Gian Gastone de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany
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Gian Gastone de' Medici (May 24, 1671 – July 9, 1737) was the last Medici Grand Duke of Tuscany (1723-1737) and the last direct scion of the line of Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and Marguerite Louise d'Orléans, except for his sister Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici.
[edit] Early years
Baptised Giovanni Battista Gastone, he was introverted and inclined to solitude as a child. He was raised essentially motherless, by a father that never thought much of him. Indifferent to public affairs, he loved the art and sciences - especially botany. His older sister Anna Maria Luisa, who loved him fondly, felt obliged to arrange a marriage for him. It was a well-intentioned gesture that would have disastrous result for Gian Gastone, who began to show homosexual tendencies from a very young age. She set her eye on Anna Maria Franziska, daughter of the Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg. The young woman was widowed by the Palatine Count Philip of Neuberg who - it seems - took to drinking in order to forget about his plain, simple wife, who was and would always remain completely absorbed in hunting and other outdoor activities. Anna Maria Franziska doggedly opposed the marriage, probably realizing that she was not cut out for conjugal life, but in the end she was compelled to surrender to the collective wills of Cosimo, elector Palatine Johann Wilhelm and his wife. The wedding was celebrated in Düsseldorf in 1697, and it was decided that Gian Gastone would live in his wife's homeland. Here, as could well be predicted, the difficulties emerged almost at once. Anna, who lacked any inclination whatsoever for the arts or sciences, lived in the small and dismal castle near Reichstadt, a tiny village perched in the mountains of Bohemia. Exiled at the side of wife who by far preferred the pleasures of hunting to those of the nupital bed, surrounded by a hostile countryside, Gian Gastone became more melancholy than ever, and after spending some time in Hamburg, where he met Georg Frideric Handel, he fled to his mother in Paris. Compelled by Cosimo to return to Bohemia, he took to frequenting Prague to get away from Anna Maria Franziska. Here he would pass his time not, as one might imagine, in the libraries or laboratories, but in the pubs. In short, Gian Gastone would end up an alcoholic. Meanwhile in Florence, Prince Ferdinando was dying. The elderly Cosimo called his youngest son, the future Grand Duke, back to the homeland, and for ten years (1698-1708) tried in vain to bring back his wife as well.
[edit] Grand Duke
He came to power at age 57, over a Florence in decline, and although he made a start on needed reforms, reducing the taxation on corn, discontinuing public execution, rescinding restricition on Jewish life, encouring the sciences, and reducing the power of the Church which it had gained during his father's later years[1]. However, his inherent indolence and depravity soon overtook him.
As a result of his curious and unusual lifestyle, Gian Gastone was a prematurely aged, fat drunkard, who looked at the world through a more or less permanent haze of intoxication. Once he went to a reception given by his brother's widow, Violante of Bavaria (1673-1731), and became so drunk that he uttered all kinds of obscenities and was pushed vomiting into his coach, wiping his mouth with his wig. In contrast to his father's religious fanaticism, Gian Gastone's contempt for the Church became notorious.
Giuliano Dami acted as a panderer for Gian Gastone's orgies, seeking out young men and boys. They were called the "ruspanti", because they were paid a fee from one to five ruspi for their services. In the last years of his life Gian Gastone had around 370 ruspanti. To endure the dubious embraces of their master they had to be pretty, young, strongly sexed, sufficiently immune to good taste and blessed with a limited sense of smell. It was Gian Gastone's habit to invite the chosen youth to his bed-chamber, examine his teeth, provide him with drink and examine and touch his private parts to see if they were well shaped and likely to blossom rapidly. Then the boy was initiated and if he did not seem to penetrate sufficiently, Gian Gastone would shout: "Press in, boy, press in." Thereafter he would call him "you", and finally descend to the familiarity of "thou", while hugging and kissing him. Somethimes he would order his ruspanti to adopt pompous attitudes and call them by the well-known names of grave counsellors and revered matrons. Then he would exclaim to one of them: "Well, my Lord Marquess, how does the Marchioness yonder appeal to you? You admire her, do you not? To business! Tumble her!" The addressed youths merrily yielded to his wishes and Gian Gastone, between roars of laughter, liked to encourage them loudly with the cries of a huntsman.
In 1730 Gian Gastone sprained his ankle and took to his bed and from then on he left it only on some very rare occasions. His bed became the centre of his existence. He lunched in bed around 5 o'clock in the evening and had supper in it around 2 in the morning. The dogs slept with him in bed and it stank of tobacco, drink, vomit and excrement. From time to time his brother's widow organised the cleaning of his bed until she died in 1731. In his later years Gian Gastone became nearly blind and could hardly walk anymore. He let his fingernails, toenails and beard grow. Gradually he became senile. In June 1737 he became seriously ill, suffering from a large stone in the bladder. He died within a month.
On his death, the Grand Duchy passed to Francis, Duke of Lorraine, whom the European powers had picked to replace Gian Gastone, without troubling to consult anyone in Florence. Florence became part of the Habsburg Empire.
[edit] References
- Cesati, Franco (2005). "The twillight of the dynasty", in Monica Fintoni, Andrea Paoletti: The Medici: Story of a European Dynasty. La Mandragora s.r.l., 131-132.
- Hibbert, Christopher (1979). "The last of the Medici", The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici. Penguin Books, London.
- Dean, W. & J.M. Knapp (1996) Handel's Operas 1704-1726. Clarendon Press Oxford.
- ^ C. Hibbert, p307.
| Preceded by Cosimo III de' Medici |
Grand Duke of Tuscany 1723–1737 |
Succeeded by Francis II Stephen of Lorraine |
