“I will that any bakers or other tradesmen who do not sell well-made bread of good weight shall incur a penalty of three lashes and a fine of ten scudi each; one-half of the fine to be applied to pious uses and the other half to go to the accuser, or the executioner, or in other ways, at the pleasure of the judge.”
A most interesting account is given of the passage through Rome, at the latter end of the eighteenth century, of that remarkable personage and most famous adventurer Giuseppe Balsamo. It was in Rome that this famous swindler was finally unmasked, his frauds exposed and he himself seized, tried and condemned to death. His story drawn from authentic records is worth telling in some detail.
This famous impostor was commonly called Count Cagliostro. Carlyle says of him that he “was not so much a liar as a lie.” He was born at Palermo on the 8th June, 1743, being the son of Pietro Balsamo, a merchant, and Felice Braconieri, his wife. Young Giuseppe was sent as a lad to the seminary of San Rocco in Palermo, and during his stay there he ran away several times from school. When he was thirteen years old he was consigned to the care of the father-general of the Benfratelli, who himself took him to Cartagirone, where he entered on his novitiate and among other things studied alchemy and a little medicine. While in the convent he was repeatedly flogged for misconduct. Among the other sins he committed there, it is specially recorded that when it came to his turn to read the “Martyrology” at meal times, he would substitute the names of famous murderers for those of saints and virgins. He was invariably the ringleader in any disturbance and such was his impudent boldness that he often helped to rescue prisoners from the custody of the police. About this time he also began to study Latin and drawing, and his skill in imitation was so great that he frequently forged tickets for the theatre. When he quitted the convent he went to live with an uncle from whom he stole considerable sums of money. He also managed to ingratiate himself with one of his cousins who was in love with a rich gentleman of Palermo, and carried letters between them; and representing to her admirer that the young lady would be gratified by a gift of money and jewels, he obtained possession of both which he quietly appropriated.
The next offence of Balsamo was the forging of a will, and before the fraud was discovered he was far away from Palermo. He was always believed to have murdered a canon, although the authorities failed to obtain actual proof of his guilt, but he was imprisoned several times for robberies and assaults.
Finally he stole more than sixty ounces of gold from one Marano, a goldsmith, whom he had deluded into the belief that he could show him where a vast hidden treasure lay concealed. Marano, who had not only been robbed but also nearly beaten to death by certain devils invoked by Balsamo, determined to take revenge for all his injuries. This obliged Balsamo to fly from Palermo, and he left the city under a strong suspicion that he had either committed or attempted to commit sacrilege. Then began his many wanderings. At Messina, one of his first halting places, he met with a certain Althotas, who was a Greek, and from him he acquired a considerable knowledge of chemistry and of Oriental languages. He travelled with this man all over the Greek Archipelago and as far as Egypt, where his companion made silk from hemp.
From Egypt Balsamo journeyed to Rhodes and Malta, where he stayed with Pinto, grand-master of the Order of St. John. He then proceeded to Naples in company with a coral cutter to whom he had been recommended by the grand-master. He lived in Naples for a considerable time and while there made the acquaintance of Prince Pignatelli who afterwards accompanied him into Sicily. On the way he met a priest at Messina who had been one of the devils who helped in the attack on Marano, and later he returned to Naples, where he remained a short time.
And thus it happened that one fine day in the year 1773 he presented himself in Rome, after having travelled through Italy, Greece, Egypt, Arabia and Persia. He was only thirty years old as yet, but his was a larger and more varied experience than most men acquire during their entire lives. And now he was prepared to try his old tricks in a new place and on a grander scale. He established himself in Rome at the “Locanda del Sole” and by means of the letters of introduction he brought with him soon became acquainted with several great personages, including the Baron de Breteuil, ambassador of the Knights of Malta.
He had not been long in the city before he attached himself to a young girl of the name of Serafina, otherwise Lorenza Feliciani, who lived near the Trinità di Monti. She was born at Monte Rinaldo in the diocese of Fermo, but her father’s crimes had driven him from his native place and forced him to seek refuge in Rome. One of her brothers was in the army, and at a later date was present at the siege of Ancona with General Cubiers. Lorenza’s father was called Luca Andrea, but he changed his name after he came to Rome. When Cagliostro asked for his daughter in marriage he gave his consent at once, and the wedding took place on the 26th of February. Cagliostro immediately applied himself to the task of undermining his wife’s virtue, silencing her scruples by saying “that adultery was no sin in a woman who was actuated simply by motives of self-interest,” and by thus selling his honour he succeeded in raising a small sum of money. By and by he made the acquaintance of a certain Ottavio Nicastro, a Sicilian who called himself the Marchese Agliata and who afterward died on the scaffold for premeditated murder. This man falsified an official brevet of the king of Prussia in favour of his friend, representing Balsamo as having been the colonel of one of the Prussian regiments of which he wore the uniform.
But “rogues fall out when honest men agree,” and these two were no exception to the rule. Nicastro suddenly denounced Balsamo to the governor of Rome as a forger, and the latter had to seek safety in flight. Nicastro, however, seemed immediately to repent of what he had done, and accompanied Balsamo in his hurried departure. The precious pair then visited Loreto, Bologna, Bergamo and Genoa, in all of which places they carried on their usual nefarious practices, among other evil deeds forging a bill for twenty-five scudi payable in Savoy. At Genoa Agliata absconded with everything he could lay hands on, and Balsamo took his wife to Nice and thence to Spain, giving out that he was going on a pious pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James of Compostello.
He remained six months in Barcelona and there continued his usual mode of life. His wife Lorenza was young, of medium height and fair complexion, with a round face, beautiful eyes and a sweet and languishing expression which proved very attractive. She was a most valuable assistant to him in many ways and he had no scruple, as we have said, in availing himself of her services. From Barcelona he journeyed to Madrid, then on to Lisbon and through France to London. In 1780 he was at Strasburg, where the credulous Germans treated him as a supernatural being, and after visiting many other towns in Germany, he appeared once more in Palermo and Naples, representing himself in every city where he stopped as a famous alchemist and magician who could invoke spirits, revive vanished youth and strength and foretell future events. He also professed to have discovered the secret of the philosopher’s stone and to hold the recipe of the much coveted elixir of life, to sell strange aromatic wines which excited the jaded senses, and finally, to be able to turn mercury into gold and to make precious stones increase in size.