A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Eleonore of Toledo
ELEONORE OF TOLEDO,
Daughter of Pertor of Toledo, Viceroy of Naples, was born in the year 1526, and shewed, even when a child, marks of an extraordinary mind. In 1543, she married Cosmos the First, a Medici. Her husband was only twenty-four years old, though already six years a ruling prince. He had ascended the throne of Tuscany after the assassination of Alexander, in the year 1533, and found himself now constantly engaged in active hostilities with the Strozzi, the hereditary enemies of his house. Bloody and terrible were the battles fought in this struggle; but Eleonore never left the side of her husband, even during the hottest encounters of the fight. Her extraordinary courage contributed greatly to the termination of the war; for, one day while riding with an escort of only fifteen horsemen, she met the leader of the hostile forces, Philip Strozzi, with a force of forty-five horsemen, reconnoitering the camp. Without a moment's hesitation, she threw herself upon them, cut them to pieces, and made Strozzi prisoner. Philip knew that no prisoner had hitherto been spared, and, in order to escape an ignominious death upon the scaffold, committed suicide in prison. This sad event induced Eleonore to prevail upon her husband to promise that henceforth he would spare the lives of his prisoners. Eleonore also accompanied her husband in the war between Charles the Fifth and Francis the First, and was actively engaged in the storming and taking of Sienna. She afterwards urged her husband to have himself crowned a king, but in this he failed. Pius the Fifth finally changed his title, Duke of Florence, into that of Grand-duke of Tuscany.
Eleonore's ambition being now satisfied, she devoted the rest of her life to encourage education, the fine arts, and benevolent institutions. The exact time of her decease is not known