The Medici, the famous and powerful family of Florence, had a great influence, especially during the Renaissance. Intrigues, palace fights, murders... Not only in Italy, but also in other parts of Europe. Especially noteworthy are 'his' four popes (Leo X, Clement VII, Pius IV and Leo XI) and 'his' two queens of France (Catherine de' Medici and Marie de' Medici).
Prosperous bankers, they also stood out for being patrons of artists and scientists. His leap into politics was a natural step, pulling the strings of the Republic of Florence for decades between the 15th and 16th centuries. And during all this time, various members of the family shared the same hobby: hunting.
The fact was known. The Medici, both men and women, made expeditions through the marshes around Florence and also used to travel to other hunting grounds located throughout Tuscany to obtain valuable native game. But in that area lived a deadly enemy, mosquitoes capable of transmitting malaria.
This disease, also known as Malaria, is caused by the Plasmodium parasite. Symptoms include fever, vomiting, and headache. Excessive sweating and chills usually appear 10 to 15 days after the mosquito bite.
Although today malaria is a curable disease, it is still a major threat to people's health in Africa, mainly affecting pregnant women and children. In many of the areas where malaria is endemic, people still lack access to proper medical care.
As explained by researchers from the Italian Institute for Mummy Studies in an article published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, several members of the Médici family would have died from this disease. "Previous studies of ancient human remains suggest a Mediterranean presence of malaria from Ancient Egypt to modern times," the authors write.
The dynastic power obtained by the Medici gave them the power to be buried in the Basilica of San Lorenzo, in the center of Florence. To do this, they were first embalmed, extracting their internal organs, which were kept in large terracotta jars.
In 2011 some of these jars were able to be opened to analyze their contents, revealing that multiple pieces of tissue were still preserved. A microscopic and molecular analysis detected the surprising presence of the Plasmodium parasite and allowed us to see that the intensity of the infection "was high", reaching 38% of the tissue.
Although it is not known to whom the remains studied belonged, it is known that some of these large jars studied had been related to two prominent people: Anna Maria Luisa de Médici (1667-1743) and Vittoria della Rovere (1622-1694), wife of Ferdinand II de' Medici.
The data was compared with another trial carried out in 2010 in which the bones of four more members of the Medici family were analyzed. The researchers intuited that they could also have died from malaria and quickly detected the presence of P. falciparum, a particularly lethal species of the Plasmodium genus that usually prefers tropical climates.
