Nicola or Cola, a famous Sicilian diver, was born at Naples about the middle of the fourteenth century. His agility in swimming was the wonder of his contemporaries. They believed that he could live in the water as in his own proper element, and they surmised him on that account Pesce, "The Fish." In fact, no feat ascribed to him was too huge for their gaping credulity to swallow. It was this exaggerated fame that became the occasion of the "Fish's" death. Frederick II., King of the Two Sicilies, Peschiera hearing the astounding reports of his aquatic dexterity, resolved to subject it to a summary test. Accordingly, a golden cup was thrown by the royal hand into the dreaded whirlpool of Charybdis, and the diver was desired to plunge after it, and win it as a prize. Twice he dived, and appeared again on the surface of the water. After disappearing the third time, he never came up. His body is said to have been cast ashore thirty miles distant. This fatal incident furnished Schiller with the groundwork of his famous ballad Der Taucher. (See Brydone's Tour through Sicily and Malta, London, 1773.)