Ferdinando (III) de' Medici
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Ferdinando de' Medici (August 9, 1663 – October 31, 1713) was Grand Prince of Tuscany. He was the heir to the Tuscan throne, but never ruled, as he was outlived by his father, Grand Duke Cosimo III.
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[edit] Life
Ferdinando was born to Cosimo de' Medici and his wife Marguerite Louise d'Orléans, a granddaughter of Maria de' Medici. His father travelled extensively and visited Holland twice: in the winter of 1667/1668 and in 1669. A patron of the arts, In Leiden he visited the painters Gerard Dou and Frans van Mieris the Elder, and even ordered a selfportrait from Rembrandt. Swammerdam showed him his collection of insects.[1] When Ferdinando's parents separated in 1675, his mother who disdained her husband only slightly more than Florence, returned to Paris, where she was supposed to be restricted to a monastery in Montmartre. When Cosimo invited her to return to Florence, she wrote she had would first meet him in hell.
Like his uncle Francesco Maria and brother Gian Gastone, Ferdinando was an accomplished musician. Between 1698 and 1708 Bartolomeo Cristofori build a couple of piano fortes for Ferdinando. George Frederic Handel and Alessandro Scarlatti probably played on the instruments either in the Palazzo Pitti, or in the Medicean country villa of Poggio a Caiano or Pratolino, located some 12km or 8 miles outside Florence. Antonio Salvi, the family doctor, wrote several librettos, used by Handel for his opera.[2] Handel and Corelli were well acquainted with Ferdinando's sister Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici; Corelli dedicated to her the 12 concerti grossi. Handel would visit her also in Dusseldorf during continental trips. Ferdinando kept up correspondence with Alessandro Scarlatti, and produced five of his operas. He also patronized Giuseppe Maria Crespi and Sebastiano Ricci. Antonio Vivaldi to him his Estro Armonico in 1711.
Ferdinando's other delight was intimate liaisons and affairs, and like his brother, mostly with men, including Petronillo and a venetian castrati by the name of Cecchino. It is presumed that during a visit to the Carnival of Venice in 1696, Ferdinando contracted syphilis.
In 1689 Ferdinando was married, though unwillingly, to Violante of Bavaria, the plain daughter of the elector of Bavaria Ferdinand and Adelaide of Savoy. Although she liked music also and loved him, the marriage was unhappy and barren. The Grand Duke's failure to obtain grandsons led to a crisis, which upon the death of Gian Gastone in 1737, led external powers to assign the Grand Duchy to Francis, the husband of Maria Theresia, thus ending the independence of the Tuscan state.
[edit] Legacy
Ferdinando's contemporary reputation rests on his role as patron of the arts. He kept a villa in Pratolino (now called the Villa Demidoff after a later owner, Anatole Demidov) which was home to many musical (and apparently, sexual) activities. At this villa, he had built an indoor theater, designed by Antonio Maria Ferri.
Probably the most important contribution of Ferdinando was in providing a home, salary, and supporting environment for the inventor Bartolomeo Cristofori, whom Ferdinando hired as his keeper of instruments.
[edit] Ancestry
[edit] References
- Cesati, Franco (2005). "The twillight of the dynasty", in Monica Fintoni, Andrea Paoletti: The Medici: Story of a European Dynasty. La Mandragora s.r.l., 131-132.
- ^ Israel, J. (1995) The Dutch Republic, Its Rise Greatness, and Fall 1477-1806. Clarendon Press Oxford, p. 877.
- ^ Dean, W. & J.M. Knapp (1996) Handel's Operas 1704-1726. Clarendon Press Oxford, p. 80.
