There was yet another protégée of Clement's left upon the world of
mutability and chance--an orphan child, the only issue of Lorenzo, Duke
of Urbino and his wife Maddalena, daughter of Jean de la Tour d'Auvergne
et de Bourbon. Married in 1518, the delicate young mother died in
childbirth the following year, leaving her sweet little baby girl,
Caterina, to the care of her broken-hearted husband.

The future Queen of France was placed with the foundling nuns of the
convent of Santa Lucia in the Via San Gallo. Thence she was removed to
the convent of Santa Caterina di Siena, back to the nuns of Santa Lucia
once more, and then handed over to the charge of the noble convent of S.
Annunziata delle Murate until 1525, when her aunt, Madonna Clarice de'
Medici, wife of Messer Filippo negli Strozzi, was constituted her
guardian and instructress.

Right well the new _governante_ carried out the instructions of Clement,
and she only relinquished her charge when the Pope commanded the young
girl, just eleven years old, to Rome. Apartments were provided for her
and her suite in the Palazzo Medici, where Madonna Lucrezia, Lorenzo il
Magnifico's daughter, and wife of Giacomo de' Salviati, was appointed
her protectress.

Without a mother's care, and tossed about here and there, Caterina grew
up devoid of high principles, and became the toy of every passing
pleasure and indulgence. All the eligible princes of Europe were, in
turn, supposed to be her admirers, and rivals for her hand and fortune.
And truly the last legitimate descendant, as she was, of the great
Cosimo, was a prize in the matrimonial market--if not for her beauty and
her virtues, at all events for her wealth and rank. Indeed, there was a