Europe · Reformation to revolution
Grand Duchy of Tuscany
1569–1859
Created in 1569 when Pope Pius V elevated Cosimo I de' Medici to Grand Duke. The Medici grand dukes (Cosimo I, Francesco I, Ferdinando I, Cosimo II, Ferdinando II, Cosimo III, Gian Gastone) presided over a prosperous but increasingly static state; Galileo Galilei served as court mathematician-philosopher under Cosimo II.
- Existed
- 1569–1859
- Shown on the map
- 1797–1798, 1800–1813, 1815–1848 (3 periods)
- Peak area
- 25k km²
- Region
- Europe
Overview
Created in 1569 when Pope Pius V elevated Cosimo I de' Medici to Grand Duke. The Medici grand dukes (Cosimo I, Francesco I, Ferdinando I, Cosimo II, Ferdinando II, Cosimo III, Gian Gastone) presided over a prosperous but increasingly static state; Galileo Galilei served as court mathematician-philosopher under Cosimo II. On the extinction of the Medici male line (Gian Gastone died 1737; his sister Anna Maria Luisa was the last Medici), Tuscany passed to the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. The Enlightenment grand duke Peter Leopold (Leopold I of Tuscany, later Emperor Leopold II) enacted the **Leopoldine Code (Leopoldina) on 30 November 1786, making the Grand Duchy the first state in the world to formally abolish the death penalty — it also ordered the destruction of all instruments of execution and banned torture, and is commemorated since 2000 as "Cities for Life" Day (the Feast of Tuscany). After Napoleonic interruptions (Kingdom of Etruria; French annexation), the grand duchy was restored in 1814 and finally annexed to the emerging Kingdom of Italy in 1859–1860** following the flight of the last grand duke Leopold II.
Common questions
- What was the Grand Duchy of Tuscany?
- Created in 1569 when Pope Pius V elevated Cosimo I de' Medici to Grand Duke. The Medici grand dukes (Cosimo I, Francesco I, Ferdinando I, Cosimo II, Ferdinando II, Cosimo III, Gian Gastone) presided over a prosperous but increasingly static state; Galileo Galilei served as court mathematician-philosopher under Cosimo II.
- When did the Grand Duchy of Tuscany exist?
- The Grand Duchy of Tuscany existed 1569–1859. On this map it is drawn 1797–1798, 1800–1813, 1815–1848.
- How large was the Grand Duchy of Tuscany?
- At its greatest extent drawn on this map, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany covered about 25,000 km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.
Sources
This compendium cites its sources once for the whole document rather than per territory. Its bibliography names the English Wikipedia articles for each polity as the primary basis, cross-checked against Encyclopædia Britannica, the World History Encyclopedia and the scholarship of Donald Queller, Thomas Madden and Jonathan Harris on the Fourth Crusade, whose post-conspiracy reading of 1204 this document follows. The article this entry is anchored on:
- Wikipedia — Grand Duchy of Tuscany en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duchy_of_Tuscany
This entry was last updated .
This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made
Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.
Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).
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