Catherine de Medici, Leonie Frieda
Catherine de Medici, Leonie Frieda
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Catherine de Medici
Renaissance Queen of France

Author: Leonie Frieda

Narrator: Sarah Le Fevre

Unabridged: 21 hr 36 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 10/16/2018

Synopsis

The inspiration for the STARZ original series, The Serpent Queen—second season premiering July 12th!“A beautifully written portrait of a ruthless, subtle and fearless woman fighting for survival and power in a world of gangsterish brutality, routine assassination and religious mania. . . . Frieda has brought a largely forgotten heroine-villainess and a whole sumptuously vicious era back to life. . . . This is The Godfather meets Elizabeth.” —Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Stalin: The Court of the Red TsarPoisoner, besotted mother, despot, necromancer, engineer of a massacre: the dark legend of Catherine de Medici is centuries old. In this critically hailed biography, Leonie Frieda reclaims the story of this unjustly maligned queen of France to reveal a skilled ruler battling extraordinary political and personal odds.Based on comprehensive research including thousands of Catherine’s own letters, Frieda unfurls Catherine’s story from her troubled childhood in Florence to her tumultuous marriage to Henry II of France; her transformation of French culture to her reign as a queen who would use brutality to ensure her children’s royal birthright. Brilliantly executed, this enthralling biography goes beyond myth to paint a very human portrait of this remarkable figure.

About Leonie Frieda

Leonie Frieda is the author of a bestselling biography of Catherine de Medici and The Deadly Sisterhood: A Story of Women, Power and Intrigue in the Italian Renaissance. She lives in London.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Colleen on November 27, 2022

This is a well-written and captivating biography of a woman too often categorized as "the black queen" primarily for the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre which Frieda and other more recent historians have found unfair. By the standards of the day, her plan was acceptable. The leaders of the Huguenots w......more

Goodreads review by Elena on April 23, 2025

3.5 stars A good and balanced account of Catherine de Medici’s life. The author tries to be fair to the queen, showing her stronger sides, but she admits that Catherine had to be ruthless because the times were violent and cruel. Frieda does a good job of describing the context of the bloody religiou......more

Goodreads review by Juliew. on May 08, 2023

This has a good mix of the personal as well as the political.I could automatically within the first chapter tell it was painstakingly researched and I found it really readable for a general reader.Unfortunately, I also found the writing a bit plodding and dull but otherwise I would recommend it if F......more

Goodreads review by M.M. Strawberry on December 18, 2020

One thing I can say after reading this - Catherine had seen a LOT of shit. Like so many women in her time - and before that time, and after that time - she was seen as a power-hungry bitch, and so on and so forth. Any history buff is well aware how women with power often got the shaft in history due......more

Goodreads review by Brittany on June 02, 2011

This book was really rough for me to get through which, given the reviews and my fondness for historical biographies, was a surprise. It may be one of those cases that it just wasn't the right time for me to read this book. However, there was also a sort of bloodlessness and pedantry about the way t......more

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