7 - Early Modern Europe

Summary

France

In 1533, Francis I's son Henry married the fourteen-year-old Catherine de'Medici, the granddaughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent. Catherine introduced gloves from Italian fashion to the French court, as well as Italianesque palaces (she herself designed the Tuileries, in Paris), comedy troups known as comédie Italienne and later as the commedia dell'arte; dance troupes; and haute cuisine. Catherine also popularized a new habit at the French court. She suffered from migraines, so in 1550, the French ambassador to Portugal sent her a local remedy: powdered tobacco. The ambassador's name was Jean Nicot.

The most famous person associated with Catherine's court was the astrologer Nostradamus, a provincial physician before he turned to fortune telling. One might expect that as a physician, Nostradamus would use astrology to make his predictions; instead, he apparently made them by gazing into bowls of water (hydromancy) or flames (pyromancy). He foretold that Henry II would have a long and prosperous reign. Later he turned his prophecies into cryptic verses. One of the more famous quatrains is:

The young lion will defeat the old one

In the field of battle by single combat

He will pierce his eyes in a cage of gold

Two wounds in one, and then a cruel death.

In 1559, Henry II of France died through a freak accident at a jousting competition: the lance of a competitor, Gabriel de Montgomery, shattered and flew through the eyeslit of his helm; it took Henry over a week to die a painful death.