Antonio she commended to Bishop Abbioso’s care, and begged him send the news of her death and Francesco’s to Cavaliere Bartolommeo Cappello at Venice.  After absolution and last communion, Bianca Cappello, “Daughter of Venice,” Grand Duchess of Tuscany, breathed her last in peace—­the delirium having abated—­on the evening of 30th October, just two days after her husband.

A post-mortem examination, or at least the form of one, upon the Grand Duke revealed, it was said, advanced disease of the liver, the consequences of his unwisdom in the use of cordials and elixirs!  With the connivance of the Court physicians, Ferdinando put out a proclamation that the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess—­he was compelled to use the title then in speaking of Bianca—­had died from “attacks of malarial fever, induced by the unhealthy atmosphere of Poggio a Caiano.”

* * * * *

Francesco’s obsequies were attended by all the stately ceremonies usual in the Medici family.  Conveyed into Florence by the Misericordia on the evening of his death, his body was exposed for three days in state in the Palazzo Pitti, and then carried in solemn procession to the church of San Lorenzo for burial.

If merely to save appearances, or to conceal his real intention, the new Grand Duke ordered the body of the Grand Duchess to be placed beside that of her husband in the Cappella Medici of the church.  For six brief hours it was suffered to remain, and then, at midnight, agents of Ferdinando, well paid for their profanity, deported all that was mortal of the brilliant “woman whom he hated” to an unknown grave in the paupers’ burial plot beyond the city boundary!  “For,” said he, “we will have none of her among our dead!”

Such was the end of the beautiful and accomplished Bianca Cappello—­“Bianca, so richly endowed,” as wrote one of her panegyrists, “by nature, and so refined by discipline, able to sympathise with and help all who approached her—­her fame for good will last for ever!” The wiles of the serpent and his cruel coils had crushed the “Daughter of Venice”:  it was the triumph of an unworthy man over a lovable woman.  She was not the only victim Ferdinando’s poison overpowered—­Giovanni de’ Pucci, whom the Pope was about to advance to the Cardinalate, an inoffensive ecclesiastic, incurred Cardinal Ferdinando’s displeasure by his sympathy with the Grand Duchess.  He died mysteriously after drinking a glass of wine which Ferdinando had poured out for him![A]

[Footnote A:  In 1857, when the Medici graves at San Lorenzo were opened, the bodies of the Grand Duke Francesco and the Grand Duchess Giovanna were easily identified.  The bodies also of Maria, the unhappy victim of her father, Cosimo, with the fatal wound; of Eleanora de Garzia de Toledo, Piero’s murdered wife; and of Isabella, Duchess of Bracciano, were also recognised.  All five were in wooden chests, but robbed of the costly grave-clothes and jewels. There was no trace of the body of the Grand Duchess Bianca!]