Cantarella was a poison allegedly used by the Borgias during the papacy of Pope Alexander VI. It may have been arsenic, came in the shape of "a white powder with a pleasant taste", and was sprinkled on food or in wine. If it did exist, it left no trace in the works of contemporary writers.
Etymology
The exact origin of the term cantarella is unknown. It may have been derived from kantharos (Ancient Greek: κάνθαρος), a type of ancient Greek cup used for drinking, or the Neo-Latin word cantharellus ('small cup'), in reference to the cups in which the poison would have been served. The word may also be related to kantharis (Ancient Greek: κάνθαρις), referring to the Spanish fly and other blister beetles that secrete cantharidin, a substance that is poisonous in large doses.
References
- Bradford, S. (2005). Lucrezia Borgia: Life, Love and Death in Renaissance Italy. Penguin Books Limited. p. 190. ISBN 978-0-14-190949-3.
- Strathern, P. (2009). The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior: The Intersecting Lives of Da Vinci, Machiavelli, and Borgia and the World They Shaped. Random House Publishing Group. p. 255. ISBN 978-0-553-90689-9.
- Noel, G. (2016). The Renaissance Popes: Culture, Power, and the Making of the Borgia Myth. Little, Brown Book Group. p. 192. ISBN 978-1-4721-2507-1.
- ^ Karamanou, Marianna; Androutsos, George; Hayes, A. Wallace; Tsatsakis, Aristides (2018). "Toxicology in the Borgias period: The mystery of Cantarella poison". Toxicology Research and Application. 2. doi:10.1177/2397847318771126.
- "Cantharellus". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Merriam-Webster. Archived from the original on 1 July 2022. Retrieved 16 March 2024.
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