People
Learn more about the people in Marie’s letters. Click on a name to browse related letters.
A
- A man in Marie's service.
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- Arnolfini may be a man related to one of the maids in waiting who had accompanied Marie to Rome from the French court at the time of her marriage in 1661: Claude Dulong cites a list of the fifty-five servants and attendants in her suite, with a Mademoiselle d'Arnolfini as one of the two maids of honor at the head of the list. Dulong, Marie Mancini, 106.
B
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C
- Charles-Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy (1634-1675). He was the sovereign of Savoy, which was an independent state in the seventeenth century; he was a grandson of Henri IV of France. Charles-Emmanuel II was one of Hortense Mancini's early suitors, and she was his guest living in the château of Chambéry from 1672 until his death in 1675. He also offered his hospitality to Marie in his capital city of Turin.
- A woman in Marie's service.
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D
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- Don Maurizio Bologna had been Marie's Italian secretary in Rome, and he was sent to her in Turin by Lorenzo in late February 1673, more to spy on her than to serve her. Dulong, Marie Mancini, 233-37.
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F
- A woman in Marie's service.
G
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I
- Luis Manuel Fernández de Portocarrero (1635-1709) was created cardinal in 1669 and lived until 1677 in Rome as cardinal protector of the Spanish nation.
- César d'Estrées (1628-1714) was a French ecclesiastic who also had a number of high-level political roles under Louis XIV. The King made him Bishop of Laon, and duke and peer of France, in 1653. In 1671, Pope Clement X made him a cardinal, attached first to the church of Santa Maria in Via in Rome and later to the French national church in Rome, la Trinità dei Monti, at the top of the Spanish Steps. César d'Estrées was a nephew of Henri IV's famous mistress Gabrielle d'Estrées, and he was thus related by marriage to Marie, whose eldest sister, Laura Mancini, was married to a grandson of Henri IV and Gabrielle d'Estrées, Louis de Bourbon-Vendôme, duc de Mercoeur.
- Don Gaspar Téllez Girón Gómez de Sandoval Enríquez de Rivera, Duke of Osuna, Marquis of Peñafiel, Count of Ureña (d. 1694), was governor of Milan from 1670 to 1674. He was reputed to have seduced several ladies of the Milanese nobility.
- The Duke of York (1633-1701) became James II of England and Ireland, and James VII of Scotland, in 1685 upon the death of his brother, Charles II. James was Catholic, and he remained on the throne only until 1688, when the Glorious Revolution brought about the reign of his Anglican daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange.
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- Prince Don Carlo Emanuele d'Este, Marquis of Borgomanero (1622-1695), was, like Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna, an Italian nobleman in the service of Spain. He was a grandee of Spain and a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, and he later became the viceroy of Galicia, a conseiller d'état, and the king of Spain's ambassador to England and to the Holy Roman Emperor. Borgomanero also had close family connections to the dukes of Savoy, as his father had been in their service.
- Emmanuel-Philibert de Savoie-Carignan, prince de Carignan (1628-1709), was the first cousin of Duke Charles-Emmanuel II of Savoy. He was also the brother-in-law of Marie's sister Olympe Mancini, who was married to Eugène-Maurice de Savoie-Carignan, comte de Soissons. The nephews whom Marie mentions were both her nephews and the prince de Carignan's; he had no children of his own until after his marriage in 1684.
- Filippo Colonna (1642-1686), younger brother of Lorenzo Colonna.
K
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L
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- Lucrezia Colonna (1652-1716), younger sister of Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna, Marie's husband.
- The Duchess of Modena was Marie's first cousin, Laura Martinozzi (1639-1687), another niece of Cardinal Mazarin who had come to the French court from Rome at the same time as Marie and Hortense, in 1653. Laura was married in 1655 to Alfonso IV d'Este, Duke of Modena, who died in 1662. Laura was regent for her son, Francesco II d'Este, who began to reign in 1674. Laura's daughter, Mary of Modena (1658-1718), was married in 1673 to the Duke of York (1633-1701), who later became James II of England and Ireland and James VII of Scotland.
M
- A member of the Colonna household in Rome.
- Marie Mancini's sister
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- Marcatelli was a servant of the Colonna household in Rome whom Marie often mentions in connection with financial transactions.
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- When Marie refers to 'il generale della Minerva,' she means 'il maestro generale della basilica di Santa Maria sopra Minerva'–the Master General of the basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, on the Piazza della Minerva in Rome. The basilica was the seat of the top hierarchy of the Dominican order, and the Master General was the head of the order.
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- According to Claude Dulong, Monsieur de Moriès was related to Madame de Venelle, the governess for Marie and her sisters when they came to France. Dulong, Marie Mancini, 374 n.
Anne-Marie de La Trémouille (or Marie-Anne de La Trémoille), Princesse de Chalais (1642-1722), was married in 1657 to Adrien-Blaise de Talleyrand, Prince de Chalais, and was widowed in 1670 in Italy. She stayed in Italy, and in 1675 she married Flavio degli Orsini, Duke of Bracciano (1620-1698). After his death, she assumed the title of Princesse des Ursins, although it had no legal existence, and through her complicated political maneuvering, she managed to establish herself as camerera mayor to Marie-Louise Gabrielle of Savoy (granddaughter of Hortense's benefactor, Charles-Emmanuel II of Savoy), the thirteen-year-old bride of the young Spanish king, Philip V (who was himself the grandson of Louis XIV). From 1701 to 1714, the Princesse des Ursins was the most powerful figure in Spain, holding sway as she did over the young queen and through her, over the king.
However, Marie's reference here to the Princesse de Chalais is meant to point out the freedom which she claimed for herself as a young widow in Italy. And like the freedom that the Mancini sisters had appropriated, it was looked upon with disapproval by such contemporaries as Madame de Sévigné, who wrote in 1672: “Madame de Chalais is mad; that is how she is seen in this country. The fine idea of going from town to town, in Italy, like a hapless wretch of a princess, instead of coming back peacefully to Paris to her mother who adores her, and who counts among all the misfortunes of her family the extravagance of her daughter! She is right; I have never seen a more ridiculous one.” (« Mme de Chalais est folle; on la trouve telle en ce pays-ci. La belle pensée d'aller de ville en ville, en Italie, comme une princesse infortunée, au lieu de revenir à Paris paisiblement chez sa mère qui l'adore, et qui met au rang de tous les malheurs de sa maison l'extravagance de sa fille ! Elle a raison ; je n'en ai jamais vu une plus ridicule. ») Letter to Madame de Grignan dated April 20, 1672, Correspondance, I: 484.
- Philippe de Courcillon, marquis de Dangeau (1638-1720) was a French military commander and diplomat. He was also a man of letters; he was elected to the Académie Française in 1668, and he became known posthumously for the journal he kept from 1684 until his death in 1720, in which he recorded daily life at the court of Louis XIV.
N
- A maid of honor in Marie's service.
- Néné—or Néna, according to Claude Dulong—was Marie's dog. Dulong, Marie Mancini, 205.
O
- Father Gian Paolo Oliva (1600-1681) became general of the Society of Jesus in 1664. He was a noted preacher and an art lover who had close ties to the Colonna family, even as he worked consistently to limit the influence of the nobility on the Jesuit order.
- Countess Hortense–or Ortensia–Stella was one of the French maids of honor who accompanied Marie to Rome at the time of her marriage to Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna. She belonged to the Colonna household and appears to have been married in Rome to a certain Count Stella. She became the close friend and confidante of Marie, to whom Marie wrote with great affection; however, it is likely that Countess Stella and Lorenzo were also lovers, and she may have borne him children. Dulong, Marie Mancini, 278-79, 367-68.
P
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T
- A woman in Marie's service.