[1013] Absolute proof of this cannot be given, but few murders are recorded, and the imagination of the Florentine writers at the best period is not filled with the suspicion of them.
[1014] See on this point the report of Fedeli, in Alberi, Relazioni Serie, ii. vol. i. pp. 353 sqq.
[1015] M. Brosch (Hist. Zeitschr. bd. 27, p. 295 sqq.) has collected from the Venetian archives five proposals, approved by the council, to poison the Sultan (1471-1504), as well as evidence of the plan to murder Charles VIII. (1495) and of the order given to the Proveditor at Faenza to have Cæsar Borgia put to death (1504).
[1016] Dr. Geiger adds several conjectural statements and references on this subject. It may be remarked that the suspicion of poisoning, which I believe to be now generally unfounded, is often expressed in certain parts of Italy with regard to any death not at once to be accounted for.—[The Translator.]
[1017] Infessura, in Eccard, Scriptor. ii. col. 1956.
[1018] Chron. Venetum, in Murat. xxiv. col. 131. In northern countries still more wonderful things were believed as to the art of poisoning in Italy. See Juvénal des Ursins, ad. ann. 1382 (ed. Buchon, p. 336), for the lancet of the poisoner, whom Charles of Durazzo took into his service; whoever looked at it steadily, died.
[1019] Petr. Crinitus, De Honesta Disciplina, l. xviii. cap. 9.
[1020] Pii II. Comment. l. xi. p. 562. Joh. Ant. Campanus, Vita Pii II. in Murat. iii. ii. col. 988.
[1021] Vasari, ix. 82, Vita di Rosso. In the case of unhappy marriages it is hard to say whether there were more real or imaginary instances of poisoning. Comp. Bandello, ii. nov. 5 and 54: ii. nov. 40 is more serious. In one and the same city of Western Lombardy, the name of which is not given, lived two poisoners. A husband, wishing to convince himself of the genuineness of his wife’s despair, made her drink what she believed to be poison, but which was really coloured water, whereupon they were reconciled. In the family of Cardanus alone four cases of poisoning occurred (De Propria Vita, cap. 30, 50). Even at a banquet given at the coronation of a pope each cardinal brought his own cupbearer with him, and his own wine, ‘probably because they knew from experience that otherwise they would run the risk of being poisoned.’ And this usage was general at Rome, and practised ‘sine injuria invitantis!’ Blas Ortiz, Itinerar. Hadriani VI. ap. Baluz. Miscell. ed. Mansi, i. 380.
[1022] For the magic arts used against Leonello of Ferrara, see Diario Ferrarese, in Murat. xxiv. col. 194, ad a. 1445. When the sentence was read in the public square to the author of them, a certain Benato, a man in other respects of bad character, a noise was heard in the air and the earth shook, so that many people fled away or fell to the ground; this happened because Benato ‘havea chiamato e scongiurato il diavolo.’ What Guicciardini (l. i.) says of the wicked arts practised by Ludovico Moro against his nephew Giangaleazzo, rests on his own responsibility. On magic, see below, cap. 4.