page_title: Robert Dudley (explorer)
section_title: In Italy
hierarchical_section_title: Robert Dudley (explorer) / In Italy
context_page_description: Sir Robert Dudley was an English explorer and cartographer. In 1594, he led an expedition to the West Indies, of which he wrote an account. The illegitimate son of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, he inherited the bulk of the Earl's estate in accordance with his father's will, including Kenilworth Castle. In 1603–1605, he tried unsuccessfully to establish his legitimacy in court. After that he left England forever, finding a new existence in the service of the grand dukes of Tuscany. There, he worked as an engineer and shipbuilder, and designed and published Dell'Arcano del Mare, the first maritime atlas to cover the whole world. He was also a skilled navigator and mathematician. In Italy, he styled himself "Earl of Warwick and Leicester", as well as "Duke of Northumberland", a title recognized by Emperor Ferdinand II.
context_section_description: Dudley left England in July 1605, by Calais. His lover and cousin Elizabeth Southwell accompanied him, disguised as a page. She was a daughter of Sir Robert Southwell and Lady Elizabeth Howard, who was a granddaughter of Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham, Dudley's uncle. The couple declared that they had converted to Catholicism.
  Dudley married Elizabeth Southwell in Lyon in 1606, after they had received a papal dispensation because they were blood relatives, and they first settled in Florence. In English law, this marriage was bigamous as he was still married to Lady Alice (a marriage not recognised by the Pope as it had taken place in the Church of England). He began to use his father's title of Earl of Leicester and his uncle's title of Earl of Warwick.
  Dudley designed and built warships for the arsenal of Livorno and became a naval advisor to Ferdinand I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, of the Medici family. He received an annuity of 2,000 ducats. In 1608, Dudley convinced the Duke to send the privateer galleon Santa Lucia Buonaventura to Guiana and northern Brazil in the only tentative of Italian colonization in the Americas, known as the Thornton expedition.
caption: Archduchess Maria Magdalena of Austria, one of Dudley's Medici patrons
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