a duke. She was committed in her duties to motherhood and as wife to Francesco Andreini. In 1589, Andreini performed her comic work La Pazzia d'Isabella (Isabella's madness) for the Florentine court during the wedding of Ferdinando I de' Medici and Christina of Lorraine, and the details of the mostly improvised play have survived to modern times. Fluent in several languages, she was renowned for her intellectual presentation and refined presence. In this play, she creates madness by using several languages and then imitating the dialects of the other characters. She was versatile in her craft and even referred to herself as being capable of playing any male role. She created the role of Fabrizio, a character used in many of Flaminio Scala's scenarios, where she plays a transvestite pageboy. Andreini was noted as having played three different characters in one scenario, showcasing her improvisation skills and her talent. In 1599, Andreini performed before Henry IV, King of France, and his wife Maria de Medici. By this point, Andreini was well known enough to be addressed as the "star" performer of the troupe, referred to by Maria de Medici in a letter as "the actress Isabella and her company". Andreini performed at least once for two other troupes: the Confidenti of the Duke of Mantua in 1589, and the Uniti in 1601. In 1602, Andreini toured northern Italy, and in 1603 performed again for Henry IV, Marie de' Medici and a local audience at Fontainebleau and Paris. This would be her last tour, because early in 1604 she died near Lyon, on her way back to Italy, when she miscarried her eighth child at age 42. After her state funeral, memorial coins were made in her honour, with one side representing her as a powerful Roman ruler and the other side featuring the Roman goddess Fame and the words aeterna fama. Although Francesco Andreini dissolved the Gelosi after her death, their son Giambattista Andreini, who was an actor and a playwright, started his own company, the Fedeli, with the original troupe of the Gelosi. Literary works Beside performing on stage, Isabella Andreini was a recognized intellectual who dedicated much of her time to literature. The themes of her plays were shaded with some notions questioning the situation of the woman in the society of that epoch; she wrote with a masculine voice in her creations that showed her virtue. She