Renato Bianco

Renato Bianco (later known as René le Florentin) was orphaned and raised by Dominican friars at the Santa Maria Novella monastery in Florence, where an alchemist friar taught him herbal distillation. Catherine de' Medici made him her personal perfumer and brought him to France, where he opened a perfume shop in Paris and served as official court perfumer to the queen from at least 1547. The demand for flowers and herbs his business generated helped establish Grasse as the world's fragrance capital. He was also infamously alleged to be the queen's poisoner, and died in 1578.