Hoping to get it back he rode a horse fifty miles to get back to the boat where his painting was and fell ill with a fever and stomach cramps and died there. Insulting a soldier he wound up in jail being forced to leave behind a precious painting. He set out on a boat ride to Palo a Spanish fort not far Rome. While there he was seriously defaced after coming out of place that catered to men seeking men. He left for Naples in hopes of receiving a pardon for the death of the man in Rome, in order to come back to Rome. He left the organization after seriously injuring a man there and being put in a deep, dark hole as punishment. Feeling unsafe from bounty hunters and the relatives of the man he killed he joined the Knights of Malta. Caravaggio's art moved some people who saw his work's gritty realism with saints and holy figures with dirty feet. At age twenty he left Milan for the illustrious Rome after having apparently killed a man. However, measles leaves one's immune system vulnerable to tuberculosis.Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (from 1572-1610) was one of Italy's elite artists. Edward, though, likely died of tuberculous something he had undiagnosed since he was a child when he got the measles and came back from that rather quickly. King Edward VI of England, who lived from 1537-1553, was thought to have been poisoned by his enemies of which he had many including Bloody Mary and his Lord Protector of the Realm who had ruled in his stead when he was younger, his uncle Edward Seymour. King Henri II of France's mistress Diane de Poitiers body was found in 2008 and examined to find high levels of heavy metal poisoning in her hair indicative of use as a cosmetic which she was famous for using. They put arsenic, mercury, and lead in their cosmetics to make themselves look beautiful and it's probably what killed some of them. They smeared ox dung on their face to get rid of pimples and dog turds on their scalp to stop a receding hairline. The Italians had a reputation for poisoning people. The Italian De Medicis had a box of antidotes that they gave out to friends that contained mostly scorpion venom. They also used bezoars which had no effect whatsoever. Toadstone (really sharks teeth) mixed in with poisonous wine will neutralize the poison. They used unicorn horns (narwhal horns found on beaches) to wave over food as well as gemstones, especially emeralds and diamonds to ward off the effects of poison. All the while they were poisoning themselves with their lead silverware plated in gold and their cosmetics and hair tonics. This all with not knowing that poison is very difficult to absorb in the skin from cloth or paper, a way in which some poisoners did try to kill with. People in the time of Kings and Queens used to believe that they were going to be poisoned so they had tasters to taste their meals and servants to kiss their seats and napkin and bedchamber sheets as well as their clothes. In The Royal Art of Poison, Eleanor Herman combines her unique access to royal archives with cutting-edge forensic discoveries to tell the true story of Europe’s glittering palaces: one of medical bafflement, poisonous cosmetics, ever-present excrement, festering natural illness, and, sometimes, murder. Gazing at gorgeous portraits of centuries past, we don’t see what lies beneath the royal robes and the stench of unwashed bodies the lice feasting on private parts and worms nesting in the intestines. The most gorgeous palaces were little better than filthy latrines. Physicians prescribed mercury enemas, arsenic skin cream, drinks of lead filings, and potions of human fat and skull, fresh from the executioner. Women wore makeup made with mercury and lead. Ironically, royals terrified of poison were unknowingly poisoning themselves daily with their cosmetics, medications, and filthy living conditions. Servants licked the royal family’s spoons, tried on their underpants and tested their chamber pots. To avoid poison, they depended on tasters, unicorn horns, and antidotes tested on condemned prisoners. For centuries, royal families have feared the gut-roiling, vomit-inducing agony of a little something added to their food or wine by an enemy. The story of poison is the story of power. Hugely entertaining, a work of pop history that traces the use of poison as a political-and cosmetic-tool in the royal courts of Western Europe from the Middle Ages to the Kremlin today "A heady mix of erudite history and delicious gossip." -Aja Raden, author of Stoned "Morbidly witty." -Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times One of Washington Independent Review of Books' 50 Favorite Books of 2018
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |