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Duca Cosimo III di Medici

Male 1642 - 1723  (81 years)    Has more than 100 ancestors and 3 descendants in this family tree.

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  • Name Cosimo III di Medici 
    Prefix Duca 
    Birth 1642 
    Gender Male 
    Death 31 Oct 1723 
    Siblings 1 Sibling 
    Person ID I52969  Geneagraphie
    Last Modified 29 Aug 2000 

    Father Duca Ferdinando II di Medici,   b. 1610   d. 23 May 1670 (Age 60 years) 
    Mother Vittoria della Rovere,   b. 1622   d. 1695 (Age 73 years) 
    Family ID F21604  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family Marguerite Louise d' Orléans,   b. 28 Jul 1645, Palais d'Orléans,, Paris, Île-de-France, France Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 1721 (Age 75 years) 
    Children 
     1. Fernando III di Medici,   b. 9 Aug 1663, Firenze, Toscana, Italia Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 31 Oct 1713, Firenze, Toscana, Italia Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 50 years)
     2. Anna Maria Louise di Medici,   b. 11 Aug 1667, Firenze, Toscana, Italia Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 18 Feb 1743, Firenze, Toscana, Italia Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 75 years)
     3. Duca Giovanni Gastone di Medici,   b. 1671   d. 9 Jul 1737 (Age 66 years)
    Family ID F21599  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 29 Aug 2000 

  • Photos Photos (Log in)Photos (Log in)

  • Notes 
    • Duca di Toscana; an austere and gloomy man. Like some of his Della Rovere ancestors. Cosimo had an inclination to melancholy and contemporaries claimed that he never laughed.
      He was averse to physical contact and feared that "sexual activity would undermine his health". Sophia of Hanover reported: "He sleeps with his wife but once a week, and then under supervision of a doctor." Marguérite Louise repeatedly refused to share her bed with her grave husband for months and around 1665 she was temporarily exiled from court. During her pregnancies she unsuccessfully tried to induce a miscarriage and when she was pregnant of her third child, Gian Gastone, Marguérite Louise even tried to starve herself. Four years after Gian Gastone's birth she left for France, never to return. There she lived on a pension supplied by her husband.

      His long reign, which lasted for fifty-three years, was a positive disaster for the state of Tuscany and for the Medici dynasty. Already overly devout in his own right, he had been dominated by the bigotry and vanity of his mother, since his father, whose weakness was indolence, had not asserted his authority in the child's upbringing.
      Cosimo spent long hours in prayer and visited monasteries and sanctuaries where he proved a generous and devout guest. Priests, friars and monks proliferated in Florence, absorbed in their psalms, prayers, and hymns while the Tuscan state was losing its former brilliance to a steady and reactionary decline for which its ruler was entirely to blame. It is small wonder that Tuscany became the victim of terrible economic recession, as no attention was paid to any of the innovations being put into practice in other Italian states.
      Even the arts and sciences were neglected in Florence, as artists and scientists left a Tuscany caught in the stranglehold of the clergy. Pisa, Siena, and Livorno were reduced to insignificant, depressed cities; whereas Florence's reputation was based exclusively on its illustrious past, which made the present seem even more dreary by comparison.
      Cosimo III also made a serious mistake over his choise of a wife: he married Marguerite Louise of Orléans, cousin of Louis XIV, the sun King. She was of a rare beauty, while Cosimo was corpulent from childhood and he was diametrically opposed to his young bride in character and attitude to life. The marriage immediatly turned stormy. Nevertheless the young couple had three children. Of the three children Grand Prince Ferdinando was a pleasant-looking boy, intelligent and with a natural feeling for beauty and culture. Nevertheless he grew into a dissolute and intemperate man and died before his father . He married the sixteen years old Violante of Baviera but they had no children.



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