Bemberg fondation Toulouse - Portrait de Louise de Savoie, mère de François Ier - École De Jean Clouet (1475;1485-1540) 22x17 Inv.1013
Louise of Savoy was born on11 September 1476 at Pont-d’Ain, she was the eldest daughter of Philip II, Duke of Savoy and his first wife, Margaret of Bourbon. Because her mother died when she was only seven, she was brought up by Anne de Beaujeu, who was regent of France for her brother Charles VIII.
When she was only eleven, Louise married Charles of Orléans, Count of Angoulême in Paris. The couple did not live together until she was fifteen. Despite her husband’s unfaithfulness the marriage was relatively happy and they shared a love for books. They had two children together Marguerite and Francis. In 1495 her husband fell ill after going out riding in bad weather. Despite devoting herself to his recovery he died on 1 January 1496, leaving her grief stricken.
Widowed at the young age of 19, Louise deftly manoeuvred her children into a position that would secure for each of them a promising future. She moved her family to court at the ascension of King Louis XII, her husband’s cousin. Louise had a keen awareness of the intricacies of politics and diplomacy, and was deeply interested in the advances in arts and sciences in Renaissance Italy. She made certain that her children were educated in the spirit of the Italian Renaissance. She commissioned books specifically for them and she taught Francis Italian and Spanish.
When Louis XII became very ill in 1505, he was determined that Francis should succeed him and that both Louise and his wife Anne of Brittany should be part of the regency council. However Louis XII recovered and Francis became one of his favourites, who eventually married Louis’ daughter Claude of France on 8 May 1514. Following this marriage, Louis designated Francis as his heir.
With the death of his father in law in January 1515, Francis became King of France. As the mother of the King, Louise was given the titles of Duchess of Angoulême and Duchess of Anjou.
Louise of Savoy remained politically active on behalf of her son in the early years of his reign especially. During his absences, she acted as regent. She served as the Regent of France several times, in 1515, during the king’s war in Italy, and again from 1525 to 1526, when the king was at war and during his time as a prisoner in Spain.
She initiated and presided over several important treaties of her son’s reign; the first steps of the Franco-Ottoman alliance and the Treaty of Cambrai for example.
Louise of Savoy died on 22 September 1531, in Grez-sur-Loing of the plague. Her remains were entombed at Saint-Denis in Paris.
Portrait of Louise by Jean Clouet
Sources:
Francis the First, by Francis Hacket
The Monstrous Regiment of Women: Female Rulers in Early Modern Europe, by Sharon L. Jansen, p. 182.
Francis I, by R.J. Knecht
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