On the night of January 6, 1537, Alessandro de’ Medici, Duke of Florence, walked into a private meeting arranged by his own cousin and confidant. He never walked out. Lorenzino de’ Medici, a man Alessandro trusted, murdered him on the spot. The duke was just twenty-six years old, and he died without a legitimate heir.
His wife, Margaret of Austria, was only fourteen, and the marriage had produced no children. In a single night, the political order of Florence collapsed, and the duke’s young children—born of mistresses, unacknowledged by law, yet unmistakably Medici—were thrown into the storm that followed. Among them was a four-year-old girl named Giulia, whose life had begun in secrecy and would never fully escape it. Giulia Romola de’ Medici was born in Florence in 1535, the daughter of Alessandro de’ Medici and a noblewoman named Taddea Malaspina, of the ancient Malaspina family of Massa.
Alessandro had also fathered another daughter, Porzia, born in 1532 from the same relationship. Both girls were illegitimate, held no official titles, and yet their father acknowledged them openly and ensured they wanted for nothing. They were Medici, and that alone guaranteed them a place within the palace walls. But their father’s own origins were shrouded in mystery, and that mystery would follow his daughter for her entire life.
Alessandro de’ Medici was born in Florence in 1510. Official records listed his father as Lorenzo de’ Piero de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino, which linked him directly to the main Medici line. Many historians, however, argued that Alessandro was actually the illegitimate son of Giulio de’ Medici, the man who would later become Pope Clement VII. His mother was believed to have been a servant in the Medici household, a woman named Simonetta da Collevecchio.
The connection was so widely suspected that Alessandro was sometimes mockingly called “Alessandro Collevecchio” in insult. What was not disputed was the boy’s complexion. Alessandro was known as “Il Moro”—the Moor—because of his notably dark skin. This led to speculation that Simonetta was of African descent, or had strong African ancestry.
In a 1560 book, the French author Jean Vigneul claimed outright that Alessandro’s mother had been a Moorish slave. The claim was never proven, and it remains debated to this day. The true circumstances of Alessandro’s birth may never be known. What was clear was that Giulio de’ Medici, the future Pope Clement VII, treated the boy like a son.
He was lavish in his support and unusually protective. Giulio’s favoritism only fueled the rumors swirling through Florence. Alessandro received a privileged education, training in diplomacy and warfare, and lived among the city’s elite. Despite his illegitimacy, he was prepared for leadership.
In 1527, during the War of the League of Cognac, a major uprising drove the Medici family out of Florence. Alessandro fled and lived in exile for years. But in 1529, Pope Clement VII reached an agreement with Emperor Charles V to restore Medici rule. After a ten-month siege, Florence fell, and by 1531 the Medici were back in power—this time as true rulers.
Alessandro was named head of the Florentine state, and in 1532 his position was made official. Under a new constitution, he became the city’s first hereditary duke. His rise marked the end of the Florentine Republic and the beginning of Medici dynastic rule. As duke, Alessandro had a mixed reputation.
Supporters saw him as a protector of the poor, guided by common sense and a strong sense of justice. His critics, especially the exiles who had been driven out after the 1530 siege, painted a darker picture. They called him tyrannical, incompetent, and morally corrupt, saying he lived a lavish, dissolute life with numerous mistresses. In 1536, Emperor Charles V honored a political promise to Pope Clement VII by marrying his daughter Margaret of Austria to Alessandro.
It was a strategic alliance meant to solidify Alessandro’s position as Florence’s ruler and, ideally, to produce legitimate heirs. Yet despite the prestige of his new bride, Alessandro remained devoted to his longtime mistress, Taddea Malaspina. Like many rulers of the time, he viewed marriage as a duty of state, not of the heart. Just as his power seemed secure, events were already in motion that would bring his life to a sudden and violent end.
Alessandro was murdered in January 1537, and power in Florence shifted overnight. Giulia, at four years old, and her older sister Porzia were suddenly orphans in a political storm. Alessandro’s young son, also named Giulio, was the duke’s only male child, yet he was passed over as successor. Instead, Cosimo de’ Medici, a teenager from the family’s junior branch, was elected the new Duke of Florence.
Cosimo I pledged to care for the orphaned children of his predecessor, and at least outwardly he kept that promise. Young Giulia was sent to the Villa di Castello, a serene family estate in the hills just outside Florence. She came under the watchful eye of Cosimo’s mother, Maria Salviati, a devout and commanding woman of deep influence. Some might have viewed the relocation as exile, but Giulia was not alone.
She shared both her home and her bedroom with Bia de’ Medici, Cosimo’s own illegitimate daughter and firstborn child. Just two years apart in age, the two girls grew up more like sisters than cousins, their bond filling Castello with warm, playful energy. Maria Salviati watched over the girls with diligence, especially during a terrifying bout of fever in February 1542. Giulia, then about seven, survived the illness.
But Bia, only five or six years old, did not. Her death marked a somber chapter in the nursery’s history. She was deeply mourned by Giulia, by her grandmother Maria, and above all by her father, Cosimo. As Giulia grew, she became fully integrated into court life.
Despite being the child of the previous duke, her paternity was not seen as a disadvantage. Her descent from the main Medici line was honored—her father’s assassination was even compared to that of Julius Caesar by Brutus. Giulia displayed great pride in her lineage and carried herself with notable self-assurance. She received a comprehensive education, learning refined manners, the arts, and languages befitting a noblewoman.
Though illegitimate, she was treated as a member of the family. Great care was given to her appearance and status. On one occasion, when Giulia was about twelve or thirteen, Cosimo’s wife, Eleonora di Toledo, erupted in fury because Giulia’s riding cloak had not been made properly. It was the wrong length and lacked the ornamentation Eleonora had ordered.
The outburst showed how closely the women of the Medici court watched over the girl—and how much was expected of her presentation. By the time she grew into a young lady, many court observers noted that Giulia resembled her father, Alessandro. She shared his strong features and curly hair. Despite having a darker skin tone than most of the ladies of the court, and despite the speculation about her African heritage, many deemed her beautiful.
It was in those years that Cosimo began evaluating potential marriage prospects for her. In 1550, when Giulia was about fifteen, Cosimo arranged her first marriage. Her husband was to be Francesco Cantelmo, Duke of Popoli, a nobleman of high rank. Her dowry was enormous, worth the equivalent of tens of millions of dollars today.
The marriage marked Giulia’s formal entry into aristocratic society. She was no longer just a ward of the Medici court. She was a duchess in her own right. Five years later, in 1555, tragedy returned.
Francesco Cantelmo died, and Giulia was left a widow in her early twenties. In her grief, she commissioned a portrait by Alessandro Allori, one of Florence’s great artists. In the painting, Giulia appears dignified, sorrowful, and proud. Next to her is an elaborately carved chair with a sloping arm, and art historians have offered a wide range of interpretations of what it represents.
Some believe it shows a steep terrain being climbed by Hercules. Others say it symbolizes La Verna, a sacred Catholic site associated with St. Francis of Assisi. A wide range of other theories have been proposed as well.
Most agree, however, that the painting was Giulia’s response to criticism of her grandmother’s North African descent and the old rumors about her father’s mother being a servant from Collevecchio. Yet some art historians have come forward to claim that the portrait isn’t even of Giulia at all. During her widowhood, Giulia spent considerable time at the Augustinian convent of San Clemente in Florence. Her half-sister Porzia served as the abbess there, and Giulia supported the convent financially.
She also patronized other Augustinian institutions, devoting herself to acts of devotion and charity during those difficult years. In 1559, she married again, this time to Bernardetto de’ Medici, a cousin of Cosimo I. A year later, she gave birth to a son, whom she named Alessandro in honor of her father’s memory. In the early years of their marriage, Giulia and Bernardetto entertained lavishly and engaged in diplomatic affairs.
But life in Florence was not without conflict. Three years after the death of his wife, Eleonora di Toledo, the forty-six-year-old Grand Duke Cosimo I took a much younger mistress, Eleonora degli Albizi, then about twenty-three. Their relationship produced two children: a daughter born in 1566 who died in infancy, and a son, Giovanni, born the following year and later legitimized by his father. According to court gossip, Giulia reportedly demanded to be treated as an equal to the new mistress—a bold stance toward a woman already secretly scorned by many at court.
The attitude strained Giulia’s once close relationship with Cosimo. Though they later reconciled, things were never quite the same. Whatever passion Cosimo had felt for young Eleonora faded quickly, and in 1567 she was forced into marrying a dishonored nobleman. That same year, 1567, Giulia and her husband relocated to Naples, where they fought for and secured the title to the lands of the principality of Ottaviano.
In Naples, Giulia’s influence continued. She managed estates, patronized religious institutions, and secured her family’s future. Her descendants through her son Alessandro held the title of Princes of Ottaviano, a noble line that persists into the modern era. Even as Giulia cemented her place in history, however, she was slowly being erased from it.
For centuries, she was painted out of art that once celebrated her. One of the most striking examples is a painting by Pontormo of Maria Salviati with a child. For hundreds of years, viewers saw only Maria. Then, in 1937, a restoration revealed that a child had been painted out of the canvas.
That child, most now agree, is Giulia de’ Medici. In the painting she has an anxious expression, keeping close to Maria’s side, and her distinctive features resemble her father, Alessandro. The restored painting is believed by many to be one of the first European portraits of a girl of African and European ancestry. Not everyone agrees.
Initially, most claimed the child was Cosimo I. Others argue that it is actually Bia de’ Medici, noting that Giulia and Maria would not have been close enough to warrant such a tender portrait. Whatever the truth of the painting, the debate only deepens the mystery that surrounded Giulia from birth. Her husband passed away before her, not long after the year 1576, in Naples.
Giulia de’ Medici herself died in 1588, aged fifty-two or fifty-three. Few historical records detail her final years, but her life had been interwoven with the fortunes and intrigues of one of Europe’s most powerful dynasties. She was survived by her son, Alessandro, who became Lord of Ottaviano and general of the Papal States. His descendants later laid claim to the title of Grand Duke of Tuscany after the extinction of the main Medici line in 1737, though their efforts were ultimately unsuccessful.
Giulia’s story remains that of a girl born into secrecy and scandal, raised in the shadow of a murdered father, married for politics, widowed young, and forced to carve out her own place in a world that never quite knew what to make of her. She was remembered, then forgotten, then found again—hidden in a portrait, waiting to be recognized.
