Murder of a Medici Princess

by Caroline P. Murphy

Book Overview

In Murder of a Medici Princess, Caroline Murphy illuminates the brilliant life and tragic death of Isabella de Medici, one of the brightest stars in the dazzling world of Renaissance Italy, the daughter of Duke Cosimo I, ruler of Florence and Tuscany.
Murphy is a superb storyteller, and her fast-paced narrative captures the intrigue, the scandal, the romantic affairs, and the violence that were commonplace in the Florentine court. She brings to...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195314395
• ISBN13: 9780195314397
• Release Date: April 2008
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.5" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Murder of a Medici Princess

This book relates more on Cusmo Medici and how his children grew up with the ones that were favored and those that really had evil intentions. At the end it gave a good impression on how the Medici kingdom ended.

"Give it to her" was the theme of her life

What are the consequences when a woman chooses to live her life as a man might? Now make that woman virtual royalty, with a permissive father, who lives during the 1500's in Florence - what might the consequences for those actions be then? For Isabella Medici, daring to take a lover and live on her own terms cost her the ultimate consequence - her life. Isabella was, by all accounts, a beautiful, intelligent and vivacious woman. Her father had raised her with much more freedom than most women of that period would have been allowed, and Isabella came to expect it as her due. Unfortunately, while men were often encouraged to take lovers, women could be (and often were) put to death for "shaming" their families. While the manner of Isabella's death is disputed by some, the book makes a very convincing argument into the how and, more importantly, the why of Isabella's killing. Murder of a Medici Princess is an excellent look into the life, and death, of Isabella Medici. While the book is categorized as fiction, in many respects it reads more as nonfiction. There are excerpts taken from letters written by Isabella and those around her, documentation of events that took place during her lifetime, and photos of paintings done of Isabella and her family. However, it is still fascinating reading, particularly if you enjoy history.

An Engaging Page Turner that Reads Like Fiction

"Murder of a Medici Princess," by Caroline P. Murphy, is a nonfiction account of the life and death of Isabella de Medici Orsini, one of the more prominent members of one of the most important Florentine families - the Kennedys of their time -- during the Renaissance, that period when Florence was the world. The Medici, a banking family, had subverted Republican Florence during the early Renaissance, (generally considered to have taken place between the 14th and 17th centuries, and to have been centered in Italy.) They had made themselves dukes of the city, beautified it, and, in addition, become leaders of the art world by commissioning many important art works and buildings from artists still world famous today. The family controlled Florence's life and destiny; threw up several Popes, and intermarried with Italian and European nobility. Isabella was the daughter of Grand Duke Cosimo; a marriage was arranged for her, to Paolo Giordano Orsini, of the ruling family of Rome. He was fat, dissipated, none-too-bright, dissolute, fiscally irresponsible, and not much of a soldier, in a family that traditionally made its living as "Condottiere,"soldiers for hire. Mind you, then, as now, princesses are traditionally raised with the understanding that they will have to leave their homes, to reside with the noble husbands found for them. But Isabella did not much care for Orsini, or for Rome, and, backed by her rich and powerful father, did not live with him, or in Rome, for any extended period of time. She was born beautiful, gifted, and rich: her father Cosimo doted upon her. She was the acting, uncrowned Queen of Florence during a particularly productive time in its history. She lived her life in a way other women, or noblewomen of her time hardly dared dream about, and light-years away from what ordinary women might aspire to. She set style for the city, had her own houses, where she entertained poets, musicians, artists, the elite of the city, her lovers. Like Icarus, she flew too high. Then Cosimo died and her misogynist elder brother Francesco acceded to the throne. He allowed her despised, cuckolded husband to assassinate her, an action approved by the mores of the time and place, and still, in fact,largely approved-of in Italy. She had had three children, whom Orsini claimed were not his, and disinherited; she was just 37 years old at her death. I studied Renaissance History at Cornell University, even took some Italian. At one time, long ago, I tried to write a biography of another of the famous Isabellas of the Renaissance, of an earlier generation: Isabella D'Este Gonzaga, born of the Ferrarese ruling family, married to the Gonzaga duke of Mantua. I trudged around the New York Public Library, 42nd Street, and the British Library; and was stymied, as most of the original material was in Latin, which I've never studied. However, I find the contrast of the two Isabellas to be most instructive. Both were of the nobility, ob

"Murder of a Medici princess" ...and then some!

Caroline Murphy's new book is another "must have" for lovers of remarkable lesser-known royal stories. One is taken into the extraordinarily "ahead-of-her-time" life of Isabella de Medici, a Renaissance princess and daughter of the first Grand Duke of Tuscany. A thoroughly gifted, cultured and independent individual with an interesting personality that still resonates after 500 years, Isabella was unique among female royal women of the time in her ability to live her life on her own terms, even as a married woman, which truly defied all convention. From the title, obviously things do not go well in the end, and with recent tomb excavations mentioned in passing at the end, the full extent of murderousness in this generation of the Medici is only nowadays fully coming to light. If you think your family is dysfunctional, you will feel as though you grew up in the very bosom of normality after learning what eventually happened within this once-upon-a-time "big happy family."

A story of family conflicts, furious politics and a mystery

At first, I scoffed at the title, thinking that this might be a work of fiction, and a real potboiler at that. And to be honest, despite my fondness for historical novels, nearly every other novel set in the sixteenth century seemed lately to be centered on either Tudor England or Renaissance Italy -- and both of them done to death. But in spite of my misgivings, this turned out to be a stunning read. Caroline Murphy, author of a previous book on women and politics, has continued her stories of women who played an influental role in the backgrounds of Italian history. This time, the focus is on the city of Florence and the powerful Medici family. Begining with the fall of the Medici, the book focuses on a member of the junior branch of the family who brought the glory back to Florence. Cosimo de' Medici was a consummate politican and manipulator, but also a fervid patron of the arts and architecture. With his wife, the beautiful Eleonora di Toledo (who was known as La Fecundissima) they had eleven children, many of them sons, but Cosimo's favourite was his daughter Isabella. A middle child in a huge brood of offspring, she was closest to her brother, Giovanni, and they could be found together constantly, playing games and partnering each other in dancing lessons. Several paintings survive of the princess, a lovely dark haired child with expressive eyes and nearly a smirk on her lips as she surveys the world before her. Clearly she is her father's darling, and knows it. When it came time for her to marry, her father brokered a deal with the Orsini family, based in Rome, and a wedding to Paolo Giordano d'Orsini, a young man with an itch for power and money, and seemingly in love and adoration with Isabella to judge from his letters. But Cosimo slipped a small clause into the wedding contract -- Isabella would only accompany her husband to his home in Rome if she wanted to. It was a curious condition to the marriage, especially in a time where women were considered to be not much more than two legged birthing machines and subject to abuse and violence from their spouses. For a time, all went well between the couple -- Paolo was off working for advanage of both the Medici and the Orsini, with Cosimo supplying plenty of money for his spendthrift son, and keeping his daughter by his side. He indulged her as best he could, supplying her with the trappings of the high life in the artistic capital of the world. Isabella created a world of poets and music, sending a steady supply of letters to her husband, letters that were filled with assurances of her love and devotion. But read between the lines, and something else emerges. There's a sly quality to the letters, something that bothers the reader, and if read carefully enough, it becomes clear that Isabella doesn't care very much for her absent husband, and is determined to live her life as she chooses. Even if that means having a lover or two. The story takes on a much darker tone as it progre

Fascinating True Story

This is the fascinating true story of Isabella de Medici, the spunky socialite of Renaissance Florence. She seems like the type of girl you'd want as a friend--independent, interested in the arts, and quite a flirt. The writing is very fluid--you cheer as Isabella runs the show and gasp at her husband's bold violence.