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Welcome to Stuff you missed in history

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class from how Stuff Works dot com.

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Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm

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Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Dowdy, and

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we finished our Medici series a while back

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that we're still getting mail about it, about

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this illustrious, scheming clan

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of bankers and statesmen. You all really

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really love the Medici and Helen

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and Mississippi sent us a note saying you

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might be interested to hear that new Italian

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research published in the American Journal of Medicine

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shows there were at least two fewer violent

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deaths in the Medici family than previously

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thought. Wait tell me more

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so. It's pretty awesome already, but it gets

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better because the more we looked into

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those two particular deaths, that of Grand

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Duke Francesco, the first de Medici,

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and his wife, the Grand Duchess, the weirder

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it all got. And despite dying

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more than four hundred years ago, the

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couple was the subject of another recent

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scientific paper, this one published

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in the British Medical Journal, which also explored

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their cause of death, but came up

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with a different answer. So

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we'll talk more about those medical studies

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later, but first, because suspicious

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deaths are so often preceded by controversial

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lives. Our story will start in Venice

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with a beautiful young girl named

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Bianca. Bianca Capello

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was born in fifty eight to

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a noble Venetian family. She

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makes the first bold move of her life

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when she elopes with Florentine Pietro

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Buonaventuri, and they have a daughter

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together, Virginia. But she's not

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in Florence for long before she becomes

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the mistress of Francesco the First,

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and he is the son and heir of Cosimo

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the First, which makes him heir

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to the Grand Dukedom of Tuscany.

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But since Francesco doesn't want to do anything

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to mess with his chances of becoming

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Grand Duke, he and Bianca keep

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things on the downlow and he'll

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at least her husband mysteriously

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dies in fiftie mysterious

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death number one. Keep Jack of these guys.

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So really, people do not want Francesco

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to be with Bianca though everyone is

2:13

against it, his family, his people,

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the Habsburg Emperor, and you might be wondering,

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well, what does he have to do with it? He actually

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should have some major sway since he's

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Francesco is a good grand duke and should

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be a good servant to the Emperor. It

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reminds me of Lola Montez, how

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everyone was so and did not like the

2:31

mistress, but Francesco doesn't

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seem to care about anyone else's

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opinions. He does marry

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Joanna of Austria and becomes

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grand Duke in fifteen seventy four,

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but he sticks with Bianca. And

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just to give you a little background on Francesco,

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He's got this really, really

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weird family, but he's a pretty smart

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guy. He's not terribly interested in

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politics, unlike most medici

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we know, and he'd much prefer

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to be working on out me or patronizing

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the arts. But in case you

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think that they're very unpopular, relationship

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is the only sketchy thing going on in this family,

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and it's not at all. It's pretty

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tame, actually, because in fifteen seventy

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six, Francesco's brother Pietro

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murders his wife the same

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year that Francesco's sister is

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murdered by her husband. So, like we said,

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this family is crazy,

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and who knows, maybe after a

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few violent murders in his immediate

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family, Francesco is facing

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his own mortality. He

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needs a male heir, and so far his

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wife Joanna has only had girls.

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And we have a little note we'd

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like to make here about this being a

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choose your own ending podcast. Yeah,

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there's so many different sources that say

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so many different things about these people. It's

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really strange. It's kind of like exactly,

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and I'll try to make it clear when there's

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a lot of controversy, but this is actually

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one place. The number of chill and that

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Francesco and Joanna have together, as

4:02

well as those children's sexes. For example,

4:05

the excellent Medici archive, which I

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would advise any of you big Medici fans

4:09

to check out for cool letters

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and such written by the family. The Medici

4:14

archive has them having six girls,

4:16

followed by one boy. Well, the American

4:19

Medical Journal article that we mentioned his seven

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sons, which seems kind of unlikely

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since it would make the rest of the story rather

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pointless. One offspring

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we should definitely all make note of, though, is

4:31

Murrie de Medici, who is Joanna

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and Francesco's daughter, and she closed

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out our earlier super series. She's kind

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of why these people are still famous because she's

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pretty famous. But back to our

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story, It's fifteen seventy

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six and Francesco needs a son,

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so he makes an offer. His mistress

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can't refuse. Give him a son,

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and when his sickly wife finally

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dies, he'll marry her and make

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her Grand Duchess. And according to

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Eleanor Herman very

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wonderful book Sex with Kings,

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the story proceeds in a

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rather romantic comedy like fashion

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from there. So Bianca

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knows that she won't get pregnant, or at least

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she doesn't want to risk waiting, so

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she gets an accomplice to pick out

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three impoverished, single pregnant

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women. She houses and feeds

5:22

them through their pregnancies, telling Francesco

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she's pregnant, she's patting her clothes and

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for all you arrested Development fans

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out there, we're thinking Maggie Lizar. Two

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of the women end up having girls. We have to imagine

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Bianco would be really getting

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a little nervous here, but the third fortunately

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has a boy, which is quickly whisked

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off to the palace where Bianca goes

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into labor. Yeah,

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so they sneak the baby into the bed

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with the Dramatically in labor, Bianca

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she was apparently very good at faking

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it, and suddenly, look, Francesco,

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you have a male heir. Hooray,

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And the proud parents name their baby

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in tone eo and no one's really

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the wiser. But in a turn

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that had to have shaken Bianca, who

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has gone to all this trouble and probably considerable

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expense housing these women. Not

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long after Antonio is born, Joanna

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finally has a son, Felippo. But

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Joanna dies pretty soon after that,

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and Francesco at last marries

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his mistress only two months after his

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wife dies. Not a classy move. No in

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the secret ceremony, he makes it public.

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A year later, he crowns her at the

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Palazzo Vecchio. And the people didn't

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like this couple when it was just a grand duke and

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his mistress. They really really don't

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like that Bianca is now grand Duchess

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and this may be the best part

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her position secure. Bianca

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eventually fesses up to Francesco

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about this baby swap, calling it

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a fun joke she's played on him.

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She's like him, happy, not trying to deceive

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him or anything. But isn't it hilarious

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ha ha? How we got this baby? But

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surprisingly there isn't that big of a deal made

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of it. He already has a son, But

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then his son with Joanna dies and

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Francesco legitimizes his

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son with Bianca on October

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nineteenth fifty three and

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starts paving the way for him to become

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his heir. And again, the seriously sounds

7:17

like a romantic quick romantic comedy,

7:19

So it's not going to

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be a romantic comedy for the rest of the story. Sorry,

7:23

folks, it's time to get back to the controver drama

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is a trauma. Ultimately, obviously

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Francesco's real heir, who is his brother.

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Cardinal Ferdinando is

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not so thrilled about this development,

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and he's not a fan of Bianca. Pretty

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much no one is, and he doesn't

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want this mistress's son taking

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his place. So when Ferdinando visits

7:45

the couple at the Medici villa at

7:47

Poggio, the

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couple falls ill only a few weeks

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later, and people are kind of

7:54

suspicious after all the Medici

7:57

and then the medicine, and they don't really like each other.

7:59

Eleven days later, Francesco and

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Bianca are both dead and Ferdinando

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is the new grand Duke, not his

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young nephew Antonio. But

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we have to go back to that amazing

8:12

baby swap story. There's

8:15

another theory about that. Most

8:17

sources agree that Antonio was probably

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swapped as an infant and bore no relation

8:22

to either parents, so it's

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not terribly surprising that he wasn't able

8:26

to succeed his father's throne as a boy.

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He's a commoner's bastard. But

8:31

biographer Philipo Luti challenges

8:34

that story. He suggests that

8:36

it was Ferdinando who concocted the tail

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as a way to secure his own hold on

8:41

the throne. So he lied

8:43

to little Antonio and said that

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he was swapped as a baby, and he wasn't the real

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heir, but perhaps he was, so

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Lutie's theory goes like this, Worried

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that he had been supplanted, his air

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Cardinal Fernando poisons Bianca.

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Immediately after Frencho goes death, and

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he takes the grand ducal throne and

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persuades his boy nephew that

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he's not really a medicie at all,

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and to play NICs. He gives the child major

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properties, convinces them to join

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the Knights of Malta, which, interestingly

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enough, is a group where members are unable

9:17

to form legal marriages, so you would you

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wouldn't have to worry about him having some descendants

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of his own. So this

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sounds pretty plausible, I think.

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But on the other hand, so does the story of the

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mistress who would try to pass off a baby

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as her own to secure her position

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and become Grand Duchess. And

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just to give you a little more on Antonio's

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life, after fighting the Turks and

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Hungary, he goes on to play medici

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patron in Florence, supporting

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Galileo and eventually alienating himself

9:47

from the court. So that's the end

9:49

of the story for our basket baby. But

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we need to go back to Ferdinando,

9:53

Francesco, and Bianca

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and the medical controversy that surrounds

9:58

their death. So Francesco and Bianca

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die within hours of each other in October

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seven. They have this agonizing

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illness that stretches on for days. They

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undergo immediate autopsies, and

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the official cause of death listed

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at the time it is malaria.

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So it's not long before

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whisperings of poison start at court,

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especially considering how much everyone

10:22

knows Ferdinando dislikes Bianca

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and wants the throne for himself. So this

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is an old theory, the poison theory,

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and it's and then investigated in a lot of

10:32

different ways over the years. In two

10:34

thousand six, scientists at the

10:36

University of Florence and the University

10:38

of Pavia published a paper

10:40

for the British Medical Journal. It

10:43

said that malaria was not in fact

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the cause of death and brought back this

10:47

idea that the couple died of

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acute arsenic poisoning. Their

10:52

paper starts with some observational

10:54

evidence. Cardinal Ferdinando acted

10:56

strangely while the couple was ill. He

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dominated their medical care. He played down

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his brother's illness, spinning it as the result

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of poor eating habits and Bianca's

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as grief. He tried to isolate

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the couple and ordered immediate autopsies,

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which was normal for someone in Francesco's

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position, but not for Bianca.

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And they then move on to the historical

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records of the illness and the autopsies

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and the symptoms recorded by doctors

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sound a lot like arsenic poisoning.

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They don't sound like malarial fever. According

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to the British Medical Journal. The autopsies

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also look a lot like arsenic poisoning, and

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they make note of Francesco's exhamation,

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which happened centuries after his death.

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Is noted at the time how well preserved

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his body was. Arsenic can desiccate

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the body before and after death, setting

11:45

it up for almost a state

11:47

of momification. And another

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thing of note, the most popular

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poison in the medici era is

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white arsenic. I love that this is even mentioned

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in a medical journal paper. It's kind of great.

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But finally, after studying bone,

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hair, and tissue samples from Francesco

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and tissue samples believed to be from Bianca,

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Bianca didn't get a very well marked

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grave, the Steady found

12:09

evidence of acute arsenic poisoning

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in the samples and concentrations

12:15

in the soft tissue were really high,

12:17

while concentration in the bone and hair were

12:19

low. And that's probably because

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if they did dive arsenic poisoning, it happened

12:25

really quickly, not enough time for

12:27

the arsenic to set into their bones

12:29

and grow out through their hair. But

12:32

in June, another scholarly

12:35

paper came out, the one published in the American

12:37

Journal of Medicine that we mentioned earlier, that

12:39

was sent to us by Helen and

12:42

For this study, the scientists wanted to

12:44

see if the rumors of poison and the

12:46

earlier b MJ study were off and

12:48

find out if the real cause of death was the

12:50

one made by court physicians malaria,

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which was a disease prevalent in central

12:55

Italy until World War Two. They

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obtained a cancelous bone from

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one of Francesco's vertebra because

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they didn't get any from Bianca.

13:04

As negative controls, they use samples

13:06

from Francesco's family members, Calls the

13:08

First, who died of pneumonia, and Joan

13:10

of Austria who died in childbirth.

13:13

Their other negative controls were from medieval

13:15

bones outside of malarial regions

13:17

um parts of Germany and France. And

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they found the presence of malaria

13:22

in Francesco's samples and

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none in the others. And they're pretty confident

13:27

about their conclusion. They say

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quote that with the use of modern

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methods, we provide robust evidence

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that Francesco the First had false

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a param malaria at the time of his

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death. Are immunologic results

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confirm the archival sources that

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describe the onset, course and fatal

13:45

outcome of the disease. Our findings

13:47

also absolved Fernando the First

13:50

from the shameful allegation of being

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the murderer of his brother and sister in

13:54

law. So, like

13:56

we said, this is a choose your own ending podcast.

13:59

I think it's so fascinating that

14:02

too respected medical

14:04

journals have put out food. I

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know, I wonder if it is a feud Americans

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versus the Brits. Just that so many people are

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actually doing studies on these

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people who died hundreds of years ago.

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It's fascinating. So choose your

14:17

own ending, indeed, and let us know what you

14:19

think. And that brings us to some

14:21

really fantastic listener mail. So

14:26

this edition of Listener Meal involves presents,

14:29

making it a super exciting edition

14:32

of Listener Meal indeed. And this

14:34

is CC in Australia and she sent us

14:36

these amazing cand knit

14:39

animals. They're so cool. Katie

14:41

got a narwhale and I

14:43

got an awful lot, and she wrote I

14:45

instructed them both to be on their best behavior

14:48

and not fight on the journey from Australia

14:50

to you. They I think they did all right.

14:53

You would not want to fight with my narwhale. That

14:55

tusk is pretty intense. My awful lot

14:57

has closed eyes, and I was

14:59

thinking c C probably

15:01

left these clothes though, that he wouldn't

15:04

get injured on the way. And we named

15:06

them after things that have come up in our recent

15:08

podcast. My narwhale is

15:10

named Zara from our episode on

15:12

the Crusades, and my awful is

15:15

named Antonio after today's

15:17

basket baby Medici because he

15:19

showed up on my desk the same day this podcast

15:22

was initiated, So

15:25

a big, big thank you to c C.

15:27

And we'll put up a picture of our

15:29

lovely little animals on our Facebook and

15:32

also on our Twitter at Miston History,

15:34

you should follow us, and if

15:36

you search our home page at ww

15:38

dot how stuff works dot com, you

15:41

can find my article on mar walls,

15:43

although Sarah hasn't gotten to write one

15:45

about ocelts not yet. And

15:47

if you're not a crafty type of person,

15:50

but you're a wonderful letter writer instead,

15:52

you can send us an email at History

15:54

podcast at how stuff works dot com.

15:58

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