The Knights of St Stephen of Tuscany
In the old days of Christendom, there were religious military orders
subject to the Roman Pontiff, such as the Templars, as well as religious
military orders subject to a particular dynastic house. One of these
was the Order of St Stephen of the Italian Grand Duchy of Tuscany.
Officially, the “Holy Military Order of St Stephen Pope and Martyr”, it
was founded on October 1, 1561 by the first Grand Duke of Tuscany,
Cosimo I de’ Medici with the permission of Pope Pius IV.
This could be
seen as part of the normalization of the transition in Tuscany to
monarchy, away from the city-state Republic of Florence, taking on more
of the trappings associated with monarchy as Florence became the seat of
power of a hereditary Grand Duke rather than a republican leadership.
The order was named for Pope St Stephen the Martyr because his feast day
(August 2) corresponded with the victories that Grand Duke Cosimo had
won at the Battle of Montemurlo (August 2, 1537) against republican
insurgents who wanted to restore the Florentine republic and the Battle
of Marciano (August 2, 1554) in which the Medici grand duke had
conquered the city-state Republic of Siena.
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| Cosimo I |
Grand Duke Cosimo had actually been trying to establish such an order
for some time and more than one attempt was thwarted by Church
opposition, largely for political reasons which was typical of the
period in which Italy was divided among feuding states. That, however,
finally changed with the reign of Pope Pius IV who was a Medici. The
primary purpose of the order was to combat the Islamic pirates who were
raiding the Mediterranean at will and who had increasingly threatened
the Tyrrhenian Sea where Grand Duke Cosimo had built a new, modern port
at Livorno. He also wished to demonstrate his support for the cause of
Christendom and to unite his people, including the more recently
conquered regions such as Siena and Pisa, against a common, non-Italian
and non-Christian enemy. The Grand Duke also hoped it would add prestige
to his newly established grand duchy, standing alongside other dynastic
orders and adding fame to the name of Tuscany and the House of Medici
for fighting on the front-lines against the forces harassing
Christendom.
Based on the religious rule of St Benedict, the order took as its symbol
a red eight-point cross on a white background, incorporating the red
and white colors of Florence, with a heraldic lily flower in between the
arms of the cross, again using a symbol associated with Florence as
well as that of the House of Medici due to their ties with the Royal
House of France. Grand Duke Cosimo served as the first Grand Master of
the order and, as it was a dynastic order, this would be passed on to
every subsequent Grand Duke of Tuscany. The headquarters of the order
were originally in Portoferraio but later moved permanently to the city
of Pisa where one can still find the magnificent Palazzo dei Cavalieri
and the church of Santo Stefano dei Cavalieri. The knights focused
primarily on coastal defense but also took the fight to the enemy in
cooperation with larger allies. The first of three, broad “campaigns”
that the Knights of St Stephen fought was done in cooperation with the
Spanish in their fight against the Ottoman Turks in the Mediterranean.
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| One of the order's war galleys |
The Knights of St Stephen, with their own war galleys, fought alongside
the Spanish (and other allied Italian states) at the siege of Malta in
1565 and the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. They also participated in the
attack and capture of Annaba in Algeria in 1607 under Admiral Jacopo
Inghirami in which the city was devastated. This phase in their
campaigning was, such as at Malta and Lepanto, defensive and focused on
stopping major Turkish offensives against southern Italy. However, once
that was done, low level harassment on the part of Turkish and, more
often, Barbary pirates remained a problem and the Order of St Stephen
focused its second campaign on dealing with this problem. They also
concentrated on areas closer to home with raids on the Turkish-held
islands of the Aegean as well as launching attacks on Islamic forces in
Dalmatia, Negroponte and the island of Corfu. These were successful
enough that offensive military operations by the Knights of St Stephen
decreased, their last major campaign, coming around the year 1640,
during the reign of Grand Duke Ferdinand II, focused on coastal defense
and aiding the Republic of Venice in their on-going struggle against the
Ottoman Empire.
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| Ferdinand III |
The year 1719 saw the last time that the Order of St Stephen was used in
combat by Grand Duke Cosimo III. Later, in 1737, a major change came
when the House of Medici was supplanted by the Austrian dynasty of
Hapsburg-Lorraine. The second Hapsburg grand duke, Peter Leopold I,
formally ended the military aspect of the order and reorganized it as an
order that would focus on education for the elites of Tuscany. It
became more a feature of social status and no longer an order focused on
war and military defense. The Order of St Stephen lost its fighting
capacity under the Hapsburgs but things soon became even worse. In 1791
Emperor Leopold II abdicated the throne of Tuscany in favor of his son
Ferdinand III who has the dubious distinction of being the first monarch
to recognize the revolutionary First French Republic. However, that was
not enough to save him. French expansion continued and the Austrians
eventually agreed to hand over control of northern Italy to the French
Republic in exchange for half of the territory of neutral Venice. The
Grand Duchy of Tuscany was occupied by the French, the Grand Duke was
forced to abdicate and the Order of St Stephen was suppressed.
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| Leopold II |
Thankfully, that situation did not endure. In due time Napoleon was
defeated and the Grand Duke of Tuscany was put back in his place in 1814
and, the following year, the Order of St Stephen was restored. It was,
however, restored in its reformed form, not a military order but became
more of a sign of favor with the grand ducal family. The French
experience also seemed to have an affect on the Italian populace as so
many years of division, feuding and foreign rule or foreign occupation
prompted the growth and spread of a new Italian nationalism. It was an
unfortunate period for the Grand Dukes of Tuscany, who were good men of
good motives and intentions but their natural inclination to support
their Austrian relatives was not matched by their subjects and many
deserted the forces of Tuscany to join the Piedmontese and the Italian
national movement in fighting to expel the Austrians from Italian soil.
Grand Duke Leopold II, a noble and tragic figure, made the mistake of so
many of his contemporaries in granting constitutional government, only
to later revoke it and he was forced to abdicate. Grand Duke Ferdinando
IV, his successor, ruled for only about a year before he too was forced
out in 1859 by the Italian nationalists. In 1860 Tuscany was formally
annexed to the Kingdom of Italy.
Neither the Kingdom of Italy nor the current Italian republic officially
recognize the Order of St Stephen, though it does still exist but as a
purely private organization under the leadership of the
Hapsburg-Lorraine heirs of the former grand duchy. Prince Sigismund,
Archduke of Austria, is the current Grand Master and the order is
considered, by the Catholic Church, as a “public association of the
faithful” with historic papal foundations. The Knights of Malta still
recognize it but membership is extremely limited, mostly to close
friends and family. One must have extensive documented proof of
aristocratic ancestry to even be considered for membership and the costs
required, as with most such orders today, ensure that only quite
wealthy people could ever hope to be invited. Nonetheless, what exists
today is a valuable reminder of what a glorious and formidable
military-religious order the Knights of St Stephen once were and one can
still see their educational facility and naval war college in Pisa, a
testament to their past as one of the major forces on the front lines of
defending Christendom in the Mediterranean area.
