Tea at Trianon: Three Medici Popes

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, February 3, 2022

Three Medici Popes

From The Liturgical Arts Journal:

The Medici were a Florentine family who were perhaps best known for their positions as bankers during the Renaissance, as well as for effectively bankrolling from their assets what we have now come to think of precisely as the 'renaissance' - a period in which we saw a flowering of creativity and knowledge in everything from art to science to cuisine. The Medici family actually produced four popes, Leo X (1475-1521), Clement VII (1478-1534), Pius IV (1499-1565) and Leo XI (1535-1605) -- the latter of which only reigned as pope for 27 days and as such our focus today is on the first three.
Down to our own time, when one walks through the beautiful streets of Florence, the presence of the Medici family remains tangible and visible. As far as their careers with the papacy are concerned, while none of the Medici popes were ever sainted, it is their legacy in their continuation of the Medici family tradition as acting of patrons of the arts (if not also other domains that go beyond the scope of this site) that are of interest for us here.

The first Medici to become pope was Leo X, who sat on the throne of St. Peter from 1513-1521. He was born Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici, the second son of Lorenzo the Magnificent. It was Leo X who undertook the continuation of the project of having St. Peter's Basilica reconstructed (and in point of fact, it was Leo who condemned Martin Luther who had taken issue with the use of indulgences which Leo used to help in the fundraise the reconstruction efforts; interestingly, Luther would later attest to Leo's moral character in a positive manner). (Read more.)