Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky listener. Discretion is advised.
Speaker 1: Vincenzo Gonzaga had a problem. He was forty seven years old,
Speaker 1: the Duke of Mantua and Montferrato, with a beloved wife
Speaker 1: and five surviving children, and still Vincenzo Gonzaga had a problem,
Speaker 1: the type of problem that a man of a certain
Speaker 1: age didn't really like to talk about. It's a problem
Speaker 1: that's fairly common today and was fairly common then, and
Speaker 1: that men of Vincenzo's age tolerated all the time. But
Speaker 1: Vincenzo wasn't content to tolerate his problem. He was going
Speaker 1: to do something about his erectile dysfunction. It's at this
Speaker 1: point that I'm going to let you know that this
Speaker 1: episode is maybe a little bit more PG. Thirteen than
Speaker 1: some of my other episodes. It's primarily about procreation and
Speaker 1: the importance of being able to consummate a marriage in
Speaker 1: the sixteenth century. And so even though I'm not really
Speaker 1: discussing things in a sexualized context, there will be by definition,
Speaker 1: sexual content. So discretion is advised for our younger or
Speaker 1: more sensitive listeners anyway. Vincenzo Gonzaga, Renaissance Duke of Italy,
Speaker 1: was suffering from a reptile dysfunction, but rather than just
Speaker 1: accept that maybe his lothario days were behind him, he
Speaker 1: decided to fund an incredibly expensive and highly secretive voyage
Speaker 1: in sixteen o eight where he was going to send
Speaker 1: a fairly anonymous apothecary named Evangelista Marco Bruno to travel
Speaker 1: via ship to the New World so that he could
Speaker 1: hunt for a mysterious worm or cusano that was rumored
Speaker 1: to help cure a number of sexual ailments. On the
Speaker 1: Duke's orders, Marco Bruno traveled from Mantua to Genoa, and
Speaker 1: then through Spain, through Barcelona, Madrid, and Seville until he
Speaker 1: finally made his way onto a galleon ship. From there,
Speaker 1: he continued his journey on foot and then be a
Speaker 1: mule and llama through South America trying to find a
Speaker 1: mythical worm. The entire journey took two years, but we
Speaker 1: don't know if he was actually successful or not. Within
Speaker 1: a few years of Marco Bruno's voyage, Vincenzo Gonzaga would
Speaker 1: be dead. Why would a man go through so much trouble,
Speaker 1: sending an envoy literally across the world just to deal
Speaker 1: with a well little issue. Vincenzo gonzaga story is a
Speaker 1: story about masculinity and the type of masculinity that existed
Speaker 1: in the fifteen and sixteen hundreds. Sexual proficiency wasn't just
Speaker 1: a matter of pride, it was a matter of dynastic importance.
Speaker 1: During his young life, Vincenzo's sexual abilities would become the
Speaker 1: center of a national scandal that required fifteen doctors, a
Speaker 1: college of Catholic cardinals, and ultimately the Pope to weigh in.
Speaker 1: So what did a man have to do and Renaissance
Speaker 1: Italy to be considered a man? For Vincenzo Gonzaga, hunting
Speaker 1: down mysterious worms from across the world was just one
Speaker 1: thing on the list. I'm Danis Schwartz, and this is
Speaker 1: noble blood. Vincenzo's father, the Duke Guilliemo of Mantua, was
Speaker 1: a short and miserable man, disfigured by illness and childhood,
Speaker 1: with a hunchback as his foremost feature. Some historians diagnose
Speaker 1: him posthumously as having tuberculosis of the bone, but the
Speaker 1: actual illness is less important than the way it affected
Speaker 1: his attitude generously, you could call him stern more accurately cruel.
Speaker 1: He and his young son, Vincenzo, never seemed to get along.
Speaker 1: Vincenzo held several feelings about his father at once. He
Speaker 1: hated his father, hated the way that he walked slowly,
Speaker 1: hated his hunchback, hated that his father made him worry
Speaker 1: that one day he too would be old and feeble.
Speaker 1: But Vincenzo also craved his father's love and validation more
Speaker 1: than he ever could have admitted. Vincenzo had a fairly
Speaker 1: standard childhood. Born in fifteen sixty two, he was athletic
Speaker 1: and handsome in contrast to his father, and from a
Speaker 1: young age he was drawn to the hedonistic pleasures of
Speaker 1: art and music. He spent hours outside his family estate
Speaker 1: playing the new sport bala or soccer, and swimming, even
Speaker 1: though everyone around him discouraged it. Swimming was a risky
Speaker 1: proposition for Vincenzo, first because Vincenzo had an uncle who
Speaker 1: died at seventeen of pneumonia after falling into a cold
Speaker 1: lake while hunting, but also because in the sixteenth century,
Speaker 1: the pre eminent science of the day was that spending
Speaker 1: too much time in water would disrupt your humors, still
Speaker 1: swimming or not. As a young man, it seemed like
Speaker 1: Vincenzo might have escaped the ill health of his father.
Speaker 1: The only minor ailment Vincenzo dealt with as a preteen
Speaker 1: was an uh warning here for sensitive listeners, anal fistula
Speaker 1: on his undercarriage, which required draining and cauterization. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: mention it if it wasn't going to be important later,
Speaker 1: as was the correct way to handle things back then.
Speaker 1: The wound was left partially open so that fluids could
Speaker 1: continue to seep out. I can't imagine that it was
Speaker 1: comfortable for Vincenzo when it came to riding a horse
Speaker 1: or sitting, but there were no serious complications, and no
Speaker 1: one would give any thought to the annal fistula until
Speaker 1: much later. There's one event in the early life of
Speaker 1: Vincenzo Gonzaga that stands out for just how extreme it is.
Speaker 1: While Vincenzo was a golden boy when it came to athletics,
Speaker 1: he was merely bright when it came to academics. He
Speaker 1: almost wished his father, Gugliamo would beraate him for failing
Speaker 1: to pay attention in lessons. Instead, all his father did
Speaker 1: was fawn over a visiting scholar in Mantua named James Crichton.
Speaker 1: James Crichton was a brilliant twenty one year old polly math,
Speaker 1: supposedly fluent in a dozen languages, both conversationally and poetically.
Speaker 1: He was a genius, and he was young, and the
Speaker 1: Duke treated him like a son. Vincenzo hated him. One evening,
Speaker 1: while out for a stroll, Crechton was attacked by a
Speaker 1: gang of marauders in masks. Though Crechton tried to defend
Speaker 1: himself with his sword, the thieves outnumbered him and beat
Speaker 1: him until he was dizzied and disoriented on the street. Then,
Speaker 1: with a patch of moonlight to illuminate him, the leader
Speaker 1: of the gang removed his mask. It was Vincenzo Gonzaga,
Speaker 1: the Prince of Mantua himself. Seeing the son of his master,
Speaker 1: Creton fell to his knees, as was custom, and offered
Speaker 1: Vincenzo the hilt of his sword. Vincenzo accepted it and
Speaker 1: then ran the sword through Crechton's stomach, killing him. Vincenzo
Speaker 1: murdered the Scottish genius aged one out of crazed jealousy
Speaker 1: and the impending threat of being replaced. It's rarely more
Speaker 1: than a footnote now in the story of Vincenzo Gonzaga's life,
Speaker 1: but James Creighton wouldn't be the last casualty of gonzaga story.
Speaker 1: When Vincenzo was nineteen years old, he was set to
Speaker 1: make an incredibly important marriage with the daughter of the
Speaker 1: Duke of Parma, a young girl named Margharita for Nacey.
Speaker 1: The Pharnaces and the Gonzagas were long feuding at war
Speaker 1: for about thirty years for increasingly petty reasons on both sides,
Speaker 1: but now the duchies of Mantua and Parma realized how
Speaker 1: valuable it would be to link dynastically in order to
Speaker 1: present a united front against Tuscany, which was growing in power.
Speaker 1: Margharita was the only child and only daughter of the
Speaker 1: Duke of Parma, so she was an incredibly valuable strategic pond.
Speaker 1: So she was going to get married when they needed
Speaker 1: her to be married, even though at the time of
Speaker 1: the match with Vincenzo, she was just thirteen years old
Speaker 1: and hadn't begun menstruating yet. Still, the bride was brought
Speaker 1: to Mantua with a dowry of three hundred thousand ducats,
Speaker 1: and on March second two, Vincenzo Gonzaga married Margarita Farnese,
Speaker 1: who was by then fourteen. The marriage wasn't consummated the
Speaker 1: first night, or the night after that, or the night
Speaker 1: after that. Vincenzo said he was trying, but the marriage
Speaker 1: was still unconsummated, and that was going to be a
Speaker 1: considerable problem. Because an unconsummated marriage can't seal a dynastic alliance,
Speaker 1: the marriage isn't considered valid, and so the Duke of
Speaker 1: Mantua called in doctors to examine the newlyweds. Marcello di nat,
Speaker 1: the Gonzaga court physician, studied Vincenzo's member, erect and flaccid.
Speaker 1: The doctor's conclusion was that it worked just fine, even
Speaker 1: though it was for Renaissance Italy considered unfashionably big. For Marguerita, though,
Speaker 1: the doctor's verdict was that she had a quote fleshy
Speaker 1: excrescence blocking her vaginal canal. Another expert was needed, this
Speaker 1: time the famed anatomy professor from the University of Padua,
Speaker 1: Giorlomo Faverorici, di Aquapendente, who examined the teenage girl and
Speaker 1: said that quote that membrane called himen, which all virgins have,
Speaker 1: in this one is inordinately fleshy, and besides, her nature
Speaker 1: is small because of her young age. I want to
Speaker 1: take a brief aside in uh Dana's sex at the corner,
Speaker 1: away from the main story, just to say that sixteenth
Speaker 1: century medical terminology and understanding of virginity was uh completely wrong.
Speaker 1: Virginity is a social construct. Not all virgins have hymen.
Speaker 1: It can break at any point in your young adulthood.
Speaker 1: Nothing about your body is weird, and if you're a
Speaker 1: young woman listening to this, you were absolutely perfect just
Speaker 1: the way you are. I just wanted to say that
Speaker 1: because there is a lot of old doctors examining a
Speaker 1: very young woman in this story, and a lot of
Speaker 1: sixteenth century language and philosophy being applied to that examination.
Speaker 1: And so back to Margharita. The doctor's recommendation was that
Speaker 1: they make a custom set of cones that would increase
Speaker 1: in girth, which would be inserted in a sending order
Speaker 1: until Margharita was dilated enough to lose her virginity to
Speaker 1: her husband. Margherita, a fourteen year old girl in a
Speaker 1: foreign court who had had a cavalcade of strangers looking
Speaker 1: between her naked legs, was understandably not thrilled by this
Speaker 1: plan of action. They stopped that con insertion plan when
Speaker 1: Marguerita began screaming as the first one was pressed into her.
Speaker 1: Clearly a higher power was needed to deal with the situation.
Speaker 1: Not only was the future of the Mantua Parma alliance
Speaker 1: at stake, but so was the significant dowry. So the
Speaker 1: Pope stepped in and dispatched the Milanaise archbishop and future saint,
Speaker 1: Cardinal Carlo Borromeo. Because Cardinal Carlo was respected by both
Speaker 1: families fairly equally, and he didn't have any inherent biases,
Speaker 1: unlike plenty of the other cardinals. One of the cardinals
Speaker 1: was Margherita's great uncle, so Cardinal Carlo Bormeo dutifully traveled
Speaker 1: to Mantua, where he sat and listened to the testimony
Speaker 1: from a series of doctors, surgeons, ladies in waiting, and
Speaker 1: a nun. Fifteen experts had been called in from across
Speaker 1: Italy to study the genitalia of both Vincenzo and Margharita.
Speaker 1: Four certified virgins of around Margharita's age were brought in
Speaker 1: so that their hymens could be observed in comparison to hers.
Speaker 1: Those poor girls were all promised dowries in return. The
Speaker 1: gossip was rampant, spread on both sides by the Gonzagas
Speaker 1: and the Parnaces, because neither family wanted the lack of
Speaker 1: consummation to be their fault. As is so often the
Speaker 1: case with rampant gossip, most of it was largely contradictory. Apparently,
Speaker 1: Vincenzo was actually engaging in a homosexual relationship and also
Speaker 1: having an affair with the Contessa Sala, and he was
Speaker 1: also impotent. Both families also had their own cardinals advocating
Speaker 1: on their behalf. Gonzaga allied cardinals said that Vincenzo was
Speaker 1: actually too viril for young Margharita and that he was
Speaker 1: off busy successfully consummating one night stands with sex workers
Speaker 1: right and left. Margharita's great uncle Cardinal loudly proclaimed to
Speaker 1: anyone who would listen that Vincenzo's weird giant penis definitely
Speaker 1: didn't work, he probably had syphilis. And also remember that
Speaker 1: anal fistula that was probably making his penis not work. Now, finally,
Speaker 1: three years after the wedding, Cardinal Carlo made his decision.
Speaker 1: The divorce would be granted on the grounds of non
Speaker 1: consummation because of Margarita's quote unbreachable gait. Because the Gonzagas
Speaker 1: weren't to blame, they were allowed to keep one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand ducats of Margharita's dowry. You'd think that the Gonzaga
Speaker 1: would be at least happy with that, but they were
Speaker 1: still in an incredibly vulnerable position. Vincenzo was their heir,
Speaker 1: and now he was yet again unmarried with no heirs
Speaker 1: of his own. It was essential that they find him
Speaker 1: another bride, ideally one that could ally them with an
Speaker 1: important duchy now that the alliance with Parma had gone
Speaker 1: up and smoke. And then the perfect candidate presented herself,
Speaker 1: Eleanora de Medici, the sixteen year old daughter of the
Speaker 1: Grand Duke of Tuscany, Francesco de Medici. Vincenzo would make
Speaker 1: a good marriage for their daughter, but the Medici's wanted
Speaker 1: to avoid the possibility of becoming embroiled in one of
Speaker 1: those Italy wide does his penis work scandals, and so
Speaker 1: Grand Duke Francesco de Medici agreed that Vincenzo could marry
Speaker 1: Eleanora on the condition that Vincenzo proved that he could
Speaker 1: deflower a virgin first. It would be a public trial
Speaker 1: by erection. The whole thing was actually the idea of
Speaker 1: the Grand Duke's wife, Bianca. Bianca was the Grand Duke's
Speaker 1: second wife, and she had been his mistress before that,
Speaker 1: and so before she became the Grand Duchess of Tuscany,
Speaker 1: she dealt with her fair share of gossip and cruel words,
Speaker 1: a lot of them coming from the Gonzagas, who said
Speaker 1: that she was a courtesan who made a terrible match
Speaker 1: for the Grand Duke, an incredibly public and humiliating hoop
Speaker 1: for the Prince of Mantua to jump through perfect revenge
Speaker 1: for Bianca. A special convocation of the College of Cardinals
Speaker 1: was called to determine whether the Medici plan was going
Speaker 1: to be allowed. All of the Gonzaga allies tried to
Speaker 1: protect Vincenzo. It's unnecessary, they said, Plus it undermined the
Speaker 1: authority of the Pope, because didn't the Pope already rule
Speaker 1: that the earlier consummation problem hadn't been Vincenzo's fault. Yeah,
Speaker 1: chimed in Cardinal Alessandro Farness, Margharita's great uncle, remember him.
Speaker 1: He also didn't want Vincenzo to do this little public
Speaker 1: virility test, because if Vincenzo succeeded now, it would prove
Speaker 1: once and for all that his earlier marriage problem had
Speaker 1: been Margharita's fault. Besides, he continued, where are we even
Speaker 1: going to get a virgin for this demonstration? A convent
Speaker 1: or an orphanage. Is the church going to be in
Speaker 1: the business of prostituting an innocent virgin? Turns out the
Speaker 1: answer was yes. The College voted to allow the test
Speaker 1: to take place under conditions rigorous and organized as an
Speaker 1: Olympic event. The trial would occur in Ferrara, where there
Speaker 1: were no major Gonzaga or Medici biases, and the virgin
Speaker 1: would be examined beforehand and kept isolated in the Castello
Speaker 1: Belfiori until the deed was done to prevent contamination on
Speaker 1: her part. Cessi Adeste, the nephew of the Duke of Ferrara,
Speaker 1: would supervise in person. Vincenzo agreed to all of this
Speaker 1: on the condition that the virgin they found be from
Speaker 1: a reasonably good family and that she would have a
Speaker 1: pretty face. Ultimately, the girl was found the oldest daughter
Speaker 1: of a deceased but well known architect and his widow.
Speaker 1: The widow offered her daughter up on the condition that
Speaker 1: when all of this was over, the daughter would be
Speaker 1: given a suitable dowry and marriage. Vincenzo arrived in Ferrara
Speaker 1: riding in on horseback, but before the test took place,
Speaker 1: he left back home with no explanation or apologies. He
Speaker 1: continued to delay the test, canceling plans like he was
Speaker 1: texting with an awkward acquaintance he didn't want to get
Speaker 1: coffee with. The medici were losing patients, and another duke,
Speaker 1: the Duke of Savoy, offered to marry Eleanora if Vincenzo
Speaker 1: didn't want to. Vincenzo hemmed and hod, but finally said
Speaker 1: he would do the test if he was given three nights.
Speaker 1: The Medici's refused, but they did compromise. Vincenzo would be
Speaker 1: given just one night, but he had three chances. By
Speaker 1: this point, the widow's daughter was released from the castle
Speaker 1: where she was being held or should I say, preserved,
Speaker 1: and the Ferrara royal family was just entirely over this
Speaker 1: whole thing. So the test was transferred to Venice, and
Speaker 1: this time Francesco to Medici would find the virgin himself.
Speaker 1: Ultimately he found one, the illegitimate daughter of a decent
Speaker 1: family who was living in an orphanage, a girl named Julia.
Speaker 1: It took Vincenzo two tries, but ultimately he did the deed.
Speaker 1: Vincenzo married Eleanora, and in the end all those tests
Speaker 1: really made no difference, considering fairly quickly. The pair went
Speaker 1: on to have six children, five of whom survived. And
Speaker 1: as for all those rumors of his impotence, when Vincenzo
Speaker 1: ultimately did become the Duke of Mantua after his father's death,
Speaker 1: he got a reputation as quite the libertine, with a
Speaker 1: number of affairs and a few illegitimate children. Vincenzo's reputation
Speaker 1: as a duke would be that his hedonism drained the
Speaker 1: duchy financially, but he also turned Mantua into a thriving
Speaker 1: cultural center, inviting composers, painters, and poets to his court.
Speaker 1: Vincenzo provided health care and food to the poor on
Speaker 1: the whole, not a terrible duke, even though he did
Speaker 1: struggle with what is seen as the ultimate masculine accomplishment,
Speaker 1: military conquest. Still, in the end, good duke or bad duke,
Speaker 1: children or no children in Mantua would fall plundered thanks
Speaker 1: to the twin pillars of disease and invasion, dissolving into
Speaker 1: the bigger kingdoms of Italy twenty five years after Vincenzo's death.
Speaker 1: By Vincenzo's thirties and forties, the impending shadows of his
Speaker 1: late father's illnesses would begin to catch up with him,
Speaker 1: and Vincenzo would summon the biggest names in Italian medicine
Speaker 1: to treat his ailments, which ranged from what we now
Speaker 1: call Saint Anthony's fire to yes the erectile dysfunction that
Speaker 1: ultimately led Vincenzo to sponsor the Apothecary's trip around the world.
Speaker 1: Vincenzo died just a short while after his wife Eleanora,
Speaker 1: and they say that he was buried in a secret
Speaker 1: crypt in the Church of Saint Andrea, but to this
Speaker 1: day the crypt has never been found, the area has
Speaker 1: been explored and the walls perforated in search of the
Speaker 1: hidden chamber, but still nothing. Vincenzo didn't want the solemn,
Speaker 1: serious burial that would have been common at the time
Speaker 1: to show off one's piety. Instead, he requested that he
Speaker 1: be buried upright, dressed magnificently and sitting in a specially
Speaker 1: made marble chair inside his upright coffin. And he requested
Speaker 1: in his hand, what the Freudians among you might take
Speaker 1: to be a little bit on the nose when it
Speaker 1: comes to phallic symbolism, A giant jewel encrusted sword held aloft.
Speaker 1: That's the story of Vincenzo Gonzaga's sexual trial. But keep
Speaker 1: listening after a brief sponsor break, to hear a little
Speaker 1: bit more about what happened to Margarita. After his first
Speaker 1: failed marriage. Vincenzo Gonzaga went on to live a long
Speaker 1: life with another wife and plenty of kids. The same
Speaker 1: wasn't true for Margharita. Being a woman unable to consummate
Speaker 1: marriage in sixteenth century Italy meant Margherita was deposited by
Speaker 1: her powerful family into a nunnery, where she remained in
Speaker 1: isolation for the next six decades of her life, until
Speaker 1: she ultimately died at age seventy five. But even within
Speaker 1: the walls of the convent, Margherita had a life. There
Speaker 1: was a musician rumored to be a secret lover, who
Speaker 1: visited her until her family increased security. When Marguerita got older,
Speaker 1: she was elected abbess of the convent several times in
Speaker 1: a row. She had thoughts and dreams and plans, but
Speaker 1: because of the disaster with Vincenzo Gonzaga when she was
Speaker 1: fourteen years old, her entire life was one of pious confinement.
Speaker 1: She's a side note in the story now, another casualty
Speaker 1: of Vincenzo's life, one of the characters from history who
Speaker 1: are so often forgotten, who if circumstances had been a
Speaker 1: little different, might have been so much more. Noble Blood
Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and
Speaker 1: Mild from Aaron Minky. The show was written and hosted
Speaker 1: by Dani Schwartz. Executive producers include Aaron Manky, Alex Williams,
Speaker 1: and Matt Frederick. The show is produced by rema Ill
Speaker 1: Kali and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social media
Speaker 1: at Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more about
Speaker 1: the show over at Noble Blood tales dot com. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.