[CPProt.net] Firenze: Medici Child Tomb Goes Missing

[Museum Security Network / Cultural Property Protection Net (Ton Cremers)]

Medici Child Tomb Goes Missing
By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News


March 21, 2005 — The tomb of a four-year-old heir of the Medicis has mysteriously disappeared, scientists exhuming the remains of several members of the family that dominated the Florentine Renaissance have announced. 

Working in the Medici Chapels at Michelangelo's church of San Lorenzo in Florence, where they aim to exhume 49 bodies of the Medici clan, the researchers found the remains of an unknown one-year-old child in what was supposed to be the tomb of Filippino, the son of Grand Duke Francesco I (1541-1587). 

The finding adds new mystery to one of the most discussed families of the Renaissance. 

"We have no idea who that infant was, neither do we know where Filippino could have been buried," the researchers told a news conference. 

Filippino, who died in 1582 of an unknown disease, was the son of Joan of Austria — the ugly daughter of Ferdinand of Habsburg — and Francesco I, an ineffectual ruler more interested in spending his time with alchemy experiments than dedicating himself to statecraft. 

The investigation on Francesco and Joan’s bodies revealed that the Gran Duke was 1.74 meters tall (about 5' 8 1/2"), with an athletic body. On the contrary, Joan was afflicted with a deformed spine. She gave birth six times and died in childbirth at the age of 30. 

"She was a basket case. She had terrible teeth and suffered from so many diseases and malformations," project leader Gino Fornaciari, professor of forensic anthropology and director of the Pathology Museum at the University of Pisa, told Discovery News. 

When Joan died, Francesco married his beautiful, long-time mistress Bianca Cappello (1548-1587), who lived only one day longer than he. 

Their deaths raised more than four centuries of speculation on whether they were poisoned or not. 

Legend has it that Bianca had prepared a poisoned tart for her brother-in-law — the future Grand Duke Ferdinando I — and that Francesco had eaten some it by mistake. Desperate, Bianca also ate the poisoned tart in order not to survive her lover. 

"We are still carrying tests to establish how Francesco died, if by poison or by malaria. It will not be an easy task. Even if we find traces of poison, there is still the chance he poisoned himself by mistake, given that he was an obstinate alchemist," Fornaciari told Discovery News. 

In the next months, the researchers hope to find more clues by exhuming the remains of Bianca, whose tomb they believe lies in a crypt under the San Lorenzo church. 

"It was always thought that Bianca Capello was buried in a common burial ground, but we have found documents which confirm she was buried in the church," Donatella Lippi, associate professor of the history of medicine at the University of Florence, told reporters. 

Originally a family of peasants from the Mugello valley north of Florence, the Medicis became one of Europe's most powerful dynasties and ruled Florence and Tuscany from 1434 to 1737. 

Glory of the Medicis
No other family epitomizes the full glory of the Florentine Renaissance better than this dynasty. Fun-loving patrons of the arts, they were also governors of a dynamic city state and served as the model for popes, kings and emperors. 

The two-year Medici project has so far investigated the remains of Grand Duke Cosimo I (1519-1574), responsible for the expansion of Florence to control most of Tuscany and for the creation of the Uffizi Gallery, now one of the world's greatest art galleries. 

The project has also looked at his wife Eleonora (1522-1562), and two of their eleven children, Garcia (1547-1562) and Giovanni (1543-1562). 

Other members of the Medici clan to have entered Fornaciari’s lab in the Medici chapels have been the last Grand Duke Gian Gastone (1671- 1737), Joan of Austria, Gran Duke Franscesco I and their daughter Anna. 

The most well-known Medicis, such as Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449-1492) and Cosimo the Elder (1389-1464), founder of the Medici political dynasty, will not be exhumed as they rest beneath beautiful Michelangelo tombstones too fragile to move. 

"We are determined to solve Filippino’s mystery by finding out the identity of the infant in his tomb. The remains are badly damaged by the disastrous flood of 1966 so it will not be an easy task. We are planning DNA tests for all the 49 exhumed Medicis," Fornaciari said. 

Among other influential Medicis to be exhumed in the next months will be Giovanni dalle Bande Nere (1498-1526), and Anna Maria Luisa (1667-1743), the last of the Medicis, who on her death willed all the art treasures belonging to her family to the city of Florence. 

"The Medici project is a very important study. Fornaciari and his team do not stop to amaze us with new findings," Antonio Paolucci, the superintendent of museums in Tuscany, told Discovery News. 

http://dsc.discovery.com/