Note 186 — Chapter V
Reading edition
The family arms of the Medici were six golden balls (palle d’oro). They asserted that this bearing was derived from the impressions left on the shield of one of their ancestors by a gigantic Saracen, who wielded a mace with six iron globes hung from it. Their detractors said that they were the arms of an apothecary, from whom the family derived the name of Medici, and that the golden balls were nothing better than gilded pills.