The Count of Monte Cristo

A Fatal Dinner

Spada, suspecting the danger, made his will and tried to warn his nephew to wait near the vineyard where the dinner would take place, but the nephew arrived and was lured into drinking poisoned wine. Spada was pressured to taste another bottle. An hour later, a physician declared both men had been poisoned by mushrooms. Spada died at the vineyard’s threshold, and his nephew died at home, leaving behind only a cryptic will mentioning a breviary with gold corners.

The Vanishing Fortune

After the cardinals’ deaths, Cæsar Borgia and the pope searched Spada’s inheritance but found only a few thousand crowns in plate and money. The nephew’s wife was told to search for a will, but none was found beyond the brief mention of the breviary. The two palaces and vineyard belonging to the family were of little value. When Alexander VI. was accidentally poisoned and Cæsar was later killed, the Borgias never revealed having found the cardinal’s treasure.

Years of Searching

The Spada family remained in obscurity for generations, with descendants serving as soldiers, diplomatists, churchmen, and bankers. The celebrated breviary with gold corners was preserved as a family relic. As secretary to the last Count of Spada, Faria examined all family documents for three hundred years’ worth of records, calculating income and expenditure thousands of times, but could find no trace of the hidden fortune.

The Unfound Treasure

Faria concludes his account of the Count of Spada’s poverty and the family’s failure to locate the inheritance. Despite exhaustive research into the Borgia family history and the Spada archives, Faria remained in ignorance of the treasure’s location, much like the legendary fortunes from the Arabian Nights that remained hidden in the earth. The treasure was neither possessed by the Borgias nor recovered by the family, preserving the mystery that Faria believes he has finally solved.