narrative – The Medici Podcast

From the start of her life, the orphaned Catherine’s life was marred by politics. First, she was destined to be a figurehead for her great-uncle’s territorial ambitions. Then she was a hostage blamed for the crimes of her family, and next a pawn on the royal marriage market. No one could have guessed that the future had grander things in store for her than just a marriage to some prince…

Claude Corneille de Lyon’s portrait of Catherine de’ Medici as a young woman, circa 1540. Source: Polesden Lacey, Surrey.

The piazza of the church and convent of Santa Maria Annunziata, where Catherine spent perhaps the happiest years of her childhood. Source: Museo Galileo, Erik Franchi.

Transcript

If anyone in history was ever actually cursed from birth, it may have been Catherine de’ Medici. After giving birth to her, her mother Madeliene de La Tour d’Auvergne died less than a week after her birth from complications.