The Medici have been carrying an apparently unsolvable mystery since the 16th century. Science finally has an answer

The uncle of a famous superhero said that ‘with great power comes great responsibility’. If what we are talking about is the Medici, the saga of bankers, prelates, patrons and rulers who dominated Tuscany between the 15th and 18th centuries, great power entailed something else… enormous risk. One filled with rivalries and plots that could come from both external enemies and the family itself. Hence the chroniclers carry four centuries wondering why some of its main figures died suddenly at the end of the 16th century. Disease? Bad luck? Murder by poisoning?

Science already has an answer.

Worthy of Agatha Christie. The British queen of suspense left us exciting novels, but few match the Medici family chronicle in mysteries and script twists. It takes reviewing some of the events that shook the Florentine saga in the second half of the 16th century to prove it.

In 1562 the cardinal Giovanni de Medici He died at the age of 19 after a trip along the coast accompanied by his mother, Eleonora and his little brother Garzia, who also died around the same time. Only 25 years later the drama hit the family again through his brother, the Grand Duke Francesco I. He died in 1587, aged 46. Just a few hours later his wife did it Bianca.

Quite a coincidence, right? That is what they thought the contemporaries of Francesco and Bianca, who in a matter of 24 hours watched the two members of one of the most powerful couples in the region go to their graves. In theory the cause of death was malaria, but… Wasn’t it a coincidence that husband and wife died just a few hours apart? Wasn’t it suspicious that exactly the same thing had happened to them as had happened to Giovanni 25 years earlier?

Rumors of murder arose and eyes soon turned to Ferdinandanother Medici. The Tuscans of the time cannot be blamed for their suspicion. Ferdinando was next in the line of succession and risked being overtaken on the right by his nephew, the illegitimate son of Francesco I.

As if that were not enough to spark rumors, they say that he had visited the Grand Duke and his wife shortly before the couple fell ill.

How long does a suspicion last? Well, more than four centuries, which is how long historians have been turning around Francesco’s story. Why did he die in such a sudden and premature manner? Was it malaria? Arsenic poisoning perhaps? Did Ferdinando plot against them? Science tried to solve the mystery a long time ago, but it has only added fuel to the fire.

At the time, the analysis of exhumed bone remains confirmed the malaria theory; but other studies, including one from 2006 carried out by professors and forensic experts from Italy and based on toxicological examinations, pointed to poisoning.

An impossible labyrinth. The testimonies of the time do not help either. We know that Francesco and Bianca showed symptoms compatible with malaria and that the Medici family doctors tried to cure them with bloodletting, a method with which they surely (now we understand) only made things worse.

The problem is that supporters of the poisoning theory also have their own arguments. Donatella Lippi, one of the authors of the 2006 study, remember that although it is confirmed that the couple contracted malaria, it does not mean that that was the cause of death. It even slips that in the Vatican Library there are testimonies that speak of skin rashes and other symptoms that could well be related to arsenic poisoning.

And the genetic analysis arrived. This is how things were until a few weeks ago, when a group of researchers from the University of Pisa and Yale published a new study in iScience in which they collect their conclusions after subjecting bone remains of two members of the Medici family to DNA analysis: Giovanni, who died in 1562, and Francesco, who followed him to the tomb 25 years later.

To be more precise, the researchers extracted genetic material from four rib samples, three from the duke and one from the cardinal. His remains and those of other Medici rest in mausoleums located in the Basilica of San LorenzoFlorence.

Go one step further. In the past, researchers had already tried to clear up the mystery with paleo-immunological analyzes that, although they yielded some interesting conclusions, did not serve to silence “the rumors.” as you recognize Valentina Ciuffra, professor of History of Medicine at the University of Pisa and one of the authors of the study published in iScience.

It was necessary to go one step further. And that is precisely what the Pisa and Yale team intended by using advanced methods to study ancient DNAgenetic material extracted from samples that are centuries and centuries old.

What have they found out? That both Giovanni and his brother Francesco suffered from malaria. We know this because researchers located traces of Pasmodiumthe parasitic protozoa that cause the disease. One of the two Medici brothers even suffered it in a particularly bloody way: both the bones of the cardinal and the Grand Duke preserved traces of Pasmodium faciparumthe most lethal species among humans; but in the case of the latter (Francesco) greater molecular traces of P. malarie.

What does that mean? That the Grand Duke who died in October 1587 showed traces of two species of malaria. It is not something exceptional. Experts have already detected samples in Belgium that suggest the coexistence of several species of malaria, although they insist that further research is necessary before stating with complete certainty that both species circulated in 16th century Italy.

“With scientific certainty”. For the authors of the new DNA study, their work is conclusive and settles a 400-year-old mystery: “This genetic analysis confirms historical accounts, as well as previous research. We can now affirm with scientific certainty that malaria, and not poisoning, was the cause of the death of Grand Duke Francesco de’ Medici,” stands out Valentina Giuffra.

In case there were any doubts, from Yale University remember two data. First, that malaria was endemic in central Italy until the 20th century. Second, that both Giovanni and Francesco died after visiting potential malaria hotspots, such as marshes or (in the case of the couple) a family villa located in Poggio, Livorno, among crops infested with mosquitoes.

Matter settled? It depends who you ask. Giuffra and her colleagues claim the validity of their study, but there are still experts who believe that it will be difficult to resolve the mystery that historians have been dragging on since the 16th century.

“Although the study provides evidence compatible with malaria infection, I do not believe it definitively resolves the long-standing debate about malaria vs. poisoning,” insists on CNN David Caramelli, a professor of anthropology in Florence, who was not involved in the latest study.

“The presence of pathogen DNA is not necessarily equivalent to proving the cause of death. Genetic evidence always has to be interpreted in conjunction with historical, archaeological and pathological data,” claims.

For now, the study of the bones of the ill-fated Medici brothers has served, in addition to shedding light on the enigma, to deepen our knowledge about the characteristics of Malaria in 16th century Italy.

Images | Wikipedia 1, 2 and 3 and Valentina Giuffra (via Yale University)

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