Carlo di Cosimo de' Medici (1428 or 1430 – 29 May 1492) was an Italian
priest. A member of the powerful
Medici family, he became a senior clergyman and collector.
Early life
Born in
Florence, he was the
illegitimate son of
Cosimo de' Medici (the Elder) and a
slave-woman named Maddalena, who was said to have been purchased in
Venice.[a] It is widely accepted that Maddalena was a
Circassian,[1][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] as hinted by Carlo's "intense blue eyes" and other "marked Circassian features" as well.[22] However, it has been once suggested [by whom?] that his mother might have been a black African, because of the apparently dusky skin depicted in Mantegna's portrait of Carlo, which however could also be due to aging of the pigments or other similar causes.[23]
Career
His father directed him to take on a religious life. After becoming
canon of the cathedral at Florence in 1450, he was appointed
rector of
Pieve di Santa Maria (Dicomano) in
Mugello and the Pieve of San Donato di Calenzano.[23]
He became
Abbot of
San Salvatore at
Vaiano, outside
Prato. He was also Papal tax collector and nuncio in Tuscany. Carlo was dean of
Prato as early as 1460.[23] A cultured man, he collected medallions.[23] He died in Florence in 1492.
Portrayals
Depiction of Carlo in Filippo Lippi's Funeral of St. Stephen
In the
historical fantasy series Da Vinci's Demons, Carlo was played by actor
Ray Fearon. He is depicted as a missionary whom the cruelty of the world has made doubt the Church and its message.
He appears in seasons two and three of Medici, played by Callum Blake. His mother is played by
Sarah Felberbaum in the first season.
Notes
^It has been suggested that Carlo's Circassian mother, who later took the name of Maddalena, was 22 years old when she was bought allegedly by Cosimo de' Medici's agent from Milan, Giovanni Portinari (c.1363–1436), at the
Rialto, Venice in the summer of 1427.[1][2][3][4][5][6] Note that since the late 13th century, the Venetian and Genoese merchants and consuls established trade outposts on the Black Sea's eastern coast;[7][8] brought the Roman Catholic Church to Circassia;[9] and often concluded trade agreements with different representatives of Adyghe nobility.[citation needed] These Italian traders were also actively engaged in the trade of
Circassian beauties,[10] selling Adyghe and Abkhazian slaves in the cities of Genoa and Venice.[11] Similar to Carlo,
Zacharias de' Ghisolfi, the ruler of
Matrega (an ancient town in present-day
Krasnodar Krai, Russia), was the product of a Circassian-Genoese union.[12] Additionally, the Genoese traveler
Giorgio Interiano's work La vita et sito de' Zichi, chiamiti Ciarcassi: historia notabile was among the first Italian accounts on the life and customs of Adyghes.
References
^
abcBargellini, Piero[in Italian] (1980). Storia di una grande famiglia: i Medici [History of a Grand Family: The Medici] (in Italian). Florence: Casa Editrice Bonechi. p. 63.
^Collison-Morley, Lacy (1936). The Early Medici. Dutton. p. 65.
^Della Torre, Renato (1980). I Medici: vita e vicende familiari [The Medici: Life and Family Matters] (in Italian). L. Pugliese. p. 30.
^Martinelli, Maurizio (1992). Al tempo di Lorenzo: viaggio nella Firenze dei Medici dal Palazzo di Via Larga al contado e nella Toscana del'400. Casa Editrice FMG. p. 25.
^de Marigny, Edouard Taitbout (1837). Three voyages in the Black Sea to the Coast of Circassia: Including Descriptions of the Ports, and the Importance of Their Trade: With Sketches of the Manners, Customs, Religion, &c. &c. of the Circassians. J. Murrat. p. 23.
^Minahan, James B. (2000). One Europe, Many Nations: A Historical Dictionary of European National Groups. Greenwood Press. p. 175.
^Besleney, Zeynel Abidin (2014). The Circassian Diaspora in Turkey: A Political History. Routledge. p. 37.
^Betrozov, Ruslan (2009). The Ethnic History of the Circassians. p. 202.
^Stanziani, Alessandro (2014). Bondage: Labor and Rights in Eurasia from the Sixteenth to the Early Twentieth Centuries. Berghahn Books. p. 76.
^Richmond, Walter (2008). The Northwest Caucasus: Past, Present, Future. Routledge.
^Hare, Christopher (2008). The Most Illustrious Ladies of the Italian Renaissance. Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 33.
^Cesati, Franco (1999). The Medici: Story of a European dynasty. Mandragora. p. 28.
^Tavole sincrone e genealogiche distoria italiana dal 306 al 1870 [Synchronous Genealogical Tables of Italian History from 306 to 1870] (in Italian). New Jersey: Princeton University Press. 2009 [First published 1875]. p. 62.