The real truth is, that there is not a tittle of evidence in favour of such a supposition, to be opposed to all the insuperable difficulties in the way of convicting Lucia, the only person whom it was found possible to suspect. The only fragment of foundation to the entire fiction consists in Dr. Gallerati's ignorant and learned trash about administered poisons, and inborn poisons. Even he only ventured to incline in favour of the probability of the former in this case. And the direct testimony of Dr. Mattaselani and one of his colleagues, agreeing as it does with the view which any modern medical man would take of the case as reported, viz., that the deceased died of inflamed ulcer in the stomach, may be rightly held to be conclusive on the subject.
Some letters from persons at Bologna, including two from Giovanni Sirani, written immediately after Elisabetta's death, to correspondents at Florence, have recently been published in the "Rivista di Firenze." The editor thinks that "no doubt remains at the present day, that her (Elisabetta's) death was caused by poison given her by the maid, Lucia Tolomelli, the instrument either of the despised love, or of the offended pride of some powerful personage." To the present writer, however, the opinion expressed above, which is also that of Signor Toselli, to whom we are indebted for the discovery and publication of the records of the trial, appears equally "undoubted."
One of the letters, six in number, is from the physician Gallerati, in which he details the result of the post–mortem examination as we have it in his evidence.
Another is from Count Annibale Ranuzzi to the Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici, in which he says, "The poor girl was poisoned according to the unanimous opinion of the medical men, who to the number of seven or eight were present at the examination of the body." This, as we have seen, was not true.
A third letter is from Giovanni Sirani to the same Cardinal, in which he says that his "daughter Elisabetta had been removed from the world by poison, through envy."
A fourth letter from the same to the Cardinal, says, that he thinks he shall be obliged "to quit his clime of Bologna, and go where justice is not suffocated; for this enormous crime has been concealed under pretext of ecclesiastical immunities."
We knew before that such were the opinions prevalent at Bologna at the time. But we know also that Giovanni Sirani changed his opinion on the subject. And it must be borne in mind, that criminal proceedings were kept strictly secret in the Papal States; and that the public therefore had not those means of enlightening its judgment on the subject, which Signor Toselli's pamphlet has supplied to us.
The sorrow for the young artist's untimely death was general in Bologna, and the manifestations of it may seem to us excessive. But in that day, when art, though on the decline from its culminating period, was all that retained any real life in Italy, the artist held a place in the esteem and interest of his fellow citizens, which, however honoured, he cannot hope to do in communities where his art is only one of a hundred manifestations of intellectual life and energy. In losing her young and rising artist, Bologna lost an important element of her claim to take rank among her rival municipalities in the scale of civilisation and renown.
HER POPULARITY.
Still this hardly seems to be sufficient to account for the outburst of wailing and enthusiastic apotheosising which followed Elisabetta's death. Greater artists died, were mourned, and celebrated with far less universality of lamentation and eulogistic commemoration. And on looking over the threnodic expression of Bologna's regret for "La Sirani," it seems clear that the woman had captivated the affection of her contemporaries, as much as the artist had excited their admiration.