Perhaps “The Terror” was inevitable, but it revealed in a lurid light the revengeful and implacable temper of the young ruler.  If he had inherited, through many generations, the craft and pushfulness of the Medicis, he had also become possessed of some of the brutality of the Sforzas, through his grandmother Caterina, natural daughter, by the lovely but dissolute Lucrezia Landriani, of Galeazzo Maria, Duke of Milan.  This prince possessed all the worst points of a Renaissance tyrant, and was “a monster of vices and virtues”:  perhaps he was insane, at all events, Caterina was accustomed to speak of him as “Uno Fantastico!”

There was at least one ray of sunshine in that year of swift, dark deeds, for, in less than a month after poor little “La Bia” had flown back to Heaven, as lovely and as precious a gift as ever came to gladden the hearts of young parents was vouchsafed to Cosimo and Eleanora, in the birth of their first-born, a girl.

In the Registri dei Battezzati dell’ Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore is the following record:  “On April 13th, 1540, was baptised a female child of the Duke of Cosimo, born on the third day of the same month, and she was registered in the name of Maria Lucrezia.”  Alas, the joy of that natal day was marred by the solicitude which the delicacy of the frail infant caused her father and mother.  No one thought she could live, but Duchess Eleanora was a tender nurse, and her weaning caused the cradle to rock with hope as well as love.

Just twelve months later a baby brother came to keep little Maria company, a strong and vigorous boy, dark-haired and sallow like his Spanish mother.  He was christened Francesco, after the patron saint of his day of birth.  Cosimo was not in Florence at the time, he had gone to pay his respects to the Emperor Charles V. at Genoa.

The object of his visit to the Imperial Court was to thank Charles for the German bodyguard of Landesnechte which he had sent to Florence to defend the Medici Palace and its inmates during the three years of disorder and repression, and to ask for an extension of their services.

Florence was full of Spaniards who had occupied Tuscany in force under the Commendattore Raimondo da Cardona, and who had helped in the terrible sack of Prato.  They were a menace to peace and order in the city, and brawls between them and the citizens were of daily occurrence.

Duchess Eleanora perhaps naturally held with her fellow-countrymen, certainly she made a poor attempt to conceal her dislike for Florence and its people.  At Santa Maria Novella she endowed a chapel for Mass, which served as a rallying-point for the foreigners, and acquired thereby its name, Cappella degli Spagnuoli.

The Duchess had, however, other than quasi-patriotic duties to perform, for, in 1542, she again became the mother of a little daughter—­Isabella Romola they called her, in compliment to beloved Spain.  She was, like Francesco, a healthy child, and she was fair, as “playful as a kitten,” and thoroughly Medici in temperament.