Dark Italian beauty won the heart of King Louis XIV
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| A portrait of Marie Mancini by the Flemish painter Jacob Ferdinand Voet |
Anna Maria ‘Marie’ Mancini was the third of five sisters, who were all taken to live in France. They were the nieces of Cardinal Jules Mazarin, who was Chief Minister to both Louis XIII and Louis XIV.
Marie grew up in Rome until she was 11 years old, when her father, Baron Lorenzo Mancini, died. Along with her sisters, Marie was taken to Paris by her widowed mother, Geronima, in the hope that Cardinal Mazarin would use his influence to help them all marry advantageously.
Two of Marie’s cousins, who were the daughters of Mazarin’s eldest sister, were also taken to France for the same purpose, and the seven girls were all known at the French court as ‘the Mazarinettes’.
Although Marie was christened Anna Maria, she became known in France as Marie and was said to have grown up as ‘dark, vivacious and beautiful’.
She was nearly a year younger than Louis XIV, who had become King of France at the age of four, after the death of his father, Louis XIII.
Louis XIV - later known also as the Sun King - fell in love with Marie and wanted to marry her and she said she was willing to marry him, but his adviser, Mazarin, and his mother, Queen Anne of Austria, were both against the match.
Queen Anne wanted Louis to marry his cousin, Maria Theresa of Austria, the Infanta of Spain, who was the daughter of her brother, Philip IV of Spain. Cardinal Mazarin agreed with the Queen because he knew that her support for him and his foreign policy depended on making peace with Spain and on the Spanish marriage going ahead.
Louis XIV became aware that there were plans to exile Marie from the court and sent for Mazarin and asked him if he could marry his niece. Mazarin refused, saying he had been appointed to his position by the King’s parents to protect the welfare of the kingdom. It is said that Louis XIV fell on his knees before the Cardinal and pleaded with him, but without success.
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| Louis XIV pleaded to be allowed to marry Marie Mancini (portrait by Charles Le Brun) |
When Marie left the court, Louis XIV escorted her to her carriage and she is reputed to have said: “Sire, you weep, you love me, and yet you allow me to go!”
In 1660, Louis XIV married Maria Theresa of Spain and in 1661 Marie was sent to marry an Italian, the eighth Duke and Prince of Paliano, Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna.
Marie and Louis XIV had never been lovers, and Colonna was said to have been surprised to discover that she was still a virgin.
Marie bore him three sons, but after she found the third birth was particularly difficult, she refused to be intimate with him again. Their relationship deteriorated and she left Rome in 1672, accompanied by her younger sister, Hortense, because she said she was afraid that her husband might kill her.
She later spent a period living in a convent in Turin and some time travelling around Europe independently, which was unusual for a woman at the time.
Marie wrote her memoirs after a false account about her life had been circulated in France. Her sister, Hortense, also wrote her memoirs, after escaping from an abusive marriage with a French duke. She eventually travelled to London, where she became a mistress of the English King Charles II. The Mancini sisters were said to be among the first women in France to have published their own memoirs.
Marie Mancini died in Pisa in May 1715 at the age of 75 and she was buried in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre there. Her death occurred a little over three months before the death of Louis XIV at the Palace of Versailles in France on September 1 of the same year.
The character of Marie Mancini has since been used by writers, both in novels and a musical, and a number of biographies have been written about her and her sister, Hortense Mancini.
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| An 18th century etching of Palazzo Mancini by Giovanni Battista Piranese |
Palazzo Mancini, in Rome’s Via del Corso, where Marie would have lived as a child, was created in 1634 by Lorenzo Mancini when the family’s old residence - also in Via del Corso - was enlarged for the celebrations of his wedding to Geronima Mazzarino, the sister of Cardinal Mazarin. Four adjoining houses were purchased and a new building was designed by the architect Carlo Rainaldi. After Lorenzo died and his widow and children went to live in France, the work was completed by Filippo Mancini. The palace was leased to the French Academy in Rome in 1725. One second floor room is still frescoed with scenes produced by the artists who were accommodated there during its time as an academy. After the French Revolution the building became the French Embassy to the Holy See. In 1818 the Palazzo was bought by Louis Bonaparte, who ceded it to Maria Theresa of Austria-Este, the widow of Victor Emanuel I of Sardinia, who gave it to her daughter, Maria Christina, who became Queen of Naples, and passed it on to the Bourbons of Naples. It was acquired by the Banco di Sicilia in 1919.
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| The 12th century octagonal Chiesa del Santo Sepolcro in Pisa, where Marie Mancini is buried |
Pisa, where Marie Mancini died, is a historic town in the Tuscany region that has become famous for its leaning tower, which dates back to 1173. The freestanding bell tower for the Cathedral now has a famous tilt that began during the building process, believed to have been caused by the laying of inadequate foundations on ground that was too soft on one side to support the weight of the structure. The tilt got worse over the years until work had to be carried out to correct it in the 20th century. In 1987, Pisa’s 60-metre-high tower was included in the Unesco World Heritage site list along with the neighbouring cathedral and baptistery in the Piazza del Duomo. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Chiesa del Santo Sepolcro, where Marie Mancini was laid to rest in Pisa, is an octagonal church, which dates from early in the 12th century and is located in Piazza San Sepolcro, near the Lungarno Galilei in the San Martino district, along the southern bank of the River Arno.
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More reading:
How Cardinal Jules Mazarin became de facto ruler of France
Catherine de’ Medici, the mother of three French kings
Marie Josephine of Savoy, the Italian noblewoman who married Louis XVIII of France
Also on this day:
1665: The unexplained death of painter Elisabetta Sirani
1809: The birth of sculptor Giovanni Maria Benzoni
1909: The birth of Lamberto Maggiorani, star of classic movie Bicycle Thieves
1928: The birth of photographer Ugo Mulas
1938: The birth of talk show host Maurizio Costanzo