Medici

Like his predecessors, Ferdinand II. gave liberal patronage to science and letters. His brother Leopold, who had been trained by Galileo Galilei was one of the founders of the celebrated academy Del Cimento, which took for its motto the words Provando e riprovando, and followed the experimental method of Galileo. Formed in 1657, it was dissolved in 1667.

Cosimo III.—Cosimo III. succeeded his father in 167o. He was weak, vain, bigoted and hypocritical. His wife, Louise of Orleans, niece of Louis XIV., being enamoured of duke Charles of Lor raine, was very reluctant to come to Italy. After the birth of her third child, Giovan Gastone, her hatred for her husband increased almost to madness and she returned to France. In Cosimo's reign the wretchedness of the people increased, and the insufficient revenues of the state were spent on clerical endowments.

Cosimo's eldest son Ferdinand died childless in 1713. The pleasure-loving Giovan Gastone was married to Anna Maria of Saxe-Lauenburg, widow of a German prince, a wealthy, coarse woman wholly immersed in domestic occupations. After living with her for some time in a Bohemian village, Giovan Gastone withdrew to France, and ruined his health by his excesses. After a brief return to Bohemia he finally separated from his wife, by whom he had no family. Thus the dynasty was doomed to extinc tion. Cosimo had a passing idea of reconstituting the Florentine republic, but, this design being discountenanced by the European powers, he determined to transfer the succession, after the death of Giovan Gastone, to his sister Anna Maria Louisa, who in fact survived him. For this purpose he proposed to annul the patent of Charles V., but the powers objected to this arrangement also, and

by the treaty of 1718 the quadruple alliance of Germany, France, England and Holland decided that Parma and Tuscany should descend to the Spanish Infante Don Carlos. The grand-duke made energetic but fruitless protests.

Giovan Gastone.

Cosimo III. had passed his eightieth year at the time of his decease in October 1723, and was succeeded by his son Giovan Gastone, then aged fifty-three. The new sovereign was in bad health, worn out by dissipation, and had neither ambi tion nor aptitude for rule. His throne was already at the disposal of foreign powers, and his only thought on ascending it was to regain strength enough to pass the remainder of his days in enjoyment. And when, after prolonged opposition, he had resigned himself to accept Don Carlos as his successor, the latter led a Spanish army to the conquest of Naples, an event afterwards leading to the peace of 1735, by which the Tuscan succession was transferred to Francesco II., duke of Lorraine, and husband of Maria Theresa. Giovan Gastone was obliged to submit. Spain withdrew her garrisons from Tuscany, and Austrian soldiers took their place and swore fealty to the grand-duke on Feb. 5, 1737. He expired on July 9 of the same year. Such was the end of the younger branch of the Medici, which had found Tuscany a pros perous country, where art, letters, commerce, industry and agricul ture flourished, and left her poor and decayed in all ways, drained by taxation, and oppressed by laws contrary to every principle of sound economy, downtrodden by the clergy, and burdened by a weak and vicious aristocracy.