Vulgar History - Catherine de'Medici： Part One

00:00:00.000 Hi, Tits Out Brigade. It's me, Anne. I wanted to let you know about a fundraiser that I'm

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00:01:53.300 Hello, and welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women's history comedy podcast. My name is Anne

00:02:04.900 Foster, and this is a big one. Today, we're going to be talking, well, in the first of

00:02:09.620 three episodes about Catherine de' Medici, who was the Queen of France, and then kind of was

00:02:17.100 the government of France in a way that I'll explain to you later. She was one of the most

00:02:22.400 consequential women of Renaissance Europe. And you never know it when you see how her life started 0.80

00:02:27.960 off as a little baby orphan. So this is the Mary Queen of Scots season. There's something about

00:02:33.520 Mary Queen of Scots. And Mary Queen of Scots spent her formative years growing up at the French royal

00:02:40.200 court, Catherine de' Medici being there, of course. And so this is really putting just some pieces

00:02:45.420 into place when we get to the Mary Queen of Scots episode, which is going to be coming a bit later.

00:02:49.160 you can really understand Mary and where she's coming from and what her influences were and

00:02:54.180 kind of what role models she had around her when she was growing up. And so because this story

00:02:59.440 is so big and it involves a lot of European history that I am not as familiar with as my

00:03:07.180 guest. So I've brought on Lana Wood Johnson, friend of the podcast, frequent co-host on to

00:03:13.120 help really to talk about this because honestly, Lana and I, we talk about Catherine de Medici a

00:03:18.820 lot like even outside of this podcast like before I had this podcast we just like we just love her

00:03:24.120 her messiness her resiliency her the scandals that surround her so I'm really excited to have

00:03:31.100 Lana here for part one of like three of Catherine de Medici so enjoy part one

00:03:39.160 so hello and welcome to Vulgar History a feminist women's history comedy podcast

00:03:45.140 My name is Anne Foster, and this is a big one.

00:03:48.340 This is, we're going for a heavy hitter.

00:03:50.440 So this season is, there's something about Mary, Queen of Scots, and we're slowly sort

00:03:54.100 of building out what her world was before we actually get to the Mary, Queen of Scots

00:03:57.920 episodes.

00:03:59.680 And we've talked about her grandmother, we've talked about her mother, and in talking about

00:04:04.320 her mother, we get into the diggies of it all.

00:04:07.460 There's going to be a lot of diggies action this week, which is why Lana Wood Johnson 0.99

00:04:11.140 is here again. 0.83

00:04:12.540 Lana, hello.

00:04:13.600 Hello.

00:04:13.920 Oh, there's there's so much diggies. I was going through a biography, a newer biography of we're talking about Catherine de Medici, or sorry, Medici, Catherine de Medici. My pronunciation is based on, as you know, the television show Rain. And on that show, which is on for four seasons, everyone called her the de Medici. But apparently it's Medici, Medici, Medici, Medici.

00:04:39.260 did she? Please correct me when I say it incorrectly, but also that's where I learned

00:04:44.360 the name. So I had never heard of her. I'd never heard of Catherine de' Medici until I was watching

00:04:48.580 Reign. I really didn't know a lot about Mary Queen of Scots until I was watching Reign,

00:04:51.780 honestly. And that's what got me interested in her. Anyway, Lana, hi.

00:04:56.920 Hi. This is, we've also decided several hours today to record this. This is going to be more

00:05:03.340 than one episode. I have a feeling you're going to make me do one whole episode on my sliding

00:05:07.440 Glass Doors theory. So like, yeah, no, there's going to be a lot, although it was interesting.

00:05:12.580 So I wrote about Catherine de' Medici several years ago. And then I was like, well, let's look

00:05:19.200 at what new biographies have been published about her since then. And so I was looking at, it's

00:05:23.240 called Blood, Fire and Gold by Estelle Pereng, which is a co, interestingly, it's a co-biography

00:05:28.600 of Catherine de' Medici and Elizabeth I. And initially I was like, okay, like I was kind of

00:05:33.380 breezing through the Elizabeth I chapters because it was just kind of like parallel lives. But then

00:05:37.180 suddenly they entwine, the stories entwine. And then they have a lot to do with each other for

00:05:42.460 the last like two thirds of the book. Anyway, so I was looking at that last night and I was like,

00:05:47.160 oh, this is the first time, like when I first read about Catherine Domenici, I was just kind

00:05:51.280 of like teaching myself, like, who is this? So I sort of focused just on her and what she was up

00:05:56.280 to. But now with a broader understanding of what was going on, I was like, oh, the Degeese family

00:06:00.840 is everywhere like there's just diggies diggiesing in every closet in every shady hallway they're 1.00

00:06:08.780 they're starting a new religious war by killing like a bunch of people repeatedly look you got 1.00

00:06:16.680 a thing you go with it all right that's it's the trademark move it's the diggies it's like

00:06:22.440 instigating a religious war it happens i think three times when in doubt religious massacre

00:06:27.520 yeah because i knew about the queen margo one but i'm like oh there was others

00:06:32.300 anyway so thank you lana because now i understand more fully what we're gonna talk about today

00:06:38.200 like when we get to the diggies the diggies related stuff i do find it amusing that you

00:06:43.720 had me on for the marie marie diggies episode where we talked almost exclusively about scotland

00:06:48.720 and now we're having the catherine de medici episode who is an italian woman and we're talking

00:06:54.320 almost exclusively about france yes actually i want to just before we get into catherine herself

00:06:59.480 i do want to mention she was italian and that i want to i just kind of want to give an overall

00:07:05.740 caveat for a couple things so she was an italian person in france and so there's xenophobia aimed

00:07:12.660 towards her her whole life there's people who are thinking oh the italians they're a lot of the

00:07:17.580 stuff about her like was she casually interested in poisons yes was she like very superstitious

00:07:23.760 and was she into sort of like her version of kind of new agey medicine yes but like the fact that

00:07:30.740 she was italian people just all over the place were just being like oh she wants to poison them

00:07:34.520 because that's what italians do okay that's part one that's part one while she was still alive

00:07:39.380 people were sort of thinking the worst of her because of just being prejudiced against italians

00:07:44.740 after she died when there was a new dynasty that took over the bourbons they really wanted to

00:07:50.700 vilify her and everything she stood for. So a lot of the records we have about her were written

00:07:55.380 after the fact by people who had a motivation to make her sound just unhinged. So kind of

00:08:02.220 in this episode, hopefully we can kind of talk about like on a scale of whatever, you know,

00:08:09.680 zero to 10, how likely is this one scandalous detail to be true, given that a lot of what we

00:08:15.660 know about her was written by people who hated her for one or two pretty substantial reasons

00:08:20.840 i love that all of your knowledge about her comes from basically fanfic yeah yeah queen margot fanfic

00:08:29.460 rain fanfic yeah and so i was coming into it just being like oh man this woman like i knew about her

00:08:36.720 from rain i knew about her from the movie queen margot which was based on the novel which was

00:08:40.780 it's all a fanfic so i was coming like oh yeah she's this cool woman she's running around she's 1.00

00:08:44.960 murdering people and it's like well yes kind of but also that is based on just a lot of people

00:08:52.360 who had reasons to hate it's like it's like if you're reading um the other boleyn girl by philica 0.98

00:08:57.860 philica gregory it's like oh and boleyn she had six fingers she had sex with her brother it's just 0.84

00:09:02.040 like oh you're just you're just making everything that all the people who hated her it's like she 0.98

00:09:07.520 was a witch it's just it's like it's that same thing right but you don't get those stories about

00:09:12.520 you unless you're a very powerful, very, very influential woman. Like that you even have that

00:09:19.240 level of stories means you did something right with your life. Exactly. Exactly. It's the same

00:09:24.120 as terribly, terribly wrong. Yeah. True. Like you did something like you stood out in some way

00:09:30.000 that was disconcerting to the men who were writing your records. Like it's the same thing as like,

00:09:35.520 I don't know, Cleopatra, Harem Sultan, like anyone who history has written about, like, 0.98

00:09:40.220 maybe she was a witch it's like or was she just a woman who acted like you didn't think women 0.66

00:09:45.140 should like anytime it's someone's like maybe she was a witch i'm like okay like sure sure anyway

00:09:53.540 so what is your knowledge based on for catherine de medici where do you know her from

00:09:58.900 once again i obsessively read the antonia fraser mary queen of scott's book

00:10:05.960 every month for the entirety of seventh grade, just for funsies, checked it out from the library,

00:10:13.580 would just read it over and over and over again. It was, it was my heart. So that's where my

00:10:19.880 knowledge of Mary Queen of Scots starts, but it does not end there because I also then paid an

00:10:24.820 exorbitant amount of money to be told how early modern Europeans, European royals lived. And

00:10:33.300 sometimes I'd get to learn about other things. But for the most part, it's about the royals and

00:10:38.460 the nobles and the important families. And now I have a very fancy history degree that stands on

00:10:43.800 my wall as I do IT work. Well, for a long time, I had a fancy history degree in my closet while I

00:10:53.080 did librarian managerial tasks. So here we both are. We studied the same era of history, but we

00:11:00.600 studied very different places in it. So we complement each other quite well with our

00:11:05.280 knowledge. Well, and I was thinking too, like we're getting, so you were here for the Marie

00:11:10.200 DeGeeze episodes. Like we're doing how God knows how many episodes this is going to turn into

00:11:13.740 about Catherine Domenici. And then you are going to be coming back for an undisclosed later episode

00:11:18.700 too. So we talked about this when we did the Lady Jane live stream a while ago, but could you

00:11:24.200 explain Lana, your important role as the muse for why this podcast exists at all?

00:11:30.600 So, um, I was thinking about maybe starting a podcast and Ann goes, I should also start a

00:11:35.660 podcast. Why would I start a podcast? Well, um, we were, you and I were plotting, trying to figure

00:11:42.160 out a way for you to get a book written about Caroline of Brunswick, who is our favorite human,

00:11:49.000 favorite human ever to have existed at this point, maybe not favorite, but like really up there at

00:11:54.960 the time. And there was, you didn't have the platform yet. And you're like, I should start a

00:11:59.060 podcast? What kind of podcast? And so we talked about it and you started this one and I started

00:12:05.560 none, but you know, who knows? But I think I also remember in that conversation, you had said

00:12:10.960 something like, if you were going to start a podcast where it was like two people sharing

00:12:14.580 stories back and forth, you were like, it'd probably be me who you would do that with.

00:12:18.040 And so I love that we're kind of like, we're kind of doing that now in like half of this season.

00:12:24.800 I'm also your unofficial, or no, your official Habsburg Whisperer, your De Geese Whisperer, and random other, like, I just want to go on record as saying, she, she and Queen Min were my suggestions.

00:12:40.140 Because I also studied East Asian history.

00:12:44.160 so no lana has you're very good at suggest when lana suggests somebody that would be good for

00:12:50.420 the podcast i know to take this seriously because you know exactly what sorts of stuff

00:12:54.500 gets me excited i'm on the low ranking the lowest rated uh so far today today is my my comeback but

00:13:03.820 i love i love the weird chaos demon people but also like i know what a hardcore high score is

00:13:11.420 going to look like on your episode well and lana also is um you help out with the website so you're

00:13:17.500 actually currently very intimately familiar with the scandalous scale which you just figured out

00:13:22.320 a way to make it be on the website so if people are interested to see where where your favorite

00:13:26.440 ranks is you can actually see that list now at vulgarhistory.com i do need to put the proper 0.73

00:13:31.260 title on there so hopefully by the time this airs it'll have have the proper queen fred again

00:13:35.940 here's the thing so with the scores the skandalicious scale scores which are I started

00:13:42.900 doing it just as like a nice way to wrap up every episode and I do think in the first season or two

00:13:49.160 I was like very cautious I didn't want to be like 40 everyone's 40 because then it's not

00:13:53.460 that's not fun so I tried to I was I think especially hard on early on people like some

00:13:59.740 of the scores when I look at them now I'm just like really that's where that's where I put

00:14:03.200 Carolina Brunswick that's where I put Francis Howard that's where I put Cleopatra but so

00:14:07.380 the scores are you know subjective but the other thing to remember and I know that you have a much

00:14:13.620 more math friendly brain than I do Lana she had to be a google doc that just had the titles and

00:14:24.740 they were vaguely in numerical order they weren't alphabetized they weren't like numerical and then

00:14:29.500 alphabetized they were a google doc quiz so I couldn't like sort it or anything and there

00:14:35.280 weren't any of the sub numbers it was just the final total and I'm like I'm gonna have to listen

00:14:40.820 back through every single episode and get all of the numbers because this hurts my soul yeah so

00:14:48.060 when people in the past have said like oh can is this going to scale anywhere for me to look at

00:14:52.180 and I'm like no because it's in this google doc that is just becoming more and more unwieldy what

00:14:58.540 i had done when i sent it to you lana i cleaned it up a bit because the the official one that i

00:15:03.080 look at is each person is color coded by which season they're from so oh i'm also like i have

00:15:11.000 grand plans for your website that like i told her um she can pay me more money if she needs

00:15:18.320 things urgently but if she just lets me play with it i will make the coolest website ever

00:15:23.340 And that's the option I'm going with.

00:15:27.300 But yeah, it was nice to see the scale, but also just like looking at it again, I'm just

00:15:30.700 like, eee, what?

00:15:31.960 But yeah, no, because what I do is I just say the score.

00:15:34.760 Like, I need to really emphasize how much I've been doing this show now for six seasons.

00:15:39.520 And there's like some things about it that are more elevated than when I began.

00:15:44.180 Like Christina is the editor now.

00:15:46.280 Like I use better software to record with.

00:15:48.780 But it's also very much just me in my spare time at my kitchen table while Hepper and

00:15:53.680 my cat walks back and forth across my keyboard just doing stuff.

00:15:57.600 So when I say the score, I just enter in a Google sheet and I'm just like, okay, life

00:16:01.000 goes on.

00:16:01.980 And in the back of my brain somewhere, I was like, maybe one day some super fan is going

00:16:06.460 to make a Reddit thread.

00:16:09.200 If there's a super fan out there that already has all of the numbers in a spreadsheet, I

00:16:14.100 love you.

00:16:14.780 Please send them.

00:16:15.460 I think there might be someone because I remember somebody told me once that they were listening and

00:16:19.360 then they were doing their own scores before they heard my scores and they're comparing their scores

00:16:23.320 to my scores so I think someone out there might have those numbers super fans are my people yeah

00:16:28.420 exactly and we are both Catherine de Medici super fans and here we are yes this is gonna be so much

00:16:35.300 this is that's the thing so even like the Mary Queen of Scott season I put up doing for a long

00:16:40.180 time because I knew it was gonna be a time I knew it was gonna be a season and it was gonna be a

00:16:44.200 time commitment and someone like Catherine de Medici has been requested frequently to the point

00:16:48.540 like I don't sometimes I like to say like this person suggested it but it's like numerous people

00:16:52.140 especially when the serpent queen tv show started people were like oh have you not done her yet I

00:16:57.360 wanted to listen to your episode about her and I'm just like no you don't understand this is like if

00:17:01.000 I'm going to do Catherine de Medici like I need to I need to do it right and that yeah that involves

00:17:06.520 Lana that involves several hours of time set aside what you all don't know is the number the

00:17:13.060 the sheer amount of chats that we've had just about Catherine de Medici for this episode was

00:17:19.380 even suggested before this even was a, was a moat in Anne's eye. We just sit around and talk

00:17:25.400 about Catherine de Medici. Yeah, she is. I mean, what is it that this Barbie is everything. So

00:17:31.800 and her husband, Henry, he's just there. So, um, not for long. No, no, not for long. This was again,

00:17:40.620 interesting when I was going through this biography, the Estelle Perenck biography,

00:17:45.320 how early on in it he died. I was like, oh, that was that. Yeah. Anyway, so we're going to tell you

00:17:50.720 the story because maybe you don't know the story. Actually, Lana, I'll tell you, I had a very

00:17:54.220 interesting message from somebody just this past week who is saying that they don't know the story

00:18:00.420 of Anne Boleyn or Elizabeth I, but they've been listening to my podcast. And so they're just sort

00:18:05.620 of like slowly piecing together based on me talking about these extremely periphery people.

00:18:09.940 and they're like and they're like that's fine they're enjoying kind of not knowing that but

00:18:14.740 that made me realize i'm like oh because i've been assuming anyone who's like oh let's listen

00:18:19.320 to this podcast about like extremely tertiary tutor people is coming in with having at least

00:18:25.700 watched the musical six but so i don't want to assume any knowledge you've gone so far past this

00:18:31.620 being basically a tutor podcast like so far past that absolutely and when i'm talking about not the

00:18:37.740 tutors like when i was talking about queen min the first episode was basically being like let

00:18:41.680 me explain the concept of confucianism like when i'm talking about not tutor england i explain

00:18:46.540 everything because i need to learn it too but when we're in this era i know things and i'm

00:18:52.280 gonna try to explain for the people who don't know all this stuff or people who need reminders

00:18:56.720 of everything and that's kind of where lana comes in because you know about i know so so little about

00:19:04.400 so much yeah whenever we get into this stuff where it's like well italy's not really a country that's

00:19:10.940 where i'm just like i can't handle it anyway so yeah like i'm sitting here i'm sitting here really

00:19:15.860 hard going no she's from florence yeah no exactly exactly florence it's important the other thing i

00:19:21.680 want to mention so i mentioned that i i just to like refresh my memory i read this um biography

00:19:27.640 blood fire and gold the story of elizabeth the first and catherine de medici by estelle parank

00:19:31.740 and that just came out like last year very recently and then long ago where i first kind

00:19:36.940 of learned about catherine de medici was another interestingly dual biography called the rival

00:19:41.300 queens catherine de medici her daughter marguerite de valois and the betrayal that ignited a kingdom

00:19:46.160 by nancy goldstone so again like i'm coming into this story sideways because first i watched rain

00:19:52.280 and then i watched the movie queen margot and then i was like who is catherine de medici and

00:19:56.740 then I read a biography that was half about her, half about Margot. So, but this is, this is

00:20:02.800 Catherine's time. So I, I have, I mean, I share it with you, Lena, but my notes are very much just

00:20:08.900 they're brief. And they're also just very Catherine focused because you're coming in with

00:20:13.560 the context of her, her family, the Degeese family, the Pope, like that's, that's where

00:20:20.620 you're gonna bring context so oh i want to bring up you'd be proud of me lena i do have um well

00:20:29.540 it's a google sheet but it's the timeline of everyone i've ever talked about on the show

00:20:33.580 oh and what year they were born and what continent they're from what year they reigned

00:20:39.660 i would like that please thank you yeah no it's because i can put that into the website

00:20:44.720 for sure but also it's i started doing this because i was just curious like who was around

00:20:49.460 at the same time as who especially when we're talking about people from different countries

00:20:52.900 and stuff so catherine de medici 1519 she was born so that is i mean we're in what effectively

00:21:00.880 is known as the tudor era like even though she was in florence and then france it's like

00:21:07.420 in terms of just a shorthand it's like okay that's the time period we're looking at when you

00:21:12.180 come from you it's the enlightenment for everybody else early modern another renaissance sorry sorry

00:21:17.820 the renaissance for everybody else the renaissance yeah so other people who are around circa this

00:21:22.540 time catherine medici was born 1519 francis gray the mother of lady jane gray 1517 marie de guise

00:21:30.560 our friend from last time 1515 um mark like it's just all the people i talked about in the lady

00:21:35.040 jane gray season were born around this time like margaret douglas is born catherine parr was born

00:21:39.340 danya gracia nasi was born around this time harem sultan malandine was in this era like

00:21:47.740 it's so you know in England it's Tudor stuff is happening in other parts it's like Isabella in

00:21:54.160 Spain is happening the Jewish people the Muslims are being exiled like Isabella is not happening

00:22:00.940 yet is she Isabella well I have her on here well yeah because isn't Isabella her granddaughter 0.98

00:22:07.880 no it's no this is a different Isabella never mind sorry confusing Isabella is too many Isabella

00:22:13.160 I'm sorry, no, Isabella of Castile has been happening for quite a while.

00:22:16.400 Isabella of Castile, okay.

00:22:18.100 Isabella of Spain, different person.

00:22:20.400 We'll come up later.

00:22:21.920 Isabella and Ferdinand, like, they're there.

00:22:23.840 So it's like Saida El Hura, like, she was, you know, you see her, you see Melanzine,

00:22:27.840 you see Donia Gracia Nessi.

00:22:30.340 It's like, okay, yeah, all those people who were kicked out of Spain during the, like,

00:22:33.620 genocide, yeah, they were all around.

00:22:36.060 Melanzine was there, so, you know, discovery of the Americas is happening.

00:22:39.880 This story has so many cameos.

00:22:42.460 Yeah.

00:22:43.160 so many cameos. But just like effectively, let's go through this. Effectively, half the people

00:22:47.980 I've ever talked about on the podcast were alive during this woman's lifetime. So 1519, 0.64

00:22:53.160 she was born April 13th. Guess what? Aries. And I don't know a lot about astrology. I forget if

00:22:59.700 I've said this on this podcast, but I myself have an Aries. And the only astrology I know about is

00:23:03.960 my own, which is Aries. And I feel like Catherine de' Medici has big Aries energy, fire, stubbornness,

00:23:10.840 um kind of scary so she was do you know i don't know if you have notes or whatever but what i

00:23:17.260 wrote is just she was the only child of a duke and a countess who were both dead within a month

00:23:21.220 of her birth do you can you explain who her family was okay so the de medicis are like i'm

00:23:28.620 gonna go a little bit into de medicis because they're important to various parts of the story

00:23:32.820 they were like most noble families are you did some really good stuff in some sort of fighting

00:23:40.300 and then you got land from it uh the de medicis were a very upstart family so like we talked about

00:23:48.800 how the deezes last time were like a new family because they were the second son of a very

00:23:54.780 important family these people came out of nowhere they were a banking family that rose to prominence

00:24:02.960 in Florence, Italy, they, they rose to prominence and it like, if you on Netflix, there is a Medici

00:24:12.320 TV show and it's actually reasonably good. Like sometimes the history is, you know, iffy, but

00:24:19.180 it kind of gives you like gangsters rise to prominence vibes. And that's not entirely wrong.

00:24:27.640 it's that same um come from nothing gain influence in a society make a really good

00:24:35.280 enemy in their case milan and get your your people legitimized through through other like

00:24:43.180 through marriage through connections through um prominent placement and so they had let me see

00:24:49.860 so we're talking about how the de guises had two had two cardinals they had four popes the medicis

00:24:55.800 had four popes the medicis had four popes like there's there's big um deborge energy like very

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00:27:51.960 yeah i was i think i have and still do in some ways um any medici sorry medici who's not catherine

00:28:00.920 i confuse with the borgias because i just know it's kind of like italian adjacent powerful people

00:28:09.180 murders are happening weird sex crimes like pups are having kids yeah yeah yeah so um the really

00:28:19.180 big the thing that sets medici apart is that they were very big patrons of the arts and so leonardo

00:28:27.020 uh da vinci and like pretty much most of the artists of that time were artists in residence

00:28:35.640 of florence that's why like david the david is in florence and all of that stuff like there's

00:28:41.780 they they collected they they tried to establish them their legitimacy as nobles that were

00:28:49.160 doing good for the people by building great works for their community and um like supporting art

00:28:57.060 and artists and so that's that's part of their identity yeah no because you said they were

00:29:02.500 patrons of the arts and that reminded me my friend melanie who's probably listening hi melanie

00:29:06.600 she went to italy a few years ago and since i've been doing this podcast and since i've been writing

00:29:12.340 essays and stuff and she was just like the name medici she saw i think she's in florence like

00:29:17.440 everywhere. She's like, they're everywhere. And what I think she was told there by a tour guide

00:29:20.880 or something was, yeah, this is, it's not there. They weren't just like, oh, I support the arts

00:29:24.860 because I'm like a good person. They were just like, no, I'm going to do this so that my name

00:29:28.080 is everywhere. So everybody thinks we're impressive. And it worked. Yeah. A good way

00:29:33.640 to lend legitimacy is to be everywhere all of the time. And Florence is de' Medici. Yeah.

00:29:41.120 The, the, is it a basilica? Is it a cathedral there? But the, the very big building there

00:29:47.240 is uh has super impressive architecture that was almost impossible for the time it's a domed

00:29:54.640 building like a freestanding dome and it's lasted forever and that was like the very first

00:30:01.480 de medici um art like public works project where did their money come from do you know

00:30:07.020 banking banking they were bankers yeah which is which is controversial during that time

00:30:13.420 yeah of being money lenders yeah because it was the whole like christians aren't supposed to do

00:30:18.700 that situation correct and they were that's why they were so catholic except for catherine yeah

00:30:26.120 i mean catherine was catholic but she wasn't so okay she wasn't degeese catholic but

00:30:30.940 oh we're gonna get into that like honestly again like i have to thank you so much for like talking

00:30:36.320 to me for like two and a half hours about the degeeses because when i was reading this

00:30:39.500 biography of catherine de medici when the degeeses came in i was just like i know them

00:30:43.260 And I'm like, I know why they would do that. So it's nice. Hopefully things will come together

00:30:48.540 for the listeners as well. I really love the de Medici's. So I, de Medici's and de Guise's and

00:30:55.240 then this is when they start fighting. Like it's kind of like watching an episode of Succession

00:30:59.200 for me. Yeah. No, this is, this is your thing. Like I could never do this series of episodes

00:31:05.380 without you. Your enthusiasm is crucial because I get so mixed up. Yeah. And so her parents both

00:31:11.100 died I believe her mother died in some sort of birth related thing which I hold firm because my

00:31:17.020 friend Karthika who is uh she's a gynecologist and she she knows about anyway she explained to me

00:31:24.320 that basically so many of the women who died in childbirth it was because no one knew about hand

00:31:28.120 washing and so the doctors would like handle a cadaver and then they would reach up inside a

00:31:32.120 woman deliver a baby and then the woman would get some sort of horrible infection and then die and

00:31:36.740 that's probably why jane seymour died henry the eighth's wife and that's anyway so many women died

00:31:41.180 in childbirth and there's lots of reasons why people still don't childbirth but so many people

00:31:44.720 did then and it was because of hand washing no noble women who had the best doctors the doctors

00:31:50.120 were killing them doctors have been killing women in childbirth way more than midwife like because

00:31:55.360 they got rid of the midwives who knew what they were doing and it's like that same thing happens

00:31:59.800 again in the 1800s when normal people start getting to have doctor access and it's worse

00:32:05.760 Yeah, no, exactly.

00:32:07.120 So Catherine's mother died almost right away in a really,

00:32:11.420 it reminds me of Jane Seymour, Henry VIII's third wife,

00:32:15.600 how she just had a baby and then got a fever and died.

00:32:18.780 And anyway, and then her father died of, I want to say,

00:32:23.360 some sort of disease very shortly after.

00:32:25.280 I don't think he was in battle or anything.

00:32:27.240 I think he just, tuberculosis or whatever, right?

00:32:30.680 I'll double check.

00:32:31.760 But yeah, he died pretty close on there.

00:32:35.020 Yeah, like she was orphaned by the time she was like one month old, which is an interesting parallel with there's been other babies with dead parents.

00:32:47.280 We've talked about Mary, Queen of Scots.

00:32:49.980 This is why babies keep being named King and Queen of Scotland because parents keep dying.

00:32:55.020 So her dad, I don't want to brush over some random Duke.

00:32:59.100 Yeah.

00:32:59.720 For her dad.

00:33:00.940 Her dad had a book written about him or for him, basically.

00:33:05.020 um it was called the prince and it's written by niccolo machiavelli oh yeah i've heard of that

00:33:09.560 yeah yeah yeah that was her dad so it was it was basically tactics from his father

00:33:17.000 like tactics from his daughter for this guy to like for lorenzo how he should rule

00:33:23.920 and so it's written to lorenzo to her father okay that's on how to be a king so that gives

00:33:31.140 you context for like the family or well to be a duke or to be a leader of people and so that's

00:33:37.240 that gives you context for the mentality of this family as well the mentality of the family but

00:33:42.240 also the importance of this family in terms of significance so he yeah oh his tomb has

00:33:49.360 a michelangelo on it of course like his tomb yeah so so she had these very important parents

00:33:57.160 She didn't inherit her father's land or title because she was a girl, but her unrecognized

00:34:03.880 claim led to people calling her her childhood nickname was the Duchessina, the little duchess,

00:34:11.100 basically.

00:34:12.460 Do not ask me to do Italian pronunciation.

00:34:14.560 I'm sorry I failed you all.

00:34:15.980 I'm not confident at all in my Italian pronunciation.

00:34:19.660 I haven't played enough Mario Brothers to know how to do it very well.

00:34:22.920 so she was the the little duchess is what we're going to call her so she was a little duchess

00:34:28.320 and she was just this little orphan and she was sent around to like various relatives because

00:34:34.240 even though even though she was a girl um she was important and you know eventually she's going to

00:34:38.560 marry somebody important and the de medicis knew that in a really similar way to the de guise

00:34:42.880 family with marie and then with mary queen of scotts so just like this is a little girl

00:34:47.480 And this is a very important person to marry to somebody.

00:34:52.020 Her mother was also French. 0.85

00:34:54.280 Ooh.

00:34:54.940 Like that's important.

00:34:56.080 That's another important thing that I wanted to point out. 0.77

00:34:57.920 Her mother was a French noble, not, not very high up, not a lot of land, but she had, she

00:35:03.700 had estates like Catherine inherited estates through her mother because like her grandparents 0.91

00:35:08.220 only had girls and her aunt had no children. 0.99

00:35:11.480 So she inherited estates in France through her mother.

00:35:14.260 so she wasn't entirely not French she just wasn't you know French enough well and this is very

00:35:22.000 in other stories I've talked about on the podcast where it's like or no I think this was an interview

00:35:28.200 I've done with somebody that just hasn't aired yet but the concept of where you're from was much

00:35:35.880 more important than like oh your mother was French but you're from Florence it's like okay you're from

00:35:40.440 Florence it's like where you're from was much today we talk about people like mixed you know 0.93

00:35:46.520 it's like my father was this and my mother was this but then it was kind of like you were one 1.00

00:35:49.640 thing kind of you had your loyalty to one thing you had you had your culture you were encultured

00:35:55.860 by one thing yeah if I if I may talk in a Star Trek Next Generation um metaphor it's kind of 0.77

00:36:02.980 like if you think about like um Deanna Troi who was she was half a Betazoid half human but very

00:36:09.700 much she was raised in beta zed she has because she has the like um mental abilities like she's 0.95

00:36:15.760 basically a beta zoid like no one she's never treated like a human she doesn't consider herself 0.98

00:36:19.660 a human and then you've got someone like wharf who is like fully blooded quote-unquote klingon 0.87

00:36:24.980 but he was raised by humans and he's kind of confused about it anyway so i don't know on that

00:36:30.500 show nobody is ever very successful in having two identities star trek next generation they always

00:36:35.820 seemingly have to always choose one or the other. And that's because I've been listening to a

00:36:41.060 podcast called Newbie Star Trek, which I really recommend. I don't just shout out to Newbie

00:36:46.960 Star Trek. It's a great podcast where they're talking about TNG. I was also watching TNG and

00:36:53.520 reading Mary Queen of Scots by Antonia Frazier when I was young. So that was my thing.

00:36:59.440 Here's the thing. Lana and I were destined to become friends and to do this podcast one day.

00:37:07.360 And in between that, were you watching ABC soap operas?

00:37:11.220 Yes. That is the other thing. Our other bonding point is ABC soap operas.

00:37:15.220 ABC soap operas of the 90s. Yeah. So if we can bring this around to One Life to Live,

00:37:21.740 I'm sure we will. But you know what? This whole story, this whole story, Catherine's whole deal,

00:37:27.300 the Medici's and everything like you mentioned succession yes but it's also very much like

00:37:32.220 daytime soap operas like she's Dorian like just easy enough to say like flat out married into

00:37:38.500 the right family got a lot of power fought fought with that family fought with everybody around her

00:37:45.560 didn't get to sleep with Nathan Fillion though that was sad but this is like it's so much like

00:37:50.200 in those soap operas where there's these here's this you know a show like General Hospital too

00:37:54.460 where it's like, well, this, the quarter mains have been around since whatever, since it just

00:37:58.540 started in the sixties. So you just see generation after generation of this extremely wealthy family

00:38:02.840 and how they intermarry with other families. Like, and maybe that's part of where I really

00:38:06.900 vibe with this sort of history because I grew up watching ABC so far. And so the scheming of like

00:38:15.080 really wealthy families with other wealthy families, and then, you know, pretending you're

00:38:18.580 pregnant and having trouble having babies. Like, I'm just like, yep, no, this is it. Yep. I get it.

00:38:23.340 can i talk like we're already going to be here for hours so can i just mention we're just talking

00:38:28.740 forever so i'm in canada theoretically our new monarch is king charles the third fundamentally

00:38:36.540 i can't accept that in my brain fundamentally i can't accept queen camilla like that does not

00:38:43.460 compute but um when i was reading about catherine de medici i was just like oh this is because when

00:38:48.940 we get into her and her husband the husband's mistress i'm like oh this is kind of like a

00:38:52.240 Charles, Camilla, Diana, Dianic, a little bit.

00:38:55.680 Yeah, but Diana's a good human being.

00:38:59.720 I know. 0.91

00:39:00.100 Catherine is the Diana in the situation.

00:39:01.980 But when we get to Henry's mistress, I'm like, oh, this is a big Camilla sort of thing.

00:39:05.880 Anyway, but this is like...

00:39:07.280 I like Henry's mistress.

00:39:10.160 Like, of the mistresses that there are, Henry's mistress is like the best.

00:39:15.960 She is great.

00:39:16.620 And I guess I'm getting ahead of myself.

00:39:17.900 But these are just like the way that things that I'm encountering in my life,

00:39:20.460 just the way like so much in the story reminds me of other things that are contemporary that

00:39:24.160 are current it's just it's fascinating to me sorry so catherine is just she's kind of like okay we

00:39:29.080 have this baby the little duchess you know let's just kind of like with a digizus it's just like

00:39:34.720 well let's just like move around to live with some other relatives and we'll teach her the ways

00:39:38.820 of how to be a de medici um let's train her like a little disney villainess several of her relatives

00:39:45.800 kept dying, which just seems just sort of like her early life was just like her being sent to a

00:39:50.880 guardian, that guardian dying, her being sent to another guardian, that guardian dying. It's,

00:39:54.720 I was thinking of it sort of like Lemony Snicket books, but also sort of like, I don't know,

00:40:01.820 Charles Dickensian-esque. It's just this little orphan who's just like, everyone keeps dying.

00:40:06.480 So anyway, so when she was eight years old, she was kidnapped by enemies of her family.

00:40:11.700 Do you know anything about that? Because all I wrote was enemies by her family,

00:40:14.640 memories of her family um but if this is sort of like this mob right but it's like these things

00:40:20.720 just happen it's probably milan like when in doubt it's milan yeah well but when you were describing

00:40:27.580 the de medicis as sort of like this you know organized crime family it's like of course the

00:40:32.100 little girl was kidnapped like that happens in stories about moms anyway so she was technically

00:40:38.600 see this is what's interesting oh she was taken hostage she wasn't kidnapped she was taken hostage

00:40:43.240 yeah she's imprisoned in a convent taken hostage and then kept there and and ironically it was

00:40:49.720 actually by the Habsburgs was it it looks like I was thinking of Habsburg for once I thought maybe 0.90

00:40:57.120 the Habsburgs would not he wanted to be holy Roman I know I'm sorry I'm sorry we're they're

00:41:01.360 everywhere and and they'll always be everywhere yeah yeah until you until you just leave Europe 0.99

00:41:07.420 yeah and then they're nowhere um no it was uh charles of hapsburg charles v wanted to be holy

00:41:15.200 roman emperor emperor and pope clement said no and so charles said all right well then i'm taking

00:41:23.080 florence and he's like okay fine you can be you can be holy roman empire give me back my niece

00:41:29.380 yeah so here's what's interesting so i looked at these two biographies so that are both

00:41:34.300 technically split biographies which is interesting it's like there is a full biography of catherine

00:41:39.160 domenici it's by leona or leone frida and that's the basis for the serpent queen the tv show so

00:41:46.040 like you can it's just interesting that the people who wrote these books felt the need to make it a

00:41:51.260 dual biography it's like we need to have her and someone more famous just to like trick people into

00:41:55.240 reading her life story so what's interesting is blood fire and gold very much talks about her as

00:42:00.080 a statesman if that's the word um her political savvy and that sort of stuff the rival queens

00:42:07.260 um about her and queen margot that's where i got all the like juicy gossipy stuff like that's where

00:42:12.280 it's like she was kidnapped all the stuff anyway katherine would later recall the years spent

00:42:16.980 imprisoned um like years like you just described what happened lana um but just bear in mind that

00:42:24.080 conversation lana just recapped like that was years um to be like can i be holy roman empire

00:42:28.600 no yes like that was years so anyway Catherine would later recall the years spent imprisoned

00:42:34.560 in this convent is some of the happiest of her life which really says a lot about her life

00:42:40.720 and her family and her family and yeah it's like oh convent yes yeah like I can just

00:42:49.240 relatives yeah yeah so when she was um 10 years old the city florence presumably was laid siege

00:42:58.600 to by oh no this is it this is what you're talking about yeah yeah so when she was eight

00:43:02.940 years old she was kidnapped and then when she was 10 years old um her city was laid siege to by

00:43:07.860 the holy roman empire just the hapsburgs who wanted to be roman empire yeah and so they were 0.90

00:43:13.840 calling for her to be sort of like a human sacrifice to be like killed anyway as lena

00:43:18.120 just described here's the thing also like people who are listening to this podcast if you're

00:43:22.460 whatever how many minutes have we been talking like we've been talking for 39 minutes in like

00:43:26.200 an episode about catherine de medici and we just spent 20 minutes talking about dorian from one

00:43:30.620 life to live like we didn't go that bad we didn't go for it but like just just so people know you

00:43:37.400 know like we didn't have the detail of who kidnapped her but it's just an overall vibe

00:43:40.920 we're presenting when we get into like the specific stuff about her adult life we're

00:43:44.220 going to have specifics. But for now, it's just like her life was chaotic. Here's some ways in

00:43:48.320 which it was chaotic. It is important to be specific on the Pope because it gets real

00:43:52.460 confusing real quick. This is Pope Clement, her uncle Pope Clement VII. And that's who she was

00:43:59.300 sent to live with after all this kidnapping followed by almost being a human sacrifice.

00:44:03.900 She went to live with the Pope, her uncle Pope. Yeah. But then he died. No, no, no. You have a

00:44:11.420 mistake here so i want to correct this he died and then her other uncle became pope okay okay

00:44:18.040 now other uncle pope she's still living in in vatican with other uncle pope and then

00:44:25.940 he he wants to take advantage of having a spare niece sitting around yes exactly so she's growing

00:44:33.160 up and like it's just the whole thing we've talked about so many times it's like here's this little

00:44:36.680 girl and they know that she's valuable to make some sort of alliance connection with somebody

00:44:41.760 probably somebody royal right so when she was 14 years old she was promised to prince henry

00:44:48.320 of france do you know do you know who else tried for who james of scotland james of scotland the

00:44:55.920 the one who married marie de guise yeah he was james of scotland he i mean he was looking he

00:45:02.320 well he had two chances and so i think this was try number one so could you imagine as this is

00:45:07.420 sliding glass door number one whoa yeah is catherine de medici gets shipped all the way

00:45:13.420 to scotland catherine de medici versus the scottish lords would be i don't know that would

00:45:20.020 be beautiful catherine de medici versus john knox oh god oh she would can i say about john

00:45:27.340 Knox as well. So it's nice having you back again after we just did the Marie de Guise episodes,

00:45:32.120 because we talked in that about how when during one of her victories against John Knox, Marie

00:45:36.560 de Guise said, where is your God now, John Knox? And I've had like at least three people, including

00:45:42.240 you, suggest that I should make a sticker or a t-shirt, a sticker or a t-shirt that says,

00:45:46.480 where is your God now, John Knox? And if you think I should do that, you know, let me know.

00:45:51.460 I need that sticker. So please tell her she needs to do that.

00:45:54.040 yeah so one of the people who suggested it was like you know this is super niche but i really

00:45:58.880 need it and i was like it kind of delights me to think of people just wearing where's your god now

00:46:02.760 john nox t-shirt to the grocery store or something you know no one would know but i would know so

00:46:07.640 she's promised to prince henry of france who at this point was i think i think not the heir to

00:46:14.540 the throne because he was the one in one of my pandemic super special episodes his brother was 0.89

00:46:21.180 the dumbass who went and had a pillow fight in a house with plague in it and then died of plague 0.98

00:46:26.420 yes right that was his older brother who was technically it was his older brother yeah 1.00

00:46:30.900 yeah who was who was heir to the throne he so she was like getting she was getting the second son

00:46:36.400 which again he wasn't a dumbass none of this one happened i need to emphasize like go back and

00:46:44.560 listen to that i did an episode it's like 10 minutes long or something but when i was just

00:46:48.720 doing these various pandemic stories about plagues yeah and so the older brother of prince henry

00:46:53.900 was just like they went into a village that had been ravaged by the plague everyone in the village

00:46:59.040 was dead and then he started jumping around on the beds and like having literally a pillow fight

00:47:03.020 with the bedding and then he died of plague that was his brother so because nobody knew about germ

00:47:08.740 theory yet i feel like some people knew to maybe not do that anyway so she's marrying and there's

00:47:16.560 another older brother too right who died of a tennis accident yes they were not very good at

00:47:22.560 being alive no the valois at the end were just kind of falling apart i think the valois threw

00:47:30.660 out um anyway so she was promised to prince henry of france who was also her same age which i like

00:47:37.180 to point out because that's so rare that two people that a 14 year old girl is married to

00:47:41.940 a 14-year-old boy. It's usually submitted to a 35-year-old. Yeah, but it didn't turn out well

00:47:46.880 for her. He was a messy, messy 14-year-old boy. Oh, yes. Because Henry had been kidnapped and

00:47:55.900 held hostage for several years. And he was big traumatized from that. He was described as like

00:48:01.240 he wasn't a happy person or something like that. But it was more than he was described as like,

00:48:06.120 he's not a happy person. He's very melancholy. It's like, yeah, he's got like major PTSD,

00:48:10.020 depression like he's dealing with a lot here so very weird side note on this one henry's dad

00:48:18.060 brought borrowed leonardo da vinci from um catherine's family and had him come visit

00:48:26.700 for a while okay right yeah and so leonardo da vinci was in france when henry henry was a young

00:48:36.720 man does that remind you of anything um explain what that should remind people of the movie ever

00:48:44.240 after okay henry henry the second is the love interest in ever after oh so is is drew barrymore

00:48:55.520 catherine de medici catherine de medici i guess fascinating but no but also yes but also no

00:49:04.440 so let me see so they get married and when they were 15 years old henry fell deeply in love with

00:49:12.380 a 38 year old woman diane de poitier who would become his long-term mistress which is terribly

00:49:19.260 inappropriate but she was also like a cool person she was a cool person this age gap is interesting

00:49:25.700 um he's 15 she's 38 if they had a less of an age gap i would be less weirded out by this yeah

00:49:32.080 yeah so this i think she was like his tutor or something yeah i may or may not do an episode

00:49:37.440 about dn later but she's she's a main character now in this story so get ready she's just central

00:49:42.840 for for the early parts of the story yeah and so he was in love with her and that bombed catherine

00:49:51.340 out because he also was starting to sort of elevate the end to who was like a noble woman

00:49:58.460 and stuff. And anyway, so Catherine was kind of like, I get the impression, I don't remember if

00:50:03.840 I've read this, but she's kind of short. She's kind of like plain. Um, and Deanne de Poitier

00:50:09.060 was like glamorous and beautiful and, and 38. So, you know, she's like a self-actualized adult 0.99

00:50:14.760 person. Catherine is 15 anyway. And so the thing is the whole point of this marriage is, you know,

00:50:20.800 she should have children, but of course she did not have children for in fact, 10 years, 10 years,

00:50:26.540 which might not have was probably not her fault oh clearly not her fault given how many children 0.98

00:50:32.660 she would start having eventually yeah it was henry's messed up dick okay let's talk about this 0.99

00:50:39.880 actually no we're getting we're gonna get to the dick we'll get there we'll get there 0.99

00:50:44.880 we'll get there so just so she's 15 and she is not getting pregnant and henry had not with dan 0.77

00:50:54.020 but he had with somebody else like he had fathered a child so like we knew that he was so now they

00:50:58.840 yeah so but people like in general would always blame the woman anyway um people started seeing 0.99

00:51:06.580 her as like a natural maybe a witch you know she's also from florence and a money lender and a money 0.53

00:51:12.840 lender so ever is just kind of like oh like any goodwill that she had faded away over these like

00:51:18.140 subsequent 10 years. I want to mention one of Henry's illegitimate children was an ancestor

00:51:24.160 of Jean de Lamotte from the Affair of the Necklace. And that is where I think her claim

00:51:29.180 to thinking her family should be royal came from. So divorce and annulment started to be discussed

00:51:36.060 because it's like, again, 10 years. Well, and she also, her uncles were no longer Pope.

00:51:43.160 The family was kind of falling out. They weren't done yet, but they weren't as powerful as

00:51:48.120 they had been having been beaten by the Habsburgs. Yeah. So she was like politically, like the 0.99

00:51:53.460 influence wise, like the de Medicis weren't so useful. She was not having children, which was

00:51:58.100 like the one thing she could do to solidify her job. And it's not like she was sitting around for

00:52:01.960 10 years being like, well, I guess I'm not having a baby. Like she did everything she could think of,

00:52:05.520 like folk remedies, which again, led like added to the rumors of like, oh, is she a witch? Because 0.93

00:52:10.900 she's from Florence and likes magic and herbs. Well, and because her uncle isn't Pope, they can

00:52:18.360 potentially get a divorce. Like if her uncle was still Pope, there's no way they're getting any

00:52:23.140 sort of divorce. So they got to do it now before another de' Medici ends up being Pope, which of

00:52:28.620 course will happen. Exactly. But this is like, could potentially be another side interest moment

00:52:32.300 if he had divorced or annulled this marriage, like what would have happened? But French history,

00:52:38.100 very different but what happened is catherine went and she's like she went to diane de poitier

00:52:44.040 for like so okay she like investigated she's like okay he's able to clearly have sex with like to 0.53

00:52:50.600 completion with diane so she like put holes in the walls so she could watch them having sex to be 0.57

00:52:56.620 like oh okay okay okay that's how they're doing it she turned to diane for like advice diane was 0.88

00:53:02.120 like okay you know try this position try this position blah blah blah which potentially he had 0.99

00:53:07.780 a weird shaped dick and he may or may not have had a weird shaped dick so and i think part of it 0.99

00:53:15.680 is also just like henry was not attracted to katherine he wasn't trying very hard and he 0.99

00:53:22.780 was in love with dn so anyway but it was his job yeah yeah it was his job his job was to have kids

00:53:30.700 with his wife and he was not doing it but also he's ages 15 to 25 now i don't want to say they

00:53:38.120 became a thruple but deanne became sort of like sex coach for them and so they became sort of a

00:53:45.100 team like henry would like warm up with deanne and then run over to catherine for like the the

00:53:52.120 ejaculation so anyway with deanne's help and mentorship and sex coaching catherine became

00:53:59.380 pregnant and they had a son who was called francis and they would i'm not going to go over every time

00:54:06.180 a child is born but they went on to have nine more children six of whom survived infancy some of whom

00:54:12.920 shouldn't have francis so i might have to call him francis it was also dion dion's job to make

00:54:19.940 sure that they're like everybody in france wanted there to be heirs yeah it was important for the

00:54:25.100 stability of the country so she's not like doing this entirely out of the kindness of her heart

00:54:29.460 like oh poor Catherine the wife at home if only she had kids it's like no this is for France like

00:54:34.900 we're all doing our jobs here yeah exactly like for France like we need to have some children so

00:54:39.040 they had a son hooray like you know divorce no longer in the cards we're gonna leave you there

00:54:45.760 for today little cliffhanger for you next week we're gonna get into more of the Catherine de

00:54:52.300 Medi G's story. And so in the meantime, if you're, I don't know if this is like your first episode of

00:54:59.600 this podcast you've listened to, there's lots of other ones. There's a whole archive. You can

00:55:03.780 listen to all of them or if you listen to podcasts, if you want to keep up with me, I'm on Instagram

00:55:09.520 at vulgar history pod. I'm also on Tik TOK at vulgar history. I'm having a nice time on Tik

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00:55:20.860 i'm enjoying it there i'm doing sort of i figured out how to do longer videos but i also do shorter

00:55:25.680 videos whatever if you're on tiktok whatever i'm there you can also reach out to me if you have

00:55:30.860 thoughts or comments or questions about catherine de medici or any other episodes or about american

00:55:35.620 of scots if you go to vulgarhistory.com there's a form there to contact me as well you could email

00:55:41.540 me at vulgarhistorypod at gmail.com i'm also on patreon which is a place where if you make

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00:55:52.920 you get early ad free access to all episodes of Vulgar History. If you pledge at least $2 a month,

00:55:58.040 you get that but also access to some polls like I just did a March Madness a while ago, which was

00:56:02.220 fun. If you pledge at least $5 or more a month, you get access to bonus episodes. So that is where

00:56:07.860 I do episodes about some terrible men from history called So This Asshole. I also do episodes of 0.79

00:56:14.820 vulgar peace theater that's where i talk about costume dramas at length vulgar peace theater

00:56:19.800 episodes are like three and a half hours long but that's where i'm joined by today's guest

00:56:23.920 lana wood johnson as well as our friend alison epstein and we talk about costume dramas the

00:56:28.400 most recent one we're doing is about corsage the empress cc movie we've also previously i think

00:56:33.940 lana mentioned in this episode we did maybe it's in the next episode we've also talked about queen

00:56:38.320 Margot, the sexy 90s French movie that features Catherine de' Medici lurking, lurkily in the

00:56:45.360 shadows. We also have Vulgar History merchandise at vulgarhistory.store, where you can always use

00:56:51.080 code TITSOUT for free US shipping or TITSOUT10 for 10% off. And until next time, my friends,

00:56:56.920 keep your pants on and your tits out. Vulgar History is hosted, written, and researched by 1.00

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Vulgar History - April 19, 2023

Catherine de'Medici： Part One

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