Catherine de Medici is a not a name most people know, but then again, in our dumbed-down world, most people cannot locate China on a map or speak enough Latin to know what quid pro quo means. Catherine de Medici might be familiar to some as the patroness of Nostradamus (who is not nearly as astounding as the History Channel would have you believe) but she should be better known as the woman who imported an official perfumer to France.

When she was born (April 13, 1519 to be precise), she was the richest woman in the world. Orphaned before she was a year old, she was very nearly the last of the Medici dynasty, the powerful Florentine family that proved that money out-trumps aristocratic birth when used properly. The Medicis were wealthy, powerful, influential, and all the rest, but they weren't high-born.

Meanwhile, over in France, King Henry II or as the French called him Henri II, was running out of money but he had blue blood to spare. Suddenly the little Medici girl was of considerable interest. The Medicis (what was left of them) wanted to marry her off into a royal line to have some of their blood finally flow in the veins of powerful kings. Henri II liked her money. At the age of 14, the extremely well educated, homely orphaned girl was packed off to France where she married a man who never loved her.

Now that is another story for another day. Henri II spent his entire adulthood in love with a woman named Diane de Poitiers who was not only older than he was, she had been his father's mistress.

But back to the perfume. Catherine lived a life of unprecedented luxury in Florence. The Medicis spent exorbitant sums on books and Catherine was learned as well as pampered. Among the many servants in her home in Florence was a man whose title was the royal poisoner. In Renaissance Italy, powerful families needed such folk. The Medici family was never as rowdy as the Borgia, but apparently they had their own poison-maker on retainer.

Catherine married Henri II in a grand ceremony on October 28, 1533 in Marseilles, France, and like most of the exceedingly important and wealthy, she arrived with her own entourage, including the family poison-maker. Try as I might, I cannot find this fellow's name. But he arrived more or less as Catherine settled in to her life in France.

It was a tough gig, being the unloved queen to a king who ran around with older women. As an orphan child, Catherine's guardian was the Pope Clement. When he died, the next pope refused to pay Catherine's vast dowry. The result was that she lost influence, power, prestige, and reputation at court, but she was already married by this time and nobody could do anything about her.

Back to the perfume. Catherine occupied herself with astrology and fortune-telling (enter Nostradamus). It appeared the poison-maker was kind of at loose ends, himself, and he set out to explore the French countryside. Poisons in those days were natural substances, so he had an insatiable interest in the local flora. While you might think that Italy and France have similar plants, they apparently do not. The poison-maker found wonderful botanical substances with which to create perfumes. Perhaps he was also free now to create perfumes rather than poison.

To the best of my knowledge (and this aligns with everything I have ever read about her), Catherine poisoned no one.

However, it was under her guidance that some of the very first perfumes arrived at the French court. Okay, these were not the first perfumes, but it was a renaissance in perfume making that arrived with Catherine.

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