Ferdinand II of Médicis

Ferdinand II of Médicis (1610 - 1670) is a large-duke of Tuscany. He was the son of Cosme II of Médicis and Marie Madeleine of Austria

Biography

Childhood and accession with the capacity

It became Orfèvre at only ten years and still remained for seven years under the supervision of his mother and her grandmother, Christine of Lorraine. The Tuscan , was then a poor country. Ferdinand, whose intelligence was limited but generous and cultivated, tried to raise finances of the large-ducat while placing his/her many brothers with its còtés with the government (the valorous Mathias, the cardinal Jean Charles and prince Léopold, true genius and patron of the family, the man with whom Florence owes most of the tables and drawings preserved in the galleries of the Palais Pitti and of the Museum of the Offices) but also while launching several initiaves and of research in the field of agronomy. In spite of that, he never managed to leave the country the spiral Peste - Famine (during these years, these two plagues made 9000 victims only with Florence, without counting the inhabitants of the countryside).

Ferdinand, Large duke

He did not have more success in policy. Having lost the Duchy of Urbin, to which it could aspire as a husband of the last heiress of the family Della Rovere, Victoria, married in 1634, it will also fail in her attempt to build a League between the Italian states (1635) in order to withdraw itself from alternate hegemonies of the French and Spaniards. Ferdinand did not have the character of its back grandfather Cosme Ier, and knew it very well, For this reason he preferred to increase his field by paying it itself. In 1649, it spent the considerable sum of 50.000 ecus in order to acquire of Spain the town of Pontremoli and to buy to the count Mario Sforza the county of Santa Fiora.

Ferdinand, the patron

The thing which interested it more and which gave him the most satisfaction was science. Raise Galileo, then of its disciples Torricelli and Viviani, it founded " the Academy of Experimentation of Médicis" in 1642, then protected the Academy from Cement created by his/her brother Léopold (1657), first European scientifque company with the experimental caratère (the currency being " to test and réessayer"). In this field, it is him which improved the invention of the thermometer and that of thermoscope, encouraged chemistry in the botanical gardens of Pisa. Lastly, impassioned Botanical and of Meteorology, it sought a practical application in the agriculture of the new technical training. Its political weakness will prevent it from saving Galileo of Holy Office, although it tested by all the means of defending it.

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