Eleanor of Toledo

Eleonora di Toledo, Grand Duchess of Tuscany

Eleonora di Toledo (1522-1562) is credited with being the first modern style first lady, or consort, as we understand the terms today. She achieved this through the high profile role she created for herself in her adopted country. Eleonora di Toledo was a member of the Spanish Aragón family, the daughter of the Viceroy of Naples, Don Pedro Alvarez de Toledo. She became the wife of Cosimo I de' Medici, the ruler of Tuscany, whom she married in 1539.

Marriage 1549

The Medici were a powerful Florentine banking family, who had virtually ruled their home country, then a republic, for a century before they were finally elevated to a Grand Dukedom in 1531. It was into this family, known for their amazing wealth, as much as their power, that Eleonora married in 1549. The marriage was arranged undoubtedly for political and dynastic reasons. Eleonora, through her father, provided the Medici with a powerful link to Spain, at that time ultimately controlling Florence. The union provided Cosimo I with the opportunity to show sufficient loyalty and trust in Spain for the withdrawal of Spanish troops from the province. However, Florentine politics were not Eleonora's only attraction to the Medici, new to their royal status; her Aragón pedigree provided the Medici with the blue blood they had hitherto lacked in order to place them on an equal footing with their fellow European sovereigns.

Children

Eleonora and Cosimo had many children, including eight sons, while before this time the Medici line had been in danger of becoming extinct. Thus by providing an heir, and ample spares, as well as through her daughters' marriages into other ruling and noble families of Italy, she was able to inaugurate an era of strength and stability in Tuscany. Two of her sons, Francesco and Ferdinando, reigned as grand Dukes of Tuscany.

Consort

Eleonora's high profile in Florence as consort was initially a public relations exercise promoted by her husband. The new sovereign Grand Duke's predecessor Alessandro de' Medici had died without legitimate heirs after years of politically damaging speculation about his sexual irregularities and excesses; Alessandro himself was reputed to have been the son of a black serving woman, his father was the seventeen-year-old Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, later Pope Clement VII, and Clement VII was in turn the illegitimate son of Giuliano de' Medici, who was assassinated in the Pazzi Conspiracy against the Medici. Alessandro became the first sovereign ruler of Tuscany belonging to the house of Medici, but was assassinated in 1543 by another member of the Medici family, Lorenzaccio de Medici, before consolidating his dynasty's strength in Tuscany. The last of the old line of Medici, Alessandro's distantly related successor, Cosimo I, needed to reassure the public of the stability and respectability of not only his family, but the new reign. Thus Eleonora, his attractive, charitable and fertile wife, was brought to the forefront, and the artist Agnolo Bronzino was commissioned to paint one of the first ever state portraits depicting a consort with her child and heir. While the portrait in no way depicts the cosy middle class stability that the British royal family liked to portray in the 19th century, the message is the same: "We are a nice stable normal family — trust us."

During her marriage, despite her initial unpopularity as a Spaniard, she gained great influence in Florence, she encouraged the arts and was patron to many of the most notable artists of the age. A pious woman, she encouraged the Jesuit order to settle in Florence; she also founded many new churches in the city. She was interested in agriculture and business, helping to expand and increase not only the profitability of the vast Medici estates, but also through her charitable interests the lot of the peasantry. She also supported unhesitatingly her husband and his policies, So great was his trust in her, that in his frequent absences he made her regent, a station almost unheard of for a mere woman at the time, but one which also established her position as more than just a pretty bearer of Medici children.

As a consequence, it became known that Eleonora was the key to her husband, and those unable to gain an audience with Cosimo realised that through his wife their causes could at least be pleaded. No evidence exists, however, which proves she influenced him greatly; but the importance of her usefulness to him cannot be ignored.

The woman

Contemporary accounts of Eleonora belie the stern formal appearance of her many portraits. In her private capacity she loved to gamble, and she was a devoted traveller, moving endlessly from one of her palazzi to another. Her sense of humour may have been well developed, as there are reports of her while 8 months pregnant laughing at a Turk actor in an entertainment, who was seemingly involuntarily stripped, then exposed an artificially huge penis.

She employed continually 10 gold and silver weavers to work on her apparel. She may have needed the fine clothes to disguise her failing appearance, as 21st century forensic examinations of her body have revealed a huge calcium deficiency, which must have caused her enormous amounts of ill health, and she had bad teeth.

Legacy

Since Eleonora di Toledo's death, historians have tended to overlook her importance to Florentine history, and today she is often thought of as just another Medici consort and lover of luxury. This is probably due to the numerous portraits painted of her, which always show extravagance of dress. Many of her clothes still survive and are exhibited in museums around the world, including in one of her own homes, the Palazzo Pitti, which she purchased as a summer retreat in 1549, and which later became the principal home of the Tuscan rulers.

For centuries after her death the myth pervaded that her 16-year-old son Garcia had murdered his 19-year-old brother, Giovanni, following a dispute in 1562. Their father Cosimo I, it was said, then murdered Garcia with his own sword, and Eleanora, distraught, died a week later from grief. The truth, proven by modern day exhumations and forensic science, was that Eleanora and her sons, as the Medici family had always claimed, died together from malaria in 1562.

References

• Women who ruled
• Tales From The Crypt
• Eleonora laughs at a large penis