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 prominent Orsini family of Rome.
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Biography
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 in 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. After enduring several miscarriages (in 1559, 1560, two in 1564 and the last in 1570), Isabella eventually gave birth to two children. On 1 March 1571, their daughter Francesca Eleonora Orsini was born, followed by their son Virginio Orsini in September 1572.
On 16 July 1576 his wife died unexpectedly at the Medici villa of Cerreto Guidi during a hunting holiday. According to her brother, 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, but the Signor ensures that she had time to confess her soul to God." 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.