Born: 25 November 1454, Italy
Died: 10 July 1510
Country most active: Cyprus
Also known as: Catherine Cornaro, Αικατερίνη Κορνάρο
This biography, written by Holly Marsden, is shared with permission from Team Queens, an educational history blog run by a collective of historical scholars. All rights reserved; this material may not be republished without the author’s consent.
Caterina Cornaro was born in 1454 to a powerful Venetian family of noblemen, politicians and military officials. Her father Marco Cornaro served as a knight of the Holy Roman Empire and her mother was Greek princess Fiorenza Crispo. She had seven siblings.
Caterina was educated in Padua where she honed her love of the arts and humanist philosophy. The Cornaro family were tied to Cyprus through exporting Cypriot goods like sugar. This was solidified in 1468, when Caterina married King James II of Cyprus.
After the death of James’ father King John II in 1458, the heir to the Cypriot throne was contested. However, when Caterina and James were betrothed, and ties with the Republic of Venice were secured, James became king and Caterina, only 14, his consort queen.
The new queen travelled to Cyprus in 1472. James II died soon after whilst Caterina was pregnant. A plot to depose the new King James III meant Caterina was then imprisoned, but the plot was unsuccessful. Her son died in 1474 and Caterina became sole monarch.
Caterina ruled Cyprus with Venetian merchants until 1488, when Venice recalled her to the Republic after hearing of plots to take her crown. She was persuaded to abdicate by both her mother and brother in 1489 and the doge of Venice was given power over Cyprus.
In her life in Venice, Caterina was allowed to keep the title of queen and was also made a lady of Asolo, a county in the region. The Asolo court was known for its literary and artistic productions. Queen Caterina Cornaro died in 1510.
Her Cypriot summer palace in the village of Potamia is currently being restored. Her life and character are documented in many early modern paintings such as the above painted by Titian in 1542. Caterina’s image and legacy in trade are still remembered, and romanticised, today.
Recommended Reading
Holly Hurlburt, Daughter of Venice: Caterina Corner, Queen of Cyprus and Woman of the Renaissance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015)
Liana De Girolami Cheney, “Caterina Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus,” in The Emblematic Queen: Extra-Literary Representations of Early Modern Queenship, ed. D. Barrett-Graves (New York: Springer, 2013)
Lisa Hopkins, “Caterina Cornaro and the Colonization of Cyprus,” in Colonization, Piracy, and Trade in Early Modern Europe: The Roles of Powerful Women and Queens, eds. Claire Jowitt, Estelle Paranque, and Nate Probasco (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017)
The following is excerpted from “400 Outstanding Women of the World and the Costumology of Their Time” by Minna Moscherosch Schmidt, published in 1933.
Was born in Venice in the year 1454, daughter of Marco Cornelio or Cornaro, the great grandson of the other Marco, who died in 1367, and who gloriously served his country and who during the last two years of his life was Doge of Venetian Republic. Caterina Cornaro was educated in the convent of St. Benedetto di Padova, which she entered when still very young, and there she remained almost until 1469, when, from among 72 of the most noted and most promising young maidens of the Venetian nobility, she was chosen by Giacomo Lusignano XIV, king of Cyprus, Jerusalem and Armenia, to become his bride. There was great rejoicing in Venice over this union, and the aged Doge himself, dressed in his most splendid attire, accompanied the young bride from her very home, and arm in arm escorted her to the shore, from where she sailed, leaving for Famagosta, a metropolis of Cyprus, on a Venetian galley with a truly royal fleet following her. After a dangerous voyage, she finally reached her husband’s side, where she was crowned queen amid the applause and festivity of a cheering crowd, delighted by her fine graces and her suave manners. Caterina, however, lived but a short time with her husband, who died in 1473, under suspicion of poisoning. During her widowhood she reigned for fourteen years, but always against great troubles created especially by her sister-in-law, Carlotta, and in great danger of losing her kingdom and her head. At length, tired of the endless fighting, she abandoned Cyprus in 1486, and returned to Venice, together with her brother George^ who persuaded her to donate to her native country her inherited kingdom of Cyprus, Jerusalem and Armenia. This Caterina did in fact, with a solemn ceremony at the Basilica of Saint Marc. Having gone in 1489 to Fratalonga to see the emperor Maximillian passing from Milan directed to Vienna, she became enamoured with the beautiful location of Asolo, and after having expressed her desire to the Venetian Senate to have this property, on June 20, 1489, she was invested with the sovereignty of Asolo. She there established her Court, and lived for some twenty-one years, surrounded by the most noted and most splendid literary celebrities of the time. She there also had occasion of hearing the sermons of the famous monk Bernardino da Feltre. But, because of the disastrous consequences created to the glorious Republic of Venice by the League of Cambray, Caterina was forced to leave her pleasant place at Asolo, and to flee in refuge to Venice, where she died at the age of fifty-six, on July 19, 1510. She was deeply mourned by all her people.
Her body was placed in rest in the church of the Santi Apostoli, which was erected years before by her family — Cornaro, and the Erizzo family. Of Caterina Cornaro was admirable the fine sense of judgment and justice, and a certain fine quality for doing good, for which reason the most difficult and most trying cases of law and politics were by her easily solved. She can, therefore, be classed in that glorious group of reigning women who demanded the highest respect.
The following is excerpted from A Cyclopædia of Female Biography, published 1857 by Groomsbridge and Sons and edited by Henry Gardiner Adams.
CORNANO CATERINA, Queen of Cyprus. At the court of James the Fourth, King of Cyprus, resided a Venetian gentleman, exiled for some youthful indiscretions. He found especial favour with his adopted monarch. and rose to an intimate intercourse with him. One day, happening to stoop, he let fall a miniature, which represented so beautiful a face that the king eagerly inquired about the original. After stimulating his curiosity by affecting a discreet reserve, he acknowledged it to be the likeness of his niece. In subsequent conversations he artfully praised this young lady, and so wrought upon the sovereign that he resolved to take her for his wife. This honourable proposal being transmitted to Venice, she was adopted by the state, and sent as a daughter of the republic—a mode often adopted by that oligarchy for forming alliances with foreign powers. The fine climate and rich soil of Cyprus—an island so favoured by nature, that the ancients dedicated it to the queen of beauty and love—had made it always a coveted spot of earth, and on the death of James, which took place soon after his marriage with Caterina, the Venetians conceived the idea of obtaining it. Through their influence, Caterina was proclaimed queen, and afterwards as easily persuaded to abdicate in favour of the state of Venice. After various forms, and overpowering some opposition, Cyprus was annexed to the republic. On the 20th. of June, 1489, Caterina returned to her country and family, where she passed so obscure a life that no historian has taken the pains to note the period of her death.
Her name remains in the archives of Venice, because through her means a kingdom was acquired. Her features enjoy immortality, for she was painted by Titian.