Ferdinand I de’ Medici, from the time he became Grand Duke in 1587 until his death in 1609, by focusing on two distinct projects. The first, early in Ferdinando’s reign, was the triumphal entry prepared for Christina in 1589, and the second was the altar project for the Medici Chapels begun five years before his death.
Sheila Barker, “Poisons and the Prince: Toxicology and Statecraft at the Medici Grand Ducal Court,” in Toxicology in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. Philip Wexler (London, Elsevier, 2017), pp. 71-81)
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