Also known as:
Queen Mother of France;
French: Catherine de Médicis
CATERINA de' Medici, queen of FRANCE - Drawing of the school of Clouet (1561) - Paris, National Library.
CATHERINE DE' MEDICI, Queen of France. - Daughter of Lorenzo de' Medici, duke of Urbino, and of Maddalena de la Tour d'Auvergne, countess of Boulogne, b. in Florence on 13 Apr. 1519, d. at Blois on 15 Jan. 1589. In 1533 she married the second son of Francis I of France, Henry, duke of Orleans, whom the death of the dauphin made three years later the presumptive heir to the crown. Even after the death of Francis I in 1547, when Henry ascended the throne, C. lived apart, devoting herself entirely to the education of her 10 children.
Widowed in 1559, she prudently continued to remain in the shadows during the brief reign of Francis II, whose tutors were the duke of Guise and his brother the cardinal of Lorraine. But, on the accession to the throne of Charles IX, in 1560, she succeeded in having herself proclaimed regent; she did not, however, succeed in preventing the preparation of the climate in which the wars of religion were to flare up. During the period of heated disputes, she remained undecided between Catholics and Huguenots. In 1563 she promulgated the edict of Amboise on freedom of conscience. What decided her was once again ambition, which saw a danger in the influence that the Huguenot admiral de Coligny was gaining over the mind of the young Charles IX. The attempt against Coligny in 1572 succeeded only halfway. The king ordered a severe and impartial inquiry, and C., whose threatened ambition was joined by fear for her own safety, gave her men free rein for the massacre of the night of St. Bartholomew (24 Aug. 1572; v. BARTOLOMEO, NOTTE DI SAN). In vain in her last years she attempted a policy of balance between the contending parties: she succeeded only in incurring the hatred of all.
Her personality was complex: greedy for glory, she felt the fascination of political power; an Italian, she nonetheless understood and defended the sense of nationhood that all France possessed. A woman of scant religious faith, she acted on a political-religious plane following the dictates of a ruthless reason of State. Rather than dominating events, she was very often dominated by them.
Bibliography7 worksH. Mariéjol, C. d. M., Paris 1912; L. Romier, Le royaume de C. d. M., ibid. 1922; id., La conjuration d'Amboise, ibid. 1923; id., Catholique
BIBL.: H. Mariéjol, C. d. M., Paris 1912; L. Romier, Le royaume de C. d. M., ibid. 1922; id., La conjuration d'Amboise, ibid. 1923; id., Catholiques et huguenots à la cour de Charles IX, ibid. 1924; R. Roeder, Catherine de' M. and the lost Revolution, London 1937; G. Baguenault, E. Lelong, L. Auvray, Lettres de Catherine de Médicis, XI, general index edited by A. Lesort, Paris 1943; F. Watson, La vita e i tempi di C. de M., Florence 1949.
Michelini, Tocci Luigi. “Caterina de' Medici, regina di francia.” In Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. III, col. 1144. Città del Vaticano: Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1949. https://azioneromana.com/article/caterina-de-medici-regina-di-francia.
MLA
Michelini, Tocci Luigi. “Caterina de' Medici, regina di francia.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. III, Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1949, col. 1144. Azione Romana, https://azioneromana.com/article/caterina-de-medici-regina-di-francia.
BibTeX
@incollection{ec3_caterina_de_medici_regina_di_f,
author = {Michelini, Tocci Luigi},
title = {Caterina de' Medici, regina di francia},
booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica},
volume = {III},
pages = {1144},
note = {Cited by column},
publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico},
address = {Città del Vaticano},
year = {1949},
url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/caterina-de-medici-regina-di-francia}
}
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