Some historians, such as Christopher Hibbert, present two hypotheses as to Alessandro de Medici's ancestry: he was "rumoured to be Cardinal Giulio's son by a black slave or peasant woman from the Roman Campagna". Scipione Ammirato, the court historian of the medicean Grand Dukedom writes that ".some whose authority is credible and that have obtained this secret from penetralia servants, think he was son of Clement, born of a servant of the house when he was a knight of Saint John."Īlessandro's nickname "il Moro" is attributed to his relatively dark pigmentation and because Mauro (Maurice) was one of his Christian names. Others believed him to be the illegitimate son of Giulio de' Medici (later Pope Clement VII), but at the time that was a minority view. His assassination at the hands of distant cousin Lorenzaccio caused the title of Duke to pass to Cosimo I de Medici, from the family's junior branch.īorn in Florence, Alessandro was recognized by a plurality of his contemporaries as the only son of Lorenzo II de' Medici, grandson of Lorenzo de' Medici "the Magnificent". The first Medici to rule Florence as a hereditary monarch, Alessandro was also the last Medici from the senior line of the family to lead the city. Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, or Pope Clement VIIĪlessandro de' Medici (22 July 1510 – 6 January 1537 ), nicknamed "il Moro" due to his dark complexion, Duke of Penne and the first Duke of the Florentine Republic (from 1532), was ruler of Florence from 1530 to his death in 1537.
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