Catherine Cornaro (; or ; ; 25 November 1454 – 10 July 1510) was the last monarch of the Kingdom of Cyprus, also holding the titles of Queen of Jerusalem and Queen of Armenia. She became

queen consort A queen consort is the wife of a reigning king, and usually shares her spouse's social Imperial, royal and noble ranks, rank and status. She holds the feminine equivalent of the king's monarchical titles and may be crowned and anointed, but hi ...

of Cyprus by marriage to James II of Cyprus, and then regent of Cyprus during the minority of her son James III of Cyprus in 1473–1474, and finally

queen regnant A queen regnant (: queens regnant) is a female monarch, equivalent in rank, title and position to a king. She reigns ''suo jure'' (in her own right) over a realm known as a kingdom; as opposed to a queen consort, who is married to a reigning ...

of Cyprus upon his death. She reigned from 26 August 1474 to 26 February 1489 and was declared a "Daughter of Saint Mark" in order that the

Republic of Venice The Republic of Venice, officially the Most Serene Republic of Venice and traditionally known as La Serenissima, was a sovereign state and Maritime republics, maritime republic with its capital in Venice. Founded, according to tradition, in 697 ...

could claim control of Cyprus after the death of her husband.

Life

Catherine (also known as Caterina) was a daughter of Venetian Marco Cornaro, Cavaliere del Sacro Romano Impero (Knight of the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...

) and . She was the younger sister of the ''Nobil Huomo'' Giorgio Cornaro (1452 – 31 July 1527), "Padre della Patria" and Knight of the

.Caterina's mother was of Greek descent. The Cornaro family had produced four Doges. Her family had long associations with Cyprus, especially with regard to trade and commerce. In the Episkopi area, in the Limassol District, the Cornaro family administered various sugar mills and exported Cypriot products to Venice. Catherine was painted by Bellini, Dürer,

Titian Tiziano Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), Latinized as Titianus, hence known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italian Renaissance painter, the most important artist of Renaissance Venetian painting. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near Belluno. Ti ...

, and Giorgione.

Succession of James II

On the death of the Cypriot King John II in 1458, the succession was disputed between his daughter Charlotte and her illegitimate half-brother James, who tried to seize the island. On the strength of the marriage of Louis of Savoy to Charlotte, the duke of Savoy claimed the island and Charlotte was named Queen. In 1468, Catherine, through negotiations by her father and uncle, was offered to James as his wife. The marriage was extremely advantageous to the Republic of Venice as it could henceforth secure the commercial rights and other privileges of Venice in

Cyprus Cyprus (), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the List of isl ...

. The proposal was agreed to, and the contract was signed in 1468, strengthening James's position.

Queen consort

Thus in 1468, James II, otherwise known as James the Bastard, became

king of Cyprus The Kingdom of Cyprus (; ) was a medieval kingdom of the Crusader states that existed between 1192 and 1489. Initially ruled as an Independent state, independent Christian state, Christian kingdom, it was established by the French House of Lusi ...

. He and Catherine married in

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

on 30 July 1468 by proxy when she was 14 years old. She finally set sail to Cyprus in November 1472 and married James in person at Famagusta.

Regent

James died soon after the wedding due to a sudden illness and, according to his will, Catherine, who at the time was pregnant, acted as regent. As soon as the Venetian fleet sailed away, a plot to depose the infant James III of Cyprus in favour of Charlotte, John's legitimate daughter, broke out, and Catherine was kept a prisoner. The Venetians returned, and order was soon restored, but the republic was meditating the seizure of Cyprus, although it had no valid title whatever.

Monarch

Catherine became monarch when James III died in August 1474 after his first birthday, probably from illness, even if it was rumored that he had been poisoned by Venice or Charlotte's partisans. The kingdom had long since declined, and had been a tributary state of the Mameluks since 1426. Under Catherine, who ruled Cyprus from 1474 to 1489, the island was controlled by Venetian merchants. In 1488, the republic, fearing that Sultan Bayezid II intended to attack Cyprus, and having also discovered a plot to marry Catherine to

Alfonso II of Naples Alfonso II (4 November 1448 – 18 December 1495) was Duke of Calabria and ruled as King of Naples from 25 January 1494 to 23 January 1495. He was a soldier and a patron of Renaissance architecture and the arts. Heir to his father Fe ...

, decided to recall the queen to Venice and formally annex the island. In February 1489, the Venetian government persuaded Catherine to cede her rights as ruler of Cyprus to the doge of Venice—and by extension the Venetian government as a whole—as she had no heir. On 14 March 1489, she was forced to abdicate and sell the administration of the country to the Republic of Venice. According to the contemporary chronicler Georgios Boustronios:

on 15 February 1489 the queen exited from Nicosia in order to go to Famagusta, to leave yprus And when she went on horseback wearing a black silken cloak, with all the ladies and the knights in her company ..Her eyes, moreover did not cease to shed tears throughout the procession. The people likewise shed many tears.

Later life

The last Crusader state became a colony of Venice, and as compensation, Catherine was allowed to retain the title of queen and was made lady of Asolo, a county on the ''Terraferma'' of the Republic of Venice in the

Veneto Veneto, officially the Region of Veneto, is one of the 20 regions of Italy, located in the Northeast Italy, north-east of the country. It is the fourth most populous region in Italy, with a population of 4,851,851 as of 2025. Venice is t ...

region, in 1489. Asolo soon gained a reputation as a court of literary and artistic distinction, mainly as a result of it being the fictitious setting for

Pietro Bembo Pietro Bembo, (; 20 May 1470 – 18 January 1547) was a Venetian scholar, poet, and literary theory, literary theorist who also was a member of the Knights Hospitaller and a cardinal of the Catholic Church. As an intellectual of the Italian Re ...

's platonic dialogues on love, ''Gli Asolani''. Catherine lived in Asolo until 1509, when the League of Cambrai sacked the town; she then fled to Venice, where she lived for another year, dying on 10 July 1510. She is entombed in the Church of San Salvador in Venice.

Legacy

A libretto based on her life by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges formed the basis of the operas ''Catharina Cornaro'' (1841) by Franz Lachner, '' La reine de Chypre'' (1841) by Fromental Halévy, and '' Caterina Cornaro'' (1844) by

Gaetano Donizetti Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (29 November 1797 – 8 April 1848) was an Italian Romantic music, Romantic composer, best known for his almost 70 operas. Along with Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, he was a leading composer of the ''be ...

. The Cornaro Institute, a charitable organisation founded by the artist

Stass Paraskos Stass Paraskos (; 17 March 1933 – 4 March 2014) was a British-Cypriot painter, sculptor, and writer. Born and raised in Cyprus, he spent much of his life working and teaching in England, where he famously became embroiled in a 1966 obscenity ...

in the city of Larnaca for the promotion of art and other culture, memorialised her name in Cyprus, prior to its closure by Larnaca Municipality in 2017. In October 2011, the Cyprus Antiquities Department announced a one million euro project to restore a part-medieval mansion in Potamia said to be Catherine Cornaro's summer palace.Di Cesnola, L. P. Cyprus: Its Ancient Cities, Tombs, and Temples, 2015. The project aimed to create a cultural centre in the mansion's west wing, with the work continuing in stages for three years depending on funds. According to the ''Cypriot Mail'' however, the Cyprus Antiquities Department stated in October 2012 that there was no evidence Queen Catherine ever stayed there, with the newspaper quoting the department's archaeological officer Evi Fiouri as saying the department has never referred to the structure as the queen’s summer palace but simply as the medieval mansion of Potamia. ''“As the antiquities department we never said this, it seems like it went down in tradition as this,”'' said Fiouri. ''“We don’t know how it started.”'' San Salvador Interno - Tomb of Caterina Cornaro.jpg, Catherine's tombstone San Salvador Interno - Monument to Catherine Cornaro.jpg, Her funerary monument

References

Sources

* * * *