Chapter XII: Book II: , speaks for the fact that venom was feared, and therefore likely (1)

to be used. Governments experimented with venoms: for what purpose, who can tell? M. Lamanshy published an interesting document dated 1432 which he found in the Venetian Secret Archives.[71] “Trial has been made, on three porcine animals, of certain venoms, found in the chancery, sent very long ago from Vicenza, which have been proved not to be good.”

Undoubtedly, there was the will. Undoubtedly, also, there was not the ability.

* * * * *

Strange and paradoxical though it may seem to be, alchymical knowledge, alchymical art, was in a lower condition during the years succeeding the Renascence of Learning, than it had been in the Middle Ages, the so-called Dark Ages, which had gone before. The Dark Ages were the ages of Simples. The Age of the Renascence was the age of Compounds. And, in those compounds, virtue was changed, or lost, by sublimation, by distillation, or annulled by heterogeneous admixture. The following will make this plain.

In the Dark Ages, medicaments were made from single herbs exhibited in the form of draughts, poultices, lotions, or unguents. The old herbaries of Dioskorides, or of Appulejus, were used as text-books; and a few extracts from these will be curious, perhaps valuable, certainly a help to understanding.

(α) The herb Betony or Bishopwort (_Betonica officinalis_) must be
gathered in August without the help of iron, the mould shaken
from the roots, and dried in the shade. When triturated, two
drachms of it, mixed with hot beer or wine or honey, is an
antidote to venom, a digestive, a cure for hydrophobia,
constipation, toothache, and prevents monstrous nocturnal
visitors, or frightful sights and dreams. A lotion, made from
the herb seethed in fresh water till two-thirds are evaporated,
cures broken-head, epistaxis, fatigue, and rupture; or the
leaves may be used as a poultice. (As a matter of fact, Betony
is intoxicating, emetic, and purgative.)

(β) The herb Vervain or Ashthroat (_Verbena officinalis_) must be
pounded as a poultice for wounds and carbuncles. It is an
antidote to all venoms, and dogs may not bark at him who bears
it.

(γ) The herb Clovewort (_Ranunculus acris_), wreathed with red thread
on the neck during the waning of the April or October moon,
cures lunacy.

(δ) The herb Mugwort (_Artemisia dracunculus_), pounded to an unguent
with well-boiled olive-oil, will make strained sinews supple.
(This is excellent.)

(ε) The herb Ravensleek (_Orchis_, Σατύριον) will cure sore eyes when
they are smeared with its juice.

(ζ) The herb Watercress (_Nasturtium officinale_) will with its juice
stop hair from falling.

(η) The herb Madder (_Rubia tinctoria_) as a poultice cures sciatica.

(θ) The herb Clover (_Trifolium pratense_) prevents him who carries it
from suffering sore jaws.

(ι) The herb Rosemary (_Rosmarinus officinalis_) is good for the
teeth.

(κ) The herb Rue (_Ruta graveolens_), eaten green is an antifat; a
twig stops nose-bleeding; macerated in vinegar and soused on the
brow induces forgetfulness. Recommended for priests who wish to
observe their vow of continence.

(λ) The herb Dwarfdwostle or Pennyroyal (_Mentha pulegium_), as
unguent, cures sea-sickness; as a salve, or burned as incense,
cures fever and bellyache.

(μ) The herb Sage (_Salvia_), as a lotion, cures itch.

(ν) The herb Marjoram (_Origanum vulgare_), steeped in vinegar, cures
headache, or may be chewed for a cough.

(ξ) The herb Foxglove (_Digitalis purpurea_), as a poultice, cures
sores and pimples, ἕρπης. (Its venomous principle appears to be
unknown.)

(ο) The herb Wildthyme or Shepherdspurse (_Thymus campestris_) will
remove all inward foulness by the drinking of its ooze.

(π) The herb Violet (_Viola odorata_), made into an unguent with lard
or honey, cures wounds.

(ρ) The herb Wildgourd (_Cucumis colocynthus_, κολοκύνθος ἀγρía), its
inward neshness pounded in lithe beer without the churnels, will
stir the inward.

Those are Simples, _i.e._, medicaments derived from single herbs, easily come-by, within the reach of all; suited to a simple, but by no means silly, race of men content with simple things, gifted with faith and sense, and unconcerned to dive below the surface and explore, or experiment with, nature’s sacrosanct arcana.

* * * * *

The Renascence of Learning, when the works of ancient writers were rediscovered, devoured, put in practice, filled men’s minds with new ideas, and completely changed their point of view.

_The Most Salubrious Precepts of Medicine_ written by Quintus Serenus Sermonicus in the Third Century; the Thirty Seven Books of _Natural History_ by C. Plinius Secundus (Pliny Senior) which first saw light in A.D. 77; the eighty-three _Treatises_ of Claudius Galenus, (A.D. 130–200); the thirty-four chapters of the _Animal Medicaments_ which Sextus Placitus wrote in the Fourth Century after the Incarnation; the eight books of Alexandros of Tralles in Lydia, _On Medicine_, first given to the world in the Sixth Century;—these were the keys that opened the door of speculation to the alert and eager men of the Fifteenth Century, already intoxicated by the glorious Discovery of Man.

Weird and wonderful effects were produced by this flood of knowledge. Weird and wonderful were the new significances given to natural things, the combinations of natural objects projected, the doctrines evolved from observation of natural phenomena. The study of nature became a sacred thing, reserved for the reverent and wise. Its followers were called magi, or magicians; their pursuit was magic. The magical art was either white or black, for the good or ill of men. Great and holy personages practised white magic: the black was damned by the Church, and the bare suspicion of its practice sufficed to burn. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI distinguished Himself by His severity to the black magi. White magic included the art of healing; divination by cheiromancy, amniomancy, lithomancy, astrology, and also experimented to find out the hidden properties and virtues of all things strange, as well as common. It was a vast field for research; and the men who walked therein were just like boys, eager, sensible, ardent, inexperienced, ready to assume and take for granted.

A most eminent mage was Messer Eurico Cornelio Agrippa. During the pontificate of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI he wrote his learning in a book which he called _The Book of Occult Philosophy_. In the year 1510 he shewed his work to a friend, the celebrated Abbot Trithemius, who was charmed with it, added to it, and advised Messer Eurico to impart it to the elect alone. The advice apparently was taken; for the book was not published till 1531. The mage largely dealt with kabbalistic writing, giving various mysterious alphabets for use in magical recipes. He set forth the sigils planets and planet-signs of certain archangels, patrons of the days of the week, Michael, Gabriel, Samael, Raphael, Sachael, Anael, Cassiel, with their proper perfumes, red wheat, aloes, pepper, mastic, saffron, pepperwort, sulphur. He placed great importance on charms and periapts or amulets.

“St. Thomas Aquinas,” he wrote, “that holy Doctor, in his Book _De
Fato_ saith that even Garments, Buildings, and other artificial Works
whatsoever, do receive a certain Qualification from the Stars: and
Magicians affirm that, not only by the Mixture and Application of
natural Things, but also in Images, Seals, Rings, Glasses, and some
other Instruments, being opportunely framed under a certain
Constellation, some celestial illustration may be taken, and some
wonderful thing may be received.”

This being his idea, it is not surprising to find him prescribing for the reduction of an intermittent fever, the following charm of Quintus Serenus Sermonicus to be written on parchment and worn round the neck:

a b r a c a d a b r a
a b r a c a d a b r
a b r a c a d a b
a b r a c a d a
a b r a c a d
a b r a c a
a b r a c
a b r a
a b r
a b
a

or, as a protection against evil spirits and dangers of journey, water, enemy, or arms, the beginning and end of the first five verses of Genesis:

בוווו––צמרכד

written on virgin parchment, or on most pure gold, back and front, with an ink made of the smoke, of incense, or of consecrated wax tapers, mixed with holy water. This charm also must be worn round the neck, and its efficacy is conditional upon the belief of the wearer in God the Creator of All.

Men of the Borgian Era knew that the tail of an ibex, dried with its flesh and skin and worn about the person, would ward off magic unless the wearer should consent thereto. This they learned from St. Hildegard’s treatise _De Animalibus_. They knew that the herb Heliotrope or Turnsole (_Heliotropion Europaeum_), placed under the pillow of a man who has been robbed, will bring him a vision of the thief and his spoil; and that, when it was set up in a church, unfaithful wives would be unable to go away until it was removed. Their faith in the virtue of gems was very precious; and chiefly derived from the physician Alexandros of Tralles. A cockatrice engraved on green jasper preserved from the Evil Eye. A metal cross tied on the left arm cured epilepsy. A live spider tied in a rag on the same arm cured ague. A metal ring, engraved with the sacred tau =Τ= (the “_Mark on the Forehead_”), also freed from epilepsy. A ring, set with ass-hoof, cured ἀδυναμία. A ring, carved with a council of ravens for Apollo, conferred conjugal joy and the gift of clear-seeing. A brownish-yellow jacinth gave sleep. An agate, carved with St. John the Divine, protected from venom. Oriental jasper or heliotrope (blood-stone), engraved with a youth wearing a necklace of herbs, when anointed with marigold juice, conferred invisibility. A copper ring, figured with a lion, a crescent, and a star, and worn on the fourth finger, cured calculus. Amethyst kept the wearer sober, and a papal bull ordained it for episcopal rings. Coral delivered from incubi and succubi. Herakles strangling the lion of Nemea, carved on a honey-coloured sard, cured colic. Carnelian carved with a Hermes Psuchopompos gave cheerfulness and courage. A man might live as long as he liked if he looked at a presentment of St. Christopher (the Christian Herakles) every day.[72] The toad-stone or bufonite (the fossil palatal tooth of the ray-fish _Pycnodus_) when set in a ring was a most potent periapt against black magic. In the University Galleries at Oxford, No. 691, there is a splendid specimen of a double-toad-stone ring; _i.e._, the stones are set outward on opposite sides of the ring so that the one always touches the closed hand, while the other is free to dismay a magical enemy.

Cheiromancy was expounded by Messer Andrea Corvo da Carpi, whose deeply religious little treatise adorned with diagrams was published at Venice in 1500.

But the chief of the men of science of the Borgian Era was Messer Giambattista della Porta of Naples. Born in 1445, dying in 1515, he was an exact contemporary of Borgia. What he did not know of natural science, no other man of his epoch knew. His house in Naples was a resort of literary and scientific men of every nation. He established public and private academies of science in all directions, the chief of which were Gli Ozioni of Naples and one called Il Secreti which met in his own house, and to which no mage was admitted unless he had made some new and notable discovery of natural phenomena. This was the academy whose name and air of mystery excited intense ecclesiastical suspicion at Rome, which by hinting at black magic procured the order to close the meetings of the mages.

Messer Giambattista della Porta was a copious writer. He gave to the world a treatise On Physiognomy, in which he judges men’s characters by comparing their faces to those of certain beasts; and a diffuse and learned work on cyphers, De Occultis Literium Notis. His great work, however, was The Book of Natural Magic. He says that he began it in 1460, when he barely was of the age of fifteen years;—these were the precocious times when Messer Giovanni de Medici was a Lord Cardinal at thirteen and Prince Gioffredo Borgia of Squillace a married man and captain of condottieri at fourteen;—and thirty-five years later in 1495, by the help of that lusty young Maecenas the Lord Cardinal Prince Ippolito d’Este, he published the matured work from which the following recipes are taken.

Very few English people realize the doctrine of Sympathy and Antipathy; or admit that Attraction and Repulsion are Primary Forces. “I do not love thee, Doctor Fell, the reason why I cannot tell,” says the Englishman, and worries to find that reason instead of recognising the Law. “She is simpatica and he is antipaticissimo,” says an Italian, stating and admitting a natural law. Messer Giambattista della Porta is very clear on the point of Antipathy, which he illustrates by saying that Vine and Colewort are natural enemies, because Colewort cures drunkenness; that Rue and Hemlock are natural enemies, because Hemlock heals blisters raised by Rue: as well as on the point of Sympathy which he illustrates by saying that a wild bull, tethered to a fig-tree, will become tame and gentle; and a dog, laid to a diseased part of a man’s body, will absorb the disease.

He says that beasts have knowledge all their own: that ravens use ivy, eagles use maidenhair, herons use carrots, on their nests as natural preservatives against enchantments: that cats eat grass, and pigeons pellitory, for their ailments: that lions with quartan agues eat apes, that dim-eyed hawks eat sow-thistle, that serpents rejuvenate on fennel, and that partridges eat leeks to clear their voices.

To prove that he has not gone about the world with eyes closed, he remarks that mice are generated of putrefaction, frogs of rotten dust and rain, red toads of dirt and καταμήνια, and serpents of the hair of horses’ manes or of a dead man’s back-marrow.

He advises the creation of new animals by crossbreeding; a hunting dog, of a mastiff and a lioness or tigress; a trick dog, of a bitch and an ape; and birds with delicious flesh for gourmets, of a cock and a peahen, or of a cock pheasant and a plain hen. His method of making a bird sociable and friendly is quaint and unique. He says that, before the creature has got its feathers, you must break off its lower beak even to the jaw. Then, having not the wherewithal to peck up food, it must come to its master to be fed.

He advocates the creation of new fruits which sound most daintily, by grafting a mulberry on a chestnut tree, a peach on a nut, a quince on a pear, a citron on an apple, and a cherry on a bay. He advises the making of bread with dates and walnuts; and of wine with quinces.

He will make precious stones—a jacinth by putting lead into an earthen pot, and setting it in a glass-maker’s furnace until the lead is vitrified: or an emerald by dissolving silver in aqua-fortis, casting in plates of copper to which the composition will adhere, drying the plates in the sun, setting them in an earthen pot for some days in a glass-maker’s furnace.

He says that green and merry dreams may be procured by eating balm, or bugloss, or bows of poplar; and black and melancholy dreams by eating beans, lentils, onions, garlic, leeks.

He will cure toothache with roots of pellitory or of herbane, bruised. For the care of the teeth he recommends a wash made of leaves of mastic, rosemary, sage, and bramble, macerated in Greek wine, (_i.e._, a strong rich wine grown in dry volcanic soil:) or a tooth-powder made of barley bread-crumbs browned with salt. But his recipe for white and pearly teeth is a master-piece.

“Take three handfuls each of flowers and leaves of sage, nettle,
rosemary, mallow, olive, plantain, and rind of walnut roots; two
handfuls each of rock-rose (κίστος), horehound, bramble-tops; a pound
of flower and half a pound of seed of myrtle; two handfuls of rose
buds; two drachms each of sandal-wood, coriander, and citron-pips;
three drachms of cinnamon; ten drachms of cypress nuts; five green
pine-cones; two drachms each of mastic and Armenian bole or clay.
Reduce all these to powder. Infuse them in sharp black wine. Macerate
them for three days. Slightly press out the wine. Put them in an
alembic and distil them on a gentle fire. Boil the distillation till
two ounces of alum is dissolved in it. Keep in a close-stopped vial:
and, for use, fill the mouth with the lotion, and rub the teeth with a
finger wrapped in fine linen.”

An excellent specimen this, of a Compound as distinguished from a Simple; of the sophistication, and of the meticulous personal cleanliness, of people of the Borgian Era.

To cure a man of Envy, says this mage, keep him in the fresh air, hang carbuncles and jacinths and sapphires on his neck, let him wear a ring made of ass-hoof and smell to hyssop and sweet lilies.

Messer Giambattista Porta’s ninth Book teaches how to make women beautiful. There was a fashion which continued the forehead to the middle of the skull; and a depilatory is recommended made of quicklime four ounces, and orpiment two ounces, boiled until a hen’s feather dipped into it is bared. This frightful compound must not long remain on the skin; and the burns should be dressed with the gum of aspen-bark (_Populus Tremula_) and oil of roses or of violets. Or, hair may be removed by fomentation with hot water, plucking out with nippers one by one, and anointing the holes with a saturated solution of saltpetre, or with oil of brimstone or vitriol, the process being repeated once a year. Where hair is only thin and downy, the roots of wild hyacinth rubbed on will keep it back.

To dye the hair yellow, (in imitation of Madonna Lucrezia Borgia, whose beautiful yellow hair was much admired,) add enough honey to soften the lees of white wine and keep the hair wet with this all night. Then bruise roots of celandine and greater-clivers-madder, mix them with oil of cummin seed, box-shavings, and saffron; and keep this on the head for four and twenty hours, when it should be washed off with a lye of cabbage-stalks and ashes of rye-straw.

To make the hair grow it should be washed in the liquid that first distils from honey by the fire: or it should be anointed with an unguent made of marsh-mallow bruised in hog’s grease, boiled long in wine, added to bruised cummin seed, mastic, yolk of egg, boiled again, and strained through linen.

To make hair thick and curly, boil maidenhair with smallage seed in wine and oil; or roots of daffydillies, or dwarf-elder, boiled with wine and oil.

Water, in which the bulbous tops of lilies have been boiled, makes the skin fair: and corrosive sublimate and cerusa (white lead) makes the face white and shining.

For sunburn, white of egg and sugar-candy on the face at night, washed off in barley-water in the morning, is prescribed: and a clear skin is to be had by rubbing with the rind or bruised seeds of melons. It will be obvious that there were “plain” as well as “coloured” women in the Borgian Era; _i.e._, those who went about their duty (of cultivating their charms) in a wholesome way, and those who used violent and nasty methods.

Messer Giambattista della Porta appears to have used his science and magical art to invent “Some Sports against Women”; which will show what the Borgian Era regarded as permissible practical jokes. He says that, if you wish to discover paint on a face, you must chew saffron before breathing on her, and incontinently she yellows: or you may burn brimstone near her, which will blacken mercury sublimate and cerusa (white lead): or you may chew cummin or garlic and breathe on her, and her cerusa or quicksilver will decay. But if that you yearn to dye a woman green, you must decoct a chameleon in her bath.

His tenth book deals with interminable and elaborate processes of distillation and sublimation; proving that what was said on a previous page concerning Letters and Art, (viz., that the habit of the time was to think all of the workmanship, and nothing of the material used,) was perfectly true of Fifteenth Century pharmacy also. These mages sat and boiled their alembics and crucibles; and distilled, and distilled, and sublimed, and sublimed, till the nature of their stuff was lost, or utterly changed, instead of being refined and concentrated as they vainly hoped. They were just like boys, eager, sensible, ardent, inexperienced. They made the inevitable blunders of adventurers. They committed the extravagances of human nature in unwonted circumstances; and the wisdom of the Twentieth Century is the fruit of the fooling of the Fifteenth.

Messer Giambattista della Porta devotes his eleventh book to Perfumes; his twelfth to the making of Greek Fire (from camphor, pitch, spirits and brimstone) of gunpowder, and of rockets shells and mines; his thirteenth to the tempering of steel.

His fourteenth book contains monstrous and characteristic recipes connected with meats and drinks. If you want to make your guests drunken, mix with their wine the filth of a dog’s ear. If you prefer to make them mad-drunk, give them a camel’s froth in water. If you want to avoid being overcome of wine, eat leeks and saffron, wear garlands of roses, violets and ivy-berries, and carry an amethyst on your person. To keep your boy sober, before he has tasted wine give him the boiled eggs of an owl, to temper his natural heat. If you want delicately to drive unwelcome guests from your table, you may disgust them with the viands in five ways: first, a needle which has sewed dead men’s shrouds when stuck under the table will cause all to loathe to eat: secondly, meat secretly peppered with powdered root of wake-robin (_Arum maculatum_) will fetch the skin off their mouths: thirdly, food sprinkled before serving with powdered leaves of cuckoo-pine (—_gen. Arum_) will produce copious salivation: fourthly, knives and napkins rubbed with wildgourd juice (_Cucunis colocynthus_, κολοκύνθις ἀγρία) will give to all they touch a horrible smack : lastly, harp-strings, cut small and strewed on hot meat, will writhe like worms; and so you may rid your table of unwelcome guests.

If you would bone a pigeon, draw, and soak in vinegar for four and twenty hours; then pull out the bones, wash well, fill with herbs and spices and roast or boil it. To make tender a tough capon, boil it before roasting. But, if you desire to give your friends much joy, entertain them to a goose cooked alive. In the courtyard, pluck your goose except her head and neck, and cover her with lard and suet. Build a ring of faggots round her; not too narrow, lest she evade the roasting, nor too wide lest the smoke choke her, or the fire burn her. Inside the ring of faggots, on the ground occupied by your plucked and larded goose, place several pots of water mixed with salt and bearwort. Light the faggots slowly. When the goose begins to roast she will walk about; but she cannot escape; and you have her wings. When she grows weary and very hot, she quenches her thirst with the medicated water, and cools her heart and her inward parts. You continually must moisten her head and her heart with a sponge at the end of a cane. At last, you will see her run incontinently up and down; and presently stumble. Then she is empty, and there is no more moisture in her heart. Wherefore you may take her away, and set her on the table to your guests: she will cry when you pull off her pieces; and you almost may eat her before she has died.

The fifteenth and last book of Natural Magic treats of various modes of conducting secret correspondence by invisible inks, writing on eggs or naked backs of drugged couriers, counterfeit seals and writing, messages by pigeon or by arrows.

Those are the things of which a sober learned and most eminent physician of the Fifteenth Century seriously has written, and called Natural Magic. He shews the innocent ingenuous mind of a child rampant among new toys.

* * * * *

Having shewn something of this mage’s knowledge, it may be said, now, that, scattered about his Book of Natural Magic, carelessly and incidentally, there are allusions to certain venoms. He says:

I. that ἐζάμβλωσις may be procured by exhibiting the wine that Pliny
calls Phthorium (Φθόριος) (Plin. 4, 16, 19, § 110), made from
the grapes of a vine on which hellebore, wildgourd, and scamony
have been grafted:

II. that Mandrakes (Μανδραγόρας), _Mandragora_ (_Atropa Officinalis_)
growing by a vine, will make its grapes hypnotic:

III. that one drachm of belladonna (—_gen. Atropa_) or stramonium
(thorn-apple, _Datura stramonium_) in water, (which they will
infect without taste or smell,) “will make men mad without any
hurt, so that it is a most pleasant spectacle to behold such
mad whimsies and visions. It is very pleasant to behold. Pray
make trial,” he lightly says. But he adds that one ounce of
these drugs will make a man sleep four days.

IV. that one drachm of Nightshade rind (_Solanum nigrum_) in wine
will give sleep; a little more, madness; a large dose, death:

V. that Hemlock (_Conium maculatum_) in wine will cause death:

VI. that the drachm dose of belladonna, bruised in wine, is good for
driving away unwelcome guests.

It will be noticed that three of these six prescriptions contemplate death.

Messer Giambattista della Porta emphatically states that no single venom will kill all living creatures; “for what is venomous to one may serve for the preservation of another, which comes not by reason of the quality but of the distinct nature.” He gives a lengthy list of substances with the animals to which they are fatal, _e.g._, wolfebane kills wolves; henbane, hens; daffydillies, mice; black hellebore, oxen; white hellebore, pigeons; ivy, bats; comfrey, eagles; pondweed, urchins; mustard-seed, larks; vine-juice, cranes; willow, tom-tits; pomegranate-churnels, falcons, vultures, sea-gulls, blackbirds; and nux vomica, dogs. In regard to the last, it should be understood that the Fifteenth Century called foxglove (_Digitalis purpurea_) nux vomica ; and had not succeeded in extracting the vegetable alkaloid Strychnine, in its modern isolated form, from the Javanese Στρύχνος _nux vomica_, of which it is the active principle.

To complete the exposition of this typical Fifteenth Century man of science, his chief Antidote to Venom is appended here.

“Take three pounds of old oil and two handfuls of St. John’s Wort,
(Balm of the Warrior’s Wound, _hypericum_.) Macerate for two months in
the sun. Strain off the old flowers, and add two ounces of fresh. Boil
in Balneo Mariae (a bain-marie) for six hours. Put in a close-stopped
bottle and keep in the sun for fifteen days. During July, add three
ounces of St. John’s Wort seed which gently has been stamped and
steeped in two glasses of white wine for three days. Add also two
drachms each of gentian, tormentil, dittany, zedoary, and carline,
(all of which must have been gathered in August,) sandal-wood and
long-aristolochie. Gently boil for six hours in Balneo Mariae. Strain
in a press. Add to the expression one ounce each of saffron, myrrh,
aloes, spikenard, and rhubarb, all bruised. Boil for a day in Balneo
Mariae. Add two ounces each of treacle and mithridate. Boil for six
hours in Balneo Mariae. And set it in the sun for forty days.

“In plague, or suspicion of venom, anoint the stomach, wrists, and
heart; and drink three drops in wine. It will work wonders,” says
Messer Giambattista della Porta.

* * * * *

The pharmacy of the Renascence, to quote the confession of the charlatan Cagliostro, consisted _in herbs and words_, “in verbis et in herbis.”

The practice of medicine during the Borgian Era appears to have been entirely empirical. Physicians experimented on the vile body of their patient, trusting to luck, or chance, or faith, to work a cure. In contracts it was expressly stated that physicians must have the reputation of being _fortunate_ (felix). Chirugeons were totally unaware of the circulation of the blood. So much stress here is laid upon the art and craft and mystery of medicine and its exponents, because from these, and from these alone, the knowledge and use of venoms could be obtained; and, if the blind can lead the blind without both falling into the same ditch, then there might be some foundation in fact for the legend of the Borgia Venom. But while physicians and chirugeons and apothecaries solemnly bought three little boys for a ducat each, drew off their blood and sublimed it into a potion to save the life of a senile pontiff; or did such monkey-tricks as Messer Juan de Vigo did to the Lord Julius P.P. II a few years later, all with quite convincing evidence of gravity and good faith, one must conclude that these mages acted according to the very best of their knowledge and belief; but that, in quantity as well as quality, their belief was vastly superior to their knowledge. Nardaeus says[73]

“The famous chirugeon Juan de Vigo, perceiving that an ulcer of the
Lord Julius P.P. II became every day more stubborn, and that the Pope
persisted in refusing all manner of remedies, hit upon a new method of
cure: for he boiled together, in a brass kettle, for three hours, old
rags cut in pieces, crumbs of fine bread, plantain, and a fomentation
of arsenic sublimed in rosewater; after which, drying them, and
applying them by way of powder to the wound (to which he had sworn
that he would apply no more plaisters,) he cured the Pope in a very
short time, to the admiration of all concerned.”

Infantile as was the condition of medical science in regard to life, it was not one jot more robust in its observations of death. The cases of the suspicious demises of two cardinals, not during the reign of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, but a few years later, will illustrate this.

In 1508, during the reign of the eternal enemy of Borgia the Lord Julius P.P. II, a nephew of His Holiness died, the Lord Galeotto Franciotto della Rovere, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of San Pietro _ad Vincula_. And, says Mgr. Paris de Grassis (Burchard’s inimical successor as Caerimonarius,[74] “I saw on his face and on his body such spots as seemed to be the effect of a dose of venom; and all the others formed the same opinion.”

After autopsy, the chirugeons found no venom, but “certain bloody spots: wherefore they judged him to have died of a superfluity of blood; and, if he had been phlebotomized, he would have had no harm.”

The second case is that of the Lord Christopher Bainbridge, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Prassede, and Orator of King Henry VII Tudor at the Court of the Lord Leo P.P. X. He died in Rome, in 1514; and, says Mgr. Paris de Grassis the Caerimonarius, “when his death was ascribed to venom” (—_this surely ought to prove that the suspicion was habitual, and no more appropriate to the Borgia than to any other family of this period_,—) “by command of the Pope he was eviscerated, and it was found that his heart was diseased on the right side.”

Now this Cardinal Bainbridge, whose death obviously was due to organic disease, has come down to posterity as a victim of venom; while Cardinal Dellarovere, whose _salma_ presented far more suspicious, in fact distinctly suspicious, symptoms, is reputed to have died a natural death!

Of all the wonderful and subtile recipes for venoms which are believed to have been possessed by European potentates about this time, only one now is accessible: but it is dated 1540, exactly thirty-seven years after the Lord Alexander P.P. VI died of his double-tertian fever. It is a Venetian recipe, and comes from the Secret Archives of the Council of Ten.[75] Arsenic, antimony, orpiment, and aconite, are to be subjected to a long long process of preparation, similar to those wondrous stews in which Messer Giambattista della Porta, in company with every other respectable mage, had his continual joy; and, when all is done, the ignorant inventor of this horrible venom says that he cannot guarantee its success. Why? The dose of any single one of those four venomous ingredients alone would have been fatal. Why should their combination bring uncertainty? For the simple reason that the boiling and the sun-baking, the sublimation and the distillation, which so prolongedly was practised, set up chemical change, reaction, decomposition, destroyed the virtue or the nature, and effectually altered or annulled the venomous properties originally possessed by the subject of so much empiricism. As simples, they certainly would have been veneficous. As compounds, they might have caused grave inconvenience. But, heterogeneously compounded with alien matter, boiled to disintegration for weeks and months together, their effect surely could not be predicted. They might have been dangerous; or they might not: there is no knowing.

* * * * *

There is no defined charge against the House of Borgia of having compassed their enemies’ deaths by means of venomous rings. The vulgar conception of a venomous ring is not unconnected with a needle-point, (or point,) projecting from the bezel, along which a minute drop of deadly venom can be made to flow; and which pierces the hand that grasps it, inducing syncope and death. Or, another kind conceals a small box in the bezel, containing a tiny capsule of glass wherein venom innocuously lurks, until the glass is broken on the lips.

At the Victoria and Albert Museum of South Kensington, and at the University Galleries of Oxford, there are very splendid collections of rings. Neither collection contains a ring having the legendary needle-point, (or point:) but each collection has a ring which may have been a proximate occasion of the vulgar belief.

Nº 916 at South Kensington is a massive ring of brass, 1⁷⁄₁₆ inches in diameter; and has an octagonal bezel externally armed with a quincunx of spikes. It belongs to the Eighteenth Century, and is of the kind worn by Bavarian peasant-lads on the right middle finger at the present day.

Nº 385 at Oxford is an Italian ring of the Fourteenth Century, of gold _niello_, very beautiful. The bezel projects, and ends in the revolving rowel of a Fiery spur.

Both of these rings are weapons, intended hideously to scratch and tear an adversary’s face. There is no hollow in them that might harbour venom; and they are in no sense venomous rings according to the popular specification: but they are rings,—means of violence of another species—; and, (men being what they are,) these rings may have formed the germ of the tradition.

However, at Oxford and South Kensington, there were rings labelled _Poison Rings_, at the close of the Nineteenth Century.

Nº 479 in the Fortnum Collection at Oxford, is an Italian ring of the Sixteenth Century, of gold, and having a tiny χερούβ carved in cameo projecting from the high gold bezel. This bezel is hollow, pierced by two pinholes. Its capacity is under an eighth of a cubic inch. The hollow bezel may have been used to contain perfume, introduced through the pinholes: but it is more reasonable to conjecture that the hollow is due to a desire to economise the precious metal.

Nº 533 in the same collection, is a German ring of the Seventeenth Century, of gold, and having a large rough pearl set _in_, not on, its bezel. Minute examination with microscope and probe proves that there is absolutely no room in this ring for any venom whatever; and that neither this, nor the foregoing, deserves the designation “_Poison Ring_,” which, however, discreetly is queried on the actual official labels. Apparently, the said labels purely are a concession to the unreasoning vulgar, who expect as a right to find at least a specimen of venomous rings in every respectable museum.

At South Kensington there is a massive ring of iron, plated and damascened with gold. It is Italian, of the Seventeenth Century, ¹¹⁄₁₂ of an inch in diameter. Its octagonal bezel is a tiny box having a hinged lid. This might have held a relic. There is no ground for supposing that it ever concealed venom.

Of these three so-called Poison Rings, the South Kensington specimen, and Nº 533 at Oxford, belong to a period at least a hundred years after the demise of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI and Duke Cesare (detto Borgia). Only Nº 479 in the Fortnum Collection, by any exercise of imagination, can be planted in the Borgian Era. It is labelled “_Sixteenth Century_”; and the Lord Alexander P.P. VI reigned in Rome, as God’s Vicegerent, during the first two years, seven months, seventeen days, of that century. There is no earthly cause to connect His Holiness with that ring: but, for the purpose of the argument, let it be granted that Nº 479 with its cameo χερούβ belonged to the Borgia Pontiff, that the hollow bezel was used as a receptacle for venom, and not for perfume. What then?

If the venom were a powder, the Pope’s Holiness would have to poke it in with a pin, and close the two tiny holes with wax. Then, when the time came for envenoming the usual cardinal, He assiduously would pick out the wax, and, by violent jerks and shaking, induce the venom to present itself for application. If the venom were a liquid, (M. Dumas’ bear-juice for example,) the same process of waxing up and pin-picking would be necessary.

But there was no venom known to the Borgia, or to any other man or woman of that era, which would kill, with as small a dose as would go in that ring. The venoms of the Fifteenth Century were administered (when they were administered) by the drachm, or by the ounce—not by the grain. The recipes have been displayed here. To harbour a fatal dose of the known venoms, such as Messer Giambattista della Porta describes, a monstrous and vast ring would be needed, more gigantic than those bronze-gilt _anuli_ used as credentials by the pontifical couriers of the Lord Pius P.P. II (1458–1464), N^{os} 665 and 666 in the South Kensington Collection, two and three-eighths, and two inches, respectively, in diameter. The processes of brewing and stewing, so dear to the mages, without any doubt were a direct disposition of Providence for the security of human life; for they effectually withdrew the sting from venomous substances, and made it perfectly impossible for would-be murderers (and they were more than many) to kill, except accidentally, or with enormous doses and the disadvantages coincident thereto.

No doubt the Twentieth Century still has a little to learn. No doubt that wisdom would wait upon research among the mountains of documents stored in the archives of the Italian patriciate and baronage, Colonna, (not Orsini, whose papers were destroyed by fire in 1702), Savelli, Poplicola di Santacroce, Sforza-Cesarini, Carafa, Caïetani, Piccolhuomini, Borgia of Milan and Velletri, etc. No doubt in the Vatican Secret Archives (the Lord Alexander P.P. VI left one hundred and thirteen volumes in large folio of His acts,) infinite fields of information are white for harvest. There is nothing to prevent the reaping, but the lack of reapers. No doors are shut. No secrets are reserved. “The Popes have need of nothing except the truth.”

Meanwhile, this only can be said.

The empirical methods of the Borgian Era preclude the possibility of anything approaching artistic venenation.

Not one of the definite accusations against the Borgia have been proved. On the contrary they are shewn to lack valid foundation.

There is no authentic evidence regarding the Venom that the Borgia are said to have employed.

In fact, there was no Venom of the Borgia.

Pontifex Maximus Alexander VI et Princeps

In reviewing the Pontificate of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI notice must be taken of the fashion which represents Him as having been in continual fear of deposition on account of the simony by which He is alleged to have bought the papal power. It already has been shewn that no law existed, which made simony an annulment of election to ecclesiastical benefices, until the reign of the Lord Julius P.P. II. It remains to be considered whether the distribution of offices, with which the Lord Alexander P.P. VI signalized his election, in any case would give colour to the charge of simony.

The Conclave for the election of a Pope begins with the Mass of the Holy Spirit chaunted in the Chapel of St. Gregory. Afterwards, the cardinals go in procession, singing _Veni Creator Spiritus_, to take possession of the cells which they will have to occupy. These cells are erected in a hall of the Vatican, communicating with the Xystine Chapel. They are mere frameworks of wood hung with fringed curtains of baize, green in the cases of cardinals who are creatures of previous pontiffs; violet in the cases of cardinals who are creatures of the pontiffs just deceased. On the front of each cell is a curtained doorway over which the armorials of the occupant are shewn, surmounted by a little swinging window. Each cardinal has a bed, a table, and a chair. His attendants support life in discomfort as best they may. Three hours after avemmaria, all doors and windows communicating with the outer world are walled up. Guards on the outside watch every avenue of access, under command of the Hereditary Marshal of the Church, now Prince Chigi, then Prince Savelli. To every cardinal are allowed two conclavists for his attendants, a chaplain and an esquire. A cardinal-prince, or one aged and infirm, may add a third. In addition to the cardinals and the conclavists, there are enclosed a sacristan with his subsacristans, a secretary with his undersecretaries, five masters of ceremonies, a confessor, two physicians, a chirugeon, two barbers, an apothecary, with their respective boys, a mason, a carpenter, and servants for menial work. Great care is taken that none of these lay-persons should be agents of the orators of the secular powers; and they are made to swear a stringent oath of secrecy. As a matter of fact, they are not allowed to know anything of the proceedings in the Xystine Chapel. Meals are served at stated hours, through a revolving cupboard (ruota) in the outer wall, supervised by cardinals-inspectors. Flagons are of bare glass, lumps of bread or meat are cut open, that no messages from the outer world may pass in by these means. Nor may any single thing pass out. Urgent private letters written in the Conclave are subject to cardinals-censors. Cardinals, who have need, may speak to visitors, but in presence of witnesses; and all communication must be open, and in a language that all can understand. These interviews take place at a window, the cardinal being on the inside, his visitor on the outside: but the conclavists and others are forbidden to approach the window on any pretext whatever.

In the Xystine Chapel, at the moment of the election, the cardinals alone are ocular and auricular witnesses of what takes place. Certainly all proceedings are recorded in the Acts of the Conclave. But the original acts of the Conclave that elected the Lord Alexander P.P. VI are not forthcoming: they very likely were lost in the Sack of Rome in 1527, when the Catholic Catalans and Lutheran Goths of the Elect-Emperor Don Carlos V gambled in the gutters for nuns and for the wives and daughters of Roman citizens. This then is the situation. All accounts of the Conclave of 1492, including the dispatches of Orators to their respective governments, are based on hearsay, or popular rumour. Historians have no other material; for there is none.

The cry of simony always is raised at every election of a Pope. It is only an exemplification of the law that Attraction and Repulsion are Primary Forces. That the Lord Alexander P.P. VI on His election did strip Himself of His new palace, and of His multitudinous benefices, cannot be denied. Why need it be denied? It always is done; for a cardinal who is elected Pope has no more need of these things: he leaves them with his scarlet and ermine cappamagna when He is endued with the plain white frock of Christ’s Vicar. The giving away of His cast-off goods and offices cannot be twisted into an act of simony, unless there is a distinct stipulation that they are given and taken as the price of a vote. And no such distinct stipulation is extant. It is difficult to see why cardinals should be considered likely to be guilty of such degeneration. As a class of men they stand high: they generally are possessed of illustrious birth; they generally are possessed of such enormous wealth as to place them beyond the range of pecuniary temptation; and invariably they are men of merit, the fine flower of their profession. As far as mundane honours go, they have tasted all the glory that the world can offer, except one glory. No layman may kneel on the same bench with a cardinal, unless he be a reigning sovereign. No layman may make a fourth in a carriage containing three cardinals, not even a reigning sovereign. Their rank places them far above peers or princes. They are not eligible for the Athenæum Club, but nothing that the world can offer will improve their position except the Papacy; yet they are suspected, as a class, of intrigues and cabals of the basest kind, mere financial operations; and rarely, very rarely, is there any ground for the suspicion, the prize for which they are said to struggle generally being beneath their notice, the petty advantage which they are thought to desire being unworthy even of their contempt; for cardinals are tired men, tired of splendour, tired of the earthly things; and they are not invariably vile.

When, therefore, the absurd people who wish to prove simoniacal the election of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, or the stupid craven Catholics who fatuously think to conciliate by joining rabidly in the hue and cry against a Pope, can show a definite declaration from one or more of the cardinals-assistant of the Conclave of 1492, couched in some such terms as these, “_I acknowledge and confess that, seduced by the dignities and the money that he offered me_, (or, _intimidated by the menaces of Cardinal Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja_,) _I allowed myself to be corrupted; and, against my will and better knowledge, I sold my vote to this unworthy cardinal_: or, _I declare that I have resisted all his promises, threats, and flatteries, and firmly have refused to sell my vote to Cardinal Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja_ : then, and only then, can this silly or malicious calumny be said to have any foundation in fact.[76]

One thing is perfectly certain. The Lord Alexander P.P. VI, Who really was the last man in the world _à S’ encanailler_, never behaved as though He had gained the Triregno by illegitimate means. Not when all Europe yelped around His footstool did He blench or quail or shew a sign of fear. The heathen raged; and the people imagined a vain thing. The kings of the earth set themselves; and the rulers took counsel together. The Monarchs of Naples nagged; the Catholic King and Queen denounced; the Christian Kings minced, grimaced, and gibbered; Caesar Semper Augustus protested; Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere raved and nursed sedition; the barons of Rome revolted; the dukes and tyrants and republics of Italy took up arms; the dominions of the Pope’s Holiness were invaded; the Eternal City suffered violence; the sacrosanctity of the pontifical person was in imminent danger: but the invincible Lord Alexander P.P. VI magnificently retired into the Mola of Hadrian, the only spot in all Christendom where His rule remained; and held His Own, inflexibly, implacably, with an enormous dignity impossible in one who was a mere usurper, a venal simoniac. So much is sure. The demeanour of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI in direst straits, was the demeanour of a man who had no doubt regarding his own integrity.

* * * * *

The so-called scandals of His private life are shewn to have been based upon the malice or the idle gossip of His enemies. He sat in “the fierce light that beats upon a throne.” He was the father of a family. He was not the first or the last Pope Who has been the father of a family. His immediate predecessor, the Lord Innocent P.P. VIII, admitted the paternity of seven children. A successor, the Lord Paul P.P. III, also used Himself in a similar manner: nor are these all. If this be vicious, it was only vicious in the Lord Alexander P.P. VI because He was the Lord Alexander P.P. VI; for in other men the same thing was, and is, tolerated, accepted, applauded. A patrician or a plebeian may steal a horse: but a Pope may not look over the wall. _Ille crucem sceleris pretium tulit, hic diadema._[77] However, as a father, He exhibited an illustrious example of paternal virtue. He was kind, loving, affectionate to his children; solicitous and self sacrificing for their welfare and advancement. That He employed His spiritual power, to build up the temporalities of His family, was a temptation, to avoid which He would need to have been more than human. It was the custom of the time. It was an imperious necessity of the situation.

* * * * *

The murders and venenations of which He has been accused, in company with Duke Cesare, fail of proof; and indeed His guiltlessness as instigator, principal, or accomplice, appears in every case to be beyond question.

The murder of Don Juan Francisco de Lançol y Borja, Duke of Gandia, remains a mystery: but what evidence there is distinctly points to a vendetta of Orsini directed against the Pope through His Captain-General.

The murder of the Prince of Bisceglia is referable rather to a vendetta of Sanseverini and Caïetani, than to the Pope or Duke Cesare (detto Borgia).

The deaths of Don Astorgio and Don Gianevangelista Manfredi are susceptible of the Venetian Orator’s explanation, _puto mal san_; there positively is nothing to connect the Pope or the Duke with them.

The death of the Sultán Djim was due to natural causes, while he was in the hands of the Christian King; and the Pope’s Holiness was a pecuniary loser (to the extent of about £80,000 a year) by his death.

The death of Cardinal Orsini was due to natural causes, according to the sworn testimony of physicians provided by the House of Orsini.

Fra Girolamo Savonarola Ο.P. was executed on a capital charge by due process of law; and the Pope was an unwilling agent for the administration of that law.

(The crime of Fra Girolamo really was that of intriguing with a foreign power with which his country was at war. General Booth committing treachery with Mr. Kruger, or Mr. Ira D. Sankey with the Son of Heaven Kwang Su, would be Twentieth Century parallels of Savonarola and Charles VIII.)

Cardinal Giovanni Borgia (detto Giuniore) died a natural death.

Messer Ramiro d’ Orco, Don Vitellozzo Vitelli, and Don Oliverotto da Fermo had a legal trial by court-martial, and paid the legal penalty of crime.

Don Paolo and Duke Francesco Orsini of Gravina suffered merited death, due to the exigencies of civil war in which they and their House were the aggressors.

There remain two other violent deaths to be accounted for, which were not of sufficient importance to treat of in the history of this pontificate, the case of Calderon Perotto, and that of Messer Francesco Trocces.

It is said by Don Paolo Capello, the Orator of Venice, in his Diarium, (or rather in that edition of the said Diarium which was prepared forty years later by Don Marino Sanuto,) that Calderon Perotto was a Spanish lad of eighteen years, one of the Pontifical pages; and that he was stabbed by Duke Cesare (detto Borgia) at the Pope’s feet. The fact is related without comment or explanation. It would not be safe to attach much importance to the statement, because Don Paolo Capello’s original document is not forthcoming and Don Marino Sanuto’s version of what he wrote is the only version accessible. But the alleged murder of the page Perotto is not, like other calumnies, a posthumous invention; for it is mentioned in the atrocious _Letter to Silvio Savelli_ described on an earlier page. The Pope is not, and was not blamed. The murder, if it were a murder at all, is attributed to Duke Cesare (detto Borgia); and it was not an unusual thing for a lord to slay a servant in the Borgian Era. That was common enough; but to do it in the presence of the Holiness of the Pope certainly was sacrilege; and this last circumstance makes it probable that the whole story is a pure invention; for the guilt of sacrilege lightly was not incurred even by the most bloody and abandoned villains: and Duke Cesare was not of that species.