The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli, circa 1485, housed at the Uffizi in Florence, painted as a wedding gift for a Medici cousin. She made one condition: nothing should ever be removed from Florence where the treasures of the Medici should always be available for the pleasure and benefit of the people of the whole world.” (emphasis mine) Hibbert continues: “In her will, she bequeathed to the new Grand Duke and his successors all the property of the Medici, their palaces and villas, their pictures and statues, their jewels and furniture, their books and manuscripts - all the vast store of works of art assembled by her ancestors, generation after generation. What was to become of it all? Did she lose sleep, night after night, until waking one morning with the relief only clarity can bring? However it came to her, the solution ensured that Florence would house its own artistic treasures, for all the world to enjoy, forever. She must have felt the weight of hundreds of years of Florentine citizens and history, and the entire Medici dynasty, pressing upon her. I imagine her fretting over this fact - being the last of a centuries-old lineage - from her apartments in the Pitti Palace, where the new government allowed her to live her remaining years. “She was always very conscious of the fact that she was the last of the Medici,” writes Christopher Hibbert in The House of Medici. With incredible wisdom and forethought and just a few months following her brother’s death, Anna Maria Luisa drafted in her will an agreement with the Holy Roman Emperor and new Duke (Francis of Lorraine). One remaining Medici family member prevented that from happening, Gian Gastone’s older sister, Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici - the last of the Medici. The spoils of the Medici, including countless Renaissance treasures, were threatened to be absorbed into the new empire and likely would be removed from Florence, forever dispersed throughout Europe. He had been a poor representation of the once-great Medici family and with his death, the dynasty which had ruled both officially and unofficially over Florence, for roughly 300 years, ended.īy the time of Gian Gaston’s death, Florence had been invaded by Austrian troops, and was poised to become part of Lorraine dynasty. And so it was that on a July day in Florence, 1737, one which I imagine would have been oppressive and hot as summer days can be in Tuscany, the last ruling member of the Medici family, Grand Duke Gian Gastone, died.
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