© COPYRIGHT
by
Taylor Curry
2020
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
CATHERINE DE MEDICI AND THE ART OF SELF-DEFINITION IN SIXTEENTH- CENTURY FRANCE
BY Taylor Curry ABSTRACT
Catherine de Medici (1519-1589) was defined in part by the powerful men in her life: her uncle Pope Clement VII (1523-1534), her husband Henri II (1519-1559), King of France, and later her sons Francis II (1544-1560), Charles IX (1550-1574), and Henri III (1551-1589). Despite attempts by others to elide her individual identity and hold her power in check, Catherine created politically effective representations of herself, her position, and her authority through commissioning and displaying art. The artistic sphere was not inherently political, which allowed Catherine to redefine her identity outside of male influence and to take ownership of the multiple, intersecting roles she occupied as a wife, widow, and mother. By creating an identity that included this assemblage of roles, Catherine created her own independent narrative that asserted her political authority and individual identity. Catherine was not the first early modern woman to creatively define herself outside of societal expectations. While breaking from tradition in certain ways, in others she utilized approaches similar to those that Margaret of Austria (1480-1530), Regent of the Netherlands, had used in Mechelen a generation earlier and encouraged her female descendants, specifically her granddaughter Christine de Lorraine (1565-1637), and the next generation to do the same, including the future queen of France Marie de Medici (1575-1642). These three generations of women collectively show the power of self-created female identity and also reveal that Catherine, while unique in many ways, was not the only elite woman of the sixteenth century to sidestep societal constructs to define herself and her role through art. In so doing, she advanced her socio-political position to personal and familial benefit.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Covid-19 and stay-at-home orders made the completion of this thesis unusual to say the least. However, I would like to thank my family, friends, and professors at AU who supported and assisted me despite the trying times.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ...... ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... iii
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ...... v
INTRODUCTION CATHERINE DE MEDICI S IDENTITIES ...... 1
CHAPTER 1 NEGOTIATING IDENTITIES AND MEDIATING STATUS ...... 9
CHAPTER 2 CATHERINE S MENTORS AND MENTEES ...... 30
CONCLUSION THE LEGACY OF SELF-IDENTITY ...... 42
ILLUSTRATIONS ...... 44
BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 45
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Note: Due to copyright restrictions, the illustrations are not reproduced in the online version of this thesis. They are available in the hard copy version that is on file in the Visual Resources Center, Art Department, Katzen Art Center, American University, Washington, D.C.
Figure 1: Jacopo Chiamenti da Empoli, Ma iage of Ca he ine de Medici with Henri II of F ance, D c d O lean , 16th century. Florence: Uffizi Galleries...... 44
Figure 2: Germain Pilon, Funerary Monumen of Hen i II and Ca he ine de Medici, 1563-1572. Paris: Abbey Church, St. Denis...... 44
Figure 3: copy after Francois Clouet, Portrait of Ca he ine de Medici, c. 1580. Paris: Fontainebleau...... 44
Figure 4: from plan by Alexander Francini, Jardin de la Reine, Chateau of Fontainebleu, 1614. Bibliotheque Nationale...... 44
Figure 5: Antoine Caron, Les Placets/ The Petitions, c. 1560s. Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale. .. 44
Figure 6: after Bernard van Orley, Portrait of Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy, 1519- 1520, Antwerp, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp...... 44
Figure 7: Jan van Roome, Tomb of Margaret of Austria, 1516-32, Monastère Royal de Brou, Bourg-en-Bresse...... 44
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INTRODUCTION
CATHERINE DE MEDICI S IDENTITIES
Elite women of sixteenth-century France took advantage of their positions to become influential art patrons and collectors. Catherine de Medici (1519-1589) was one such woman.
As her sociopolitical status shifted from wife, to mother, to widow, Catherine differently strategized how her artistic commissions and the display of her art collection advanced her objectives. B e amining Catherine s ever evolving collection, e can better understand ho she defined herself as an individual and how royal women in general utilized art to their advantage.
The claims made b Catherine s imager and activities as a collector ere multifaceted, reflecting the various roles that she occupied. As a bride, she endeavored to present herself as the ideal wife to offset her status as a non-ro al Florentine and her failure at first to fulfill the role society expected of her: to give birth to male heirs. When her husband Henri II died, she continued to advance an idealized pictorial persona, but the imagery shifted to reflect her role as widow and queen mother. Finally, after the death of her son Francis II, her imagery transitioned for a third time, to that of an ideal mother whose focus was the success of the French monarchy.
To show this array of identities, Catherine commissioned and purchased art that represented her
edding, her mourning clothes, her role as ife and oman in her husband s tomb, and her personification as the ancient queen Artemisia. Additionally, her architectural projects as well as her library reinforced Catherine s French identit as ell as her lo alt to the French over the
Florentines.
Catherine was hardly the first woman in early modern northern Europe to commission imagery and build art collections that advanced a sociopolitical agenda. Catherine s predecessor 1
Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy and Regent of the Netherlands (1480-1530) was extremely successful in using art to assert pictorial identities that were advantageous to her objectives. Although Margaret s political and familial situations were different from Catherine s, both women used art in similarly powerful ways to establish their legitimacy. Additionally,
Catherine made special effort to mentor women of younger generations, like Christine de
Lorraine, Catherine s granddaughter and the Grand Duchess of Tuscany (1565-1637) and Marie de Medici, Queen of France and a ver distant relation of Catherine s (1575-1642), so that they too came to understand how imagery could assert identity and claim power. By examining these three generations of women, we can better understand how and why women used art to self- fashion for their peers in a way otherwise difficult to achieve.
Catherine s Beginning
Catherine de Medici s childhood as in man a s unstable, a situation that may have contributed to an early awareness of the advantages of art patronage and collection for women in precarious social positions without familial support or a guaranteed position in society. Catherine was born in 1519 in Florence to Lorenzo de Medici and Madeleine de la Tour d Auverne.1 Her parents were expected to secure a new dynastic lineage for the Medici family in Italy since her father was the heir to the Medici line and her mother was French royalty.2 Their marriage formed a powerful alliance for the Medici family by aligning them with royalty. Unfortunately, both
Loren o and Madeleine died ithin a month of Catherine s birth, thus orphaning her and sending the family into upheaval.3 There as no possibilit of her returning to her mother s famil and
1 Michael G. Paulson, Ca he ine de Medici: Fi e Po ai (NYC: Peter Lang Publishing Inc., 2002), 3.
2 Geoffro Tor and Catherine de Medici Queen of France, ed. b Gustave Cohen translated b Samuel A. Ives. (New York: H. P. Kraus, 1944), 15.
3 Kerrie-Rue Michahelles, Catherine de Medici s 1589 Inventor at the Hotel de la Reine in Paris, Furniture History 38 (2002): 1. 2
her father had no other children or close siblings who were available to raise Catherine.
Therefore, throughout her early life, she was passed from family member to family member and at times was used as a political pawn for the family as they attempted to reestablish dominance in
Italy.4 While for most of this time one of two Medici popes, Leo X (1513-1521) and Clement VII
(1523-1534), were her official guardians as direct male relatives, the raising of Catherine fell to female relations.5 At times her circumstances were fraught. She was held as a political hostage, threats of rape were sent to her in an effort to dissuade suitors and discourage politically advantageous marriages, and she lacked the benefit of consistent guardians or role models.6 The threats of rape were especially troubling since calling her purity into question would have precluded her from marrying well and improving her life in the process. Nevertheless,
Catherine s guardians ( ho ere almost all omen) sa to it that she received a comprehensive education and, for better or worse, she was exposed to the complexities of politics from an early age. This set her up for later success as queen and eventually queen regent.
Catherine s e posure in the first fe decades of her life to some of the most powerful women in Europe helped to shape her subsequent negotiation of her position at the French court.
She was originally put under the guardianship of her grandmother, Alfonsina Orsini (1472-1520) who was considered the matriarch of the Medici family. Alfonsina was responsible for her early humanist education.7 Then, hile under arrest at the convent of Le Murate in Florence, her
4 Kathleen Wellman, Catherine de Medici: King in All but Name, in Queens and Mistresses of Renaissance France, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), 228.
5 ffolliott, The Italian Training of Catherine de Medici, 41.
6 ffolliott, The Italian Training of Catherine de Medici, 41.
7 Paulson, Ca he ine de Medici: Fi e Po ai , 3.
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education was furthered by the nuns. Le Murate served as a multigenerational female Medici house that shaped Catherine s fluid understanding of patronage as ell as the importance of female relationships.8 The majority of the nuns were from the wealthy aristocracy and able to provide Catherine with aristocratic and scholastic training in different languages and humanist teachings. Caterina Sforza (1463-1509), the Countess of Forlì, also served as an influential example.9 Sforza was the matriarch of her own family and was ruling in the stead of her under- aged son while defending her lands. She spent the last years of her life at the convent, a little over a decade before Catherine was imprisoned there. Sforza defended her son and his legacy and also hid many valuable items from her collection at the convent. She would serve as the first direct exemplar of maternal advancement of power as well as protection of her children from their enemies. Decades later, Catherine perhaps recalled this precedent when she effected the same strategy as Sforza by serving as regent for two of her sons while always striving to protect them.
At age fourteen, Catherine left Italy behind for France, the country she would later rule through her sons. Her betrothed as Henri d Orleans (1519-1559), at the time the second son of
King Francis I (1494-1547) of France.10 The marriage was advantageous at the time, but would
8 ffolliott, The Italian Training of Catherine de Medici, 44. And Megan Holmes, Fra Filippo Lippi the Carmelite Painter, (New Haven: Yale University Press,1999), 221.Catherine drew from this experience almost forty years later in France at her private home, the Hôtel de la Reine, where she created separate apartments for her daughter-in-law and her granddaughter that are discussed later.
9 ffolliott, The Italian Training of Catherine de Medici, 43. Sfor a had been released from imprisonment and was ruling in the stead of her underaged son. She came to the convent in hiding to protect her son and this would be the first, but definitely not the last time that Catherine would see a powerful woman, ruling for an underaged son. 10 Paulson, Cathe ine de Medici: Fi e Po ai 4. It is important to note that Catherine spent almost none of her childhood in Italy with her Medici relations. Most of her time was spent with nuns at the convent. Therefore, she had no personal relations ith the Medici s, especiall her cousin Cosimo ho ould prove to be one of her greatest rivals on the political world stage. When they married, Henri was only a duke and second in line for the throne. However, his older brother would die before their father making Henri the heir apparent and later the king of France.
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become even more so hen Henri s older brother and heir to the throne, Francis III, died unexpectedly in 1536. As the wife of the second son of the king, Catherine s role was less scrutinized then other foreign wives at court; an heir was expected but not necessary for the line of succession. Catherine flourished at court where she was able to continue her humanist education. Francis I was intrigued with Italian culture and history which led to a strong bond between the king and Catherine. He worked especially hard to continue her education and expose her to the glories of sixteenth-century culture. However, her husband had a powerful mistress,
Diane de Poitiers, which complicated their marriage until Henri s untimel death.11 Diane served as Henri s mistress for his entire adult life and was understood to yield more power than
Catherine while Henri was alive.12 Additionally, for the first ten years of their marriage,
Catherine did not give birth.13 Not only was she a woman and a foreigner, but she was unable to fulfill her royal marital duties. Catherine s marriage was negotiated on the basis of her potential to bear male heirs and an advantageous political alliance with her uncle Pope Clement VII. When the Pope died and Catherine still had not given birth, her position became very precarious.
Although she was a favorite of the king, she was otherwise disliked at court. Her unenthusiastic reception, her uncle s death, and Henri s elevation to heir to the throne threatened her marriage and led her to propose that she enter a nunnery.14
11 De Lamar Jensen, Catherine de Medici and her Florentine Friends, The Sixteenth Century Journal 9, no. 2 (1978): 58.
12 Shelia ffolliott, Casting a Rival into the Shade: Catherine de Medici and Diane de Poitiers, Art Journal 48, no. 2 (1989): 139.
13 Paulson, Ca he ine de Medici: Fi e Po ai 5.
14 Paulson, Ca he ine de Medici: Fi e Po ai , 6.
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As would become a trend for Catherine, her circumstances swiftly changed. Henri s older brother, the dauphin, died, making Henri the heir to the throne and bringing Catherine with him into the spotlight.15 Shortly thereafter, Francis died, at which point Henri became king, Catherine queen, and Diane mistress to the king. However, Catherine did not gain power since Diane was the more powerful party: running court life, controlling Henri, and even managing the households and the educations of Catherine s children once the ere born.16 Moreover,
Catherine no longer had Francis as an ally. She was relegated to the sidelines. As this project demonstrates, she used her art collection and patronage to counteract her elision at court.
Scholarship on Catherine
Catherine has been discussed extensively by historians in the past decades, from the St.
Bartholome s Da Massacre at her daughter s edding, to her status as the last of one of the
Medici lines and as mother-in-law to Mary Queen of Scots. On the one hand scholars tend to focus on specific events in her life; on the other, they have produced overarching, general biographies. There has been notably less written about her by art historians, perhaps because of the lack of historical documentation about her few surviving artistic commissions, since almost all of Catherine s collections, including books and art works, and her palace were destroyed by a
Protestant uprising soon after her death. However, Catherine ordered that her collection be inventoried not long before her death. It is from these inventories and other personal accounts that we can learn about the nature of her collection. One of the few art historians who has studied
Catherine extensively is Shelia ffolliott, who brought to light and analyzed man of Catherine s works discussed here. Her publications have explored Catherine from a feminist perspective,
15 Sara Sturm-Maddo , Catherine de Medici and the T o Lilies, The Court Historian 10, 1 (2005): 31.
16 Wellman, King in All but Name, 230. 6
especially in terms of her rivalry with Diane de Poitiers. The present project builds on ffolliott s work to analyze Catherine s artistic commissions as well as her relationship to other women of the time. As one of the first scholars to discuss Catherine as an art historical figure, her scholarship focuses on bringing Catherine s patronage to the forefront of the narrative. M goal is to analyze this patronage within the context of individual identity as well as connect
Catherine s ork ith other omen of the time to sho a s stem of art patronage among elite women of the sixteenth century.
The purpose of this project is to broaden the context around Catherine de Medici to analyze, through sociohistorical and feminist approaches, the use of imagery by northern
European women in power in the sixteenth century. Catherine s different political roles will be discussed in chapter one, with attention to her strategies for commissioning works of art that she intended to shape her public persona and advance her socio-political agenda. Catherine was the wife of the Dauphin, Queen of France, Queen Mother, and Queen Regent. These four roles fall into three distinct but overlapping eras of Catherine s life: ife, ido , and mother. It is through her art collection that Catherine defined these intersecting identities in such a way that they helped her to maintain power and status. This chapter relies heavil on ffolliott s ork to consider these different artistic commissions, which do not necessarily exist in their original form today but were vital to the construction of Catherine s public identity in the sixteenth century.
The second chapter investigates Catherine s female net orks. I argue that such influences proved vital in the creation of female identity through art patronage, collecting, and display.
Catherine was able to take note from Margaret of Austria, who was in a similarly unusual position that allowed her more freedom and the ability to define a multilayered identity of her own. Then, Catherine mentored her descendants, Marguerite de Navarre and Christine de 7
Lorraine, and through them the future Queen of France, Marie de Medici. While omen have at times been stereotyped as being powerless in this period, these women prove that position wrong by claiming power and asserting it, often expressly through their art collections.
Most elite early modern women were not able to claim power in traditionally masculine ways, but they were able to exert their influence through other means. Collecting and displaying art were important ways in which women of the upper echelons of European society defined their intersecting identities and affirmed their status and legitimacy. It is through this lens that I have studied Catherine de Medici and her contemporaries as prime e amples of omen in unconventional situations who used art to their advantage.
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CHAPTER 1
NEGOTIATING IDENTITIES AND MEDIATING STATUS
Catherine de Medici became a deepl engaged art collector and patron after her husband
Henri s death, hen she occupied the positions of queen mother or queen regent (depending on which of her sons was king). She had, in this period, more opportunity to act independently than she did earlier, as an unmarried individual and then as Henri s wife.17 In the lengthy period in which she was dowager queen, Catherine commissioned images and enacted image-based strategies to advantageously shape her public persona.18 These activities had two specific objectives. First, the aimed to counter Catherine s reputation as a foreigner and, therefore, as an outsider in France. Members of the French court generally disliked her from the start, for the
French and the Italians had been at odds through wars, political alliances, and religious loyalty for centuries. Most recently, the French attempts to conquer Naples by King Charles VIII (r.
1483-98) led to extensive fighting, with the French aligned against Italy, Spain, and the Holy
Roman Empire. The Habsburg-Valois Wars, as they came to be called, lasted until 1559. These political problems were reaching their zenith by the 1520s, and they partially motivated
Catherine s betrothal to Henri. Francis was concerned that the Pope would align with the
Habsburgs and the Pope was desperate to align with anyone to protect the papal states. Henri was
17 Three of Catherine s sons ould become king during her lifetime: Francis II, Charles IX, and Henri III. All three would die relatively early with no heirs to follow them. Both Charles and Henri were underage when they became king and it is during the reigns of these two sons that Catherine experienced the most agency and influence. Paulson, Ca he ine de Medici: Five Portraits, 7-10.
18 At this time, an ideal wife was an obedient one who contributed to her marriage through her dowry, familial connections, and her ability to produce children. As was mentioned in the introduction and later in this chapter, Catherine fails in all of these categories for the first ten years of her marriage thus making people question why Henri did not discard her and what her value was as queen.
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a good match for Catherine even though he was a second rather than a first son because
Catherine herself had no royal claim or family to speak of other than her uncle the Pope.19
Catherine s images negotiated her status as a oman ho had failed to quickl produce an heir to the French crown, which members of the French court and the public considered her primary duty as queen.20 When in 1536 Henri s older brother and heir to the throne died,
Catherine offered to enter a convent so that Henri, as the new heir, could remarry and ostensibly produce male heirs. 21 This act ultimately proved unnecessary, but it nonetheless demonstrates the steps Catherine was willing to take to fulfill what she and others at the court perceived as a primary wifely obligation. In this context, it was vital that Catherine emphasize her likability and convey reliability and competence,22 qualities that were vital to her success as queen regent for her youngest two sons and to sustaining her authority as widow to the king.23 These concerns motivated the ways in which Catherine shaped her socio-political persona through art collection and display in the intersecting areas of wife, widow, and mother.
Marital Strategies
A painting of the marriage of Catherine and Henri made by Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) in 1533 for Catherine s Medici cousin, Pope Clement VII (1478-1534), demonstrates strategies b hich a member of Catherine s famil , and therefore likely Catherine herself, negotiated difficulties pertaining to her status as a foreign bride. The image inspired Jacopo Chimenti da
19 Ralph Roeder, Ca he ine de Medici and he Lo Re ol ion (New York: The Viking Press, 1937), 37.
20 J.E. Neale, The Age of Ca he ine de Medici (London: Bradford and Dickens, 1959), 102.
21 Katherine Cra ford, Catherine de Medici and the Performance of Political Motherhood, The Sixteenth Century Journal 31, no. 3 (2000): 643.
22 ffolliott, Casting a Rival into the Shade: Catherine de Medici and Diane de Poitiers, 138.
23 Cra ford, Catherine de Medici and the Performance of Political Motherhood, 643.
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Empoli (1551-1640) to paint his o n version of the scene. Chimenti s painting, completed after
Catherine s death, is thought to faithfully represent Vasari s original, hich no longer survives.24
Chimenti s painting depicts the wedding of Catherine to Henri, presided over by Pope Clement
VII, one of Catherine s onl surviving immediate relatives and the negotiator ith Francis I
(1494-1547), King of France, of the terms of her marriage. Catherine is prominently portrayed within the composition, just to the right of center. She turns towards the beholder, a mode of portra al that implies her accessibilit . B contrast, Henri s back is to the vie er in an arrangement that obstructs his own pose, with the result of making him comparatively less accessible than Catherine and focusing attention on her figure, thereby prioritizing bride over groom. Catherine is further accentuated by her clothing, which consists of a bright golden and cream-colored brocade dress and a strand of pearls that cover her bodice. All of the other figures wear darker or duller clothing in comparison; even the Pope and cardinals appear to don gray under their red liturgical vestments. Catherine s dress highlights her ealth, and her status. This image reflects Catherine s strateg of reminding French citi en of her familial connection to the
Pope and papal authority, key advantages to the French in the marriage of Henri to Catherine
(without necessarily invoking the tenuous political aspects of France s relationship ith Ital ).
Vasari s inclusion of this scene in the painted ceiling of the Sala di Clemente VII in the Pala o
Vecchio indicates the importance of this dynastic alliance not only for Catherine but also for
Clement and the Medici family. Clement s presence in the image emphasi ed Catherine s status as a Medici and relative of a powerful pope, and symbolized the alliance Catherine was meant to solidify between the Pope and Francis.
24 Hugh Ross Williamson, Ca he ine de Medici. (London: Michael Joseph Ltd, 1973), 33. 11
The moment of her marriage would prove to be one of the few periods of her life where
Catherine s position as secure. She therefore used her o n artistic patronage to counter her sporadically precarious position at the French court, which included public acts that modeled traditional ideal widowhood. Between 1559 and 1589, and following the examples of elite women before her, such as Margaret of Austria discussed below, Catherine commissioned two memorials to Henri: a heart monument and a funerary mausoleum located at the French royal burial site at the Basilica of St. Denis near Paris. When Catherine died in 1589, she was buried in the mausoleum next to Henri.25 For this project (Fig. 2), Catherine hired Germain Pilon (c. 1525-
1590) as the primary sculptor of its figural works and Francesco Primaticcio (1504-1570) to supervise the design.26 The focal point of the monument are two life-size recumbent effigies of the couple, carved from white marble. Surrounding these figures is an elaborate marble architectural structure, with sculptures of personified virtues on the corners and a set of portrait sculptures of Catherine and Henri in prayer at the top, all carved from black stone.
The two prone sculpted bodies that adorn the tomb exemplify different, gendered approaches to the body in memorial sculptures of the period. Henri is depicted at the moment of his death. His body is not shown as dead or decaying as was frequently seen, but his face does show the agony of his death at the joust. He is, however, not shown as an idealized Greek nude or other paradigmatic male figure. On the other hand, Catherine is shown as an idealized nude.
Both Catherine and Henri have slight covering at the waist, but the drapery falls to the side of their legs.27 The idea of the female figure being exposed and idealized is not unusual in art.
25 ffolliott, The Italian Training of Catherine de Medici, page 42.
26 Shelia ffolliott, The Ideal Queenl Patron of the Renaissance: Catherine de Medici Defining Herself or Defined b Others?, In Women and Art in Early Modern Europe: Patrons, Collectors, and Connoisseurs, ed. Cynthia Lawrence, (University Park: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997),106.
27 Jeanice Brooks, Catherine de Medicis, Nouvelle Artemise: Women s Lamnets and the Virtue of Grief, 12
However, in this situation, Catherine s representation also defies her age. In the period of her life when she was a widow, Catherine was able to exercise a greater degree of agency and influence than when she was married. Catherine did not allow herself to be pushed aside by Salic Law and men in the court but instead usurps the human Henri as the romanticized nude figure.
Catherine s sculptural likeness is indicative of a different kind of representational strategy, one that associated her with enduring feminine ideals, by referencing the Venus Pudica.
The Venus Pudica can be traced to classical antiquity and seen in such examples as the Venus de
Milo and other Hellenistic sculptures representing the goddess Venus. These representations are interpreted as the modest Venus as the nude figure both covers and reveals herself. 28 The nude woman attempts to hide her nudity with her hands, but never does so completely enough to obscure her nudity from the viewer.29 Sometimes she will have some form of drapery around her hips, but this only serves to draw more attention to her otherwise nude form. Although representations varied, these works are characterized by a partially or fully nude female woman with one hand draped across her breasts and one drawn over her hips and thighs. The dichotomy is amplified when the actions of her hands convey modesty but her nudity in general and typically alluring stare imply something else entirely. The Venus Pudica served to convey modesty and purity while still presenting a sexualized woman to the male viewer.30 Catherine s sculpture conveyed a similar idea, although not as overtly sexual as some Venus statues were.
Early Music Vol. 27, No. 3 (Aug. 1999): 424. Catherine originally was represented in a similar way. However, when the first sculptor, Girolamo della Robbia, died and Pilon took over the commission this sculpture was rejected in favor of a more ideal figure
28 Camille Paglia, The Cruel Mirror: Bod T pe and Bod Image as Reflected in Art, Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America Vol. 23, No. 2 (Fall 2004): 5.
29 Brooks, Catherine de Medicis, Nouvelle Artemise, 424.
30 David Lung Clark, Raphael s Fornarina: Venus Pudica or Venus Aphrodisia? Journal of Art History, Vol. 74, No. 4 (2005): 224.
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Her effigy adheres to many of the traditional characteristics of the Venus Pudica typology.
Instead of being fully clothed, she is only partially draped, with her left hand, she reaches to cover her breasts and with her right, she draws the drapery across her hips. Catherine was not fully revealed but exposed more than would be expected of a widowed queen who lived for almost seventy years and who wore conservative mourning clothes for the last thirty years of her life. She was also not depicted when she died at 69 but rather as an idealized young woman. Next to Henri, who looks older and is shown experiencing the agony of death for eternity, Catherine is the ideal, peaceful figure and an ideal woman, as also emphasized in her act of commissioning a tomb for her husband as his widow.
Catherine specifically implied two important, politically motivated familial references
ith the design and location of her and Henri s tomb. First, the tomb purposefully referenced imperial tombs in Rome with the grandiose design, recumbent figures, and classical Italianate architectural features. This design was explicitly papal and classical Roman and not Florentine.
Through references to the papacy, Catherine reminded viewers of her own connections to the papacy that she originally brought to her marriage without implying a negative Florentine bias to which a French audience might object. It is also a reminder of her own loyalty to the papacy and
Catholicism during a time of religious upheaval in France. By referencing the ancient Christian imperial tombs of Rome that ere attached to St. Peter s, the chapel at Saint Denis invoked these historic Christian icons. The references to classical Rome helped to emphasize the classical and long-lasting lineage of the Valois family and culturally elite nature of the family.
In addition to the design of the tomb, its location at the Church of Saint-Denis purposefully connected Catherine and Henri to the illustrious lineage of the past kings of France who were all buried there. St. Denis was one of the patron saints of France and was the first
Bishop of Paris. He was martyred and carried his own head to the site of the Church of Saint- 14
Denis where he wanted to be buried. 31 Catherine and Henri were both buried here, but the new chapel that Catherine commissioned dre attention to Henri s role as monarch and encourage individual devotion. By building onto the Church of St. Denis, rather than constructing a new and separate church to posthumously honor their husbands as some elite widows did, Catherine showed her respect and loyalty for the tradition of the French monarchy while also elevating herself and her husband through a groundbreaking new chapel that visitors could circumnavigate. It was also reminiscent of the Old Chapel of the Kings where Charlemagne was buried near Saint Denis.32 In this project, Catherine implied her own powerful connection with the papacy while strategically avoiding any connection to the Medicis in Florence. The mausoleum visually connected Catherine to Henri in perpetuity, suggesting the perpetuity of the queen s devotion to her deceased husband.
Catherine s demonstration of ideal ido hood in her commission of a mausoleum for
Henri invokes a lengthy historical practice by the wives of political leaders to publicly memorialize their husbands with tomb projects. This practice, with which Catherine was familiar, harks back to idealized women of antiquity and, with their impressive pedigrees and achievements, idealized Catherine by association. Such a project is evidenced in narratives about the ancient Greek queen Artemisia, who ruled Caria in Asia Minor, which included the prosperous city of Halicarnassus, from 484 to 460 BCE, in the years after the death of her husband. Artemisia s narrative as kept alive in the memories of readers at the European courts through the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance by writings such as the 1361-62 De claris mulieribus by Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-75), which devotes a chapter to her. However,
31 Jo Eldride Carney, Renaissance and Reformation 1500-1620: A Biographical Dictionary, (Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc, 2000), 250.
32 ffolliott, The Ideal Queenl Patron, 106.
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Catherine was likely directly inspired by a Histoire de la Royne Arthémise composed and presented to her in manuscript form by the courtier and apothecary Nicolas Houel (1524?-87) in
1562.33 Houel s account, a mi of historical fact and fanciful idealism, conve ed in part that
Artemisia built a mausoleum for her husband at Halicarnassus that was so colossal in scope, richly appointed, and deeply admired that it was named one of the Seven Wonders of the
World.34 In Catherine s era, models of ideal ido hood such as that e pressed in Artemisia s story inspired an expectation that the widows of deceased ruling spouses would construct opulent, aggrandizing mausolea for their husbands, as expressions of their unceasing devotion to their husband s memor . B follo ing this model, Catherine grafted onto her o n persona the traits of her prototypes in order to craft a public reputation as an ideal widow.
Catherine s connection ith Artemisia is evident as well in the roles of the two women as widows. Artemisia took power after the death of her husband and succeeded in ruling her nation.
She was honored for showing these traditionally male traits of strength and leadership. While
Catherine was not a king, she ruled in her sons steads. Earning and maintaining the trust of the people was essential to her success.35 Indeed, there were other factions of the government and aristocratic families who were constantly fighting for their own interests and arguing that they
ere better suited to rule than Catherine. The people s support secured her position. Artemisia is the personification of all three of the figures Catherine wanted to be wife, widow, ruler and she performed these roles in ways that were acceptable and non-threatening to the existing
33 Sheila ffolliott, Catherine de Medici as Artemisia: Figuring the Po erful Wido , in Rewriting the Renaissance: The Discourses of Sexual Difference in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Margaret W. Ferguson, Maureen Quilligan, and Nancy J. Vickers (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), 230. The manuscript Houel presented to Catherine is in the collection of the Bibliothèque national de France, fonds français, 306.
34 ffolliott, Catherine de Medici as Artemisia, 230.
35 ffolliott, Casting a Rival into the Shade, 138.
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societal order. In addition to providing a visual language for Catherine s representation,
Artemisia created a precedent for widows building funerary monuments for their husbands.
Artemisia s funerar monument defined what it meant to be a good widow and its scale coined the term mausoleum after her husband. Upon the death of her husband, Mausolus, Artemisia built him a large temple-like structure designed specifically for his burial. This was one of the first of its kind and was so large and magnificent it was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. From then on, these types of funerary monuments were referred to as mausoleum.
Catherine closely followed this example by building her own expansive funerary monument and chapel for her husband that she would later be buried in as well.
Portraiture
The main orks of art that defined Catherine s identit as a ido ere her personal portraits, which shaped a public persona of widowhood through sartorial means. In these portraits, such as one from Fran ois Clouet s studio in 1580 (fig. 3) made of Catherine after she was widowed, she was always shown in complete mourning attire. This emphasized her status as a widow and her connection to the royal dynasty, but more importantly, it always reminded the viewer of her devotion to and support of her late husband. The restriction of mourning prevented her from wearing the clothing and accoutrements indicative of her wealth and her position at court. At a time when clothing was used to indicate status, the blatant refusal to comply was not only a fashion statement, but also a political and societal one. Her mourning pose was further emphasized when Catherine served as queen regent for her younger two sons. At this time Henri had been dead for many years and her children were controlling the country, yet Catherine remained visibly in mourning. This approach is apparent by comparison to Diane de Poitiers,
Henri s mistress for t ent ears and Catherine s immediate competition, as discussed further below. Diane did not continue to wear mourning after the obligation to demonstrate public 17
mourning ended.36 After Henri s death, Catherine ore mourning clothes for the rest of her life.37 At this time, mourning clothes feature all black, heavy material clothing with little to no adornment, no jewelry, and covered heads. This was not a societal requirement, but a choice
Catherine made. Although it would be expected for the queen mother to wear mourning clothing for some time, to wear it for decades while holding the highest female position in government and at court was uncommon and a distinct statement. 38 In fact, the only other woman in power to do so around this time was Margaret of Austria. Margaret was widowed for the second time when she was 24. She never married again and portrayed herself in perpetual mourning for the rest of her life despite being a very public, powerful political figure.39 Catherine, by choosing to emphasize the visual apparatus of mourning through her portraits, ensured that viewers would inevitably link her to Henri and his authority, which served as a strategy to bolster her authority as his wife, widow, and mother of his political successors. A political rather than a personal statement, the fact that Catherine maintained mourning while Diane did not was an explicit statement of queenly power.
Motherhood
As the foundation of her power transitioned from her late husband to her children,
Catherine revised her image to emphasize her abilities as a capable and loving mother to sustain her status at court. Her relationship with Henri had made her position as foreigner and woman acceptable. After his death, her relationship with her children legitimized her position. As
36 Cra ford, Catherine de Medici and the Performance of Political Motherhood, 653.
37 Neale, The Age of Ca he ine de Medici, 10.
38 Allison Lev , Wido s Peek: Looking at Ritual and Representation, In Widowhood and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe ed. Allison Levy. (Massachusetts: Ashgate, 2003) 8.
39 Allison M. Tillinger, The Art Patronage and Art Colletion of Margaret of Austria: Using the Visual Arts to Promote a Political Agenda, (Washington: George Washington University Press, 2006), 11. 18
discussed above, French society was exclusive and internally focused, which lead to strong negative connotations to foreigners, especially Italians. By showing her allegiance to her own children who were French royalty, she endeavored to solidify her own position within the court.
Additionally, since she served as queen regent for her second and third sons, Charles IX and
Henri III, she needed to show that she had no allegiance to any of her Italian relatives and that she was capable of leading the country without bias until her sons came of age. This was especially important at this time as Catherine s relative, Cosimo I de Medici, Grand Duke of
Tuscany (1519-1574) had just become the head of a new branch of the Medici family in Florence and was working hard to exert his influence over all of Italy and Europe, in particular against the
French.40 The original line of the Medici famil ended ith Catherine s father. Cosimo represented the lesser line that was emerging to assume the family name and station in Florence.
Catherine and Cosimo had no interactions while Catherine lived in Italy and their relationship remained tenuous throughout their lives. However, the existence of a Medici relative acting as de facto ruler of Florence and frequently in allegiance with the Spanish against the French caused
Catherine to be linked to all of Cosimo s actions b the French public.41 Catherine proved her loyalty to the French not only through her own actions but also by commissioning images that depicted her in a leadership position.42 This messaging ostensibly helped to counteract rumors that she was incapable of ruling for her children or disloyal to the French.
40 Leonie Frieda, Catherine de Medici: Renaissance Queen of France, (New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003): iv. The original Medici famil line died ith Catherine s father. Ho ever, the brother of her great, great, great, great grandfather s descendants ere the secondary Medici line that started the period of the Grand Duchy in Florence.
41 Jensen, Catherine de Medici and Her Florentine Friends, 57.
42 Her actions in this case are during her time as queen regent when she prioritized the French and fought the Italians, Habsburgs, and Spanish and fought to retain Catholicism in France. In multiple instances, her relation, Cosimo tried to pull the French into unrelated wars and disputes and Catherine refused to be involved. 19
Catherine continued to advantageously establish visual connections to Artemisia, the widowed ruler, to emphasis her role as a loving and capable mother. As can be seen in a set of tapestry designs by Antoine Caron of c. 1560s (Fig. 4), such a comparison was visually blatant and carried the important kind of iconography that justified Catherine s role.43 These cartoons,
hich ould later be turned into a tapestr series for Catherine s granddaughter as discussed in the next chapter, show Artemisia in various stages of motherhood, for example nurturing her children and helping them to rule after the death of her husband. Although the representations of
Artemisia in the series are not portraits in the sense of physiognomic accuracy, they connect to
Catherine in the use of 16th-century-style clothing and details of the settings, which identify the represented scenes as taking place in France. In these works, the viewer sees Catherine, via
Artemisia, as a leader and a mother. They also draw a clear line of association between her and a respected historical woman who was honored for her devotion to her children and her shrewd political acumen. By equating herself with the powerful Artemisia, Catherine aimed to support the legitimacy of her role and exert her power as acting ruler of France without overstepping her bounds as a foreigner and a woman.
Diane de Poitier
After Henri s death, Catherine recalibrated her activities from a focus e clusivel on collecting to include commissions that advanced her authority: these works reimagined the concept of queenly power.44 Her patronage encompassed portraits, books, rare luxury items, and building projects, including the mausoleum discussed above. As has been established, Catherine used her portraits to create her own image and role in society, but she also used them specifically
43 ffolliott, Casting a Rival into the Shade, 138.
44 Nicola Courtright, A Garden and a Galler at Fontainebleau: Imager of Rule for Medici Queens, The Court Historian 10, 1 (2005): 55.
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to reestablish her place, physically and in government, and to de-throne Diane de Poitier from her role as de facto queen. Catherine avoided Diane when possible and was careful not to critici e her publicl during Henri s lifetime.45 The situation was complicated by the fact that
Henri as never represented ithout emblems that related to Diane: he adopted Diane s colors and they even shared the same symbol, a crescent moon.46 Since criticism of Diane could be easily interpreted as criticism of Henri, Catherine took care to emphasize her marriage and relationship with Henri rather than confront his infidelity directly. In addition, while she remained tolerant of Diane after Henri s death, she also removed many of the privileges of queenship that Henri had afforded Diane, such as a diplomatic position, jewels, and a palace. 47
Catherine s decision to retain and be portra ed in mourning attire, as discussed above, drew a public contrast with Diane. In art, Catherine did not openly show her animosity, but did create strategic works that elevated her above Diane.48
Perhaps the most prominent e pression of this strateg as Catherine s intervention in the garden at Fontainebleau (Fig. 4). A fountain of Diana, the goddess of the hunt, symbolizing
Diane, had already been installed there, for Diane had previously lived in this palace and publicly adopted Diana as her own personification. Catherine could have removed the statue, but she did not. Rather, she surrounded it with bronze copies of Roman statues that were owned by her Medici relatives and housed in the Vatican.49 Catherine also expanded the structures that
45 Wellman, King in All but Name, 230.
46 ffolliott, Casting a Rival into the Shade, 139.
47 Wellman, King in All but Name, 230.
48 ffolliott, Casting a Rival into the Shade, 140.
49 Courtright, A Garden and a Galler at Fontainebleau, 67.
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comprised the palace as her power and influence increased. These expansions added three additional wings to the palace that connected to form a rectangular plan with a large enclosed courtyard in the center. Further wings were added to create more enclosed courtyards within a larger rectangular form. The wings created a rectangular structure that featured an extensive enclosed garden and courtyard in the center. The fountain of Diana was installed in this courtyard. B the time Catherine s additions and alterations ere completed, the fountain of
Diana was no longer in an open courtyard, but enclosed by the newly expanded structure and directly encircled by bronze statues, including the Laocoön and other major statues from the
Vatican collection symbolic of the Medici family and power. The fountain was literally in the shado of Catherine s o n construction and surrounded b her influence. This garden served to exhibit her own personal power as well as elevate her above her personal and political enemies.50
Catherine s use of artistic commissions to convey a political message and strengthen her position in relation to Diane is evident in a drawing made for her, a preparatory design for one of the tapestries previously mentioned (Fig. 5). In it, Artemisia is on the left-hand side with her son administering official duties. However, in an unusual compositional decision, this governmental scene only occupies half of the drawing. The other half shows an enclosed garden with an elaborate fountain. This fountain was not a random addition or product of the artist s imagination, and it was clearly considered an important element since it occupies half of the composition. At Château of Anet, one of Diane de Poitier s homes, François Clouet had helped design a fountain representing Diane and her relationship with Henri. A fountain similar to the one Clouet designed for Diane was featured in the drawing of Artemisia made for Catherine.
Design wise, it was combination of the fountain at Diane s home and the fountain representing
50 Courtright, A Garden and a Galler at Fontainebleau, 61. 22
Diane at Fontainebleau. The two were similar in design and the drawing created a hybrid of the two Diana fountains. Therefore, before any other alterations, the drawn fountain is already not an accurate representation of any existing fountain, but does clearly represent Diane within the drawing. Diane s fountain made the common connection bet een Diane and the goddess Diana.
The real fountain at Diane s palace was originally topped by the reclining nude figure of Diana, meant to represent Diane and as in an open court ard in Diane s e tensive gardens. In the drawing, the fountain of Diana has been moved from a prominent central location to a secondary one. The fountain was now fully surrounded by the scene of Artemisia to the left and the frame of the drawing to the right and above. Additionally, the reclining Diana statue was still in its original position but the fountain had been altered. Instead of the nude Diana being the focus of the fountain, she was enclosed by an architectural feature surrounding the fountain.
On top of the new architectural feature was the personification of fertility, specifically dolphins shooting water, birth salvers, and vases pouring water that represented Catherine. While
Catherine and Henri did not have any children during the first ten years of their marriage, after
Catherine s first pregnanc in 1544, she had ten successful pregnancies (although Catherine outlived almost all of them). Diane, on the other hand, with whom Henri had a sexual relationship for twenty years, did not have any children with Henri. The dolphins depicted were themselves symbols of fertility, but especially in France. The French word for dolphin, dauphin, was also the name for the heir to the throne, in this case, Catherine s sons. As the queen mother then, fertility was more closely aligned with Catherine than Diane. Additionally, while Diane did have her own children, she did not have any children with Henri II despite their long relationship. While being represented as the widowed queen Artemisia, Catherine usurped Diane politically and physically through the metaphors of her role as queen mother and her eclipsing of the Diana statue. ffolliott surmised that this covering of the Diana statue served also to assume 23
power from Diane and place Catherine firmly at the top of the French hierarchy.51 With this drawing and this statue, and other works like them, Catherine, for the first time since her arrival in France was able to overshadow her rival and take her rightful place as head of the French court.
Catherine s Portrait Hall
Catherine used her portrait hall at the Hôtel de la Reine as a diplomatic tool to create visual links between herself, her children, and other important figures in her orbit. In this, she aimed to position herself as a person of socio-political consequence. B Catherine s era, portrait halls were well established as ke venues for persuasivel asserting b visual means a collector s relationships to others of importance in the intersecting arenas of family and politics. 52 In general, a portrait hall asserted a collector s refined taste (because the had collected aesthetically superior paintings), elevated financial status (for they could afford a collection of expensive objects), and relationships with the people featured in the portraits (they served as visual family trees or as statements of political alliances). Each of these aspects was true for
Catherine. In particular, Catherine s portraits and their arrangement harkened back to the revered
King Francis I and his sister Marguerite, both of whom were known for their aesthetic sensitivity. Francis was known for his art patronage and extensive library and Marguerite had helped to define the humanist court of France. As part of the marriage agreement between
Catherine and Henri, Francis and Marguerite continued Catherine s e tensive education and exposure to the arts. Indeed, Catherine chose to feature in her portrait hall more French members of her family than Italian and focused her portraits on her children, their spouses, and their
51 ffolliott, Casting a Rival into the Shade, 138.
52 Michahelles, Catherine de Medici s 1589 Inventor at the Hôtel de la Reine in Paris, 2.
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children.53 Her mother, father, and other such figures were noticeably absent but Francis as well as all of Catherine s children and their spouses ere prominentl featured.
Catherine s portrait hall broke from tradition, ho ever, by emphasizing the next generation of French heirs to which she gave birth and helped to shape through her influence.
Her collection included portraits of all of her children and grandchildren by a variety of artists present at the French court at the time. Dynastic portrait collections were usually aimed to emphasi e the collector s ancestors and familial connections: children ould normall be featured, but the focal point was on the previous and current generations of adults. The emphasis was meant to establish legac and the patron s place in histor . Scholars such as ffolliott posited that a sitter s ancestors ere made tangible through portraits and this helped not onl to establish d nast but also to keep it at the forefront of vie ers minds.54 For example, Margaret of
Austria, Regent of the Netherlands, had an extensive portrait collection in her home in the
Netherlands that was considered one of the most extensive in Europe at the time.55 She did not have any children and her betrothed and two husbands all died very early. However, Margaret focused her collection on her Habsburg ancestry. Her family tree of portraits included her parents and the generations before her, her siblings, and their families. Catherine never traveled to the
Netherlands and it is hard to define her relationship with Margaret if any existed. However,
Margaret s collection as ell-kno n ithin the ro al families of Europe and Catherine s father-in-law Francis and his sister Marguerite certainly knew about Margaret and her collection
53 Wellman, King in All but Name, 272.
54 ffolliott, The Italian Training of Catherine de Medici, 49.
55 For more information on Margaret s collection as ell as its reputation in Europe, see Women: The Art of Power- Three Women from the House of Habsburg ed. Sabine Haag, Dagmar Eichberger, and Annemarie Jordan Gschwend. The chapter on Margaret focuses specifically on her political power and the creation of her collection and library. There will also be more regarding this in Chapter 2.
25
and ere ver interested in the po er of portraits. It can thus be concluded that Margaret s collection specifically or in the abstract inspired Catherine. In her collection, Margaret focused on her Habsburg family members who were serving as emperors like her nephew Charles V.
This established her connection with the emperors, her distant relatives, and confirmed the legitimacy of her role as regent. She also had portraits of important figures she was connected to like Queen Isabella of Spain and Henry VIII of England. Isabella was her mother-in-law from her first marriage and Henry and Margaret had a close diplomatic relationship. The portraits were a reminder of the relationships for visitors to the portrait gallery and provided Margaret diplomatic leverage with visiting dignitaries. In addition to adopting this trend of establishing political might through the collector s relationships, Catherine ould also adapt some of
Margaret s techniques in organizing the portraits to be the most advantageous for her. Particular groupings of portraits would be made by the collector to emphasize certain genealogies or alliances and thus enhance the portraits significance.56 In Margaret s case, the repeated images of Emperor Maximillian (her father) and Emperor Charles (her nephew) served to legitimize her position as a member of the Habsburg family and thus her position as an unmarried woman controlling the Netherlands and emphasi ed her famil s ealth, importance, and heritage.
While the legac of Margaret s collection as important to the establishment of
Catherine s identity, Catherine also differentiated herself from the prior collection to better represent her specific situation. Instead of focusing on the previous generations of power,
Catherine largely ignored it in favor of her progeny. Her ancestors emphasized her Italian heritage, which in the French court only held negative connotations. Therefore, instead of
56 ffolliott, The Italian Training of Catherine de Medici, 50. This concept of organi ation and grouping will be further discussed in the next chapter as well.
26
focusing on her birth family or even her husband s famil , she focused on her children and the next generation.57 As the great-granddaughter of Loren o the Magnificent on her father s side and a direct descendent of Clovis on her mother s side, Catherine as not without powerful ancestors with whom she could have chosen to connect herself.58 However, neither her Medici relatives, her mother s French relatives, nor her husband s Valois relatives ere included in her portrait collection. Her choice to exclude previous generations was therefore not because of her lack of important relatives but was instead a clear, deliberate decision in creating a powerful, legitimate public persona. This further supports the idea previously mentioned that Catherine is not concerned with her familial ties or nationalities. Instead her focus is solely on her children and furthering them politically and socially, which becomes a vital factor when discussing how she would influence this next generation of women. An example of this approach is that, at the time that each of her children were married, Catherine replaced their individual portraits with double portraits that portrayed her children with their spouses.59 Her decisions with her portrait collection also emphasized her unique and very specific situation as a woman widowed in a foreign country but essentially ruling for her underaged sons and the political maze that she was forced to strategically navigate. Her loyalty to her children shaped many of her decisions in life, especially her political ones, and partially explain her desire to create a strong and stable political identity for them. The emphasis on her offspring highlights her success at shaping.
Catherine s Librar
Similarl , the books included in Catherine s librar ere specificall chosen to shape perceptions about Catherine s identit and authorit . Libraries ere not uncommon at this time
57 Michahelles, Catherine de Medici s 1589 Inventor at the Hôtel de la Reine in Paris, 4.
58 Sturm-Maddo , Catherine de Medici and the T o Lilies, 31.
59 ffolliott, The Italian Training of Catherine de Medici, 50. 27
and were considered an important social marker among the elite. But this library exhibited significant evidence about Catherine s o n education, her influences and her identit , including aspects of motherhood. As previously mentioned, Catherine received a robust education before her wedding and was further educated at the court of Francis I. She was known to be extremely intelligent and inquisitive and was active in pursuing intellectuals and scholars to visit her court.
These pursuits are exhibited through the scope of her library, which she expanded into one of the largest in Europe. It became a renown resource for intellectuals of the period, housing books on a variety of subjects in five languages, including Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, and French, all of which Catherine read.60
Catherine s library is informative not only concerning the focus of her education but also her sociopolitical strategy around her Italian heritage. Although Catherine was competent in many languages, the most frequently represented language for books in the library was French.61
Additionally, the most common subject in the library was French history. While these subjects and languages e hibit Catherine s o n interests in her adopted countr , it is also important to keep in mind the other visitors to the library. The library was open to academics, scholars, visiting diplomats, and other relations of Catherine s. Several scholars of the time mention
Catherine s librar as an important resource and Catherine herself made a point to show it to her visitors.62 The size and variet of subjects and languages served to underscore Catherine s intellect, wealth, and access to these manuscripts. The focus on French works would show her
60 See Bernerd C. Weber, Catherine de Medici: A Ro al Bibliophile, The Historian 12, no. 1 (1949): 90- 91.
61 Laurent Odde, La nouvelle artmeise : Catherine de Medici as queen of France and patron of the arts. Ph.D. Dissertation, (Cit Universit of Ne York, 2008), 13, and Weber, Catherine de Medici: A Ro al Bibliophile, 92.
62 Honoré De Balzac, Catherine de Medici, (Auckland: Floating Press, 2010), 134 28
deliberate emphasis on her French identity above all others. These books that she collected over time would have been carefully selected and in this case, the ere chosen to craft Catherine s public identity. The focus on French history and language helped to suppress her outsider Italian pedigree.
As a foreigner and a woman who would essentially, if indirectly, commanded the French government for the last thirt ears of her life, Catherine s mediated identities and public persona were important to not only her personal success but also the very survival of the monarchy. With so many young rulers in a short span of time, Catherine was the only consistent figure. The public ished to trust her as someone ith France s best interests at heart. To meet this demand, it was essential that Catherine show herself as a reliable figure who had no associations with her Italian relatives, was faithful to her deceased husband, and capable of ruling for her children. To do this, Catherine carefully crafted her image through her portraits and her commissions and display. She was also influenced either directly or indirectly by other powerful women at the time, such as Margaret of Austria, who were well educated and strategically used their courts, collections, and imagery to further craft their identities in ways that met their objectives. This effort was not inspired simply by wanting to be better-liked by the public. It was a vital means by which the dowager queen shaped personal and familial authority as a widow and mother.
29
CHAPTER 2
CATHERINE S MENTORS AND MENTEES
The exploration in the previous chapter of Catherine de Medici s art patronage and collection strategies reveal how an elite, early modern woman of political power shaped her identity and authority through visual and material culture. Catherine s objective was to strengthen her standing and authority at court by negotiating her roles as wife, widow and mother. Although men s patronage practices and collections certainl influenced on women of power like Catherine women sometimes grafted onto themselves aspects of masculine power to enhance their own, for example63 it is perhaps more often the case that women influenced other women to socio-political advantage. For Catherine, an unconventional upbringing brought her into the orbit of several powerful women from whom she took note, including Margaret of
Austria, Regent of the Netherlands, whose portrait collection was discussed in Chapter 1, and
Marguerite de Navarre, sister of King Francis I and aunt to Catherine s husband Henri (1492-
1549). In turn, Catherine tutored oung omen like Marie de Medici (1575-1642), who married
Henri IV and became queen of France; Catherine s granddaughter Christine de Lorraine (1565-
1637); and her own daughter, Marguerite de Valois (1553-1615), in strategizing how to best utilize their collections for identity formation and the advancement of their own political authorit and influence. This chapter e plores aspects of Catherine s heretofore understudied female-focused networks, whether direct or indirect, to demonstrate her multi-generational, pan-
63 Andrea Pearson, Envisioning Gender in Burgundian Devotional Art, 1350-1530: experience, authority, resistance. (Aldershot, Ashgate, 2005).
30
European approach to visually-based strategies of identity formation as a means to strengthen female authority.
Catherine s E emplars
Catherine s strategies for collecting and displa shared the most ith the Netherlandish regent Margaret of Austria because Catherine and Margaret of Austria s lives ere similar that their collections and display strategies were also similar: Catherine may have considered
Margaret as a model of a certain type of authoritative woman like herself. Both women were widowed and lived for decades after the death of their husbands. Margaret ruled the Netherlands as Regent, in the stead of her father Maximilian I, who had acquired the territories upon his marriage to Mary, Duchess of Burgundy, Margaret s mother, hile Catherine ruled France as
Queen Regent. They emphasized the importance of their family members and connections and served as representatives of the d nastic lineages of hich the ere a part. Catherine s husband died twenty years into their marriage, leaving her with ten children, most of whom were still minors. Both of Margaret s husbands died ver soon after their marriages.64 Margaret was still
oung and of a marriageable age, but refused to marr again after her second husband s death.
Margaret used her imagery to advance for herself the persona of an ideal widow, a status
Catherine also cultivated to ensure her relevance at the court after Henri s death, especiall in her role as influential mother of the royal offspring. Almost all depictions of Margaret made after she
as ido ed and hen she ruled the Netherlands sho her in ido s clothing, such as in a painting from 1519, Portrait of Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy after Bernand van Orley
(Fig. 6). The half-bust painting depicted Margaret not as a young woman, but also not as an elderly one. She is shown wearing the white head covering and black dress indicative of
31
mourning. Margaret does not hold attributes or have any jewelry other than a thin dark ring on her index finger. The only indication of her wealth and position are the crest in the upper left- hand corner and the small pieces of ermine cloak visible around her arms. In comparing this painting to Catherine s from si t ears later in 1580, Po ai of Ca he ine de Medici after
François Clouet (Fig. 3), there are slight differences, but the later work appears to take inspiration from the earlier one, if indirectly. Catherine is positioned at almost the exact same angle as Margaret in relation to the viewer and the picture plane. The only difference in this respect is that Catherine s hand is not visible. Catherine is sho n as a much older oman than
Margaret but considering the difference in ages when the two were widowed (Catherine when she was 40 after twenty years of marriage and Margaret at age 21), this is not unusual.65 They are also both wearing the black, conservative mourning clothes with white collars, although
Catherine s head-covering is of a sheer black material instead of Margaret s stark hite veil.
Both women wore their respective ido s clothing for the rest of their lives.
In addition to portraits as widows in mourning clothes, Margaret s precedent of commissioning a mausoleum for her deceased husband Philibert of Savoy (1480-1504) may have influenced Catherine.66 Margaret had commissioned an entirely new church to serve as a burial site; it was also a resting place for her, her mother-in-law, and, Margaret presumed, future generations of her family. The church, Saint-Nicolas-de-Tolentino, was at the royal monastery of
Brou at Boug-en-Bresse. Margaret commissioned a variety of architects to work on the structure, including Conrad Meit. The tomb itself (Fig. 7) was designed by Loys van Boghem and Jan van
Roome and constructed from 1516 to 1532. Margaret s tomb had a ver similar compositional
65 Haag, Women: The Art of Power, 26.
66 Haag, Women: The Art of Power, 26. 32
structure to Catherine s although the decorations of both are different. The central element of the tomb is a prone statue of Margaret on top of her casket. She is fully clothed in what appears to be an ermine cape, her face is unemotional, and she has a sumptuous crown on her head. The sculpture is unpainted and completely constructed from white alabaster. Surrounding this is a large, elaborately decorated architectural canopy that recalls the gothic architecture of the church. While there are not praying figures of Margaret and her husband, Philibert on top of the architectural canopy, there are kneeling figures of Margaret and Philibert with their namesake saints on the exterior façade of the church. Although it is unclear whether Catherine purposefully modelled her own mausoleum after the one Margaret built, the similarities between the two are clear in the compositional structure of the tombs themselves and the desire to create a large, elaborate memorial to their deceased husbands.
Margaret of Austria assembled a formidable, strategic art collection and library at her residence in Mechelen, the seat from which she governed the Netherlands. Her aim in part was to advance her socio-political authority through these means.67 Fortunately, both her collection and library, which were relatively accessible during her lifetime, and are well-documented by published inventories and surviving objects, such that Margaret s motivations and the audiences she wished to address can be assessed with relative certainty.68 Through the portrait gallery,
Margaret established visual links between her and her Habsburg cousins and nieces and nephews, who she anticipated would ultimately rule most of Europe.69 This collection especially
67 Lorraine Attreed, Gender, Patronage, and Diplomac in the Earl Career of Margaret of Austria (1480- 1530), Mediterranean Studies vol, 20, no. 1 (2012): 3.
68 For more information on Margaret s collection as ell as its reputation in Europe, see Women: The Art of Power- Three Women from the House of Habsburg ed. Sabine Haag, Dagmar Eichberger, and Annemarie Jordan Gschwend. The chapter on Margaret focuses specifically on her political power and the creation of her collection and library.
69 Haag, Women: The Art of Power, 28. 33
focused on Margaret s father Ma imillian I and her nephe Charles V. Margaret highlighted her father and her nephew by hanging their portraits in prominent places throughout her portrait gallery. Their paintings were normally larger than the other ones featured and showed the power and might of these Habsburg emperors. Finally, Margaret did not have only one painting of each of them. Instead, paintings representing them were spread throughout the gallery. This served to constantl remind vie ers of Margaret s connection to them as ell as create man visual links between Maximilian, Charles, and the other Habsburgs. Margaret made certain that visitors experienced the gallery when she thought it was important. In a diary entry from 1521, the
German artist Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), on a visit to the Low Countries, commented on
Margaret s collection and ho she took pride in revealing it to others. She did not just show
Dürer her library, but also her bedroom and study where the portraits were displayed.70 As guests moved through her private rooms, Margaret would describe the objects, weaving a historical narrative about the objects and their connection to the Habsburgs. Her physical interactions with the portraits were especially important, for her close proximity visually connected her with the painted figures. Dürer commented that Margaret especially lingered in front of the paintings of her father, Maximilian I, and her nephew, Charles V. From the perspective of Dürer and other visitors, the two men would appear to be looking over Margaret s shoulders as she performed her role as regent. Their presence both created her legitimacy as regent and supported a powerful argument in any diplomatic scenario.
Like Catherine s building projects at the H tel de la Reine discussed in the previous chapter, Margaret built her palace in Mechelen after her rise to power. Also, like Catherine, she
70 Dagmar Eichberger, Dürer and the Netherlands: Patterns of E change and Mutual Admiration, in The Essential Dürer ed. by Larry Silver and Jerrfey Chipps Smith (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010): 151.
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utilized it to support her political authority, in this case as regent of the Netherlands.71 The building of a new palace served to remove both of these women from the shadows of their predecessors and start a new period of rule. In addition to the libraries and portrait galleries, both of these palaces also contained an enclosed garden. As previousl demonstrated, Catherine s garden already existed but was fully enclosed by Catherine which had the secondary effect of isolating the fountain representing Diane de Poitiers and visually removing her from her position as mistress to the king and queen in all but name. This scenario appears out of the ordinary until put into context with Margaret as a predecessor. Margaret also built an enclosed garden that worked to placate concerns about female power and freedom, while still allowing her liberty within her own home.72 It also drew desirable connections to the purity of the Virgin Mary through the verse from Song of Songs 4:12 ou are a garden enclosed, m sister, m bride, a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed that theologians interpreted as a reference to the Virgin s pristine bodily status.73 Therefore, with her own garden, Catherine not only pulled Diane from her pedestal, but also connected herself more firmly with Margaret and the concept of the ideal woman through Marian emblematics.
The nuances of Margaret and Catherine s situations differ, but essentially both women wished to perpetuate their reputations as legitimate and powerful figures. They used their libraries, portrait galleries, and marital mausolea to do so. Their status as widows meant that neither had husband to whom to attach themselves as a means by which to strengthen their
71 Haag, Women: The Art of Power, 28.
72 Dagmar Eichberger, A Noble Residence for a Female Regent: Margaret of Austria and the Court of Savo in Mechelen, in Architecture and the Politics of Gender in Early Modern Europe (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2003): 32.
73 Andrea Pearson, Gardens of Love and the Limits of Morality in Early Netherlandish Art. (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2019).
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positions, although as married women they may not have achieved the depth of authority and influence they did as widows since the presence of ruling husbands may have curtailed their strategi ed activities on their o n behalf s. Margaret as freer to directl reference her o n power than Catherine since there was no equivalent to Salic Law in the Netherlands. Catherine, by contrast, idealized herself as the widow and mother of her ruling children.
Catherine s Influence on the Ne t Generation
Catherine s art collection and patronage ere not onl instrumental for crafting her persona and advancing her socio-political objectives, but they also played an important role in politically-driven identity formation for the next generation of women. The primary figures whom Catherine fostered to be influential were Marguerite de Valois, Christine de Lorraine, and
Marie de Medici.
As Catherine had used her patronage and collection as a way to exert her influence and create her identity, Marguerite de Valois, her fourth child, did the same with dance.74 Marguerite choregraphed, organized, and participated in many dances as part of entertainment at court.75
Marguerite s dance compositions ere not frivolous, however: she used them as a political tool.
Indeed, she frequently hosted events for traveling dignitaries and diplomats that featured her dances. These served to not only impress the visitors with the quality of the French court and later her personal court, but also frequently carried political undertones.76 For example, many of her dances promoted her brother the king or French culture in general. Thus, there was a correlation between Marguerite and Catherine as patrons of the art and the ways in which women
74 Margaret M. McGo an, Marguerite de Valois, Reine de Navarre (1553-1615): Patroness and Performer, Early Music History 34, no. 10 (2015): 191.
75 McGo an, Marguerite de Valois, 195.
76 McGo an, Marguerite de Valois, 200.
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of the family used art to promote their own agendas. While Marguerite never served as queen regent for her children, she was able to influence politics and even more so other women.
Marguerite married Henri de Navarre and was queen of Navarre with him.77 Their marriage was not a happy one but they came to an unusual agreement that led to them both holding equal power within the relationship at court. This gave Marguerite unobstructed free reign over her court, hich she developed into a po erful cultural center (similar to her mother s).78 Marguerite and Henri de Navarre eventually had their unhappy marriage annulled, at which point Marguerite returned to her mother s court and became a mentor there to other omen, including her niece and Catherine de Medici s granddaughter Christine de Lorraine, and the future wife of
Marguerite s ex-husband, Marie de Medici.
Catherine s interest in making familial-political investments in other women through her material collections is evidenced in her acts of bequest and gifting. When Catherine died, instead of bequeathing the full gamut of her possessions to a male descendant, she gave half to Christine de Lorraine.79 Christine did not obtain the entire bequest, for it was sei ed b Catherine s adversaries at court; much of it was later destroyed. Nevertheless, this outcome does not diminish the importance or implications of Catherine s act, for it evidences Catherine s interest in connecting with and ostensibly influencing a younger generation of women. Additionally, man of the items ere specific to Christine and Catherine s relationship. Catherine had taken care of Christine since she was a young girl so Christine would have been familiar with many of
77 Carney, Renaissance and Reformation, 243.
78 McGo an, Marguerite de Valois, 193.
79 Kerrie Rue Michahelles, A Bequest to Christine of Lorraine from Catherine de Medici: A Commentar on the Inventor of Movable Propert Acquired b Testamentar Donation, 1589, Journal of the History of Collections Vol. 30, No. 3 (Nov. 2018): 373.
37
the objects from her childhood home. Plus, a majorit of the art centered around Catherine s role as queen regent and her relationship to Christine as her grandmother.80 Catherine expressed this interest in gifting as well, such as when she presented to Christine the tapestry series now referred to as The Valois Tapestries. The series was commissioned by William of Orange as a diplomatic gift for Catherine, and the tapestries themselves were based on drawings by Antoine
Caron, one of which was discussed in the previous chapter. Some scholars speculate that in addition to commissioning and owning the drawings, Catherine also controlled William of
Orange s access to them and dictated hat should be included in the tapestries. The tapestries depicted scenes of the Valois family at a festival at Fontainebleau in 1564 and other public functions that Catherine organized for her family in the second half of the sixteenth century.81
They depict Catherine and various members of her family, specifically her children and their spouses and children, with Catherine ruling over the palaces and lands of France. The works presented Catherine as a queenly figure and emphasized the connection between Catherine and her children, a key aspect of her patronage and display of art as discussed in the previous chapter.
Although neither the details of the tapestries creation or their intended location are clear, there is explicit documentation of the tapestries at the moment when Christine de Lorraine relocated to Ital . Christine married Ferdinando I de Medici (1549-1609) in 1589 and moved to
Florence. As part of her role as grandmother and adopted parent, Catherine paid Christine s full dowry and furnished her trousseaux with a variety of sumptuous items. These tapestries were listed in an inventory of the goods Christine brought with her to Florence and scholars consider
80 Michahelles, A Bequest to Christine of Lorraine, 372. 81 E a Kocis e ska, Woven Bloodlines: The Valois Tapestries in the Trousseau of Christine de Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscan , Artibus et Historiae 73 (2016): 340.
38
them to be either part of the trousseaux or a prior gift from Catherine to Christine. The tapestries are made of gold and silver inlaid silk and other luxury materials. 82 Their extravagant quality was indicative of the wealth and status of the original owner and patron. This characteristic were grafted onto Christine, and the tapestries served as a reminder of the wealth and status she brought to her new marriage. Additionally, with imagery focused on and as a gift from
Catherine, the works invoked the powerful family members and alliances that supported
Christine. The reinforced Christine s relationship to Catherine through the nature of the gift while also providing a physical and visible genealogy for Christine in her new home. While
Catherine had entered her marriage alone and without the support of a family, the situation was different for Christine. This gift can be interpreted as communication by Catherine to Christine and audiences of the tapestries that she understood the challenges Christine faced as a foreign bride and that she would continue to support her, if from a distance.
Catherine s Legac : Marie de Medici
At the time of the annulment of his marriage to Marguerite de Valois, Henri de Navarre became king of France as Henri IV and married again, this time to Marie de Medici.83 Marie was not directly related to Catherine and they most likely did not meet; however, through
Marguerite, the thread of influence continued. Despite marrying her ex-husband, Marguerite and
Marie would develop a very close relationship and Marguerite essentially served as a cultural mentor to Marie.84 Both women were members of the same court, under the legacy that
Catherine had created before them. Marie was inspired in some ways by Catherine instead of
82 E a Kocis e ska, Woven Bloodlines 347.
83 William O. Goode, Moving West: Three French Queens and the Urban Histor of Paris, The French Review 73, no. 6 (2000): 1116.
84 Carney, Renaissance and Reformation, 243.
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Marguerite, perhaps because she served as queen regent for her son, just as Catherine had for hers.85 Her collection and commissions would include books and other items as her predecessor s collection did and specifically she commissioned a series of paintings by Rubens that would help to illustrate her own power.86 These paintings were monumental and designed to decorate
Marie s t o main galleries in the Luxembourg Palace. They focused on the relationship of Marie and Henri IV from their births, to Henri seeing Marie s portrait, to their proxy marriage, to
Marie s arrival in Marseilles, and to the consummation of their marriage and the birth of their heir. The paintings show Marie as a beautiful queen (Fig. 8), draped in luxurious fabrics and portrayed in a position of equally to her husband. It shows Marie as an ideal wife and queen and then later as a powerful ruler when her husband died and she became regent. Most of the works focus on Marie s life although in some, she shares the composition ith her husband or son.
Marie not onl commissioned Rubens to paint a marriage scene that mimics Catherine s mentioned in the prior chapter, but also commissions her o n painting of Catherine s marriage to Henri from Francesco Bianchi in 1624. Another interesting connection between this art collection and Catherine s o n collection is the painting, Proxy Marriage of Maria de Medici by
Jacopo da Empoli from 1624-1627 (Fig. 9). This is the same painter who had previously painted
Catherine s o n edding painting. Therefore, Marie did not onl take note of the kinds of imagery Catherine was using that of an ideal wife, mother, and queen but also of the artists who were painting Catherine.87 Interestingl enough, Marie ould live in Catherine s quarters at
Fontainebleau where her art was displayed and would continue her work with the garden
85 Odde, La nouvelle artemise, 10.
86 Goode, Moving West, 1128.
87 Tania Solweig Shamy, R ben Medici c cle: J ifica ion fo a he oine een. (Canada: McGill University, 2000), 15.
40
Catherine had enclosed in the castle, although she focused on the gallery.88 From these two brief descriptions, it is already clear that Catherine not only used art and her collections for her own personal benefit, but also influenced other women who would later use art to their own benefit.
This cycle is just one example of the way women could exert power, although not overtly, but just as notably.
88 Courtright, A Garden and a Galler at Fontainebleau, 79. 41
CONCLUSION
THE LEGACY OF SELF-IDENTITY
Elite women of the sixteenth century utilized art and architecture to define themselves and to publicly advance aspects of identity that they found advantageous to their particular circumstances. By doing so, they were able to exert influence and exhibit a different form of power from which they may otherwise have been excluded. The first generation of scholarship on the patronage and collecting strategies of elite sixteenth-century women concluded that they had limited mobility, agency, and influence. Through an examination of three consecutive generations of women in Europe, it becomes clear that they had considerable influence. These three generations are not typical women of the Renaissance. They had access to funds, education, arts, and culture through their status as royal women, but they took full advantage of their social status to achieve even more than some would have expected. While a number of women fall into this category, only a few could be examined here.
Catherine de Medici has served as a linchpin to the study, an approach that is grounded in her status as an influencer. Catherine was not necessarily better educated than any of these women and her physical mobility was limited to her childhood in Italy and the rest of her life in
Paris at the French court. However, two aspects of her life enabled her to exert influence in their lives. The first is that she served as queen regent for almost thirty years after her husband died and while her under-aged sons ruled. In this privileged position, Catherine ruled France with almost untethered power. The second aspect, and the more important one to this topic, is
Catherine s commitment to her children. Her challenging childhood and lack of acceptance in
France did not foster a loving, positive relationship between Catherine and her birth family or her
42
husband s famil . Therefore, she had little to no concern about national identity or physical boundaries that prevented other omen from interacting ith each other. With Catherine de
Medici as a central figure, these women were able to exert influence across time, space, and cultural divides allowing them to cultivate a sense of power that was otherwise unprecedented.
The man roles Catherine de Medici occupied throughout her life, from wife to widow to mother and queen regent, allowed her to explore intersecting identities through her art collection. Her many roles made her position tenuous, but by creating an outward identity of idealism, loyalty, and reliability, she was able to maintain her position and power throughout her lifetime. By learning from examples set by women of previous generations, Catherine was able to make the most or her situation and then teach the next generation about self-identification.
Mirroring women like Margaret of Austria who also held unusual positions in life, Catherine utilized architecture, artworks, monuments, and display to exhibit her loyalty to her dead husband, to her children, and to France.
Just as Catherine looked to examples of powerful female antecedents as she negotiated her own status, her choices ultimately influenced a later generation of women in positions of prominence and authority in the European courts. She set an example for Christine de Lorraine and Marie de Medici for how they could use art and display in their own lives to better their situations. As influential queens and queen regents followed in her footsteps, she created a path for women to exert some level of agency despite the oppressive Salic Laws of France. By studying the trend Catherine began in France, we now have a better understanding of how women in the sixteenth century and beyond advantageously navigated aspects of a system that otherwise restrained them.
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ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure 1: Jacopo Chiamenti da Empoli, Ma iage of Ca he ine de Medici i h Hen i II of F ance, D c d O lean , 16th century. Florence: Uffizi Galleries.
Figure 2: Germain Pilon, F ne a Mon men of Hen i II and Ca he ine de Medici, 1563-1572. Paris: Abbey Church, St. Denis.
Figure 3: copy after Francois Clouet, Po ai of Ca he ine de Medici, c. 1580. Paris: Fontainebleau.
Figure 4: from plan by Alexander Francini, Jardin de la Reine, Chateau of Fontainebleu, 1614. Bibliotheque Nationale.
Figure 5: Antoine Caron, Les Placets/ The Petitions, c. 1560s. Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale.
Figure 6: after Bernard van Orley, Portrait of Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy, 1519- 1520, Antwerp, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp.
Figure 7: Jan van Roome, Tomb of Margaret of Austria, 1516-32, Monastère Royal de Brou, Bourg-en-Bresse.
Figure 8: Peter Paul Rubens, The Landing of Marie de Medicis at Marseilles, 1623-25, Musee du Louvre, Paris.
Figure 9: Jacopo da Empoli, Wedding of Maria de Medici and Henry IV of France, 1600, Vestibolo d Ingresso, Florence.
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