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Thus, Eleanora di Toledo was hacked to pieces by her husband Pietro de' Medici, and his sister Isabella was strangled by her husband the Duke di Bracciano, with the consent of her brothers. Isabella dead, the duke was free to marry Vittoria Accoramboni, in no way his equal in rank, for he was an Orsini, who was a woman totally devoid of all moral sense if she is to be judged by her acts.
Hers was virile power, dishonored neither by the terrible amours of Isabella nor by those, even more terrible, though less known, of Marie de' Medici. Isabella summoned the English into France against her son, and loved her brother-in-law, the Duc d'Orleans. The record of Marie de' Medici is heavier still. Neither had political genius.
After the fiasco of 1614, affairs went from bad to worse. Nobles and Huguenots contended between themselves, and both against the court favorites. As many as five distinct uprisings occurred. Marie de' Medici was forced to relinquish the government, but Louis XIII, on reaching maturity, gave evidence of little executive ability.
Two pamphlets, both of them hasty improvisations, one a philosophic commentary on a certain stanza of the Faërie Queen, the other, his well-known Observations on the 'Religio Medici', are but mere bubbles of this seething activity, given over mostly to the preparation of his Two Treatises, "Of the Body," and "Of the Soul," published later in Paris, and to experiments on glass-making.
Having returned to Florence, therefore, he wrought the Sacristy of S. Lorenzo in stucco for Cosimo de' Medici, making four medallions on the pendentives of the vault containing stories of the Evangelists, with grounds in perspective, partly painted and partly in low-relief.
This scenery having also much pleased the Duke, he ordained, when the time came, that for his nuptials with Madama Margherita of Austria another comedy should be performed, with scenery by Aristotile, in the Company of Weavers, which is joined to the house of the Magnificent Ottaviano de' Medici, in the Via di S. Gallo.
Charles V., obliged to sustain Catholicism against the attacks of Luther, who threatened the Throne in threatening the Tiara, allowed the siege of Rome and held Pope Clement VII. in prison! This same Clement, who had no bitterer enemy than Charles V., courted him in order to make Alessandro de' Medici ruler of Florence, and obtained his favorite daughter for that bastard.
Savonarola took the side of the people, and fanned the discontents. He became the recognized leader of opposition to the Medici, and virtually ruled the city. The Prior of St. Mark now appeared in a double light, as a political leader and as a popular preacher.
All the documents belonging to the woolen trade were burned, and after the commission of much violence, by way of associating it with something laudable, Salvestro de Medici and sixty-three other citizens were made knights, among whom were Benedetto and Antonio degli Alberti, Tommaso Strozzi and others similarly their friends; though many received the honor against their wills.
From Italy, to which Cosmo de Medici had lately restored its golden age, painting, architecture, and the arts of carving and of engraving on copper, were transplanted into the Netherlands, where, in a new soil, they flourished with fresh vigor.
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