Catherine de Médicis was portrayed in her day as foreign usurper, loving queen and queen mother, patron of the arts, and Machiavellian murderer of Protestants. Leah L. Chang and Katherine Kong assemble a diverse array of scathing polemic and lofty praise, diplomatic reports, and Catherine’s own letters, which together show how one extraordinary woman’s rule intersected with early modern conceptions of gender, maternity, and power.
283 pages | 6 x 9 | © 2014
The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series
Literature and Literary Criticism: General Criticism and Critical Theory
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
Letters of Catherine de Médicis, Selections 63
Relazioni of the Venetian Ambassadors on the Affairs of France in the Sixteenth Century, Selections 111
Marvelous Discourse on the Life, Actions, and Deportment of Catherine de Médicis, Queen Mother (1576), Selections 141
Pierre de Bourdeille, Seigneur de Brantôme, “Second Discourse on the Queen, Mother of Our Last Kings, Catherine de Médicis,” Selections. From Book of Ladies, Poetry, and Funerary Writings 181
Appendix 209
Bibliography 255
Index 269
Introduction 1
Letters of Catherine de Médicis, Selections 63
Relazioni of the Venetian Ambassadors on the Affairs of France in the Sixteenth Century, Selections 111
Marvelous Discourse on the Life, Actions, and Deportment of Catherine de Médicis, Queen Mother (1576), Selections 141
Pierre de Bourdeille, Seigneur de Brantôme, “Second Discourse on the Queen, Mother of Our Last Kings, Catherine de Médicis,” Selections. From Book of Ladies, Poetry, and Funerary Writings 181
Appendix 209
Bibliography 255
Index 269