Clara Gonzaga – noblewoman

Countess from Mantua founded European dynasties

Clara Gonzaga's marriage began a dynasty
of European royalty

Clara (Chiara) Gonzaga, the eldest daughter of Federico I Gonzaga and Margaret of Bavaria, was born on this day in 1464 in Mantua.

One of her six children became Charles III, Duke of Bourbon and led the imperial army sent by Emperor Charles V against Pope Clement VII in what was to become the Sack of Rome in 1527.

Clara was also to feature as one of the characters in The Heptameron, a collection of 72 short stories written in French by the sister of King Francis I of France, Marguerite of Angouleme, who had been inspired by Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron.

Clara had five siblings, including Francesco II Gonzaga, who married Isabella d’Este.

She was married at the age of 17 to Gilbert of Bourbon Montpensier. Four years later he succeeded his father as Count of Montpensier and Dauphin of Auvergne.

Clara and Gilbert had six children, but when she was just 32, Gilbert, who had also become Viceroy of Naples and the Duke of Sessa, died of a fever while in Pozzuoli near Naples, leaving her a widow.

Cesare Borgia was a
threat to Mantua

Three years later, Clara acted as a mediator on behalf of her brother Francesco, who was trying to form an alliance with King Louis XII of France in order to protect Mantua, which was being threatened by both Cesare Borgia and the Doge of Venice.

Clara died in 1503, just before her 39th birthday and was buried at the Chapelle Saint Louis in the Church of Aigueperse in Auvergne.

Among her many descendants are King Louis XIV of France, Queen Marie Antoinette of France and Franz Josef I of Austria, the longest reigning Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary. Through the Houses of Hanover, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Windsor, Clara is also an ancestor of Queen Elizabeth II of England.

Mantua is an atmospheric city with a lakeside setting

Travel tip:

Mantua is an atmospheric old city in Lombardy, 155km (96 miles) to the southeast of Milan, famous for its Renaissance Palazzo Ducale, the seat of the Gonzaga family between 1328 and 1707. The Camera degli Sposi is decorated with frescoes by Andrea Mantegna, depicting the life of Ludovico III Gonzaga, Clara’s grandfather, and members of his family. The beautiful backgrounds of imaginary cities and ruins reflect Mantegna’s love of classical architecture.

Sulphuric smoke rises from
the ground at Solfatara

Travel tip:

Pozzuoli, where Clara’s husband Gilbert died in 1496, a year after becoming Viceroy of Naples, is a municipality in the Metropolitan City of Naples in the region of Campania, lying in the centre of an area of volcanic activity known as the Campi Flegrei (Phlegraean Fields). Plumes of pungent sulphuric smoke can be seen emerging from the ground at nearby Solfatara. In the 1980s the city experienced hundreds of tremors and the sea bottom was raised by almost two metres, making the Bay of Pozzuoli too shallow for small craft. The volcanic sand found in the area provided the basis for the first example of concrete in construction.

More reading:

Isabella d'Este, 'first lady of the world'

Cesare Borgia: From Cardinal to military leader

Why the election of Pope Clement VII caused a split in the Catholic Church

Also on this day:

1586: The birth of composer Claudio Saracini

1878: The birth of romanticised career burglar Gino Meneghetti

1888: The birth of abstract painter Alberto Magnelli


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Cosimo de' Medici

Banker who founded the Medici dynasty

This portrait of Cosimo by Jacopo da Contormo
 can be viewed in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence

The first of the Medici rulers of Florence, Cosimo di Giovanni de' Medici, died on this day in 1464 in Careggi in Tuscany.

Cosimo had political influence and power because of the wealth he had acquired as a banker and he is also remembered as a patron of learning, the arts and architecture.

Cosimo, who is sometime referred to as Cosimo the Elder (il Vecchio) was born into a wealthy family in Florence in 1389. His father was a moneylender who then joined the bank of a relative before opening up his own bank in 1397.

The Medici Bank opened branches in Rome, Geneva, Venice and Naples and the Rome branch managed the papal finances in return for a commission.

The bank later opened branches in London, Pisa, Avignon, Bruges, Milan and Lubeck, which meant that bishoprics could pay their money into their nearest branch for the Pope to use.

In 1410, Baldassarre Cossa, who was on one side of a power struggle within the Catholic Church, borrowed money from the bank to buy himself into the office of Cardinal and in return put the Medici in charge of all the papal finances.   This gave the Medici family the power to threaten defaulting debtors with excommunication.

Cosimo and his younger brother Lorenzo took over the running of the bank from their father in 1420 and Cosimo established power over Florence using his wealth to control votes. He was described at the time as ‘king in all but name'.

The Villa Medici in Careggi near Florence, where
Cosimo died in 1464

Eventually his enemies had him imprisoned him in the Palazzo Vecchio for the crime of ‘failing to conquer Lucca’ but he managed to have his sentence changed to exile. He went to live in Padua and then to Venice, taking his bank with him.

When the order of banishment was lifted he was able to return to Florence, where effectively he was to govern the city for the next 30 years.

Cosimo worked to create peace in northern Italy by establishing a balance of power between Florence, Venice and Milan, which allowed for the development of the Renaissance.

The architects Brunelleschi and Michelozzo carried out Cosimo’s building projects in Florence and artists such as Ghiberti, Donatello and Fra Angelico were commissioned to produce works of art for him.

Cosimo also organised a methodical search for ancient manuscripts in Europe and the East and the books and documents procured by him are now housed in the Laurentian Library (Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana), which was built in a cloister of the Basilica di San Lorenzo.

Cosimo had married Contessina de' Bardi, who was from another wealthy banking family, in about 1415 and the couple had two sons, Piero and Giovanni.

On his death on 1 August 1464 Cosimo was succeeded by Piero, who later became the father of Lorenzo the Magnificent.

The Government of Florence awarded Cosimo the title Pater Patriae, Father of the Country, which is carved on his tomb in the Church of San Lorenzo.

Travel tip:

Cosimo died in 1464 at the Villa Medici at Careggi, in the hills above Florence. The villa had been purchased in 1417 by Cosimo’s father as a working farm to make his family self sufficient. Cosimo employed the architect Michelozzo to remodel it around a central courtyard overlooked by loggias. Cosimo’s grandson, Lorenzo, later extended the terraced garden and the shaded woods.

The interior of the Basilica of
San Lorenzo in Florence

Travel tip:

The Basilica of San Lorenzo, where Cosimo is buried, is in the centre of the market district and is one of the biggest churches in Florence. It also claims to be the oldest in the city as it dates back to 393. Cosimo’s father offered to pay for a new building to replace the 11th century Romanesque structure there at the time and commissioned Brunelleschi to design it. Michelangelo later designed the Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana to house the Medici family’s collection of manuscripts.

More reading:

How Cosimo II maintained the family tradition

Grand designs of Cosimo I


(Photo of Villa Medici by Sailko CC BY-SA 3.0)
(Photo of San Lorenzo Basilica by Stefan Bauer CC BY-SA 2.5)

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