Why read Portraits of the Queen Mother?

Book cover of Portraits of the Queen Mother: Polemics, Panegyrics, Letters

Book description

Catherine de Medicis was portrayed in her day as foreign usurper, loving queen and queen mother, patron of the arts, and Machiavellian murderer of Protestants. Leah L. Chang and Katherine Kong assemble a diverse array of scathing polemic and lofty praise, diplomatic reports, and Catherine's own letters, which together show…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Portraits of the Queen Mother as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Kathleen Wellman

Author

From her arrival as a fourteen-year-old bride to her death as queen mother fifty-five years later, Catherine de Medici was praised as a devoted wife and mother and able ruler but also condemned as a foreigner, a poisoner, and murderer of Protestants. This rare collection of primary sources translated into English allows readers to become familiar with the sources of such positive and negative assessments of this controversial queen. The letters included here, selected from her many volumes of correspondence, reveal her concerns as a mother and as a political figure.

Excerpts from Venetian ambassadors' gossipy reports bring to light…

From Kathleen's list on The best books on the power, sex, and influence of women in early modern France.