A French History of ‘Most Shamefull Villanie’

By the 1580s, fragments of individual suffering in France’s Wars of Religion were being pieced together to form a larger picture within English cultural memory. A significant contribution came from Anne Dowriche’s The French Historie (1589), ostensibly based on the testimonies of Huguenot exiles. The French Historie reverses the villain–hero pairing of Chantelouve’s tragedy (Chapter 11): Charles IX becomes a consummate dissembler, while Coligny (in keeping with Protestant polemical discourse) becomes a blessed martyr. However, Dowriche’s underlying concern is to promote a selective kind of epistemic vigilance (in Relevance Theory, an ‘alertness to error’) in her readers: they must not be blind to the presence of ‘a strange Italian weede’—the villainy of Machiavelli and Catherine de’ Medici—proliferating like a rhizome across European culture.

Motion Pictures of the Royal Family

This article explores the role of letter writing in the political practice of the French royal family. By focusing on the use of letters exchanged by Henri III, François d'Anjou, and Catherine de’ Medici between 1574 and 1584, it analyzes how both kinship relations and notions of royal authority were negotiated and intertwined by letter. In a dynamic communication process, the correspondents discussed and framed familial relationships and political concepts. The letters were read, seen, and heard by a broader audience at court, thus transcending modern categories such as public and private, formal and informal, or intimate and official. The article argues that the correspondence produced specific, sometimes opposing pictures of the royal family that were supposed to be visible. This use of letters shaped social relations and political processes during the Wars of Religion in early modern France. Cet article traite du rôle de la correspondance dans les pratiques politiques de la famille royale française. En me concentrant sur l'usage des lettres par Henri III, François d'Anjou et leur mère Catherine de Médicis dans les années 1574–84, j'analyse comment les correspondants négocient ensemble les relations de parenté et les concepts politiques. La discussion et la modélisation de cette conception familiale de l'autorité royale par les lettres sont partie prenante d'un processus de communication dynamique. La fonction de ces lettres est d’être lues, vues et entendues à la cour. Ce faisant, cette communication outrepasse les divisions « modernes » entre le privé et le public, le formel et l'informel ou encore l'intime et l'officiel. Cet usage de l’écrit est spécifique aux relations sociales et aux processus politiques pendant les guerres de Religion à l’époque moderne.

Catalina de Médici: Retratos al servicio de una imagen de poder

El artículo presente analiza la evolución iconográfica en la construcción y en la promoción de la imagen de poder de Catalina de Médici, reina de Francia de la decimosexta centuria. The present article analyzes the iconographic evolution in the construction and promotion of the image of power of Catherine de’ Medici, Queen of France in the sixteenth century.

A bequest to Christine of Lorraine from Catherine de’ Medici

The French royal family was living in exile at Blois when the Queen Mother of France, Catherine de’ Medici (b. 1519), dictated her will on the morning of her death, on 5 January 1589. She bequeathed to her granddaughter, Christine of Lorraine (1565–1637), one half of her movable possessions. This paper explores the nature and meanings embedded in the testamentary bequest and the corresponding inventory of the movable goods acquired by Christine through this gift and eventually brought to Florence on the occasion of her marriage in 1589 to Ferdinando de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (1549–1609). A translation of the inventory is provided in an online appendix.