Cosimo II de' Medici

Grand duke of Tuscany (1609-1621)

• Born: May 12, 1590
• Birthplace: Florence (now in Italy)
• Died: February 28, 1621
• Place of death: Florence (now in Italy)

Though he was often sick, died young, and was called simply an agreeable nonentity, Cosimo was responsible for continuing his father’s economic and political policies as grand duke of Tuscany, expanding the Pitti Palace, and bringing Galileo to Florence as a member of his court.

Early Life

Cosimo II de’ Medici (MEHD-ee-chee) was born to Ferdinand, the grand duke of Tuscany, and Christina, the granddaughter of Catherine de’ Médicis and the daughter of the duke of Lorraine, Charles II. Cosimo was raised at the glittering Medici court of the Pitti Palace and Medici villas in and around Florence.

At court he learned etiquette and the court arts, such as hunting, dancing, and horsemanship, under the direction of Silvio Piccolomini of Siena. At his mother’s insistence, he also was trained in the classics, drawing, German, and Castilian Spanish. She also brought Galileo, already a noted scholar, to the court to tutor him in cosmography, mathematics, and mechanics, a course of study that lasted sporadically from 1605 to 1608. In 1606, Galileo dedicated his treatise on the operations of the geometric and military compass to the young, soon-to-be grand duke.

From an early age Cosimo suffered from the effects of tuberculosis and, after 1614, had serious stomach ailments. These troubles not only affected him physically—he spent a good deal of his adult life in bed—but also made him psychologically more dependent on the women in his life, especially his mother and his wife.

In 1608, he married Maria Magdalena of Austria , sister of the future Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II . Unlike many such arrangements, theirs would be an affectionate and loving relationship, one that would produce five sons and three daughters in less than thirteen years. The state wedding was celebrated with an elaborate pageant based on the ancient Greek tale of Jason and the Argonauts. The audience filled bleachers along the riverbank as the spectacle unfolded on floating rafts that stretched from the Ponte Carraia to the Ponte Trinità in the Arno River. It was the first of many such extravagant pageants that would be produced during Cosimo’s reign as grand duke, which began with the death of his father Ferdinand in 1609.

Life’s Work

At Cosimo II’s accession as fourth grand duke of Tuscany, Florence was thriving and at peace, though international waters were increasingly dangerous and Tuscany’s economic base was deteriorating. Only nineteen years old, he decided to retain most of his father’s ministers, and he came to rely most heavily on his uncle Giovanni, on Belisario Vinta, and on his mother and wife. It became clear early on that he would leave the traditional family financial concerns to others and spend his time dabbling in the international arena.

With Vinta’s advice Cosimo managed to maintain relative neutrality in the hostilities between Spain and France. He successfully mediated a marriage (1615) between King Louis XIII of France and Anne of Austria , a daughter of King Philip II of Spain, and a second match (1621), the future King Philip IV of Spain with Elizabeth (Isabella) of France. He was, however, dragged briefly by an old alliance with Spain into wars in northern Italy over Milan and Mantua.

As his own wedding pageant suggested, Cosimo was interested in maritime matters and expended a great deal of effort in building up the duchy’s port of Livorno (Leghorn). He doubled its population and built up the artificial barrier, or mole, that helped create a deep water harbor for international trade. He also was a great patron of the naval Order of San Stefano in its fight against Muslim fleets from Turkey and from Barbary in North Africa. The order’s admirals, Iacopo (Jacopo) Inghirami and Giulio da Montauto, scored many minor victories against fleets of pirates, and also fueled hopes of a major crusade against the Turkish Levant. As part of his effort to forge a grand anti-Turkish alliance, he even hosted the shah of Persia, ՙAbbās the Great(1609), who suggested that success might lead to a Tuscan colony in Syria.

Despite the Livorno project and the creation of a canal for the grain trade near Grossetano, Cosimo’s development policies were collectively a failure. Industry continued to relocate outside Tuscany, and the once proud banking and financial infrastructure had migrated to northern Europe. He tried establishing an agricultural colony near Florence of some three hundred Moors who had been ejected from Spain, but their lack of experience and discipline led him to uproot the group and send them to the Barbary Coast.

In Florence itself, he reformed the funded debt of Monte di Pietà as well as the rather loosely jointed consultato, or Grand Ducal Council, whose powers and membership were strengthened and formalized. Cosimo also saw to the extension of the wings of the Pitti Palace, the family’s main residence, and the expansion of the Boboli Garden behind it. The work was designed and overseen by Giulio Parigi, the court architect. Cosimo’s only new construction was that of a new villa, Poggio Imperiale. His taste in art was quite narrow and ran to small, technically fine painted works by such artists as Agostino Tasso. He did, however, enjoy visiting artists’ workshops, which was odd for a duke but in line with his dilettantish interest in techniques and processes.

The great Italian scientist and mathematician Galileo opened his formal relationship with the young grand duke in 1610 by sending him from Padua a telescope and a copy of his groundbreaking work Sidereus nuncius (The Sidereal Messenger , 1880), which he dedicated to Cosimo. In this he named the planets of Jupiter he had discovered after the Medici family, ensuring favor at court. Cosimo reciprocated by granting his former tutor a pension and a residence at Arcetri in May of 1610. From that point, Galileo was part of the Medici court, often sparring with the less-enlightened Aristotelians there and at the University of Pisa, at which he held a sinecure. Galileo’s official title was chief mathematician of Pisa and philosopher of the grand duke. Cosimo enjoyed intellectual fireworks and even sponsored a significant debate over Copernicanism within court circles. In 1616, however, the Church banned the teaching of Copernican theory, and specifically admonished Galileo, who avoided the subject for the remainder of Cosimo’s reign.

Cosimo died of tuberculosis in February of 1621, leaving an eleven-year-old heir, Ferdinand II, in the hands of Magdalena and the court’s ministers.

Significance

Without a doubt, Cosimo II de’ Medici is best known for his relationship with Galileo. In many ways, Cosimo’s reign as grand duke of Tuscany was otherwise a nonevent. His accomplishments were few and rather technical: reforms in Florentine and ducal government and the expansion of the port of Livorno and of the Pitti Palace. Galileo’s acceptance of Cosimo’s patronage gave the great scientist a useful Italian protector, first in Cosimo and then in Cosimo’s son Ferdinand II, whom Galileo also tutored. This provided Galileo the free time and resources to further his experiments and observations and advance the scientific understanding of the age.

Bibliography

Biagioli, Mario. Galileo Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. Studies Galileo’s fortunes at Cosimo II’s court, from 1610 to Cosimo’s death in 1621.

Cleugh, James. The Medici: A Tale of Fifteen Generations. New York: Dorset Press, 1990. A short discussion of Cosimo and his accomplishments.

Giusti, Annamaria, ed. Masters of Florence: Glory and Genius at the Court of the Medici. Memphis, Tenn.: Wonders, 2004. A well-documented exhibition catalog of art and artifacts from Florentine museums. Places the works in the context of Medici rulers, including Cosimo.

Goldberg, Edward L. Patterns in Later Medici Art Patronage. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984. Includes several brief references to Cosimo’s artistic interests and patronage.

Hale, John Rigby. Florence and the Medici. London: Phoenix, 2001. Discusses Cosimo’s contributions to the arts in Florence as part of the pattern of Medici power patronage.

Hibbert, Christopher. The House of Medici, Its Rise and Fall. New York: Perennial, 1999. The best short discussion in English on Cosimo and his reign.

Nagler, Alois Maria. Theatre Festivals and the Medici, 1539-1637. Translated by G. Hickenhoyer. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1964. Discusses the importance of Florentine pageants as models for the development of Stuart masques and early opera.