AFTER the lapse of a few days, the castellan, who now believed that I
was at large and free, succumbed to his disease and departed this life.
In his room remained his brother, Messer Antonio Ugolini, who had
informed the deceased governor that I was duly released. From what I
learned, this Messer Antonio received commission from the Pope to let me
occupy that commodious prison until he had decided what to do with me.
Messer Durante of Brescia, whom I have previously mentioned, engaged the
soldier (formerly druggist of Prato) to administer some deadly liquor in
my food; [1] the poison was to work slowly, producing its effect at the
end of four or five months. They resolved on mixing pounded diamond with
my victuals. Now the diamond is not a poison in any true sense of the
word, but its incomparable hardness enables it, unlike ordinary stones,
to retain very acute angles. When every other stone is pounded, that
extreme sharpness of edge is lost; their fragments becoming blunt and
rounded. The diamond alone preserves its trenchant qualities; wherefore,
if it chances to enter the stomach together with food, the peristaltic
motion [2] needful to digestion brings it into contact with the coats of
the stomach and the bowels, where it sticks, and by the action of fresh
food forcing it farther inwards, after some time perforates the organs.
This eventually causes death. Any other sort of stone or glass mingled
with the food has not the power to attach itself, but passes onward with
the victuals. Now Messer Durante entrusted a diamond of trifling value
to one of the guards; and it is said that a certain Lione, a goldsmith
of Arezzo, my great enemy, was commissioned to pound it. [3] The man
happened to be very poor, and the diamond was worth perhaps some scores
of crowns. He told the guard that the dust he gave him back was the
diamond in question properly ground down. The morning when I took it,
they mixed it with all I had to eat; it was a Friday, and I had it in
salad, sauce, and pottage. That morning I ate heartily, for I had fasted
on the previous evening; and this day was a festival. It is true that I
felt the victuals scrunch beneath my teeth; but I was not thinking about
knaveries of this sort. When I had finished, some scraps of salad
remained upon my plate, and certain very fine and glittering splinters
caught my eye among these remnants. I collected them, and took them to
the window, which let a flood of light into the room; and while I was
examining them, I remembered that the food I ate that morning had
scrunched more than usual. On applying my senses strictly to the matter,
the verdict of my eyesight was that they were certainly fragments of
pounded diamond. Upon this I gave myself up without doubt as dead, and
in my sorrow had recourse with pious heart to holy prayers. I had
resolved the question, and thought that I was doomed. For the space of a
whole hour I prayed fervently to God, returning thanks to Him for so
merciful a death. Since my stars had sentenced me to die, I thought it
no bad bargain to escape from life so easily. I was resigned, and
blessed the world and all the years which I had passed in it. Now I was
returning to a better kingdom with the grace of God, the which I thought
I had most certainly acquired.
While I stood revolving these thoughts in my mind, I held in my hand
some flimsy particles of the reputed diamond, which of a truth I firmly
believed to be such. Now hope is immortal in the human breast; therefore
I felt myself, as it were, lured onward by a gleam of idle expectation.
Accordingly, I took up a little knife and a few of those particles, and
placed them on an iron bar of my prison. Then I brought the knife’s
point with a slow strong grinding pressure to bear upon the stone, and
felt it crumble. Examining the substance with my eyes, I saw that it was
so. In a moment new hope took possession of my soul, and I exclaimed:
“Here I do not find my true foe, Messer Durante, but a piece of bad soft
stone, which cannot do me any harm whatever!” Previously I had been
resolved to remain quiet and to die in peace; now I revolved other
plans, but first I rendered thanks to God and blessed poverty; for
though poverty is oftentimes the cause of bringing men to death, on this
occasion it had been the very cause of my salvation. I mean in this way:
Messer Durante, my enemy, or whoever it was, gave a diamond to Lione to
pound for me of the worth of more than a hundred crowns; poverty induced
him to keep this for himself, and to pound for me a greenish beryl of
the value of two carlins, thinking perhaps, because it also was a stone,
that it would work the same effect as the diamond.
Note 1. For Messer Durante, see above, p. 180. For the druggist of Prato
employed as a warder in S. Angelo, see above, p. 216.
Note 2. 'In quel girare che e’ fanno e’ cibi.' I have for the sake of
clearness used the technical phrase above.
Note 3. The name of Leone Leoni is otherwise known as a goldsmith and
bronze-caster. He made the tomb for Giangiacomo de’ Medici, Il
Medighino, in the Cathedral of Milan.