I invite you to listen to another program in the "Women Rule" series.
She wasn't exactly a stunning beauty, and besides, she was quite short and stocky. But she possessed other virtues – orphaned in infancy, she immediately became the heir to a vast fortune, one of the richest girls in Europe, and, in the future, a very attractive potential wife for any European ruler.

Catherine de' Medici – daughter of Lorenzo II de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, and Madeleine de la Tour – endured horrific humiliations for 10 years, patiently waiting to exact revenge on her husband's mistress, the beautiful Diana de Poitiers.

She was said to be fond of poison. It was supposedly at her behest that Paris ran red in blood on her daughter Margot's wedding night. Her power was so powerful that she not only controlled the reign of her royal sons but also toppled the Jagiellonian throne. Her advisor was the clairvoyant Nostradamus.

My guest is Prof. Dr. hab. Andrzej Karpiński – historian, professor of humanities at the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Institute of History of the University of Warsaw.

I am collaborating with John Beauchamp and Bartosz Panek (Polish Radio).

At the end of the program, I will thank all the Patrons who have donated their chosen amounts to the account: ⁠patronite.pl/klcw⁠. It is thanks to you that we can meet in the Club of People Curious About Everything, which is a continuation of my original radio programs – on Trójka, then on Dwójka – i.e., the Club of People Curious About Everything.

You are invited – Hanna Maria Giza