Academic literature on the topic 'Monaldeschi'

Queen Kristina of Sweden (1626-1689) is a person who has been widely studied during the years. She is known as the monarch who left the Swedish throne and the protestant faith in favour of the catholic Rome. Even though Kristina left her powerful position as queen of Sweden she never gave up her dignity as a sovereign.   My purpose with this study is to analyse historians and other scholars different research concerning Kristina’s notorious execution of Monaldesco in 1657. This event took place during her time as a guest on Fontainebleau, the French king´s castle. In my literature study regarding this event I will apply the famous Italian humanist Niccolò Machiavelli’s advice on how to be a capable prince. With this mentioned my essay is named:  A Valiant Lion and a Cunning Fox. A Study on the Execution of Monaldesco from Machiavelli’s Theory of the Prince.   The Machiavellian theory of the prince is very complex. The demands to become an able prince according to Machiavelli are almost impossible to reach. However, in my study it becomes clear that Kristina was capable enough to capture Fortune when Jules Mazarin gave her the opportunity to join him in an alliance with the aim to conquer Naples. On the other hand, her choice did not only provide her with profits, it also put her in a position of dependence, a position which Machiavelli considers to be problematic. Furthermore, the literature claims that Kristina tried to use the cunning of a fox, the problem was that Mazarin was even more cunning the she was. Later the plans of conquering Napels was exposed by Kristina’s crown equerry Gian Rinaldo Monaldesco. The penalty for this crime he had to pay with his life, she executed him in Galerie des Cerfs on Fontainebleau. As a result of Kristina’s actions Europe got disturbed and a lot of rumours got spread which damaged her reputation badly. Nevertheless, Kristina took full responsibility of the execution. Machiavelli agrees on the fact that betrayal should be punished but the negative consequences gave Kristina a very bad reputation, and Machiavelli emphasizes that a capable prince should avoid being hated. My conclusion is that Kristina proves some minor signs of herself as a capable prince according to Machiavelli. However it should be pointed out that the capability that Machiavelli emphasizes is almost impossible to achieve. The study has also shown that, in contrast to Machiavelli’s capable prince, according to literature Queen Kristina´s foremost goal was nothing but her own independence and freedom.

Founding member of a banking network related to the actual BNP Paribas Group, Meyer Joseph Cahen (1804-1881), adopted the “d’Anvers” when he settled in Paris in 1849. Born in Bonn, of an Ashkenazi family, he made his fortune in the Belgian city to which he associated his name, and he continued his career in France. Owner of Nainville’s castle (Essonne) and of the Petit Hôtel de Villars (Paris), he became a naturalized French citizen in 1865. The next year, he obtained the title of Count, bestowed upon him by the King of Italy Victor-Emmanuel II, thanks to the economic support he offered to the Italian Unification. Nineteen years later, King Humbert I surpassed his predecessor and raised Meyer Joseph’s eldest son, Édouard (1832-1894), to the status of Marquis of Torre Alfina. If his siblings – Emma (1833-1901), Louis (1837-1922), Raphaël (1841-1900) and Albert (1846-1903) – enrooted their pathways in the French capital, the eldest lived between Florence, Naples and Rome: he was one of the great investors involved in the urban renovation of the Italian capital, after the fall of the papacy. In France, as well as in Italy, art, and especially architecture, served to legitimize the recent nobility of a family that wished to express the fullness of its civil rights. As targets of the anti-Semitic press, the Cahen d’Anvers family experienced the consequences of the Dreyfus Affair and the horrors of the racial laws. Before the latter, they adopted what could be defined as a “top-down model of integration”. This thesis focuses on its mechanisms and development. After tracing the patriarch’s origins, it analyses the family’s matrimonial policies and it continues with an exploration of Cahen d’Anvers’ “choices” in the vast field of culture. In their salons, the readers will meet Guy de Maupassant, Paul Bourget, Marcel Proust and Gabriele D’Annunzio, as well as Auguste Renoir and Léon Bonnat. Twelve mansions offered a perfect stage for these intellectual gatherings. As a public manifestation of the family’s economic and social power, the historicist eclecticism of these properties aimed to represent the owners as a new phalanx of the old nobility. While Forge-Philippe’s manor (Wallonia), Gérardmer’s chalet (Vosges) and Villa della Selva (Umbria) expressed a certain openness to the twentieth century novelties, the three residences rented by the family (Hôtel du Plessis-Bellière, Paris; Palazzo Núñez-Torlonia, Rome; Château de la Jonchère, Yvelines) and the two properties of Meyer Joseph, as well as Rue de Bassano’s mansion (Paris) or the castles of Champs (Seine-et-Marne), Bergeries (Essonne) and Torre Alfina (Latium) dressed up their nineteenth century spaces with Ancien Régime motifs. Thanks to their historical knowledge and taste, the architects Destailleur, Giuseppe Partini and Eugène Ricard, as well as the landscapers Henri and Achille Duchêne, were able to bend the Middle Age, the Renaissance and the 18th century’s “grammars” to their patrons’ taste and ambitions.