Late in the evening, on November 28th, 1563, a young woman, well-dressed, her head covered, with a bundle in her arms, sneaked out the front door of her family’s house. An older, simpler dressed woman, also with a bundle in her arms, followed. She pushed the door closed.

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The two women hurried over a crooked bridge, and entered a door in a palace on the opposite side.

After a while, they came out again, now in the company of a well-dressed young man. The three, half running, returned over the bridge. They didn’t enter the palace the women came from, but a small house besides it.

Some time later, an elderly man came out of the modest house, and started preparing the boat moored near the bridge. He then went back to the house, called inside, and the young couple came out quickly, stepped into the boat, and the old man rowed them down the dark canal.

Bianca Cappello, the young woman, seventeen years of age at her elopement, would never come back to Venice again. She would, however, become Grand Duchess of Tuscany.

Who was Bianca Cappello?

In the Venetian Republic in the 1500s, like in most renaissance societies, many aspects of a person’s life were decided by their birth.

To place Bianca Cappello, we must therefore start with her family.

The Cappello family was one of the case nuove — the ‘new houses’ — of the Venetian aristocracy. The first notable figure in the family was Vettor Cappello (lived 1400–1467), who rose to the role of Capitan da Mar — the highest admiral in the Venetian navy.

Bianca’s father was Bartolomeo Cappello, born in 1519. He had a quite honourable political career for a Venetian nobleman. He served in the Quarantia (the court of appeals), as provveditore sopra i dazi (customs revenue), provveditor alla sanità (superintendent of public health) and in the Ragion Nuove (auditors of mostly military expenditure). He also served in the Venetian senate — the Pregadi — and a three-year term as Podestà di Treviso (governor of the mainland city of Treviso), a period which coincided with the severe plague epidemic of 1575–77.

His career ground to a halt in 1579, due to the actions of his daughter.

Bartolomeo married Pellegrina Morosini in 1544. The Morosini family was one of the most ancient noble families of Venice, so it was an excellent connection.

Pellegrina gave birth to Vettor Cappello in 1547, and to Bianca the year after. She died when the children were small, but we don’t know the exact year.

What we do know, is that Bartolomeo remarried in 1559, to Lucrezia Grimani, widow of Andrea Contarini. She was the granddaughter of doge Antonio Grimani (born 1434, elected doge in 1521, died 1523), and the sister of Giovanni Grimani, the Patriarch of Aquileia, comparable to an Archbishop.

This second marriage was an advancement for Bartolomeo, socially, politically, and economically, because the Grimani were a very influential and wealthy family.

Lucrezia, however, was a severe step-mother to the two children.

Bianca, much later in a letter to her cousin Andrea, ascribed her elopement to the way her step-mother treated her.

Who was the young man?

The young man was not who Bianca initially had believed him to be.

He was Piero Bonaventuri, a Florentine, son of Zenobio Bonaventuri. The Bonaventuri had a noble past in Florence, but their waning fortunes had seen them drop out of the Florentine aristocracy. They still had useful connections, though.

In Venice, Piero worked for his paternal uncle, Giambattista Bonaventuri, who worked as a moneylender at the Rialto markets.

Modern banking has its roots among moneylenders in Florence and Venice in the 1400s and 1500s. Each moneylender had a desk or a counter, literally a banco, under a portico in the marketplace, from where they ran their business. Many of our banking terms — such as bank, account, credit, debit — are early Italian words from this period in Florence and Venice.

The two cities were some of the most important commercial and financial markets in Europe, and there were close economic ties between them.

Giambattista Bonaventuri managed the money lending affairs in Venice for the very wealthy Florentine Salviati family, and employed his nephew there. They operated the Banco Salviati.

The young Piero liked to dress and live well, often above his means, and would often pretend to be a Salviati, rather than a Bonaventuri.

A youthful love affair

The Cappello palace was surrounded on three sides by canals. From the land-side back door, a crooked bridge crossed the now filled-in canal of Rio di Sant’Aponal.

Across that bridge, was the house Giambattista Bonaventuri had rented as their residence in Venice.

The windows of Bianca’s rooms in one building, and those of Piero’s rooms in the other building, were just in front of each other, on opposite sides of the canal.

Bianca was being kept secluded by her step-mother, but the two passed messages back and forth, then started seeing each other secretly, when their parents were out of the way.

The only one in on the secret relationship was Bianca’s trusted maid.

It appears that Bianca initially believed Piero to be of the wealthy Salviati family, and in that case, she could probably have obtained her father’s consent to a marriage.

Piero was not, however, a Salviati, but a much poorer and lower ranked Bonaventuri.

Bianca was a Venetian noblewoman, with a maternal inheritance of six thousand scudi, and more to come later from her father.

He was not a suitable match for Bianca, and the chances of getting a paternal consent were much lower.

The consequences for the young lovers were dire if they couldn’t marry.

Seducing a young noblewoman could land Piero in prison, sentenced to a huge fine, or worse, see him dead at the hands of Bartolomeo Cappello himself, or somebody for him. Those were matters of family honour.

For Bianca, it would mean a secluded life in a convent.

Confronted with such prospects, the two ran for it.

Bianca gathered the jewels and other valuables she had, and convinced the boatman of the Cappello family to row them to Fusina on the mainland.

Flight

The couple arrived on the mainland, and immediately headed south, as fast they could.

They crossed the border on the Adige river the next day. They were then in the Papal State, where the Venetian authorities couldn’t reach them.

Their expectation was, however, that Bianca’s father would have hired armed men to pursue them, with orders to kill Piero and bring back Bianca, destined for a nunnery for the rest of her life.

The two continued to Ferrara, Bologna, across the Apennines, and after four days on the road, they arrived at the city gates of Piero’s native Florence.

They went directly to Piero’s family, who lived in the Piazza San Marco or all places. Zenobio Bonaventuri welcomed back his son, accepted that he had dragged Bianca along, but forbade them to leave the house.

The expectation was, still, that armed men would come for them.

On December 12th, 1563, the two were married in the nearby church of San Marco.

Back in Venice

When the disappearance of Bianca was discovered on the morning of November 29th, it didn’t take long to connect it to the disappearance of the young man in the palace across the canal.

Interrogated, the maid and the boatman told what had happened during the night.

Bartolomeo didn’t, however, hire thugs to pursue the couple.

We can only speculate as to why, but maybe it was just simple economics. Bianca was damaged goods. A marriage for her in Venice would be much under their social level, and hence not acceptable, and a monastery would require her dowry, so at least part of those six thousand scudi, Pellegrina Morosini had left her daughter. If Bianca just stayed put in Florence, she would soon be forgotten, and the money would remain in the family. There would be little to gain, and something to lose, by dragging her back.

What Bartolomeo did, to protect his honour and reputation, was to bring the issue up in front of the Council of Ten.

The Council of Ten handled state security, it was the secret police, and it was the tribunal for criminal cases which involved nobles.

On December 10th, the Council of Ten decided to put a reward for Piero’s capture or death. Both Bartolomeo and the Patriarch of Aquileia added to that reward, but none of them did anything actively.

On the 15th, Giambattista Bonaventuri was arrested as an accomplice of his nephew. Not exactly a young man, he died two months later, in prison, of some kind of disease, probably due to the awful conditions.

Both the Cappello family and the Republic did little to recover Bianca. Over the next few years, the Republic made some requests to the Duke of Florence to send her back, but they were declined, and nothing further happened.

Bianca in Florence

Bianca’s life with the Bonaventuri in Florence wasn’t as easy as she had contemplated.

The Bonaventuri were far less affluent than the Cappello family in Venice, and Bianca had to contend with a much simpler life. There were far fewer servants, and Bianca had to partake directly in the household chores, something she had never had to do before.

Nevertheless, the year 1564 proved eventful for Bianca and her new family.

She was pregnant because in October, she gave birth to hers and Piero’s daughter Pellegrina, named after Bianca’s mother. The timing implies that she was pregnant when the two eloped from Venice, but she probably didn’t know it yet.

As the threat from Venice didn’t seem to materialise, she gradually emerged from hiding. Rumours of the beautiful young Venetian noblewoman hiding in Florence had abounded from the time of her arrival, so she received her fair share of attention.

One day, she caught the eye of the young Francesco de’ Medici, son and heir to Cosimo I, Duke of Florence, and they started seeing each other.

In October, shortly before the birth of Pellegrina, Zenobio Bonaventuri asked to be officially relieved of his legal responsibilities for his daughter-in-law, which indicates that already then things were well out of his control.

So, within one year, while on the run from the law of Venice, newlywed, and pregnant, she became the mistress of the heir and regent of the Duchy of Florence.

Francesco I de’ Medici

Francesco I de’ Medici was the oldest son of Cosimo I de’ Medici, who had ascended to the ducal throne in 1537, at the age of seventeen.

The year 1564 turned out quite eventful for him, too, and not just because of Bianca.

His father, Cosimo I, had married a Spanish princess, Eleonora of Toledo, who gave him eleven children. Three children died very young, which was not unusual, but it wasn’t the end of it. In 1557 Maria died, aged seventeen, in 1561 Lucrezia died aged sixteen, and in 1562 within one month he lost Giovanni, aged nineteen, Garzia, aged fifteen, and his wife, aged forty, all to malaria.

Consequently, in June 1564, Cosimo decided to retire from government, and left the day-to-day business of the Duchy of Florence to Francesco. Cosimo retained the title, and continued to engage in foreign relations, but otherwise didn’t interfere much in his son’s administration.

At this point, the family of Francesco consisted of his father, his sister Isabella, married to the Duke of Bracciano in the Papal State, his brother Ferdinando who was a cardinal in Rome, and another younger brother, Pietro.

At this point, it was paramount that Francesco got an heir, and hence a dynastically interesting wife. The choice fell on the Habsburg princess Johanna of Austria, daughter of Ferdinand I of Austria.

Treaties were drawn up, dowries and gifts decided, and in March 1565, the marriage was announced.

Johanna, or Giovanna as she is called in Italy, arrived in Tuscany in December and the wedding celebrations occupied the whole city for weeks on end.

Giovanna d’Austria

Giovanna of Austria would have an important, if unwanted, role in Bianca’s life.

If she was just the right woman for Francesco in terms of dynastic connections, she wasn’t in terms of personal chemistry.

Giovanna was very religious, pious, rather skinny, not pretty, with the classical Habsburg lower jaw. In short, as a person, she was the exact opposite of Bianca.

Of course such a thing is never said, much less written, but it is evident that for Francesco the only purpose of Giovanna was a dynastic bond with an important European power, and that she should produce a male heir.

While the former worked out OK, the second didn’t really. Of the eight children she bore Francesco in the twelve years of their loveless marriage, the first six were girls, of which only two lived into adulthood.

People in the past buried plenty of children, even among the wealthy and powerful elite.

While Giovanna was popular with the common people of Florence, she never became a Florentine. She lived much of her life in Florence secluded in the Pitti Palace, surrounded by German-speaking servants and ladies-in-waiting which she had brought with her from Austria.

She never really learned the Tuscan language, and she apparently never really tried.

Bianca the mistress

So, Francesco married Giovanna, but for love, affection, confidentiality, he turned to Bianca.

Bianca was married, so her husband Piero Bonaventuri had to be kept quiet. She also lived in the house of her in-laws, which was awkward.

Already in 1565, Piero had received a position at court, with a decent stipend, in the wardrobe of the palace. Besides paying him off, it gave him social standing in the city, and it made it plausible for both him and Bianca to come and go at the palace.

In either 1566 or 1567, Piero bought a house he absolutely couldn’t afford, for Bianca. Located in the Via Maggio, just a few hundred metres from the Pitti Palace, it was painted in fantastic black-and-white designs, with the Cappello coat of arms over the main entrance.

Her apartment was on the first floor, while Piero’s was on the ground floor, with a separate entrance.

Francesco had the keys, and came and went as he pleased, which was, from what we can gather, practically daily. His public life was in the palace, but his private life was in Via Maggio.

In 1567, Francesco gifted Bianca a large agricultural estate outside the city, so she would be economically independent and able to run a proper household.

Bianca’s life as the mistress of the prince was thus fairly settled.

Crisis

The year 1570 started well, with Cosimo I crowned Grand Duke of Tuscany by the Pope.

That was a title, which placed the rulers of Florence and Tuscany higher than the rulers of most of the other small Italian states, such as the Duchies of Parma, Modena, Ferrara, Mantua and Piedmont.

However, somehow the half-public knowledge of Francesco’s private life with Bianca — his constant comings and goings at all times of day and night in the Via Maggio — made it into the German-speaking bubble around Giovanna.

Giovanna had an absolute hissy-fit.

Now, what Giovanna felt was not in itself a problem, there was little she could do, unless her sentiments made their way back to her imperial family in Austria.

The danger wasn’t what Giovanna could or couldn’t do, but what Austria would do, Austria here being her father.

Such a marriage wasn’t as much between two persons, as it was between two states.

Francesco had to appease Giovanna, so he promised her to not see Bianca any more, and they went on a long journey around Tuscany together, so she could see ‘her’ lands.

Bianca had already left Florence for one of her villas in the countryside. More gifts and the regular income from her estates had made her even wealthier, and materially she was probably richer than her family back in Venice.

After the return of Francesco and Giovanna to Florence, Giovanna gave birth to their fourth daughter, who died within a year.

Francesco and Bianca soon picked up where they had left, but kept a lower profile.

The end of Piero

That lower profile was put at risk by the antics of Piero Bonaventuri.

While he had in many ways a good life, a position a court, a secure income, social standing thanks to his closeness to the ducal household, having your life and status depend on who your wife sleeps with, wasn’t exactly honourable.

He started having mistresses of his own, and had an affair — entirely in the open ­— with Catarina Ricci, a widow from an important Florentine family.

The Ricci family was rich, powerful and well-connected, and they had already dispatched three of Catarina’s previous lovers across the river Styx.

That proved a bit harder with Piero, due to his connections to the ducal household, and through Bianca to the prince himself.

The Ricci family tried several times to bring up their grievance with the Medici, directly to Francesco and through his sister Isabella, but to little avail.

Francesco pleaded with Bianca to stop Piero, but despite all the warnings, he persisted in seeing Catarina publicly.

Her family then went directly to Francesco, who in late August 1572 left Florence for a hunting trip in one of the many ducal villas around.

As soon as Francesco was out of town, the Ricci family mustered a group of twelve men, who secretly followed Piero to see his mistress, and then rounded him up under Bianca’s house, where they attacked him.

Piero defended himself, and wounded several of the assailants, but ended up dead in a pool of blood.

As the neighbours sounded the alarm, Bianca came out and found her dead husband on her doorstep.

She had the body moved directly to the nearby church, where it was readied for a funeral the following morning.

The death of Cosimo

Cosimo had several mistresses after his retirement, and in 1570 he married the young Cammilla Martelli, who had already given him a daughter in 1568.

He fell gravely ill in 1572, was mostly paralysed, and in April 1574, he died.

Apparently, the authority of Cosimo was what held his offspring in line, and the following years read like a horror story.

Francesco, now Grand Duke of Tuscany, locked Cammilla Martelli up in a monastery, where she would spend most of the rest of her life. She was only let out shortly, for the wedding of her daughter in 1586.

There had been some episodes where Bianca and Giovanna had met on the streets, as they lived in the same part of Florence. Francesco now had Bianca moved to a much larger palace on the other side of the Arno river, where she practically held a parallel court to the one in the Pitti Palace.

Consequently, their continued relationship came much more out in the open. Cosimo had clearly never approved of Bianca, but had exercised little leverage on his son, as he himself had numerous mistresses.

Pietro de’ Medici, the youngest surviving brother of Francesco, had married his Spanish cousin, Leonora de Toledo, in 1571. He was violent, and had numerous mistresses, and Leonora lived semi-abandoned at court in Florence. Here she was part of Bianca’s daily circle of friends, if you can have friends in such an environment.

In 1576, when Pietro believed that Leonora had taken a lover, he came back to Florence, brought her out to one of their countryside villas to accompany him on a hunting trip, and strangled her.

Francesco, the Grand Duke, didn’t punish his brother, but instead imprisoned Leonora’s alleged lover and those who had covered up the affair. However, following the scandal of a Medici murdering his own wife in cold blood, he dispatched Pietro back to Spain.

Isabella, the sister of Francesco and also a confidante of Bianca’s, had been betrothed to Paolo Giordano Orsini, Duke of Bracciano in the Papal State, at the age of eleven. The marriage took place in 1558 when she was sixteen or seventeen.

Orsini, however, preferred to live in Rome with his mistress, a Roman noblewoman who was the niece of Pope Sixtus V. He left Isabella in Florence under the supervision of his cousin, Troilo Orsini.

Troilo became Isabella’s lover, but here too, her husband discovered it.

Immediately after the subdued funeral of Leonora de Toledo, Paolo Giordano Orsini took his wife out to a villa in the countryside, and strangled her.

The murder of Isabella didn’t damage his relationship with Francesco, and he went back to Rome to marry his mistress. They remarried three or four times, as the Pope kept annulling the marriage due to the immorality of the union.

Troilo fled Florence, and found refuge in Paris under the protection of Queen Catarina de’ Medici, who was from another branch of the Medici family. He was assassinated there in 1577, at the behest of Francesco.

Who knows what Bianca thought of the violent ends of the two women at court closest to her, but whatever she thought, she was wise enough to keep it to herself.

Don Antonio

One of the more dubious stories about Bianca is about the birth of her son, Don Antonio.

Bianca’s life depended on Francesco, and if she could procure that make heir, her position would be much stronger.

In 1576, she gave birth to a boy. Or maybe she didn’t.

Even back then, the city was full of rumours about how Bianca had taken the newborn son of a poor woman, pitched him as her own, while sending the real mother away to Bologna.

Bianca always treated Antonio as her own son, but few others did.

Whatever the truth was, there was always an air of illegitimacy around Don Antonio, which followed him throughout his life.

Finally, an heir

Pellegrina, Bianca’s daughter with Piero, had been betrothed to Count Ulisse Bentivoglia from Bologna, through the intervention of Francesco.

They got married in Bologna in early 1577. Bianca travelled there with her only offspring in February, and planned to stay there for several months.

Then disaster struck back in Florence.

In May 1577, Giovanna gave birth to a boy. On the seventh attempt, Francesco had got his male heir.

Feasts and celebrations occupied Florence for all of June, but Bianca remained in Bologna.

Her life and position in Florence depended entirely on her relationship to the Grand Duke. If he now shunted her aside, she would be a nobody. If he decided to retake what he had gifted her, he could do that.

Over the summer, Vettor Cappello, her brother, came to Bologna to see her, which probably means they had exchanged letters. Who initiated the rapprochement, we don’t know, but Bianca was now in direct contact with her Venetian family again, after fourteen years of separation.

In August, Bianca bought a large palace in Venice, the Palazzo Trevisan in the Rio Cannonica, just behind the Doge’s Palace, for her father and brother.

It is difficult not to see this as Bianca hedging her bets, in case the developments in Florence didn’t go her way.

For the baptism of infant Don Filippo in September, Bianca still remained in Bologna.

Only in November did Bianca return to Tuscany, but remained in one of her villas outside the city until early 1578. Even then, she kept a low profile and stopped giving the lavish parties and entertainments, which had been her wont before.

She had evidently done the right thing, and her relationship with Francesco resumed.

Death of Giovanna

Bianca now kept her contacts with the Cappello family going, and in early April 1578, Vettor Cappello came to Florence to visit his sister.

As he arrived, Giovanna, pregnant again, fell ill.

Francesco invited Vettor to the Pratolino villa outside Florence, where he and Bianca entertained their Venetian guest. The villa, built just a few years earlier as a retreat for Francesco and Bianca, was one of the grandest of the Medici villas in Tuscany.

Later, Vettor was presented formally at court, which didn’t escape Giovanna’s attention, and she understood that her rival was still her husband’s lover, male heir or no male heir.

Then, as Francesco and Bianca were travelling by carriage from Florence to the Pratolino, they crossed the carriage of Giovanna.

Giovanna, pregnant and not well, verbally confronted Bianca, and then ordered her carriage back to the Pitti Palace.

The following day, Francesco and Bianca probably at the Pratolino, she went to the church of the Annunciation to pray for a safe delivery. As she left the church, she fell, head first, down the stairs. Rushed back to the Pitti Palace, she gave birth to a still-born boy.

Francesco rushed back to Florence, as they received the news from the city. He arrived just in time to ask her forgiveness, before Giovanna expired.

Giovanna died at thirty-one years of age, after twelve years of marriage to a man who clearly didn’t love her, having had ten pregnancies. Only three of her children survived her, and one only by a few years.

She was one of the most privileged persons of her time, born in the purple, she lived a life of limitless wealth, yet her life was short, more pain than joy, more sorrow than happiness.

Secret marriage

Francesco had to remain in mourning for one year after the death of his wife.

Bianca had, already after the murder of Piero, extracted a promise from Francesco, that he would marry her if Giovanna died before her. Now Giovanna was dead, and Bianca tried to hold him to that promise.

The family and the Florentine aristocracy had never really accepted Bianca. They hadn’t been able to eliminate her because she was always the Duke’s favourite, but they didn’t want to have her as their superior.

Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici in particular didn’t want Francesco’s Venetian mistress regularised, and he soon started to search a suitable new wife for the Grand Duke.

Bianca, however, was aware of this, and on June 5th — just two months after the death of Giovanna — Francesco and Bianca married secretly in the Pitti Palace.

To keep the façade up, Francesca appointed her governess of the three surviving children, and had an apartment prepared for between his apartment and the rooms of the children. That way, she could live in the palace without arousing suspicion, at least in theory.

Bianca wrote the news to her Venetian relatives in August, and later that year Vettor Cappello returned to Florence. He probably came as a kind of informal ambassador, to figure how the alliance could work to the advantage of the Republic of Venice.

Daughter of the Republic

The marriage between Francesco and Giovanna had been an alliance between the Habsburgs of Austria and the Medici of Florence.

It was more than a marriage between two individuals. It was an alliance between two dynasties and two states.

What would a marriage between Francesco and Bianca mean for the relationship between the two states?

On the face of it, nothing. Bianca was a Cappello, but they were but one of over a hundred noble families of Venice. The Cappello family didn’t rule Venice, since Venice was a Republic. Bianca wasn’t a relation of the ‘ruler’ of Venice because there was no such ruler.

Naturally, both the Republic of Venice and Francesco de’ Medici would want it to mean something, as both sides would probably benefit from a closer relationship.

Luckily, Venice had been in this situation before, and had a model to copy.

When Catarina Corner married James II, King of Cyprus, in 1468, this same problem had been solved by having the Republic of Venice formally adopt Catarina Corner, by public deed, as “Daughter of the Republic.”

The suggestion Vettor brought to Florence was, therefore, that the Republic of Venice would formally adopt Bianca as “Daughter of the Republic” before the official marriage. The marriage would then be an alliance between the two states, even if Venice wasn’t a monarchy.

The price Venice wanted in return, was that Bianca should become Grand Duchess of Tuscany, and not just consort of the Grand Duke.

Venetian diplomacy

On June 10th, 1579, the marriage of Francesco and Bianca was made public.

Two days later, an ambassador from Florence arrived in Venice, carrying two letters, both dated June 10th.

The ambassador was hosted by Bartolomeo and Vettor Cappello — in the palace, which Bianca had bought earlier — and on the 14th he was formally received by the Signoria in the Doge’s Palace.

The letter from the Grand Duke of Tuscany announced his desire to make Bianca Cappello his wife.

In the letter from Bianca to the Signoria, she formally requested the consent of the Republic in the form of a declaration that she was “Daughter of the Republic.”

On the 15th, the letters were read aloud in the Pregadi — the Venetian Senate — which immediately voted to accept the suggestion.

The formal declaration by the Senate is dated June 17th, 1579:

As it has pleased the grand Duke of Tuscany to choose as his wife the Lady Bianca Cappello, gentlewoman of a most noble house of this city, ornate of those most clear and singular qualities which has made her worthy of every great fortune, and to make a convenient sign of the highest pleasure, with which our Republic has received this event, and in correspondence with the esteem which the grand Duke has shown us in this his important and very wise resolution: Let it be decided that the above-mentioned Most Illustrious and Most Excellent Lady Bianca Cappello, grand duchess of Tuscany, be by the authority of this Senate created and declared true and particular daughter of our Republic.

The form and shape of this document is that of a Venetian law.

Neither of the two letters to the Republic mentioned the title of “Grand Duchess of Tuscany” in relation to Bianca. This made it look like Francesco wouldn’t give her that title, maybe to placate Cardinal Ferdinando, who opposed the marriage.

The Venetian reply, as quoted above, made it obvious, however, that the declaration of “true and particular daughter of our Republic” was for the “grand duchess of Tuscany.” It is implied, that if she didn’t get that title, the declaration of the Senate would be null and void.

The Republic of Venice wanted its part of the bargain.

That same day, in a similar motion, the Senate declared Bartolomeo and Vettor Cappello “knights.”

Venice never had a feudal past, and there were no real knightly orders in Venice, but they did have the Order of the Knights of San Marco. It didn’t involve any ceremonies with kneeling and swords and things like that. It was little more than an honorific title, the Republic could bestow on deserving noblemen.

In this case, it served to provide the father and brother of the Grand Duchess of Tuscany with noble titles which people outside Venice could understand, so they would be treated with due respect.

Preparations for the wedding

The next few months saw a flurry of missives and ambassadors travelling back and forth between Venice and Florence.

Vettor Cappello personally carried the Republic’s replies to the two letters to Florence, and later returned with the replies to the replies.

In July, the thirteen-year-old Don Giovanni — the natural bother of Francesco — travelled to Venice, and was treated with all possible and impossible honours. The Council of Ten even permitted, that he cast a ballot during a session of the Greater Council, once and only once.

The wedding

The Republic had appointed two ambassadors to represent Venice at the wedding.

They arrived in Florence on October 28th, with a train of five hundred horses and seventy noblemen, all hosted at the Pitti Palace.

A series of audiences, meetings and feasts followed, where all the different parties honoured each other, and presented their gifts.

The actual wedding ceremony took place on October 12th in the Palazzo Vecchio.

As Bianca entered the hall, she was led to Francesco by the two ambassadors, while her father and brother walked behind them. This was the Republic — not the Cappello family — giving away a “true and particular daughter.”

The Grand Duke had requested that Bianca wore a ducal crown for the wedding, but Venice naturally had an aversion to crowns. Venice had no crowned rulers.

A special vote back in the Senate in Venice had granted the ambassadors authority to place a crown on her head, but to make it obvious that she was not in any way a ruler of Venice, or related to any such ruler.

Therefore, when the ambassador placed the crown on her head, he proclaimed loudly, that it was “a sign of being a true and particular daughter of the Signoria of Venice.”

Three weeks of feasts and celebrations followed the wedding.

Bianca was at the pinnacle of her dreams.

The problem of succession

Giovanna had given Francesco the male heir he needed, but in 1582 Don Filippo fell ill, and in a few weeks he died, aged four.

Any attempts at having Don Antonio — the supposed son of Bianca and Francesco — declared legitimate were blocked by the rest of the Medici clan, especially Cardinal Ferdinando.

Bianca’s health started faltering in 1585, with faints and fevers, which were often interpreted as pregnancies, but they weren’t.

Attempts at getting Francesco’s brother Pietro to remarry failed, also because many eligible families were loath to give their daughter to a man, who had already once murdered his wife.

The death of Bianca and Francesco

In the late summer of 1587 the family moved to their residence in Poggio a Cajano, in the Tuscan countryside.

Cardinal Ferdinando joined them from Rome, and in early October, also Pellegrina and her husband.

The men went hunting on the grounds, but Francesco got a fever. As he got worse, Bianca too went to bed with a fever.

Neither would survive.

On October 19th, Francesco died. Before he expired, he gave the keys to the castles of Tuscany to Ferdinando, designating him as his heir, and asked him to protect and take care of Bianca, Pellegrina and Antonio.

As the body of Francesco was readied for transport to Florence on October 20th, Bianca died without knowing Francesco had died before her.

The most likely cause of death was malaria. Needless to say, theories of poisoning have abounded since their death became public knowledge, usually with Ferdinando as the villain.

However, no decisive proof of foul play has ever been found, while remains of bacteria which lead to malaria, have been found in the remains of Francesco.

The end

Francesco was buried in Florence on October 20th, and Bianca the day after.

While Francesco was interred in the Medici Chapel in the church of San Lorenzo, Bianca wasn’t.

Ferdinando had never approved of the relationship between her and Francesco, and when he was asked if Bianca should go to the Medici Chapel too, his answer was: “No, she’s already been with us for too long.” Asked where they should bury her, he answered: “Wherever.”

Bianca was therefore buried in an unmarked grave, probably within the church of San Lorenzo, without any ceremonies or public mourning. The location has been lost to time.

In Venice, the first news of her death arrived from Rome, along with the information that Ferdinando had resigned as cardinal to take the title of Grand Duke of Tuscany.

Then a formal dispatch arrived, in which Ferdinando requested that there should be no public mourning for Bianca and Francesco.

The Signoria, realising that the direction of the wind had changed, didn’t declare any public mourning for the “true and particular daughter of our Republic.”

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