Catherine de’ Medici was born a piece on a political chessboard in 1519. Orphaned before she was a month old in her native Italy, this Catholic daughter of a French princess and a Florentine ...

Caterina Maria Romola di Lorenzo de Medici was born in Florence on 13 April 1519. Her father was Lorenzo de Medici, Duke of Urbino and ruler of Florence and her mother was Madeleine de la Tour d ...

When Cosimo il Vecchio was a young man, he was given a slave girl. Despite his marriage he continued to live with her, away from his family. Their bastard son, Carlo, sought his fortune in Spain ...