The painter who orchestrated Mary of Modena's escape from the Glorious Revolution

A newly acquired document reveals that Francesco Riva, a painter from Guercino's workshop, masterminded the 1688 escape of Mary of Modena (Maria Beatrice d'Este), the only Italian queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Disguised as a laundress, she fled with her five-month-old son across the Thames to Dover and then to France, escaping the Glorious Revolution that deposed her Catholic husband, James II. Riva, who served as her 'master of wardrobe' after a stint at the court of Louis XIV, wrote a firsthand account in August 1689, now part of the Archivio storico del Comune di Modena's collection, acquired from the Docet antiquarian bookshop in Bologna. The archive also includes a safe-conduct pass signed by Louis XIV and an early-18th-century oil-on-copper miniature of Mary. Born in Modena's Ducal Palace in 1658, Mary was forced into marriage with James II by Pope Clement X and Louis XIV, despite her desire to become a nun. She endured a difficult life at court, losing ten of her twelve children under suspicious circumstances, and was vilified as a 'papist'. Her cultural salon and patronage of artists helped her endure, and ultimately art—in the form of Riva's plan—saved her life.