France’s Ambitions in the Americas and the Expedition of Jacques Cartier (1534)

By the early sixteenth century, the French crown, like England, recognized Spain’s papacy-conferred title to the trans-Brazilian Americas only where Spanish rule was effectively established. Driven by rivalry with Emperor Charles Vand the desire to break the Spanish-Portuguese monopoly on the riches of the New World and Asia, French king Francis I sought alternative paths of expansion and influence.

Early French Exploration: Giovanni da Verrazzano (1524)

In 1524, Francis had supported the expedition of the Italian navigator Giovanni da Verrazzano, financed in part by merchants from Lyon, to explore the Atlantic coast of North America. Verrazzano was tasked with exploring territories north of Spanish-held Florida and seeking a possible passage to Asia ("Cathay"). He became the first European since the Norse voyages around 1000 CE to survey the North American coast extensively between the Carolinas and Newfoundland, notably exploring New York Harbor and Narragansett Bay. Although John Cabot had earlier explored Labrador and the Spanish had already established themselves in parts of Florida, Verrazzano's voyage was significant for French claims, particularly as he formally claimed Newfoundland for France.

Jean Le Veneur and Jacques Cartier

The prominent ecclesiastical statesman Jean Le Veneur (born to a noble Norman family and Bishop of Lisieux since 1505) had emerged as an influential figure in Francis I’s court. Having become Abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel (1524), Grand Almoner of France (1526), and created Cardinal by Pope Clement VII (1533), Le Veneur was deeply involved in French ecclesiastical and political affairs.

Crucially, Le Veneur introduced Breton mariner Jacques Cartier to King Francis at the Manoir de Brion in 1534, explicitly endorsing him as a capable navigator able to "lead ships to the discovery of new lands in the New World." Cartier, born in the Breton port of Saint-Malo in 1491, was respected as a skilled and seasoned seafarer, having elevated his local standing through marriage to Mary Catherine des Granches, a member of a prominent family. Le Veneur cited Cartier’s previous voyages to Newfoundland and Brazil as evidence of his expertise and suitability.

The meeting proved decisive. Cartier was chosen by Francis I to lead the next major French expedition to the Americas in 1534, marking the beginning of sustained French exploration and eventual colonization in the New World, most notably in regions that would later become Canada.

Thus, under Le Veneur’s guidance and Cartier’s experienced command, the French crown advanced its ambitions, seeking to establish a foothold in North America independent from Spanish control, directly challenging the Iberian monopoly on transatlantic exploration and trade.

Innocent IX, mindful of the origin of his success, supports the cause of Philip II and the Catholic League against Henry IV of France in the civil Wars of Religion, where a papal army is in the field.

Death, however, does not permit the realization of the pope’s schemes.

His great-nephew Giovanni Antonio Cardinal Facchinetti de Nuce, juniore, is one of two Cardinals appointed during Innocent IX's two-month pontificate.

A later member of the Cardinalate is his great-grandnephew Cesare Facchinetti (made a Cardinal in 1643).

After the death of Innocent on December 30, 1591, another stormy conclave ensues, where a determined minority of Italian Cardinals are unwilling to be dictated to by Philip of Spain.

Ippolito Aldobrandini, made Cardinal-Priest of S. Pancrazio in 1585 by Pope Gregory XIII, had been named by Pope Sixtus V as major penitentiary in January 1586 and in 1588 been sent by him as legate in Poland.

Placing himself under the direction of the reformer Philip Neri, who for thirty years was his confessor, Aldobrandini had won the gratitude of the Habsburgs by his successful diplomatic efforts in Poland to obtain the release of the imprisoned Archduke Maximilian, the defeated claimant to the Polish throne.

Following the death of Pope Innocent IX, another stormy conclave has ensued, where a determined minority of Italian Cardinals are unwilling to be dictated to by Philip II of Spain.

Cardinal Aldobrandini's election on January 30, 1592, is received as a portent of more balanced and liberal Papal policy in European affairs.

Taking the non-politicized name Clement VIII, he will prove to be an able Pope, with an unlimited capacity for work and a lawyer's eye for detail, and a wise statesman, the general object of whose policy is to free the Papacy from its dependence upon Spain.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was born in Milan, where his father, Fermo Merisi, was a household administrator and architect-decorator to the Marchese of Caravaggio.

His mother, Lucia Aratori, came from a propertied family of the same district.

The family moved in 1576 to Caravaggio in Lombardy to escape a plague which ravaged Milan.

Caravaggio's father died there in 1577 and his mother in 1584.

It is assumed that the artist grew up in Caravaggio, but his family kept up connections with the Sforza and with the powerful Colonna family, who were allied by marriage with the Sforzas, and destined to play a major role later in Caravaggio's life.

Apprenticed in 1584 for four years to the Lombard painter Simone Peterzano, described in the contract of apprenticeship as a pupil of Titian, Caravaggio appears to have stayed in the Milan-Caravaggio area after his apprenticeship ended, but it is possible that he visited Venice and saw the works of Giorgione, whom Federico Zuccari later accused him of imitating, and Titian.

He would also have become familiar with the art treasures of Milan, including Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper, and with the regional Lombard art, a style which valued simplicity and attention to naturalistic detail and was closer to the naturalism of Germany than to the stylized formality and grandeur of Roman Mannerism.

Caravaggio had fled Milan for Rome in mid-1592 after "certain quarrels" and the wounding of a police officer.

He had arrived in Rome "naked and extremely needy ... without fixed address and without provision ... short of money.” A few months later he was performing hackwork for the highly successful Giuseppe Cesari, Pope Clement VIII's favorite painter, "painting flowers and fruit" in his factory-like workshop.

Boy Peeling Fruit, the earliest known work by the young Caravaggio, is painted circa 1592-1593, soon after his arrival in Rome.

Seen as a simple genre painting, it differs from most in that the boy is not 'rusticated,' that is, he is depicted as clean and well-dressed instead of as a 'cute' ragamuffin.

Aron Tiranul is soon after (October 24, 1592) appointed ruler for the second time, owing to pressure from his creditors.

He is determined, however, to end his cohabitation with the Ottomans, especially after the offers for an alliance made by Pope Clement VIII and Wallachian Prince Michael the Brave.

...Avignon, and ...

Clement VIII, renewing the anti-Jewish bulls of Paul IV and Pius V in the second year of his papacy, exiles the Jews from all his territories with the exception of Rome, ...

…Ancona; he gives certain privileges to the Turkish Jews, however, in order not to lose the commerce with the East.

The exiled Jews receive a favorable welcome from Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, who assigns to them the city of Pisa for residence, and by ...

...Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga of Mantua, at whose court Joseph da Fano, a Jew, is a favorite.

The Jews are again permitted to read the Talmud and other Hebrew books, provided that they are printed according to the rules of censorship approved by Sixtus V. From Italy, where these expurgated books are printed by thousands, they are sent to the Jews of other various countries.