Catherine Cornaro

Catherine Cornaro (Greek: Αικατερίνη Κορνάρο Venetian: Caterina Corner) (25 November 1454 – 10 July 1510) was the last queen of Cyprus. She reigned from 26 August 1474 to 26 February 1489 and was declared a "Daughter of Saint Mark" in order that the Republic of Venice could claim control of Cyprus after the death of her husband, James II.

Family
Catherine was a daughter of Nobile Huomo Marco Cornaro (Venice, December, 1406 – Venice, 1 August 1479), Cavaliere del Sacro Romano Impero (Knight of the Holy Roman Empire) and Patrizio Veneto (Patrician of Venice), by his wife Fiorenza Crispo. Her father was the great-grandson of Marco Cornaro, Doge of Venice from 1365 to 1368. She was the younger sister of the Nobil Huomo Giorgio Cornaro (1452 – 31 July 1527), "Padre della Patria" and Knight of the Holy Roman Empire. The Cornaro family had produced four Doges. Her family had long associations with Cyprus, especially with regard to trade and commerce. In the Episkopi area, in the Limassol District, the Cornaro family administered various sugar mills and exported Cypriot products to Venice.

Catherine's mother, Fiorenza Crispo, was a daughter of Nicholas Crispo, Lord of Syros. Although Crispo is said to have married two women, Fiorenza's mother is most likely the daughter of Jacopo of Lesbos; according to his own correspondence, Niccolò was a son-in-law of Jacopo of Lesbos. While an account by Caterino Zeno dated to 1474 is often quoted as naming a second wife for Nicholas Crispo, Eudokia-Valenza of Trebizond, a reported daughter of John IV of Trebizond and an unnamed daughter of King Alexander I of Georgia, Michel Kuršanskis has proven that this woman never existed.

Catherine was painted by Dürer, Titian, Bellini and Giorgione.

Marriage and reign
In 1468, James II of Cyprus, otherwise known as James the Bastard, became King of Cyprus. In 1468 he chose Caterina for his wife and Queen consort of the Kingdom of Cyprus. The King's choice was extremely pleasing to the Republic of Venice as it could henceforth secure the commercial rights and other privileges of Venice in Cyprus. They married in Venice on 30 July 1468 by proxy when she was 14 years old. She finally set sail to Cyprus in November 1472 and married James in person at Famagusta.

James died soon after the wedding due to a sudden illness and, according to his will, Caterina, who at the time was pregnant, acted as regent. She became monarch when their infant son James died in August 1474 before his first birthday, probably from illness even if it was rumored that he had been poisoned by Venice or Charlotte's partisans. The kingdom had long since declined, and had been a tributary state of the Mameluks since 1426. Under Caterina, who ruled Cyprus from 1474 to 1489, the island was controlled by Venetian merchants, and on 14 March 1489 she was forced to abdicate and sell the administration of the country to the Republic of Venice.

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

Having been deposed in February, Caterina was obliged to leave Cyprus on 14 May 1489.

Later life at Asolo
The last Crusader state became a colony of Venice, and as compensation, Catherine was allowed to retain the title of Queen and was made Lady of Asolo, a county in the Veneto of Italy, in 1489. Asolo soon gained a reputation as a court of literary and artistic distinction, mainly as a result of it being the fictitious setting for Pietro Bembo's platonic dialogues on love, Gli Asolani. Caterina died in Venice in 1510.

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

The Cornaro Institute, a charitable organisation founded by the artist Stass Paraskos in the city of Larnaca, for the promotion of art and other culture, memorialised her name in Cyprus, prior to its closure by Larnaca Municipality in 2017.

Also in Cyprus, in October 2011, the Cyprus Antiquities Department announced Caterina Cornaro's partially ruined summer palace in Potamia would be renovated in a one million euro restoration project, becoming a cultural centre. However it did not happen while the building still decays and faces despoliations.