In Labat’s Travels through Italy[121] we also find some information which may serve still further to illustrate the history of Tophania. She distributed her poison in small glass phials, with this inscription, _Manna of St. Nicholas of Bari_, and ornamented with the image of the saint. A miraculous oil, employed by folly in the cure of many diseases, drops from the tomb of that saint which is shown at Bari in the kingdom of Naples; and on this account it is dispersed in great abundance under the like name. It was therefore the best appellation which Tophania could give to her poison, because the reputed sanctity of it prevented the custom-house officers from examining it too closely. When the viceroy was informed of this, which I think was in 1709, Tophania fled from one convent to another, but was at length seized and thrown into prison. The clergy raised a loud outcry on account of this violation of ecclesiastical freedom, and endeavoured to excite the people to insurrection. But they were soon appeased on a report being spread that Tophania had confessed she had poisoned all the springs in the city. Being put to the rack, she acknowledged her wickedness, and confessed to having caused the death of not less than 600 persons; named those who had protected her, who were immediately dragged from churches and monasteries; and declared that the day before she had absconded, she had sent two boxes of her manna to Rome, where it was found in the custom-house, but she did not accuse any one of having ordered it. She was afterwards strangled, and to mitigate the archbishop, her body was thrown at night into the area of the convent from which she had been taken. Tophania however was not the only person at Naples who understood the making of this poison; for Keysler says that at the time he was there it was still secretly prepared and much employed.