Catherine de Medici
Catherine de Medici is most well known for her part in
the Bartholomew’s(ბარthალამიუს) Day Massacre,
the killing of thousands of French Protestants, but her
story is not one of a cruel and tyrannical ruler. Instead,
she was a young woman whose many terrible
experiences led her to become involved in dark magic
and malicious deeds in an effort to alter the future and
preserve her family.
Catherine was next in line to the Florentine throne
when she was suddenly captured and held prisoner
following a republic revolution in Italy. For nearly three years she was kept
locked away before her uncle Pope Clement VII, calling on the aid of Charles
V's imperial army, was able to quell the rebellion. Catherine was rescued and
sent to live in Rome with her surviving relatives. Rather than allow her to
obtain her rightful place as Duchess of Florence, however, her half-brother
usurped(იუthრფთ) the throne, and she was instead sent to France to be
married to Prince Henry II, a marriage that was meant to bring great wealth
and property to both powers. Shortly after the wedding, Pope Clement passed
away suddenly, leaving the princess with no dowry(დაური), but, believing
her husband to be in danger, she chose to stay at the French Court among the
many who despised her. She loved Henry from the start of their marriage but
did not see her feelings returned for many years, as her husband was more
interested in his mistress, Diane de Poitiers. Desperate for an heir(ეარ) to
secure her place at court, both for her husband's well-being and her own
preservation, Catherine concocted a black magic ritual that promised to
preserve her family. Sure enough, she would later give birth to ten children,
three of whom would briefly reign as king.
In 1548, Catherine's eldest son, Francis II, was wed to Mary, Queen of Scots.
Sadly, Henry II did not live to see the end of the festivities but instead
endured a slow, painful death when he was stabbed through the eye by a
jousting (ჯაუსთინგ)lance. Francis, always a sickly child, passed away a
short time later, leaving the throne to his younger brother Charles. While no
longer legally queen since the death of her husband, Catherine felt her
children were mentally and emotionally unfit to rule, and she remained in
power behind the scenes during both of her sons' reign as kings. Desperate
for a grandchild to continue her family's rule, Catherine married her second
daughter to Henry of Navarre. Navarre was at the time a Protestant, and the
French Catholics were outraged at the swarms of Huguenots that came to
Paris for the royal wedding. Nervous about the tensions between the two
parties, and particularly uneasy about her son's growing friendship with the
Huguenot admiral Gaspard de Coligny, Catherine arranged to have the
admiral assassinated in the hopes that it might ease her troubles. The attempt
failed, however, and, growing more fearful for her family and her people,
Catherine created a new plan, the attack and murder of several of the
gathered Huguenot leaders. Given the order, however, the Catholic French
soldiers went into a frenzy, killing what some estimate to be over 5 000
innocents in Paris and the surrounding villages. This event, later termed the
Bartholomew's Day Massacre, would forever stain Catherine's reputation as
queen.

Patron of the Arts

A true Medici, Catherine embraced Renaissance ideals and the value of

culture. She maintained a large personal collection at her residence, while
also encouraging innovative artists and supporting the creation of elaborate
spectacles with music, dance, and stagecraft. Her cultivation of the arts was at
once a personal preference and a belief that such displays enhanced the royal
image and prestige at home and abroad. The entertainments also had the
intention of keeping French nobles from in-fighting by providing them with
amusement and diversion.

Catherine’s great passion was for architecture. In fact, architects dedicated

treatises(თრითისის) to her with the knowledge that she would probably
read them personally. She was directly involved in several grand building
projects, as well as the creation of memorials to her late husband. Her
dedication to architecture earned her a contemporary parallel
to Artemesia (ართემიზია)/ˌɑrdəˈmiʒ(i)ə/ , an ancient Carian (Greek) queen
who built the Mausoleum (მოზელიამ) of Halicarnassus(ჰალიქანასას) /
/ˌmɔːsəˈlɪəm ɔv ˌhalɪkɑːˈnasəs / as a tribute after her husband’s death.