#cosimo i

Cosimo busted

Bianca de’ Medici, better known by the diminutive Bia, was the eldest child of Duke Cosimo I. The child had been born in 1537, thus two years before the marriage between Cosimo and Eleonora celebrated in 1539, from an illegitimate relationship between the duke and a woman whose identity is still unknown. Welcomed into the Medici household, Bia had been raised along with the couple’s legitimate children (they had as many as eleven) with the same affection that all members of the family reserved for the little ones, first and foremost her grandmother Maria Salviati, who had a special fondness for Bia. This loving relationship was also accounted for in 1560 by Simone Fortuna, ambassador of Francesco Maria II della Rovere in Tuscany, who wrote in a letter that Duke Cosimo, during his first years in the duchy, “had from a gentlewoman of Fiorenza a little whore, who was baptized in the name of His Most Illustrious Excellency, and was called Bia. Et la Signora duchessa Leonora, finding her at home, raised her lovingly as born that she was by her husband before she was his wife.”

Royal Birthdays for today, June 12th:

Reizei, Emperor of Japan, 950

Gaozong of Song, Emperor of China, 1107

Constance, Duchess of Brittany, 1161

Cosimo I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, 1519

Anna of Württemberg, Duchess of Legnica, 1561

John Casimir, Duke of Saxe-Coburg, 1564

Karl Emich, Prince of Leiningen, 1952

Bronzino (Italian, 1503-1572) Portrait of a Girl (perhaps Isabella de Reinosa), c.1540-41.