THE ALUMNI JOURNAL. 



T 43 



He persuaded the butler to change the 

 caskets, and, after entertaining his dis- 

 tinguished visitors with all the sang froid 

 he could muster, he finally implored the 

 Pope to join him in eating the sweet- 

 meats when they were brought on, par- 

 taking boldly of his own poition The 

 Pope, suspecting nothing, and fully trust- 

 ing his butler, agreed, and in a short 

 time felt the effects of the poison and 

 died in agony. "While the Cardinal, 

 who still was terrified, took medicine, 

 and vomited, and received no evil, al- 

 though escaping not without difficulty." 

 Naturally these pleasant practices were 

 not confined to one family, and for 

 the next two hundred years political 

 life in Italy was constantly over- 

 shadowed by the dread of poison. When 

 Pius III,, who succeded Alexander Bor- 

 gia, died suddenly, less than a month 

 after his accession, his death was com- 

 monly attributed to the efforts of some of 

 his disappointed competitors. Some 

 twenty years afterwards one of the noblest 

 and greatest of the Popes, Leo X., was 

 struck down by poison when in the full 

 flush of success. Nor could the danger 

 be averted by any safeguards then in 

 use. Trusty servants, "tasters," amu- 

 lets charms and antidotes, yet in spite of 

 everything the poisoners made their way. 

 Many of the high dignitaries of the 

 church and occasionally of the State met 

 their fate at the foot of the altar itself, the 

 poison being not infrequently administer- 

 ed at high mass, in the sacred wafer, or 

 in the communion wine. This latter in- 

 genious device prevails to this day in 

 Italy, a priest having been poisoned in 

 this way only last year. 



In fact we find, from contemporary 

 literature, that every nobleman of the 

 period kept in his establishment not only 

 a guard of cutthroats, but also a poisoner 

 or two, as a matter of course. Indeed we 

 learn from the memoirs of the Duke 



de Guise, about 1650, that poison was 

 considered distinctly a gentlemanly 

 weapon, more so even than the sword. 

 The Duke tells us that when it was de- 

 sired to get rid of a certain Gennaro 

 Annese, who was troubling his govern- 

 ment in Naples at the time, the captain 

 of his guard was asked to do the work, 

 and it was suggested that he should stab 

 him. But the captain refused indignant- 

 ly, saying that he was ready to poison 

 him, whenever called upon, but that 

 stabbing was disgraceful, and unworthy of 

 a gentleman and an officer. So one of 

 the establishment prepared the dose, 

 bringing it to the Duke in a vial full of 

 clear and beautiful water, and telling him 

 that " in four days' time it will punish 

 all his treasons. The captain of the 

 guard has undertaken to give it to him, 

 and, as it has no taste at all, Gennaro 

 will suspect nothing." The dose was 

 duly given, but by some chance failed to 

 do its work. 



This art of poisoning was not, how- 

 ever, confined to political use only, but 

 entered into the daily life of the people of 

 Italy at this time to an inconceivable ex- 

 tent. Secret poisons were commonly 

 sold, and commonly displayed, and were 

 used without the slightest compunction 

 upon the least provocation. In 1659 the 

 attention of the Pope was called to the 

 extreme prevalence of poisoning in Rome, 

 from the reports of the priests in the con- 

 fessionals, and, by careful investigation, 

 it was found that a large number of the 

 fashionable young married women of the 

 city had associated themselves together 

 with the purpose of ridding themselves 

 of undesirable husbands and other rela- 

 tives. Their leader was an ugly little old 

 woman called Hieronyma Spara, a 

 fortune-teller and presumed witch, and a 

 clever, well dressed woman was employ- 

 ed by the government to spy on her. 

 She pretended to be living very unhappily 



