|
|
Article: Catherine de Medici.(Book Review)
- Article from:
- Reviewer's Bookwatch
- Article date:
- May 1, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Midwest Book Review. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
Catherine de Medici
Leonie Frieda
Phoenix
ISBN: 0753820390 A$24.95 512 pages
A "merchant's daughter"; an Italian duchess without a duchy; a "barren wife"; an "eclipsed consort". Caterina Maria Romula de Medici was called all of these things but she was a most powerful and influential woman, Queen of France for eleven years, and Queen Mother, regent and de facto ruler for thirty more. She was one of the "Monstrous Regiment of Women" against whom John Knox fulminated in the sixteenth century. And, because of her involvement in the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre in Paris, she came to be know as 'The Maggot from Italy's tomb', 'The ...