A review by cmucce01
Catherine de Medici by Leonie Frieda

5.0

Amazing biography of the Renaissance’s greatest Queen Smother. I admit I started reading this after watching Starz’s “The Serpent Queen” but found it just as entertaining and informative as anything by Alison Weir. I knew relatively little of the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre and the French wars of religion (limited primarily to the French film “La Reine Margot” starring the incredible Isabelle Adjani) but this book greatly expanded my knowledge. Catherine’s “humble” origins (a Medici heiress — loaded, but not royal) and her ridicule as a dirty Italian when she first comes to France, her husband’s humiliatingly public affair with Diane de Poitiers, and her pathetic children’s moral and physical weakness all read as struggles she had to overcome to be the political powerhouse that she was. Definitely recommend this book for anyone interested in Renaissance history or powerful queens!