LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Bianca Cappello-Buonaventuri
Giovanni d’Averardo de’ Medici
“Journey of the Magi” (Medici)
“Adoration of the Magi” (Medici)
Lucrezia de’ Medici
Lorenzo Il Magnifico
Giuliano Il Pensieroso
Ippolito—­Cardinal
Alessandro—­First Duke of Florence
Giovanni—­“Delle Bande Nere”
Eleanora de’ Medici
Maria Lucrezia de’ Medici
Giovanni—­Cardinal
Garzia de’ Medici
Lucrezia—­Duchess of Ferrara
Eleanora—­Wife of Piero de’ Medici
Piero de’ Medici
Isabella—­Duchess of Bracciano
Francesco—­Grand Duke of Tuscany
Giovanna de’ Medici
Don Antonio “de’ Medici”
Pellegrina Buonaventuri-Bentivoglio
Cosimo I—­“Tyrant of Tyrants”
Cammilla de’ Medici
Ferdinando de’ Medici—­Cardinal

INTRODUCTION

The origin of the Medici family is lost in the mists of the Middle Ages, and, only here and there, can the historian gain glimpses of the lives of early forbears.  Still, there is sufficient data, to be had for the digging, upon which to transcribe, inferentially at least, an interesting narrative.

Away towards the end of the twelfth century,—­exact dates are wholly beside the mark—­there dwelt, under the shadow of one of the rugged castles of the robber-captains of the Mugello in Tuscany, a hard-working and trustworthy bonds-man—­one Chiarissimo—­“Old Honesty,” as we may call him.  He was married to an excellent helpmeet, and was by his lord permitted to till a small piece of land and rear his family.

In addition to intelligence in agriculture, it would seem that he, or perhaps his wife, possessed some knowledge of the virtues of roots and herbs, for, in one corner of his podere, he had a garden of “simples.”  The few peaceable inhabitants of that warlike valley, and also many a wounded man-at-arms, sought “Old Honesty” and his wise mate for what we now call “kitchen remedies.”

Those, indeed, were happy days with respect to suffering human nature.  “Kill or Cure” might have been the character of the healing art, but certainly specialists had not invented our appendicitis and other fashionable twentieth-century physical fashions!  A little medical knowledge sufficed, and decoctions, pillules, poultices, and bleedings made up the simple pharmacopoeia.

All the same, the satirical rhyme, which an old chronicler put into the mouths of many a despairing patient, in later days, may have been true also of “Old Honesty” and his nostrums: 

“There’s not a herb nor a root
Nor any remedy to boot
Which can stave death off by a foot!”

Of that good couple’s family only one name has been preserved—­Gianbuono, “Good John.”  Passerini says he was a priest—­probably he means a hermit.  Anyhow, he acquired more property in the Valle della Sieve and founded a church—­Santa Maria dell’ Assunta—­possibly the enlargement of his cell—­upon Monte Senario, between the valley of the Arno and that of the Sieve.