Giuliano Dami (14 September 1683 – 5 April 1750) was the favourite and valet (Aiutante di Camera) of Gian Gastone de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (1723 – 1737). He is known for the "magnetic influence" he exercised on the last Medici Grand Duke of Tuscany, and for his relationship with him. Biography Early life Son of Angelo (Agnolo) di Vincenzo Dami and Caterina di Cristofano Ambrogi, Giuliano was of popular origins. He had three sisters and one brother: Maria (1685 – 1688), Maria Maddalena (1688 – 1757), Anna Maria (born 1690) and Angelo (1693 – 1737). His father died in 1693 and Giuliano was sent to a farmer in Cavalier Lenzoni's landholdings of Marignolle (Florence), being assigned to menial jobs. By 1701, at the age of 18, Giuliano was at the service of Marquis Ferdinando Capponi, as a groom. Marquis Capponi was Knight of the Holy Military Order of Saint Stephen Pope and Martyr, Rector of the Priory of Pescia, Grand Chancellor and aide-de-chambre to the late Grand Duke Ferdinando II, then dignitary of the court of Grand Duke Cosimo III and Bracciere of the Great Princess Violante Beatrice of Bavaria. With Gian Gastone de' Medici During a visit of his master to the Medici court in Palazzo Pitti, Dami, who was said to possess an exceptional physical beauty, struck with his appearance the young Prince Gian Gastone, who asked Capponi to give him the servant. Since then, Dami entered upon domestic familiarity with Gian Gastone and became his lover and companion in adventures. On 3 July 1697 Gian Gastone had left for Bohemia to marry the German Princess Anna Maria Franziska of Saxe-Lauenburg, eventually returning to Florence on 11 June 1705. He and Giuliano Dami met just between June 1705 and May 1707, when the Prince left again for Bohemia, now in the company of Dami. Initially they stayed in Zákupy/Reichstadt (the capital of the Princess' State) and Ploskovice/Ploschkowitz, two smallest Bohemian villages, then, without Princess Anna Maria, in Prague and Paris. There, Dami acted as a pimp for the Prince, soliciting countless young men for his master's enjoyment. In 1708 Gian Gastone abandoned his wife and returned to Florence with Giuliano, who in the meantime had become his real éminence grise, and in 1723 he succeeded to his father Cosimo III (Grand Prince Ferdinando, Gian Gastone's older brother, had died prematurely in 1713). The Tuscany Gian Gastone