Elisabetta, intent only on her art, and habituated to a wholly objective frame of mind, had made so little account of the symptoms of malady that had manifested themselves during the last four or five months of her life, that her death struck her bereaved family as a wholly sudden and inexplicable calamity. Poison was the first thing that occurred to them. Indeed the idea had already presented itself to the physicians, as is evident from the treatment. The practice of poisoning was so common in Italy in those ages, and the perpetration of it was rendered so little hazardous by the prevailing ignorance of pathological anatomy, that every death arising from causes not understood, was immediately attributed to this crime. And as a medical decision to that effect was a very convenient screen for medical ignorance, the faculty were by no means backward in encouraging and increasing the popular suspiciousness on the subject. Poor Giovanni, therefore, was readily convinced that his daughter had died by poison; and ordered a post–mortem examination of her body, as the first step towards a judicial investigation. So the body was opened by the hospital barber, the recognised operator on such occasions, in the presence of Doctors Gallerati and Mattaselani, and other four of the first practitioners of Bologna. Gallerati, the family medical man, who had already, it is to be observed, treated her case as one of poisoning, reported to the father, as the result of the examination, that a hole was found in the lower part of the stomach, large enough for a pea to pass, that around the hole there was a livid circle appearing as if burned with a hot iron, that the bowels were much inflamed, the diaphragm corroded, and that these appearances could only have been produced by the action of a corrosive poison. But on Sirani further questioning him on the nature of the poison, he answered, that it was certainly corrosive, "but whether administered to her, or generated naturally, was not a matter to speak with him—the father—on, as he had already given his opinion in the consultation of physicians." [Sidenote: THE POISON.] The subject of "veleno ingenito," poison developing itself from natural causes within the organisation, was one much agitated in the medical world at that time; formed an admirable occasion for the exhibition of erudition; and was just in that state of partisan debateability least favourable to the attainment of truth, and most conducive to obstinate adhesion to foregone conclusions. It having been thus decided, that poor Elisabetta had been poisoned; of course the next question that arose was, who was the poisoner?