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Ferdinando II
(1610 - 1670) Italy

Medici's arms
Ferdinand II
Medici's arms

5th Grand Duke of Tuscany

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Not great events of note marked Ferdinando II's reign. He practised the only political strategy at a time when a regional state such as Tuscany had become too small to face up to the great nation-states of Europe.

Ferdinand IIFrom a sexual point of view, the sovereign did his duties: in 1635 he married his cousin Vittoria della Rovere and produced two sons. Otherwise his preferences went to men, and were well known at the time.

On one winter evening, his mother brought to Ferdinando a list of sodomites whom she thought ought to be punished burning them on the stake. Ferdinando objected that the list was incomplete, wrote his own name on it, then burned the paper into the fireplace and said: "They are hereby burned just as you condemned them".

Marital relations with his wife were interrupted when she once entred Ferdinando's bedroom unannounced and found him making love to his page, Bruto della Molara. When Vittoria tried to punish her husband by sulking, he reacted by breaking off all sexual relations with her (for about 18 years). It is noteworthy that Ferdinando and Bruo had a long-term relationship that lasted until Bruto left his service as a page only at age of 36.

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