BIANCA CAPPELLO. (First Edn.)

by Bax, Clifford

Price: $16.50

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Description

NY:: Viking,, 1928. Hardcover; contents lightly age-toned; otherwise rather good.. With b&w portrait drawing by J.G. Parks. Reads like an improbable Verdi or Puccini opera, but is historically correct. At age 15 Bianca Cappello (1548-87) of a wealthy Venetian family eloped to marry a young clerk in Florence by whom she had a daughter. Her family tried to have her arrested, but Grand Duke Cosimo de Medici protected her. His married son Francesco made Bianca his mistress, pacified her husband with a job at Grand Duke's court, & may have arranged his murder. Cosimo died 1574; Francesco became Grand Duke; married Bianca but had no heir; tried to pass off a woman's child as his own, but failed; his brother Cardinal Ferdinando hated Bianca as adventuress & was suspected of arranging their death by poisoning; etc., etc., etc.