Giovanni de' Medici (cardinal)

Giovanni de' Medici
Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church
File:Lomi, Baccio (attr.) - Cardinale Giovanni di Cosimo I de' Medici, Arcivescovo di Pisa.jpg Giovanni de' Medici
Born	(1545-09-29)29 September 1545 Florence, Italy
Died	20 November 1562(1562-11-20) (aged 19) Livorno, Italy
Burial	Medici Chapel
House	House of Medici
Father	Cosimo I
Mother	Eleanor of Toledo
Religion	Roman Catholicism

Agnolo Bronzino, Portrait of Giovanni de' Medici (c. 1545), Uffizi, Florence.

Giovanni di Cosimo I de' Medici (29 September 1544 – 20 November 1562), also known as Giovanni de' Medici the Younger, was an Italian cardinal.

Early years

He was born in Florence, the second son of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Eleonora of Toledo. While his elder brother Francesco went on to a political and military career, Giovanni had reserved for him the ecclesiastical career.

He was the subject of two famous portraits by Agnolo Bronzino, one as an infant and another of some years later, together with Eleonora of Toledo (although the subject of the latter has been identified also as Francesco or Garzia).

After having been Archbishop of Pisa, he was created cardinal in Santa Maria in Domnica by Pope Pius IV in the consistory of 31 January 1560, aged only seventeen.

Death

Probably already suffering from tuberculosis, Giovanni died two years later in Livorno, from a malaria attack. His mother and his brother Garzia died of the latter illness a few days later.

Centuries after his death, a myth arose saying that his brother Garzia killed him, following a dispute in 1562. In turn, his father Cosimo, furious, killed Garzia with his own sword. However, modern exhumations showed no signs of violence on the bodies and found to have died together of malaria in 1562.

His father Cosimo had another son in 1563, who was called with the same name (he is best known as Don Giovanni de' Medici).

Ancestry

Family of Giovanni de' Medici (cardinal)

16. Pierfrancesco di Lorenzo de' Medici               8. Giovanni de' Medici il Popolano                       17. Laudomia Acciaiuoli               4. Giovanni dalle Bande Nere                             18. Galeazzo Maria Sforza               9. Caterina Sforza                       19. Lucrezia Landriani               2. Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany                                   20. Giovanni Salviati               10. Jacopo Salviati                       21. Maddalena Gondi               5. Maria Salviati                             22. Lorenzo de' Medici               11. Lucrezia de' Medici                       23. Clarice Orsini               1. Giovanni de' Medici                                         24. Garcia Álvarez de Toledo Duke of Alba               12. Fadrique Álvarez de Toledo                       25. María Enriquez de Quiñones y Toledo               6. Pedro Álvarez de Toledo                             26. Álvaro de Zuñiga y Leiva Duke of Béjar               13. Isabel de Zúñiga y Pimentel                       27. Leonor Pimentel               3. Eleonora di Toledo                                   28. Rodrigo Afonso Pimentel Duke of Benavente               14. Luis Pimentel y Pacheco Marquis of Villafranca del Bierzo                       29. María Pacheco               7. Maria Osorio Pimentel, Marchioness of Villafranca del Bierzo                             30. Pedro Alvarez Osorio Count of Lemos               15. Juana Osorio y Bazán                       31. María de Bazan