A Family Affair: The Many Children of Cosimo I de’ Medici & Eleonora di Toledo

Cosimo I and Eleonora di Toledo’s marriage was famously fecund, with 11 children born in 15 years. We will meet all of Cosimo I’s children, several of whom had very dramatic and often tragic stories rife with power struggles, infidelity, and even murder. In looking at the personality of Francesco, the firstborn son and heir, we will immerse ourselves in the exceptional iconography created for him in the Studiolo, a magical wunderkammer inside the Palazzo Vecchio. Francesco’s controversial relationship with renegade Venetian noblewoman Bianca Cappello will also be discussed, as well as the strained rapport with his powerful brother and future grand duke, Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici.