It was commonly believed in Italy that Bianca, meaning to poison the Cardinal at supper, had been frustrated in her designs by a blunder which made her husband the victim of this plot, and that she ended her own life in despair or fell a victim to the Cardinal's vengeance.

This story is rejected both by Botta and Galluzzi; but Litta has given it a partial credence.[216] Two of Cosimo's sons died previously, in the year 1562, under circumstances which gave rise to similar malignant rumors.

Don Garzia and the Cardinal Giovanni were hunting together in the Pisan marshes, when the latter expired after a short illness, and the former in a few days met with a like fate.

Report ran that Don Garzia had stabbed his brother, and that Cosimo, in a fit of rage, ran him through the body with his own sword.
In this case, although Litta attaches weight to the legend, the balance of evidence is strongly in favor of both brothers having been carried off by a pernicious fever contracted simultaneously during their hunting expedition.[217] Each instance serves however, to show in what an atmosphere of guilt the Medicean princes were enveloped.

No one believed that they could die except by fraternal or paternal hands.