"Poison" was the word which ran through the palace and soon through Florence from blanched lips to blanched lips. Some said it was the Cardinal who had done the deed; others whispered stories of a poisoned tart designed by Bianca for the Cardinal, who refused to be tempted. Whereupon the Grand Duke had eaten of it, and Bianca, "seeing that her plot had so tragically miscarried, seized the tart from her husband's hand and ate what was left of it."
The truth will never be known. What we do know is that within a few hours of the last joke and the last drained glass of that fatal banquet the bodies of Francesco and Bianca were lying in death side by side in an adjacent room, the door of which was locked against the eyes of the curious—even against the physicians.
In the solemn lying-in-state that followed Bianca had no place. Francesco alone, by his brother's orders, wore his crown in death. As for Bianca, her body was hurried away and flung into the common vault of San Lorenzo, with the light of two yellow wax torches to bear it company, and the jibes and jeers of Florence for its only requiem.
