Claudia de' Medici

Born in Florence into the House of Medici, Claudia was the youngest daughter of Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and his wife, Christina of Lorraine.^[1] She was named after her grandmother Claude of Valois, herself daughter of Catherine de Medici, Queen of France , granddaughter of Claude, Duchess of Brittany, consort to King Francis I of France.

In 1620, she married Federico Ubaldo della Rovere, the only son of Francesco Maria II della Rovere, Duke of Urbino.^[2] Their only child, Vittoria, went on to marry the Grand Duke of Tuscany.^[2] Federico Ubaldo della Rovere died suddenly on 29 June 1623.^[3]

After her husband's premature death, she was married, on 19 April 1626, to Leopold V, Archduke of Austria, and thus became Archduchess consort of Austria.^[4]

On the death of her husband in 1632, she assumed a regency in the name of her son Ferdinand Charles who was the ruler of the Princely County of Tyrol. Claudia, along with five directors, held the post until 1646. She died at Innsbruck in 1648.^[5]

She had one child by Federico Ubaldo della Rovere:

1. Vittoria della Rovere (1622–1694) married Ferdinando II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and had issue,^[2]

She had five children by Archduke Leopold V of Austria:

1. Maria Eleonora of Austria (1627–1629) died in infancy.
2. Ferdinand Charles of Austria (1628–1662) married Anna de' Medici^[1]
3. Isabella Clara of Austria (1629–1685), who married Charles III, Duke of Mantua and had issue.
4. Sigismund Francis of Austria (1630–1665), Count of Tyrol and Regent of Further Austria, who married Countess Palatine Maria Hedwig Auguste of Sulzbach (1650–1681) and had no issue.
5. Maria Leopoldine of Austria (1632–1649),^[6] who married Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III (1608–1657)^[7]

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• Clough, Cecil H. (1981). The Duchy of Urbino in the Renaissance. Variorum Reprints.
• Crinò, Anna Maria (1976). "Un quadro incompiuto di Guido Reni". Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz. 20. Bd., H. 3: 410–411.
• Polleross, Friedrich (2012). "Portraiture at the Imperial Court in the First Half of the 17th Century". In Evans, R.J.W.; Wilson, Peter H. (eds.). The Holy Roman Empire, 1495-1806: A European Perspective. Brill. pp. 349–366.
• Sandbichler, Veronika (2017). "Permanent places for festivals at the Habsburg court in Innsbruck: the 'comedy houses' of 1628 and 1654". In Mulryne, J.R.; De Jonge, Krista; Martens, Pieter; Morris, R.L.M. (eds.). Architectures of Festival in Early Modern Europe: Fashioning and Re-fashioning Urban and Courtly Space. Routledge. pp. 257–298.
• Sarti, Raffaella (2016). "Renaissance graffiti: the case of the Ducal Palace of Urbino". In Cavallo, Sandra; Evangelisti, Silvia (eds.). Domestic Institutional Interiors in Early Modern Europe. Routledge. pp. 51–82.
• Ward, A.W.; Prothero, G.W.; Leathes, Stanley, eds. (1911). The Cambridge Modern History. Vol. XIII. Cambridge at the University Press.

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