page_title: Eleonora di Garzia di Toledo
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Eleonora di Garzia di Toledo / Biography / Early life
caption_attribution_description: English: Pietro de' Medici. Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Don Pietro de' Medici (1554–1604) was a son of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Eleonora di Toledo. He married Eleonora di Garzia di Toledo, whom he strangled in 1576 for adultery.
context_page_description: Eleonora di Garzia di Toledo or Leonor Álvarez de Toledo Osorio, more often known as "Leonora" or "Dianora", was the daughter of García Álvarez de Toledo, 4th Marquis of Villafranca, Duke of Fernandina. Leonora was born in Florence, where she was brought up by Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and his wife Eleanor of Toledo, her aunt and namesake. Betrothed to their son Pietro at the age of 15, she blossomed under the wing of Pietro's older sister, the artistic patron Isabella, into a vivacious and witty beauty. Her marriage, like Isabella's, was not a success, and she followed her mentor's example of taking lovers. For this reason, Pietro had her brought in 1576 to the country retreat of Cafaggiolo, where he strangled her to death with a dog leash. Cosimo's successor, Francesco I, tacitly approved the murder, and Pietro was never brought to justice for it.
  Until recently, little was known of Leonora di Garzia di Toledo, and she was not identified as the sitter of several portraits of her. The facts of her life have emerged from the growing scholarship on Isabella de' Medici, with whom she has much in common.
context_section_description: Born at the Florentine court in March 1553, Leonora was the daughter of García Álvarez de Toledo y Osorio, Marquis of Villafranca del Bierzo and Duke of Fernandina, and Vittoria d'Ascanio Colonna.  Her father and mother were staying in Florence because García Álvarez had charge of the castles of Valdichiana in the region. When Vittoria Colonna died a few months later, Leonora was left in the care of her aunt Eleonora, the Duchess of Florence. Eleonora and Cosimo raised her lovingly at the Medici court, where she remained for the rest of her life, in effect a menina—a girl groomed for a life at court, in the Spanish tradition of courtly fostering.
  García Álvarez went on to become the Viceroy of Catalonia (1558–64) and the Viceroy of Sicily (1564–66) on behalf of Philip II of Spain and served as Philip's commander at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. He was the son of Pedro Álvarez de Toledo (1484–1553), the Spanish Viceroy of Naples. The family came from the grandee class of Spanish nobles, the highest in the land, which was often entrusted with viceroyal powers in Spanish and Habsburg territories; Toledo has been called "Christendom's wealthiest benefice". In 1539,  Pedro Alvarez de Toledo's daughter Eleonora had been married to the duke of Florence, Cosimo I de' Medici, as part of a process of legitimising the Medici ducal title, granted only in 1532, under Habsburg auspices. She went on to bear Cosimo 11 children, including the future grand dukes Francesco and Ferdinando, as well as Pietro and Isabella.
  After Eleonora died in 1562, Cosimo's daughter Isabella replaced her as the first lady of Florence. She acted as a surrogate consort and also took over the supervision of Leonora's upbringing. The red-headed Leonora, who possessed a natural charm, was popular in the Medici family. At the age of five, she was reported as being a comfort to Cosimo's second daughter Lucrezia, from whom she became inseparable, when Lucrezia was apart from her husband Alfonso d'Este. Lucrezia died in 1561, leaving Isabella as Cosimo's only surviving daughter; the duke was, however, extremely fond of Leonora, and treated her as his own daughter. He was charmed by her vivacity and physical vigour—she delighted in horsemanship and arms—though he occasionally gently reminded her to behave with more decorum. Owing to the close family and political ties between the House of Medici and the viceroyal family of  Toledo, a marriage was arranged between Leonora and Cosimo's son Pietro, with whom she had grown up and who was of a similar age. The couple were betrothed in 1568 when Leonora was 15, with the approval of Philip II of Spain. Garcia Álvarez de Toledo provided her with a dowry of 40,000 gold ducats. They were married at the Palazzo Vecchio in April 1571, and it was reported that Pietro had to be forced to consummate the union. On 10 February 1573, Leonora gave birth to a son, Cosimo ("Cosimino"), who was the sole male Medici heir in this generation until his death three years later, in August 1576, one month after his mother's death.
caption: Pietro de' Medici, the youngest and most disturbed of Cosimo I's children. Workshop of Agnolo Bronzino, 1560s.
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