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Cosimo III had two sons and a daughter. Ferdinando, the eldest of Cosimo sons married Violante Beatrice of Bavaria. However, he did not love her and for that produced no offspring. Upon his death in 1713, this began the final curtain call for the House of Medici as Grand Dukes of Tuscany.

What if Ferdinando did produce a son from the marriage? Would it prolong the Medici's rule for another several years (or at least until the inevitable Italian unification)? Alternately if not Ferdinando, then what about Cosimo's other son, Gian Gastone?
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