Cagliostro was an Italian adventurer and self-styledmagician. He became a glamorous figure associated with the royal courts of Europe where he pursued various occult arts, includingpsychic healing,alchemy, andscrying. His reputation lingered for many decades after his death but continued to deteriorate, as he came to be regarded as a charlatan and impostor, this view fortified by the savage attack ofThomas Carlyle (1795–1881) in 1833, who pronounced him the "Quack of Quacks". Later works—such as that of W. R. H. Trowbridge (1866–1938) in hisCagliostro: the Splendour and Misery of a Master of Magic (1910), attempted a rehabilitation.
The history of Cagliostro is shrouded in rumour, propaganda, andmysticism. Some effort was expended to ascertain his true identity when he was arrested because of possible participation in theAffair of the Diamond Necklace.Johann Wolfgang von Goethe relates in hisItalian Journey that the identification of Cagliostro with Giuseppe Balsamo was ascertained by a lawyer from Palermo who, upon official request, had sent a dossier with copies of the pertinent documents to France. Goethe met the lawyer in April 1787 and saw the documents and Balsamo's pedigree: Balsamo's great-grandfather Matteo Martello had two daughters: Maria, who married Giuseppe Bracconeri; and Vincenza, who married Giuseppe Cagliostro. Maria and Giuseppe Bracconeri had three children: Matteo; Antonia; and Felicità, who married Pietro Balsamo (the son of a bookseller, Antonino Balsamo, who had declared bankruptcy before dying at age 44). The son of Felicità and Pietro Balsamo was Giuseppe, who was christened with the name of his great-uncle and eventually adopted his surname, too. Felicità Balsamo was still alive in Palermo at the time of Goethe's travels in Italy, and he visited her and her daughter. Goethe wrote that Cagliostro was of Jewish origin,[3] and it may be that the name "Balsamo" comes from thehebrewBaal Shem (Cagliostro himself publicly asserted that he was a disciple of Haĩm Falk, theBaal Shem of London).
Cagliostro himself stated during the trial following the Affair of the Diamond Necklace that he had been born of Christians of noble birth but abandoned as an orphan upon the island ofMalta. He claimed to have travelled as a child toMedina,Mecca, andCairo and upon return to Malta to have been admitted to theSovereign Military Order of Malta, with whom he studiedalchemy, theKabbalah, andmagic.
Giuseppe Balsamo was born to a poor family in Albergheria, which was once the old Jewish Quarter ofPalermo, Sicily. Despite his family's precarious financial situation, his grandfather and uncles made sure the young Giuseppe received a solid education: he was taught by a tutor and later became a novice in theCatholic Order of St. John of God, from which he was eventually expelled.[citation needed] During his period as a novice in the order, Balsamo learned chemistry as well as a series of spiritual rites. In 1764, when he was twenty-one, he convinced Vincenzo Marano—a wealthy goldsmith—of the existence of a hidden treasure buried several hundred years previously atMount Pellegrino. The young man's knowledge of the occult, Marano reasoned, would be valuable in preventing the duo from being attacked by magical creatures guarding the treasure. In preparation for the expedition to Mount Pellegrino, however, Balsamo requested seventy pieces of silver from Marano.[citation needed]
When the time came for the two to dig up the supposed treasure, Balsamo attacked Marano, who was left bleeding and wondering what had happened to the boy—in his mind, the beating he had been subjected to had been the work ofdjinns.[citation needed] The next day, Marano paid a visit to Balsamo's house in via Perciata (since then renamed via Conte di Cagliostro), where he learned the young man had left the city. Balsamo (accompanied by two accomplices) had fled to the city ofMessina. By 1765–66, Balsamo found himself on the island of Malta, where he became an auxiliary (donato) for the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and a skilled pharmacist.[citation needed]
Lorenza Seraphina Feliciani, his wife19th-century illustration of a Cagliostro performance inDresden
In early 1768 Balsamo left for Rome, where he managed to land himself a job as a secretary to Cardinal Orsini.[4] The job proved boring to Balsamo and he soon started leading a double life, selling magical "Egyptian" amulets and engravings pasted on boards and painted over to look like paintings.[5] Of the many Sicilian expatriates and ex-convicts he met during this period, one introduced him to a fourteen-year-old girl named Lorenza Seraphina Feliciani (ca. 8 April 1751 – 1794), known asSerafina, whom he married 1768.
The couple moved in with Lorenza's parents and her brother in the vicolo delle Cripte, adjacent to the strada dei Pellegrini.[5] Balsamo's coarse language and the way he incited Lorenza to display her body contrasted deeply with her parents' deep-rooted religious beliefs. After a heated discussion, the young couple left. At this point, Balsamo befriended Agliata, a forger and swindler, who proposed to teach Balsamo how to forge letters, diplomas and myriad other official documents. In return, Agliata sought sexual intercourse with Balsamo's young wife, a request to which Balsamo acquiesced.[6]
The couple traveled together to London, where Balsamo, now styling himself with one of several pseudonyms and self-conferred titles before settling on "Count Alessandro di Cagliostro", allegedly met theComte de Saint-Germain. Cagliostro traveled throughout Europe, especially toCourland, Russia, Poland, Germany, and later France. His fame grew to the point that he was even recommended as a physician toBenjamin Franklin during a stay in Paris.
On 12 April 1777, "Joseph Cagliostro" was admitted as a Freemason of the Espérance Lodge No. 289 in Gerrard Street, Soho, London.[7] In December 1777 Cagliostro and Serafina left London for the mainland, after which they travelled through various German states, visiting lodges of theRite of Strict Observance looking for converts to Cagliostro's "Egyptian Freemasonry". In February 1779 Cagliostro traveled toMitau, (nowadaysLatvia), where he met the poetElisa von der Recke. In September 1780, after failing inSaint Petersburg to win the patronage of RussianTsaritsaCatherine the Great, the Cagliostros made their way toStrasbourg, at that time in France. In October 1784, the Cagliostros travelled toLyon. On 24 December 1784 they founded theco-Masonic mother lodgeLa Sagesse Triomphante of his rite of Egyptian Freemasonry at Lyon. In January 1785 Cagliostro and his wife went to Paris in response to the entreaties ofCardinal Rohan.[citation needed]
Satire on Cagliostro at a Masonic meeting in London in 1786, byJames Gillray
Cagliostro was prosecuted in theAffair of the Diamond Necklace which involvedMarie Antoinette andCardinalPrince Louis de Rohan, and was held in theBastille for nine months but finally acquitted, when no evidence could be found connecting him to the affair. Nonetheless, he was banished from France by order ofLouis XVI, and departed for England. There he was accused by French expatriateTheveneau de Morande of being Giuseppe Balsamo, which he denied in his publishedOpen Letter to the English People, forcing a retraction and apology from Morande.[citation needed]
Cagliostro left England to visitRome, where he met two people who proved to be spies of theInquisition. Some accounts hold that his wife was the one who initially betrayed him to the Inquisition. On 27 December 1789, he was arrested for attempting to found aMasonic lodge in Rome,[8] and was imprisoned in theCastel Sant'Angelo. He was tried and originally sentenced to death but the sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment at theForte di San Leo, where he would die on 26 August 1795.[9]
Portuguese authorCamilo Castelo Branco credits to Balsamo the creation of the Egyptian Rite of the Freemasons and intensive work in the diffusion ofFreemasonry, by opening lodges all over Europe and by introducing the acceptance of women into the community. The idea of an "Egyptian freemasonry" was maintained in Italy by the Rite of Misraim, founded in 1813 by the three JewishBédarride brothers and in France, the Rite of Memphis founded in 1838 by Jacques Etienne Marconis de Nègre; these unified underGiuseppe Garibaldi as theAncient and Primitive Rite of Memphis-Misraïm in 1881.
Cagliostro was an extraordinary forger.Giacomo Casanova, in his autobiography, narrated an encounter in which Cagliostro was able to forge a letter by Casanova, despite being unable to understand it. Occult historianLewis Spence comments in his entry on Cagliostro that the swindler put hisfinagled wealth to good use by starting and funding a chain of maternity hospitals and orphanages around the continent. He carried an alchemistic manuscriptThe Most Holy Trinosophia amongst others with him on his ill-fated journey to Rome, and it is alleged that he wrote it. OccultistAleister Crowley believed Cagliostro was one of his previousincarnations.[10][11]
Alexandre Dumas, père used Cagliostro in several of his novels (especially inJoseph Balsamo and inLe Collier de la Reine where he claims to be over 3,000 years old and to have knownHelen of Troy).
George Sand includes Cagliostro as a minor character in her historical novel,The Countess of Rudolstadt (1843).
Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy wrote the supernatural love storyCount Cagliostro, in which the Count brings to life a long dead Russian princess by materializing her from her portrait. The story was made into a 1984 Soviet TV movieFormula of Love.
Cagliostro is featured in three stories byRafael Sabatini, namely "The Lord of Time", "The Death Mask" and "The Alchemical Egg", which are included in Sabatini's collectionTurbulent Tales.
In "The Sandman" byETA Hoffmann. Spalanzani is said to resemble a portrait of Cagliostro by Chodowiecki.
In "The Book and the Beast", a short story byRobert Arthur, Jr., agrimoire attributed to Caliostro causes the gruesome death of those foolish enough to examine it, until a fire destroys it.[12]
He is mentioned in the novelKun Lun by Kilburn Hall (2014), where it is revealed that Alessandro Cagliostro, Joseph and Giuseppe Balsamo are just a few of the names that the time travelerCount St. Germain has used throughout history.
Cagliostro makes a number of appearances as a vampire inKim Newman'sAnno Dracula series of novels.
There are numerous references to Cagliostro in the detective novelHe Who Whispers byJohn Dickson Carr (aka Carter Dickson), one of his DrGideon Fell mysteries, published byHamish Hamilton (UK) & Harper (USA) in 1946. In this book, a French professor, Georges Antoine Rigaud, has written a history:Life of Cagliostro. An attempted murder committed inHe Who Whispers is similar in technique to part of an initiation ceremony undergone by Cagliostro into the lodge of a secret society. Cagliostro Street appears as a location in Carr's 1935 novelThe Hollow Man (published in the US asThe Three Coffins).
He is a character in the 1997 novel 'Superstition' by David Ambrose. He is an acquaintance of the fictional Adam Wyatt.
He is often mentioned in the novelNapoleon's Pyramids byWilliam Dietrich in connection with Freemasons and ancient Egyptian artifacts.
The Phantomcomic book (based on a comic strip of the same name) featured Cagliostro as a character in the story "The Cagliostro Mystery" from 1988. written by Norman Worker and drawn by Carlos Cruz.
The mangaRozen Maiden gives Count Cagliostro as one of many aliases adopted by the legendary dollmaker Rozen. He was shown to be in prison whittling wood.
He is a character inTodd McFarlane's comic bookSpawn. He was introduced to the series by writerNeil Gaiman. Here, Cogliostro was once a spawn of Hell bound to his duty to the daemonMalebolgia. Having freed himself of the curse through alchemy and sorcery, he is teaching Spawn to do the same throughout the series.
Cagliostro is the namesake of a playable character in the Japanese Mobile gameGranblue Fantasy.
Payday 2 by Overkill and Starbreeze studios features Cagliostro's manuscript as a key story item and opens a deep mystery within the game involving secret societies, immortality and nephilims.
Cagliostro is a villain in theSpiders video gameSteelrising. His penchant for magic and alternative medicine is referenced; for example, in one scene, he is shown practicinghypnosis with a pendulum.
Cagliostro is featured inFate/Grand Order as a Pretender-class servant.
Cagliostro appears as an opponent in the card cheating gameCard Shark.
He appears as a principal character in the 1794 operaLe congrès des rois, a collaborative work of 12 composers.
The French composerVictor Dourlen (1780–1864) composed the first act toCagliostro, ou Les illuminés which premiered on 27 November 1810. The second and third acts were composed byAnton Reicha (1770–1836).[13][14]
The French composerClaude Terrasse (1867–1923) wroteLe Cagliostro which premiered in 1904.[18]
The Polish composerJan Maklakiewicz (1899–1954) wrote the ballet in three scenesCagliostro w Warszawie which premiered in 1938.[19]
The Romanian composerIancu Dumitrescu (1944–) wrote the 1975 workLe miroir de Cagliostro for choir, flute and percussion.[20]
The American composerJohn Zorn (1953–) composedCagliostro for solo viola in 2015. The performer uses two bows in the right hand to play on all four strings at once throughout the work.
In the 1943 German epicMünchhausen, Cagliostro appears as a powerful, morally ambiguous magician portrayed byFerdinand Marian.
The French film directorGeorges Méliès (1861–1938) directed the 1899 filmLe Miroir de Cagliostro.[22]
The Japanese animated movieThe Castle of Cagliostro draws onMaurice Leblanc'sArsène Lupin novels and has the gentleman thief's half-Japanese grandson as the protagonist. Lazare d'Cagliostro appears as the main antagonist of the film, a ruler of a fictional country who influences the world's economy through counterfeiting (inspired by the 1977 fanfictionThe Justice of Arsène Lupin).
The Mummy (1932), starringBoris Karloff, was adapted from an original story treatment byNina Wilcox Putnam titled "Cagliostro". Based on Cagliostro and set in San Francisco, the story was about a 3000-year-old magician who survives by injecting nitrates.
Cagliostro and his wife, Lorenza, appear as antagonists in the 2006 animeLe Chevalier d'Eon. While Cagliostro is mostly portrayed as a bumbling money-grubber, Lorenza is shown to have arcane magic powers.
In theMarvel Cinematic Universe, Cagliostro is a sorcerer, and is mentioned often inDoctor Strange (2016). TheBook of Cagliostro: Study of Time is an ancient artifact containing several dark spells. The spin-off Disney+ seriesWhat If...? mentions him as one who could break an absolute point in time.Doctor Strange read the lost books of Cagliostro and reversed an absolute point in time, much like the books' author.
He appears as a villainous magician in an episode of the 1960s seriesThriller, entitled "The Prisoner in the Mirror"; he is played byHenry Daniell andLloyd Bochner.
In "Diana's Disappearing Act", a 1978 episode of theWonder Woman TV series, a descendant of Cagliostro's (played byDick Gautier) is the villain. Attempting alchemy, he succeeds to the extent of turning lead into gold for a time, after which it reverts back to its original form. The long-lived Wonder Woman says that she faced his ancestor, the original count, in the past.
A magician named Cagliostro is murdered in "Death Casts a Spell," a 1984 episode ofMurder She Wrote.
InSamurai Jack (the seventh episode of the third season), the title character follows a quest for the crystal of Cagliostro. This episode contains an homage toThe Castle of Cagliostro by way of Jack receiving aid from a thief based directly onDaisuke Jigen.
The 2016Lupin III yearly special featured a hunt for the treasure of Cagliostro. Prior to this, the name was also used for the 1979 Lupin III theatrical releaseThe Castle of Cagliostro, though with little relation to the historical Cagliostro.
InThe Twilight Zone (2002 TV series), Episode 36 "The Pharaoh's Curse", an up-and-coming illusionist strives to learn the secrets behind a centuries-old illusion, which has been purportedly handed down from magician mastersHarry Houdini, Frederick Eugene Powell, and back originally to Cagliostro himself.
^abIain McCalman:The Seven Ordeals of Count Cagliostro, 2004: Flamingo (Australia) and Random House (UK); published in the US asThe Last Alchemist by HarperCollins.
Giacomo Casanova,Soliloque d'un penseur (1786). A pamphlet contra Cagliostro, published anonymously.
Le Couteulx de Canteleu,Les sectes et sociétés secrètes, politiques et religieuses (1863); Ch. XIII "Saint-Germain, Cagliostro, et l'affaire du collier".
Philippa Faulks and Robert L. D. Cooper.The Masonic Magician; The Life and Death of Count Cagliostro and his Egyptian Rite, London, Watkins, 2008.
Alexander Lernet-Holenia.Das Halsband der Königin (Paul Zsolnay Verlag, Hamburg/Vienna, 1962, historical study on the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, including a description of Cagliostro's background).
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