 The founder of the French Gondi was Alberto (Albert), who settled in Lyon about 1505 as a member of an established Florentine community or "nation", of merchants and bankers.In 1516 he married Marie-Catherine de Pierrevive (Pietraviva), daughter of a tax-farmer of a long-established Lyonnais family of Piedmontese origin; she caught the attention of Catherine de' Medici, whom she served as Governess to the Children of France.In turn the young Gondis, Pietro, Carlo, and above all Alberto (Albert de Gondi), a marshal of France and created duc de Retz, were repeatedly employed in state business by Catherine and by her sons, Charles IX of France and Henri III, as well as by the Bourbon king Henri IV.