WEBVTT - Cagliostro 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.520 of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:17.560 I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracey V. Wilson. So dray Z, 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:21.440 I think the name Caliostro kind of automatically comes with 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:24.759 all kinds of just instant connotations and imagery when you 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:29.040 say it. Um. He is connected to everything from petty 0:00:29.080 --> 0:00:33.720 crime to mysticism, to claims of nearly eternal life to 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:36.680 one of the most famous crimes in all of history. 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:39.360 And one of my favorite things in researching this was 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:43.159 actually the way that Britannica defines Caliostro, and that's what 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:47.880 the subheader of Italian charlatan um. I love those sort 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:50.800 of qualifiers, like one of the other episodes that we're 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:55.200 recording today, which you know, who knows what order these 0:00:55.200 --> 0:00:57.040 are actually going to come up in. But when I 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:00.080 was looking for artwork, there are lots of people with 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:02.160 the same name, and so some of them had the 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:06.840 qualifier in parentheses murderer. And here's the thing, if you 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:09.200 look at any number of different sources, you'll get a 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:13.280 different qualifier like that, because everybody has a different point 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:15.240 of view about him. So I wanted to approach his 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:17.720 story in a way that kind of pears down some 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:21.119 of the gauze, much of which he hung himself, uh, 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:24.640 and just looks at his biography. But even so so 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:27.120 it gets quite long, despite the fact that there's a 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:29.679 lot of his biography we don't know, and it still 0:01:29.720 --> 0:01:32.760 feels like I left so much out. This is a 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:35.200 person who is very busy and involved with a lot 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:38.959 of people. So if you have a faive Kaliostro story 0:01:39.080 --> 0:01:41.319 and it did not make it in, I am sorry. 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:43.360 There's just so much. A lot of it is very 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:47.400 fun and fantastical. That just means there's more fun stuff 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:49.360 for you to read out in the world. I also 0:01:49.440 --> 0:01:50.920 do want to make sure that we give a heads 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:54.600 up here that this episode contains discussion of sexual coercion 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:58.160 and sex trafficking. And with that warning out of the way, 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:01.520 the story of this man who became really a legend. 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:03.480 I mean, there are people who know his name who 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:06.120 don't really know who he was. But he started with 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:09.440 a pretty meager beginning, so let's jump right in there. Yeah, 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:13.720 he was born Giuseppe Balsamo on June's second, seventeen forty 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:18.080 three and Palermo Sicily. Sometimes you'll see other dates in 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:22.160 early June cited depending on the source, and a note 0:02:22.160 --> 0:02:26.320 on that name. He's written about as both Giuseppa and 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:30.200 as the Anglicized version of that name, which is Joseph, 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:32.880 and all of that was before he took the name 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:35.680 that became way more famous. So for the first part 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:39.000 of his life, before he takes on that assumed name, 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:42.240 we're going to go with Giuseppa, and then once he 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:46.480 starts calling himself Cagliostro, will will transition over to that name. 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:49.639 And while he eventually came to be known as a 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:52.919 count sort of, we'll talk about that. His family in 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:57.040 Palermo was extremely poor. His father was Peter Balsamo and 0:02:57.160 --> 0:03:01.520 his mother was Felicia Braconniere. Peter Balsamo was a merchant, 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:03.680 but he also was not around for much of his 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:07.360 son's life. He died when Giuseppa was still just a baby, 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:12.119 and then his mother's uncle's Antonio and Matteo Braconniere, took 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:14.960 care of him and kind of were in charge of 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:18.440 raising him. He was enrolled in seminary school in Palermo. 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:22.320 That didn't work out fabulously. He kept running away, So 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:25.240 we should note that the earliest years of his life, 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:28.480 including the place of his birth, those were shrouded in 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:33.320 mystery even during his own lifetime because he deliberately shrouded 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:36.600 all of that. He published an account of his life 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:38.880 in which he said that he wasn't sure where he 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:42.280 had been born. This led to rumors and beliefs among 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:45.080 his followers that he was really the child of a royal, 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:49.200 or a mystic or some other important figure. And it 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:52.160 wasn't until he got into legal trouble later on in 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:55.680 his life there was a concerted effort to track down 0:03:55.800 --> 0:03:58.960 and document the particulars of his story. I mean, this 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:02.560 is not unusual for folks who you know, came from 0:04:02.560 --> 0:04:06.320 meager beginnings but then became notorious later on. Yeah, although 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:10.240 his um his possible beginnings that get introduced to get 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:14.360 wilder and wilder as you go. But according to a 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:20.320 biography that was originally written in sevente after his brief 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:24.000 time in seminary school, he was sent next at the 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:27.039 age of thirteen, to live in a monastic community and 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:31.000 Calton under the care of a monk there, and it's 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:33.599 here where the young Balsamo is said to have first 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:38.080 been exposed to lessons in chemistry and medicine through the apothecary. 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:41.200 There that was a man that's usually referenced as Father Albert, 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:44.919 and working alongside Father Albert just sap I learned about 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:49.000 things like mercury and sulfur, and how to manipulate salts, 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:53.680 and about various mystical and religious texts that referenced alchemy. 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:57.680 According to the same biography, though quote, he did not 0:04:57.800 --> 0:05:01.560 continue long in this asylum. During his stay, however, he 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:05.400 exhibited so many new symptoms of a vicious character that 0:05:05.480 --> 0:05:11.200 the religious were often under the necessity of chastising him. 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:14.720 Some of his recorded infractions were things like telling his 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:17.359 own stories instead of reading from the text when he 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:20.080 was asked to read aloud for the community during meals. 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:24.240 He would substitute names when he did read from the text, 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:27.440 using the names of well known sex workers instead of 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:30.280 the names that were actually there on the page. Soon 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:34.120 he left the community and was back in Palermo. Yeah, 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:37.320 sometimes those substitutions were putting those names in in lieu 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:41.360 of saints names when he was doing like biblical study reading. 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:44.240 So you could see where this would be a problem. 0:05:44.240 --> 0:05:49.080 Not a popular move among the monks. No, after his time, 0:05:49.480 --> 0:05:52.480 you know, having been in a religious setting with few temptations, 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:55.240 it seems like he went in completely the opposite direction 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:58.120 as a team. Once he got back to his hometown, 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:02.080 he got in fights, he stole money, even from his uncles. 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:04.719 You'll see some records to say he mugged one of 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:08.359 his uncles. He started drawing, and he was apparently pretty 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:12.239 good at that, but uh he used that skill instead 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:16.080 of making art to forge theater tickets and then entire documents. 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:19.200 As his skills got better and better, and over time, 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:23.320 young Giuseppe became well known to the authorities because he 0:06:23.440 --> 0:06:26.679 just loved to stir up trouble and get into altercations. 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:29.680 Often he would get into altercations with the men who 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:33.080 came to arrest him. He's also said to have helped 0:06:33.400 --> 0:06:37.760 other arrested men escape authorities. And he ran a scheme 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:40.159 where he feigned to be running love notes back and 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:43.760 forth between two young people, and he would then add 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:47.000 requests for money or gifts from the young lady involved 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:49.680 in her letters to the young man, who is sometimes 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:54.359 reported as a cousin of Giuseppe's, and then uh he 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:57.000 would pocket any extra goods that he was given to 0:06:57.080 --> 0:07:00.240 take to her by her paramore. So he was just 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:03.560 kind of running this nice little scheme of like what 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:07.000 will someone in love give me as a gift intended 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:10.640 for his actual beloved. This is but a sampling, though, 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:13.360 of his rap sheet of petty crimes. And he eventually 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:16.160 became the leader of a street gang that routinely just 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:19.520 robbed people, and rumors went around town that he had 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:22.760 stabbed a man. Sometimes that is reported as he stabbed 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:25.200 a priest to death, but everyone was too afraid of 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:28.800 him to really question the situation. Even though he was 0:07:28.920 --> 0:07:33.120 arrested a lot, he was released pretty soon afterward. All 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:36.640 the time, there was rarely enough evidence to keep him 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:39.880 locked up, or one of his relatives would intervene and 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:44.520 pay whatever fine or bail was involved. But then he 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:48.520 fleeced a silversmith of sixties silver pieces, and that man 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:52.760 was Vincenzo Morano. While Samo had told Morano that he 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:55.800 knew of a treasure that had been buried at Mount Pellegrino, 0:07:56.920 --> 0:08:00.040 he had come to know this information, he said, you 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:04.640 an ancient document, And already as a teenager, Jusippa had 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:07.880 a reputation for having a connection to other worldly things 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:13.240 and possibly even for sorcery. He made amulets. Uh. He 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:16.640 also claimed to have visions, often through dreams, and he 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:19.840 not only told Vincenzo Morano that he had seen impressive 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:23.520 treasures buried at Mount Pellegrino in his dream about it, 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:27.080 but that he had also seen a treasure demon guarding it, 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:30.760 and that only he knew how to defeat it. But 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:34.080 he also needed money to buy supplies to do the 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:37.400 magic that would enable them to get the treasure from 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:41.120 that demon protector, and those supplies were going to cost 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:44.880 sixty silver pieces. As a note, if you look up 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:47.680 the same story or if you've heard it before, it's 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:50.920 sometimes relayed with Morano being a goldsmith and the cost 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:54.440 of supplies at sixty gold pieces. I saw so much 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:56.680 of both that I just went with the one I 0:08:56.720 --> 0:09:03.480 saw more of. So when Morano and Giseppa Balsamo went 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:06.360 to get this treasure, Balsamo had a gang of his 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:09.880 friends waiting. They were dressed as demons, and they attacked 0:09:09.880 --> 0:09:13.040 and beat the silver smith. When the assault was over 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:16.160 and Morano was able to get up, all of them, 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:20.480 including Balsamo, had vanished. So initially the silver smith was 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:23.320 worried for his young guide, and then he heard that 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:28.160 Balsamo had left town, he realized he had been swindled. Yeah, 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:31.319 at that point, Balsamo was not going back because he 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:38.839 knew that the silversmith, who was not a small or 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:42.439 gentle man necessarily was really going to have his hide. 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:46.280 So after leaving Cecily, Giuseppe began a life of travel. 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:50.280 As far as we know, there's actually little to no documentation, 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:52.600 so we only have his word for it, or in 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:56.920 some cases there are additional um accounts and on occasion 0:09:57.000 --> 0:10:01.240 some some actual written record, but relying initially on the 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:04.200 money that he had made through his deception of Morano, 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:08.520 he reported visiting Greece, Persia, Egypt, and Arabia, as well 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:12.800 as other locations. And that's also when he told people 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:17.080 that he really studied deeply the world of alchemy. His 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:19.760 first stop was in Messina, and that makes a lot 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:23.240 of sense because Palermo is on the western half of 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:25.760 the island of Sicily, and then Messina is over on 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:29.240 the far eastern tip of the island, right where Sicily 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:32.559 and the boot of Italy almost kiss, so to get 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:35.199 off the island would have been best to go that way. 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:38.200 This was also a large port, so from Messina he 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:41.360 could get almost anywhere that he might think of. And 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:45.880 in Messina, Giuseppe said that he met a man named Altotas, 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:49.480 who was either Greek or Spanish, he wasn't certain, and 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:53.319 who he claimed to be a chemist or an alchemist. Altotas, 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:57.359 according to kelly Ostro, also had several ancient Arabic manuscripts 0:10:57.440 --> 0:10:59.559 with him, and he knew a lot of magic that 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:02.520 kelly Stro was very eager to learn from him. Of course, 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:06.160 he wasn't going with Caliostro yet. Uh. There is the 0:11:06.240 --> 0:11:10.080 possibility that this character of Altotas was actually a priest 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:14.040 that Giuseppe was already traveling with, who was named Father Atansio. 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:17.800 Because when Giuseppe fled Palermo, two of his cohorts in 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:21.360 that theft of Vincenzo Morano's money fled with him. One 0:11:21.360 --> 0:11:23.800 of those was a priest and one was a valet. 0:11:24.800 --> 0:11:28.280 And in his descriptions of his relationship with Alttas, he 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:33.000 claimed that he studied botany, physics, various foreign languages, and 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:36.320 quote all the wonders of Egypt. Uh. That is all 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:39.920 according to that late eighteenth century biography we referenced earlier 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:45.439 from Messina, Giuseppa and Altota sailed together to Alexandria, Egypt, 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:48.160 and the two of them started performing what sounds like 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:52.920 street magic. They did what was called operations in chemistry, 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:55.319 and they made money doing it quite a bit by 0:11:55.440 --> 0:11:59.160 Calioster's account, but their travels during this time are still 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:03.080 pretty hard to track. It was pretty common for Sicilians 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:05.960 to visit Egypt at this point. We don't know if 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:09.400 he actually went there at all, but we do have 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:14.080 fixed information on where Giuseppe was in seventeen sixty five, 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:16.160 and we're going to talk about that and more of 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:28.920 his adventures after a quick sponsor break. We mentioned before 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:31.920 the break that we don't know for certain that Giuseppe 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:34.480 Bosama went to all of the places that he claimed, 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:36.560 but we do know that he was on the island 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:41.239 of Malta starting in seventeen sixty five. Alttas that alchemist 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:44.240 that he claimed to be traveling with uh He said 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:47.199 that he died shortly after they arrived there, and he 0:12:47.280 --> 0:12:49.960 was specifically in the city of Medina working for the 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:52.760 Knights Hospital or you'll see that as the Order of 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:55.880 Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem. This 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:59.280 was a military and clerical order that combined both combat 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:03.000 and medical hair and by the time Giuseppe started working 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:06.360 in a service job for the organization, the primary focus 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:08.600 was on serving as sort of a way point for 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:12.679 travelers to Jerusalem, offering care and food and lodging his 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:16.520 need in This was a very wealthy charity by the 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:19.719 time that Giuseppe landed on Malta, and it also had 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:22.760 an alchemy lab, and that seems to have kept him 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:25.959 happy for at least a little while. He mixed medicines 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:28.560 using some of the skills he had acquired in his 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:33.280 religious schooling days, and he also searched for the Philosopher's stone. 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:35.240 He was not the only one. They're doing this, He 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:39.240 was helping other workers of alchemy do the same thing. 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:42.280 And he actually worked there for two years and was 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:46.080 well liked enough to have glowing recommendation letters when he 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:49.640 chose to move on in seventeen sixty seven. When he left, 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:51.960 it was to go to Italy. He passed through a 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:55.120 few cities before making his way to Rome and hunting 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:58.600 for work there, showing his recommendation letters to as many 0:13:58.679 --> 0:14:01.959 high ranking church official as he could until he found 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:06.320 somebody who needed his skills, and that man was Cardinal Orsini. 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:10.280 But this job wasn't particularly thrilling, It just involves some 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:13.839 light secretarial work. So ga Seppa picked up a side 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:18.120 hustle as well, selling fake potions to tourists claiming that 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:23.000 they were from Egypt. He also made money selling drawings, 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:25.640 which were first printed on copper plates and then inked 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:29.000 by hand. And it seems that while he was in room, 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:33.680 Balsamo had started to shift his identity to suit various situations. 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:36.880 So sometimes he would appear to be tied to the 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:41.080 Catholic Church, like in full robes, and other times he 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:44.480 represented himself as like a secular man, just like a merchant. 0:14:45.320 --> 0:14:47.680 And he also fell back into a pattern of getting 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:50.800 in trouble with the law. He was held in jail 0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:53.760 for several days, for example, after getting into a fight 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:57.000 with a waiter. But the more important thing that happened 0:14:57.000 --> 0:14:59.000 to him in Rome was that he met a girl 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:03.160 named Lorenz Feliciani, and we say girl pretty pointedly here. 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:06.240 She was only fourteen when they met, and Giuseppa was 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:11.360 twenty five. She's described as a blonde, blue eyed beauty, 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:15.480 and Giuseppa was completely smitten with her to be clear, 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:20.960 though this age difference was recognized as significance. Lorenzo's parents 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:24.080 were initially very reluctance to approved the two of them 0:15:24.120 --> 0:15:28.200 marrying because their daughter was so young, but because Giuseppa 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:30.880 was so well connected, two men high up in the 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:34.720 church and so well respected, despite the fact that he 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:37.960 still seemed to have some connections to his friends from 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:42.440 his petty crime days back in Palermo. The felicianis ultimately 0:15:42.480 --> 0:15:46.400 caved on this whole matter, and initially Giuseppa and Lorenzo 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:49.400 lived with her family, but that caused all kinds of tension. 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:53.760 The conservative and very devout flies didn't like the way 0:15:53.840 --> 0:15:58.600 Giseppa behaved, including influencing their daughter to be less pious. 0:15:59.280 --> 0:16:01.960 Giuseppe fel like his new in laws cramped his style 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:05.120 and we're just too judgmental, and eventually there was a 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:08.800 huge fight that ended with the newlyweds moving out. Let's 0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:11.320 put the two of them in a tight spot financially, 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:15.000 and Gaseppa once again fell back on illegal methods of 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:18.960 making a living. He became friends with a man named 0:16:19.320 --> 0:16:23.960 Agliata who claimed to be a Prussian marquis and a colonel, 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:27.280 among other things, and he taught him how to advance 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:33.280 his forgery skills. Agliata had forged his own military commission papers. 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:35.680 He was not a colonel at all, but his document 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:39.080 forgeries were good enough that nobody questioned them, and he 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:43.000 trained Gieseppa to do the same. Balsamo had also learned 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:46.800 how to forge bank documents from Agliata, basically enable him 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:50.120 to finance his life through scammed money whenever he wanted 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:54.480 and just write your own money, no problem. It turned out, though, 0:16:54.640 --> 0:16:57.000 that sharing all of these tricks of the trade on 0:16:57.040 --> 0:17:00.640 the part of Agliata was not merely some magnanium kindness 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:05.640 to an up and comer. Agliata found Lorenza beautiful and desirable, 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:08.440 and he made it clear to Giuseppa that he would 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:11.240 like to have sex with his wife. It is not 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:16.439 clear whether Giuseppa Balsamo had always intended to use Lorenza 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:20.040 and what amounts to sex trafficking, but it does seem 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:24.959 that way. Before this, before his friendship with Agliata, he 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:28.640 had certainly encouraged her to dress more provocatively, and then, 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:31.400 by his own description, had taught her to be more 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:34.760 alluring to men. This is one of the issues that 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:39.040 her family really had with him. It even shifted her identity, 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:43.200 having her go by the name Sara Fina rather than Lorenza. 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:47.760 And so when Agliata made this overture to Giuseppe, Balsama 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:50.399 was not scandalized by it in the least. He seemed 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:54.200 to see it as a commercial transaction, and he coerced 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:58.440 Lorenza to acquiesce. Please remember she was still a young teenager, 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:01.360 she had still grown up in a very religious family, 0:18:01.880 --> 0:18:05.600 and while he wasn't scandalized, she was very, very concerned 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:10.040 about her immortal soul and the moral consequences of adultery. 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:13.840 According to that eighteenth century account of things, Balsamo told 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:16.760 his wife quote that adultery is no crime in a 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:19.800 woman who commits it on account of her interests, and 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:24.080 not simply through affection to another man. For a while, 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:28.800 the Balsamo's continued to travel with Agliata, although two outward 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:33.520 appearances it probably seemed like Sarafina was Agliata's wife. They 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:36.760 were traveling together as a couple, and Gieseppa and some 0:18:36.880 --> 0:18:40.320 of his friends were traveling in a separate carriage, and 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:44.439 the course of this arrangement, Gieseppa profited because both he 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:49.520 and Sarafina were receiving money and gifts from Agliata. This 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:54.440 entire group profited as well because Giuseppa and Agliata teamed up. 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:58.200 They were forging various letters to scam wealthy families out 0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:01.480 of money along the way. But while they were in Bergamo, 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:05.160 the group and their illicit business came to the attention 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:08.960 of the authorities. It is possible that they were betrayed 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:12.520 from within the group. Historian Ian Mcalman writes this incident 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:16.600 as though one of Giuseppa's other traveling companions turned his 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:19.800 friend in out of jealousy, but regardless of how the 0:19:19.840 --> 0:19:24.760 police learned about them. Sarafina or Lorenza and Giuseppa were arrested. 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:29.359 Agliotta escaped, taking all of their money with him. The 0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:32.560 worst and most incriminating documents that they had on them 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:35.879 were stuffed down Lorenzo's bodice. She was able to destroy 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:38.879 them before they could be used against her husband. The 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:42.439 two ended up banished from Bergamo, but Giuseppa believed that 0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:45.280 he would have been killed if those papers had been seized. 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:48.919 After this incident, Giuseppa and his wife took on the 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:51.760 guise of religious pilgrims so they could go to the 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:56.040 cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. This is the 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:58.560 very a location of saints. And then later in his 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:02.439 life Caliostro would claim that he had truly wished to 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:06.400 atone for his life in undertaking this journey, but even 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:09.320 if that were true, he veered off course pretty quickly. 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:12.880 They did travel to Spain, but along the way, Jeseppa 0:20:12.960 --> 0:20:16.160 leaned on all of his old tricks to bring in money, 0:20:16.320 --> 0:20:20.800 including once again coercing his wife into sex work. When 0:20:20.800 --> 0:20:24.439 they reached Barcelona, which was about five hundred sixty miles 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:29.879 away from their original target destination, their money ran out. Lorenza, 0:20:29.960 --> 0:20:33.199 again at her husband's urging, gave a false confession to 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:36.080 a priest. They're saying that they were from high ranking 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:39.360 families of Rome, but had been cast out because they 0:20:39.359 --> 0:20:42.520 had married without their family's consent, and so they were 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:46.119 left penniless, and this was of course a scheme to 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:48.400 get the church to give the money, and it worked, 0:20:48.960 --> 0:20:52.280 although this led to another deception, as the minister wished 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:54.760 to see their marriage certificate, which they did not have, 0:20:55.280 --> 0:20:58.040 and so they went to a magistrate for help procuring 0:20:58.080 --> 0:21:02.639 that document that registrate was very interested in Lorenza, and 0:21:02.680 --> 0:21:05.800 the cycle of using her beauty to gain financial favor 0:21:05.880 --> 0:21:09.920 from other men began again. The Balsamo's moved from one 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:14.119 perilous deception to another, this way with Geseppa duping people 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:16.560 in one place as long as he could until he 0:21:16.640 --> 0:21:19.720 was found out or things got complicated. In some cases 0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:21.520 these men would fall in love with his wife and 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:22.879 he would be like, this has gone too far, we 0:21:22.920 --> 0:21:25.240 have to leave. So then he would pick up and 0:21:25.320 --> 0:21:28.080 run and start to cycle all over again somewhere else. 0:21:29.000 --> 0:21:32.440 We know that he was in London in seventeen seventies six, 0:21:32.720 --> 0:21:35.359 and at that point he had adopted the title of 0:21:35.520 --> 0:21:39.800 counts and the name of Kliostro. That name was actually 0:21:39.880 --> 0:21:42.400 said to have come from another member of the family, 0:21:42.760 --> 0:21:46.119 an aunt, who had married a Kliostro, and he built 0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:52.040 his wife as the Countess Serafina Felicianikliostro told people that 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:55.200 he was a miracle worker and that he had curative powers. 0:21:56.320 --> 0:21:58.720 He was especially fond of a red powder that he 0:21:58.840 --> 0:22:02.080 used as a prop and he called it materia prima 0:22:02.480 --> 0:22:06.359 in alchemical terms, prima materia, which he was obviously referencing 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:10.040 is the material from which all other substances are created, 0:22:10.119 --> 0:22:13.840 including the Philosopher's stone. It is the essence of the ether, 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:16.600 and Caliostro said that he could use it to turn 0:22:16.680 --> 0:22:20.119 base metals into gold. He also carried with him a 0:22:20.119 --> 0:22:23.199 liquid that he called Egyptian wine, and he claimed that 0:22:23.240 --> 0:22:27.280 it could extend a person's life. While Caliostro was in London, 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:32.320 he became a Freemason. There's a significant aspect of Caliostro's 0:22:32.480 --> 0:22:37.240 entry into freemasonry that's worth considering. Being a Freemason was 0:22:37.320 --> 0:22:41.359 expressly forbidden in the Catholic Church starting in seventeen thirty eight, 0:22:41.720 --> 0:22:45.640 and Caliostro had grown up in deeply Catholic Sicily, so 0:22:45.880 --> 0:22:50.040 although he had pretty clearly been very morally flexible up 0:22:50.040 --> 0:22:52.520 to this point, this is a move that would have 0:22:52.760 --> 0:22:57.240 very clearly communicated his disregard for the Church. But it 0:22:57.320 --> 0:23:00.440 also became pretty obvious pretty quickly that he did really 0:23:00.720 --> 0:23:05.280 view freemasonry with any reverence either. While he was in England, 0:23:05.359 --> 0:23:07.480 he claimed that he had come into the possession of 0:23:07.520 --> 0:23:10.680 a book by a man named Koston sometimes see other 0:23:10.760 --> 0:23:13.160 names that are similar to that, which he would later 0:23:13.200 --> 0:23:16.879 say was a sacred manuscript of Lost Knowledge that inspired 0:23:16.920 --> 0:23:21.240 the Egyptian Right. The Egyptian Right was essentially a revision 0:23:21.320 --> 0:23:25.879 of existing Freemasonry, spearheaded by this foulk count who wanted 0:23:25.920 --> 0:23:28.880 to start his own branch of the Order. We will 0:23:28.920 --> 0:23:31.560 talk more about that effort after we take a quick 0:23:31.640 --> 0:23:45.560 break to hear from our sponsors. Magic historian and magician 0:23:45.720 --> 0:23:50.120 Henry Ridgley Evans wrote an article in three titled Caliostro, 0:23:50.359 --> 0:23:54.000 a Study in Charlatanism, in which he describes the count's 0:23:54.040 --> 0:23:59.119 alteration of Freemasonry. Quote as Grand Master of the Egyptian Right, 0:23:59.400 --> 0:24:03.440 he leapt once into fame. His swindling operations were now 0:24:03.480 --> 0:24:07.360 conducted on a gigantic scale. He had the entree into 0:24:07.400 --> 0:24:11.720 the best society. According to him, Freemasonry was founded by 0:24:11.840 --> 0:24:15.640 Enoch and Elias. It was open to both sexes. Its 0:24:15.680 --> 0:24:18.720