From Rise of Protestantism in France to Publication of the Institutes - James Aitken Wylie

Let us visit the birth-place of this woman – the
natal lair of this tigress. Her cradle was placed in
one of the most delicious of the Italian vales. Over
that vale was hung the balmiest of skies, and
around it rose the loveliest of mountains,
conspicuous among which is the classic Fiesole.
The Arno, meandering through it in broad pellucid
stream, waters it, and the olive and cypress clothe
its bosom with a voluptuous luxuriance. In this vale
is the city of Florence, and here, in the fifteenth
century, lived Cosmo, the merchant. Cosmo was
the founder of that house from which was sprung
the little bright-eyed girl who bore the name of
Catherine de Medici – a name then innocent and
sweet as any other, but destined to gather a most
unenviable notoriety around it, till it has become
one of the most terrific in history, the mention of
which evokes only images of tragedies and horrors.
With regard to her famous ancestor, Cosmo, he
was a merchant, we have said, and his ships visited
the shores of Greece, the harbors of Egypt, and the
towns on the sea-coast of Syria. It was the morning
of the Renaissance, and this Florentine merchant
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