Laura Martinozzi

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Portrait of Laura Martinozzi (presumed)

Laura Martinozzi (born April 22, 1635 in Fano ; † July 19, 1687 > in Rome ) was one of the so-called Mazarinettes (French: Mazarinettes ) and was born through marriage to Alfonso IV. D'Este from October 14, 1658 to July 16 1662 Duchess of Modena . From 1662 to 1674 she exercised the reign of her son Francesco II d'Este in the duchy .

Life

Laura was born in Fano as the daughter of the Italian nobleman Girolamo Martinozzi, Margrave of Fano and majordomo of Cardinal Francesco Barberini , and his wife Laura Margherita Mazarini , Jules Mazarin's older sister . She was the niece of the powerful French First Minister, who brought her to France in 1653 together with her cousins Hortensia and Maria Mancini . There she learned French and etiquette for six months in Aix-en-Provence before she was allowed to travel to Paris to the French court.

The Duke of Modena, Francesco I d'Este , asked Mazarin for his son, the 21-year-old Alfonso d'Este, for the hand of the then 15-year-old Laura, because Francesco needed French help to assert himself against Spain to be able to. The wedding took place on May 27, 1655 by procurationem in Compiègne . The groom was represented by Eugen Moritz von Savoyen-Carignan , the father of the famous Prince Eugen .

After only around two years in France, Laura traveled to her husband and back to Italy . In 1658, after the sudden death of his father, he ascended the throne in Modena, and Mazarin saw herself as the uncle of a ruling princess. Laura's husband died as early as 1662, and she became regent of the two-year-old heir to the throne, Francesco II. Her reign was calm, as Laura proved to be smart and far-sighted in matters of state. She ruled mildly and knew how to rehabilitate the ailing finances of the duchy through a strict austerity policy, but nevertheless to continue large baroque building projects , some of which had already begun under Duke Francesco I , such as the Palazzo Ducale or the building of the Church of San Carlo .

When her childhood playmates, Louis XIV , started an expedition to Candia , she loaned him a thousand soldiers from Modena. Ludwig chose her son-in-law for this, the then Duke of York , who later became King of England as James II .

When her son was 14 years old, Laura resigned from the reign. The mentally and physically weak Francesco II came under the influence of his half-brother Cesare, and Laura moved to Rome to live with her mother. She refused her son's request to return to Modena until her death. Shortly before her death, she went on a pilgrimage to Loreto , where she prayed that her daughter Maria Beatrix, who had risen to become Queen of England and whose children had all died young, would have a viable son. This wish came true in June 1688 with the birth of James Francis Edward Stuart . But Laura herself did not live to see her grandson's birth because she had died of an illness on July 19, 1687 in the Ursuline monastery she had enlarged in Via Vittoria in Rome. Her grave is now in the Church of San Vincenzo in Modena.

progeny

From his marriage to Alfonso there were three children, only two of whom reached adulthood:

literature

  • Camillo Brunetti: Donna Laura Martinozzi d'Este. Duchessa di Modena . In: Rivista Araldica. Rivista del Collegio Araldico . Jg. 5, 1907, ISSN  0035-5771 , pp. 48-52.
  • Sonia Cavicchioli (Ed.): Laura Martinozzi d'Este, fille de France, dux Mutinae. Studi intorno a Laura Martinozzi reggente del ducato di Modena (1662 - 1674) (= Mutina, Modana, Modena. Documenti, studi e ricerche sulla città e sul territorio . Volume 1). Il Bulino, Modena 2009, ISBN 978-88-86251-82-2 ( excerpt) .
  • Alessandro Cont: “Sono nato principe libero, tale voglio conservarmi”. Francesco II d'Este (1660-1694) (= Memorie Scientifiche, Giuridiche, Letterarie . Volume 8, Volume 12, Fasc. 2). Accademia Nazionale di Scienze Lettere e Arti di Modena, 2009, ISSN  1124-2493 , pp. 407-459 ( online ).
  • Otto Flake: Great ladies of the baroque. Historical portraits. Fischer, Berlin 1981, ISBN 3-596-22273-7 , pp. 33-36.
  • Roberta Iotti: Fiori d'arancio nell'orto delle alleanze. Finalità della politica matrimoniale estense nell'orbita italica ed europea . In: Il Ducato di Modena & Reggio 1598-1859. Lo Stato, la Corte, le Arti . Artioli, Modena 2007.
  • Roberta Iotti: Laura ducissa, Laura dux. Una donna al governo della corte estense .. In: Quaderni Estensi. Rivista on line degli Istituti culturali estensi. No. 3, 2011, ISSN  2036-5101 , pp. 214–227 ( PDF ; 153 kB).
  • Amédée Renée: Mazarin's nieces. Studies of Morals and Characters in the 17th Century . 3. Edition. Rudolf Kuntze, Dresden 1858, pp. 116–127 ( digitized version ).
  • Guy Jean Raoul Eugène Charles Emmanuel de Savoie-Carignan: The seven richest heiresses of France . J. Long, London 1911, pp. 102-108 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Commons : Laura Martinozzi  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Information from Giovanni Maria Claudi, Liana Catri: Dizionario storico-biografico dei Marchigiani . Volume 2. Il Lavoro, Ancona 1993, ISBN 88-7663-131-3 , p. 658. Other publications often state that Laura was 16 years old when she married, which means she must have been born in 1638 or 1639.
  2. ^ Andrew Barclay: Mary of Modena . In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB) . Volume 37, 2004, p. 100.
  3. ^ Sylvia Jurewitz-Freischmidt: Mistresses of the Louvre. France's regents Maria de 'Medici and Anne d'Autriche . Casimir Katz, Gernsbach 2005, ISBN 3-925825-98-3 , p. 330.
  4. ↑ modena.it , accessed January 5, 2017.
  5. ^ Ronny Baier:  Este (Modena), Maria Beatrice Anna Margareta Isabelle von. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 24, Bautz, Nordhausen 2005, ISBN 3-88309-247-9 , Sp. 578  ( article / beginning of article in the Internet archive  on 2007-06-13)
  6. ^ Sylvia Jurewitz-Freischmidt: Galantes Versailles. The mistresses at the court of the Bourbons . Piper, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-492-24494-7 , p. 161.
  7. ^ Alfred von Reumont: History of the city of Rome . Volume 3. R. von Decker, Berlin 1870, p. 808.
  8. ^ R. Iotti: Fiori d'arancio nell'orto delle alleanze . 2007.
personal data
SURNAME Martinozzi, Laura
BRIEF DESCRIPTION by marriage, Duchess and Regent of Modena
DATE OF BIRTH April 22, 1635
PLACE OF BIRTH Fano
DATE OF DEATH July 19, 1687
Place of death Rome