Ferdinando Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua
Catholic cardinal (1587-1626)
Ferdinand I Gonzaga (26 April 1587 – 29 October 1626) was Duke of Mantua and Duke of Montferrat from 1612 until his death.
Biography
Born in Mantua, he was the son of Vincenzo I and Eleonora de' Medici.
On 10 December 1607, he was appointed a cardinal by Pope Paul V at the age of 20. A few years after his elder brother, Duke Francesco IV, died in 1612 without male heirs, he renounced the ecclesiastical career on 16 November 1615, and succeeded his brother in both the Duchy of Mantua and the Duchy of Montferrat.
In 1616, he secretly married Camilla Faà di Bruno, whom he divorced in the same year. Their son Francesco Giacinto Teodoro Giovanni Gonzaga, although accepted at court, was not made Ferdinando's heir. He died of the plague at the age of 14, during the 1630 siege of Mantua.
On 16 February 1617, Ferdinando married Caterina de' Medici (1593–1629), the daughter of Ferdinand I, Grand Duke of Tuscany. They had no children.
Ferdinand Gonzaga died in 1626.
The public source identifies “Ferdinando Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua” as catholic cardinal (1587-1626). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Ferdinando, Gonzaga and Duke.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ferdinando Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.