And all sorts of suppositions
and theories may be based on this singular fact, and credited, until
some antiquary of the period discovers in an ancient magazine
published at the period of a former examination of the sepulchre this
record, in which I am obliged to declare--with a blush for the decency
of the Florentines--that the teeth were all stolen by persons who were
permitted to be present at the opening of the tomb. A certain special
historical interest is attached to those teeth of the murdered man.
The story goes that when Lorenzino stabbed him as he slept on a bed in
Lorenzino's own house, to which he had been inveigled in the hope of
meeting there a certain lady, the wife of a Ginori of the time,
Alexander started up, and, seizing the thumb of the murderer between
his teeth, held him so firmly that he could not have escaped had not a
bravo whom he had hired to aid him come to his assistance. These,
then, were the teeth that held so well in the death-grip of their
owner! Some Florentine historically-minded virtuoso (!) appreciated
the significance of the fact, and stole them from the head some three
centuries and a half after that last bite of theirs.
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