Nor can that poison with which the secretary of
Piccinino wished to anoint the sedan-chair of Pius II have affected any
other organ than the imagination. The proportion which mineral and
vegetable poisons bore to one another, cannot be ascertained precisely.
The poison with which the painter Rosso Fiorentino destroyed himself
(1541) was evidently a powerful acid, which it would have been
impossible to administer to another person without his knowledge. The
secret use of weapons, especially of the dagger, in the service of
powerful individuals, was habitual in Milan, Naples, and other cities.
Indeed, among the crowds of armed retainers who were necessary for the
personal safety of the great, and who lived in idleness, it was natural
that outbreaks of this mania for blood should from time to time occur.
Many a deed of horror would never have been committed, had not the
master known that he needed but to give a sign to one or other of his
followers.
Among the means used for the secret destruction of others-- so far,
that is, as the intention goes--we find magic, practiced, however,
sparingly. Where 'maleficii,' 'malie,' and so forth, are mentioned,
they appear rather as a means of heaping up additional terror on the
head of some hated enemy. At the courts of France and England in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, magic, practiced with a view to the
death of an opponent, plays a far more important part than in Italy.
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