Wedding of Maria de Medici and Henry IV of France

On 5 October 1600, in the cathedral of Florence, a Medici woman was married to the king of France, and the king wasn't there. Henry IV stayed in France and sent word that the ceremony should go ahead without him, so Maria de' Medici was wed by proxy, a stand-in taking the vows in place of the sovereign. That is the moment Jacopo da Empoli set down here, the crowded ceremony under the dome, the bride ringed by the Florentine court, joined to an absent groom she had not yet met.

The match sealed an alliance and settled a large Medici loan to the French crown, and Florence spent without restraint to mark it. During the weeks of festivities the court staged Jacopo Peri's Euridice, the earliest opera whose music still survives. Empoli painted the wedding as a record of the day, down to the ranks of guests filling the nave.