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The Patrons: Maria de’ Medici and Louis XIII
A Florentine by birth, Maria de’ Medici married Henri IV in 1600, becoming the queen
of France. Apart from alleviating war debts and helping to validate the king’s conversion in
1593 to Catholicism, the primary goal of the union was to issue a male heir for the throne, which
occurred in the year following the marriage. 7 Maria’s role as royal consort only changed in 1610
with the death of the king. Over the course of the next twenty years she first acquired immense
power as regent and second, following Louis XIII’s taking of the throne in 1617, endeavored to
regain her elevated status while serving from 1622 to 1630 as counselor for her son. The queen’s
patronage of ecclesiastical architecture corresponds to these two stages.
The primary goals pursued by the queen during the regency were promoting the Catholic
faith and confirming her right to rule during the minority of her son Louis XIII. 8 To achieve
these objectives, she fostered relationships with the dévots, promoted the establishment of
numerous reformed religious orders, and established a court full of fellow Italians and others
loyal to the pope. She also sought alliances with other Catholic states, resulting in the Franco-
Spanish pact of 1612, a double marriage alliance with the Spanish royal family involving Louis
and his sister Elisabeth. Backing up her political actions during this phase was the support she
gave to five churches for reformed religious orders. By 1617 her hold on power was so complete
that Louis XIII had to stage a coup d’état to assume his personal reign, leading to the queen’s
temporary exile and four years of exclusion from the court. After being allowed to rejoin the
royal council in 1622, Maria de’ Medici sought to regain the authority she had wielded as regent.
Among the ways she pursued this goal was to support churches that she then used to promote her
agenda.
After assuming control of the throne in 1617, Louis XIII took several years to form a
consistent policy of state. By the early 1620s his most pressing concern was loyalty to the state
from all French subjects, prompting Louis for the first half of his reign to address seditious
elements at home rather than dealing with foreign affairs. 9 Upon realizing that the dévots and
other religious groups favored policies that threatened to undermine his authority, Louis XIII
took steps to limit their influence and to curtail their activities. Included in his actions was the
decision to support the churches of these potentially subversive groups. By initiating a patronage
relationship, he created expectations in which the recipients felt it necessary to reciprocate the
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