Mary Hollingsworth – Catherine de’ Medici: The Life and Times of the Serpent Queen

History is rarely kind to women of power but few have had their reputations so brutally shredded as Catherine de’ Medici, the Italian-born queen of France and influential mother of three successive sons. Thrust suddenly into the spotlight by the untimely death of her husband, her position was ambiguous and not made easier by the frailties of these sons, nor by her courtiers, villainous characters who placed their own ambitions before loyalty to the crown. 

Few recognize her achievements in the arts, as one of the most impressive patrons of the period. For most she was a witch, steeped in the arts of poison and other vicious practices of her homeland; others accused her of starting the religious wars which threatened to destroy France and, and most sinister of all, as instigator of the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre (1572), in which thousands of innocent Protestants were slaughtered. 

Mary Hollingsworth is a scholar of the Italian Renaissance, whose previous works have dealt with the papers of Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, the patronage of Renaissance art, plus titles including The Borgias, The Medici and the Princes of the Renaissance. 

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