The first lady of fashionable Florence
Dubbed the Anna Wintour of the 16th century, Eleanor of Toledo’s life is the subject of a fabulous new exhibition in Italy’s most cultural city, says John Hooper
In the last of the rooms in an exhibition at the Pitti Palace in Florence, the visitor’s eye is drawn not to any of the fine works of art on display but to a flaming red dress. Made of lush silk velvet, it is embroidered in gold thread – this is a gown that radiates fine taste, luxury and extravagance. On closer examination, the pile of the velvet has worn away in places. But that is hardly surprising, for this sumptuous garment is almost 500 years old. Scholarly research in preparation for the exhibition, on Eleanor of Toledo (Eleonora di Toledo in Italian), the second Duchess of Tuscany, established that the dress was almost certainly worn when she was received by Pope Pius IV in 1560.
But it was not she who donned this magnificent gown. It was one of her ladies-in-waiting. Eleanor dressed even more lavishly. For an idea of how, you can turn to the portrait of her by Agnolo Bronzino that hangs elsewhere in the show. With her young son Giovanni at her side, she is seated in a dress made of rich silver brocade with raised patterns of black and gold. She wears two necklaces of unusually large pearls and both her hairnet and the garment that covers her neck and shoulders, known as a partlet, are decorated with yet more pearls.
Together, the two dresses reflect Eleanor’s role as an arbiter of fashion. Eike Schmidt, director of the Uffizi Galleries, the museum complex staging the exhibition, calls her ‘the Anna Wintour of the 16th century’.
In 1539, Eleanor had married the man who would come to be known as Cosimo the Great: a member of the Medici family that had governed Florence for more than a century. But whereas most of the Medicis had wielded their power from behind the scenes, seldom taking a formal role,
Cosimo gloried in the title of duke. By crafty diplomacy and force of arms, he expanded his domain to create a country the size of Wales that, in those days – long before Italy’s unification – was an independent state with its own coinage, armed forces, laws and customs. By the time Cosimo died, it was known as the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and its ruler was entitled to be addressed as ‘His Most Serene Highness’.
Cosimo and Eleanor were thus the founders of a dynasty. And from an early age, the Spanish-born Eleanor not only dressed the part but established a court in the Tuscan capital of Florence, imposing on its members a style that was almost regal.
‘Magnificence was the message,’ says the show’s curator, Bruce Edelstein, a professor of art history at New York University’s Florence campus. When Eleanor entered Siena after the city and surrounding territory had been conquered by her husband, an observer valued the jewellery she was wearing at 30,000 ducats – four times Cosimo’s annual ‘salary’ as duke.
But Eleanor was more than just an arbiter of fashion with a weakness for costly bling. The 16th century in Europe was one in which the destinies of millions of men were decided by powerful women: Elizabeth I of England, Mary Tudor, Mary, Queen of Scots and Catherine de’ Medici, Queen of France. Eleanor was an equally influential woman. But in her case, and most exceptionally, her power derived from love. Eleanor was
the daughter of the viceroy in southern Italy, then a Spanish dominion. The norm for girls of her high social rank was an arranged marriage with the choice of a husband being decided on grounds of political and diplomatic expediency.
By the time Eleanor arrived in Tuscany in June 1539, she had already been married by proxy to Cosimo, a man she had probably never knowingly seen. Yet the duke had seen and admired her on an earlier visit to Naples. Cosimo and Eleanor fell deeply in love. A contemporary account described her weeping inconsolably and tearing at her hair after learning that her husband was going off to war. While he was away, she expected – and he dispatched – two letters a day.
Eleanor was his adviser and partner in the enterprise of state-building. Using her own money, she bought Pitti Palace and began the work of turning it into a stately residence for the Medicis. She supervised the creation of the adjoining Boboli Gardens.
She commissioned much of the art and architecture executed during Cosimo’s reign. And while her husband was unable to rule – due to absence or ill health – it was Eleanor who governed the duchy as regent for a total of about six years, while throughout her marriage she also gave birth to 11 children.
Most of the portraits of Eleanor depict a cold, haughty woman. But then part of their purpose was to show the populace who was boss when the boss was not
around. Bronzino’s portrait (opposite) is subtler. It shows just the trace of a smile on her lips. And indeed, says Professor Edelstein, ‘Eleanor was a woman of many contrasts.’
She loved to play cards – and to wager. Her Jesuit confessor was so concerned about her gambling he asked her to give it up – to no avail. When pregnant, Eleanor even laid bets on the gender of her next child.
‘Her apartment was full of exotic animals, and she had a singer that she employed. So, with her Spanish ladies-in-waiting talking among themselves and her children running around, it would have been alive with colour and noise,’ says Professor Edelstein.
In autumn 1562, Eleanor, who suffered from tuberculosis, went to the coast on the advice of her doctors. Three of her sons went with her. Two contracted malaria and died, as did Eleanor, who was just 40. Only four of her children survived beyond their teens. But her prolific child-bearing was not in vain.
One of her sons, Francesco, succeeded his father in 1574 and for the next 163 years, the Medicis ruled Tuscany in an unbroken line.
In the 19th century, researchers opened the family’s tombs and discovered to their surprise that Eleanor was not, as widely believed, buried in the dress painted by Bronzino. Stylish to the end, she was laid to rest in a simple white satin frock. But it was richly embroidered and, the official record noted, worn under a dress of crimson velvet with silk stockings that matched.
USING HER OWN MONEY, ELEANOR BOUGHT PITTI PALACE AND TURNED IT INTO A RESIDENCE FOR THE MEDICIS
John Hooper is Italy correspondent of The Economist and author of The Italians. Eleonora di Toledo and the Invention of the Medici Court in Florence is at the Pitti Palace (uffizi.it/en/events) until 14 May