Ferdinando II de' Medici (14 July 1610 – 23 May 1670) was
grand duke of Tuscany
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from 1621 to 1670. He was the eldest son of
Cosimo II de' Medici
Cosimo II de' Medici (12 May 1590 – 28 February 1621) was Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1609 until his death. He was the elder son of Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Christina of Lorraine.
For the majority of his 12-year rei ...
and
Maria Maddalena of Austria. Remembered by his contemporaries as a man of culture and science, he actively participated in the
Accademia del Cimento
The Accademia del Cimento (Academy of Experiment), an early scientific society, was founded in Florence in 1657 by students of Galileo, Giovanni Alfonso Borelli and Vincenzo Viviani and ceased to exist about a decade later. The foundation of Acade ...
, the first official scientific society in Italy, formed by his younger brother,
Leopoldo de' Medici.
[ His 49-year rule was punctuated by the beginning of Tuscany's long economic decline, which was further exacerbated by his successor, ]Cosimo III de' Medici
Cosimo III de' Medici (14 August 1642 – 31 October 1723) was Grand Duchy of Tuscany, Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1670 until his death in 1723, the sixth and penultimate from the House of Medici. He reigned from 1670 to 1723, and was the elder s ...
. He married Vittoria della Rovere, a first cousin, with whom he had two children who reached adulthood: the aforementioned Cosimo III, and Francesco Maria de' Medici, Duke of Rovere and Montefeltro, a cardinal
Cardinal or The Cardinal most commonly refers to
* Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds
**''Cardinalis'', genus of three species in the family Cardinalidae
***Northern cardinal, ''Cardinalis cardinalis'', the common cardinal of ...
.
Reign
Ferdinando was only 10 years of age when his father Cosimo II died. Because he had not yet reached maturity, his mother Maria Maddalena and paternal grandmother, Christina of Lorraine, acted as joint regents. His two regents arranged a marriage with Vittoria della Rovere, a granddaughter of the last Duke of Urbino
The Duchy of Urbino () was an independent duchy in early modern central Italy, corresponding to the northern half of the modern region of Marche. It was directly annexed by the Papal States in 1631.
It was bordered by the Adriatic Sea in the ea ...
, in 1633, in hopes of acquiring the Duchy. However, their political weakness prevented them from securing Urbino, and it was subsequently conquered by the Papal States
The Papal States ( ; ; ), officially the State of the Church, were a conglomeration of territories on the Italian peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope from 756 to 1870. They were among the major states of Italy from the 8th c ...
.
In his seventeenth year, Ferdinando embarked on a tour of Europe, traveling to
Rome
Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...
,
Bologna
Bologna ( , , ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy. It is the List of cities in Italy, seventh most populous city in Italy, with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nationalities. Its M ...
,
Ferrara
Ferrara (; ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Emilia-Romagna, Northern Italy, capital of the province of Ferrara. it had 132,009 inhabitants. It is situated northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main ...
,
Venice
Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...
, and finally
Austria
Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
and
Prague
Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...
.
[ One year later, his regency ended and his personal rule began. The dowager Grand Duchess Christina was the power behind the throne until her death in 1636.
With his wife, Vittoria, he had two surviving children: Cosimo, in 1642, and Francesco Maria de' Medici, in 1660. The latter was the fruit of a brief reconciliation, as the two became estranged shortly after the birth of Cosimo; Vittoria caught Ferdinando in bed with a page, Count Bruto della Molera. In fact, Ferdinando's sexual preferences tended largely to men.
The first calamity of Ferdinando's reign was an outbreak of the plague that swept through Florence in 1630 and took 10% of the population with it. Unlike the Tuscan nobility, Ferdinando and his brothers stayed in the city to try to ameliorate the general suffering, traveling through the city on foot to help and encourage his subjects.]
Tuscany participated in the Wars of Castro
The Wars of Castro were a series of conflicts during the mid-17th century revolving around the ancient city of Castro (located in present-day Lazio, Italy), which eventually resulted in the city's destruction on 2 September 1649. The conflict ...
, the last time Medicean Tuscany was involved in a military conflict and inflicted a defeat on the forces of Pope Urban VIII
Pope Urban VIII (; ; baptised 5 April 1568 – 29 July 1644), born Maffeo Vincenzo Barberini, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 6 August 1623 to his death, in July 1644. As pope, he expanded the papal terri ...
in 1643. The treasury was so empty that when the Castro mercenaries were paid for the state could no longer afford to pay interest on government bonds. The interest rate was lowered by 0.75%. The economy became so decrepit that barter trade
In trade, barter (derived from ''bareter'') is a system of exchange in which participants in a transaction directly exchange goods or services for other goods or services without using a medium of exchange, such as money. Economists usual ...
became prevalent in rural market places.[
Ferdinando died on 23 May 1670 of ]apoplexy
Apoplexy () refers to the rupture of an internal organ and the associated symptoms. Informally or metaphorically, the term ''apoplexy'' is associated with being furious, especially as "apoplectic". Historically, it described what is now known as a ...
and dropsy. He was interred in the Basilica of San Lorenzo, the Medicis' crypt.
Ferdinando and science
Ferdinando was obsessed with new technology and had several hygrometer
A hair tension dial hygrometer with a nonlinear scale.
A hygrometer is an instrument that measures humidity: that is, how much water vapor is present. Humidity measurement instruments usually rely on measurements of some other quantities, such a ...
s, barometer
A barometer is a scientific instrument that is used to measure air pressure in a certain environment. Pressure tendency can forecast short term changes in the weather. Many measurements of air pressure are used within surface weather analysis ...
s, thermometer
A thermometer is a device that measures temperature (the hotness or coldness of an object) or temperature gradient (the rates of change of temperature in space). A thermometer has two important elements: (1) a temperature sensor (e.g. the bulb ...
s and telescope
A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, Absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorption, or Reflection (physics), reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally, it was an optical instrument using len ...
s installed in the Palazzo Pitti
The Palazzo Pitti (), in English sometimes called the Pitti Palace, is a vast, mainly Renaissance, palace in Florence, Italy. It is situated on the south side of the River Arno, a short distance from the Ponte Vecchio. The core of the present ...
. In 1654, influenced by Galileo Galilei
Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), commonly referred to as Galileo Galilei ( , , ) or mononymously as Galileo, was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a poly ...
, he is reported to have invented the sealed-glass thermometer by sealing the glass tip of a tube filled to a certain height with colored alcohol. Small glass bubbles filled with air at varying pressures hovered trapped within the liquid, changing positions as the temperature rose or fell. Marked off with 360 divisions, like the gradations or "degrees" of a circle, this type of device was called a "spirit thermometer", because it was filled with "spirit of wine" (distilled alcohol), or a "Florentine thermometer". In 1657, Leopoldo de' Medici, the grand duke's youngest brother, established the Accademia del Cimento
The Accademia del Cimento (Academy of Experiment), an early scientific society, was founded in Florence in 1657 by students of Galileo, Giovanni Alfonso Borelli and Vincenzo Viviani and ceased to exist about a decade later. The foundation of Acade ...
. It was set up to attract scientists from all over Tuscany to Florence for mutual study.
Ferdinand, like his father before him, was a patron, ally, and friend of Galileo Galilei. Galileo dedicated his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
''Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems'' (''Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo'') is a 1632 book by Galileo Galilei comparing Nicolaus Copernicus's Copernican heliocentrism, heliocentric system model with Ptolemy's geocen ...
to him. This work led to Galileo's second set of hearings before the Inquisition
The Inquisition was a Catholic Inquisitorial system#History, judicial procedure where the Ecclesiastical court, ecclesiastical judges could initiate, investigate and try cases in their jurisdiction. Popularly it became the name for various med ...
. Ferdinand attempted to keep the concerns of the Holy See
The Holy See (, ; ), also called the See of Rome, the Petrine See or the Apostolic See, is the central governing body of the Catholic Church and Vatican City. It encompasses the office of the pope as the Bishops in the Catholic Church, bishop ...
from leading to a full-fledged hearing and kept Galileo in Florence until December 1632, when the Roman Inquisitors finally threatened to bring Galileo to Rome in chains if he would not come voluntarily. In June 1633, the Roman Inquisition convicted the astronomer for "vehement suspicion of heresy" and sentenced him to imprisonment for life. After this was commuted to house arrest, Ferdinando came to visit the elderly scientist at his villa, where he lived out the remainder of his life.
Issue
Musée Ingres-Bourdelle - La famille de Ferdinand II, grand-duc de Toscane (1622-1623) - MI.867.157.jpg, The family of Ferdinand II, Grand Duke of Tuscany (1622-1623), from left to right: Mattias, Gian Carlo, Francesco and the Grand Duke Ferninand with the cross of Saint Etienne; the Duchess-mother Maria Magdalena of Austria, Marie-Christine, Marguerite, Anne and the young Leopold, Musée Ingres Bourdelle.
From his unhappy marriage to Vittoria Della Rovere, Ferdinand II had four children, of which only two reached adulthood:
#Cosimo, Grand-Prince of Tuscany (19 December 1639 – 21 December 1639)
#A nameless daughter who died at birth (1640)
# Cosimo III, (14 August 1642 – 31 October 1723), Grand Duke of Tuscany following his father's death, married to Marguerite Louise d'Orléans, with issue
# Francesco Maria (12 November 1660 – 3 February 1711), Duke of Rovere and Montefeltro, married to Eleonora Luisa Gonzaga, without issue
Ancestry
See also
* Grand Duchy of Tuscany
The Grand Duchy of Tuscany (; ) was an Italian monarchy located in Central Italy that existed, with interruptions, from 1569 to 1860, replacing the Republic of Florence. The grand duchy's capital was Florence. In the 19th century the population ...
Citations
References
*
*
* (see index, v.1, for information about Ferdinando as a patron of the arts)
*
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Medici, Ferdinando 2
1610 births
1670 deaths
17th-century Italian nobility
17th-century Italian LGBTQ people
17th-century grand dukes of Tuscany
Burials at San Lorenzo, Florence
Deaths from edema
Ferdinando 2
Ferdinando 2
LGBTQ heads of state
LGBTQ history in Italy
LGBTQ Roman Catholics
LGBTQ royalty
Tuscan nobility