Twins Catherine and Giovanna were the 23rd and 24th children of Giacomo de Benincasa, a cloth dyer, and his wife, Lapa. Giovanna soon died. At seven, Catherine made a vow to remain a virgin for life. As a teenager, she advised, “Build a cell inside your mind, from which you can never flee.” When Catherine…
Category: Italy
The Year was 1492
No one died from gout – the Disease of Kings. So the doctor was not particularly worried about his patient, Lorenzo de’ Medici, called Lorenzo the Magnificent, one of the richest men in the world. But because Lorenzo was suffering from a pretty bad episode, the doctor changed the treatment. To the usual ground-up pearls,…
The year was 1978
This was a Year of Three Popes. In a mere 53 days, there were three popes. But this was not the Middle Ages, it was 1978. Pope Paul VI died on August 25th. The new pope, elected on August 26th, was John Paul I, was an Italian, Albino Luciani, born in 1912. He was a…
The year was 455
If you are going to call for help, be careful whom you call! In 440 A.D. or so, as a means of keeping peace with the Vandals, Roman Emperor Theodosius II betrothed his five-year-old daughter, Eudocia, to Huneric, the son of Gaiseric, king of the Vandals. When Eudocia was 16 (and still not married), her…
The year was 1492
Who could beat the Gonzaga horses? No one. Gonzaga himself had bred his Italian horses with Arabians. Gonzaga’s controlling wife, the snooty Isabella d’Este, had a burning desire to be the best at everything. Always. No one dared go up against her. But she met her match in the teenage son of Pope Alexander VI….
The year was 1495
On the Italian peninsula, the French armies were marching steadily south on their way to seize Naples and claim it for the French crown. They thought it was rightfully theirs. With them was the French king, 24-year-old Charles VIII. Although he had been king since he was 13, Charles was uneducated and barely able to…
The year was 1543
Catherine de’ Medici was feared by the French people because she was Italian, and disliked by them because she had no royal blood. Indeed, her own husband, King Henri, was not all that fond of her. He was in love with his mistress, Diane de Poitiers, who, amazingly, was 20 years older than he was….