Eleanor of Toledo - Legacy

Legacy

Eleanor of Toledo died at Pisa in 1562. Since her death, historians have tended to overlook her importance to Florentine history, and today she is often thought of as just another Medici consort and lover of luxury. This is probably due to the numerous portraits painted of her, which always show extravagance of dress. Her funeral dress still survives and is today in the care of the Galleria del Costume in Palazzo Pitti, which she purchased in 1549 as a summer retreat, and which after her death became the principal home of the rulers of Tuscany. In the earlier part of her marriage the Medici lived in Florence's Via Larga at what is now the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi and later at the Palazzo Vecchio. The rebuilding of the Pitti Palace was only partially completed at the time of her death.

For centuries after her death the myth pervaded that her 16-year-old son Garcia had murdered his 19-year-old brother, Giovanni, following a dispute in 1562. Their father Cosimo I, it was said, then murdered Garcia with his own sword, and Eleanor, distraught, died a week later from grief. The truth, proven by modern day exhumations and forensic science, was that Eleanor and her sons, as the Medici family had always claimed, died together from malaria in 1562.