Turning Modern

Author: chad

  • Episode 54: The Girl Has Come to Me Completely Naked

    Far from a fairly tale life, to secure her future Catherine de’ Medici must overcome snobbery at the royal court, anti-Italian racism, escalating religious and political tensions, her husband’s bizarre love for his own surrogate mother Diane de Poitiers, and even her own body’s seeming inability to get pregnant with an heir to the French throne. 

    A painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1818) imagining a possibly fictitious event where King François I of France was present at the deathbed of Leonardo da Vinci. At the very least, da Vinci was just one of a large number of Italian luminaries that François I sponsored and befriended. Source: Petit Palais, Paris.
    A portrait of Diane de Poitiers by François Clouet. Date unknown. Source: Palais de Versailles.
    A portrait of Henri II from the workshop of François Clouet (c. 1560). Note that Henri is wearing black and white, like Diane de Poitiers. Source: Musée Condé, Chantilly.

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    Transcript

    We don’t really have a clear picture of what life was like for Catherine in the French court. She did have more than a dollop of French aristocratic blood through her mother, but she was still seen as a daughter of the bourgeoisie, in a royal court where even a marriage between a prince or princess and a member of the nobility might be considered a misalliance. I think sadly most of us can have at least have a vague idea of the snobbery and cliquishness she faced on a daily basis.

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  • Episode 53: No Girls Allowed

    Catherine de’ Medici has just married into the monarchy of France, arguably the oldest surviving Catholic Christian monarchy in Europe. So it’s a good time to ask the question that would shape Catherine’s life: how was it that a monarchy that barred women and their children from the crown also had a long history of powerful women guiding it? 

    A funerary monument to Jeanne of Navarre (1328-1349) at the Basilica of Saint-Denis.. At only the age of four or five years old, she became the center of a political controversy over royal inheritance that would lay the groundwork for the Salic Law that would bar women from ever inheriting the throne of France in their own right. Source: Acoma.
    A portrait by Jean Clouet of Louise of Savoy, the mother of King François I (date unknown). She ruled as regent for her son while he was off at war, but even when he was present, she remained a powerful political force. Source: The Bemberg Foundation, Toulouse.

    Transcript

    So I hope you weren’t expecting for me to update you on French history up to the point of Catherine’s marriage in 1533. But for this episode I will give you a crash course on France’s monarchy, the institution that Catherine found herself literally wedded to, and what it meant to be a woman within it.

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  • Episode 52: The Little Duchess

    From the start of her life, the orphaned Catherine’s life was marred by politics. First, she was destined to be a figurehead for her great-uncle’s territorial ambitions. Then she was a hostage blamed for the crimes of her family, and next a pawn on the royal marriage market. No one could have guessed that the future had grander things in store for her than just a marriage to some prince…

    Claude Corneille de Lyon’s portrait of Catherine de’ Medici as a young woman, circa 1540. Source: Polesden Lacey, Surrey.
    The piazza of the church and convent of Santa Maria Annunziata, where Catherine spent perhaps the happiest years of her childhood. Source: Museo Galileo, Erik Franchi.

    Transcript

    If anyone in history was ever actually cursed from birth, it may have been Catherine de’ Medici. After giving birth to her, her mother Madeliene de La Tour d’Auvergne died less than a week after her birth from complications.

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  • Episode 51: Family Feud

    Duke Alessandro de’ Medici enters a deadly contest with his cousin, Cardinal Ippolito. The real threat, however, may be closer to home.

    A medal depicting Lorenzino de’ Medici, grandson of Lorenzo “il Popolano.” It was made by Antonio Francesco Selvi circa 1740. Source: National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC).

    Transcript

    So I hope you weren’t expecting for me to update you on French history up to the point of Catherine’s marriage in 1533. But for this episode I will give you a crash course on France’s monarchy, the institution that Catherine found herself literally wedded to, and what it meant to be a woman within it.

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  • Episode 50: How The Medici Did It

    For our 50th episode, I give an overview of how the Medici went from being just one of several powerful banking families to joining the ranks of European royalty and high nobility.

    Before I get started, I just wanted to say sincerely thank you for listening. I started this podcast around the time I was laid off from a job, I didn’t seem to have any real prospects, and I was living in an apartment I didn’t like but I could barely afford. Then during the time I kept on with the podcast I made the difficult decision to go back to school and try to start a new career, I finished my second Master’s degree in Library Science, and…well, things have gotten a lot better since, but I’m still working on the getting a day job I can be happy with or making something like this my job part. I never expected this podcast to become as successful as other history podcasts like the “History of Rome” podcast and…well, it’s not, but that said it’s certainly drawn more regular listeners than I ever expected. On top of the kind emails I often receive and the generous donations from my Patreon supporters, that fact alone helps me get through the bad times, like my recent car accident. It really does.

    So thank you.

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  • Episode 49: Duke

    We leave the Medici papacy behind and look at the life and times of Alessandro de’ Medici, the first Medici de facto ruler of Florence and (possibly) a Black head of state in Renaissance Europe.

    Agnolo Bronzino’s portrait of Alessandro de’ Medici, Duke of Florence, dated 1531. Source: The Hermitage, St. Petersburg.
    A portrait by Titian of Ippolito de’ Medici, dressed in a traditional Hungarian costume in honor of his mission as papal legate in Hungary. Dated 1532-1533. Source: Palazzo Pitti, Florence.

    Support the podcast on Patreon or by making a one-time donation below.

    Transcript

    Last time we said goodbye to Clement VII. But I want to talk a little more about the impact he and Leo X had on the papacy, for better and for worse. Like I mentioned last time, we shouldn’t blame them, especially Clement for too much. No matter what they did or didn’t do, it’s almost certain no matter what that the papacy would have gone from being a fairly major Italian power with the ability to interfere in broader European politics to an institution with mostly spiritual and moral authority. The Papal States were created when European feudalism was in its childhood, and it seems inevitable that, as feudal political structures gave way to the modern nation-state, the papacy would have to adapt and change too. It definitely didn’t help that over the years more Popes would follow the example of Sixtus IV and Alexander VI and keep pruning off papal lands to create independent fiefdoms for their relatives.

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  • Episode 48 – The Emperor and His Pope

    Pope Clement VII sells his soul to Emperor Charles V to get back Florence. Part of the bargain includes Clement essentially signing off on the death warrant of the Republic of Florence.

    After the Sack of Rome, Pope Clement stopped shaving and even trimming his beard as a gesture of mourning for the city of Rome. This portrait of Clement VII in his latter years was painted by Giuliano Bugiardini (c. 1532). Source: Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin.
    Giorgio Vasari’s rendition of the Siege of Florence in 1529/1530, painted in 1558. Source: Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.
    Built to protect the new Medici Duke of Florence from any potential revolts, the building of the Basso Fortress was arguably the most tangible sign of the de facto end of the Republic of Florence. Source: Sailko.
    Giulio Clovio’s “An Allegory of Charles V”, depicting all of Charles V’s vanquished rivals chained to his foot (date unknown). From left to right is Sultan Suleiman of the Ottoman Empire, Pope Clement VII, King François I of France, Duke John III of Cleves, Elector Johann of Saxony, and Landgrave Philipp of Hesse. Source: Margaret Aston, Panorama of the Renaissance (New York: Henry N. Abrams, 1997).

    Transcript

    When we last checked in on Florence’s old new or maybe new old republic, it was struggling. As the months piled up, the situation only got worse. Niccolo Capponi’s policy of reconciliation was a complete failure. Part of the problem is that wartime is a horrible time to build a new government. But I suspect even if Florence wasn’t caught up in an unpopular war there would still be problems. Democracies tend to run badly if most of the people don’t share some of the same basic premises. It wasn’t just a case of the pro-Medici and the anti-Medici. Instead among the anti-Medici factions you also had the radical republicans who were drunk on their own overidealized visions of the republics of ancient Greece and Rome and who despised the religious fanaticism of Savonarola and his followers as much as the pro-Medici camp did, the so-called Wailers who yearned to one day fulfill Savonarola’s plans for a democratic theocracy, the conservatives like Machiavelli who just wanted Florence to go back to the good old days of the Ordinances of Justice, and the moderate republicans, many of whom came from the ranks of the ottimati and wanted to make Florence more like a Venice-style oligarchy. United as they were by their rejection of the Medici regime, these were groups with such fundamentally divergent plans for the future of the city that there was no way they could be in the same room with each other, much less build stable coalitions.

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  • Episode 47: The Old New Republic

    Lorenzo the Magnificent’s granddaughter Clarice triggers a coup in Florence just by berating the man in charge. Meanwhile Pope Clement is driven to hide in a derelict palace in the mountains and receives an unwelcome visitor all the way from England.

    A portrait of Pope Clement VII after the Sack of Rome by Sebastiano del Piombo (c. 1531). Despite beards being unfashionable in Italy among the upper class at the time, Clement VII grew one as a sign of mourning for the Sack of Rome. Source: The Getty Center, Los Angeles, California.
    An artist’s rendition of the Battle of Mohács (1526), which triggered the destruction of the independent Kingdom of Hungary and led to Hungary being split between the Ottoman Empire, Austria, and the Principality of Transylvania, along with the Hapsburgs claiming the crowns of Hungary, Croatia, and Bohemia. The image is based on the testimony of a soldier who participated in the battle (1555). Source: Chronicle Commissioned by Johann Jacob Fugger.
    A contemporaneous portrait of Catherine of Aragon, Queen of England. Artist unknown (c. 1520). The matter of the annulment of her marriage to King Henry VIII would turn out to be a far bigger issue than Clement VII probably ever realized. Source: Lambeth Palace, London.

    Transcript

    When Emperor Charles V learned that his unpaid troops had torn apart Rome, he ordered his court to dress in black, as if mourning the death of a member of the imperial family. I have no doubt that Charles was sincere. After all, he was a devout Catholic, and he had put some effort into avoiding this very outcome. However, he was still a ruler, and he had practical reasons to lament this outcome as well. In modern terms, the Sack of Rome was a massive PR disaster for the imperial cause. It galvanized the League of Cognac. The imperial army looked like a pack of heretical barbarians. Even Henry VIII of England, who at this point was still loyal to the Pope, joined the alliance against the emperor.

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  • Episode 46 – The Sack of Rome

    Pope Clement tries once more to loosen Emperor Charles V’s grip on Italy, another revolution in Florence is narrowly avoided through one man’s incompetence, and the stage is set for one of modern history’s most notorious war-time atrocities.

    Dirck Volckertsz, “Sack of Rome in 1527 and the Death of Charles III, Duke of Bourbon” from The Victories of Charles V (1555/1556). Source: British Museum, London.
    Francisco Javier Amérigo, The Sack of Rome (1884). Source: Victor Balaguer Museum & Library, Vilanova i la Geltrú, Catalonia, Spain.
    The Castel Sant’Angelo or the Mausoleum of Hadrian, where Pope Clement VII had to spend a nightmarish month taking shelter with 3,000 Roman civilians during the sack. Source: 0x010c on Wikimedia.

    Transcript

    The Florentine Luigi Guicciardini, the brother of the more famous historian Francesco, was an eye witness to one of the darkest chapters in the history of the city of Rome. In his account of what happened to the city, he wrote, “All the sacraments of the modern Church were scorned and vilified as if the city had been captured by Turks or Moors or some other barbarous and infidel enemy.” Another eyewitness, Marino Sanuto, more succinctly wrote in his diary, “’Hell itself was a more beautiful sight to behold.” This was the Sack of Rome of 1527. It was certainly worse than the four times Rome was sacked in late antiquity and the Middle Ages, including the infamous pillaging of the city by Vandals in 410. In those times, the marauders still followed prevailing rules of warfare. Either that or Rome was so depopulated it was little more than a village or a small town. 1527 was something different, more akin to the atrocities we read about in the annals of the 20th century history. In fact, arguably it wasn’t just pillaging at all; it was an outburst of mass rage directed at a civilian population that was allowed to go on for not just days or weeks, but months.   

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  • Episode 45: The Edge of the Abyss

    Clement VII brings back the artistic glories of Renaissance Rome, but disaster for himself, his family, and for Rome looms overhead. 

    The Baptism of Constantine I (1517-1524) . It is part of a series of frescos started during the pontificate of Leo X and continued under Clement VII on the life and conversion of Emperor Constantine I by Giulio Romano and Giovan Francesco Panini. Pope Clement is included in the painting as Pope Sylvester. Source: The Apostolic Palace, Vatican City.

    Transcript

    At first Giulio wanted to just use a version of his own name as a papal title, which would have made him Pope Julius III. It also would have kept with the tradition of Renaissance Popes adopting names that invoked the great heroes of Greek, Roman, and Byzantine history, like Alexander, Hadrian, and Leo. However, Clement was instead convinced by his advisors to choose a different papal name. I couldn’t find a source explaining exactly why Pope Clement chose the name that he did. One theory is that he did so to signal that he would be merciful to his enemies like Cardinal Soderini. In fact, despite Soderini’s involvement in the Cardinal Plot against Leo X, Clement did in 1521 allow Soderini to return to Rome, although perhaps it was at least in part a practical decision to stop him from getting up to too much mischief in Florence. Another, more likely theory is that Clement chose the name because at one point in his career climbing up the church hierarchy he was once the priest at the Church of Saint Clement in Rome. Personally I wonder if it might have been meant at least a little to be a sly if elaborate shot at Emperor Charles V, since Pope Clement I was according to legend imprisoned under the orders of the first century Roman Emperor Trajan. Even if it wasn’t intentional, later events would prove the connection to be ironic.

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