Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracey V. Wilson. So dray Z,
Speaker 1: I think the name Caliostro kind of automatically comes with
Speaker 1: all kinds of just instant connotations and imagery when you
Speaker 1: say it. Um. He is connected to everything from petty
Speaker 1: crime to mysticism, to claims of nearly eternal life to
Speaker 1: one of the most famous crimes in all of history.
Speaker 1: And one of my favorite things in researching this was
Speaker 1: actually the way that Britannica defines Caliostro, and that's what
Speaker 1: the subheader of Italian charlatan um. I love those sort
Speaker 1: of qualifiers, like one of the other episodes that we're
Speaker 1: recording today, which you know, who knows what order these
Speaker 1: are actually going to come up in. But when I
Speaker 1: was looking for artwork, there are lots of people with
Speaker 1: the same name, and so some of them had the
Speaker 1: qualifier in parentheses murderer. And here's the thing, if you
Speaker 1: look at any number of different sources, you'll get a
Speaker 1: different qualifier like that, because everybody has a different point
Speaker 1: of view about him. So I wanted to approach his
Speaker 1: story in a way that kind of pears down some
Speaker 1: of the gauze, much of which he hung himself, uh,
Speaker 1: and just looks at his biography. But even so so
Speaker 1: it gets quite long, despite the fact that there's a
Speaker 1: lot of his biography we don't know, and it still
Speaker 1: feels like I left so much out. This is a
Speaker 1: person who is very busy and involved with a lot
Speaker 1: of people. So if you have a faive Kaliostro story
Speaker 1: and it did not make it in, I am sorry.
Speaker 1: There's just so much. A lot of it is very
Speaker 1: fun and fantastical. That just means there's more fun stuff
Speaker 1: for you to read out in the world. I also
Speaker 1: do want to make sure that we give a heads
Speaker 1: up here that this episode contains discussion of sexual coercion
Speaker 1: and sex trafficking. And with that warning out of the way,
Speaker 1: the story of this man who became really a legend.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are people who know his name who
Speaker 1: don't really know who he was. But he started with
Speaker 1: a pretty meager beginning, so let's jump right in there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was born Giuseppe Balsamo on June's second, seventeen forty
Speaker 1: three and Palermo Sicily. Sometimes you'll see other dates in
Speaker 1: early June cited depending on the source, and a note
Speaker 1: on that name. He's written about as both Giuseppa and
Speaker 1: as the Anglicized version of that name, which is Joseph,
Speaker 1: and all of that was before he took the name
Speaker 1: that became way more famous. So for the first part
Speaker 1: of his life, before he takes on that assumed name,
Speaker 1: we're going to go with Giuseppa, and then once he
Speaker 1: starts calling himself Cagliostro, will will transition over to that name.
Speaker 1: And while he eventually came to be known as a
Speaker 1: count sort of, we'll talk about that. His family in
Speaker 1: Palermo was extremely poor. His father was Peter Balsamo and
Speaker 1: his mother was Felicia Braconniere. Peter Balsamo was a merchant,
Speaker 1: but he also was not around for much of his
Speaker 1: son's life. He died when Giuseppa was still just a baby,
Speaker 1: and then his mother's uncle's Antonio and Matteo Braconniere, took
Speaker 1: care of him and kind of were in charge of
Speaker 1: raising him. He was enrolled in seminary school in Palermo.
Speaker 1: That didn't work out fabulously. He kept running away, So
Speaker 1: we should note that the earliest years of his life,
Speaker 1: including the place of his birth, those were shrouded in
Speaker 1: mystery even during his own lifetime because he deliberately shrouded
Speaker 1: all of that. He published an account of his life
Speaker 1: in which he said that he wasn't sure where he
Speaker 1: had been born. This led to rumors and beliefs among
Speaker 1: his followers that he was really the child of a royal,
Speaker 1: or a mystic or some other important figure. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't until he got into legal trouble later on in
Speaker 1: his life there was a concerted effort to track down
Speaker 1: and document the particulars of his story. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is not unusual for folks who you know, came from
Speaker 1: meager beginnings but then became notorious later on. Yeah, although
Speaker 1: his um his possible beginnings that get introduced to get
Speaker 1: wilder and wilder as you go. But according to a
Speaker 1: biography that was originally written in sevente after his brief
Speaker 1: time in seminary school, he was sent next at the
Speaker 1: age of thirteen, to live in a monastic community and
Speaker 1: Calton under the care of a monk there, and it's
Speaker 1: here where the young Balsamo is said to have first
Speaker 1: been exposed to lessons in chemistry and medicine through the apothecary.
Speaker 1: There that was a man that's usually referenced as Father Albert,
Speaker 1: and working alongside Father Albert just sap I learned about
Speaker 1: things like mercury and sulfur, and how to manipulate salts,
Speaker 1: and about various mystical and religious texts that referenced alchemy.
Speaker 1: According to the same biography, though quote, he did not
Speaker 1: continue long in this asylum. During his stay, however, he
Speaker 1: exhibited so many new symptoms of a vicious character that
Speaker 1: the religious were often under the necessity of chastising him.
Speaker 1: Some of his recorded infractions were things like telling his
Speaker 1: own stories instead of reading from the text when he
Speaker 1: was asked to read aloud for the community during meals.
Speaker 1: He would substitute names when he did read from the text,
Speaker 1: using the names of well known sex workers instead of
Speaker 1: the names that were actually there on the page. Soon
Speaker 1: he left the community and was back in Palermo. Yeah,
Speaker 1: sometimes those substitutions were putting those names in in lieu
Speaker 1: of saints names when he was doing like biblical study reading.
Speaker 1: So you could see where this would be a problem.
Speaker 1: Not a popular move among the monks. No, after his time,
Speaker 1: you know, having been in a religious setting with few temptations,
Speaker 1: it seems like he went in completely the opposite direction
Speaker 1: as a team. Once he got back to his hometown,
Speaker 1: he got in fights, he stole money, even from his uncles.
Speaker 1: You'll see some records to say he mugged one of
Speaker 1: his uncles. He started drawing, and he was apparently pretty
Speaker 1: good at that, but uh he used that skill instead
Speaker 1: of making art to forge theater tickets and then entire documents.
Speaker 1: As his skills got better and better, and over time,
Speaker 1: young Giuseppe became well known to the authorities because he
Speaker 1: just loved to stir up trouble and get into altercations.
Speaker 1: Often he would get into altercations with the men who
Speaker 1: came to arrest him. He's also said to have helped
Speaker 1: other arrested men escape authorities. And he ran a scheme
Speaker 1: where he feigned to be running love notes back and
Speaker 1: forth between two young people, and he would then add
Speaker 1: requests for money or gifts from the young lady involved
Speaker 1: in her letters to the young man, who is sometimes
Speaker 1: reported as a cousin of Giuseppe's, and then uh he
Speaker 1: would pocket any extra goods that he was given to
Speaker 1: take to her by her paramore. So he was just
Speaker 1: kind of running this nice little scheme of like what
Speaker 1: will someone in love give me as a gift intended
Speaker 1: for his actual beloved. This is but a sampling, though,
Speaker 1: of his rap sheet of petty crimes. And he eventually
Speaker 1: became the leader of a street gang that routinely just
Speaker 1: robbed people, and rumors went around town that he had
Speaker 1: stabbed a man. Sometimes that is reported as he stabbed
Speaker 1: a priest to death, but everyone was too afraid of
Speaker 1: him to really question the situation. Even though he was
Speaker 1: arrested a lot, he was released pretty soon afterward. All
Speaker 1: the time, there was rarely enough evidence to keep him
Speaker 1: locked up, or one of his relatives would intervene and
Speaker 1: pay whatever fine or bail was involved. But then he
Speaker 1: fleeced a silversmith of sixties silver pieces, and that man
Speaker 1: was Vincenzo Morano. While Samo had told Morano that he
Speaker 1: knew of a treasure that had been buried at Mount Pellegrino,
Speaker 1: he had come to know this information, he said, you
Speaker 1: an ancient document, And already as a teenager, Jusippa had
Speaker 1: a reputation for having a connection to other worldly things
Speaker 1: and possibly even for sorcery. He made amulets. Uh. He
Speaker 1: also claimed to have visions, often through dreams, and he
Speaker 1: not only told Vincenzo Morano that he had seen impressive
Speaker 1: treasures buried at Mount Pellegrino in his dream about it,
Speaker 1: but that he had also seen a treasure demon guarding it,
Speaker 1: and that only he knew how to defeat it. But
Speaker 1: he also needed money to buy supplies to do the
Speaker 1: magic that would enable them to get the treasure from
Speaker 1: that demon protector, and those supplies were going to cost
Speaker 1: sixty silver pieces. As a note, if you look up
Speaker 1: the same story or if you've heard it before, it's
Speaker 1: sometimes relayed with Morano being a goldsmith and the cost
Speaker 1: of supplies at sixty gold pieces. I saw so much
Speaker 1: of both that I just went with the one I
Speaker 1: saw more of. So when Morano and Giseppa Balsamo went
Speaker 1: to get this treasure, Balsamo had a gang of his
Speaker 1: friends waiting. They were dressed as demons, and they attacked
Speaker 1: and beat the silver smith. When the assault was over
Speaker 1: and Morano was able to get up, all of them,
Speaker 1: including Balsamo, had vanished. So initially the silver smith was
Speaker 1: worried for his young guide, and then he heard that
Speaker 1: Balsamo had left town, he realized he had been swindled. Yeah,
Speaker 1: at that point, Balsamo was not going back because he
Speaker 1: knew that the silversmith, who was not a small or
Speaker 1: gentle man necessarily was really going to have his hide.
Speaker 1: So after leaving Cecily, Giuseppe began a life of travel.
Speaker 1: As far as we know, there's actually little to no documentation,
Speaker 1: so we only have his word for it, or in
Speaker 1: some cases there are additional um accounts and on occasion
Speaker 1: some some actual written record, but relying initially on the
Speaker 1: money that he had made through his deception of Morano,
Speaker 1: he reported visiting Greece, Persia, Egypt, and Arabia, as well
Speaker 1: as other locations. And that's also when he told people
Speaker 1: that he really studied deeply the world of alchemy. His
Speaker 1: first stop was in Messina, and that makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense because Palermo is on the western half of
Speaker 1: the island of Sicily, and then Messina is over on
Speaker 1: the far eastern tip of the island, right where Sicily
Speaker 1: and the boot of Italy almost kiss, so to get
Speaker 1: off the island would have been best to go that way.
Speaker 1: This was also a large port, so from Messina he
Speaker 1: could get almost anywhere that he might think of. And
Speaker 1: in Messina, Giuseppe said that he met a man named Altotas,
Speaker 1: who was either Greek or Spanish, he wasn't certain, and
Speaker 1: who he claimed to be a chemist or an alchemist. Altotas,
Speaker 1: according to kelly Ostro, also had several ancient Arabic manuscripts
Speaker 1: with him, and he knew a lot of magic that
Speaker 1: kelly Stro was very eager to learn from him. Of course,
Speaker 1: he wasn't going with Caliostro yet. Uh. There is the
Speaker 1: possibility that this character of Altotas was actually a priest
Speaker 1: that Giuseppe was already traveling with, who was named Father Atansio.
Speaker 1: Because when Giuseppe fled Palermo, two of his cohorts in
Speaker 1: that theft of Vincenzo Morano's money fled with him. One
Speaker 1: of those was a priest and one was a valet.
Speaker 1: And in his descriptions of his relationship with Alttas, he
Speaker 1: claimed that he studied botany, physics, various foreign languages, and
Speaker 1: quote all the wonders of Egypt. Uh. That is all
Speaker 1: according to that late eighteenth century biography we referenced earlier
Speaker 1: from Messina, Giuseppa and Altota sailed together to Alexandria, Egypt,
Speaker 1: and the two of them started performing what sounds like
Speaker 1: street magic. They did what was called operations in chemistry,
Speaker 1: and they made money doing it quite a bit by
Speaker 1: Calioster's account, but their travels during this time are still
Speaker 1: pretty hard to track. It was pretty common for Sicilians
Speaker 1: to visit Egypt at this point. We don't know if
Speaker 1: he actually went there at all, but we do have
Speaker 1: fixed information on where Giuseppe was in seventeen sixty five,
Speaker 1: and we're going to talk about that and more of
Speaker 1: his adventures after a quick sponsor break. We mentioned before
Speaker 1: the break that we don't know for certain that Giuseppe
Speaker 1: Bosama went to all of the places that he claimed,
Speaker 1: but we do know that he was on the island
Speaker 1: of Malta starting in seventeen sixty five. Alttas that alchemist
Speaker 1: that he claimed to be traveling with uh He said
Speaker 1: that he died shortly after they arrived there, and he
Speaker 1: was specifically in the city of Medina working for the
Speaker 1: Knights Hospital or you'll see that as the Order of
Speaker 1: Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem. This
Speaker 1: was a military and clerical order that combined both combat
Speaker 1: and medical hair and by the time Giuseppe started working
Speaker 1: in a service job for the organization, the primary focus
Speaker 1: was on serving as sort of a way point for
Speaker 1: travelers to Jerusalem, offering care and food and lodging his
Speaker 1: need in This was a very wealthy charity by the
Speaker 1: time that Giuseppe landed on Malta, and it also had
Speaker 1: an alchemy lab, and that seems to have kept him
Speaker 1: happy for at least a little while. He mixed medicines
Speaker 1: using some of the skills he had acquired in his
Speaker 1: religious schooling days, and he also searched for the Philosopher's stone.
Speaker 1: He was not the only one. They're doing this, He
Speaker 1: was helping other workers of alchemy do the same thing.
Speaker 1: And he actually worked there for two years and was
Speaker 1: well liked enough to have glowing recommendation letters when he
Speaker 1: chose to move on in seventeen sixty seven. When he left,
Speaker 1: it was to go to Italy. He passed through a
Speaker 1: few cities before making his way to Rome and hunting
Speaker 1: for work there, showing his recommendation letters to as many
Speaker 1: high ranking church official as he could until he found
Speaker 1: somebody who needed his skills, and that man was Cardinal Orsini.
Speaker 1: But this job wasn't particularly thrilling, It just involves some
Speaker 1: light secretarial work. So ga Seppa picked up a side
Speaker 1: hustle as well, selling fake potions to tourists claiming that
Speaker 1: they were from Egypt. He also made money selling drawings,
Speaker 1: which were first printed on copper plates and then inked
Speaker 1: by hand. And it seems that while he was in room,
Speaker 1: Balsamo had started to shift his identity to suit various situations.
Speaker 1: So sometimes he would appear to be tied to the
Speaker 1: Catholic Church, like in full robes, and other times he
Speaker 1: represented himself as like a secular man, just like a merchant.
Speaker 1: And he also fell back into a pattern of getting
Speaker 1: in trouble with the law. He was held in jail
Speaker 1: for several days, for example, after getting into a fight
Speaker 1: with a waiter. But the more important thing that happened
Speaker 1: to him in Rome was that he met a girl
Speaker 1: named Lorenz Feliciani, and we say girl pretty pointedly here.
Speaker 1: She was only fourteen when they met, and Giuseppa was
Speaker 1: twenty five. She's described as a blonde, blue eyed beauty,
Speaker 1: and Giuseppa was completely smitten with her to be clear,
Speaker 1: though this age difference was recognized as significance. Lorenzo's parents
Speaker 1: were initially very reluctance to approved the two of them
Speaker 1: marrying because their daughter was so young, but because Giuseppa
Speaker 1: was so well connected, two men high up in the
Speaker 1: church and so well respected, despite the fact that he
Speaker 1: still seemed to have some connections to his friends from
Speaker 1: his petty crime days back in Palermo. The felicianis ultimately
Speaker 1: caved on this whole matter, and initially Giuseppa and Lorenzo
Speaker 1: lived with her family, but that caused all kinds of tension.
Speaker 1: The conservative and very devout flies didn't like the way
Speaker 1: Giseppa behaved, including influencing their daughter to be less pious.
Speaker 1: Giuseppe fel like his new in laws cramped his style
Speaker 1: and we're just too judgmental, and eventually there was a
Speaker 1: huge fight that ended with the newlyweds moving out. Let's
Speaker 1: put the two of them in a tight spot financially,
Speaker 1: and Gaseppa once again fell back on illegal methods of
Speaker 1: making a living. He became friends with a man named
Speaker 1: Agliata who claimed to be a Prussian marquis and a colonel,
Speaker 1: among other things, and he taught him how to advance
Speaker 1: his forgery skills. Agliata had forged his own military commission papers.
Speaker 1: He was not a colonel at all, but his document
Speaker 1: forgeries were good enough that nobody questioned them, and he
Speaker 1: trained Gieseppa to do the same. Balsamo had also learned
Speaker 1: how to forge bank documents from Agliata, basically enable him
Speaker 1: to finance his life through scammed money whenever he wanted
Speaker 1: and just write your own money, no problem. It turned out, though,
Speaker 1: that sharing all of these tricks of the trade on
Speaker 1: the part of Agliata was not merely some magnanium kindness
Speaker 1: to an up and comer. Agliata found Lorenza beautiful and desirable,
Speaker 1: and he made it clear to Giuseppa that he would
Speaker 1: like to have sex with his wife. It is not
Speaker 1: clear whether Giuseppa Balsamo had always intended to use Lorenza
Speaker 1: and what amounts to sex trafficking, but it does seem
Speaker 1: that way. Before this, before his friendship with Agliata, he
Speaker 1: had certainly encouraged her to dress more provocatively, and then,
Speaker 1: by his own description, had taught her to be more
Speaker 1: alluring to men. This is one of the issues that
Speaker 1: her family really had with him. It even shifted her identity,
Speaker 1: having her go by the name Sara Fina rather than Lorenza.
Speaker 1: And so when Agliata made this overture to Giuseppe, Balsama
Speaker 1: was not scandalized by it in the least. He seemed
Speaker 1: to see it as a commercial transaction, and he coerced
Speaker 1: Lorenza to acquiesce. Please remember she was still a young teenager,
Speaker 1: she had still grown up in a very religious family,
Speaker 1: and while he wasn't scandalized, she was very, very concerned
Speaker 1: about her immortal soul and the moral consequences of adultery.
Speaker 1: According to that eighteenth century account of things, Balsamo told
Speaker 1: his wife quote that adultery is no crime in a
Speaker 1: woman who commits it on account of her interests, and
Speaker 1: not simply through affection to another man. For a while,
Speaker 1: the Balsamo's continued to travel with Agliata, although two outward
Speaker 1: appearances it probably seemed like Sarafina was Agliata's wife. They
Speaker 1: were traveling together as a couple, and Gieseppa and some
Speaker 1: of his friends were traveling in a separate carriage, and
Speaker 1: the course of this arrangement, Gieseppa profited because both he
Speaker 1: and Sarafina were receiving money and gifts from Agliata. This
Speaker 1: entire group profited as well because Giuseppa and Agliata teamed up.
Speaker 1: They were forging various letters to scam wealthy families out
Speaker 1: of money along the way. But while they were in Bergamo,
Speaker 1: the group and their illicit business came to the attention
Speaker 1: of the authorities. It is possible that they were betrayed
Speaker 1: from within the group. Historian Ian Mcalman writes this incident
Speaker 1: as though one of Giuseppa's other traveling companions turned his
Speaker 1: friend in out of jealousy, but regardless of how the
Speaker 1: police learned about them. Sarafina or Lorenza and Giuseppa were arrested.
Speaker 1: Agliotta escaped, taking all of their money with him. The
Speaker 1: worst and most incriminating documents that they had on them
Speaker 1: were stuffed down Lorenzo's bodice. She was able to destroy
Speaker 1: them before they could be used against her husband. The
Speaker 1: two ended up banished from Bergamo, but Giuseppa believed that
Speaker 1: he would have been killed if those papers had been seized.
Speaker 1: After this incident, Giuseppa and his wife took on the
Speaker 1: guise of religious pilgrims so they could go to the
Speaker 1: cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. This is the
Speaker 1: very a location of saints. And then later in his
Speaker 1: life Caliostro would claim that he had truly wished to
Speaker 1: atone for his life in undertaking this journey, but even
Speaker 1: if that were true, he veered off course pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: They did travel to Spain, but along the way, Jeseppa
Speaker 1: leaned on all of his old tricks to bring in money,
Speaker 1: including once again coercing his wife into sex work. When
Speaker 1: they reached Barcelona, which was about five hundred sixty miles
Speaker 1: away from their original target destination, their money ran out. Lorenza,
Speaker 1: again at her husband's urging, gave a false confession to
Speaker 1: a priest. They're saying that they were from high ranking
Speaker 1: families of Rome, but had been cast out because they
Speaker 1: had married without their family's consent, and so they were
Speaker 1: left penniless, and this was of course a scheme to
Speaker 1: get the church to give the money, and it worked,
Speaker 1: although this led to another deception, as the minister wished
Speaker 1: to see their marriage certificate, which they did not have,
Speaker 1: and so they went to a magistrate for help procuring
Speaker 1: that document that registrate was very interested in Lorenza, and
Speaker 1: the cycle of using her beauty to gain financial favor
Speaker 1: from other men began again. The Balsamo's moved from one
Speaker 1: perilous deception to another, this way with Geseppa duping people
Speaker 1: in one place as long as he could until he
Speaker 1: was found out or things got complicated. In some cases
Speaker 1: these men would fall in love with his wife and
Speaker 1: he would be like, this has gone too far, we
Speaker 1: have to leave. So then he would pick up and
Speaker 1: run and start to cycle all over again somewhere else.
Speaker 1: We know that he was in London in seventeen seventies six,
Speaker 1: and at that point he had adopted the title of
Speaker 1: counts and the name of Kliostro. That name was actually
Speaker 1: said to have come from another member of the family,
Speaker 1: an aunt, who had married a Kliostro, and he built
Speaker 1: his wife as the Countess Serafina Felicianikliostro told people that
Speaker 1: he was a miracle worker and that he had curative powers.
Speaker 1: He was especially fond of a red powder that he
Speaker 1: used as a prop and he called it materia prima
Speaker 1: in alchemical terms, prima materia, which he was obviously referencing
Speaker 1: is the material from which all other substances are created,
Speaker 1: including the Philosopher's stone. It is the essence of the ether,
Speaker 1: and Caliostro said that he could use it to turn
Speaker 1: base metals into gold. He also carried with him a
Speaker 1: liquid that he called Egyptian wine, and he claimed that
Speaker 1: it could extend a person's life. While Caliostro was in London,
Speaker 1: he became a Freemason. There's a significant aspect of Caliostro's
Speaker 1: entry into freemasonry that's worth considering. Being a Freemason was
Speaker 1: expressly forbidden in the Catholic Church starting in seventeen thirty eight,
Speaker 1: and Caliostro had grown up in deeply Catholic Sicily, so
Speaker 1: although he had pretty clearly been very morally flexible up
Speaker 1: to this point, this is a move that would have
Speaker 1: very clearly communicated his disregard for the Church. But it
Speaker 1: also became pretty obvious pretty quickly that he did really
Speaker 1: view freemasonry with any reverence either. While he was in England,
Speaker 1: he claimed that he had come into the possession of
Speaker 1: a book by a man named Koston sometimes see other
Speaker 1: names that are similar to that, which he would later
Speaker 1: say was a sacred manuscript of Lost Knowledge that inspired
Speaker 1: the Egyptian Right. The Egyptian Right was essentially a revision
Speaker 1: of existing Freemasonry, spearheaded by this foulk count who wanted
Speaker 1: to start his own branch of the Order. We will
Speaker 1: talk more about that effort after we take a quick
Speaker 1: break to hear from our sponsors. Magic historian and magician
Speaker 1: Henry Ridgley Evans wrote an article in three titled Caliostro,
Speaker 1: a Study in Charlatanism, in which he describes the count's
Speaker 1: alteration of Freemasonry. Quote as Grand Master of the Egyptian Right,
Speaker 1: he leapt once into fame. His swindling operations were now
Speaker 1: conducted on a gigantic scale. He had the entree into
Speaker 1: the best society. According to him, Freemasonry was founded by
Speaker 1: Enoch and Elias. It was open to both sexes. Its
Speaker 1: present form, especially with regard to the exclusion of women,
Speaker 1: is a corruption. The true form was preserved only by
Speaker 1: the Grand Kafta or high priest of the egypt. Up
Speaker 1: until Cagliostro's claims about the order's origins, Freemasonry was believed
Speaker 1: by most of its members, who have been rooted in
Speaker 1: the Stonemason's Guilds of the Middle Ages. The exact origins
Speaker 1: aren't really documented, but the oldest known written reference to
Speaker 1: the order is from and that uncertainty about the earliest
Speaker 1: days of the organization left the door wide open for
Speaker 1: Count Alessandro de Cagliostro to basically write his own version
Speaker 1: of the story and sell it as the truth. When
Speaker 1: he started his own lodges, the fees that initiates paid
Speaker 1: into those lodges kept him with a steady income, and
Speaker 1: his version of Freemasonry, of course, incorporated his own prior interests.
Speaker 1: He promised initiates into his right that he would help
Speaker 1: them obtain quote physical and moral regeneration, and he included,
Speaker 1: of course, alchemy in the mix. He also started incorporating
Speaker 1: seances into the meetings, usually led by a young girl
Speaker 1: or boy is the medium, with the understanding that their
Speaker 1: innocence would make them more able to communicate with other realms.
Speaker 1: No longer hustling on the streets or scheming deceptions around
Speaker 1: entrapping men with his wife's beauty, Kliostro started weaving the
Speaker 1: stories that could make his true biography really difficult to unravel.
Speaker 1: For years. For example, he told people that he was
Speaker 1: ancient and that he had been alive and present during
Speaker 1: biblical events, including the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. His stories
Speaker 1: were unbelievable, but people did believe them, and he gained
Speaker 1: a very devoted following. He continued to embellish far beyond that,
Speaker 1: and his dedicated followers started to dream up their own
Speaker 1: additions to the story, which he did not ever deny.
Speaker 1: As his legend grew, there were whispers that he could
Speaker 1: time travel, that he was a spy, and even that
Speaker 1: he was a demigod. For the next nearly two decades,
Speaker 1: he made his living trading on this new reputation and
Speaker 1: started touring Europe and beyond, visiting Masonic lodges and forming
Speaker 1: new ones, including an all women lodge in Holland. In
Speaker 1: most places he was received with a lot of interests
Speaker 1: in honor, but it's worth noting that one standout who
Speaker 1: was not taken in with him was Katherine the Second
Speaker 1: of Russia. When he visited St. Petersburg, Catherine the Great
Speaker 1: declared him to be a charlatan and ordered him out
Speaker 1: of the country. During kalliostro seances, he would do the
Speaker 1: types of things that we've discussed on the show before
Speaker 1: in our episod Oodes on Madame Blovotsky and more recently
Speaker 1: Charles Colchester, things like producing papers with names of the
Speaker 1: people present already written on them. Sometimes they were sealed
Speaker 1: when he received them. He would have perhaps been arrested
Speaker 1: for jugglery had he been in the US eighty years later.
Speaker 1: And I did see a couple of older write ups
Speaker 1: about him that called him a juggler, which I loved.
Speaker 1: In a couple of instances, though, those young girls that
Speaker 1: he used as the clairvoyance in his seances kind of
Speaker 1: panicked and confessed that the whole thing was staged after
Speaker 1: the fact. And then in one instance, when he appeared
Speaker 1: before a group of Polish nobles dressed as the ancient
Speaker 1: Egyptian high priest that he claimed had given him the
Speaker 1: true knowledge of freemasonry, he was soon recognized as himself,
Speaker 1: and he extinguished the rooms candles in a panic, only
Speaker 1: to appear as good old Kliostro when they were re lit,
Speaker 1: claiming no knowledge of the situation that had just played out.
Speaker 1: And Strasbourg. Kliostro had met and become friends with Cardinal
Speaker 1: de Rohan so much so that he was invited to
Speaker 1: live with the cardinal. One of the nobles who visited
Speaker 1: the cardinal's palace during this time wrote of this situation quote,
Speaker 1: no one can ever form the faintest idea of the
Speaker 1: fervor with which everybody pursued Cagliostro. He was surrounded, besieged,
Speaker 1: everyone trying to win a glance or a word. A
Speaker 1: dozen ladies of rank and two actresses had followed him
Speaker 1: in order to continue their treatment. If I had not
Speaker 1: seen it, I should never have imagined that a prince
Speaker 1: of the Roman Church, a man in other respects intelligent
Speaker 1: and honorable, could so far let himself be imposed upon
Speaker 1: as to renounce his dignity, his free will, at the
Speaker 1: bidding of a sharper. Yes, so while a lot of
Speaker 1: people believed in him, there were always people who were
Speaker 1: like shady. By the time Caliostro moved on from Strasbourg,
Speaker 1: he had a veritable parade to see him out, and
Speaker 1: he next moved on to Leon, France, where he set
Speaker 1: up new Masonic lodges again and according to his rules,
Speaker 1: and he told the heads of other lodges that if
Speaker 1: they wished to visit him, they had to burn all
Speaker 1: of their old traditional Masonic materials. When he moved on
Speaker 1: to Paris, in his reputation had preceded him, and he
Speaker 1: was received as though he were a marvel beyond all marbles.
Speaker 1: He stayed in a hotel that the Cardinal de Rohan
Speaker 1: had secured, and there were rumors that he was creating
Speaker 1: gold and diamonds there. Late into the night, of course,
Speaker 1: Cagliostro stoked these fires of interest and mystery. He claimed
Speaker 1: that he held the secret of universal medicine, meaning that
Speaker 1: he had the knowledge and skill to cure just about anything,
Speaker 1: and through which he intended to convey bodily health to
Speaker 1: all of his followers. He was also offering spiritual health
Speaker 1: through his Egyptian right, and wealth through his alchemical use
Speaker 1: of the Philosopher's Stone. He was said to have hosted
Speaker 1: a Sayance dinner in which six guests each asked for
Speaker 1: a spirit to join them at the table. Caliostro used
Speaker 1: his magic to produce all of the requested deceased attendees.
Speaker 1: Those included the Duc de Choisoe Voltaire d'Alembert, de de Roux,
Speaker 1: the Abbe de Voisenon, and Montesquiume Unfortunately, when these ghost
Speaker 1: guests spoke, only gibberish came out. But the story of
Speaker 1: this astonishing and spectacular event spread like wildfire through Parisian society.
Speaker 1: This actually irritated the Queen Marie Antoinette, because she believed
Speaker 1: that Caliostro was a charlatan. And though many of the
Speaker 1: ladies of the court wished to have a series of
Speaker 1: lectures from Caliostro because they did not think he was
Speaker 1: a charlatan. Uh they had set this up and then
Speaker 1: they blabbed, and once word got out, that series of
Speaker 1: lectures came to an abrupt end. But Paris loved Caliostro,
Speaker 1: and soon there were trinkets and souvenirs available that featured
Speaker 1: his face on them. He had a lot of wealthy
Speaker 1: followers who were willing to attend his answ is. One
Speaker 1: such event was described in the autobiography of the Count
Speaker 1: de bouge Neeux quote as a sorcerer. He had a
Speaker 1: cabalistic apparatus on the table with a black cloth on
Speaker 1: which were embroidered in red the mysterious signs of the
Speaker 1: highest degree of the Rosicrucians. There stood the emblems little
Speaker 1: Egyptian figures old vials filled with lustral waters in a
Speaker 1: crucifix very like though not the same as the Christians cross.
Speaker 1: And there too Cagliostro placed a glass globe filled with
Speaker 1: clarified water. Before the globe he used to place a
Speaker 1: kneeling sear, that is to say, a young woman who
Speaker 1: by supernatural powers, should behold the scenes which are believed
Speaker 1: to take place in the water within the magic globe.
Speaker 1: The sear became convulsed. She ground her teeth and exhibited
Speaker 1: every sign of nervous excitement. At last she saw and
Speaker 1: began to speak what was taking place that a moment.
Speaker 1: Hundreds of miles from Paris, in Vienna, or St. Petersburg
Speaker 1: in Austria, or Pekin. It would be hard to believe
Speaker 1: that such scenes could have taken place in France at
Speaker 1: the end of the eighteenth century, yet they aroused great
Speaker 1: interest among people of importance in the court and the town.
Speaker 1: And Caliostro is one of the many people who have
Speaker 1: come up on the show who are part of the
Speaker 1: affair of the Diamond Necklace. And in Caliostro's case, it
Speaker 1: was because he was close friends with the Cardinal de Rohan.
Speaker 1: Here's the brief version of that whole situation in case
Speaker 1: you need a refresher. The jeweler Boehmer Embassage had created
Speaker 1: an extravagant necklace for King Louis to purchase for his mistress,
Speaker 1: Madame Duberry, but Louis the fifteenth died before that transaction
Speaker 1: was completed. The jeweler then tried to sell this necklace
Speaker 1: to the next monarch, Louis and his queen, Marie Antoinette,
Speaker 1: but they were not interested. The Countess de la Motte
Speaker 1: decided to cocta scheme to get the necklace for herself,
Speaker 1: and she suggested to the Cardinal de Rohan, who was
Speaker 1: on the ounce with Marie Antoinette, that he could help
Speaker 1: facilitate this purchase of the necklace for the queen. All
Speaker 1: of this hinged on a lie that she told that
Speaker 1: Marie Antoinette actually wanted this necklace but could not afford
Speaker 1: it or be linked to its purchase during the time
Speaker 1: when the country's money needed to be elsewhere. De la
Speaker 1: Motte forged letters from the queen to Rohan and arranged
Speaker 1: a meeting late at night in the Versailles gardens with
Speaker 1: a stand in who claimed to be the Queen. The
Speaker 1: Cardinal agreed to the plan based on all of this
Speaker 1: and signed a contract with Boehmer and Bassage for the
Speaker 1: purchase as a representative of Marie Antoinette. But then when
Speaker 1: he was unable to secure the funds, the jewelers went
Speaker 1: to the monarchs for the money that obviously uncovered the
Speaker 1: whole scheme. The necklace had already been handed over to
Speaker 1: the Countess de la Motte, who had broken it apart
Speaker 1: and sold it, so because of his involvement, Cardinal de
Speaker 1: Rohan was arrested after Countess de LaMotte implicated him, and
Speaker 1: that meant that Caliostro was also on the hook. The
Speaker 1: countess had told the authorities that Kliostro had been the
Speaker 1: one to break up the necklace and to tell her
Speaker 1: to sell the diamonds in London. Kliostro wrote his account
Speaker 1: of his arrest quote, on the twenty of August, a Commissarie,
Speaker 1: an exempt and eight policemen entered my home. The pillage
Speaker 1: began in my presence. They compelled me to open my secretary. Elixirs,
Speaker 1: bombs and precious liquors all became the prey of the
Speaker 1: officers who came to arrest me. I begged the Commissari
Speaker 1: to permit me to use my carriage. He refused. The
Speaker 1: agent took me by the collar. He had pistols, the
Speaker 1: stocks of which appeared from the pockets of his coat.
Speaker 1: They hustled me into the street, and scandalous LYE dragged
Speaker 1: me along the boulevard all the way to the Rue
Speaker 1: Notre Dame du Nazareth. There a carriage appeared, which I
Speaker 1: was permitted to enter to take the road to the
Speaker 1: best deal. He and his wife Lorenzo, were both taken
Speaker 1: into custody on August seventy five, and he stayed in
Speaker 1: prison awaiting a hearing until January of seventy six. As
Speaker 1: all the legal maschinations played out, Lorenza was found to
Speaker 1: have had no involvement in this and was freed. The
Speaker 1: cardinal was also revealed to have been foolish but an
Speaker 1: innocent dupe, but Caliostro was still regarded with suspicion. There
Speaker 1: was testimony that he had known of this deception, that
Speaker 1: he wanted to break up the necklace so that he
Speaker 1: might multiply the number of diamonds through alchemy and thereby
Speaker 1: increase his wealth. But Caliostro had actually gotten to Paris
Speaker 1: the day after the Cardinal had entered into this contract
Speaker 1: with the jewelers. Because of that timing, and because he
Speaker 1: was obviously an extremely confident man, Caliostro was pretty relaxed
Speaker 1: on the witness stand. When he was asked who he was,
Speaker 1: he simply replied, I am an illustrious traveler that made
Speaker 1: all present laugh, according to witness accounts, and of course
Speaker 1: he was let go. He was finally released on June one,
Speaker 1: so you might think that he would want to put
Speaker 1: this whole ugly business behind him. But Caliostro, after returning
Speaker 1: to his home and reuniting with his wife dramatically and
Speaker 1: in front of a huge gathering of friends and curious onlookers,
Speaker 1: he immediately started legal proceedings against the governor of the
Speaker 1: Bastille and the commissioner of Police. He wanted them to
Speaker 1: answer for the seizure of his personal property. But before
Speaker 1: those charges could get off the ground, King Louis the
Speaker 1: sixteenth banished the alchemist from France entirely. There was an
Speaker 1: offer for him to return to continue his legal case,
Speaker 1: but klio Star thought it was a trap and refused.
Speaker 1: He did, however, write a pamphlet predicting that the best
Speaker 1: deal would fall and he published that from the safety
Speaker 1: of London. Yeah, that was actually the first of a
Speaker 1: few where he was basically just publishing pamphlets and sending
Speaker 1: them over to France that were kind of a little
Speaker 1: bit you know, barbed and clearly vendetta driven. Uh, London
Speaker 1: did not quite offer Caliostro the same level of embrace
Speaker 1: that he had enjoyed in France. He did certainly have
Speaker 1: supporters there, but he also found that many english people
Speaker 1: were a little more suspicious of his supernatural claims by
Speaker 1: this point, and the Freemasons of London wanted nothing to
Speaker 1: do with him or his Egyptian right. When he attended
Speaker 1: a banquet at the Lodge of Antiquity in the city,
Speaker 1: one of its members put on a performance that was
Speaker 1: clearly meant to be a send up of Caliostro and
Speaker 1: his magic, and the faux count left the hall among
Speaker 1: jeers of ridicule from the members. So this performance consisted
Speaker 1: of a song which was acted out and according to
Speaker 1: notation published with an engraving that depicted the scene. The
Speaker 1: song lyrics included these lines, this self dubbed counts. Some
Speaker 1: few years since became a brother Mason, and in a
Speaker 1: borrowed name for names like simple, numerous he bears and
Speaker 1: proteus like in fifty forms, appears, I boast of balsam
Speaker 1: every ill, to cure my pills and powders, all disease, remove,
Speaker 1: renew your vigor and your health improve. This cutting part
Speaker 1: the arch impostor acts, and thus the weak incredulous attracts.
Speaker 1: But now his history is rendered clear, the errant, hypocrite
Speaker 1: and quack appear. May all true mason's his plain tail
Speaker 1: attend and satire's lash to fraud shall put an end
Speaker 1: pretty great, probably not for Caliostro. But to make matters worse,
Speaker 1: the high style in which he lived his life had
Speaker 1: really put him into deep debt. He also, you know,
Speaker 1: his health was not what it once had been, and
Speaker 1: soon he ran from London to avoid debtors prison, And
Speaker 1: he really hoped that he would regain his footing both
Speaker 1: in finances and reputation elsewhere in Europe. But all of
Speaker 1: these scandals that he had been embroiled in were starting
Speaker 1: to catch up with him. He was forbidden, specifically from
Speaker 1: practicing any of his alchemy or rights in Russia Spain,
Speaker 1: Germany and Austria, and he was still banished from France.
Speaker 1: He tried to establish a lodge in Italy, which was
Speaker 1: very brazen giving the papal stance on freemasonry. That plan
Speaker 1: did not pan out, and then he petitioned France to
Speaker 1: let him return, But before anything came of that petition,
Speaker 1: his life was abruptly interrupted. On December nine, Cagliostro was
Speaker 1: arrested and imprisoned in the San Angelo, Italy. The Holy
Speaker 1: Inquisition had seized his personal effects, particularly his documents regarding
Speaker 1: Egyptian masonry, and in a turn that's often called a betrayal,
Speaker 1: his wife Lorenza was the primary witness against him. She
Speaker 1: revealed that his work in alchemy and the supernatural was
Speaker 1: all trickery, and while he was discredited in that regard
Speaker 1: from any sort of magic that would go against the
Speaker 1: Church doctrine, he had used his tricks to deceive and steal.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I can call that a betrayal.
Speaker 1: I was going to talk about that, and behind the
Speaker 1: scenes we can sure do that. Um yeah uh. And
Speaker 1: there was no walking back the fact that he was
Speaker 1: a freemason. He did attempt to claim that he was
Speaker 1: trying to reform the order through its Egyptian roots in
Speaker 1: order to come back to the doctrines of the Catholic Church.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a desperate move, it sounds like. But
Speaker 1: after that entire explanation was met with doubt. Understandably, he
Speaker 1: tried once again to assert his connections to all manner
Speaker 1: of underworld secrets, some of which he said could damage
Speaker 1: the Church. He talked to the inquisitors for hours, constantly
Speaker 1: trying to angle and shift the conversation to kind of
Speaker 1: explain his way out of it and get things to
Speaker 1: come around to his benefit. This was a fruitless effort, though.
Speaker 1: He was found guilty of heresy, sorcery, and freemasonry and
Speaker 1: sentenced to death. That sentence was commuted to life in
Speaker 1: prison by Pope Pious the sixth His Egyptian manuscript was
Speaker 1: deemed blasphemous and burned when Caliostro was imprisoned in the
Speaker 1: Fortress of San Leo, which is a castle in Urbino, Italy.
Speaker 1: He died there in August, as historian Henry Ridgley Evans
Speaker 1: wrote about him in the early twentieth century quote and
Speaker 1: so ended the career of Cagliostro one of the most
Speaker 1: romantic of history. His condemnation as a sorcerer and freemason
Speaker 1: has invested him with the halo of a religious martyr,
Speaker 1: of which perhaps no one was less deserving. It is incidentally,
Speaker 1: through the inquisition investigation that most of Kliostro's biographical details
Speaker 1: were finally discovered, and the many embellishments that he had
Speaker 1: created were stripped from this story. For the first time publicly,
Speaker 1: in eighteen ten, the home in which Kaliostro had lived
Speaker 1: was opened for the first time since he locked it
Speaker 1: up for the last time. In all of the effects
Speaker 1: within furniture and the allegedly magical items were auctioned off
Speaker 1: by the French government. In the eighteen forties, Alexandra Duma,
Speaker 1: who we've covered on a show before, wrote a two
Speaker 1: volume fictionalized version of Kliostro's life titled Balsamo the Magician
Speaker 1: or The Memoirs of a Physician. These are part of
Speaker 1: a larger series of works by Duma, which were known
Speaker 1: as the Marie Antoinette Romances, and they cover the period
Speaker 1: of time in which she was Queen. Today, the perception
Speaker 1: of Kliostro is kind of all over the map, fueled
Speaker 1: by the inconsistencies and lack of evidence the true details
Speaker 1: of his life, as well as the various mystical claims
Speaker 1: that he made. While Geta described him as a Charlatan
Speaker 1: and many people agree with that characterization, there are still
Speaker 1: people who believe that he was truly a spiritual visionary
Speaker 1: intend on merging the ideas of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism
Speaker 1: all under one greater religious philosophy, whether or not he
Speaker 1: ever believed his own hype or he was just always
Speaker 1: fleecing the easily lad, It's one of those things that
Speaker 1: will probably remain a history mystery forever. Do you have
Speaker 1: some listener mail to take us out? Okay, this is
Speaker 1: a fairly short email. It is from our listener, Didra,
Speaker 1: who writes High Holly and Tracy. Catching up with recent podcasts,
Speaker 1: and something occurred to me while listening to the Mildred
Speaker 1: Fish Harnack episode. What exactly has meant when you say
Speaker 1: someone joined the Nazi Party? My party affiliation was simply
Speaker 1: a check of a box when I signed up to vote,
Speaker 1: But this oft used phrase seems to imply more. She says,
Speaker 1: please forgive me for asking you to do this work.
Speaker 1: But the thought of searching for the phrase join the
Speaker 1: Nazi Party online, I don't really want to see those
Speaker 1: search results. Uh. And she also attached a picture of
Speaker 1: her very pretty rescue kitty taken the day that we
Speaker 1: brought her home as a reward for doing this. I
Speaker 1: don't actually have to look this one up, and did
Speaker 1: come up in my research. UM. For Mildred at least
Speaker 1: and her husband, they had to basically sign a note
Speaker 1: of intent that said like I am of you know,
Speaker 1: my own free will, joining the Nazi Party, etcetera. That note,
Speaker 1: I think Mildred's. I can't remember if it's Mildred's or
Speaker 1: her husband's that have come out UM as part of
Speaker 1: the documentation over the years to have existed. So it
Speaker 1: was that it's more than just checking a box. It's
Speaker 1: like you had to make the effort to write your
Speaker 1: intent and sign your name to it. Which is why
Speaker 1: UM people thought it was so damning. It wasn't as
Speaker 1: simple as just saying like, yep, I'm part of that, UM,
Speaker 1: that's all. It was easy peasy. But I do appreciate
Speaker 1: cat pictures just the same, and her cat is one
Speaker 1: of my favorite flavors. And I think Tracy's too all black.
Speaker 1: Ya I love them. Uh so thanks. I hope that
Speaker 1: cleared that up. I know that was a quick one,
Speaker 1: but this was kind of a longish episode, so uh.
Speaker 1: If you would like to write to us, you can
Speaker 1: do so at History Podcast at i heart radio dot com.
Speaker 1: You can also find us anywhere on social media as
Speaker 1: Missed in History And if you haven't subscribed and you
Speaker 1: feel like it's time that sounds grand, you can do
Speaker 1: that on the I heart Radio app, at Apple podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Stuff you
Speaker 1: Missed in History Class is a production of I heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.