eaning the three cities of Naples, Milan and Genoa.
And it cannot be doubted that if the Pope had lived the natural
span of his life he would have sold out the Emperor too, and
made him pay well for that imprisonment, in order to enrich his
niece and the kingdom to which she was joined. But Clement VII
died too soon and all these expected gains could not withstand
this blow. So that our Queen, having lost her mother, Magdelaine
de Boulogne, and Lorenzo de Medici, Duke of Urbino, her father,
in her early life, was given in marriage to France by her uncle,
Pope Clement VII, and was brought by sea in great triumph to
Marseilles, where at the age of fourteen she was wedded with great
ceremony.

She made herself so beloved by the King, her father-in-law, and
by King Henry, her husband, that after ten years had passed and
still no heir being born to her, and though many persons endeavoured
to persuade the King and the Dauphin, her husband, to divorce
her, neither one would consent, so greatly did they love her.
But after ten years, in accordance with the nature of the women
of the Medici family, who were ever slow in conceiving, she began
to furnish heirs, the first being King Francis II.

After him was born the Queen of Spain, and then consecutively,
that fine and illustrious progeny whom we have all seen, besides
others who were no sooner born than they died, by great misfortune
and fatality. For this reason the King, her husband, loved her
more and more, and in such manner that he, who was naturally
of an amorous temperament, and who greatly liked to make love
and to vary his loves, often said that of all the women in the
world there was none who excelled his wife for love-making, nor
did any equal her.

He had good cause for saying this, for she truly was a princess
beautiful as well as lovable. She was of fine and stately presence;
of great majesty, at the same time gentle when occasion required
it; of noble appearance and good grace, her face handsome and
agreeable, her bosom full, beautiful, and exquisitely fair, her
body also very fair, the flesh firm, the skin smooth, as I have
heard from several ladies-in-waiting; of a good plumpness as
well, the leg and thigh well formed (as I have heard too from
the same ladies).

She also took great pride in being well shod and in having her
stockings tightly drawn up without wrinkles. Besides all this
she possessed the most beautiful hand that was ever seen, as I
believe