Catherine de' Medici (13 April 1519 – 5 January 1589) was born in Florence, Italy, as Caterina Maria Romula di Lorenzo de' Medici.

Both her parents, Lorenzo II de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, and Madeleine de La Tour d'Auvergne, Countess of Boulogne, died within weeks of her birth.

Caterina is fourteen in 1533 when she marries Henry, the second son of King Francis I and Queen Claude of France.

Under the gallicized version of her name, Catherine de Médicis, she is Queen consort of France as the wife of King Henry II of France from 1547 to 1559.

Throughout Henry's reign, he excludes Catherine from participating in state affairs and instead showers favors on his chief mistress, Diane de Poitiers, who wields much influence over him.

Henry's death thrusts Catherine into the political arena as mother of the frail fifteen-year-old King Francis II.

When he dies in 1560, she becomes regent on behalf of her ten-year-old son King Charles IX and is granted sweeping powers.

After Charles dies in 1574, Catherine plays a key role in the reign of her third son, Henry III, who dispenses with her advice only in the last months of her life.

Catherine's three sons reign in an age of almost constant civil and religious war in France.

The problems facing the monarchy are complex and daunting.

Catherine at first compromises and makes concessions to the rebelling Protestants, or Huguenots, as they become known.

She fails, however, to grasp the theological issues that drive their movement.

She later resorts in frustration and anger to hard-line policies against them.

In return, she comes to be blamed for the excessive persecutions carried out under her sons' rule, in particular for the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572, in which thousands of Huguenots are killed in Paris and throughout France.

Some recent historians have excused Catherine from blame for the worst decisions of the crown, though evidence for her ruthlessness can be found in her letters.

In practice, her authority was always limited by the effects of the civil wars.

Her policies, therefore, may be seen as desperate measures to keep the Valois monarchy on the throne at all costs, and her spectacular patronage of the arts as an attempt to glorify a monarchy whose prestige was in steep decline.

Without Catherine, it is unlikely that her sons would have remained in power.

The years in which they reigned have been called "the age of Catherine de' Medici".