Maria Maddalena de' Medici

This article is about the early 17th century person. For the late-16th/early-17th century person, see Archduchess Maria Maddalena of Austria. For late-15th/early-16th century person, see Maddalena de' Medici (1473–1528).

Maria Maddalena de' Medici
Born	(1600-06-29)29 June 1600 Pitti Palace, Florence
Died	Florence
Full name Maria Maddalena de' Medici
Father	Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany
Mother	Christina of Lorraine

Maria Maddalena de' Medici (29 June 1600 – 28 December 1633) was an Tuscan princess, the eighth daughter of Ferdinando I and Christina of Lorraine, making her the sister of Cosimo II.

Life

Born disfigured, she was christened aged nine. On 24 May 1621 she entered the Palazzo della Crocetta, attached to the Convento della Crocetta (Convent of the Little Cross, now the National Archaeological Museum), though she never took the monastic vows. On her death at only 33 she was buried there.

Maria Maddalena had difficulties climbing stairs. The rooms built for her at the monastery by the architect Giulio Parigi were connected by a series of raised passages above street level across which she could move without use of stairs and, above all, without any need to cross the street and expose herself to public gaze. Today four arches of one of these passages remain, one opposite the Ospedale degli Innocenti, one above via della Pergola, one above via Laura (to reach another monastery), and one into the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata (where, sitting in a small chamber at the end of the passage, she could watch the mass through a grate in the left wall of the nave). In the Palazzo della Crocetta was a similar, long elevated corridor, called the corridoio mediceo, which Maddalena used to move amongst the remaining first floor rooms. This corridor was reminiscent of the Vasariano.

Ancestry

Family of Maria Maddalena de' Medici

16. Giovanni de' Medici il Popolano               8. Giovanni dalle Bande Nere                       17. Caterina Sforza               4. Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany                             18. Jacopo Salviati               9. Maria Salviati                       19. Lucrezia de' Medici               2. Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany                                   20. Fadrique Alvarez de Toledo               10. Pedro Álvarez de Toledo                       21. Isabel de Zúñiga y Pimentel               5. Eleonora di Toledo                             22. Luis Pimentel y Pacheco               11. Maria Osorio Pimentel, Marchioness of Villafranca del Bierzo                       23. Juana Osorio y Bazán               1. Maria Maddalena de' Medici                                         24. Antoine, Duke of Lorraine               12. Francis I, Duke of Lorraine                       25. Renée of Bourbon-Montpensier               6. Charles III, Duke of Lorraine                             26. Christian II of Denmark               13. Christina of Denmark                       27. Isabella of Austria               3. Christina of Lorraine                                   28. Francis I of France               14. Henry II of France                       29. Claude of France               7. Claude of Valois                             30. Lorenzo II de' Medici, Duke of Urbino               15. Catherine de' Medici                       31. Madeleine de la Tour d'Auvergne