When Grand Duke Francesco de’ Medici and his wife died suddenly in the fall of 1587 at the Medici family villa, rumors of arsenic poisoning began to fly, with the culprit assumed to be Francesco’s brother and rival, Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici. But a study by researchers from Yale and the University of Pisa shows that the duke was likely slain not by a scheming sibling but by the pathogen that causes malaria. The disease, which had been endemic to central Italy for centuries, is also likely to have been the cause of death of two of Francesco’s brothers and his mother during a trip to the Tuscan coast 25 years earlier.
Using the tools of paleogenomics (reconstruction and analysis of ancient genetic information), the team analyzed the skeletal remains of Francesco and his brother Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici, who died on the 1562 trip. While previous research and even contemporaneous accounts suggested that malaria was the cause of death, “our study provides the first genetic evidence for the presence of Plasmodium falciparum, the deadliest causal agent of malaria, in the osteological remains of both Medici brothers,” says Serena Tucci, an evolutionary geneticist, assistant professor of anthropology, and principal investigator at Yale’s human evolutionary genomics laboratory.
Researchers collected DNA from four rib samples of the Medici brothers. “We were initially concerned about degradation of DNA in the remains,” Tucci says, “not only because they are over 400 years old but because the burial sites had sustained severe flood damage in 1966.” However, recent technological advances enabled successful extraction and analysis of DNA traces.
In addition to retiring an ancient conspiracy theory, the researchers say, their study expands understanding of the evolution of malaria, a disease that continues to kill hundreds of thousands annually. “Information from historical samples helps us study how widespread malaria has been, how variable the pathogen is, and how it mutates,” Tucci says, “knowledge that can help us develop more effective monitoring and control strategies.”
The study was published in the journal iScience.
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