Cosimo’s sons were well aware, as indeed, was the whole Court and the city too, of their father’s love affairs.  The Duke and the Prince-Regent Francesco were mutually suspicious, and fawning, faithless courtiers fanned the flame of jealousy and mistrust between them.  The father threw Bianca Cappello into his son’s face, and he, in exchange, flung back Eleanora degli Albizzi!  At length, Cosimo desisted from the acrimonious warfare, content to let things be as they might be at the Pitti Palace and Pratolino, whilst he was left in seclusion with his innamorata at Castello.  Cardinal Ferdinando, a boy of fifteen, lived in Rome, and Don Piero, only ten, was indifferent to such matters, but Duchess Isabella of Bracciano was intensely interested, an amiable go-between her father and Don Francesco.  Cosimo did nothing with respect to removing the reproach attached to his intrigue with Eleanora degli Albizzi, and, consequently, when in December 1566, a little girl was born to him, the whole of Florence was conventionally shocked.  Duchess Giovanna, Don Francesco’s sanctimonious Austrian wife, offered a vigorous protest, and declined to have anything to do with the unfortunate young mother and her dissolute old lover.  Her feeling ran so strongly, both with respect to the liaison of Cosimo and to her husband’s intrigue with the “beautiful Venetian,” that she made an urgent appeal to her brother, the Emperor Maximilian to intervene.

It was said that the young Duchess sent a copy of her letter to Duke Cosimo, who was furious at her conduct.  He asked her by what right she had dared to stir up ill-will at the Imperial court, and advised her to mind her own business in the future.  To the Emperor Cosimo, addressed a dignified reply to the Imperial censure:  “I do not seek for quarrels,” he said, “but I shall not avoid them if they are put in my way by members of my own family.”

What Messer Luigi and Madonna Nannina degli Albizzi thought and said, no one has related.  They could not say much by way of complaint, for they had foreseen, from the beginning of the Duke’s intimacy with Eleanora, that an “accident,” as they euphemistically called it, was to be expected.  They had, in fact, sold their child to her seducer, and must be content with their bargain!

Cosimo, for his part, was delighted with his dear little daughter, come to cheer the autumn of his life.  He loaded Eleanora with presents, watched by her bedside assiduously, and told her joyfully that he meant to marry her and so legitimatise their little child.  Born at Messer Luigi’s, the baby girl was anxiously watched lest emissaries from the Pitti Palace should try to get hold of her.

The Duke made indeed no secret of his pleasure, and moreover consulted with his most trusted personal attendant, Sforza Almeni, how the legitimatisation could be best effected, so as to secure for the little lady a goodly share in the Ducal patrimony, and also a pension in perpetuity for the mother, Eleanora.