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CAGLIOSTRO, ALESSANDRO, COUNT (1743-1...

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Originally appearing in Volume V04, Page 947 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CAGLIOSTRO, ALESSANDRO, See also:COUNT (1743-1795) , See also:Italian alchemist and impostor, was See also:born at See also:Palermo on the 8th of See also:June 1743. Giuseppe Balsamo—for such was the " count's" real name—gave See also:early indications of those talents which afterwards gained for him so wide a notoriety. He received the rudiments of his See also:education at the monastery of See also:Caltagirone in See also:Sicily, but was expelled from it for misconduct and disowned by his relations. He now signalized himself by his dissolute See also:life and the ingenuity with which he contrived to perpetrate forgeries and other crimes without exposing himself to the See also:risk of detection. Having at last got into trouble with the authorities he fled from Sicily, and visited in See also:succession See also:Greece, See also:Egypt, See also:Arabia, See also:Persia, See also:Rhodes —where he took lessons in See also:alchemy and the cognate sciences from the See also:Greek Althotas—and See also:Malta. There he presented himself to the See also:grand See also:master of the Maltese See also:order as Count Cagliostro, and curried favour with him as a See also:fellow alchemist, for the grand master's tastes See also:lay in the same direction. From him he obtained introductions to the See also:great houses of See also:Rome and See also:Naples, whither he now hastened. At Rome he married a beautiful but unprincipled woman, Lorenza Feliciani, with whom he travelled, under different names, through many parts of See also:Europe. It is unnecessary to recount the various infamous means which he employed to pay his expenses during these journeys. He visited See also:London and See also:Paris in 1771, selling love-philtres, elixirs of youth, mixtures for making ugly See also:women beautiful, alchemistic powders, &c., and deriving large profits from his See also:trade. After further travels on the See also:continent he re-turned to London, where he posed as the founder of a new See also:system of See also:freemasonry, and was well received in the best society, being adored by the ladies. He went to See also:Germany and See also:Holland once more, and to See also:Russia, See also:Poland, and then again to Paris, where, in 1785, he was implicated in the affair of the See also:Diamond Necklace (q.v.) ; and although Cagliostro escaped conviction by the matchless impudence of his See also:defence, he was imprisoned for other reasons in the See also:Bastille.

On his liberation he visited See also:

England once more, where he succeeded well at first; but was ultimately outwitted by some See also:English lawyers, and confined for a while in the See also:Fleet See also:prison. Leaving England, he travelled through Europe as far as Rome, where he was arrested in 1789. He was tried and condemned to See also:death for being a heretic, but the See also:sentence was commuted to perpetual imprisonment, while his wife was immured in a See also:convent. He died in the fortress prison of See also:San See also:Leo in 1795. The best See also:account of the life, adventures and See also:character of Giuseppe Balsamo is contained in See also:Carlyle's Miscellanies. See also:Dumas 's novel, See also:Memoirs of a Physician, is founded on his adventures; see also a See also:series of papers in the See also:Dublin University See also:Magazine, vols. lxxviii. and Ixxix.; Memorial, or Brief for Cagliostro in the Cause of Card. de See also:Rohan, &c. (Fr.) by P. See also:Macmahon (1786) ; Compendia della vita e delle gesta di Giuseppe Balsamo denominato ii See also:conte di Cagliostro (Rome, 1791); Sierke, Schwdrmer and Schwindler zu Ende See also:des XVIII. Jahrhunderts (1875); and the See also:sketch of his life in D. Silvagni's La-See also:Corte e la Societal See also:Romana See also:nei secoli XVIII. e X IX. vol. i. (See also:Florence, 1881). (L.

End of Article: CAGLIOSTRO, ALESSANDRO, COUNT (1743-1795)

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