3-020-980 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"Bernabo Visconti, Duke of Milan, receiving the Nuncios from Pope Innocent VI., in 1361", by Giannetti, in the Crystal Palace Exhibition, 1869. Engraving of a painting. 'The striking historical picture...relates to a well-known incident of Italian history, which shows the barbarous ferocity and insolence of the Ghibelline nobles...Visconti had sheltered himself in the castle of Marignano during the dreadful plague prevailing in Milan...and he had thereby incurred the displeasure of the Pope. Bernabo, having received intimation that the Pope had excommunicated him, arranged that the meeting with the messengers should take place on the bridge over the river Lambro. The Duke, surrounded by his men-at-arms, received the two envoys, who, with the usual genuflections, presented themselves before him, and tendered the Pope's bull of excommunication. Bernabo, after attentively reading it...asked them to choose whether they would eat or drink. They, finding themselves surrounded by enemies and without any hope of escape, looking at the river flowing at their feet...said they must decline to drink. "Then," retorted the tyrant, "you shall eat;" and the two venerable prelates were obliged to swallow the written parchment, leaden seals and all'. From "Illustrated London News", 1869.