Samantha Morris's new book on Cesare Borgia

Today, I am very happy to host the first of two blog tours from Made Global. Today, we have a guest post from Samantha Morris, who has written on Cesare Borgia, the notorious yet fascinating Renaissance statesman, as part of Made Global's In a Nutshell series. Allegedly the inspiration for Machiavelli's The Prince, Borgia's achievements, fame and private life continue to attract interest, five centuries after his death. In his own lifetime, he was accused of corruption, incest, and murder. Morris's book discusses the truth behind his many legends. For our blog, Samantha focuses on one of the accusations - that Cesare was a murderer. 

There's also a giveaway for a reader, with a chance to win a copy of Samantha's new book, after her guest article.

About the Author

Samantha Morris studied archaeology at the University of Winchester where her interest in the history of the Italian Renaissance began. Since graduating University, her interest in the Borgia family has grown to such an extent that she is always looking for new information on the subject as well as fighting against the age-old rumours that haunt them. Samantha describes herself as an accountant by day, historian and author by night.

Her first published book, Cesare Borgia in a Nutshell, is a brief biography which aims to dispel the myths surrounding a key member of the Borgia family. She runs the popular Borgia website https://theborgiabull.com/ and would love to see you on her site.

The Murder of Alfonso D’Aragona – was Cesare Borgia responsible?

From the moment that Lucrezia Borgia's marriage to Giovanni Sforza was annulled, it became obvious to all that she was little more than a pawn on her father and brother's chess board. The young and incredibly beautiful Borgia woman would once more be used as a weapon in her family's political gains, being pushed into a marriage with Alfonso D'Aragona, Duke of Bisceglie. Why? The Borgias decided they wanted the rulers of Naples on their side. Yet their political games were as changeable as the wind and they soon decided that they would rather be allied with the French, even going so far as to marry Cesare off into the French nobility.

It soon became clear that the Borgia's allying themselves with Naples wasn't the right political move to make – and Lucrezia had fallen head over heels in love with Alfonso. Cesare had, after all, married the French Charlotte D'Albret in 1499 and had struck up an alliance with the French King, whilst Alfonso was trying desperately to keep the last vestiges of the alliance with Spain alive. He would hole himself up with his wife, his sister and their friends which led to huge amounts of friction between Alfonso, Alexander VI and Cesare. There is a story from the time which sums up just how divided the family was – a Burgundian had challenged a Frenchman to a duel, and Cesare tried to bribe the Burgundian to lose the duel. Whispers abounded about the city that Cesare would rather lose 20,000 ducats than see a Frenchman lose. Yet despite his obvious dislike of his brother in law, Cesare made it his business whilst in public to act as if their relationship was perfect. To outsiders, it truly looked as if the two young men were perfect friends.

It was only after Alexander VI was involved in an accident that Cesare realised he had to strike against the Aragonese who had become a part of his family. During a particularly violent storm a chimney collapsed upon the roof of the Vatican, causing the ceiling of the Audience Chamber where Pope Alexander VI was holding an audience to cave in. A beam fell upon the canopy that covered the Pope's chair, miraculously saving him from being completely buried by the falling rubble, although three people died when the ceiling caved in. Alexander was pulled from beneath a mess of plaster, not seriously hurt at all and only suffering minor cuts to his face and head. This accident made Cesare realise that his father could potentially lose his life at any time, and he had to be prepared. More so, he needed to make sure that he and his family were surrounded by allies he could trust – in his mind, that meant Alfonso D'Aragona had to go, and he had to go quickly. After all, if Alfonso stuck around he could use his links to both Aragon and Spain to cause an uprising. That was something that Cesare Borgia could not handle.

On 15th July 1500, Alfonso D'Aragona was crossing St Peter's piazza on his way home for the evening when he was set upon by a group of armed men. Johannes Burchard, the Papal Master of Ceremonies, recorded the incident in his diary and stated that Alfonso was wounded in the head, right arm and leg. Badly wounded, Alfonso was taken to the Torre Borgia where he was tended to by his wife in an effort to keep him from dying from his injuries. Within just twenty four hours of the attack, there was just one name being spoken as to who had attacked the young duke. Cesare Borgia. Other people saw parallels between the attack on Alfonso and the attack on Juan Borgia, Duke of Gandia, in 1497 and thus whispered that the Orsini must have been involved in some way. It was certainly a likely possibility given that Alfonso was on good terms with the Colonna family, and that the Orsini's had patched up their differences with Cesare. However, Cesare, when he learned of the attack on his brother in law, is said to have stated wholeheartedly:

"I did not wound the Duke, but if I had, it would have been no more than he deserved"

Had Cesare been involved in the attack on Alfonso, at this stage at least, it surely would have been executed with much more fluidity. Borgia was, after all, one of the greatest military minds in Italy and had taken the Romagna with little issue. That, and had he ordered the attack, those who carried it out would have made sure his orders were followed. Whilst it is possible that Cesare could have involved the Orsini and had them attack Alfonso, it seems more likely that the attack had nothing to do with events that were soon to take place in the Vatican. Events that there is no doubt Cesare Borgia had a hand in.

Tragedy struck for Alfonso D'Aragona, Duke of Bisceglie, less than one month later. He had been lovingly tended to by his wife Lucrezia and his sister Sancia – Lucrezia had even taken to preparing her husband's food herself, out of fear of him being poisoned. The next sequence of events invokes images of a highly organised attack – on 18th July 1500, Michelotto de Corella and an escort of armed men burst into the chambers and seized by force the envoy of Naples who was in the room, talking with the healing man and his family. When both Lucrezia and Sancia questioned Corella on what was going on. Corella excused himself by simply stating that he was "obeying the will of others". He then stated that if they wished to obtain the release of those that he had arrested then they could go and speak to the Pope. The two women, of course, went straight to the Pope, leaving Alfonso alone in the room with Corella. When they returned, Lucrezia and Sancia found guards stationed outside the room who refused to let them inside, telling them that Alfonso was dead. He had been strangled by the hands of Michelotto, Cesare Borgia's right-hand man, and the story that had been fed to the women was completely untrue. It was simply just a ruse so that he could kill Alfonso.

No one doubted who was behind the murder. Although Michelotto had been the one to physically end Alfonso's life, it was completely obvious that Cesare had given the order. But why had he given the order to have his brother in law murdered? Was it purely political and a way to show that he stood with France? It's unlikely – Cesare had absolutely no need to show such a thing. But his acts of violence were always calculated – he would not have ordered Alfonso's death if he had nothing to gain by it. And he did have something to gain – King Louis of France had already promised him troops and support for his taking of the Romagna, in return for helping Louis attack Naples. But there was an official reason given for the murder, and for Cesare's part in it. Of course, they would publicise it as Cesare not being the one in the wrong. It was, in a statement given by Alexander VI to visiting diplomats, an action of self-defence after Alfonso tried to shoot Cesare with a crossbow. The likelihood of this being true is incredibly slim and it seems more like a PR release in an effort to sully Alfonso's name. It was more than likely a murder fuelled by personal vendetta – Cesare was often known to slip into jealous rages especially when it came to his sister, and along with her pro-Aragonese sympathies that came with marrying into the Aragonese royal family, the love she felt for her husband may well have played a part in the murder.

Lucrezia fell into a deep grief for her murdered husband, and on 4th September 1500 was sent to her castle at Nepi by her father, who had grown tired of her crying and wailing. But she wasn't allowed to mourn for long – she was too important a political tool for Alexander VI and Cesare and, as such, soon received suitors for her hand in marriage. And by the November, the Borgia's had approached the D'Este family of Ferrara as an option. When she married Alfonso D'Este in 1502, just two years after her second husband's murder, it would be her final marriage. And one that was not beset by murder at the hands of her brother.

To win a copy of Samantha Morris's new book, answer the following question in our comment section, leaving your e-mail address. The responses will not be published and the winner will be announced, after a random selection, next Thursday.

Q: What was the name of the Northern Irish actor who played Cesare Borgia in the TV series Borgia? 

You can also find out more about Samantha's book by following the rest of her blog tour.

1st August, 1787: The Death of Alphonso de Liguori, writer and saint

Canonised in 1839 by the conservative Pope Gregory XVI, Saint Alphonsus (or Alphonso) de Liguori is today revered as a Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church, due to his skill in philosophy and his devotion to Mariology (the veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary.) Saint Alphonso de Liguori is also the patron saint of the Naples, arthritis sufferers, confessors and moralists.

Born in a suburb of the Naples in 1696, when the entire southern Italian peninsula was still ruled by the Spanish, Alphonso was born into a well-to-do family of the local aristocracy. His father was an officer in the navy of the Spanish king, Carlos II. The eldest of his parents' seven children, he was christened at a nearby church devoted to the Virgin Mary, which was appropriate given his later devotion to her. Like many future saints, Alphonso's initial academic interests seem to have been with law. He qualified and was a very successful lawyer, but not a happy one. In a private letter to a friend, he reflected that a solicitor's life was a "too full of difficulties and dangers; we lead an unhappy life and run risk of dying an unhappy death. For myself, I will quit this career, which does not suit me; for I wish to secure the salvation of my soul." At twenty-seven, Alphonso re-trained as a priest with the Oratorian order and once he was ordained, he spent the first few years of his ministry working with the homeless, particularly the young, in Naples. 

This early experience gave Alphonso de Liguori a passionate belief in the role the young should play in the church. With their help, he set up evening chapels, where the worship and service was led by the young people themselves. Here, Alphonso would deliver his sermons, which were apparently particularly effective at bringing young people back to their faith when they had become disillusioned with it. In time, seventy-two of these youth chapels would have been set-up across the Italian peninsula. Often appalled at the level of poverty in the Naples, Father de Liguori sometimes undertook missions to alleviate rural poverty, as well.

As his reputation grew, Alphonso also threw himself into the great theological debates of the era. At that time, Catholicism was being divided over the issue of a philosophy known as Jansenism. Jansenism was a form of Catholicism that had originated in France in the previous century and it drew heavily on the philosophy of the more extreme Protestant sects. Whilst it emphasised Catholicism's belief in original sin and human weakness, it also adopted the radical Protestant belief in pre-destination and denied the impact of Free Will. This led many to regard Jansenism as heresy. It was seen by many to be too harsh because it combined the worst elements of both strands of Christianity - Catholicism's belief in the innate sinfulness of humanity, with radical Protestantism's belief that there was nothing you could do to save yourself from it. With the help of his friend, Sister Maria-Celeste, Alphonso set-up a new Catholic faith organisation called the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, which combined two of Alphonso's great passions - to alleviate the suffering of the poor and to challenge Jansenism. 

For the next few decades, the work of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer consumed Alphonso de Liguori's life and in 1762, when he was sixty-six, he was made Bishop of Sant'Agata dei Gioti by Pope Clement XIII. As bishop, he kept up the work he had started with the Congregation and worked hard to eradicate poverty in his diocese. He also pursued his interest in theology, by publishing many books including Moral Theology (which was his great attack on Jansenism), The Great Means of Prayer, The Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ, Visits to the Most Holy Sacrament and his series promoting devotion to the Virgin Mary - The Glories of Mary, Marian Devotion, Prayers to the Divine Mother, Visitations to the Blessed Sacrament and the Divine Mother and Spiritual Songs. In total, Alphonso wrote over one hundred works of theology, as well as numerous hymns, some of which are still sung today. His books were aimed at ordinary Catholics and he sought to encourage them to engage emotionally with their faith, rather than be seduced away from it by the scientific rationalism that was being promoted during the 18th century by the "Age of Enlightenment." Within Catholicism, Alphonso was sometimes criticised by his fellow theologians, who either saw his promotion of Marianism as over-zealous (particularly in his repeated references to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which led to his books being briefly banned in some Catholic municipalities, like Venice) or for being too emotional and "crowd-pleasing." Some of his opponents were harsh in their criticism of him; others, like the Dominican pastor, Vincenzo Patuzzi, simply respectfully disagreed with his take on how central Mary should be to Catholicism.

In his old age, Bishop de Liguori resigned his post and went into retirement, living with a community of Redemptorist priests in Campani. He died there on 1st August 1787, at the age of ninety. By that point, his homeland of the Naples was an independent kingdom, ruled over by King Ferdinand IV and his wife (Marie-Antoinette's sister), Queen Maria-Caroline. Alphonso died only two years before the outbreak of the French Revolution, which was to seriously threaten and then, through the strength of its persecution, rejuvenate the pastoral, grass-roots Catholicism that Alphonso was so devoted to.

He was beatified by Pope Pius VII in 1816 and formally canonised as a Roman Catholic saint in 1839. Pope Gregory XVI, anxious to turn back the hands of time to the days before the Revolution and impressed, like many were and are, by the extent of Alphonso's holiness, was a keen champion of the canonisation of Alphonso de Liguori. Today, he is buried in the Basilica of Sant'Alfonso in Pagina, Italy.

France's Iron Lady?

"I am not a sentimental woman. Even during my youth I wasn't given to melancholia or remorse. I rarely looked back, rarely paused to mark the passage of time. Some would say I do not know the meaning of regret. Indeed, if my enemies are to be believed, my unblinking eyes stare always forward, focused on the future, on the next war to fight, the next son to exalt, the next enemy to vanquish... I have become far more than was ever expected of me, even if loneliness was always present, like a faithful hound at my heels. The truth is, not one of us is innocent. We all have sins to confess."

I first wrote about Catherine de Medici when I was thirteen years old and the grammar school I attended ran an essay writing competition in which students had to pick a famous hero or villain from history and write about their lives. I came third, behind Florence Nightingale and Harry Ferguson (the inventor of tractor. It's Northern Ireland, after all.) Back then, I placed Catherine firmly in the "villain" category and earned my future History teacher's mistrust for concluding, "Like Vladimir Lenin, Catherine de Medici used her vast political power only to bring harm, rather than happiness." As I was to discover, talking smack about Lenin in my A-Level class was about as close to intellectual heresy as one could come at Down High, but I digress.

It wasn't until I was eighteen and read the debut biography of supermodel-turned-historian, Leonie Frieda, Catherine de Medici, that I began to change my mind about the sixteenth century Italian heiress who married into the French royal family as a teenager and became the de facto leader of the French government after her husband's premature death. More recently, I have returned to Catherine's life as I work on a script about the French Wars of Religion updated to the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Sadly, there are enough parallels to justify the comparison. One of the characters I enjoyed researching, writing and updating the most was Queen Catherine. 

For over a generation, Catherine de Medici committed fair deed and foul to keep her family on the throne, in the midst of eight appallingly bloody religious wars between Catholics and Protestants. In 1572, sectarian tensions erupted with the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre, in which thousands of Protestants were brutally murdered. Catherine, rightly or wrongly, has been blamed for it ever since - either for deliberately orchestrating the massacre or for political incompetence in failing to prevent it. A foreigner, a woman and a politician, Catherine was widely despised by the time of her death and as Marie de Medici, Anne of Austria and poor Marie-Antoinette were to discover in centuries to come, being compared to Catherine de Medici was about as bad an insult as Frenchmen could give.

From the extraordinary story of Catherine de Medici's life and career, C.W. Gortner drew inspiration for his second novel. The Confessions of Catherine de Medici is told in the first person, with Catherine reflecting on life from her childhood education at the hands of her Aunt Clarice to her favourite son's desperate attempts to save the monarchy from the ambitions of the Catholic Holy League. To begin with, what's wrong with Confessions? Well, in the first place, it's too short. Or, at least, it certainly feels like Gortner wanted to write a much longer novel. It sometimes feels that Confessions is a bit rushed and although it gets all the major events of Catherine's journey, that kind of comprehensive coverage comes at the expense of descriptions of the palaces, fabrics, clothes, jewels and food that made up the queen's everyday life. There are also a few errors on etiquette and forms of address, which may seem trivial but, like descriptions of the everyday, it adds to the experience for the reader in experiencing the very different world Catherine lived in. I also felt that chapters 1 to 17 were enjoyable reading, but after chapter 17 Confessions became unputdownable. (I'm quite certain that is not a real word.) Without giving too much away, it's in chapter 17 that Catherine finally manages to acquire some political power for herself and it's also in that chapter that one of the characters I personally found most irritating finally snuffs it. (The character was irritating through no fault of the author's, I should point out. I simply found myself wanting to cigarette burn him throughout most of the story.)

For history fans, Gortner also deserves kudos for his clever characterisation of some of the other major players in Catherine de Medici's life. His portrayal of her husband's mistress, the legendarily beautiful Diane de Poitiers, was a favourite. Diane de Poitier's physical loveliness and her elegant manners have blinded generations of historians to what a monumentally unpleasant individual she was. Greedy, selfish and cold, Diane emerges from Confessions as the paragon of self-obsession she undoubtedly must have been in reality. There's a moment when the two women meet for the final time, where I very nearly cheered. 

Catherine's eldest daughter-in-law, Mary, Queen of Scots, is also interestingly portrayed. (Mary's mother was a French aristocrat and she was brought up in France.) Queen Mary is shown as a pretty girl who happens to know she's pretty and acquires all the benefits and pitfalls to her personality that such life-long knowledge can give. Given the unending praise showered on Mary throughout her French childhood, all of which seems to have focused in some way on her looks, that seems a fair enough assumption. Mary is not, however, presented as necessarily unpleasant and her relationship with Catherine is nuanced and fair to both women. Catherine's youngest daughter, Margot, of la reine Margot fame, is always a fascinating figure and Gortner does her justice. Thanks to her own memoirs and Alexandre Dumas's nineteenth-century novel about her, Margot has gone down in history as a romantic legend. However, she and her mother were not on speaking terms later on in life and since this is a novel from Catherine's perspective, Gortner presents a very different, but equally interesting, portrait of Princess Margot. 

Perhaps my favourite part, however, was Catherine's own favourite child - her third son, Henri, Duc d'Anjou. Despite the feverish denials of French nationalist and pious Catholic historians, there can be absolutely no doubt to the logical mind that Henri III was gay. Or rather, what we would now recognise as gay. Because of this, Henri has gone down in history as an effete, sleeked, unnatural transvestite who frittered away his mother's political legacy and eroded public respect for the monarchy by cavorting with his male lovers whilst France collapsed around him. Twain's comment that the pages of history are written with the ink of fluid prejudice is especially true in Henri's case. Today, we can, or we should, look at Henri III's life differently. Undoubtedly, he made many, many mistakes as sovereign, but historians have rightly pointed out his work ethic, his strong commitment to the institution of monarchy and his genuine respect for his mother's achievements. Without giving too much away, Henri III emerges from the pages of Gortner's novel as a much more complicated, perhaps even a more likable, figure than in any of the other plays, novels or films inspired by his family's improbably dramatic lives.

The Confessions of Catherine de Medici is an excellent historical novel. I enjoyed reading all of it, but after reaching the second half, I suddenly wished it had been a good deal longer. Catherine de Medici emerges from Gortner's narrative as tough, determined and, if occasionally unlikable, you have to admire her tenacity and resilience. One can feel Gortner's own admiration for his leading lady shining through the pages of the novel and it's that determination to present Catherine as a figure worthy of respect, as well as interest, that makes Confessions such a clear labour of love for the author and a very enjoyable experience for the reader.

September 21st, 1819: The birth of a granddaughter of France

On the twenty-first day of September 1819 in the Élysée Palace, today the official residence of the French President, the most beautiful member of the French Royal Family, Princess Caroline, Duchesse de Berry, went into labour. A southern Italian princess by birth, Caroline was the daughter of Francesco I, King of the Two Sicilies, and his Austrian queen, Maria-Clementina. At the age of seventeen, Caroline had been married to Charles-Ferdinand, Duc de Berry, the King of France's youngest nephew. A glamorous and attractive pair, the Duke and Duchess had been married for just under three years when she gave birth to their first child and there was much expectation resting on the young Duchess for the event.

Despite the fact that the Duke was the younger son of another younger son, the genetic bad luck of that generation of the French royal family and the violence of the Revolution had placed him much closer to the throne than he might have been under ordinary circumstances. His eldest uncle, Louis XVI, and his little cousin, Louis XVII, had both perished in the Revolution. With the monarchy restored, his middle uncle had chosen to rule under the name Louis XVIII, to suggest continuity with his family's pre-revolutionary rule. But the current king, clever and morbidly obese, was childless and his queen had died years earlier, leaving the king's younger brother, the handsome and ultra-conserative Charles, Comte d'Artois, as next-in-line. Charles, the Duke's father and Caroline's father-in-law, had two sons, of which the Duke was only the youngest. Yet, the Duke's elder brother, Louis-Antoine, had been married for twenty years and there were still  no sign of any children. Depending on which clique you listened to at court, it was either because Louis-Antoine was impotent or because his wife was barren after the psychological traumas she had endured during her imprisonment under the revolution. Either way, in time, the crown would eventually pass from the current king to the Duke's father and then his brother and then, finally, to him. 

With the expectation that the Duke would one day sit on the French throne as King Charles XI, with Caroline as his queen, there was added pressure for her to produce a son. On September 21st 1819, however, she was unable to oblige. Instead, she gave birth to a daughter who was promptly christened Louise-Marie-Thérèse (above). "Louise" was given in honour of her godfather and great-uncle, the King, and "Marie-Thérèse", in honour of her aunt and godmother, Madame Royale.

As dramatised in Elena Maria Vidal's novel, Madame Royale, Princess Louise-Marie's life was not to be as happy or tranquil as royalists would have hoped. At the age of only five months, she lost her father when he was stabbed to death by a republican assassin as he left the opera one evening with his wife who was, already, two months pregnant as her husband bled to death in front of her. The Duke's death led to a backlash of anti-republican legislation and sentiment in France, with royalism in France losing its liberal base and becoming more and more dominated by conservatives of the far Right. When the old King died in 1824 and Louise-Marie's grandfather inherited the throne as King Charles X, he was determined to preside over a government with a policy of zero tolerance for compromise. Along with colonial expansion in Algeria and government support for the Industrial Revolution, Charles's government also curtailed the freedom of the press, limited the suffrage and promoted the Catholic religion so overzealously to the extent that one wit once quipped that it was a government for priests, by priests. Intent on atoning for the sins of his youth, Charles X apparently could not understand that the whole nation was not content for the government to insist they atone along with him. In 1830, the King was badly advised by those around him and betrayed by members of his own family, when he was swept off the throne in favour of his liberal cousin, Louis-Philippe. 

Louise-Marie, aged eleven, followed her poor grandfather into exile. She then lost her mother when Caroline bravely returned to France, determined to launch a counter-revolution and restore the crown to its rightful incumbent - her son, Henri. Caroline's attempt failed and she was placed under house arrest by Louis-Philippe's government. Locked up and isolated from friends or family, Princess Caroline fell in love with a handsome Italian nobleman, Count Lucchesi-Palli, whom she secretly married and had children with, much to the exiled Royal Family's fury.

Refusing to allow Henri or Louise-Marie to live with a mother they deemed so demonstrably unsuitable, the French Royal Family placed the children in alternative care. The real mother figure in the young Louise-Marie's life was not, therefore, the glamorous and unstable Caroline, but instead Caroline's former sister-in-law, Marie-Thérèse. The only surviving child of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, Aunt Marie-Thérèse had all of her late mother's love for family life and children, and her father's solid and dependable attitudes. From then, until the day she married at the age of twenty-five, Marie-Thérèse was the centre of Louise-Marie's world and she adored her aunt and guardian.

Married in Vienna to Ferdinando-Carlo, Prince of Lucca, Louise-Marie was destined to spend her whole life dodging the revolutions which intermittently rocked Europe and which had first begun in her homeland, thirty years before her birth. In 1848, three years after her marriage, her husband was briefly imprisoned when a wave of continent-wide unrest spread to north Italy. After his release, the Prince and Princess sought refuge with their young family in the United Kingdom, where Louise-Marie had spent much of her adolescence.

A year later, Ferdinando-Carlo and Louise-Marie returned to Parma, with their three young children - Margherita, Roberto and Alicia. Another son, Enrico, followed two years later. Then, tragically, a mere five years after they returned in triumph, Louise-Marie was to experience the same agony her mother had endured, when her beloved husband was stabbed to death by an unknown assailant. He died a day after the attack and Louise-Marie was forced to assume the burden of leading the government in the name of her 6 year-old son, Roberto, who had now succeeded as Duke of Parma.

In 1859, Louise-Marie's time as regent ended, when war and revolution once more entered Parma and she and her children were forced into exile again. They settled in Venice, where, exhausted at the age of forty-four, Louise-Marie, Dowager Duchess of Parma, passed away. Her body was taken to the Kostanjevica Monastery in Slovenia, where she was buried next to the other members of her family who had died in exile in the pretty local Church of the Annunciation of Our Lady. There, the body of the woman who was born at a time that had seemed like the high point of monarchism's triumph in Europe, but whose life had been constantly disrupted and devastated by its traumas, rests to this day.

Mater Dolorosa

In honour of Mother's Day, which occurs today in the United Kingdom, I thought I would write very briefly on one of the most vibrant cultural developments in medieval Christianity - the emergence of the cult of the Mother of Sorrows. Also known as Our Lady of Sorrows or Our Lady of the Seven Dolours, the veneration of the Virgin Mary in her guise as a sorrowing mother was first given its own feast day by a church council at Cologne in 1413, when it was decreed by the Church that the third Sunday after Easter should be set aside to honour Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows. The decision to inaugurate another Marianist festival was primarily a response to the recent emergence in Bohemia of Hussitism, which denied the importance or utility of venerating the Virgin, particularly in relation to remembering the Passion.

However, prior to the fifteenth century, the Mater Dolorosa had already been de facto venerated by many European Christians, particularly in the north of the continent, where outbreaks of the plague were both more frequent and more virulent. The earliest recorded ceremonies to honour Mary as Queen of Sorrow however took place in the early 1240s in Italy, within a small monastic community called the Order of the Servants of Mary, who adopted as the symbol of their order the image of a weeping Virgin Mary standing beneath the blood-stained Cross. In time, the Seven Sorrows of Mary were defined as the day when God spoke through the Prophet Simeon to her in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, her flight into Egypt in the wake of the slaughter of the Innocents in Bethlehem, the panic she felt at losing the Child Jesus during the Holy Family's pilgrimage to Jerusalem and then the final four were lifted from episodes in the Passion - seeing her Son carrying His Cross to Calvary, the Death of Jesus, Mary receiving the Body of Jesus into her arms and the burial of Jesus in the tomb provided for him by Saint Joseph of Arimathea. 

Marie-Antoinette's ballgown re-created

Via Tea at Trianon comes news of this Italian recreation of one of the gown's made for Queen Marie-Antoinette by her so-called "minister of fashion," Madame Rose Bertin, who was credited in the September 2006 edition of American Vogue with basically creating the concept of haute couture. The gown (above) was worn by the young queen during her period as the acknowledged leader of French high society in the 1770s. For a look at Marie-Antoinette's fashion sense, click here.

The Feast of Our Lady, Queen of the Angels

Today is the Feast of Our Lady, Queen of the Angels. In the great medieval epic, Dante's Divine Comedy, perhaps one of the finest works of European literature, in which the author takes an imagined journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, Dante and his dead love, Beatrice, reach the section of Heaven where the Virgin sits, surrounded by an angelic host singing of their love for "the Rose in which the Word Divine became incarnate."

Dramatised in Paradiso, Canto XXIII of the Divine Comedy, in Dante's presence, the angels sing: -

"I am Angelic Love, that circle round
The joy sublime which breathes from out the womb
That was the sanctuary of our Saviour;
And we shall circle, Lady of Heaven, while
Thou followest thy Son, and mak'st diviner
The sphere supreme, because thou enterest there."

Thus did the circulated melody
Seal itself up; and all the other lights
Were making to resound the name of Mary. ....

Thereafter they remained there in my sight,
"Regina coeli" singing with such sweetness,
That ne'er from me has the delight departed.

Although the Inferno section of the Divine Comedy is much more famous than those chronicling the author's imagined version of Purgatory and Paradise, it is definitely worth reading all three, if one has the chance. Dante's work still has the power to move and shock, in equal measure, not just because it captures the sheer depth and sophistication of medieval piety, which is all too often dismissed as being simplistic, intellectually-backward nonsense but also because in the midst of his fantastic writing - merging both theology and imagination - there is something still profoundly heartbreaking about the fact that when it came to picking a guide to take his autobiographical self through the splendours of Heaven, Dante chose the figure of his deceased love, Beatrice, a tragic declaration of how much he still missed her and how he hoped one day to be re-united with her.