Francesco’s devotion for Bianca continued as the years sped on their way, and he noted with supreme satisfaction that every word and action of hers were marked with unquestioning affection.  The loves of Francesco and Bianca at Pratolino recalled those of Giuliano and Simonetta at Fiesole, whilst the wits, and beaux, and beauteous women who consorted there, revived the glories of the Platonic Academy.

Montaigne, who visited the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess, both at the Pitti Palace and at Pratolino, in 1580, says:  “I was surprised to see her take the place of honour above her husband....  She is very handsome ... and seems to have entirely subjugated the Prince.”

The Cardinal was not unobservant of the trend of Florentine affairs.  Plots and counterplots were quite to his liking.  The Pucci conspiracy and the vengeance upon the Capponi affected him closely.  Francesco was not ignorant of the patronage and encouragement vouchsafed to his secret enemies by his eminent brother in Rome—­and he watched each move.

The peace and prosperity which marked the progress of the “City of the Lion and the Lily,” after Bianca Buonaventuri mounted the Grand Ducal throne, were not regarded complacently by the uneasy Cardinal.  The very fact that she was the admirable cause thereof, embittered his Eminence’s soul, and his spleen was mightily enlarged by the creatures who pandered to his vicious ill-nature.  The fascination of the Goddess engendered detestation as love was turned once more to hate in the crucible of his passions.

“She is nothing but a strumpet, and without a drop of royal blood,” so he reasoned, and so he spoke; and he backed up his aphorism by conniving at the foul report in 1582, which accused “Bianca Buonaventuri”—­as he always styled her—­of causing poison to be administered to poor little Filippo—­Giovanna’s puny, sickly child!  He even had the audacity to accuse Francesco of complicity, because he had ordered no elaborate court mourning, conveniently ignoring the fact that a gracious compliment was paid to Spanish custom and court etiquette, by the simplicity of the obsequies.

Plotters of other men’s wrongs were ever inconsistent!  One would have thought that Ferdinando would have hailed the removal of the only legitimate heir, before himself, to the Grand Duchy, but the delirium of jealousy and the fury of animosity in the Cardinal’s evil heart, found a sort of culmination two years later.  Bianca’s daughter, Pellegrina, the only offspring of Pietro Buonaventuri, gave birth to a child.  She had married, shortly after the public nuptials of the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess, Count Ulisse Bentivoglio di Magiola of Bologna—­a by no means happy marriage as it turned out.  This child, a boy, their first-born—­indeed poor, pretty Pellegrina’s love-child—­the Cardinal affirmed “Bianca Buonaventuri” had tried to pass off as her own—­another subterfuge confirmative of the first, and that his brother was conversant with the intrigue!