Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 August 1884 — The Story of Bianca Capello. [ARTICLE]

The Story of Bianca Capello.

With the Pitti Palace is linked the romantically tragic story of Bianca Capello, the beautiful Venetian lady who, at the early age of 16, ran away from home and friends in company with a baker’s clerk. Varied fortunes succeeded, till she eventually became Grand Duchess of Tuscany. Only one thing was now longed for to complete her happiness, and that was the birth of an heir to the Grand Ducal throne. But this event was long waited for in vain, and at length the father confessor of the lady was prevailed upon to bring to the palace a new-born infant in his capacious sleeve. But Cardinal Ferdinand, who was next in succession, had his suspicions. He met the monk on his arrival, and gave him a close embrace, which discovered the plot. At a subsequent banquet Bianca set before the Cardinal a dish of pastry which she had prepared with her own hand. It is said that the Cardinal’s opal ring betrayed to him the lurking danger, and he politely declined. Whereupon the Grand Duke declared that it should not be said that the Duchess had made her pastry for nothing, and began opting it himself. The lady could not stop him, with that wary Cardinal’s eyes fixed on her. She resolved to share her husband’s fate, partook with him of the poisoned dish, and in the morning they were both dead. —Cities of the World.