BOOK

Catherine de' Medici : the life and times of the serpent queen

Hollingsworth, Mary, author

2025

Overview

Catherine de' Medici lived her life at the storm centre of European and French politics in an age of religious conflict. Born to Lorenzo II, the Medici ruler of Florence, and married to a French prince by papal connivance at the age of fourteen, Catherine was successively queen consort of France and mother to three French kings (Francis II, Charles IX and Henry III) who reigned in an era of almost continuous civil and religious strife. A spendthrift promoter of the arts, Catherine patronised poets, painters and sculptors, lavished ruinous sums on the building and embellishment of monuments and palaces, and masterminded spectacular entertainments and tournaments that prefigure the splendour and ritual of the court of Versailles. Posterity has anathematised her as the epitome of the scheming royal matriarch, her reputation tainted forever by her role in instigating the St Bartholomew's Day massacre of Protestants.

• Publisher: Apollo
• Subject: Catherine de Médicis, Queen, consort of Henry II, King of France, 1519-1589. / Queens France Biography. / Biography. / France Kings and rulers Biography. / France History Henry II, 1547-1559.
• ISBN: 9781800244771

Item info:

1 item available

1 item total in all locations

Holdings :

Call Number	Copies	Material	Location
DC119.8 .H65 2025	1	BOOK	AUTOSTORE