Bianca Cappello

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Portrait of Bianca Capello, Grand Duchess of Tuscany
The Palazzo of Bianca Capello in Florence

Bianca Cappello (* 1548 in Venice , † October 20, 1587 in Florence ) was an Italian mistress and Renaissance princess .

Life

Cappello was born as the daughter of Bartolomeo Cappello and Pellegrina Morosini into a Venetian patrician family. She was the great-granddaughter of Elisabetta Cornaro .

In 1563 she ran away from home with her Florentine lover Pietro Bonaventuri (1546–1570), an employee of the Salviati Bank. Her parents offered high rewards for her capture and that of their abductor. The young couple lived in Florence for several years without being recognized; Bianca is said to have been unhappy because of the poverty of her family. She gave birth to a daughter in Bonaventuri, Virginia.

After her identity was revealed, Grand Duke Cosimo I placed her under his protection in order to prevent her extradition to her parents' home. The regent of the Grand Duchy was his son, Prince Francesco I de 'Medici . He did not have a good relationship with his wife, Archduchess Johanna von Österreich , with whom he had been married since 1565 and who bore him eight children, all of whom with the exception of two daughters died in childhood. Shortly after Bianca's discovery, he secretly became her lover and soon made her his official mistress . In 1570 he had her first husband murdered in order to save the severance payment. In 1574, Francesco became Grand Duke of Tuscany. As a mistress, Cappello became involved as a patroness and around 1575 founded the Convento di San Francesco di Paola the Paulaner monastery in the hills on the south bank of the Arno opposite the city.

In 1576 Bianca Cappello gave birth to the grand duke's alleged son Antonio (1576–1621). The birth took place under mysterious circumstances; Bianca is said to have only faked her pregnancy and delivery. Three women were found as possible surrogate mothers , and with the complicity of the midwife , a newborn baby is said to have been presented as Bianca's son after a simulated birth. The other women and the midwife died shortly afterwards. Francesco is said not to have known about the fraud. He is also said to have secretly married Bianca. What is certain is that the child's existence was kept secret for years.

After the death of his wife in childbed on April 10, 1578, Grand Duke Francesco officially married his mistress Bianca Cappello on June 10, 1579. Her parents reconciled with the daughter and the Venetian government awarded her an honorary title, however in Florence there was opposition to this connection.

Bianca Cappello quickly took on a management position in the management of the court and foreign affairs. In 1583, Francesco Bianca's presumed son Antonio was born in wedlock because his only son had died with his first wife Johanna the year before.

In 1587 the Grand Duke (October 19) and Bianca Cappello died a few hours after him (October 20), after having had dinner with the Duke's brother, Cardinal Ferdinando I de 'Medici , several days earlier (October 8) . suddenly fell ill. There are several theories about this:

  • Bianca is said to have tried to poison Ferdinando, her arch-rival at court, but instead Francesco drank the poison, whereupon Bianca took her own life in the same way.
  • Cardinal Ferdinando himself is said to have been the murderer, a suspicion that quickly arose among contemporaries due to the course of the illness and the obvious motive of Ferdinando and was nourished by Ferdinando's tense relationship with the couple in the past and by his behavior during their illness, when he took over the supervision of the household, to which he had only been a guest a few weeks earlier, and secured his position of power. The poisoning theory is supported by analyzes by forensic scientists working with Francesco Mari and the historian Donatella Lippi from 2006, who found arsenic in a lethal dose. The examined organic remains were not found in the Medici crypt, but in the church of Santa Maria Bonistallo, where legend has it that the flesh of Francesco and Bianca was buried. The circumstances of the find and the alleged identification by DNA comparison were shortly afterwards heavily criticized by Gino Fornaciari, head of the Medici project investigating the Medici graves and pathologist at the University of Pisa.
  • A malaria outbreak was identified as the natural cause of death by doctors at the time, whom Ferdinando commissioned to investigate. Studies from 2010 found malaria pathogens in the bones of Francesco, whereupon Gino Fornaciari decided that the death was caused by malaria. He had previously strongly criticized the findings of Mari and Lippi, showing, among other things, that arsenic could have entered the body in various ways before and after death without being poisoned. Donatella Lippi again criticized Fornaciari and sees the discovery of malaria pathogens as no compelling indication of the cause of death, since malaria was endemic there at the time. In addition, in a letter to the American J. Medicine 2015, she cited the discovery of a report by Cardinal Ferdinando to the Pope, in which he described symptoms of the sick, which indicate arsenic poisoning.

Ferdinando de 'Medici became heir to the throne. He created - with reference to a pseudo-pregnancy of Bianca in 1586 - evidence of the dubious descent of Antonio, whom he delegitimized as heir and accepted generous donations. Since he had hated his sister-in-law all his life - as a possible hereditary regent - he decreed that she could not be buried with Francesco. Bianca's grave remained unknown.

literature

  • Pina Marzi Ciotti: Bianca Cappello . In: The women from the Medici house. Firenze 2003. pp. 43-55. ISBN 88-8015-041-3
  • Gaspare De Caro:  BIANCA Capello, granduchessa di Toscana. In: Alberto M. Ghisalberti (Ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 10:  Biagio-Boccaccio. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1968.
  • Ilaria Hoppe: The Rise of a Mistress. The wedding of Grand Duke Francesco I de 'Medici and Signora Bianca Cappello in 1579 .
  • Sigrid Ruby : Bianca Cappello: Favorite and Grand Duchess . in: The art of government. Commissions from and for Medici women (1512–1743) , ed. by Christina Strunck, Petersberg: Michael Imhoff 2011, pp. 64–73
  • Johann Philipp Siebenkees: Description of the life of the Bianca Capello de Medici Grand Duchess of Tuscany . Gotha 1789 ( digitized version )
  • Paul Gerhard Zeidler: Bianca Capello - The Sorceress of Venice , Berlin-Schöneberg 1927

Web links

Commons : Bianca Cappello  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Antonius Lux (ed.): Great women of world history. A thousand biographies in words and pictures . Sebastian Lux Verlag , Munich 1963, p. 94.
  2. ↑ Edith Schlocker: Ambras Castle: The Emperor's Unhappy Daughters. Die Presse, July 25, 2010, accessed on July 26, 2010 (The exhibition "Nozze italiane" illustrates the marriage policy of the Habsburgs. The focus is on three daughters of Ferdinand I who were married to Italy).
  3. ↑ Suspicion of murder after 400 years .
  4. ↑ Francesco Mari, Aldo Polettini, Donatella Lippi, Elisabetta Bertol: The mysterious death of Francesco I de 'Medici and Bianca Cappello: an arsenic murder? , British Medical Journal , Volume 333, 2006, p 1299 (Engl.)
  5. ↑ G. Fornaciari, V. Giuffra, E. Ferroglio, R. Bianucci, Malaria was "the killer" of Francesco I. de Medici (1531-1587), American J. Medicine, 2010, No. 1232, p. 568– 569
  6. ↑ Discovery: Medici Family Cold Case Finally Solved (Eng.)
  7. ↑ Donatella Lippi, Still about Francesco de Medici's poisening (1587), American J. Medicine, Volume 128, October 2015, p. E61, online
personal data
SURNAME Cappello, Bianca
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian mistress and Renaissance princess
DATE OF BIRTH 1548
PLACE OF BIRTH Venice
DATE OF DEATH October 20, 1587
Place of death Florence