title: Dev Patel

text: Patel has since gone on to establish himself as a renowned actor by starring in acclaimed films such as "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" (2011), "The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" (2015), "Chappie" (2016), "The Man Who Knew Infinity" (2016), "Lion" (2016), "Hotel Mumbai" (2018), "The Personal History of David Copperfield" (2019), and "The Green Knight" (2021). He also starred in the series "The Newsroom" (2012-2014) and "Modern Love" (2019), and performed voice-over work in the animated films "Only Yesterday" (2016) and "I Lost My Body" (2019).


title: Dev Patel

text: Dev Patel was born on 23 April 1990 in Harrow, the son of Anita, a care worker, and Raju, an IT consultant. His parents are Indian Gujarati Hindus, though they were both born in Nairobi, Kenya, where there is a significant Indian community; they emigrated to England separately in their teens, and first met in London. Patel was raised in the Hindu faith. He speaks some Gujarati. His ancestors hail from Jamnagar and Unjha in Gujarat, India. He grew up in the Rayners Lane district of Harrow and attended Longfield Primary School and Whitmore High School. Patel had his first acting role as Sir Andrew Aguecheek in the school's production of "Twelfth Night".


title: Dev Patel

text: At Whitmore High School, he received an A* in GCSE Drama for his "self-penned portrayal of a child in the Beslan school siege". His drama teacher Niamh Wright has stated, "Dev was a gifted student who quickly impressed me with his innate ability to communicate a wide variety of characters imaginatively and creatively. He was awarded full marks for his GCSE performance to a live audience and the visiting examiner was moved to tears by his honest portrayal." He completed his A Levels in PE, Biology, History, and Drama in 2007 at Whitmore High School while working on "Skins".


title: Dev Patel

text: Patel said that he was "bloody energetic" as a child, and used to get in trouble because of it. He started training at the Rayners Lane Academy of Taekwondo in 2000. He competed regularly in both national and international championships, including the 2004 AIMAA (Action International Martial Arts Association) World Championships in Dublin, where he won a bronze medal. The World Championships took place in October 2004, when he was a red belt competing in the junior division against other red and black belts. He made it to the semi-finals, where he lost to an Irish black belt named Niall Fitzmaurice in "a very close and tough fight", and ended up winning a bronze medal. He later gained a 1st dan black belt in March 2006.


title: Dev Patel

text: In 2006, Patel began his acting career when he auditioned for the E4 teen drama television series "Skins". Patel's mother saw the casting advert in "Metro" and took him to the audition even though he had a science exam the next day. After two auditions, he was cast in the role of Anwar Kharral, a British Pakistani Muslim teenager. The characterization of Anwar was partly based on Patel's personality and the role was written specifically for him after he was cast in "Skins". Patel, who had no professional acting experience, said that on "the first day of shooting I didn't really know what to do."


title: Dev Patel

text: The first series of the show aired in January 2007 and went on to win the Rose d'Or for Drama in 2008 and receive a nomination for Best Drama Series at the 2008 BAFTA Television Awards. Patel reprised his role as Anwar for the second series of "Skins", which aired in February 2008. The second series of "Skins" won the Philips Audience Award at the 2009 BAFTA Television Awards.


title: Dev Patel

text: Patel made his feature film debut when he was cast in the role of Jamal Malik, the central character in Danny Boyle's film "Slumdog Millionaire". The Jamal Malik character is an Indian Muslim boy born and brought up in the poverty of Bombay, India. Boyle considered hundreds of young male actors, but found that Bollywood leads were generally "strong, handsome hero-types", not the personality he was looking for. Boyle's 17-year-old daughter Caitlin pointed him to "Skins".


title: Dev Patel

text: After five auditions for the role, the actor was eventually cast in August 2007. The film's producer found the original choice for the lead role, Ruslaan Mumtaz, too good-looking for the role. Boyle said, "I wanted a guy who didn't look like a potential hero; I wanted him to earn that in the film." To prepare for the role, Patel went along with Boyle while scouting for filming locations, where he was able to observe the Dharavi slums for himself. He also worked at a call-center for a day and in a hotel, where he washed dishes.


title: Dev Patel

text: After the release of "Slumdog Millionaire" at the end of 2008, Patel went on to receive a number of awards for his performance, including a British Independent Film Award, National Board of Review (NBR) Award, Chicago Film Critics Association Award, and two Black Reel Awards for Best Actor and Best Breakthrough Performance. Patel was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the 2009 Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards. The award eventually went posthumously to Heath Ledger for his performance in "The Dark Knight", though Patel did win the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, which he shared with ten other cast members from "Slumdog Millionaire". On 8 January 2009, Patel won the Critics' Choice Award for Best Young Performer. He was also nominated for two London Critics Circle Film Awards, the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor, the 2009 BAFTA Award for Best Leading Actor, and European Film Award for Best Actor. The film itself won four Golden Globes, including Best Drama Film, and eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture.


title: Dev Patel

text: Patel played Zuko in M. Night Shyamalan's "The Last Airbender", a feature film adaptation of the animated series "", which was released on 1 July 2010 to extremely negative reviews. Despite being a commercial success, the film was a critical failure and Patel even received a Razzie Award nomination as Worst Supporting Actor that year, although his role was well received, and was considered by many to be one of the film's positive aspects.


title: Dev Patel

text: Patel later starred in the short film "The Commuter", which was directed by McHenry Brothers to promote the Nokia N8 smartphone in the UK Fans who won a Nokia UK run competition starred alongside Dev Patel in the short film.


title: Dev Patel

text: Patel co-starred in "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" (2012), (and subsequently in its 2015 sequel, "The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel") directed by John Madden, which received positive reviews and was a box office success, grossing $136 million. For the role, he had to take lessons in perfecting an Indian-English accent.


title: Dev Patel

text: From 2012 to 2014, Patel had a supporting role in the 2012 HBO television series "The Newsroom" as Neal Sampat, blogger for news anchor Will McAvoy. He also appeared alongside James Franco and Heather Graham in "About Cherry", which premiered at the 2012 Berlin International Film Festival.


title: Dev Patel

text: In 2014, Patel starred alongside Robert Sheehan and Zoë Kravitz in the film, "The Road Within", about three unlikely friends with various disabilities who go on a road trip. The film received generally mixed reviews. "Variety" had positive words for the "bristling and committed performances by Robert Sheehan, Dev Patel and Zoe Kravitz" while noting that "there remains a nagging tidiness to the whole endeavor that leaves a strained, cloying aftertaste" that kept the movie from truly succeeding.


title: Dev Patel

text: In 2015, Patel acted in "Chappie" as an engineer who helps design police robots and as the mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan in the biopic "The Man Who Knew Infinity". In 2016, Patel starred as Saroo Brierley in the biographical film "Lion", directed by Garth Davis and co-starring Nicole Kidman and Rooney Mara, which premiered to rave reviews and "Oscar buzz" at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival. The film is based on Brierley's memoir "A Long Way Home". Patel was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role at the 70th British Academy Film Awards and the 89th Academy Awards, winning at the former. He is the third actor of Indian descent to receive an Oscar nomination. In 2018, Patel then starred in the action-thriller "Hotel Mumbai" and "The Wedding Guest".


title: Dev Patel

text: In 2019, Patel starred as David Copperfield in Armando Iannucci's adaptation of Charles Dickens' "The Personal History of David Copperfield", for which, he received a nomination for the 2021 Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. In 2021, Patel starred in "The Green Knight" directed by David Lowery. In April of that year, he signed a deal to "produce, develop and create projects" with ShivHans Pictures.


title: Dev Patel

text: In 2018, it was announced that he would make his directorial debut with the action thriller film "Monkey Man". In addition to directing, Patel stars in the film, and is credited as a co-writer and producer. Filming completed in 2021 and the film is set to be distributed by Netflix.


title: Dev Patel

text: He began dating his "Slumdog Millionaire" co-star Freida Pinto in 2009. On 10 December 2014, the couple announced that they had split after nearly six years of dating.


title: Dev Patel

text: In March 2017, Patel's relationship with Australian actress Tilda Cobham-Hervey became public. They met nine months earlier on the set of "Hotel Mumbai".


title: Klay Thompson

text: Klay Alexander Thompson (born February 8, 1990) is an American professional basketball player for the Golden State Warriors of the National Basketball Association (NBA). A four-time NBA champion with the Warriors, he is a five-time NBA All-Star, a two-time All-NBA Third Team honoree and was once named to the NBA All-Defensive Second Team. He has also won gold medals with the United States national team on their 2014 World Cup team and 2016 Olympic team.


title: Klay Thompson

text: Thompson is the son of former NBA player Mychal Thompson. He played college basketball for three seasons with the Washington State Cougars, where he was a two-time first-team all-conference selection in the Pac-10 (now Pac-12). He was selected in the first round of the 2011 NBA draft by Golden State with the 11th overall pick. In 2014, Thompson and teammate Stephen Curry set a then-NBA record with 484 combined three-pointers in a season, earning the pair the nickname of "the Splash Brothers." In 2015, Thompson helped lead the Warriors to their first NBA Championship since 1975, and was a key contributor in the Warriors' 2017 and 2018 titles. He sustained an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury in Game 6 of the 2019 NBA Finals and missed the entirety of the 2019–20 season. Thompson then suffered a torn achilles tendon while recovering from his knee injury and missed the entire 2020–21 season as well. He returned to play in January 2022, after missing nearly 31 months. He went on to help the Warriors secure a fourth championship in eight seasons, as the team defeated the Boston Celtics in six games to secure the 2022 title.


title: Klay Thompson

text: Thompson was born in Los Angeles to Julie and Mychal Thompson. His mother was a volleyball player in college for the University of Portland and University of San Francisco, while his father was the first overall pick of the 1978 NBA draft. When Thompson was two, he and his family moved to Lake Oswego, Oregon, where he was childhood friends and Little League teammates with fellow future NBA star Kevin Love. Thompson and his brothers were raised there as Catholics.


title: Klay Thompson

text: When Thompson was 14, his family moved to Ladera Ranch, California, where he graduated from Santa Margarita Catholic High School in Rancho Santa Margarita in 2008. In his junior season, he was named to the All-Area second team and to the Orange County third team. As a senior, Thompson averaged 21 points per game and led SMCHS to a 30–5 record and a Division III State Championship appearance. During the state championship, Thompson set a state finals record with seven 3-pointers in a game. He was named Division III State player of the year, League MVP, first-team Best in the West, and an EA Sports Second Team All American.


title: Klay Thompson

text: Thompson started all 33 games as a freshman for Tony Bennett at Washington State University, leading his team in 3-point field goal percentage and free throw percentage, and averaging 12.5 points per game. He was named to the Pac-10 All-Freshman Team and Collegehoops.net All-Freshman Honorable Mention Team.


title: Klay Thompson

text: Thompson began his sophomore season by leading the Cougars to the Great Alaska Shootout Championship, being named its Most Outstanding Player after scoring a tournament single game record of 43 points in its championship. This was also the third highest single game point total in WSU history. After becoming the third fastest Cougar to reach 1,000 points, Thompson was named to the All-Pac-10 First Team. He earned Pac-10 Player of the Week honors twice during the season and was chosen as a midseason candidate for the John R. Wooden Award. Thompson finished the season averaging 19.6 points, good for second in the conference.


title: Klay Thompson

text: Thompson led the Pac-10 in scoring as a junior, again earning All-Pac-10 first team honors. He became just the third Cougar to win first-team all-district honors from the National Association of Basketball Coaches twice in his career. In addition, he became the first Cougar to be named Pac-10 Player of the Week three times when he won the award for the week of Nov. 22–28, extending the record to four after the week of December 6–12. Soon after, Thompson was named one of the 30 midseason candidates for the John R. Wooden Award. In the 2011 Pac-10 tournament, he set tournament records with 43 points and 8 three-pointers. Thompson finished the season by setting WSU's single season scoring record with 733 points. He is WSU's 3rd all-time leading scorer.


title: Klay Thompson

text: On January 18, 2020, Washington State retired the No. 1 that Thompson wore in college. He became the second WSU men's basketball player to receive this honor, joining Steve Puidokas, and the seventh WSU athlete in any sport whose number has been retired.


title: Klay Thompson

text: Thompson declared for the 2011 NBA draft after his junior season, being selected 11th overall by the Golden State Warriors. This pick of a guard prompted speculation that the Warriors would trade starter Monta Ellis, but that did not occur until March 2012. Warriors general manager Larry Riley praised Thompson for his shooting ability and expressed confidence that Thompson would improve his defensive skills with new coach Mark Jackson.


title: Klay Thompson

text: The NBA did not select Thompson for the 2012 NBA All-Star Weekend Rising Stars Challenge. However, in the four games after that decision, Thompson improved in all areas of basketball over his then-current season averages: points per game (12.5 over 7.6), shooting percentage (54.3% overall including 55.6% for three-pointers, up from 46.7 and 48.1), rebounds (2.8 from 1.6), assists (1.5 from 1.3), steals, and turnovers. The Warriors traded Ellis to the Milwaukee Bucks on March 13, 2012. The following game, Thompson scored a season-high 26 points in a loss to the Boston Celtics. A week later, he exceeded his previous high with 27 points in a win over the New Orleans Hornets. As of mid-February 2012, Thompson played around 17 minutes per game, but he played an average 30 minutes per game during the next month. At the end of the season, Thompson was voted to the NBA NBA All-Rookie First Team.


title: Klay Thompson

text: On January 29, 2013, Thompson scored a season-high 32 points against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Warriors coach Mark Jackson said that Thompson and Stephen Curry formed the best shooting duo in NBA history. That season, the two combined made 483 three-pointers, the most ever by an NBA duo at the time. The Warriors defeated the Denver Nuggets in the first round of the playoffs and were next matched up against the San Antonio Spurs. On May 8, 2013, Thompson recorded a playoff career-high 34 points against San Antonio, hitting 8 out of 9 three-point attempts, along with a career-high 14 rebounds. Thompson and the Warriors went on to lose to the Spurs in six games.


title: Klay Thompson

text: In the opening game for the Warriors, Thompson scored a season-high 38 points, including 5-of-7 three-pointers. He and Curry set an NBA record for 484 combined threes on the season, besting by one the record they set the previous year. Thompson averaged 18.4 points, 3.1 rebounds and 2.2 assists on the year. Thompson and the Warriors entered the 2014 NBA playoffs as the sixth seed in the Western Conference and were matched up with the Los Angeles Clippers in the first round; they lost the series in seven games.


title: Klay Thompson

text: On October 31, 2014, Thompson signed a four-year contract extension with the Warriors. The next day, he scored a then career-high 41 points in the Warriors' 127-104 win over the Los Angeles Lakers. On January 23, 2015, Thompson scored a career-high 52 points, with 11 three-pointers, in a 126–101 win over the Sacramento Kings. In the third quarter of that game, he scored an NBA-record 37 points for a single quarter, going 13-for-13 from the field, including nine three-pointers (also a league record for a single quarter). The 13 field goals tied David Thompson's (no relation) record for a quarter. On January 29, 2015, Thompson was named a reserve for the 2015 Western Conference All-Star team for the first time in his career.


title: Klay Thompson

text: On March 8, 2015, Thompson hit 3 three-pointers against the Los Angeles Clippers to pass head coach Steve Kerr (726) on the NBA's all-time list. On March 17, he was ruled out for 7–10 days with a sprained ankle. That season, Curry broke his own record for three-pointers (286), and Thompson again finished second in the league (239) as the two combined to make 525 threes, surpassing their previous record by 41. On June 7, in Game 2 of the NBA Finals, Thompson scored a playoff career-high 34 points in a losing effort to the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Warriors went on to defeat the Cavaliers in six games to win the NBA championship and end the franchise's 40-year championship drought.


title: Klay Thompson

text: Thompson opened the first seven games of the 2015–16 season shooting only 13-of-36 from 3-point range (36 percent). In the last 11 games of November, Thompson then shot a combined 32-of-73 from beyond the arc (43.8 percent). The Warriors' NBA-record start ended at 24 wins when they lost to the Milwaukee Bucks on December 12. In the Warriors' next game, on December 16, Thompson scored 27 of his then season-high 43 points in the third quarter of their 128–103 win over the Phoenix Suns. On January 8, he recorded his third consecutive game with 30 or more points, finishing with 36 points in a 128–108 win over the Portland Trail Blazers. On January 27, he scored a season-high 45 points on 14-of-20 shooting in a 127–107 win over the Dallas Mavericks. The following night, he was named a Western Conference All-Star reserve for the 2016 NBA All-Star Game, earning his second straight All-Star nod. On February 13, he competed in the All-Star Weekend's Three-Point Contest and won the event after defeating Curry and Devin Booker in the final round. On March 25, he scored 40 points against the Dallas Mavericks. Two days later, he had another 40-point game against the Philadelphia 76ers, scoring 40 points in consecutive games for the first time in his career. On April 7, Thompson scored 14 points against the San Antonio Spurs, helping the Warriors become the second team in NBA history to win 70 games in a season.


title: Klay Thompson

text: As the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference, the Warriors faced the eighth-seeded Houston Rockets in the first round of the playoffs. In Game 5 of the series, Thompson became the first player in NBA history to make at least seven three-pointers in consecutive playoff games, as he helped the Warriors advance through to the second round with a 4–1 victory, stepping up with Curry out injured. The Warriors went on to defeat the Portland Trail Blazers 4–1 in the second round, moving on to the Western Conference Finals where they faced the Oklahoma City Thunder. After going down 3 games to 1 following a Game 4 loss, Thompson helped the Warriors rally in Games 5 and 6 to even the series at 3–3. In Game 6, Thompson made 11 three-pointers and scored 41 points, as the Warriors forced a Game 7 with a 108–101 victory. With a Game 7 victory, the Warriors became the 10th team to rally from a 3–1 deficit and win a postseason series. The Warriors went on to lose to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2016 NBA Finals in seven games, despite being up 3–1 in the series.


title: Klay Thompson

text: Thompson opened the first six games of the 2016–17 season shooting 11-of-53 from 3-point range (20.75 percent). In the last 11 games of November, Thompson then went a combined 39-of-84 from 3-point range (46.4 percent). On December 5, 2016, he scored 60 points (shooting 21-of-33 and 8-of-14 on three-pointers) in 29 minutes over just three quarters in a 142–106 win over the Indiana Pacers, becoming the first player in NBA history to score 60 points in less than 30 minutes of action. Thompson had an NBA season-high and career-best performance for the highest-scoring output by a Golden State player in more than 42 years. His 40 first-half points tied him for second-most scored in a half over the past decade. In addition, Thompson became the first Warrior to score 60 points since Hall of Famer Rick Barry's 64 on March 26, 1974, joining Barry and Naismith honorees Wilt Chamberlain and Joe Fulks as the only Warriors players to do so. On January 26, he was named a Western Conference All-Star reserve for the 2017 NBA All-Star Game. He participated in the Three-Point Contest, but he failed to defend his title as he was eliminated in the first round. On April 4, 2017, he scored 41 points (his 10th career 40-point game) in a 121–107 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Warriors finished the season as the first seed in the West with a 67–15 record.


title: Klay Thompson

text: Thompson struggled with his shooting for extended stretches during the playoffs, but his defense against opposing guards like Damian Lillard, Patty Mills, and Kyrie Irving stood out. Following a 129–115 victory in Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals over the San Antonio Spurs, the Warriors reached their third straight NBA Finals series, becoming the first team in league history to start the playoffs 12–0. Thompson helped the Warriors win their second championship in three years with a 4–1 series win over the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2017 NBA Finals. The Warriors finished the playoffs with a 16–1 record, attaining the best postseason winning percentage in NBA history.


title: Klay Thompson

text: On October 29, 2017, Thompson scored 29 points in a 115–107 loss to the Detroit Pistons, becoming the 11th player in franchise history to eclipse 9,000 career points. On December 20, 2017, he scored 27 of his 29 points in the first half and made his first nine field goals in a 97–84 win over the Memphis Grizzlies. On December 27, 2017, in a 126–101 win over the Utah Jazz, Thompson hit three 3-pointers, moving him into a tie for third with Dana Barros at 89 consecutive games with a 3-pointer. On January 17, 2018, he scored 38 points in a 119–112 win over the Chicago Bulls. In a 134–127 win over the Los Angeles Clippers on February 22, 2018, Thompson moved past Joe Barry Carroll's 9,996 points to earn 10th place on the franchise's career scoring list, also becoming the 10th Warrior to reach 10,000 regular season career points. Two days later, in a 112–80 win over the Thunder, Thompson passed Neil Johnston (10,023) for ninth place on the franchise's career scoring list. On March 31, 2018, following an eight-game absence with a broken right thumb, Thompson scored 25 points on 10-for-19 shooting in a 112–96 win over the Sacramento Kings. On April 5, 2018, in a 126–106 loss to the Indiana Pacers, Thompson was 4 of 9 on 3-pointers to move past Tim Hardaway (1,542) for 25th on the league's career list. Three days later, he scored 22 of his 34 points in the first quarter of the Warriors' 117–100 win over the Phoenix Suns. Thompson helped the Warriors defeat the San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the playoffs in five games, as he scored 24 points in a 99–91 win in Game 5. As a result, Thompson joined Rick Barry (699) and Curry (652) as Warriors players with 600 postseason field goals. In Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals against the Houston Rockets, Thompson moved past Barry (1,776) for second place on the Warriors' career postseason scoring list. In Game 6, Thompson knocked down nine 3-pointers on his way to 35 points, as the Warriors rallied from an early 17-point deficit to stave off elimination with a 115–86 victory over the Rockets. In Game 2 of the NBA Finals, Thompson played in his franchise-record 100th postseason game. He also became the sixth player to ever make 300 3s in the postseason, joining Curry as Warriors to reach the feat. He scored 20 points in the game to help the Warriors take a 2–0 lead with a 122–103 win over the Cavaliers. The Warriors went on to sweep the series to claim back-to-back titles.


title: Klay Thompson

text: Over the first seven games of 2018–19, Thompson shot 5 for 36 from behind the arc and failed to have a 20-point game. He did not make multiple three-pointers in any of the contests, a career-worst seven-game drought for him. On October 29, 2018, against the Chicago Bulls, he hit an NBA-record 14 threes to break Curry's former mark of 13. Thompson scored 52 points in 27 minutes while making 14-for-24 of his threes and shooting 18-for-29 overall from the field. His 10 three-pointers in the first half tied Chandler Parsons' league record set in 2014, and Golden State made 17 threes in the first half to set the NBA record for a half. On November 24, he scored 31 points with five 3-pointers in a 117–116 win over the Sacramento Kings. Thompson moved into 21st place on the NBA's career 3-pointers list when he hit his 1,609th in the first quarter, moving past Jason Richardson. On December 29, he had his second-highest scoring game of the season with 32 points in a 115–105 win over the Portland Trail Blazers. He shot his way out of a slump by hitting 12 of 21 from the field and 4 of 5 from 3-point range. On January 8, he scored 43 points with seven 3-pointers in a 122–95 win over the New York Knicks. On January 21, he tied an NBA record by making his first 10 attempts from 3-point range on his way to scoring 44 points in a 130–111 win over the Los Angeles Lakers. He finished 10 of 11 from beyond the arc and 17 of 20 from the floor overall. On March 8, he scored 39 points and made nine 3-pointers in a 122–105 win over the Denver Nuggets. On March 13, he scored 30 points in a 106–104 win over the Houston Rockets. He made five 3-pointers to give him 203 for the season, joining Curry as the only players in NBA history to have seven straight seasons with 200 3-pointers. Praised for his defense throughout his career, Thompson was named to the NBA All-Defensive Team for the first time, earning second team honors. For Game 3 of the 2019 NBA Finals against the Toronto Raptors, Thompson missed his first career playoff game after straining his left hamstring late in Game 2. He returned in Game 4 and scored 28 points with six 3-pointers in a 105–92 loss, as the Warriors went down 3–1 in the series. In Game 5, he helped the Warriors stave off elimination with 26 points in a 106–105 win, thus cutting the Raptors' series lead to 3–2. However, in Game 6, Thompson suffered a torn ACL in his left knee and departed with 30 points midway through the third quarter, as the Warriors went on to lose the game and the series with a 114–110 defeat. He finished the playoffs in third for career postseason 3-pointers (374), trailing only Curry (470) and Ray Allen (385).


title: Klay Thompson

text: On July 1, 2019, Thompson agreed to stay with the Warriors on a five-year, $190 million maximum contract with an additional fifteen-percent trade kicker as a result of not making an All-NBA Team, which could have made him eligible for a supermax deal like Curry was in 2017. The next day, on July 2, Thompson underwent successful knee surgery on his torn ACL, and missed the entire 2019–20 season as a result. Thompson officially re-signed with the Warriors on July 10. He returned to practice with the Warriors in September 2020. On November 19, it was announced that Thompson would again miss the entire 2020–21 season due to an Achilles tendon injury, which he suffered in a pickup game in Los Angeles.


title: Klay Thompson

text: On November 28, 2021, Thompson was assigned to the Santa Cruz Warriors, Golden State's NBA G League affiliate, alongside James Wiseman for rehab purposes. He was recalled on December 1. Thompson and Wiseman were yet again assigned to Santa Cruz on December 11.


title: Klay Thompson

text: On January 8, 2022, Thompson announced he would make his return to the court on January 9 against the Cleveland Cavaliers. In his return, Thompson scored 17 points on 7-from-18 shooting in 20 minutes, as the Warriors defeated the Cavaliers 96–82. On February 12, Thompson scored 16 of his then season-high 33 points in the fourth quarter against the Los Angeles Lakers in a 117–115 comeback win. On March 12, Thompson scored a then season-high 38 points along with six rebounds and five assists in a 122–109 win over the reigning champions Milwaukee Bucks. On April 10, in the final game of the regular season Thompson scored a season-high 41 points for the Warriors in a 128–107 win over the New Orleans Pelicans to clinch the third seed in the Western Conference.


title: Klay Thompson

text: In Game 3 of the first round of the 2022 playoffs, Thompson scored 26 points in a 118–113 win over the Denver Nuggets. He passed Hall of Fame guard Ray Allen for third on the NBA playoffs all-time three-pointers list. In Game 6 of the Western Conference semifinals, Thompson posted 30 points, 8 rebounds and 3 blocks while going 8 for 14 from behind the 3-point arc in a 110–96 closeout win over the second-seeded Memphis Grizzlies. On May 26, in Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals, Thompson scored 32 points and had 8 three-pointers in a closeout 120–110 win over the Dallas Mavericks to advance to his sixth NBA Finals, where they faced the Boston Celtics. In Game 1 of the Finals, Thompson passed LeBron James for second on the NBA playoffs all-time three-pointers list. In Game 5 of the Finals, Thompson joined teammate Stephen Curry and LeBron James as the only players in NBA history to make at least 100 3-pointers on the championship stage. He also passed LeBron James for second on the NBA Finals all-time three-pointers list. The Warriors won in six games, giving Thompson his fourth NBA Championship.


title: Klay Thompson

text: On November 20, Thompson scored a season-high 41 points on 10-of-13 shooting from three-point range in a 127–120 win over the Houston Rockets. Thompson, Stephen Curry, and Andrew Wiggins combined for 23 made three-pointers, the most three-pointers made in a game by a trio in NBA history. On December 10, in a rematch of the 2022 NBA Finals, Thompson scored a game-high 34 points in a 123–107 win over the Boston Celtics. On December 13, Thompson became the 13th player in NBA history with 2,000 career 3-pointers made.


title: Klay Thompson

text: Thompson was a member of the United States national team, winning gold medals on their 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup and 2016 Olympic teams. He also won gold on the Under-19 national team at the 2009 FIBA Under-19 World Championship.


title: Klay Thompson

text: Thompson is both a prolific and efficient shooter, particularly from range, as well as an elite free-throw shooter. His shooting form has been described as "textbook" and "picture-perfect". Though he is capable of handling the ball in the Warriors offense, Thompson is primarily a catch-and-shoot player, taking advantage of back-cuts and screens set by teammates to make space for his exceptionally accurate quick-release shot. Although Thompson is not known for blocking shots or creating steals, he is considered a strong defender thanks to his size at the guard position and ability to defend against both elite guards and wings. He is also praised for his stamina. Thompson is also known for his quiet, laid-back personality, rarely showing emotion in or out of games. He is one of the few players in the NBA sponsored by Chinese shoe company Anta, signing a 10-year deal with it in 2016. Thompson is regarded as a clutch scorer, particularly in game 6s of playoff series, where his shooting splits rise up significantly compared to his usual playoff statistics, which earned him the nickname "Game 6 Klay".


title: Klay Thompson

text: Thompson's older brother, Mychel, played basketball for Pepperdine University and had a brief stint in the NBA with the Cavaliers, while his younger brother, Trayce, became a Major League Baseball player. Thompson faced controversy when he was suspended for his final regular season game at WSU after being issued a misdemeanor criminal citation for marijuana possession. After winning the NBA championship in 2015, Thompson and his father became the fourth father-son duo to win an NBA title, joining Matt Guokas Sr. and Jr., Rick and Brent Barry, and Bill and Luke Walton. (They were joined in 2022 by the newest father and son to win the title, Gary Payton and Gary Payton II, the latter of whom was Klay's teammate.)


title: Klay Thompson

text: In late October 2017, Thompson participated in local efforts to raise money for relief for the October 2017 Northern California wildfires, donating $1,000 for every point he scored in home games against the Washington Wizards, Toronto Raptors, and Detroit Pistons. With additional sponsor and fan matching Thompson was able to increase that to $5,223 per point, ultimately raising $360,374 by tallying 69 points across the three games.


title: Levant

text: The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is equivalent to a stretch of land bordering the Mediterranean in South-western Asia, i.e. the historical region of Syria ("Greater Syria"), which includes present-day Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and most of Turkey southwest of the middle Euphrates. Its overwhelming characteristic is that it represents the land bridge between Africa and Eurasia. In its widest historical sense, the Levant included all of the Eastern Mediterranean with its islands; that is, it included all of the countries along the Eastern Mediterranean shores, extending from Greece to Cyrenaica in eastern Libya.


title: Levant

text: The term entered English in the late 15th century from French. It derives from the Italian , meaning "rising", implying the rising of the Sun in the east, and is broadly equivalent to the term "al-Mashriq" (, ), meaning "the eastern place, where the Sun rises".


title: Levant

text: In the 13th and 14th centuries, the term "levante" was used for Italian maritime commerce in the Eastern Mediterranean, including Greece, Anatolia, Syria-Palestine, and Egypt, that is, the lands east of Venice. Eventually the term was restricted to the Muslim countries of Syria-Palestine and Egypt. In 1581, England set up the Levant Company to monopolize commerce with the Ottoman Empire. The name "Levant States" was used to refer to the French mandate over Syria and Lebanon after World War I. This is probably the reason why the term "Levant" has come to be used more specifically to refer to modern Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Jordan, and Cyprus. Some scholars mistakenly believed that it derives from the name of Lebanon. Today the term is often used in conjunction with prehistoric or ancient historical references. It has the same meaning as "Syria-Palestine" or "Ash-Shaam" (, ), the area that is bounded by the Taurus Mountains of Turkey in the north, the Mediterranean Sea in the west, the north Arabian Desert and Mesopotamia in the east, and Sinai in the south (which can be fully included or not). Typically, it does not include Anatolia (also called Asia Minor), the Caucasus Mountains, or any part of the Arabian Peninsula proper. Cilicia (in Asia Minor) and the Sinai Peninsula (Asian Egypt) are sometimes included.


title: Levant

text: As a name for the contemporary region, several dictionaries consider Levant to be archaic today. Both the noun "Levant" and the adjective "Levantine" are now commonly used to describe the ancient and modern culture area formerly called Syro-Palestinian or Biblical: archaeologists now speak of the Levant and of Levantine archaeology; food scholars speak of Levantine cuisine; and the Latin Christians of the Levant continue to be called Levantine Christians.


title: Levant

text: The Levant has been described as the "crossroads of Western Asia, the Eastern Mediterranean, and Northeast Africa", and in geological (tectonic) terms as the "northwest of the Arabian Plate". The populations of the Levant share not only the geographic position, but cuisine, some customs, and history. They are often referred to as "Levantines".


title: Levant

text: The term "Levant" appears in English in 1497, and originally meant 'the East' or 'Mediterranean lands east of Italy'. It is borrowed from the French 'rising', referring to the rising of the sun in the east, or the point where the sun rises. The phrase is ultimately from the Latin word , meaning 'lift, raise'. Similar etymologies are found in Greek "Anatolē" ("cf." Anatolia 'the direction of sunrise'), in Germanic "Morgenland" (), in Italian (as in "Riviera di Levante", the portion of the Liguria coast east of Genoa), in Hungarian "Kelet" ('east'), in Spanish and Catalan "Levante" and "Llevant", ('the place of rising'), and in Hebrew "mizraḥ" ('east'). Most notably, "Orient" and its Latin source "oriens" meaning 'east', is literally "rising", deriving from Latin "orior" 'rise'.


title: Levant

text: The notion of the Levant has undergone a dynamic process of historical evolution in usage, meaning, and understanding. While the term "Levantine" originally referred to the European residents of the eastern Mediterranean region, it later came to refer to regional "native" and "minority" groups.


title: Levant

text: The term became current in English in the 16th century, along with the first English merchant adventurers in the region; English ships appeared in the Mediterranean in the 1570s, and the English merchant company signed its agreement ("capitulations") with the Ottoman Sultan in 1579. The English Levant Company was founded in 1581 to trade with the Ottoman Empire, and in 1670 the French was founded for the same purpose. At this time, the Far East was known as the "Upper Levant".


title: Levant

text: In early 19th-century travel writing, the term sometimes incorporated certain Mediterranean provinces of the Ottoman empire, as well as independent Greece (and especially the Greek islands). In 19th-century archaeology, it referred to overlapping cultures in this region during and after prehistoric times, intending to reference the place instead of any one culture. The French mandate of Syria and Lebanon (1920–1946) was called the Levant states.


title: Levant

text: Today, "Levant" is the term typically used by archaeologists and historians with reference to the history of the region. Scholars have adopted the term Levant to identify the region due to its being a "wider, yet relevant, cultural corpus" that does not have the "political overtones" of Syria-Palestine. The term is also used for modern events, peoples, states or parts of states in the same region, namely Cyprus, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Turkey are sometimes considered Levant countries (compare with Near East, Middle East, Eastern Mediterranean and Western Asia). Several researchers include the island of Cyprus in Levantine studies, including the Council for British Research in the Levant, the UCLA Near Eastern Languages and Cultures department, "Journal of Levantine Studies" and the UCL Institute of Archaeology, the last of which has dated the connection between Cyprus and mainland Levant to the early Iron Age. Archaeologists seeking a neutral orientation that is neither biblical nor national have used terms such as Levantine archaeology and archaeology of the Southern Levant.


title: Levant

text: While the usage of the term "Levant" in academia has been restricted to the fields of archeology and literature, there is a recent attempt to reclaim the notion of the Levant as a category of analysis in political and social sciences. Two academic journals were launched in the early 2010s using the word: the "Journal of Levantine Studies", published by the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and "The Levantine Review", published by Boston College.


title: Levant

text: The word "Levant" has been used in some translations of the term "ash-Shām" as used by the organization known as ISIL, ISIS, and other names, though there is disagreement as to whether this translation is accurate.


title: Levant

text: In "The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Levant: c. 8000–332 BCE" (OHAL; 2013), the definition of the Levant for the specific purposes of the book is synonymous to that of the Arabic ""bilad al-sham", 'the land of sham [Syria]'", translating in Western parlance to greater Syria. OHAL defines the boundaries of the Levant as follows.


title: Levant

text: The island of Cyprus is also included as a third subregion in the archaeological region of the Levant:


title: Levant

text: The largest religious group in the Levant are the Muslims and the largest cultural-linguistic group are Arabs. Muslim Arabs became the majority due to the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the 7th century and subsequent Arabization of the region. The majority of Muslim Levantines are Sunni with Alawi and Shia minorities. Other large ethnic groups in the Levant include Jews, Maronites, Turks, Turkmens, Antiochian Greeks, Assyrians, Yazidi, Kurds, Druze and Armenians.


title: Levant

text: There are many Levantine Christian groups such as Greek, Oriental Orthodox (mainly Syriac Orthodox, Coptic, Georgian, and Maronite), Roman Catholic, Nestorian, and Protestant. Armenians mostly belong to the Armenian Apostolic Church. There are Levantines or Franco-Levantines who are mostly Roman Catholic. There are also Circassians, Turks, Samaritans, and Nawars. There are Assyrian peoples belonging to the Assyrian Church of the East (autonomous) and the Chaldean Catholic Church (Catholic).


title: Levant

text: In addition, this region has a number of sites that are of religious significance, such as Masjid Al-Aqsa, Antioch in Hatay, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Western Wall in Jerusalem.


title: Levant

text: Most populations in the Levant speak Levantine Arabic (, ), usually classified as the varieties North Levantine Arabic in Lebanon, Syria, and parts of Turkey, and South Levantine Arabic in Palestine and Jordan. Each of these encompasses a spectrum of regional or urban/rural variations. In addition to the varieties normally grouped together as "Levantine", a number of other varieties and dialects of Arabic are spoken in the Levant area, such as Levantine Bedawi Arabic and Mesopotamian Arabic.


title: Levant

text: Among the languages of Israel, the official language is Hebrew; Arabic was until July 19, 2018, also an official language. The Arab minority, in 2018 about 21% of the population of Israel, speaks a dialect of Levantine Arabic essentially indistinguishable from the forms spoken in the Palestinian territories.


title: Levant

text: Of the languages of Cyprus, the majority language is Greek, followed by Turkish (in the north). Two minority languages are recognized: Armenian, and Cypriot Maronite Arabic, a hybrid of mostly medieval Arabic vernaculars with strong influence from contact with Greek, spoken by approximately 1,000 people.


title: Levant

text: Some communities and populations speak Aramaic, Greek, Armenian, Circassian, French, Russian, or English.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Catherine de' Medici (, ; , ; 13 April 1519 – 5 January 1589) was an Florentine noblewoman born into the Medici family. She was Queen of France from 1547 to 1559 by marriage to King Henry II and the mother of French Kings Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III. The years during which her sons reigned have been called "the age of Catherine de' Medici" since she had extensive, if at times varying, influence in the political life of France.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Catherine was born in Florence to Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, and Madeleine de La Tour d'Auvergne. In 1533, at the age of 14, Catherine married Henry, the second son of King Francis I and Queen Claude of France. Catherine's marriage was arranged by her uncle Pope Clement VII. Henry excluded Catherine from participating in state affairs and instead showered favours on his chief mistress, Diane de Poitiers, who wielded much influence over him. Henry's death in 1559 thrust Catherine into the political arena as mother of the frail 15-year-old King Francis II. When Francis II died in 1560, she became regent on behalf of her 10-year-old son King Charles IX and was thus granted sweeping powers. After Charles died in 1574, Catherine played a key role in the reign of her third son, Henry III. He dispensed with her advice only in the last months of her life but outlived her by just seven months.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Catherine's three sons reigned in an age of almost constant civil and religious war in France. The problems facing the monarchy were complex and daunting. However, Catherine maintained the monarchy and the state institutions functioning, even at a minimum level. At first, Catherine compromised and made concessions to the rebelling Calvinist Protestants, or Huguenots, as they became known. However, she failed to fully grasp the theological issues that drove their movement. Later, she resorted in frustration and anger to hardline policies against them. In return, she was blamed for the persecutions carried out under her sons' rules, in particular the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572, during which thousands of Huguenots were killed in France.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Some historians have excused Catherine from blame for the worst decisions of the crown, but evidence for her ruthlessness can be found in her letters. In practice, her authority was limited by the effects of the civil wars. Therefore, her policies may be seen as desperate measures to keep the House of Valois on the throne at all costs and her 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. Catherine has been called "the most important woman in Europe” in the 16th century.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Catherine de' Medici was born Caterina Maria Romula de' Medici on 13 April 1519 in Florence, Republic of Florence, the only child of Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, and his wife, Madeleine de la Tour d'Auvergne, the countess of Boulogne. The young couple had been married the year before at Amboise as part of the alliance between King Francis I of France and Lorenzo's uncle Pope Leo X against the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. According to a contemporary chronicler, when Catherine was born, her parents were "as pleased as if it had been a boy".


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Within a month of Catherine's birth, both her parents were dead: Madeleine died on 28 April of puerperal fever, and Lorenzo died on 4 May. King Francis wanted Catherine to be raised at the French court, but Pope Leo refused, claiming he wanted her to marry Ippolito de' Medici. Leo made Catherine Duchess of Urbino but annexed most of the Duchy of Urbino to the Papal States, permitting Florence to keep only the Fortress of San Leo. It was only after Leo's death in 1521, that his successor, Adrian VI, restored the duchy to its rightful owner, Francesco Maria I della Rovere.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Catherine was first cared for by her paternal grandmother, Alfonsina Orsini. After Alfonsina's death in 1520, Catherine joined her cousins and was raised by her aunt, Clarice de' Medici. The death of Pope Leo in 1521 briefly interrupted Medici power until Cardinal Giulio de' Medici was elected Pope Clement VII in 1523. Clement housed Catherine in the Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence, where she lived in state. The Florentine people called her "duchessina" ("the little duchess"), in deference to her unrecognised claim to the Duchy of Urbino.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: In 1527, the Medici were overthrown in Florence by a faction opposed to the regime of Clement's representative, Cardinal Silvio Passerini, and Catherine was taken hostage and placed in a series of convents. The final one, the "Santissima Annuziata delle Murate" was her home for three years. Mark Strage described these years as "the happiest of her entire life". Clement had no choice but to crown Charles Holy Roman Emperor in return for his help in retaking the city. In October 1529, Charles's troops laid siege to Florence. As the siege dragged on, voices called for Catherine to be killed and exposed naked and chained to the city walls. Some even suggested that she be handed over to the troops to be used for their sexual gratification. The city finally surrendered on 12 August 1530. Clement summoned Catherine from her beloved convent to join him in Rome where he greeted her with open arms and tears in his eyes. Then he set about the business of finding her a husband.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: On her visit to Rome, the Venetian envoy described Catherine as "small of stature, and thin, and without delicate features, but having the protruding eyes peculiar to the Medici family". Suitors, however, lined up for her hand, including James V of Scotland who sent the Duke of Albany to Clement to conclude a marriage in April and November 1530. When Francis I of France proposed his second son, Henry, Duke of Orléans, in early 1533, Clement jumped at the offer. Henry was a prize catch for Catherine, who, despite her wealth, was of common origin.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: The wedding, a grand affair marked by extravagant display and gift-giving, took place in the Église Saint-Ferréol les Augustins in Marseille on 28 October 1533. Prince Henry danced and jousted for Catherine. The fourteen-year-old couple left their wedding ball at midnight to perform their nuptial duties. Henry arrived in the bedroom with King Francis, who is said to have stayed until the marriage was consummated. He noted that "each had shown valour in the joust". Clement visited the newlyweds in bed the next morning and added his blessings to the night's proceedings.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Catherine saw little of her husband in their first year of marriage, but the ladies of the court, impressed with her intelligence and keenness to please, treated her well. However, the death of her uncle Clement on 25 September 1534 undermined Catherine's standing in the French court. The next pope, Alessandro Farnese, was elected on 13 October and took the title Paul III. As a Farnese he felt no obligation to keep Clement's promises, broke the alliance with Francis and refused to continue paying her huge dowry. King Francis lamented, "The girl has come to me stark naked."


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Prince Henry showed no interest in Catherine as a wife; instead, he openly took mistresses. For the first ten years of the marriage, the royal couple failed to produce any children together. In 1537, he had a brief affair with Philippa Duci, who gave birth to a daughter, whom he publicly acknowledged. This proved that Henry was fertile and added to the pressure on Catherine to produce a child.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: In 1536, Henry's older brother, Francis, caught a chill after a game of tennis, contracted a fever and died shortly after, leaving Henry the heir. Suspicions of poison abounded, from Catherine to Emperor Charles V. Sebastiano de Montecuccoli confessed under torture to poisoning the Dauphin.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: As dauphine, Catherine was expected to provide a future heir to the throne. According to the court chronicler Brantôme, "many people advised the king and the Dauphin to repudiate her, since it was necessary to continue the line of France". Divorce was discussed. In desperation, Catherine tried every known trick for getting pregnant, such as placing cow dung and ground stags' antlers on her "source of life", and drinking mule's urine. On 19 January 1544, she at last gave birth to a son, named after King Francis.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: After becoming pregnant once, Catherine had no trouble doing so again. She may have owed her change of fortune to the physician Jean Fernel, who may have noticed slight abnormalities in the couple's sexual organs and advised them how to solve the problem. However, he denied ever providing such advice. Catherine quickly conceived again and on 2 April 1545 she bore a daughter, Elisabeth. She went on to bear Henry a further eight children, seven of whom survived infancy, including the future Charles IX (born 27 June 1550); the future Henry III (born 19 September 1551); and Francis, Duke of Anjou (born 18 March 1555) and Claude (born 12 November, 1547). The long-term future of the Valois dynasty, which had ruled France since the 14th century, seemed assured.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: However, Catherine's ability to bear children failed to improve her marriage. About 1538, at the age of 19, Henry had taken as his mistress the 38-year-old Diane de Poitiers, whom he adored for the rest of his life. Even so, he respected Catherine's status as his consort. When King Francis I died on 31 March 1547, Catherine became queen consort of France. She was crowned in the Basilica of Saint-Denis on 10 June 1549.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Henry allowed Catherine almost no political influence as queen. Although she sometimes acted as regent during his absences from France, her powers were strictly nominal. Henry gave the Château of Chenonceau, which Catherine had wanted for herself, to Diane de Poitiers, who took her place at the centre of power, dispensing patronage and accepting favours. The imperial ambassador reported that in the presence of guests, Henry would sit on Diane's lap and play the guitar, chat about politics, or fondle her breasts. Diane never regarded Catherine as a threat. She even encouraged the king to spend more time with Catherine and sire more children.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: In 1556, Catherine nearly died giving birth to twin daughters, Joan and Victoire. Surgeons saved her life by breaking the legs of Joan, who died in her womb. The surviving daughter, Victoire, died seven weeks later. Because their birth very nearly cost Catherine her life, the king's physician advised the king that there should be no more children; therefore, Henry II stopped visiting his wife's bedroom and spent all his time with his longtime mistress, Diane de Poitiers. Catherine had no more children.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Henry's reign also saw the rise of the Guise brothers, Charles, who became a cardinal, and Henry's boyhood friend Francis, who became Duke of Guise. Their sister Mary of Guise had married James V of Scotland in 1538 and was the mother of Mary, Queen of Scots. At the age of five and a half, Mary was brought to the French court, where she was promised to the Dauphin, Francis. Catherine brought her up with her own children at the French court, while Mary of Guise governed Scotland as her daughter's regent.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: On 3–4 April 1559, Henry signed the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis with the Holy Roman Empire and England, ending a long period of Italian Wars. The treaty was sealed by the betrothal of Catherine's thirteen-year-old daughter Elisabeth to Philip II of Spain. Their proxy wedding, in Paris on 22 June 1559, was celebrated with festivities, balls, masques, and five days of jousting.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: King Henry took part in the jousting, sporting Diane's black-and-white colours. He defeated the dukes of Guise and Nemours, but the young Gabriel, comte de Montgomery, knocked him half out of the saddle. Henry insisted on riding against Montgomery again, and this time, Montgomery's lance shattered in the king's face. Henry reeled out of the clash, his face pouring blood, with splinters "of a good bigness" sticking out of his eye and head. Catherine, Diane, and Prince Francis all fainted. Henry was carried to the Château de Tournelles, where five splinters of wood were extracted from his head, one of which had pierced his eye and brain. Catherine stayed by his bedside, but Diane kept away, "for fear", in the words of a chronicler, "of being expelled by the Queen". For the next ten days, Henry's state fluctuated. At times he even felt well enough to dictate letters and listen to music. Slowly, however, he lost his sight, speech, and reason, and on 10 July 1559 he died, aged 40. From that day, Catherine took a broken lance as her emblem, inscribed with the words ""lacrymae hinc, hinc dolor"" ("from this come my tears and my pain"), and wore black mourning in memory of Henry.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Francis II became king at the age of fifteen. In what has been called a "coup d'état", the Cardinal of Lorraine and the Duke of Guise—whose niece, Mary, Queen of Scots, had married Francis II the year before—seized power the day after Henry II's death and quickly moved themselves into the Louvre Palace with the young couple. The English ambassador reported a few days later that "the house of Guise ruleth and doth all about the French king". For the moment, Catherine worked with the Guises out of necessity. She was not strictly entitled to a role in Francis's government, because he was deemed old enough to rule for himself. Nevertheless, all his official acts began with the words: "This being the good pleasure of the Queen, my lady-mother, and I also approving of every opinion that she holdeth, am content and command that ...". Catherine did not hesitate to exploit her new authority. One of her first acts was to force Diane de Poitiers to hand over the crown jewels and return the Château de Chenonceau to the crown. She later did her best to efface or outdo Diane's building work there.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: The Guise brothers set about persecuting the Protestants with zeal. Catherine adopted a moderate stance and spoke against the Guise persecutions, though she had no particular sympathy for the Huguenots, whose beliefs she never shared. The Protestants looked for leadership first to Antoine de Bourbon, King of Navarre, the First Prince of the Blood, and then, with more success, to his brother, Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Condé, who backed a plot to overthrow the Guises by force. When the Guises heard of the plot, they moved the court to the fortified Château of Amboise. The Duke of Guise launched an attack into the woods around the château. His troops surprised the rebels and killed many of them on the spot, including the commander, La Renaudie. Others they drowned in the river or strung up around the battlements while Catherine and the court watched.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: In June 1560, Michel de l'Hôpital was appointed Chancellor of France. He sought the support of France's constitutional bodies and worked closely with Catherine to defend the law in the face of the growing anarchy. Neither saw the need to punish Protestants who worshipped in private and did not take up arms. On 20 August 1560, Catherine and the chancellor advocated this policy to an assembly of notables at Fontainebleau. Historians regard the occasion as an early example of Catherine's statesmanship. Meanwhile, Condé raised an army and in autumn 1560 began attacking towns in the south. Catherine ordered him to court and had him imprisoned as soon as he arrived. He was tried in November, found guilty of offences against the crown, and sentenced to death. His life was saved by the illness and death of the king, as a result of an infection or an abscess in his ear.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: When Catherine realized Francis was going to die, she made a pact with Antoine de Bourbon by which he would renounce his right to the regency of the future king, Charles IX, in return for the release of his brother Condé. As a result, when Francis died on 5 December 1560, the Privy Council appointed Catherine as governor of France ("gouvernante de France"), with sweeping powers. She wrote to her daughter Elisabeth: "My principal aim is to have the honour of God before my eyes in all things and to preserve my authority, not for myself, but for the conservation of this kingdom and for the good of all your brothers".


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Charles IX was nine years old at the time of his coronation, during which he cried. At first Catherine kept him very close to her, and even slept in his chamber. She presided over his council, decided policy, and controlled state business and patronage. However, she was never in a position to control the country as a whole, which was on the brink of civil war. In many parts of France the rule of nobles held sway rather than that of the crown. The challenges Catherine faced were complex and in some ways difficult for her to comprehend as a foreigner.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: She summoned church leaders from both sides to attempt to solve their doctrinal differences. Despite her optimism, the resulting Colloquy of Poissy ended in failure on 13 October 1561, dissolving itself without her permission. Catherine failed because she saw the religious divide only in political terms. In the words of historian R. J. Knecht, "she underestimated the strength of religious conviction, imagining that all would be well if only she could get the party leaders to agree". In January 1562, Catherine issued the tolerant Edict of Saint-Germain in a further attempt to build bridges with the Protestants. On 1 March 1562, however, in an incident known as the Massacre of Vassy, the Duke of Guise and his men attacked worshipping Huguenots in a barn at Vassy (Wassy), killing 74 and wounding 104. Guise, who called the massacre "a regrettable accident", was cheered as a hero in the streets of Paris while the Huguenots called for revenge. The massacre lit the fuse that sparked the French Wars of Religion. For the next thirty years, France found itself in a state of either civil war or armed truce.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Within a month Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Condé, and Admiral Gaspard de Coligny had raised an army of 1,800. They formed an alliance with England and seized town after town in France. Catherine met Coligny, but he refused to back down. She therefore told him: "Since you rely on your forces, we will show you ours". The royal army struck back quickly and laid siege to Huguenot-held Rouen. Catherine visited the deathbed of Antoine de Bourbon, King of Navarre, after he was fatally wounded by an arquebus shot. Catherine insisted on visiting the field herself and when warned of the dangers laughed, "My courage is as great as yours". The Catholics took Rouen, but their triumph was short-lived. On 18 February 1563, a spy called Poltrot de Méré fired an arquebus into the back of the Duke of Guise, at the siege of Orléans. The murder triggered an aristocratic blood feud that complicated the French civil wars for years to come. Catherine, however, was delighted with the death of her ally. "If Monsieur de Guise had perished sooner", she told the Venetian ambassador, "peace would have been achieved more quickly". On 19 March 1563, the Edict of Amboise, also known as the Edict of Pacification, ended the war. Catherine now rallied both Huguenot and Catholic forces to retake Le Havre from the English.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: On 17 August 1563, Charles IX was declared of age at the Parlement of Rouen, but he was never able to rule on his own and showed little interest in government. Catherine decided to launch a drive to enforce the Edict of Amboise and revive loyalty to the crown. To this end, she set out with Charles and the court on a progress around France that lasted from January 1564 until May 1565. Catherine held talks with Jeanne d'Albret, the Protestant queen regnant of Navarre (and the wife of Antoine de Bourbon) at Mâcon and Nérac. She also met her daughter Elisabeth at Bayonne near the Spanish border, amidst lavish court festivities. Philip II excused himself from the occasion. He sent the Duke of Alba to tell Catherine to scrap the Edict of Amboise and to find punitive solutions to the problem of heresy.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: In 1566, through the ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Guillaume de Grandchamp de Grantrie, and because of a long-standing Franco-Ottoman alliance, Charles and Catherine proposed to the Ottoman Court a plan to resettle French Huguenots and French and German Lutherans in Ottoman-controlled Moldavia, in order to create a military colony and a buffer against the Habsburg. This plan also had the added advantage of removing the Huguenots from France, but it failed to interest the Ottomans.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: On 27 September 1567, in a swoop known as the Surprise of Meaux, Huguenot forces attempted to ambush the king, triggering renewed civil war. Taken unawares, the court fled to Paris in disarray. The war was ended by the Peace of Longjumeau of 22–23 March 1568, but civil unrest and bloodshed continued. The Surprise of Meaux marked a turning point in Catherine's policy towards the Huguenots. From that moment, she abandoned compromise for a policy of repression. She told the Venetian ambassador in June 1568 that all one could expect from Huguenots was deceit, and she praised the Duke of Alba's reign of terror in the Netherlands, where Calvinists and rebels were put to death in the thousands.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: The Huguenots retreated to the fortified stronghold of La Rochelle on the west coast, where Jeanne d'Albret and her fifteen-year-old son, Henry of Bourbon, joined them. "We have come to the determination to die, all of us", Jeanne wrote to Catherine, "rather than abandon our God, and our religion." Catherine called Jeanne, whose decision to rebel posed a dynastic threat to the Valois, "the most shameless woman in the world". Nevertheless, the Peace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, signed on 8 August 1570 because the royal army ran out of cash, conceded wider toleration to the Huguenots than ever before.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Catherine looked to further Valois interests by grand dynastic marriages. In 1570, Charles IX married Elisabeth of Austria, daughter of Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor. Catherine was also eager for a match between one of her two youngest sons and Elizabeth I of England. After Catherine's daughter Elisabeth died in childbirth in 1568, she had touted her youngest daughter Margaret as a bride for Philip II of Spain. Now she sought a marriage between Margaret and Henry III of Navarre, Jeanne's son, with the aim of uniting Valois and Bourbon interests. Margaret, however, was secretly involved with Henry of Guise, the son of the late Duke of Guise. When Catherine found this out, she had her daughter brought from her bed. Catherine and the king then beat her, ripping her nightclothes and pulling out handfuls of her hair.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Catherine pressed Jeanne d'Albret to attend court. Writing that she wanted to see Jeanne's children, she promised not to harm them. Jeanne replied: "Pardon me if, reading that, I want to laugh, because you want to relieve me of a fear that I've never had. I've never thought that, as they say, you eat little children." When Jeanne did come to court, Catherine pressured her hard, playing on Jeanne's hopes for her beloved son. Jeanne finally agreed to the marriage between her son and Margaret, so long as Henry could remain a Huguenot. When Jeanne arrived in Paris to buy clothes for the wedding, she was taken ill and died on 9 June 1572, aged forty-three. Huguenot writers later accused Catherine of murdering her with poisoned gloves. The wedding took place on 18 August 1572 at Notre-Dame, Paris.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Three days later, Admiral Coligny was walking back to his rooms from the Louvre when a shot rang out from a house and wounded him in the hand and arm. A smoking arquebus was discovered in a window, but the culprit had made his escape from the rear of the building on a waiting horse. Coligny was carried to his lodgings at the Hôtel de Béthisy, where the surgeon Ambroise Paré removed a bullet from his elbow and amputated a damaged finger with a pair of scissors. Catherine, who was said to have received the news without emotion, made a tearful visit to Coligny and promised to punish his attacker. Many historians have blamed Catherine for the attack on Coligny. Others point to the Guise family or a Spanish-papal plot to end Coligny's influence on the king. Whatever the truth, the bloodbath that followed was soon beyond the control of Catherine or any other leader.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, which began two days later, has stained Catherine's reputation ever since. There is reason to believe she was party to the decision when on 23 August Charles IX is said to have ordered, "Then kill them all! Kill them all!" Historians have suggested that Catherine and her advisers expected a Huguenot uprising to avenge the attack on Coligny. They chose therefore to strike first and wipe out the Huguenot leaders while they were still in Paris after the wedding.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: The slaughter in Paris lasted for almost a week. It spread to many parts of France, where it persisted into the autumn. In the words of historian Jules Michelet, "St Bartholomew was not a day, but a season". On 29 September, when Navarre knelt before the altar as a Roman Catholic, having converted to avoid being killed, Catherine turned to the ambassadors and laughed. From this time dates the legend of the wicked Italian queen. Huguenot writers branded Catherine a scheming Italian, who had acted on Machiavelli's principles to kill all enemies in one blow.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Two years later, Catherine faced a new crisis with the death of Charles IX at the age of twenty-three. His dying words were "oh, my mother ..." The day before he died, he named Catherine regent, since his brother and heir, Henry the Duke of Anjou, was in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, where he had been elected king the year before. However, three months after his coronation at Wawel Cathedral, Henry abandoned that throne and returned to France in order to become King of France. Catherine wrote to Henry of Charles IX's death: "I am grief-stricken to have witnessed such a scene and the love which he showed me at the end ... My only consolation is to see you here soon, as your kingdom requires, and in good health, for if I were to lose you, I would have myself buried alive with you."


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Henry was Catherine's favourite son. Unlike his brothers, he came to the throne as a grown man. He was also healthier, though he suffered from weak lungs and constant fatigue. His interest in the tasks of government, however, proved fitful. He depended on Catherine and her team of secretaries until the last few weeks of her life. He often hid from state affairs, immersing himself in acts of piety, such as pilgrimages and flagellation.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Henry married Louise de Lorraine-Vaudémont in February 1575, two days after his coronation. His choice thwarted Catherine's plans for a political marriage to a foreign princess. Rumours of Henry's inability to produce children were by that time in wide circulation. The papal nuncio Salviati observed, "it is only with difficulty that we can imagine there will be offspring ... physicians and those who know him well say that he has an extremely weak constitution and will not live long." As time passed and the likelihood of children from the marriage receded, Catherine's youngest son, Francis, Duke of Alençon, known as "Monsieur", played upon his role as heir to the throne, repeatedly exploiting the anarchy of the civil wars, which were by now as much about noble power struggles as religion. Catherine did all in her power to bring Francis back into the fold. On one occasion, in March 1578, she lectured him for six hours about his dangerously subversive behaviour.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: In 1576, in a move that endangered Henry's throne, Francis allied with the Protestant princes against the crown. On 6 May 1576, Catherine gave in to almost all Huguenot demands in the Edict of Beaulieu. The treaty became known as the "Peace of Monsieur" because it was thought that Francis had forced it on the crown. Francis died of consumption in June 1584, after a disastrous intervention in the Low Countries during which his army had been massacred. Catherine wrote, the next day: "I am so wretched to live long enough to see so many people die before me, although I realize that God's will must be obeyed, that He owns everything, and that He lends us only for as long as He likes the children whom He gives us." The death of her youngest son was a calamity for Catherine's dynastic dreams. Under Salic law, by which only males could ascend the throne, the Huguenot Henry of Navarre now became heir presumptive to the French crown.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Catherine had at least taken the precaution of marrying Margaret, her youngest daughter, to Navarre. Margaret, however, became almost as much of a thorn in Catherine's side as Francis, and in 1582, she returned to the French court without her husband. Catherine was heard yelling at her for taking lovers. Catherine sent Pomponne de Bellièvre to Navarre to arrange Margaret's return. In 1585, Margaret fled Navarre again. She retreated to her property at Agen and begged her mother for money. Catherine sent her only enough "to put food on her table". Moving on to the fortress of Carlat, Margaret took a lover called d'Aubiac. Catherine asked Henry to act before Margaret brought shame on them again. In October 1586, therefore, he had Margaret locked up in the Château d'Usson. D'Aubiac was executed, though not, despite Catherine's wish, in front of Margaret. Catherine cut Margaret out of her will and never saw her again.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Catherine was unable to control Henry in the way she had Francis and Charles. Her role in his government became that of chief executive and roving diplomat. She travelled widely across the kingdom, enforcing his authority and trying to head off war. In 1578, she took on the task of pacifying the south. At the age of fifty-nine, she embarked on an eighteen-month journey around the south of France to meet Huguenot leaders face to face. Her efforts won Catherine new respect from the French people. On her return to Paris in 1579, she was greeted outside the city by the Parlement and crowds. The Venetian ambassador, Gerolamo Lipomanno, wrote: "She is an indefatigable princess, born to tame and govern a people as unruly as the French: they now recognize her merits, her concern for unity and are sorry not to have appreciated her sooner." She was under no illusions, however. On 25 November 1579, she wrote to the king, "You are on the eve of a general revolt. Anyone who tells you differently is a liar."


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Many leading Roman Catholics were appalled by Catherine's attempts to appease the Huguenots. After the Edict of Beaulieu, they had started forming local leagues to protect their religion. The death of the heir to the throne in 1584 prompted the Duke of Guise to assume the leadership of the Catholic League. He planned to block Henry of Navarre's succession and place Henry's Catholic uncle Cardinal Charles de Bourbon on the throne instead. In this cause, he recruited the great Catholic princes, nobles and prelates, signed the treaty of Joinville with Spain, and prepared to make war on the "heretics". By 1585, Henry III had no choice but to go to war against the League. As Catherine put it, "peace is carried on a stick" ("bâton porte paix"). "Take care", she wrote to the king, "especially about your person. There is so much treachery about that I die of fear."


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Henry was unable to fight the Catholics and the Protestants at once, both of whom had stronger armies than his own. In the Treaty of Nemours, signed on 7 July 1585, he was forced to give in to all the League's demands, even that he pay its troops. He went into hiding to fast and pray, surrounded by a bodyguard known as "the Forty-five", and left Catherine to sort out the mess. The monarchy had lost control of the country, and was in no position to assist England in the face of the coming Spanish attack. The Spanish ambassador told Philip II that the abscess was about to burst.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: By 1587, the Catholic backlash against the Protestants had become a campaign across Europe. Elizabeth I of England's execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, on 8 February 1587 outraged the Catholic world. Philip II of Spain prepared for an invasion of England. The League took control of much of northern France to secure French ports for his armada.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Henry hired Swiss troops to help him defend himself in Paris. The Parisians, however, claimed the right to defend the city themselves. On 12 May 1588, they set up barricades in the streets and refused to take orders from anyone except the Duke of Guise. When Catherine tried to go to Mass, she found her way barred, though she was allowed through the barricades. The chronicler L'Estoile reported that she cried all through her lunch that day. She wrote to Bellièvre, "Never have I seen myself in such trouble or with so little light by which to escape." As usual, Catherine advised the king, who had fled the city in the nick of time, to compromise and live to fight another day. On 15 June 1588, Henry duly signed the Act of Union, which gave in to all the League's latest demands.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: On 8 September 1588 at Blois, where the court had assembled for a meeting of the Estates, Henry dismissed all his ministers without warning. Catherine, in bed with a lung infection, had been kept in the dark. The king's actions effectively ended her days of power.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: At the meeting of the Estates, Henry thanked Catherine for all she had done. He called her not only the mother of the king but the mother of the state. Henry did not tell Catherine of his plan for a solution to his problems. On 23 December 1588, he asked the Duke of Guise to call on him at the Château de Blois. As Guise entered the king's chamber, the Forty-five plunged their blades into his body, and he died at the foot of the king's bed. At the same moment, eight members of the Guise family were rounded up, including the Duke of Guise's brother, Louis II, Cardinal of Guise, who Henry's men hacked to death the next day in the palace dungeons. Immediately after the murder of Guise, Henry entered Catherine's bedroom on the floor below and announced, "Please forgive me. Monsieur de Guise is dead. He will not be spoken of again. I have had him killed. I have done to him what he was going to do to me." Catherine's immediate reaction is not known; but on Christmas Day, she told a friar, "Oh, wretched man! What has he done? ... Pray for him ... I see him rushing towards his ruin." She visited her old friend Cardinal de Bourbon on 1 January 1589 to tell him she was sure he would soon be freed. He shouted at her, "Your words, Madam, have led us all to this butchery." She left in tears.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: On 5 January 1589, Catherine died at the age of sixty-nine, probably from pleurisy. L'Estoile wrote: "those close to her believed that her life had been shortened by displeasure over her son's deed." He added that she had no sooner died than she was treated with as much consideration as a dead goat. Because Paris was held by enemies of the crown, Catherine had to be buried provisionally at Blois. Eight months later, Jacques Clément stabbed Henry III to death. At the time, Henry was besieging Paris with the King of Navarre, who would succeed him as Henry IV of France. Henry III's assassination ended nearly three centuries of Valois rule and brought the Bourbon dynasty into power. Years later, Diane, daughter of Henry II and Philippa Duci, had Catherine's remains reinterred in the Saint-Denis basilica in Paris. In 1793, a revolutionary mob tossed her bones into a mass grave with those of the other kings and queens.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Catherine believed in the humanist ideal of the learned Renaissance prince whose authority depended on letters as well as arms. She was inspired by the example of her father-in-law, King Francis I of France, who had hosted the leading artists of Europe at his court, and by her Medici ancestors. In an age of civil war and declining respect for the monarchy, she sought to bolster royal prestige through lavish cultural display. Once in control of the royal purse, she launched a programme of artistic patronage that lasted for three decades. During this time, she presided over a distinctive late French Renaissance culture in all branches of the arts.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: An inventory drawn up at the Hôtel de la Reine after Catherine's death shows her to have been a keen collector. Listed works of art included tapestries, hand-drawn maps, sculptures, rich fabrics, ebony furniture inlaid with ivory, sets of china, and Limoges pottery. There were also hundreds of portraits, for which a vogue had developed during Catherine's lifetime. Many portraits in her collection were by Jean Clouet (1480–1541) and his son François Clouet (1572). François Clouet drew and painted portraits of all Catherine's family and of many members of the court. After Catherine's death, a decline in the quality of French portraiture set in. By 1610, the school patronised by the late Valois court and brought to its pinnacle by François Clouet had all but died out.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Beyond portraiture, little is known about the painting at Catherine de' Medici's court. In the last two decades of her life, only two painters stand out as recognisable personalities: Jean Cousin the Younger (), few of whose works survive, and Antoine Caron (1599), who became Catherine's official painter after working at Fontainebleau under Primaticcio. Caron's vivid Mannerism, with its love of ceremonial and its preoccupation with massacres, reflects the neurotic atmosphere of the French court during the Wars of Religion.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Many of Caron's paintings, such as those of the "Triumphs of the Seasons", are of allegorical subjects that echo the festivities for which Catherine's court was famous. His designs for the Valois Tapestries celebrate the "fêtes", picnics, and mock battles of the "magnificent" entertainments hosted by Catherine. They depict events held at Fontainebleau in 1564; at Bayonne in 1565 for the summit meeting with the Spanish court; and at the Tuileries in 1573 for the visit of the Polish ambassadors who presented the Polish crown to Catherine's son Henry of Anjou.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: The musical shows in particular allowed Catherine to express her creative gifts. They were usually dedicated to the ideal of peace in the realm and based on mythological themes. To create the necessary dramas, music, and scenic effects for these events, Catherine employed the leading artists and architects of the day. Historian Frances Yates has called her "a great creative artist in festivals." Catherine gradually introduced changes to the traditional entertainments: for example, she increased the prominence of dance in the shows that climaxed each series of entertainments. A distinctive new art form, the "ballet de cour", emerged from these creative advances. Owing to its synthesis of dance, music, verse, and setting, the production of the "Ballet Comique de la Reine" in 1581 is regarded by scholars as the first authentic ballet.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Catherine de' Medici's great love among the arts was architecture. "As the daughter of the Medici," suggests French art historian Jean-Pierre Babelon, "she was driven by a passion to build and a desire to leave great achievements behind her when she died." After Henry II's death, Catherine set out to immortalise her husband's memory and to enhance the grandeur of the Valois monarchy through a series of costly building projects. These included work on the Château de Montceaux, Château de Saint-Maur, and Chenonceau. Catherine built two new palaces in Paris: the Tuileries and the Hôtel de la Reine. She was closely involved in the planning and supervising of all her architectural schemes.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Catherine had emblems of her love and grief carved into the stonework of her buildings. Poets lauded her as the new Artemisia, after Artemisia II of Caria, who built the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus as a tomb for her dead husband. As the centrepiece of an ambitious new chapel, she commissioned a magnificent tomb for Henry at the basilica of Saint Denis. It was designed by Francesco Primaticcio (1504–1570), with sculpture by Germain Pilon (1528–1590). Art historian Henri Zerner has called this monument "the last and most brilliant of the royal tombs of the Renaissance." Catherine also commissioned Germain Pilon to carve the marble sculpture that contains Henry II's heart. A poem by Ronsard, engraved on its base, tells the reader not to wonder that so small a vase can hold so large a heart, since Henry's real heart resides in Catherine's breast.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Although Catherine spent ruinous sums on the arts, most of her patronage left no permanent legacy. The end of the Valois dynasty so soon after her death brought a change in priorities.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: The legend that de' Medici introduced a long list of foods, techniques and utensils from Italy to France is discredited by food historians. Barbara Ketcham Wheaton and Stephen Mennell provided the definitive arguments against these claims. They point out that Catherine's father-in-law, King Francis I, and the flower of the French aristocracy had dined at some of Italy's most élite tables during the king's Italian campaigns (and that an earlier generation had done so during King Charles VIII's invasion of 1494); that a vast Italian entourage had visited France for the wedding of Catherine de' Medici's father to her French-born mother; and that she had little influence at court until her husband's death because he was so besotted by his mistress, Diane de Poitiers. In fact, a large population of Italians—bankers, silk-weavers, philosophers, musicians, and artists, including Leonardo da Vinci—had emigrated to France to promote the burgeoning Renaissance. Nevertheless, popular culture frequently attributes Italian culinary influence and forks in France to Catherine.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: The earliest known reference to Catherine as the popularizer of Italian culinary innovation is the entry for "cuisine" in Diderot and d'Alembert's "Encyclopédie" published in 1754, which describes haute cuisine as decadent and effeminate and explains that fussy sauces and fancy fricassees arrived in France via "that crowd of corrupt Italians who served at the court of Catherine de' Medici."


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Catherine de' Medici has been labelled by Wiccan Gerald Gardner a "sinister Queen… noted for her interest in the occult arts". Catherine and Henry's inability to produce an heir for the first ten years of their marriage gave rise to suspicion of witchcraft. Labouvie suggested that women's power was believed to be the ability to create and sustain life, whilst witches were believed to have the opposite power; that of attacking health, life and fertility. An infertile woman, and in particular an infertile queen, was therefore regarded as 'unnatural' and a small step from supernatural. Elizabeth I was treated with similar suspicion—she too entertained questionable characters (such as her advisor, John Dee), and produced no official heir. Essentially, however, there exists no concrete proof that either woman took part in the occult, and it is now believed that Catherine's trouble in providing an heir was in fact due to Henry II's penile deformity.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Catherine herself had been educated in astrology and astronomy, which were closely linked in her day and were an academic rather than a Satanic activity. It has been suggested that Catherine educated her son, Henry III, in the dark arts, and that "the two devoted themselves to sorceries that were scandals of the age". As a result, some (more extreme) authors believe Catherine to be the creator of the Black Mass, a Satanic inversion of the traditional Catholic Mass, although there is little to prove this aside from Jean Bodin's account in his book "De la démonomanie des sorciers". Nevertheless, Catherine was never formally accused or prosecuted despite the fact that her reign experienced the greatest number of prosecutions for witchcraft in Italy. This lends some weight to the suggestion that people were labelled 'witches' simply because they did not act the way a woman would have been expected to act, or simply to suit personal or political agendas. This may be particularly true for Catherine as an Italian woman ruling in France; several historians argue that she was disliked by her French subjects, who labelled her "the Italian woman". In any event, the rumours have made a mark on Catherine's reputation over time, and there are now many dramaticised works about her involvement in the occult.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Honore de Balzac wrote "Sur Catherine de Medici" ("About Catherine de Medici"), part of La Comedie Humaine, in 1842.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Catherine is portrayed by Megan Follows on the CW television series, "Reign". She is a main character in all four seasons of the series and the only character other than Mary, Queen of Scots (portrayed by Adelaide Kane) who appeared in every episode. Catherine is depicted as powerful and strong-willed. She is extremely loyal and willing to do whatever it takes, no matter the deadly price, to protect her sons, their rule, and their legacy. Catherine is often at odds with Mary because she sees her as a threat to her family.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Virna Lisi assumed the role of Catherine in "La Reine Margot", a 1994 French film directed by Patrice Chéreau based on the novel La Reine Margot by Alexandre Dumas. In both the novel and the film Catherine appears as a scheming villainess. The same year, the Italian actress received a Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival and a César Award for Best Supporting Actress.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Samantha Morton portrays Catherine in the Starz television series, "The Serpent Queen". The younger Catherine is portrayed by Liv Hill. The series is based on the book "Catherine de Medici: Renaissance Queen of France" by Leonie Frieda.


title: Catherine de' Medici

text: Catherine de' Medici married Henry, Duke of Orléans, the future Henry II of France, in Marseille on 28 October 1533. She gave birth to ten children, of whom four sons and three daughters survived to marriageable age. Three of her sons became kings of France, while two of her daughters married kings and one married a duke. Catherine outlived all her children except Henry III, who died seven months after her, and Margaret, who inherited her robust health. Victoire and Jeanne were twin daughters born in 1556; Jeanne was stillborn due to surgeons breaking her legs to save her mother's life; Victoire survived, dying less than two months later. According to the diplomat Simon Renard, the birth nearly killed Catherine, and the royal couple were advised by the King's physician to have no further children.


title: Pearl Jam

text: Pearl Jam is an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. The band's lineup consists of founding members Jeff Ament (bass guitar), Stone Gossard (rhythm guitar), Mike McCready (lead guitar), and Eddie Vedder (lead vocals, guitar), as well as Matt Cameron (drums), who joined in 1998. Keyboardist Boom Gaspar has also been a touring/session member with the band since 2002. Drummers Jack Irons, Dave Krusen, Matt Chamberlain, and Dave Abbruzzese are former members of the band. Pearl Jam outsold many of their contemporaries from the early 1990s, and are considered one of the most influential bands of the decade, being dubbed as "the most popular American rock & roll band of the '90s".


title: Pearl Jam

text: Formed after the demise of Gossard and Ament's previous band, Mother Love Bone, Pearl Jam broke into the mainstream with their debut album, "Ten", in 1991. "Ten" stayed on the "Billboard" 200 chart for nearly five years, and has gone on to become one of the highest-selling rock records ever, going 13× platinum in the United States. Released in 1993, Pearl Jam's second album, "Vs.", sold over 950,000 copies in its first week of release, setting the record for most copies of an album sold in its first week of release at the time. Their third album, "Vitalogy" (1994), became the second-fastest-selling CD in history at the time, with more than 877,000 units sold in its first week.


title: Pearl Jam

text: One of the key bands in the grunge movement of the early 1990s, Pearl Jam's members often shunned popular music industry practices such as making music videos or participating in interviews. The band also sued Ticketmaster, claiming it had monopolized the concert-ticket market. In 2006, "Rolling Stone" described the band as having "spent much of the past decade deliberately tearing apart their own fame."


title: Pearl Jam

text: Pearl Jam had sold more than 85million albums worldwide by 2018, including nearly 32million albums in the United States by 2012, making them one of the best-selling bands of all time. Pearl Jam was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017 in its first year of eligibility. They were ranked eighth in a readers' poll by "Rolling Stone" magazine in its "Top Ten Live Acts of All Time" issue. Throughout its career, the band has also promoted wider social and political issues, from pro-abortion rights sentiments to opposition to George W. Bush's presidency. Vedder acts as the band's spokesman on these issues.


title: Pearl Jam

text: Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament were members of grunge band Green River during the mid-1980s. Green River toured and recorded to moderate success but disbanded in 1987 due to a stylistic division between the pair and bandmates Mark Arm and Steve Turner. In late 1987, Gossard and Ament began playing with Malfunkshun vocalist Andrew Wood, eventually organizing the band Mother Love Bone. In 1988 and 1989, the band recorded and toured to increasing interest and found the support of the PolyGram record label, which signed the band in early 1989. Mother Love Bone's debut album, "Apple", was released in July 1990, four months after Wood died of a heroin overdose.


title: Pearl Jam

text: Ament and Gossard were devastated by the death of Wood and the resulting demise of Mother Love Bone. Gossard spent his time afterwards writing material that was harder-edged than what he had been doing previously. After a few months, Gossard started practicing with fellow Seattle guitarist Mike McCready, whose band, Shadow, had broken up; McCready in turn encouraged Gossard to reconnect with Ament. After practicing for a while, the trio sent out a five-song demo tape in order to find a singer and a drummer. They gave former Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Jack Irons the demo to see if he would be interested in joining the band and to distribute the demo to anyone he felt might fit the lead vocal position.


title: Pearl Jam

text: Irons passed on the invitation but gave the demo to his basketball friend, San Diego, California singer Eddie Vedder. Vedder was the lead vocalist for a San Diego band, Bad Radio, and worked part-time at a gas station. He listened to the tape shortly before going surfing, where lyrics came to him. He then recorded the vocals to three of the songs ("Alive", "Once", and "Footsteps") in what he later described as a "mini-opera" entitled "Mamasan". Vedder sent the tape with his vocals back to the three Seattle musicians, who were impressed enough to fly Vedder up to Seattle for an audition. Within a week, Vedder had joined the band.


title: Pearl Jam

text: With the addition of Dave Krusen on drums, the band took the name Mookie Blaylock, in reference to the then-active basketball player. The band played its first official show at the Off Ramp Café in Seattle on October 22, 1990. They opened for Alice in Chains at the Moore Theatre in Seattle on December 22, 1990, and served as the opening act for the band's "Facelift" tour in 1991. Mookie Blaylock soon signed to Epic Records and renamed themselves Pearl Jam. In an early promotional interview, Vedder said that the name "Pearl Jam" was a reference to his great-grandmother Pearl, who was married to a Native American and had a special recipe for peyote-laced jam. In a 2006 "Rolling Stone" cover story however, Vedder admitted that this story was "total bullshit", even though he indeed had a great-grandma named Pearl. Ament and McCready explained that Ament came up with "pearl", and that the band later settled on "Pearl Jam" after attending a Neil Young concert, in which he extended his songs as improvisations of 15–20 minutes in length.