in her favour with her friends at Venice, and on failure of success, drew her from her obscure situation, settled her in a splendid palace, and spent the greatest part of his time in hef company. He created Buonaventuri his chamberlain, and consulted him on all the affairs of the state. This greatly offended the Florentines, whom he treated with the tyranny and haughtiness usual in foreign favourites of low origin.
In 1566, soon after the marriage of Francis to Donna Joanna of Austria, a marriage of expediency, Bianca was introduced at court, and became the centre of general admiration; and the captivated Francis solemnly promised to make her his wife, in case they should mutually be freed from their present engagements.
Buonaventuri, having formed an intrigue with a lady of high rank, which he openly proclaimed, while he behaved with the greatest insolence to her family, was assassinated in the streets one night, in 1569. Francis, who had connived at his fate, allowed the murderers to escape, notwithstanding the entreaties of Bianca, who seems to have retained through all some affection for her first husband.
Bianca was now openly proclaimed the mistress of Francis, who could hardly separate himself from her to perform the necessary duties imposed on him by his station. She exerted all her art in gaining over to her interest the principal persons in the Medici family, particularly the Cardinal Ferdinand, Francis's next brother; and she succeeded. As the want of a male heir by his duchess, had been a great disappointment to Francis, and even a natural son was passionately desired by him, Bianca, who had borne no child since her first daughter, determined to introduce a supposititious child to him, as her own. This scheme she effected in 1576, and presenting to her lover the new-born male infant of a poor woman, he joyfully received it as his own, and named it Antonio. Bianca is charged with several secret assassinations, perpetrated for the purpose of removing all those who were privy to this fraudulent transaction. Francis, however, had a legitimate son born to him the ensuing year, and this event appeared to reconcile the grand-duchess to him, who had been greatly disturbed by Bianca's influence over him. Bianca, for a time, retired from court, but her intercourse with Francis was still carried on, though more secretly.
At length the death of the grand-duchess, supposed to have been caused by the grief she experienced at finding herself again neglected, placed the ducal crown within Bianca's grasp; and, notwithstanding the hatred of the Florentines, who were attached to the memory of the grand-duchess, she persuaded Francis to fulfil his promise of marriage. On June 6th., 1679, the ceremony was performed privately; but her ambition was to share publicly with him the ducal throne, and she persuaded him to comply with her wishes.
He sent a solemn embassy to Venice, to inform the senate of his marriage with Bianca, and to request them to confer on her the title of daughter of the Republic, which would give her precedence of the other princesses of Italy. That crafty government gladly received the proposal, as a means of extending the authority of the Republic; and in one of the most magnificent embassies ever sent from Venice, Bianca was solemnly crowned daughter of the state which had banished and persecuted her, proclaimed Grand-duchess of Tuscany, and installed in all the honours and
