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377_1 | Early life
Bigot was born at Bordeaux into a family that had attained nobility. He was the son of Louis-Amable Bigot (1663-1743), Conseilleur du Roi, Counsellor to the Parliament at Bordeaux and Receiver General to the King; by his wife, Marguerite de Lombard (1682-1766), daughter of Joseph de Lombard, Baron du Cubzagués, Commissioner of the Marine at Guyenne and a representative of an old and powerful Guyenne family. His paternal grandfather had become rich from his commercial activities; his father had a successful legal career and held several important government positions. Bigot was to receive, as would befit a gentleman's son, "a good education which included legal studies." Nothing is known for certain of Bigot's education, but historians believed he took a few courses in law at the Faculté de Droit in Bordeaux. |
377_2 | In 1723, at the age of twenty, when legal studies were normally completed, he used his influence within the French Royal Court to join "the commissary of the marine" as a chief scrivener. He served as a scrivener until 1728, when he was made a commissary. He became chief scrivener in 1729, and resident commissary of the Navy at Rochefort in 1732, at the age of 29. Rochefort was a port that saw many fleets kitted out and made ready for their voyages to the New World. This would be the last post that Bigot would hold in France for some time. |
377_3 | As a young man in France, Bigot had an inordinate love for the gaming tables. The pressure he experienced from both his superiors and his creditors led him to accept a post as the financial commissary of the promising Acadian stronghold, Louisbourg. Another reason why he decided to accept this position, was because the Secretary of State of the Navy, the Count of Maurepas, had explained to him that "an intendancy in the ports of France cannot be expected if one has not served in the colonies." This appointment, about which he was not too happy, became effective on 1 May 1739. He arrived at Louisbourg on the 9 September having come out on the same ship as the newly appointed governor, Isaac-Louis de Forant. |
377_4 | Louisbourg
Bigot wanted to impress his superiors in France. Thus, he began to attend to every aspect of the commissary's duties. He reorganized the bookkeeping and personally supervised operations in detail. In addition, Bigot avoided the conflicts with the governor that had marked the administrations of his predecessors. |
377_5 | After Forant died in May 1740, Bigot befriended François Du Pont Duvivier and Louis Du Pont Duchambon, who were members of the pre-eminent military family in the colony. This friendship was marked by free use of patronage to the Du Pont family, who were beneficiaries of much of it. Payouts, sometimes amounting to thousands of livres, were made to this one family for things such as providing Bigot with boats to carry him about the island, even though the financial commissary had already been granted 1,200 livres annually to defray his transportation costs. This money came at the Crown's expense. Bigot was known for stealing money from the coffers of New France, as well as hiring out the King's workers and pocketing the money. |
377_6 | By 1744, we see Bigot was an active central figure in the paying business of outfitting and supplying privateers. Preying on the ships of New England was an occupation that involved any number of Frenchmen located at Louisbourg, from the highest in the administration to the lowest of deck hands. In this business, Bigot, as it happened, was a keen supporter of the Du Pont brothers. For example, when Bigot was in partnership with Duvivier and Duquesnel and with Duvivier's brother Michel Du Pont de Gourville, "he held a quarter interest in the Saint-Charles, the total cost of which was 8,850 livres, and Bigot obtained another quarter interest in a larger vessel, the Brador, acquired and fitted out for 34,590 livres." |
377_7 | Also in 1744, Bigot found himself dealing with a mutiny at the Louisbourg garrison. The mutiny was quelled, apparently peacefully, with an amnesty. Bigot was not in charge of dealing with the uprising, and indeed it is unclear how he was involved, but as the official who controlled the finances, it seems likely that his rôle in ending the crisis was a key one. |
377_8 | Maintaining supply links was a problem that Bigot, as financial commissary, had to deal with. However, supply had been a persistent problem for his predecessor, Le Normant. Moreover, between 1741 and 1743, Canada endured three consecutive crop failures. Sometimes supplies were also threatened by various events in Europe and North America. Bigot had no more success in solving the problems than Le Normant. Nevertheless, Intendant Gilles Hocquart asked Bigot for help. Although it was unorthodox, Bigot had no compunction about sending an agent, François du Pont Duvivier, to New England to secure fish, other foodstuffs and other goods from suppliers there when supplies from France or other French possessions seemed unreliable. Bigot was known for keeping the food supply at Louisbourg well stocked, even if he was dealing with France's foes. Indeed, the supply was threatened at one point with the outbreak of hostilities. New England was, of course, still ruled by the British in those days. |
377_9 | When the crisis in Québec finally died down, Bigot ended up having enough food and fish to last the colony right through the winter. |
377_10 | As a hedge against the threat of further crop failures, Bigot considered a variety of measures. In 1739, there was a proposal to build a warehouse that would store extra food in case of these crop failures. Bigot brought it up again a few years later. Furthermore, he also wanted to practise agriculture in the areas of Île Royale that were potentially suitable, or on Île Saint-Jean (Prince Edward Island), where the land appeared to him to be fertile. Nevertheless, Bigot never actually did find a permanent solution to this problem. Yet, the population never went hungry. |
377_11 | Before the Siege of Louisbourg, Bigot warned Maurepas that an attack by the British was forthcoming. His warning was quite justifiable, for in April 1745, warships under Commodore Peter Warren instituted a blockade against Louisbourg. On 11 May 1745, American provincial troops commanded by William Pepperrell landed unopposed at Pointe Platte (Simon Point), 1.6 km west of Louisbourg. Unfortunately, on 26 May 1745 a unanimous decision was made at the war council that capitulation was the only option. Bigot returned to France on the Launceston, arriving at Belle-Île on 15 July 1745. |
377_12 | Duc d'Anville expedition |
377_13 | After Louisbourg surrendered to the British, François Bigot returned to France only to find his hopes for a posting there dashed. It had been decided that Louisbourg along with the rest of Acadia was to be recaptured by a large expedition commanded by the duc d'Anville. Bigot was appointed commissary general for what became known as the Duc d'Anville expedition and sent to Rochefort to look after the garrison, and to outfit the invasion force destined, it was hoped, to win back some lost glory. This would be no easy task. He had to prepare about 1,100,000 rations of food for the mission. Bigot sailed with the expedition when it finally departed on 22 June 1746. The expedition was beset by storms and lost ships to British capture before it arrived at Chebucto, later to become Halifax, Nova Scotia. Illness devastated the soldiers and sailors of the fleet at Chebucto. Duc d'Anville died and there were rapid changes in command. Louisbourg could not be retaken and only a meager and |
377_14 | unsuccessful siege of Annapolis Royal was mounted. Bigot watched as the whole undertaking that he had prepared with such effort unravelled. He, unlike many others, escaped from it with his life, if not all his belongings, back to France, but not before the ship that he was sailing on was wrecked on a shoal off Port-Louis. |
377_15 | This latest débâcle had its attendant consequences in France, and although Bigot was never actually prosecuted for any perceived failing on his part, he did spend the better part of the next two years endlessly writing reports about the failures. He came through the ordeal with his reputation intact, however. |
377_16 | Intendant of New France
Bigot was eventually sent to New France on 26 August 1748 to become the Intendant, much as it displeased him, for he had no wish to take up such an office. As the Intendant of New France, Bigot's tasks were to direct trade, finance, industry, food supplies, prices, policing, and other matters. His fundamental duty was to assist the Governor in the tasks of imperial expansion. Bigot showed much greater ability at one of the Intendant's traditional tasks, that of maintaining food supplies. Although his record was stained by a greedy attention to personal profit, Bigot fed the forces and the populace better than might have been expected in the hungry winters of 1751–1752, 1756–1757, and 1757–1758. |
377_17 | The growing need to control the food supply was reflected in Bigot's many regulations for the distribution and pricing of grain, flour, and bread. History shows that "authorities managing food supplies, however vigorously and successfully, are usually seen as corrupt, arrogant, and ineffectual." Hence, the word "Tyranny" springs to mind when reading the list of Bigot's decrees such as "directing people's movements and behaviour in detail, prescribing severe punishments for offenders, and relying in criminal cases on the stocks, the gibbet, the execution block and the tortures of the boot." Nevertheless, tyranny of this type was standard French practice. |
377_18 | Furthermore, many of Bigot's laws reflected a paternal effort to save the people of an unsettled frontier society from their own foolishness and lack of civic sense. Even more than previous intendants, he tried to prevent people from firing guns in towns, fighting in church doorways, dumping rubbish in streets and harbours and letting their livestock wander about unattended in the streets. He paved and maintained the streets of Québec with the proceeds of a tax of 30 or 40 livres a year on tavern-keepers, and tried to regulate traffic. Indeed, his authoritarian zeal went so far that Rouillé and other ministers advised him "to leave more of the policing work to the courts." But it was not in Bigot's nature to leave things to courts for he was, after all, an 18th-century naval officer attempting to run the colony as he might have run the naval installations at Brest or Rochefort, where he would rather have been. |
377_19 | Amid accusations of fraud and favouritism, Bigot was recalled to France in 1754 to answer the charges. The next year, however, he was sent back to New France.
For François Bigot, a posting to Québec was a kind of exile like a posting to any other remote bastion of the empire and he had to endure it for 12 years. Thus, it is surprising how well he performed his job as the Intendant of New France. |
377_20 | L'Affaire du Canada |
377_21 | The fraud of which Bigot was accused was not based upon mere forgery or underhanded ways of misusing funds; it was a system of private enterprise on a grand scale with the collaboration of most of the other colonial officials and many army officers and merchants working under the terms of personal understandings or even formal companies. This sort of corruption was a part of the political culture in Bourbon France, a way of life inevitably promoted by authoritarian governments and not changed until after the French Revolution, when new standards of honesty and new methods of control to enforce them were gradually imposed. Furthermore, Bigot's system of corruption was merely part of a viceregal court which he set up at Québec and which was essentially modelled on the royal court at Versailles: the magnificent social life with parties and lovely dinners in the midst of a wretchedly poor populace, as well as the preferment, employments, contracts, and business opportunities shared out |
377_22 | among these tightly knit circles. |
377_23 | The main difference between Bigot and the previous Canadian intendants was that his opportunities for enrichment were much greater at a time when more money was being spent in Canada than ever before. Bigot tried to get involved in every business and always asked for a percentage out of it. As such, while Bigot and dozens of officials and officers in Canada were making private fortunes, "the Canadian populace was suffering from inflated prices, food shortages, and occasional severe famines." As a result, a serious economic crisis developed in which prices rose by 1759 to perhaps "eight times their pre-war level, and in the same year goods in Canada were estimated to cost about seven times more than in France." Various reports of Bigot's commerce and corruption began to reach Versailles soon afterwards. |
377_24 | Unfortunately, the inflation dramatically increased government expenses in Canada, and this expansion in turn increased the financial strain. In 1750 the colony cost the Crown a little more than "two million livres, in 1754 the cost more than doubled, and in a letter of 15 April 1759 the intendant reckoned that the bills of exchange for that year would amount to over 30 millions." Considering that Bigot was spending less than the aforementioned before the war, one might imagine why the enormous demands of the later war years forced the ministry to investigate and then to prosecute the intendant whom they held responsible. Thus, it was big bills rather than tales of corruption, which brought the official wrath down on Bigot's head.
During the Seven Years' War, government expenditures for Canada rose fivefold in four years, from 1755 to 1759. François Bigot and some of his associates, notably David Gradis, were accused of having stolen a great deal of it. |
377_25 | Fall of New France and consequences for Bigot
François Bigot is often seen as a man of marked mercenary tendencies. It was noted in his youth that he was rather fonder of gambling than most men, and superiors in the Navy even upbraided him for it. He was even later blamed for New France's loss to the British Empire during the Seven Years' War; In the battle for Quebec City, once the British had finally committed to their assault from the Plains of Abraham, just west of the city, Commander Montcalm requested all twenty-five guns [horse drawn artillery] available for deployment, that were positioned in Beaufort Works, east of the Quebec City. Governor Vaudreuil only released three; against the single (one) field piece that Wolf’s artillerymen had managed to disassemble and drag up the escarpment. |
377_26 | Francois Bigot the Intendant of New France had made a habit of renting the artillery unit's horses out to harvesting farmers and the like, for his personal profit, and thus they were not available to be harnessed in front of the guns and moved with all speed west of Quebec City, to engage the British. Arguably, the battle could have been a French victory, had the guns been available to Montcalm.
History records that France freely agreed at the peace negotiations to allow the British to keep New France in exchange for Guadeloupe. Nevertheless, France, seeking a scapegoat for its defeat in North America, obliged Bigot and his friends in a trial that became known as the "Canada Affair" to make good the sum of money that they had supposedly stolen. |
377_27 | When the Seven Years' War began to go badly for France in 1757, the ruling faction of the Duc de Choiseul began to make changes and to look for scapegoats. It was fatally easy for the government to link Bigot's evident corruption with the inflation in Canada. By showing how the corruption and inflation were cause and effect, the Crown came up with an excuse for suspending payments on the Canadian bills of exchange. In view of the defeat at the Plains of Abraham it indeed seemed necessary to suspend payments, which might otherwise end up in the enemy's pockets. The crown was thus able to hide its own expected bankruptcy with a politically and morally necessary suspension of payments. By association, Bigot and the other officials from Canada were soon made to serve as scapegoats for the military and naval disasters as well as the financial ones. On 17 November 1761, Bigot and those associated, including his former business associates Cadet and Péan were arrested. Their trial ensued, |
377_28 | which ended with the judgement of 10 December 1763. Bigot's sentence was exile and the confiscation of all his property; heavy fines were imposed on all the convicted men. |
377_29 | Shortly after judgement was delivered on 10 December 1763, Bigot left for Switzerland. He changed his name to François Bar (de Barr), which was his brother-in-law's name, the Sieur de Barre (Bar). He stayed for some time at Fribourg and then went to Neuchâtel. On 18 March 1765 he secured permission to take up residence there, where he would live until his dying day.
François Bigot died on 12 January 1778 at Neuchâtel; he was buried in the little Catholic church of Saint-Martin-L'Évêque in Cressier, a village nearby, as he had requested in his will: "I desire that my body be buried in the cemetery at Cressier without any pomp, just as the poorest person in the parish would be." |
377_30 | No portrait of François Bigot is known to exist. He is sometimes represented by a wood-engraving made in 1855 by the French printmaker Charles Tamisier. The ruins of his residence and storehouse at Louisbourg was excavated and reconstructed in the 1960s by the Canadian Park Service and now forms a prominent museum component of the reconstructed Fortress Louisbourg national historic site which explores Bigot's role in the colony.
See also
Angélique des Méloizes referred to as the madame de Pompadour of François Bigot .
References
External links
Annotated biography of François Bigot
From the Warpath to the Plains of Abraham (Virtual Exhibition)
Intendants of New France
French people of the French and Indian War
1703 births
1778 deaths
People of New France |
378_0 | HMS Duke of York was a battleship of the Royal Navy. Laid down in May 1937, the ship was constructed by John Brown and Company at Clydebank, Scotland, and commissioned into the Royal Navy on 4 November 1941, subsequently seeing combat service during the Second World War.
In mid-December 1941, Duke of York transported Prime Minister Winston Churchill to the United States to meet President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The journey through the seas were rough even for the North Atlantic, Churchill wrote to his wife "Being in a ship in such weather as this is like being in a prison, with the extra chance of being drowned." Between March and September 1942 Duke of York was involved with convoy escort duties, including as flagship of the Heavy Covering Force of Convoy PQ-17, but in October she was dispatched to Gibraltar where she became the flagship of Force H. |
378_1 | In October 1942, Duke of York was involved in the Allied invasion of North Africa, but saw little action as her role only required her to protect the accompanying aircraft carriers. Duke of York stopped the Portuguese vessel Gil Eannes on 1 November 1942 and a commando arrested Gastão de Freitas Ferraz. The British had picked up radio traffic indicating naval espionage, possibly compromising the secrecy of the upcoming Operation Torch.
After Operation Torch, Duke of York was involved in Operations Camera and Governor, which were diversionary operations designed to draw the Germans' attention away from Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily. On 4 October, Duke of York operated with her sister ship in covering a force of Allied cruisers and destroyers and the American carrier , during Operation Leader, which raided German shipping off Norway. The attack sank four merchant ships and badly damaged a further seven. |
378_2 | On 26 December 1943 Duke of York was part of a task force which encountered the off the North Cape of Norway. During the engagement that followed, Scharnhorst hit Duke of York twice with little effect, but was herself hit by several of Duke of Yorks 14-inch shells, silencing one of her turrets and hitting a boiler room. After temporarily escaping from Duke of Yorks heavy fire, Scharnhorst was struck several times by torpedoes, allowing Duke of York to again open fire, contributing to the eventual sinking of Scharnhorst after a running action lasting ten-and-a-half hours.
In 1945, Duke of York was assigned to the British Pacific Fleet as its flagship, but suffered mechanical problems in Malta which prevented her arriving in time to see any action before Japan surrendered.
After the war, Duke of York remained active until she was laid up in November 1951. She was eventually scrapped in 1957. |
378_3 | Construction |
378_4 | In the aftermath of the First World War, the Washington Naval Treaty was drawn up in 1922 in an effort to stop an arms race developing between Britain, Japan, France, Italy and the United States. This treaty limited the number of ships each nation was allowed to build and capped the displacement of capital ships at . These restrictions were extended in 1930 through the Treaty of London, but by the mid-1930s Japan and Italy had withdrawn from both of these treaties and the British became concerned about the lack of modern battleships in the Royal Navy. The Admiralty therefore ordered the construction of a new battleship class: the . Due to the provisions of both the Washington Naval Treaty and the Treaty of London, both of which were still in effect when the King George Vs were being designed, the main armament of the class was limited to the guns. They were the only battleships built at that time to adhere to the treaty and even though it soon became apparent to the British that the |
378_5 | other signatories to the treaty were ignoring its requirements, it was too late to change the design of the class before they were laid down in 1937. |
378_6 | Duke of York was the third ship in the King George V class, and was laid down at John Brown & Company's shipyard in Clydebank, Scotland, on 5 May 1937. The title of Duke of York was in abeyance at that time, having been that held by King George VI prior to his succession to the throne in December 1936. The battleship was launched on 28 February 1940 and completed on 4 November 1941, and joined the Home Fleet at Scapa Flow.
Description
Duke of York displaced as built and fully loaded. The ship had an overall length of , a beam of and a draught of . Her designed metacentric height was at normal load and at deep load. |
378_7 | She was powered by Parsons geared steam turbines, driving four propeller shafts. Steam was provided by eight Admiralty 3-drum water-tube boilers which normally delivered , but could deliver at emergency overload.
This gave Duke of York a top speed of . The ship carried of fuel oil, which was later increased to . She also carried of diesel oil, of reserve feed water and of freshwater. At full speed Duke of York had a range of at . |
378_8 | Armament
Duke of York mounted 10 BL Mk VII guns, which were mounted in one Mark II twin turret forward and two Mark III quadruple turrets, one forward and one aft. The guns could be elevated 40 degrees and depressed 3 degrees, while their training arcs varied. Turret "A" was able to traverse 286 degrees, while turrets "B" and "Y" could both move through 270 degrees. Hydraulic drives were used in the training and elevating process, achieving rates of two and eight degrees per second, respectively. A full gun broadside weighed , and a salvo could be fired every 40 seconds. The secondary armament consisted of 16 QF Mk I dual purpose guns which were mounted in eight twin turrets. The maximum range of the Mk I guns was at a 45-degree elevation, the anti-aircraft ceiling was . The guns could be elevated to 70 degrees and depressed to 5 degrees. The normal rate of fire was ten to twelve rounds per minute, but in practice the guns could only fire seven to eight rounds per minute. |
378_9 | Along with her main and secondary batteries, Duke of York carried 48 QF 2 pdr () Mk.VIII "pom-pom" anti-aircraft guns in six octuple, power-driven, mountings. These were supplemented by six Oerlikon light AA guns in single, hand-worked, mounts.
Operational history
Second World War
In mid-December 1941, Duke of York embarked Prime Minister Winston Churchill for a trip to the United States to confer with President Franklin D. Roosevelt. She arrived at Annapolis, Maryland, on 22 December 1941, made a shakedown cruise to Bermuda in January 1942, and departed for Scapa Flow on 17 January with Churchill returning home by air. |
378_10 | On 1 March 1942, she provided close escort for Convoy PQ 12 in company with the battlecruiser , the cruiser , and six destroyers. On 6 March, that force was reinforced with one of Duke of Yorks sister-ships, , and the aircraft carrier , the heavy cruiser , and six destroyers as a result of Admiral John Tovey's concerns that the battleship might attempt to intercept the convoy. On 6 March, the German battleship put to sea and was sighted by a British submarine around 19:40; no contact was made, however, except for an unsuccessful aerial torpedo attack by aircraft from Victorious. |
378_11 | Later that month, Convoy PQ 13 was constituted and Duke of York again formed part of the escort force. In early April, Duke of York, King George V, and the carrier Victorious formed the core of a support force that patrolled between Iceland and Norway to cover several convoys to the Soviet Union. In late April, when King George V accidentally rammed and sank the destroyer in dense fog, sustaining significant bow damage, Duke of York was sent to relieve her. She continued in these operations through May, when she was joined by the American battleship . In mid-September, Duke of York escorted Convoy QP 14. |
378_12 | In October 1942, Duke of York was sent to Gibraltar as the new flagship of Force H, and supported the Allied landings in North Africa the following month. During this time Duke of York came under air attack by Italian aircraft on several occasions, but the raids were relatively small scale and were swiftly dealt with by the "umbrella" provided by the aircraft from the accompanying carriers Victorious, and . After this action, Duke of York returned to Britain for a refit. |
378_13 | With her refit completed, Duke of York resumed her status as flagship from 14 May 1943 pending the departure of King George V and Howe for Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily. Operation Gearbox in June 1943 involved a sweep by Duke of York and , in company with the US battleships and , to provide distant cover for minor operations in Spitsbergen and the Kola Inlet, while the following month diversionary operations, code-named "Camera" and "Governor of Norway," were carried out in order to draw the Germans' attention away from Operation Husky. On 4 October, Duke of York and Anson covered a force of Allied cruisers and destroyers and the American carrier under Operation Leader, which raided German shipping off Norway. The attack resulted in the sinking of four German merchant ships and damage to seven others, which forced many of them to be grounded.
Action against Scharnhorst |
378_14 | In 1943, the German battleship Scharnhorst moved to Norway, a position whence she could threaten the Arctic convoys to Russia. With Tirpitz and two armoured ships also in Norwegian fjords, it was necessary for the Royal Navy to provide heavy escorts for convoys between Britain and Russia. One of these was sighted by the Germans in early December 1943, and Allied intelligence concluded that the following convoy, Convoy JW 55B, would be attacked by the German surface ships. Two surface forces (Forces 1 and 2) were assigned to provide distant cover to JW 55B, which had left Loch Ewe on 22 December. On 25 December 1943, Scharnhorst was reported at sea, escorted by five Narvik-class destroyers (Z-29, Z-30, Z-33, Z-34, and Z-38). Force 1, comprising the heavy cruiser , and the light cruisers and Sheffield, made contact shortly after 0900 on 26 December. A brief gunnery engagement followed, without damage to Force 1, but two hits from a cruiser's guns upon Scharnhorst resulted in the |
378_15 | destruction of her radar controls. In worsening weather, unable to effectively control her fire, Scharnhorst was unable to convert a tactical advantage of greater range and weight of shot. Fearing she was in a gunnery duel with a battleship, Scharnhorst turned away, outdistancing her pursuers. She again outran Force 1 after a second brief skirmish around noon that did not further damage Scharnhorst, but did result in hits on Norfolk which disabled a main battery turret and her radar. Kriegsmarine Konteradmiral (Rear Admiral) Erich Bey, aboard Scharnhorst, having already detached his destroyers to independently seek out Convoy JW 55B, ordered Scharnhorst to return to port at Altafjord, Norway. |
378_16 | Meanwhile, Force 2, comprising Duke of York, the light cruiser , and four destroyers (the S-class , , and , and the Norwegian destroyer ), was closing, and it was estimated that a night action with Scharnhorst would commence around 17:15. But Scharnhorst altered course, and Belfast regained radar contact, passing it to Force 2. Duke of York made her initial radar contact at 16:17, at a distance of , and Force 2 began to manoeuvre for broadside fire and torpedo runs by the destroyers. Belfast fired star shells at 1648 to illuminate Scharnhorst, followed by another star shell from one of Duke of Yorks guns, taking Scharnhorst by surprise with her main battery trained fore and aft. By 16:50, Duke of York had closed to less than and opened fire with a full 10-gun broadside, scoring one hit. Although under heavy fire, Scharnhorsts return fire straddled Duke of York a number of times and hit her twice. A shell passed through the mainmast and its port leg without detonating, but |
378_17 | fragments from the hit destroyed the cable for the main search radar. A shell also pierced the port strut of the foremast without exploding. At 1655, a shell from Duke of York silenced Scharnhorsts forward main battery turrets Anton and Bruno, but she maintained speed so that by 1824 the range had opened to , when Duke of York ceased fire after expending 52 broadsides. However, one shell from the final salvoes pierced Scharnhorsts armour belt and destroyed her No. 1 boiler room, slowing the ship and allowing the pursuing British destroyers to overtake her. |
378_18 | Force 2's destroyers attacked at 18:50 with torpedoes, launching 28 and scoring hits with four. This further slowed Scharnhorst, and at 19:01 Duke of York and Jamaica again opened fire, at a range of . At 19:15, Belfast also began shelling Scharnhorst, and both Belfast and Jamaica fired their remaining torpedoes. At least ten 14-inch shells had already hit the German battleship, causing fires and explosions, and silencing most of the secondary battery. By 1916, all three main turrets aboard Scharnhorst had ceased firing, and her speed had been cut to . Duke of York ceased fire at 19:30 to allow her escorting cruisers and destroyers to close on Scharnhorst. In the final stages of the battle, the destroyers , , , and fired a total of 19 torpedoes at Scharnhorst, causing her to list badly to port, and at 19:45 Scharnhorst capsized and quickly sank after a running action lasting ten-and-a-half hours, taking with her 1,932 men (there were only 36 survivors). Following her sinking, and |
378_19 | the retreat of most of the remaining German heavy surface units from Norway, the need to maintain powerful surface forces in British home waters diminished. |
378_20 | Subsequent operations
On 29 March 1944, Duke of York and the bulk of the Home Fleet left Scapa Flow to provide a support force for Convoy JW 58. The ship operated in the Arctic and as cover for carriers conducting the Goodwood series of air strikes on Tirpitz in mid to late August. In September, when she was overhauled and partially modernized at Liverpool, radar equipment and additional anti-aircraft guns were added. She was then ordered to join the British Pacific Fleet and sailed in company with her sister-ship Anson on 25 April 1945. A problem with the ship's electrical circuitry delayed her while she was at Malta and, as a result, she did not reach Sydney until 29 July, by which time it too late for her to take any meaningful part in hostilities against the Japanese. |
378_21 | Nevertheless, in early August, Duke of York was assigned to Task Force 37, along with four aircraft carriers and her sister-ship King George V. From 9 August, TF 37 and three American carrier task forces conducted a series of air raids on Japan, which continued until 15 August when a surrender came into effect. After the conclusion of hostilities, Duke of York, alongside her sister-ship, King George V, participated in the surrender ceremonies that took place in Tokyo Bay. The following month Duke of York sailed for Hong Kong, to join the fleet that assembled there to accept the surrender of the Japanese garrison. She was the flagship of the British Pacific Fleet when the Japanese surrendered, and remained so until June 1946, when she returned to Plymouth for an overhaul.
Post war |
378_22 | Duke of York was flagship of the Home Fleet following the end of the war and remained in active service until April 1949. She was laid up in November 1951, and on 18 May 1957, she was ordered scrapped. She was broken up by Shipbreaking Industries, Ltd., in Faslane. The ship's bell was salvaged and given to the Duke of York School (since renamed the Lenana School) in Nairobi, Kenya.
Refits
During her career, Duke of York was refitted on several occasions to bring her equipment up-to-date. The following are the dates and details of the refits undertaken.
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
External links
Maritimequest HMS Duke of York pages
Alan Sutherland RN Collection on MaritimeQuest
High resolution picture
Newsreel footage of HMS Duke of York (last quarter of the clip).
HMS Duke of York in heavy seas while on Arctic convoy duty
King George V-class battleships (1939)
Ships built on the River Clyde
1940 ships
World War II battleships of the United Kingdom |
379_0 | Medingen Abbey or Medingen Convent () is a former Cistercian nunnery. Today it is a residence for women of the Protestant Lutheran faith () near the Lower Saxon town of Bad Bevensen and is supervised by the Monastic Chamber of Hanover (Klosterkammer Hannover). The current director of the abbey (Äbtissin) is the art historian Dr Kristin Püttmann.
History |
379_1 | A founding legend ascribes the convent's origins to a lay brother called Johannes; the convent's history from its founding to the election of abbess Margaretha Puffen was formerly depicted in a cycle of 15 painted wooden boards, that were destroyed in the fire of 1781; the only surviving copy is the affix in Johann Ludolf Lyßman's Historische Nachrichten (1772). The legend has it that Johannes claimed divine guidance in his quest to build the new convent. The community was founded 1228 in Restorf am Höhbeck by Johannes and four nuns who joined him in Magdeburg, but the group did not stay there. For unknown reasons, they moved on to Plate near Lüchow and later Bohndorf, before they eventually settled in Altenmedingen, where the first buildings were consecrated on 24 August 1241. |
379_2 | The military road passing through the convent yard presented an ever-present danger of attacks or arson, so the convent decided to move one last time, to the village of Zellensen, today's Medingen. The new church was consecrated on 24 August 1336. |
379_3 | 1479 saw the advent of the convent reforms under the influence of the devotio moderna. Many convents at that time did not follow the Cistercian rule very strictly; nuns were allowed to keep their belongings and keep in touch with their relatives once they joined the convent. The Cistercian order was re-established and the prioress Margarete Puffen was made an abbess in 1494.
After the reforms, a scriptorium became one of the focal points of the convent and to this day a large number of manuscripts found worldwide can be attributed to the sixteenth-century nuns of Medingen. Hymns (Leisen) noted down in these texts are still part of both Catholic and Protestant hymnbooks today, e.g. in the current German Protestant hymnal EG 23 "Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ", EG 100 "Wir wollen alle fröhlich sein" and EG 214 "Gott sei gelobet und gebenedeiet", even though they were wrongly dated to the 14th century by the music historian Walther Lipphardt. |
379_4 | The Reformation attempted to be introduced in Medingen in 1524, was met with resistance from the nuns. They hid their confessor in the attic, publicly burned the Lutheran bible and almost faced the dissolution of the convent. In 1541, the Uelzen Landtag decided to ensure the economic security of Medingen and the five other convents nearby. This was in the nobility's interests, because their unmarried daughters could benefit from the livelihood and education befitting their status. In 1542, all of the convent's goods and earnings were confiscated and contact between the nuns and their family was prohibited. The abbess, Margareta von Stöterogge, did not give in to the demands of bringing all remaining property to Celle, but rather went to Hildesheim for two years, taking the convent's archive and valuables with her. It took her brother, Nikolaus von Stöterogge, to convince her finally to accept the communion under both forms. Eventually, in 1554, the convent became Protestant and from |
379_5 | then on, the Klosterordnung (convent order) was defined by the Landesherr or territorial lord. |
379_6 | After the Reformation had been introduced, life changed drastically: The incumbents were now allowed to marry, but had to leave the convent when they did so. In 1605, they replaced the traditional Cistercian habit with an attire in accordance with the convent order introduced by Duke William in 1574. The Thirty Years' War left its mark on the convent and its surrounding area. A new convent order was introduced by Kurfürst (elector) George Louis in 1706.
Most of the convent buildings were destroyed in a fire in January 1781, although valuable possessions like the archives and the abbesses' crosier from 1494 were able to be salvaged. The ruins were demolished in 1782 and the convent re-built in the early neoclassic style. Completed in 1788, the new buildings were consecrated on 24 August.
List of heads of convent |
379_7 | Cultural heritage
A large number of medieval manuscripts were produced in Medingen, 44 of which have survived and are conserved all over the world. The nuns enhanced the liturgy written in Latin with Low German prayers and songs, producing unique compilations of illuminated texts that were important to them as well as the noblewomen in the surrounding areas.
Furthermore, the brewery (), built in 1397, survived the fire of 1781 and can still be seen today. It attests to the fact that the convent was originally built in the Brick Gothic style.
References |
379_8 | Further reading
Achten, Gerard: De Gebedenboeken van de Cistercienserinnenkloosters Medingen en Wienhausen, in: Miscellanea Neerlandica 3 (= FS Jan Deschamps), 1987, pp. 173–188.
Brohmann, Friedrich: Geschichte von Bevensen und Kloster Medingen, 1928.
Hascher-Burger, Ulrike / Lähnemann, Henrike: Liturgie und Reform in Kloster Medingen. Edition und Untersuchung des Propst-Handbuchs Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Lat. liturg. e. 18 (Spätmittelalter und Reformation. Neue Reihe), Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013 (in press).
Heutger, Nicolaus Carl: Kloster Medingen in der Lüneburger Heide, in: 'Cistercienser Chronik.' Forum für Geschichte, Kunst, Literatur und Spiritualität des Mönchtums, Vol. 101 (1994), pp. 15–18
Homeyer, Joachim: 750 Jahre Kloster Medingen. Kleine Beiträge zur frühen Klostergeschichte. (Schriften zur Uelzener Heimatkunde, hg. v. Hans E. Seidat, H. 3), Uelzen, 1978. |
379_9 | Homeyer, Joachim: Kloster Medingen, die Gründungslegende und ihre historischen Elemente, in: Jahrbuch der Gesellschaft für niedersächsische Kirchengeschichte 79 (1981), pp. 9–60.
Homeyer, Joachim (Hg.): Kloster Medingen 1788 – 1988, 200 Jahre Neubau. Kleine Beiträge zum Jubiläum. Uelzen, 1988
Homeyer, Joachim: Urkundenbuch des Klosters Medingen. Hahn, Hannover 2006, .
Homeyer, Joachim: 500 Jahre Äbtissinnen in Medingen (Schriften zur Uelzener Heimatkunde, hg.v. von Horst Hoffmann, H. 11), Uelzen, 1994.
Krüger, Nilüfer: Niederdeutsches Osterorationale aus Medingen, in: FS für Horst Gronemeyer zum 60. Geburtstag, hg.v. Herald Weigel, Herzberg, 1993, pp. 179–201.
Lähnemann, Henrike: An dessen bom wil ik stighen. Die Ikonographie des Wichmannsburger Antependiums im Kontext der Medinger Handschriften, in: Oxford German Studies 34 (2005), pp. 19–46. |
379_10 | Lähnemann, Henrike/ Linden, Sandra: Per organa. Musikalische Unterweisung in Handschriften der Lüneburger Klöster, in: Dichtung und Didaxe. Lehrhaftes Sprechen in der deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters, Berlin/New York, 2009, p. 397-412.
Lähnemann, Henrike: Die Erscheinungen Christi nach Ostern in Medinger Handschriften, in: Medialität des Heils im späten Mittelalter, ed. by Carla Dauven-van Knippenberg, Cornelia Herberichs, and Christian Kiening, Chronos, 2009 (Medienwandel – Medienwechsel – Medienwissen 10), pp. 189–202.
Lähnemann, Henrike: Schnipsel, Schleier, Textkombinatorik. Die Materialität der Medinger Orationalien, in: Materialität in der Editionswissenschaft, ed. by Martin Schubert, Tübingen, 2010 (Beihefte zu editio), pp. 135–146. |
379_11 | Lyßmann, Johann Ludolf, gewesenen Predigers zu Closter Meding, und nachherigen Superintendenten zu Fallersleben: Historische Nachricht von dem Ursprunge, Anwachs und Schicksalen des im Lüneburgischen Herzogthum belegenen Closters Meding, dessen Pröbsten, Priorinnen und Abbatißinnen, auch fürnehmsten Gebräuchen und Lutherischen Predigern &c. nebst darzu gehörigen Urkunden und Anmerkungen bis auf das Jahr 1769 fortgesetzt. Mit Kupfern. Halle, 1772. (Digital version)
Stork, Hans-Walter: Die mittelalterlichen Handschriften des ehemaligen Zisterzienserinnenklosters Medingen zur Zeit der Klosterreform im 15. Jahrhundert und in nachreformatorischer Zeit., in: Otte, Hans (ed.): Evangelisches Klosterleben. Studien zur Geschichte der evangelischen Klöster und Stifte in Niedersachsen, Göttingen 2013, pp. 337 – 360. |
379_12 | Vogtherr, Thomas: Medingen, in: Dolle, Josef (ed.): Niedersächsisches Klosterbuch. Verzeichnis der Klöster, Stifte, Kommenden und Beginenhäuser in Niedersachsen und Bremen von den Anfängen bis 1810. Marienthal bis Zeven (Vol. 3), Bielefeld 2012, pp. 1044–1050.
Wehking, Sabine: Die Inschriften der Lüneburger Klöster. Ebstorf, Isenhagen, Lüne, Medingen, Walsrode, Wienhausen (Die Deutschen Inschriften 76 = Die deutschen Inschriften: Göttinger Reihe 13) Wiesbaden 2009. |
379_13 | External links
Website of the Convent
Article on Medingen on the Bad Bevensen website
Article on Medingen on the Historisches Bevensen e.V. website (Historical Bevensen Association)
Artikle on Medingen on the Lüneburg Heath website
Article on Medingen on the NDR website
on the Medingen Manuscripts and extensive bibliography
Blog entry on a Medingen manuscript now in the Bodleian Library of the University of Oxford
Brick Gothic
Christian monasteries established in the 13th century
Cistercian monasteries in Germany
Lüneburg Heath
Lutheran women's convents
Monasteries in Lower Saxony
Neoclassicism
de:Medingen (Bad Bevensen) |
380_0 | Mutiny Within is an American heavy metal band from Edison, New Jersey. The band was formed in 2002 by bassist Andrew Jacobs.
Background
Formation, Signing to Roadrunner and debut album (2009–2010)
They would go through a number of lineup changes and a name change before finally solidifying into the band they would eventually become. Jacobs recruited his younger brother, Brandon Jacobs, to play guitar, as well as drummer Bill Fore and keyboardist Drew Stavola. While searching for a singer, the band contacted Chris Clancy in England, based on a performance he posted on YouTube. Clancy moved to the United States and dedicated himself to the band. The final member, Daniel Bage, also came over from England when Clancy invited him to join the band in the studio to record some guitar solos. In 2010, Mutiny Within released their self-titled debut on Roadrunner Records. |
380_1 | Their song "Born to Win" was the theme song to the WWE wrestler Evan Bourne for his entire WWE career (2008–2014). Roadrunner Records released a demo of their song "Awake" on their downloadable compilation album Annual Assault (2009). The song "Awake" was later released to Roadrunner subscribers and on iTunes for purchase.
They also recorded another song called The End for the Roadrunner Records EP God of War: Blood & Metal. |
380_2 | Their tours lined up included a North American summer tour supporting Soilwork with Death Angel running from July 14 through August 15, 2010. The band parted ways with drummer Bill Fore months after their self-titled debut album release. Bill Fore went on to play with former Black Market Hero guitarist and solo guitar instrumentalist Angel Vivaldi. Wishing him the best of luck on moving forward, he was temporarily replaced with 25-year-old Chad Anthony, who is also from New Jersey. Anthony learned all of the songs in only two weeks to be ready in time for the 2010 North American tour with Soilwork and Death Angel. They announced on September 20, 2010, that they needed to cancel their touring with Nevermore to do take the time to properly audition and rehearse for a new drummer. On October 5, 2010, they announced that they also cancelled their tour with Scar Symmetry and Epica, to concentrate on their new material for their second album and find a new permanent drummer instead of using |
380_3 | yet another fill in drummer. |
380_4 | Departure of Chris Clancy, Planned Second Album and hiatus (2011)
On February 23, it was announced that the band had parted ways with Roadrunner Records.
The band released a thirty-second trailer for a second album on YouTube. Although no official announcement has been made, Chad Anthony was listed on the band's MySpace as their drummer. Chris Clancy announced his departure from the band due to financial reasons on June 20, 2011, while Drew Stavola had apparently left the band earlier. The band is currently making a process on these changes. They also said that they will start the search for a new vocalist and new information of the upcoming album will be available soon.
On October 11 the band announced via their Facebook that the band would take an indefinite hiatus due to the difficulties of finding a new vocalist. |
380_5 | The statement was made by Bassist Andrew Jacobs:
It saddens us to announce today that we are taking an indefinite hiatus. We've been searching the globe for a replacement vocalist for most of the year, and we've come to a point where we simply can't afford to pass up other opportunities any longer. We want our fans to know that we tried to avoid this any way we could. To reach you all around the world with our music has truly been a dream come true, know that we would continue this journey right now in a heartbeat if we could.
We will be updating the MW pages and our personal pages as we start to announce new projects, touring work, etc. Also, we are still on great terms with Chris and have discussed releasing some 2nd album material in the future. Thank you for all of your support throughout the years. MW fans are still the best out there, we will be keeping in touch with you guys. |
380_6 | During the hiatus, Andrew Jacobs started the band Vext with ex-Snot/Divine Heresy singer Tommy Vext, as well as Bill Fore and guitar virtuoso Angel Vivaldi.
Album revival and Synchronicity (2012)
On January 31, 2012, the band posted YouTube links via Facebook for two unreleased demo tracks that were supposed to be on the second record, they are called In My Veins and Falls to Pieces. After a very good response the band said that they will probably put out more unreleased songs in the future.
On July 5, 2012, Chris Clancy announced on his personal Facebook page that he would record vocals for several unfinished Mutiny Within tracks:
Next week I'm tracking vocals for the unreleased Mutiny Within tracks. Quite excited about it after over a year of being sat on my hard drive doing nothing! I've been working on making the instrumental versions for the last week and they sound epic. |
380_7 | Even though the band members remained quiet during most of 2012, members Chris Clancy and guitarist Brandon Jacobs worked together with Frederic Riverin with his solo work entitled I, Legion. This project also featured Björn Strid & Peter Wichers (Soilwork), Jon Howard (Threat Signal), and Angel Vivaldi. The album Beyond Darkness, was released in September 2012.
On September 29, 2012, the band posted the following on Facebook.
It's great to finally show you what we've been working on since our first album.
Share this with everybody you know,
Chris, AJ, Brandon, Bill & Dan.
Although no official announcement was made, this post confirmed that Bill Fore had re-joined the band. |
380_8 | The title of the new album was announced as "Mutiny Within II: Synchronicity", with a release date of January 12, 2013. Clancy also set up a project called Industry Embers, an organisation dedicated to spread the word about music piracy. He revealed that music piracy had been the downfall of Mutiny Within, with the debut album only selling around 10,000 copies since released, and the album being shared and pirated at least 100,000 times.
"When Tommy Jones put to me the idea of Industry Embers, it was just a concept. Now it is becoming a reality and it feels good to be involved in something that will have a positive impact on the industry. Whether it be a small impact or something bigger, it doesn't matter. Personally, I have shown many people how piracy is killing the music they love and this gives me a platform to continue spreading that message." - Chris Clancy |
380_9 | The single "Embers" off the album was released on December 15, 2012. On December 25, the band released another song "Machines" for streaming.
In a Facebook update on January 21, 2013, the band released the following statement:
"The response for our new album has been completely overwhelming, we are really speechless. We want to say thank you, and also say that because of you, Mutiny Within has decided to continue making music. We are already making plans to write, and perform again. ... thank you all so much, you have kept our dream alive."
Origins (2017)
Mutiny Within released their third album, Origins, on February 10, 2017. They released a single called "Archetype of Destruction" on December 21, 2016.
Band members
Current Lineup
Chris Clancy – vocals
Andrew Jacobs – bass guitar
Daniel Bage – guitars, keyboard
Bill Fore – drums |
380_10 | Former members
Drew Stavola – keyboards
Chad Anthony – drums
Jeff Stewart – guitars
Luis Obregon – guitars
Brandon Jacobs – guitars
Samus – drums
Discography
Studio album
Mutiny Within (2010)
Synchronicity (2013)
Origins (2017)
Demos
Mutiny (Demo) (2006)
Audition (Demo) (2006)
Other contributions
God of War: Blood & Metal - "The End" (2010)
WWE The Music: A New Day, Vol. 10 - "Born to Win" (Evan Bourne's Theme) (2010)
Metal Hammer Presents... A Tribute to AC/DC - "Highway to Hell" (2010)
Roadrunner Records: Annual Assault - "Awake (Demo)" (2009)
References
External links
Mutiny Within at Roadrunner Records
Heavy metal musical groups from New Jersey
Musical groups established in 2002
American progressive metal musical groups
American melodic death metal musical groups
Roadrunner Records artists
2002 establishments in New Jersey |
381_0 | Yohanan Friedmann (born 1936) is an Israeli scholar of Islamic studies.
Biography
Friedmann was born in Zákamenné, Czechoslovakia and immigrated to Israel with his parents in 1949. He attended high school at the Reali School in Haifa (1945-1950). In 1956 he began his undergraduate studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Department of Arabic Language and Literature, receiving his BA in 1959. In 1962 he finished a master's degree in Arabic literature; his thesis was on the Arab poet Al-Ma'arri. After this, Friedman went to McGill University in Montreal to study for his doctorate. He learned Urdu and focused on the history of Islam in India. His dissertation on Muslim religious thinker Sheikh Ahmad Sirhindi was approved in 1966. In the same year, Friedman joined the Hebrew University and was appointed lecturer in Islamic studies. |
381_1 | He is now Max Schloessinger Professor Emeritus of Islamic Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and, since 1999, a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. He held several offices with the university: Chair of the Institute of Asian Studies and African Studies from 1975 to 1978; Chair of the Graduate School from 1980 to 1983; Dean of Humanities from 1985 to 1988; Chair of the Department of Arabic language and literature from 2002 to 2004. In 2003 he was the Sternberg Distinguished Lecturer. In 2007 he has been elected Chair of the Humanities Division of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. |
381_2 | In 2002 Friedmann was member at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. In 2003 he received the Landau Prize in the Humanities. Since 1993, he has been the editor of Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam. Friedmann served several times as visiting Professor at New York University and the University of Pennsylvania. In 1997 he was scholar in residence with the Rockefeller Foundation.
Research interests
Friedmann's studies center on Islamic religious thought, mainly in the Indian subcontinent. He assays the historical record for evidence of both tolerance and intolerance of other religious faiths in the Islamic tradition in his most recent work, "Tolerance and Coercion in Islam: Interfaith Relations in the Muslim Tradition". |
381_3 | Works
"Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi. An outline of his thought and a study of his image in the eyes of posterity." McGill-Queens University Press, 1971. Reprint Oxford University Press, 2000.
Prophecy Continuous. Aspects of Ahmadi Religious Thought and Its Medieval Background, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1989
The Naqshbandis and Awrangzeb: A reconsideration in: Naqshbandis: Historical Developments And Present Situation, 1990
Husain Ahmad Madani in: Dictionnaire biographique des savants et grandes figures du monde musulman périphérique, 1992
The History of al-Tabari: The Battle of al-Qadisiyyah and the Conquest of Syria and Palestine (The History of Messengers and Kings), 1992
Jam`iyyat al-`ulama-'i Hind, in: The Oxford Encyclopaedia Of The Modern Islamic World, 1995
Ahmadiyya, in: The Oxford Encyclopaedia Of The Modern Islamic World, 1995
The messianic claim of Ghulam Ahmad, in: Messianism, eds. M.R. Cohen and P. Schaefer, Leiden, E.J., 1998 |
381_4 | Classification of unbelievers in Sunni Muslim law and tradition in: Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 1998
Conditions of conversion in early Islam. In: Ritual and Ethics: Patterns of Repentance, eds. A. Destro, 2000
Dissension in: Encyclopedia of the Qur'an, vol. 1, p. 538-540, 2001
Ahmadiyya in: Encyclopedia of the Qur'an, vol. 1, p. 50-51, 2001
Messianismus im Islam in: Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, vol. 5, 2003
Chiliasmus im Islam in: Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, vol. 2, 2003
Ahmadiyya in: Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, vol. 1, 2003
Tolerance and Coercion in Islam: Interfaith Relations in the Muslim Tradition'', Cambridge University Press, 2003 |
381_5 | Notes
External links
Speech held in Oslo by Y. Friedmann, June 20, 2005 (.rtf)
1936 births
Living people
Members of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Hebrew University of Jerusalem alumni
Czech emigrants to Israel
People from Námestovo District
Jewish scholars of Islam
Historians of Kerala
Hebrew University of Jerusalem faculty |
382_0 | Francesco I (25 March 1541 – 19 October 1587) was the second Grand Duke of Tuscany, ruling from 1574 until his death in 1587, he was a member of the House of Medici.
Biography
Born in Florence, he was the son of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Eleanor of Toledo. He served as regent for his father Cosimo after he retired from his governing duties in 1564.
Marriage to Joanna of Austria
On 18 December 1565, he married Joanna of Austria, youngest daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I and his wife Anne of Bohemia and Hungary, after Princess Elizabeth of Sweden, among others, had been considered. By all reports, it was not a happy marriage. Joanna was homesick for her native Austria, and Francesco was neither charming nor faithful. Joanna died at the age of thirty-one in 1578. |
382_1 | Bianca Cappello
Soon after Grand Duchess Joanna had died, Francesco went on to marry his Venetian mistress, Bianca Cappello, after aptly disposing of her husband, a Florentine bureaucrat. Because of the quick remarriage and similar occurrences among the Medici (Francesco's younger brother Pietro had reportedly killed his wife), rumours spread that Francesco and Bianca had conspired to poison Joanna. Francesco reportedly built and decorated the Villa di Pratolino for Bianca. She was, however, not always popular among Florentines. They had no legitimate children, but Bianca had borne him a son, Antonio (29 August 1576 – 2 May 1621), in his first wife's lifetime. Following the death of Francesco's legitimate son Filippo in 1582, Antonio was proclaimed heir. Francesco also adopted Bianca's daughter by her first marriage, Pellegrina (1564–?). |
382_2 | Like his father, Francesco was often despotic, but while Cosimo had known how to maintain Florentine independence, Francesco acted more like a vassal of the Habsburgs of Austria and Spain. He continued the heavy taxation of his subjects to pay large sums to the empire.
He had an avid interest in manufacturing and sciences. He founded porcelain and stoneware manufacture, but these did not thrive until after his death. He continued his father's patronage of the arts, supporting artists and building the Medici Theater as well as founding the Accademia della Crusca. He was also passionately interested in chemistry and alchemy and spent many hours in his private laboratory and curio collection, the Studiolo in the Palazzo Vecchio, which held his collections of natural items and stones and allowed him to dabble in chemistry and alchemical schemes. |
382_3 | Francesco and Bianca died on 19 and 20 October, both at the Medici Villa in Poggio a Caiano. Although the original death certificates mention malaria, it has been widely speculated that the couple was poisoned, possibly by Francesco's brother Ferdinando. While some early forensic research supported the latter theory, forensic evidence from a study in 2010 found the parasite Plasmodium falciparum, which causes malaria, in the skeletal remains of Francesco I, which strongly bolstered the infection theory and the credibility of the official documents. Francesco was succeeded by his younger brother Ferdinando. |
382_4 | In 1857, all members of the Medici family were exhumed and reburied in the place where they still lie today, the Basilica of St. Lawrence in Florence. The painter Giuseppe Moricci attended the ceremony and depicted Francesco with a facial droop, a right claw hand appearance, the right shoulder internally rotated, the right calf muscle wasted and a right clubfoot confirmed by orthopaedic footwear within the coffin. These are the signs of a right-sided stroke possibly within the internal capsule. The presence of the orthopaedic footwear suggests that this stroke happened significantly before his death. During life, in his official portraits, the grand duke was always depicted as being in perfect physical condition. The cause of his stroke is not known, but malaria is known to cause this condition. |
382_5 | There is a famous portrait of Francesco as a child by Bronzino that hangs in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Francesco's marriage to Bianca and the couple's death was exploited by Thomas Middleton for his tragedy Women Beware Women, published in 1658.
Children
Francesco and Joanna had seven children:
Eleonora (28 February 1567 – 9 September 1611), who married Vincenzo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua (1562–1612).
Romola (20 November 1568 – 2 December 1568)
Anna (31 December 1569 – 19 February 1584)
Isabella (30 September 1571 – 8 August 1572)
Lucrezia (7 November 1572 – 14 August 1574)
Marie (1575–1642), who became Queen of France by her marriage to Henry IV in 1600.
Filippo (20 May 1577 – 29 March 1582)
Ancestry
In fiction
Francesco de' Medici is a secondary character in John Webster's 1612 play The White Devil
References
Further reading
External links |
382_6 | "The Medici Archive Project", from the Medici Archive Project
"The Medici Archive Project Bio Page"
"Toledo-de' Medici, Leonor de (Eleonora)", from The Medici Archive Project
"Osorio Pimentel, María", from The Medici Archive Project
, from Medieval Lands Project''
1541 births
1587 deaths
Nobility from Florence
Francesco 1
Francesco 1
16th-century Italian nobility
Francesco
Regents of Tuscany
Burials at San Lorenzo, Florence
Italian art patrons
Deaths from malaria |
383_0 | The University of Altamura () was a former university located in Altamura, Apulia, Kingdom of Naples. It was established in Altamura in 1747 by Charles III of Bourbon, following the idea of the archpriest of Altamura Cathedral Marcello Papiniano Cusani. It was officially closed in 1812, mainly due to the lack of funds, even though some documents kept inside library Archivio capitolare in Altamura show that professors continued to teach until 1821.
Based on the statements of notable scholars, such as Bernardo Tanucci and Vitangelo Bisceglia, it can be concluded that the university had an excellent reputation at that time. Because of the university, Tanucci described Altamura as Appula Atene ("Apulia's Athens"). |
383_1 | The subjects taught underwent considerable change over the history of the university. In total, the following subjects were taught: Law, ecclesiastical law, Latin, Ancient Greek, Hebrew, mathematics, geometry, physics, chemistry, botany, agronomy, mineralogy, medicine and theology.
The main sources about the history of the university are the documents stored in Altamura's libraries, mainly Archivio capitolare and Archivio Biblioteca Museo Civico (A.B.M.C.). The University of Altamura undoubtedly helped to spread scientific knowledge inside Altamura and the Kingdom of Naples. Prior to the founding of the university, there was very little or no interest at all in science. |
383_2 | History
The University of Altamura was established in 1747 by the king Charles III of Spain. The idea was from the archpriest of Altamura Cathedral, Marcello Papiniano Cusani, who, a few months earlier, suggested using the money saved inside a fund called Monte a Moltiplicoin order to establish a university. The funds had already started to be collected as early as the XVII century but for a different purpose, i.e. converting Altamura Cathedral in a bishopric. It can be stated that, without Marcello Papiniano Cusani, there wouldn't have been any university in Altamura.
Moreover, Charles III liked the idea, since it was compatible with his reform policy, aimed at providing a secular education, by opening royal schools and universities. |
383_3 | Anyway, the funds of Monte a Moltiplico were insufficient to maintain a university, and, since the beginning, the rectors had to solve financial difficulties, which compromised the variety of the courses provided by the university. Cusani, determined, managed to finance the university with the offers from four religious institutions of the city (). The idea of a university in Altamura was well received by Altamurans, but most people thought that it would be a Jesuit seminary. Jesuits weren't in a good relationship with many ministers of the Kingdom of Naples; therefore, the initial idea of a Jesuit seminary was abandoned.
The Rectorship of Msgr. Gioacchino de Gemmis
In 1782, Gioacchino de Gemmis became archpriest and rector, and he managed to renovate the University of Altamura. De Gemmis wanted to reform the University of Altamura, by providing more scientific and technical courses. |
383_4 | Gioacchino de Gemmis was the author of a university reform program and he started courses of experimental physics, botany, mineralogy and it made it forbidden to write notes during the lessons. Previously, the students had to take notes during the lessons; in order to avoid distracting the students from the lessons because of the notes, it was decided that the teaching material should be printed instead. A library was also established which, over time, grew bigger thanks to the donations of de Gemmis himself and of private citizens. He also asked Vitangelo Bisceglia to come to teach botany to Altamura and to become his vicar.
Gioacchino de Gemmis promoted among teachers the habit of meeting in the evening in his living room to discuss teaching. Later on, those evening meetings were extended also to lawyers, doctors, nobles and traders of the city, and in his living room discussions also embraced economics, politics, philosophy and social themes. |
383_5 | Year 1799
In 1799, the overthrow of the Bournons dynasty, the birth of the Parthenopean Republic, the so-called Altamuran Revolution and the return of the Bourbons after a few months halted the courses as well as any other activity of the university. Inside the city of Altamura, there was widespread fear. The harassment occurred on a daily basis, citizens "every day were stopped and spoiled". Many former professors of the university, such as Luca de Samuele Cagnazzi were accused of having joined the riots and they had to flee. Gioacchino de Gemmis also had to leave the city and he was replaced by rector Maffione di Bisceglie. |
383_6 | Closure
In 1806, with the new king Joseph Bonaparte, determined to end feudalism, Gioacchino de Gemmis was appointed again as rector of the University of Altamura, but the lack of funds still was a big issue. In the period 1809-1812, the number of students fell from 100 to 70 and in 1812 courses were officially closed, even though some documents stored in library Archivio capitolare of Altamura show that professors continued to teach until 1821. |
383_7 | After the closure |
383_8 | After the university was closed, somebody considered reopening it but, after the European Restoration and the return of the Bourbon dynasty, things became more complicated. In the 1840s, Luca de Samuele Cagnazzi and Gioacchiono Grimaldi talked to the mayor of Altamura and proposed using the funds of- Monte a Moltiplico in order to open a science experiment room (). After their project was approved, both of them collected the instruments needed and in a short time they managed to create an experiment room for physics and mineralogy "gabinetto fisico mineralogico". The collection of instruments and devices comprised over 115 instruments. Even the experiment room risked being closed and, in 1865, it was given to a high school lyceum of Altamura, (Istituto Tecnico Ginnasiale) and since then it was used by the school as teaching materials. Today the collection belongs to the same high school, located in piazza Zanardelli, called liceo classico "Luca de Samuele Cagnazzi". Over the years, |
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