GIULIA GONZAGA (n. Gazzuolo, 1512 - d. Naples, 1566)
During the night 8 to August 9, 1534 a fleet of 84 galleys black crept to the Italian coast near the town of Fondi. The squadron was commanded by the famous pirate Barbarossa and aims were not the riches that this town could treasure but a particular person, Giulia Gonzaga, the most beautiful woman in the world by singing minstrels and that the pirate had promised to obtain for the harem of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent . Giulia Gonzaga was born into a family of Italian nobility and was married at fourteen years of Vespasian Colonna, Count and Duke of Fondi Taretto, belonging to one of the most powerful families of the time. After the death of Vespasian three years after the wedding, Giulia not remarried, surrounding himself in his palace in a court of Renaissance artists and scholars typically earned him fame and made the songs inspired by her beauty resonated throughout Europe and reach the ears of the Ottoman Sultan.
Tonight, however, Giulia was saved by his servant Xuri who dragged her out of bed in her nightgown, got them both to escape from the city to a horse while the Turkish corsair the dam of their frustration on fire for failing to capture the queen and went to the sword to the population. The hacker does not have lasted much fury, however, since in reality it seems that his interest was more on the boys in those years and the failure was only a mere slip after which he went to Toulon, where he was to join French to fight against Charles V. It also appears that the raid on Fondi could have been encouraged by the Colonna, with the intention of recovering the fiefdoms Giulia had inherited from her husband.
During his flight, it seems that neither the faithful Xuri could resist the charms of his mistress, for which many had sung that would be able to die, and attempted an improper approach that was nipped in the bud by the lady of great character as well as beauty it seems, and that cost him his head had come no sooner raised both to safety.
After this unfortunate affair, Giulia decided to enter a convent in Naples, where in addition to the contemplative life continued to maintain a very active relationship with the world of the arts and some of the great thinkers of the time, but not there seems to stop being dangerous for any male person who got too close. Thus it is said he maintained a relationship with Cardinal Ippolito de Medici, who died shortly after his last encounter with the lady. Something similar, although we assume that for different reasons, happened to humanist Pietro Carnesecchi , a supporter of the Reformation of Luther, whose correspondence with Giulia got him burned at the stake a year after her death in 1567.
