Anne of Brittany (1477–1514; Ruled 1491–1498, 1499–1514)
ANNE OF BRITTANY (1477–1514; ruled 1491–1498, 1499–1514)
ANNE OF BRITTANY (1477–1514; ruled 1491–1498, 1499–1514), queen of France. Duchess of Brittany and twice queen of France, Anne was the daughter of Francis II (1435–1488) of Brittany and Marguerite de Foix. She was eleven when a French army defeated her father in the Fools' War in August 1488. Francis died a month after, and Anne inherited the duchy as the elder of his two daughters. Her hand in marriage became a valuable prize. In hopes of preventing the duchy from falling under direct French rule, Archduke Maximilian of Austria (later Holy Roman emperor; ruled 1493–1519), King Henry VII of England, and King Ferdinand of Aragon supported her against the French, and she agreed to marry Maximilian. In 1490 they were married by proxy, but the archduke delayed coming to Brittany. In 1491 French forces entered her capital of Rennes, and she was pressed to marry Charles VIII (ruled 1483–1498) of France. Convinced by her confessor that she was free to marry him, Anne agreed to a marriage contract that stipulated she would have to marry Charles's successor in default of a son from their marriage. The marriage took place at Rennes in December 1491.
Anne's marriage contract with Charles also stipulated that she would remain the ruling duchess of Brittany, and she always took a deep interest in its affairs while living at the French court, although it appears that she could not speak Breton. On several occasions she spent months away from her husband directing the affairs of her duchy. Those absences and that of her husband for sixteen months during the first French invasion of Italy (1494–1495) reduced the opportunities for Anne to become pregnant. She gave birth to a son, Charles Orland, a year after her marriage, but he died of measles at age three. Two more pregnancies resulted in a stillbirth and a son who died after five weeks.
When Charles VIII died suddenly in April 1498, Anne became a widow at age twenty-one. Her obligation to marry his successor, Charles's cousin Louis of Orléans (ruled 1498–1515), was complicated by his marriage to Jeanne of France, the daughter of Louis XI. Louis of Orléans requested an annulment from Pope Alexander VI on the grounds of coercion and nonconsummation. After his son Cesare Borgia was properly rewarded with French titles and treasure, Alexander granted the annulment. In January 1499 Anne and Louis XII were married, making her queen of France for a second time, the only woman for whom that was true. Their marriage contract stipulated that Brittany would continue to be governed separately from France and that it would go to the second son from the marriage or, in default of sons, the second daughter. In the absence of any children, it would go to Anne's closest relative. She was determined to maintain the duchy's autonomy from the French monarchy.
During her marriage to Louis, Anne was a key adviser to her husband, and she served as regent for him during his several Italian expeditions and a serious illness of 1505. The primary duty of the queen, however, was producing a male heir. In that respect Anne was unsuccessful. From at least five pregnancies, two daughters, Claude (born 1499) and Rénée (born 1510) alone survived. Anne strongly supported the betrothal of her young daughter Claude to Charles of Austria in 1503. She was sharply opposed to the proposed marriage between Claude and Francis of Angoulême (ruled 1515–1547), the successor to the French throne in default of any sons from Louis. Anne despised Francis's mother Louise
of Savoy (1476–1531) and was eager to maintain Brittany's autonomy, which she perceived would be easier to do with a foreign prince as its duke. Much to her anger, Louis wrote a will in 1505 that repudiated the marriage between Claude and Charles and required their daughter to marry Francis. It was only after Anne's death in 1514 that Claude married Francis. Louis quickly remarried, to Mary Tudor, Henry VIII's sister, but he died in 1515 without having a child with her. Francis, Louis's son-in-law and cousin, became king, and he undid Anne's determined efforts to keep Brittany autonomous by making his heir its duke in 1534, thereby absorbing it into the royal domain.
Anne was a patron of artists and writers. Her most notable commission was for the splendid funeral monument for her father at Nantes.
See also Brittany ; Charles VIII (France).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bridge, John S. C. A History of France from the Death of Louis XI. 5 vols. Oxford, 1921–1936. A highly detailed history of France that covers Anne's lifetime.
Matarasso, Pauline. Queen's Mate: Three Women of Power in France on the Eve of the Renaissance. Brookfield, Vt., 2001. Study of Anne and two other powerful women of her era, Anne of Beaujeu and Louise of Savoy.
Frederic J. Baumgartner
Cite this article
Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography.
BAUMGARTNER, FREDERIC J.. "Anne of Brittany (1477–1514; Ruled 1491–1498, 1499–1514)." Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World. The Gale Group Inc. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 11 Nov. 2009 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.
BAUMGARTNER, FREDERIC J.. "Anne of Brittany (1477–1514; Ruled 1491–1498, 1499–1514)." Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World. The Gale Group Inc. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. (November 11, 2009). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3404900046.html
BAUMGARTNER, FREDERIC J.. "Anne of Brittany (1477–1514; Ruled 1491–1498, 1499–1514)." Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World. The Gale Group Inc. 2004. Retrieved November 11, 2009 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3404900046.html
Learn more about citation styles
|
LEVIATHAN (1651) Abraham Bosse and Thomas Hobbes BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON
Newspaper article from: The Independent - London; 2/20/2009; ; 700+ words
; ...an Anglo- French work: drawn by a French artist, Abraham Bosse, but designed in collaboration with the philosopher...fantasy is this picture's destiny. About the artist Abraham Bosse (1602-1676) was a French Huguenot artist. A follower...
|
 "Albany Times Union (Albany, NY)")
|
ANNE G. BOSSE.(CAPITAL REGION)
Newspaper article from: Albany Times Union (Albany, NY); 6/24/1997; 480 words
; ...SARATOGA SPRINGS -- Anne Gillette Bosse, 86, of Lawrence St., died...she was a daughter of the late Abraham Dunn and Viola (Tibbitts...the widow of the late Paul C. Bosse, the former publisher of the...Geraghty of Colonie and Constance Bosse of Belmont, MA; one sister...
|
|
MFA wants you to come up and see its etchings.
Newspaper article from: The Boston Herald; 11/8/1998; ; 700+ words
; ...s entranceway. Covering a large wall is a blowup of Abraham Bosse's image of his print shop, "The Engraver and the...etching. The piece served as a sort of advertisement for Bosse's shop, and sets the tone of the show. What exists...
|
|
Rank: picturing the social order 1516-2009.
Magazine article from: Art Monthly; 4/1/2009; ; 700+ words
; ...the image for his novel Lanark. The original image by Abraham Bosse pictured a belief in the nation as the 'body politic...in Truisms, 1984, turns out to be a good match for Bosse's giant incarnation of Hobbes's 'Soveraign Power...
|
|
Seventeenth - century English cutlery for the rich man's table.
Magazine article from: The Magazine Antiques; 9/1/2001; ; 700+ words
; ...excellent documentation of the rich man's table, while Abraham de Pape, Lambert Doomer, Anthonie de Winter, and...interiors before the 1660s, although the French engraver Abraham Bosse (1692-1676) recorded them in use at Fontainebleau...
|
|
Achademia Leonardi Vinci: Journal of Leonardo Studies and Bibliography of Vinciana.(Book Review)
Magazine article from: Renaissance Quarterly; 9/22/1994; ; 700+ words
; ...Perspective, c. 1492"); Alessandro Parronchi ("Un |tondo' per il San Girolamo"); Francesca Florani ("Abraham Bosse e le prime critiche al Trattato della Pittura di Leonardo"); and Rita Severi ("The Myth of Leonardo in English...
|
|
|
Undoing the aesthetic image.(CONFERENCE)
Magazine article from: Art Monthly; 4/1/2009; ; 700+ words
; ...architecture of the Pantheon--its Euclidian geometries and its privileging of the ocular--and made it analogous with Abraham Bosse's famous illustration for Hobbes's Leviathan, where the body politic is literally incorporated within the crowned...
|
|
Clothes make the canvas. (works of artist Sigmar Polke)
Magazine article from: Artforum International; 11/1/1994; ; 700+ words
; ...of perspective will recognize these three gentlemen, each with his "visual pyramid": they appear in an engraving Abraham Bosse made for the first volume of his Maniere universelle pour pratiquer la perspective (Universal method for the practice...
|
|
For the record
Newspaper article from: Charleston Daily Mail; 6/23/2008; 700+ words
; ...of South Charleston. * Dylan Michael Goff, 29, and Christina Lynn Knight, 21, both of Charleston. * Seri Abraham Mikael Bosse, 22, and Johanna Lynn Ray, 21, both of Dunbar. * Joseph Alan Miller, 27, and Amy Lynn Johnson, 23, both...
|
 "Post-Tribune (IN)")
|
THREE ADMIT BURNING CROSS; MARSHAL SAYS PRANK GOT OUT OF HAND
Newspaper article from: Post-Tribune (IN); 1/29/1988; 577 words
; ...cross before the Evansville Bosse-Heritage Hills basketball...moments before the bus carrying Bosse's team passed. At Tuesday night's game, Bosse Coach Joe Mullan said, the...a memorial to the boyhood of Abraham Lincoln.
|
|
Bosse, Abraham
Dictionary entry from: Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography
Bosse, Abraham ( b . Tours, France, 1602; d . Paris...graphic techniques . The son of Louis Bosse, a tailor, and Marie Martinet, Bosse...below) and especially in A. Blum, Abraham Bosse et la soci é t é fran...
|
|
Abraham Bosse
Book article from: The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition
Abraham Bosse , 1602-76, French engraver and painter. He studied art in Paris and...representation of French civil life and costumes during the period of Louis XIII. Bosse wrote several valued treatises on art and perspective. One of his rare...
|
|
|
La Hire, Philippe De
Dictionary entry from: Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography
...France, he was active primarily sa an artist, and he formed a friendship with Desargues ’ s last disciple, Abraham Bosse. In order to solve, at the latter ’ s request, a difficult problem of stonecutting, he developed, in...
|
|
|
orders of architecture
Book article from: The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition
...into the five definitely formulated orders, with minute rules of proportion. Philibert Delorme, Claude Perrault, Abraham Bosse, and Sir William Chambers were among those who composed treatises on the subject. Using the classical orders as a...
|
|
|
Desargues, Girard
Dictionary entry from: Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography
...made the acquaintance of Descartes, but there is no evidence to confirm this assertion. According to the engraver Abraham Bosse (1602 – 1676), a fervent disciple of Desargues, the latter obtained a royal license for the publication...
|
