[231] This would seem to refer either to the medical brother or to the pupils in the house.
[232] She alludes in all probability to the murder of her husband; if so, the date of this letter would enable us to fix, with some approach to accuracy, the time of that event, which the Florentine contemporary writers have not mentioned, and which the subsequent historians have not been able to fix.
[233] This appears to allude to some scheme of marriage, which Bianca would seem to have in some degree encouraged.
[234] Signor Odorici thinks, in all probability correctly, that this matter, of too great importance to be written, was her hope of being married to the Duke after the death of the Duchess. He observes, that even the seal attached by Bianca to this letter seems to have reference to such an idea. It bore a Venus arming Cupid with arrows, with the motto significative enough certainly as a device of Bianca, "Aude et fiet." But if such a scheme of succeeding to the place of the Grand Duchess appeared to be of such importance as to deserve the coming of her cousin to Florence to discuss it, while the lady to be supplanted was still alive and well, do not such plannings and discussions add some degree of probability to the Florentine notion, that Giovanna's welcome death was unduly hastened?
[235] It must be observed, that from this letter it would appear either that the "matter which cannot be put on paper" was, after all, not what has been conjectured, or that her wishes and intentions of returning to Venice were insincere.
[236] An antidote to poison.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
—Plain text and punctuation errors fixed.
—Cover image produced by transcriber and placed in public domain.