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Most Execrable and Abominable or Irreligious: When Pope Clement Tested Poisons
- lazlee 6y ago"Sometime in the 1540s or 1550s, the esteemed anatomist Gabriele Falloppio (1523–1562) described a test he had conducted on a condemned criminal granted to him by Grand Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici. Duke Cosimo gave him the convict with the understanding that Falloppio could kill the man as he wished and dissect the body afterward. Falloppio decided to experiment with fatal doses of opium, a substance often described as a poison in the scholarly literature. The prisoner survived the first test and asked for the dose to be doubled on the second attempt..." Lol.
- pasquinelli 6y agoI wonder if he asked for more because he liked it or to be sure he didn't have to live through another overdose.
- inimino 6y agoThe article continues: > The prisoner survived the first test and asked for the dose to be doubled on the second attempt, on the assumption that he would go free if he survived, which he did not.
- kpgiskpg 6y agoI didn't realise that popes getting poisoned was a common occurrence at any time in history.
- linksnapzz 6y agoFrom about 756AD to 1870, the Holy See was its own country occupying much of central Italy. Popes during this time were subject to any and all risks that contemporaneous rulers would face in similar circumstances. Not only that, but many times during this era the Throne of St. Peter would be held by a man who might be the scion of a powerful and ruthless family (Borgia, Medici, Barberini)that had much experience with assassins...
- throwawaybutwhy 6y agoYou don't have to go far for this stuff [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_Paul_I https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_Paul_I
- JohnJamesRambo 6y agoI don't see anything about poison?
- throwawaybutwhy 6y agoBefore you write it off as tinfoilhatter speculations [0], please consider this was the time in Italy when an acting Prime Minister (Giulio Andreotti) took active part in a hit job on a former Prime Minister (Aldo Moro) [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_Paul_I_conspiracy_theories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_Paul_I_conspiracy_th... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_of_Aldo_Moro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_of_Aldo_Moro
- spoonjim 6y agoThe pope was the king of an aggressive military power for much of the church’s history.
- RonaldMcRonald 6y agoThe papacy (and the Roman Catholic Church) today retains the knowledge from hundreds of years of such "research" in medicine and social control. Anyone who thinks the Church doesn't continue to make use of that knowledge is deluding themselves.
- JohnJamesRambo 6y agoI can't make heads or tails of this. The poison was - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudaconitine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudaconitine from the Monkshood. But what was in Caravita's Oil and did it even work or was it just chance that the prisoner lived? Google isn't much help as it all leads back to this same book.
- woadwarrior01 6y agoMost likely, an early instance of snake oil.