Introduction

This book takes as its principal focus the intersection of the visual and the sacred at the Medici court of the later sixteenth to early seventeenth centuries, specifically in relation to issues of gender. Its protagonists, three grand duchesses – Giovanna d’Austria (1547-78), Cristina di Lorena (1565-1636) and Maria Maddalena d’Austria (1587-1631) – were all born outside Italy, were connected by birth to Europe’s most illustrious dynasties, and arrived in Florence as young – and ‘foreign’ – (grand) ducal brides. All were women of enormous religious, social and political significance. While recent scholarship has brought the grand duchesses’ political and cultural lives more clearly into focus, their religious practices have not been the focus of sustained investigation. This book examines aspects of these women’s roles as grand ducal brides and wives, mothers of grand ducal heirs, and in the cases of Cristina di Lorena and Maria Maddalena d’Austria, widows and regents, specifically in relation to religious devotion.