Ferdinando I (1549-1609) 
- Name:
- Ferdinando I de’ Medici
- Dates:
-
Florence, 1549 - Florence, 1609
- Attivitą:
- Grand Duke of Tuscany
- Places:
- Florence; Rome
- Biographical information:
-
One of the youngest sons of Cosimo I and Eleonora di Toledo, Ferdinando was set upon an ecclesiastical career which he undertook with considerable success. Having become cardinal in 1563 at the age of just fourteen, he resided above all in Rome where he looked after the affairs of the family in the papal curia. In Rome he commissioned the construction of the Villa Medici sul Pincio, where he gathered an extraordinary collection of ancient and modern works of art.
In 1587 he took over from his brother Francesco I on the throne of the grand duchy, demonstrating his skills as an excellent governor and shrewd politician, as well as an ambitious patron of the arts. Having resumed his lay status, in 1589 he married Christine of Lorraine, a French princess and grand-daughter of Caterina de’ Medici who was then Queen of France. The lavish celebrations continued for an entire month and manifested Ferdinando’s intention to project a splendid and magnificent image of his State.
To liberate his policy from the weighty yoke of Spanish interference, Ferdinando I lent his support - even in financial terms - to the ascent to the French throne of Henry of Navarre as Henry IV, who in return married Maria de’ Medici, daughter of Francesco I, crowning her Queen of France. But the rapprochement with France was short-lived and Tuscany soon returned under the Habsburg aegis.
In politics Ferdinando pursued the line previously adopted by his father Cosimo I: he enhanced the efficiency of the bureaucratic and administrative structures of the grand ducal state, gathering around him officials with specific competencies frequently originating from provincial ambits extraneous to the court, and sought to reduce to the utmost the juridical and administrative disparities between the city and the country.
To revive agriculture he undertook an extensive campaign for the reclamation of the countryside. With a view to developing trade he focused on the city of Livorno, founded by Cosimo I to resolve the problem of the landlocking of the port of Pisa: Ferdinando ordered the construction of fortifications, piers and wharves and introduced major tax concessions. Effectively the new city was declared a free port, and rights of asylum were guaranteed to all persons persecuted for religious reasons, so that it came to attract traders and craftsmen of varied provenance. He then also built a canal - the Naviglio - connecting Livorno and Pisa. Finally, he also strengthened the Tuscan fleet, which in 1608 even succeeded in defeating that of the Turks.
Ferdinando I also addressed important problems of public health, for example setting up a convalescence ward in the hospital of San Paolo in Piazza Santa Maria Novella in Florence.
He was an attentive patron, and promoted the arts and culture as a fundamental instrument of policy and diplomacy. At the court of Ferdinando I new forms of musical performance were experimented, giving birth to the melodrama. The grand duke reorganised the Medici manufactories and founded the Opificio delle Pietre Dure (1588), the principal task of which was the creation of the Chapel of the Princes in San Lorenzo (from 1604). Falling within his prudent reorganisation of the state was also the definitive arrangement of the Uffizi Gallery, with the opening to the public of the Tribuna (1589), the decoration of the corridors, the ordering of the various collections and the opening of the manufactories (formerly in the Casino di San Marco) in the ‘short’ wing. The court was definitively transferred to Palazzo Pitti. In 1595 he completed the complex of the grand ducal palace with the inauguration of the Forte di San Giorgio or di Belvedere at the summit of the Boboli gardens, where the chamber of the treasury was set up.
In 1608 Ferdinando witnessed the coronation of the final act in his intense matrimonial policy: his eldest son Cosimo married Maria Magdalena of Austria, daughter of the Archduke Charles, sister of Margaret Queen of Spain and of the Emperor Ferdinand of Austria.
Ferdinando died on 7 February 1609. His body was the first to be buried in the Chapel of the Princes.
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