Birbla

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Hacker News

Nice work science, but 400 years is a long time to hold onto old grudges. I go by what the "Good Book" says and "forgive and forget."

(sorry guys channeling my ken m)

by asdfman123

My family has spent centuries marrying into an alternative claimant to the Grand Duke of Tuscany who did not inherit through Ferdinando I. We were planning to use this as an excuse to invade Italy and put the scion of our own dynasty on the throne and establish ourselves as royalty in the annals of history.

Unfortunately, this + the unification of Italy may have irredeemably foiled our plan.

Not sure what to do now, should I find a wife with a better claim?

by jjmarr

so interesting.

I worked for a very small company getting funding by the Medici Fund a while back. First I ever heard of the name.

So much intrigue in the past. Guys like Montaigne were said to have "food tasters" to sample the goods before they ate themselves.

As a career trace analytical chemist, I can tell you for sure, that weird poisonings are so much less likely to occur now, because of the probability of detection. That's a little comforting. The same goes for the food supply. Mechanisms are in place to rapidly detect deliberately placed poisons.

by DaveZale

tl;dr; - Scientists did DNA testing on the remains of the Grand Duke and his wife, and found malaria. The rival theory is poisoning by the relative who was next in line for the Ducal throne. HOWEVER, this test result solves nothing:

> But is there any guarantee that Francesco was not also poisoned?

> “Perhaps not,” Ochoa said, “but the genetic evidence presented in our study decreases the margin for speculation.”

> Gisella Caccone, a senior research scientist also at Yale and a study coauthor, agrees. “We can say that they had malaria, we cannot say that they were not poisoned as well,” Caccone said in an email.

by bell-cot

I am living in Poggio a Caiano and I never expect it will be mentioned on HN. I know very well the history of Bianca Cappello and I am not surprised about the malaria. The area around Poggio a Caiano (Poggio means exactly "small hills") was a swamp and malaria was very common.

by lormayna

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  • Hacker News
  • What's this one? Fable or Sol?
    by efebarlas
  • Nice work science, but 400 years is a long time to hold onto old grudges. I go by what the "Good Book" says and "forgive and forget."

    (sorry guys channeling my ken m)

    by asdfman123
  • My family has spent centuries marrying into an alternative claimant to the Grand Duke of Tuscany who did not inherit through Ferdinando I. We were planning to use this as an excuse to invade Italy and put the scion of our own dynasty on the throne and establish ourselves as royalty in the annals of history.

    Unfortunately, this + the unification of Italy may have irredeemably foiled our plan.

    Not sure what to do now, should I find a wife with a better claim?

    by jjmarr
  • so interesting.

    I worked for a very small company getting funding by the Medici Fund a while back. First I ever heard of the name.

    So much intrigue in the past. Guys like Montaigne were said to have "food tasters" to sample the goods before they ate themselves.

    As a career trace analytical chemist, I can tell you for sure, that weird poisonings are so much less likely to occur now, because of the probability of detection. That's a little comforting. The same goes for the food supply. Mechanisms are in place to rapidly detect deliberately placed poisons.

    by DaveZale
  • In related news, tiny drones to take out mosquitoes.

    https://tornyol.com

    by fragmede
  • tl;dr; - Scientists did DNA testing on the remains of the Grand Duke and his wife, and found malaria. The rival theory is poisoning by the relative who was next in line for the Ducal throne. HOWEVER, this test result solves nothing:

    > But is there any guarantee that Francesco was not also poisoned?

    > “Perhaps not,” Ochoa said, “but the genetic evidence presented in our study decreases the margin for speculation.”

    > Gisella Caccone, a senior research scientist also at Yale and a study coauthor, agrees. “We can say that they had malaria, we cannot say that they were not poisoned as well,” Caccone said in an email.

    by bell-cot
  • I am living in Poggio a Caiano and I never expect it will be mentioned on HN. I know very well the history of Bianca Cappello and I am not surprised about the malaria. The area around Poggio a Caiano (Poggio means exactly "small hills") was a swamp and malaria was very common.
    by lormayna
  • FWIW you can prepend `lite.` to cnn.com to get text only articles. https://lite.cnn.com/2026/07/15/science/medici-family-myster...
    by srmatto