gious devotion and piety. At the same time
he became an ardent supporter of the Do-
minican friar Girolamo Savonarola, who
was lashing out at the self-indulgent luxu-
ries of aristocrats and rulers of Florence.
One of Botticelli’s later works, aCrucifix-
ion, shows arrows raining down on Flo-
rence. The artist may have added some of
his own works to the famous bonfires that
Savonarola held to destroy what he saw as
sinful art and books that were corrupting
the city.
Late in life Botticelli suffered from a
physical disability that prevented him from
working. He lost commissions and found
himself struggling to survive. His manner
of painting, which reminded many people
of past medieval artists, went out of style.
He was largely forgotten until the nine-
teenth century, when “pre-Raphaelite”
painters of England discovered his myste-
rious allegories and dreamlike imagery.
Since that time, Botticelli’s style and works
have made him one of the most familiar
artists of the Italian Renaissance.
SEEALSO: Medici, Lorenzo de’; painting
Bourbon dynasty ...............................
A royal house whose members ruled many
states of Europe, including France, Na-
varre, Naples, Sicily, and Spain, which still
has a Bourbon member as its ceremonial
king. The most powerful branch of the
Bourbons ruled France from 1589 until
1792, when King Louis XVI was over-
thrown and executed during the French
Revolution.
The family was established as the he-
reditary lords of Bourbon and vassals of
the Capetian dynasty that established the
French monarchy in the late tenth century.
In 1268, Beatrix of Bourbon married
Prince Robert, the count of Clermont and
a son of King Louis IX. Charles of Bour-
bon, the last of the line, died in 1527; an-
other branch of the family was ruling the
duchy of Vendôeme. This family became
lords of Navarre, a small kingdom on
France’s southern border with Spain, in- In the meantime, the Protestant re-
volt against the Catholic doctrine and hi-
erarchy was driving France to a full-scale
civil war. To make peace with the Hugue-
nots (Protestants) of France, Catherine de
Médicis, the mother of the French king,
arranged a marriage of her daughter Mar-
garet to Henry, the Bourbon and Protes-
tant prince of Navarre. On the wedding
day, August 24, 1572, the Catholics of
France took the festivities as an occasion
for a wholesale slaughter of Protestants in
the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre.
Henry announced his conversion to the
Catholic faith but in 1576 again declared
himself a Huguenot. In 1584, after the
death of the younger brother of the king,
Henry of Navarre became next in line for
the throne. In 1589, when the king of
France was assassinated, King Henry III of
Navarre became the first Bourbon king of
France as Henry IV.
The arrival of a Protestant on the
throne of France raised the ire of Catho-
lics, who rallied around Henry’s uncle,
Cardinal Charles de Bourbon. Henry de-
feated Charles in battle in 1590, but was
unable to seize Paris, a Catholic strong-
hold, with the forces at his disposal. For
the sake of the French kingdom and a
hope for a lasting truce, he converted once
again to Catholicism, remarking that “Paris
is worth a mass,” and was formally
crowned in 1594. In 1598 Henry passed
the Edict of Nantes that recognized Ca-
tholicism as the official religion of France
but also decreed tolerance for the Hugue-
nots. The civil war now at an end, France
Bourbon dynasty