Anne Marie Martinozzi

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Anne Marie Martinozzi
Princess of Conti
Born1637
Rome, Italy
Died4 February 1672
Hôtel de Conti (quai Conti), Paris, France
SpouseArmand de Bourbon, Prince of Conti
IssueLouis de Bourbon
Louis Armand de Bourbon
François Louis de Bourbon
HouseHouse of Bourbon
FatherGirolamo Martinozzi
MotherLaura Margherita Mazzarini
SignatureAnne Marie Martinozzi's signature

Anne Marie Martinozzi, Princess of Conti (1637 – 4 February 1672) was a French aristocrat and court official. She was a niece of King Louis XIV of France's chief minister Cardinal Mazarin, and the wife of Armand de Bourbon, Prince of Conti. She became the mother of the libertine François Louis, Prince of Conti, le Grand Conti. Her marriage to the Prince of Conti made her a princesse du Sang. She served as Surintendante de la Maison de la Reine for the queen dowager, Anne of Austria, between 1657 and 1666.

Biography

Anne Marie Martinozzi was born in Rome to Girolamo Martinozzi of Fano and Laura Margherita Mazzarini,[1] the daughter of Pietro Mazzarini who served as a constable of Constable Colonna and Ortensia Bufalini. She was the elder sister of Jules Mazarin, who was Cardinal and Prime Minister during the minority of Louis XIV of France.

Her paternal grandparents were Vinzenco Martinozzi, who had served as Majordomo at the Court of Cardinal Francesco Barberini, and Margherita Marcolini.

Anne Marie spent her childhood in Rome, where her father served as Mayor in the palace of the Roman Curia. In 1647, Anne-Marie and her Mancini cousins were summoned by Mazarin to France.

While in France, Anne Marie and her cousins were placed under the protection of Anne of Austria, who even oversaw their education.

Anne Marie's father died in 1650, and in 1653 her widowed mother took her younger daughter Laura with her and moved to Paris to live with her brother, Cardinal Mazarin.

Anne-Marie and her female cousins, the Mancini sisters: Laura, Marie, Olympe, Hortense came to be known as the Mazarinettes by the French court. Mazarin managed to secure advantageous marriages for all of them. Anne Marie's sister Laura married Alfonso IV d'Este, Duke of Modena and her daughter (Anne Marie's niece) Mary of Modena, would be the future Queen of England when she married James II of England.

Anne Marie was described as being possessed of a beautiful appearance, blonde hair, a sweet temper, generous, with a lot of wit and intelligence.[2] Although generally considered gentle and modest, she sometimes had blunt manners that disconcerted and offended people.[3]

Marriage

Like the other Mazarinettes it was expected that Anne Marie's uncle would arrange a good match for her, and plans for her marriage were begun very soon after her arrival in Paris.

The Duke of Candale was suggested but it met with opposition from his father the Duke d`Epernon who saw it as a mésalliance for his son. The young duke could claim royal ancestry as his mother Gabrielle-Angélique de Verneuil, was a legitimized daughter of Henry IV of France.

In 1654, she married Armand de Bourbon, Prince of Conti.[1] The marriage took place at the Palace du Louvre 22 February 1654,[4]and was officiated by the Archbishop of Bourges.[4]

After the marriage ceremony the play Le Cid[4] was performed, followed by a banquet and a ball.[4]

Anne brought a dowry of 200,000 ecu to the marriage, the equivalent of about $500,000 today.

Hôtel de Conti engraved by Jean Marot from L'Architecture française (1686)

In 1660 she and her husband began living at an hôtel on the quai Malaquais, which became known as the Hôtel de Conti.[5]

Before their marriage Conti had contracted syphilis which he infected Anne Marie with. The couple tried to cure it by all possible means. When this failed, her husband turned to religion and rejected his old life. He retreated to Languedoc where he immersed himself in reading, writing, and studying religious literature.

Eventually Anne Marie was influenced by her husband and like him became a fervent jansenist and extreme in her piety.

Anne Marie's cousin Hortense who had married the Duke of La Meilleraye, who was insanely jealous and abusive towards her, was given the choice of escaping him by going to live at the Hotel de Conti with Anne Marie and her husband or entering a convent. She chose the convent.

They had two sons, Louis Armand (born 1661) and François Louis (born 1664). Her husband died in 1666, after which Anne Marie refused to marry again and instead devoted herself to her sons and a pious life. Close with her sister-in-law, the Duchess of Longueville; they were referred to as "les Mères de l'Église" by Madame de Sevigne.

She acted as the godmother by proxy to le Grand Dauphin for Henrietta Maria of France, the dauphins own aunt (24 March 1668).

In 1670, Anne Marie exchanged her townhouse on the quai Malaquais and her beautiful country house in Bouchet for the Hôtel Guénégaud on the quai de Nevers. The house on the quai Malaquais became the Hôtel du Plessis-Guénégaud, her new house became the Hôtel de Conti, and the quai de Nevers became the quai de Conti.[6]

Death

She died in Paris at her hôtel on the quai Conti in 1672; she was aged roughly 35.

Her remains were interred in the church of Saint-André-des-Arts. Anne-Marie's son François Louis later had a funeral monument commissioned from the artist François Girardon.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

In 1794, during the French Revolution her tomb was desecrated and her remains were placed in the catacombs.

The church was razed in the early 19th century, but not before the monuments had been dismantled and removed to Musée des Monuments.[7] In 1809 the relief was placed in the park of the Empress Josephine's estate, Chateau de Malmaison.[7]

Issue

She had five children, two of whom reached adulthood:

Stillborn son (1655)

Stillborn son (1657)

Ancestry

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Hillman 2016, p. 10.
  2. ^ Pollitzer, Marcel (1959-01-01). Les amazones de la Fronde et le quadrille des intrigants (in French). FeniXX. ISBN 979-10-369-1149-1.
  3. ^ Roujon, Jacques (1941). Conti l'ennemi de Louis XIV. Librairie A. Fayard. ASIN B002T88UQM.
  4. ^ a b c d Cosnac, Gabriel-Jules de (1892). Mazarin et Colbert (in French). E. Plon, Nourrit et Cie, imprimeurs-éditeurs.
  5. ^ Alexandre Gady (2008), Les Hôtels particuliers de Paris du Moyen Âge à la Belle Époque (Paris: Parigramme, ISBN 9782840962137), p. 314.
  6. ^ André Mauban (1944), Jean Marot: Architecte et Graveur Parisien (Paris: Les Éditions d'Art et d'Histoire, OCLC 7057275), p. 286.
  7. ^ a b Girardon, François (1672–75), Allegorical figure, retrieved 2025-02-25

Sources

  • Hillman, Jennifer (2016). Female Piety and the Catholic Reformation in France. Routledge.
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