Paolo Giordano I Orsini

Paolo Giordano Orsini (1541 – 13 November 1585) was an Italian nobleman, and the first duke of Bracciano from 1560. He was a member of the Roman family of the Orsini.

The son of Girolamo Orsini and Francesca Sforza, he was grandson, on his father’s side, of Felice della Rovere (illegitimate daughter of Pope Julius II) and Gian Giordano Orsini and, on his mother’s side, of Count Bosio Sforza and Costanza Farnese, an illegitimate daughter of Pope Paul III.

On 3 September 1558 he married Isabella de' Medici, daughter of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, at Poggio a Caiano. Paolo Giordano lived mostly in Rome and his castle at Bracciano, rather than with his wife, who stayed mostly at Florence. In 1571 he took part to the battle of Lepanto. A year later, in October 1572, he served as a general of the Spanish infantry, in a campaign that tried to reclaim the garrison of Navarino in the Peloponnese.

On 16 July 1576 his wife died unexpectedly at the Medici villa of Cerreto Guidi during a hunting holiday. According to her brother, the grand duke Francesco I de' Medici, this occurred "while she was washing her hair in the morning ... She was found by Signor Paolo Giordano on her knees, having immediately fallen dead." This official version of events was not generally believed, and the Ferrarese ambassador, Ercole Cortile, obtained information that Isabella was "strangled at midday" by her husband in the presence of several named servants.

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