It will be remembered that Alessandro de' Medici, the first Duke of Florence, poisoned his cousin Ippolito, and was himself assassinated by his cousin Lorenzino.

To the second of these crimes Cosimo, afterwards Grand Duke of Tuscany, owed the throne of Florence, on which, however, he was not secure until he had removed Lorenzino from this world by the poignard of a bravo.

Cosimo maintained his authority by a system of espionage, remorseless persecution, and assassination, which gave color even to the most improbable of legends.[214] [Footnote 213: _I Guarini, Famiglia Nobile Ferrarese_ (Bologna, Romagnoli, 1870), pp.

83-87.] [Footnote 214: In addition to the victims of his vengeance who perished by the poignard, he publicly executed in Florence forty-two political offenders.] But it is not of him so much as of his children that I have to speak.
Francesco, who reigned from 1564 till 1587, brought disgrace upon his line by marrying the infamous Bianca Capello, after authorizing the murder of her previous husband.

Bianca, though incapable of bearing children, flattered her besotted paramour before this marriage by pretending to have borne a son.