Pietro di Cosimo I (1554-1604) 
- Name:
- Pietro di Cosimo I de’ Medici
- Dates:
-
Florence, 1554 - Madrid, 1604
- Places:
-
Florence, Madrid
- Biographical information:
-
Don Pietro was the youngest child of Cosimo I and Eleonora di Toledo. Of a perfidious and overbearing character, Pietro resented his junior position and frequently broke out in brutal and cruel gestures even towards his own family.
In 1573 Francesco I, who had become regent and then Grand Duke in his turn, appointed his brother Pietro "Marine General of Tuscany", and in 1579 assigned him command of the Spanish troops allotted to the Grand Duchy. Pietro travelled extensively through Italy.In 1571 Pietro married his cousin Dianora (or Eleonora) di Toledo, daughter of his uncle on his mother’s side, Don Luigi. The girl had grown up between Palazzo Medici - where her Spanish relatives lived - and Palazzo Pitti, especially after the death of her mother. Shortly afterwards the little Cosimo was born to the couple, but he died just a few months later.
However, Pietro and Dianora’s marriage was anything but happy. Neglected and miserable, the young bride fell in love with Bernardino Antinori. Their liaison was, however, interrupted by a tragic event: Antinori was constrained to confess that he had killed Francesco Ginori, albeit in legitimate defence. Having obtained the clemency of the Grand Duke Francesco I, Bernardino Antinori was condemned to exile and confined on the island of Elba. From here he managed to send a number of letters to his beloved, but one of them inadvertently came into the hands of the Grand Duke. To avenge his brother Pietro, Francesco had Bernardino brought back to Florence as a prisoner, and then had him put to death in the Bargello prison on 20 June 1576. Shortly afterwards, on 11 July, Pietro arranged to meet his wife Dianora at the Villa di Cafaggiolo, where he strangled her. Officially, the Medici declared that Dianora had died of a heart attack. Her funeral was celebrated in San Lorenzo, after which she was laid to rest in the crypt, alongside the tombs of the other members of the Medici family. In the meantime, the following year Francesco I distanced Don Pietro from Florence. He sent him to Philip II in Spain, in the hope that this might make him mend his ways, shake him out of his idle and dissolute lifestyle, and possibly even make a fitting marriage. Instead, at the Madrid court, where he remained practically uninterruptedly up to his death, Pietro distinguished himself for his base behaviour, for his gambling debts (which the Medici were consistently called on to settle) and for the unseemly and disreputable company he kept. To extract money from the Florentine court, Pietro even went so far as to blackmail his own family, sullying their reputation with the King of Spain.
Don Pietro had five illegitimate children whom he entrusted on his deathbed to his brother, the Grand Duke Ferdinando I, who took them under his wing in Florence. Among these was Pietro (1592-1654), who in 1631 proved to be the only member of the grand ducal family resident in Palazzo Medici.
informazioni generali - apparati e documentazione
