WEBVTT - Cool Rerun: Part Two: Aqua Tofana: How to Kill Your Husband 0:00:00.600 --> 0:00:02.880 Hello, and welcome to cool people, get cool stuff. My 0:00:02.920 --> 0:00:05.040 name is Margaret Kiljoy. And I will not continue the 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:07.320 bit where I set up the expectation that I will 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:10.680 tell a new joke eating introduction, because if I do, 0:00:11.280 --> 0:00:13.520 my life will get so much worse and I don't 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:19.439 have enough jokes. Sophie, you got joke, Sharen, anyone. 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:22.959 SuRie is like the funniest person right now. Hey, no pressure. 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:24.480 I don't know if I have a joke right now. 0:00:24.520 --> 0:00:29.720 A lot of my jokes are like annoyingly visual, Like 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:33.240 my go to is like the daddiest joke, not Daddy's Like. 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:37.640 Daddy joke is very different joke. 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:42.320 But let me think. I mean I just explaining to 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:44.600 you can use yourragination. But basically you put your hand 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:47.080 up as like a little cup, like you're making your 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:50.520 hand into a U shape. Uh, and you ask people 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:53.199 what is that? What is this? And they're like, what 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:55.520 are you doing? You're a weirdo. And then you put 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:58.880 your upper forearm from the other arm on it and 0:00:58.920 --> 0:00:59.720 you're like, it's a gun. 0:00:59.800 --> 0:00:59.959 Rack. 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:01.800 I love that joke. 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:05.240 Because muscles are guns. 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:06.360 Hellya guns? 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:07.920 Hell yeah, I'm gonna. 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:11.000 I think it's funny because that's the only gun that 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:19.080 I approve of. Everybody knock who's there? Eats too me? 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:25.600 Okay, Sophie, Okay, I got a knock knock joke. Ea, 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:28.559 start knock, knock, who's there? 0:01:29.600 --> 0:01:29.920 I don't know. 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:33.600 This is your joke. That's the point of the joke. 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:36.360 I'm like, I don't know. 0:01:36.720 --> 0:01:41.520 This is your bit, Like you know, I got nothing. Okay. 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:43.759 My guest today is Sharene Shreen. How are you doing today? 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:47.720 I'm good, I'm good. I actually am excited about the 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:51.440 continuation of the story because you've definitely got me intrigued, 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:54.720 and not much can do that these days. 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:58.880 So hell yeah, cliffhangers for the wind. Yes, Sophie is 0:01:58.880 --> 0:01:59.600 our producer, Hi. 0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:03.320 Sophie, him Margaret, Hi Scheren. I like this little trio. 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:08.120 I like, hey, this is fun. And Ian is our editor. 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:10.239 He's in charge of editing. Now the parts where Sophie 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:13.480 reveals the secret of the Alchemist's Stone and unwoman wrote 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:17.640 our theme music. So this is part two of our 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:20.239 two part series of women who murdered their husbands, or 0:02:20.360 --> 0:02:24.640 rather well the people who provided the poison. Good times 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:27.920 were had by all, except potentially the husbands. 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:30.399 Which deserved it probably, So yeah. 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:34.280 Many of them. So we heard about the legend of 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:38.000 Aqua tafauna, the cosmetic poison made by one brilliant poison lady. 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:40.360 So let's figure out what we know of the truth. 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:43.760 We will start in pal Marrow, a city in southern Italy. 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:46.760 Well it's in Sicily, which is part of Spain at 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:50.320 the time, where we meet two aspiring widows, so Fania 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:54.280 Diadama and Francesca Lasarda. And they were part of a 0:02:54.280 --> 0:02:57.800 thriving scene in Italy which someone describing a similar community 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:01.280 in Paris referred to as the criminal magical underworld. 0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:02.280 Hmmm. 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:05.760 Rome, for example, at the time, had upwards of two 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:09.760 hundred magical practitioners. We don't actually know how many Palmero had. 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:12.000 But you know, as a capital of the region. 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:14.240 What qualifies as magical question? 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:15.400 Oh, we will tell you. 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:16.239 Oh hell yeah. 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:20.760 Did I set that up perfectly? Everyone who couldn't go 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:24.440 to the proper channels of like doctors with leeches, would 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:26.799 go to magicians on the street who would sell them 0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:29.320 shit that honestly was probably about as effective as what 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:32.000 the leech doctors had on offer. There were witches, they 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:36.640 were sorcerers, and they were priests. The underworld included and 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:39.840 possibly revolved around these priests who had gone all in 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:42.880 for evil shit and lived double lives and led black masses. 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:45.240 And this, okay, I'll get to what I do and 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:49.640 don't believe of this particular part. But these evil priests 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:52.400 would live double lives, lead black masses with naked women 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:54.800 as the altar in order to imbue different potions and 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:57.520 saves and shit with magic. And they chanted in a 0:03:57.600 --> 0:04:00.640 made up mystical language that they all came both together, 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:03.040 that was just Latin and Greek and Hebrew while stuck 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:06.120 together basically like all the old timy languages they had 0:04:06.120 --> 0:04:06.600 access to. 0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:07.640 That's fun. 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:12.880 And they weren't quite like Satanists. Their magic supposedly came 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:16.080 from God, just in really weird ways. They would use 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:18.919 blessed wands to make potions in the shadow of a 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:23.159 cross that contained a fragment of the true Cross, while 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:25.599 like leading black masses with naked ladies as the altar. 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:29.120 And I wasn't sure I believed any of this shit, 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:32.200 uh huh, But there are a ton of documents from 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:34.960 the time attesting to it and lots of confessions. Although 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:38.040 come on, witch huns and inquisitions. I don't trust the confessions, 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:41.960 but I think some of the shit was actually real. 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:48.640 I believe it. Yeah, to quote the historian Mike dash 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:52.440 this quote, just because it's fucking cool. Raids conducted by 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:55.480 the police on the Paris underworld of the sixteen eighties 0:04:55.839 --> 0:05:00.320 uncombed quantities of Grimour's incense, wands, and a rich vervariety 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:03.440 of ingredients used in sexual magic, including breast milk and 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:05.240 bags of powdered menstrual blood. 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:10.240 Humm, how do you make that into a powder? I 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:13.839 guess it's like you just dry it out and crush 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:18.760 it up. That's interesting. Well, I also we still do 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:24.200 not everybody, but the culture of witchiness is still alive 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:27.600 and well, whether it comes to like crystals or even 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:30.520 like even meditation, in my opinion, can be a form 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:37.039 of that kind of energetic change. So are even like, 0:05:37.240 --> 0:05:39.880 I don't know it, just I think it's very interesting 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:41.920 how it's evolved, but it's still here. 0:05:42.080 --> 0:05:44.599 Very much, totally opinion, And like a lot of it 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:46.280 is super legit and a lot of it's not. And 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:48.400 it's impossible to tell who's a grifter and who's legit, 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:51.320 just like back then. Mm hmmm, Because I think a 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:53.560 lot of the shit that people did probably fucking worked, right, 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:56.600 because you could go to the magical underworld and get 0:05:56.600 --> 0:05:59.440 an abortion, and you could get poison and you get 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:02.200 general heat, you could get fortunes and horoscopes, you could 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:04.760 get love charms, you could get cures for your bad breath. 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:08.400 Whatever ailed you, they'd take care of you, no questions asked. 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:12.400 They would sell stillborn fetuses to gamblers who used them 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:13.520 as good luck charms. 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:15.040 WHOA. 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:18.320 They also dealt with quote unwanted babies, and I don't 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:21.520 know whether that means abortion and fanticide or selling children 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:25.240 through underground adoption services or to slave traders. I have 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:27.160 no idea, Honestly, I kind of think it was all 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:31.000 of the above at the time. At the same time, 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:33.480 you have this magical not underworld that was flourishing, right 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:36.400 because science and magic are fucking at the time, and 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:40.279 Royalty was dumping tons of money on alchemists, who the 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:42.560 most famous thing that alchemists were trying to do was 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:45.560 like transmute base metals into gold. They were like, oh, well, 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:48.520 turn lead into gold or whatever. But then they were 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:51.400 also trying to cure disease and live forever and improve 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:54.960 crop yields and basically just like do science and magic 0:06:55.000 --> 0:07:00.000 all put together. And while not everyone involved in madge 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:02.480 alchemy were up to the poison thing, these two women 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:05.680 they They might have done some other shit. They probably 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:08.760 sold charms and potions or whatever, but they also sold poison. 0:07:09.880 --> 0:07:15.640 It's likely that Tofania was who invented aqua tafauna named 0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:19.040 after herself. It's also possible they just sold people arsenic 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:24.080 and I suspect that they were breaking the law by 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:28.040 working without their husband's permission, which is just terrible. I 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:30.960 bet their husbands and even what they were doing. Yeah, 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:33.840 and they did. They reached their main aspiration, which was 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:35.960 to become widows. As best as I could tell, they 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:38.080 both off their husbands in order to return to the 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:41.000 status of free people. But it didn't go well for 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:44.720 these two particular women. First Francesca and then Tofania went 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:47.440 down for the magic trick of turning their husbands into corpses. 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:50.960 So the state pulled the magic trick of turning them 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:54.200 into corpses by a bit more gruesome of a method. 0:07:54.280 --> 0:07:57.400 So for all of the like, oh, these like evil poisoners, 0:07:57.440 --> 0:07:59.720 like the shit that happens to people is from the 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:02.280 state is so much worse than what these fucking poisoners 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:06.520 are doing. So Fanio was either hang drawled, and quartered, 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:12.280 or one account at the time says that she was 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:15.119 sewn up alive into a canvas sack and then thrown 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:17.360 from the roof of the bishop's palace into the street 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:22.880 in front of a large crowd. Well that's brutal, yeah, 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:25.200 And I think they pulled off being poisoners for a 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:26.720 long time though, and maybe had a good run of 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:29.160 it before they got thrown from sacks from the bishop's roof, 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:33.080 so maybe it was all worth it. And most everything 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:36.320 focuses on this other woman, Julia Tufana, who was born 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:41.319 Julia Mangiarti and legend hazrus to Fania's daughter who learned 0:08:41.320 --> 0:08:44.800 the trade from Mom and then after Mom's execution, took 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:47.480 off to Rome with some of the other students to 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:50.120 set up a poison shop in the big city. And 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:52.920 apparently it was a vaguely normal thing at the time 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:56.720 in Italy or Sicily or whatever for a woman to 0:08:56.760 --> 0:08:58.920 take her mother's first name as her own last name. 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:01.839 It seems just as likely that she took the name 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:04.520 Tafauna as a last name because she was selling Aqua tafauna. 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:07.680 It also seems possible that she never went by Tafauna 0:09:07.720 --> 0:09:09.839 and this is the name that folklore has described to her, 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:12.960 and she spent her whole life going by Menngiarti. There's 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:15.840 no evidence that she was Tefani's kid Tefania's kid, but 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:20.679 there is also no evidence that she wasn't whatever. It's 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:24.439 also possible she left for Rome before any of that. Okay, whatever, yeah, yeah, 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:29.440 but aqua tafauna. The symptoms, according to a public notice 0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:32.400 that was put out later once everyone got busted, were, 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:34.920 to quote the book Toxicology in the Middle Ages and 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:38.199 Renaissance in a chapter by Mike dash the symptoms were 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:42.640 a burning pain in the throat and stomach, vomiting, extreme thirst, 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:45.560 and diarrhea, all of which point to arsenic as the 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:49.120 active ingredient of the poison. The suggested antidote was lemon 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:54.640 juice and vinegar, and to continue the quote, Aqua tafana 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:57.360 was described as clear and tasteless, suggesting that a key 0:09:57.400 --> 0:10:00.000 part of the manufacturing process was masking the character as 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:03.640 stick metallic taste of arsenic. It was also considered to 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:06.360 be a relatively gentle poison which did not produce so 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:09.880 much vomiting as and hence aroused less suspicious than other 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:13.800 preparations known at the time. So basically all of the 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:15.640 different poisons that you would get in on the street 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:18.640 that were any good were just different concoctions of arsenic 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:21.040 and it was just like people figuring out different ways 0:10:21.080 --> 0:10:24.000 to like prepare the arsenic, right. 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:25.880 I mean, it is interesting. I wonder how they did 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:28.559 mask that taste, because that's impressive. 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:31.800 I know, And I think that there's some suspicion that 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:34.320 they like did some masking to the taste, but not 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:37.440 actually as much as people claim. It was not as 0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:40.000 perfect of a poisonous people claim it was a very 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:44.040 good poison. But mostly it was added to wine because wine. 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:45.720 Exactly, I was gonna say, like, if you had like 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:49.440 a couple drops to wine, it's probably not even traced, yeah, 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:50.720 or like you can't taste it at all. 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:55.960 Yeah. And so Tafana wasn't alone. Her stepdaughter who just 0:10:56.000 --> 0:11:00.400 happened to be a widow surprised there named Jialamas, Spara 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:03.360 or Spawna, depending on which book you read. Both books 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:06.400 are people are very committed to these different spellings, and 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:11.280 they're very legitimate seeming sources. Spara sold to the aristocratic 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:14.520 circles that she worked in as a professional astrologer, right, 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:16.640 so she would get hired to predict the future and 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:20.360 find missing objects and tell people about themselves and shit. Well, 0:11:20.679 --> 0:11:25.400 Giovanna de Grandie sold to working class women. Mostly she 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:27.800 was a beggar, and she would hang out outside churches, 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:30.800 because churches where women could gather and talk. And there's 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:32.880 all these like cartoons at the time about how like 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:36.800 when women talk at church, it's the devil talking through them, 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:38.840 which most of the time is bullshit. But I guess 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:41.280 sometimes they were conspiring to kill all their husbands or whatever, 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:42.640 so whatever. 0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:44.840 Every joke they say is a layer of truth. 0:11:44.960 --> 0:11:48.760 But yeah, and they also sold other shit, right. They 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:52.240 weren't just poisoners. They worked as cunning women or sometimes 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:56.959 wise women or divine arresses, and they were selling charms 0:11:56.960 --> 0:12:01.400 and you know, telling portions and shit. Started exporting poison 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:04.200 to other cities too, through women they trusted, and they 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:07.280 had this whole regional distribution network for husband killing poison. 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:11.120 They found their clients not by you'll be shocked to 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:13.000 know this. They don't just like hang up a sign 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:14.920 and that like the you know, just like go into 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:16.800 an alley and there's a sign that it's like kill 0:12:16.840 --> 0:12:18.040 your husband five dollars. 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:19.320 Yeah. Yeah. 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:22.040 They were fortune tellers and likely abortionists and all of that, 0:12:22.600 --> 0:12:24.920 and so they would slowly learn who they could trust, 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:27.880 and they also learned who was stuck in unhappy marriages. 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:34.640 So it's like they're they're witches and tarot readers and 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:36.920 fortune tellers and therapists. 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:40.160 You know, yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah, no, I mean it's 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:42.599 like it's a necessary thing for society to have or 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:46.920 these people who provide all of these services. Yeah, So 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:49.520 to make their poison, they needed arsenic and then actually, 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:52.840 theoretically the best guesses about Aqua tafauna is that it 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:57.240 had antinomy and lead and maybe mercuric chloride, which was 0:12:57.240 --> 0:12:59.560 a treatment for venereal disease at the time, and my 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:04.080 guess what killed Bathory's husband, but I don't know, rather 0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:07.440 than Bella Donna, which is what was like rumored to 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:09.320 be in it, because Bella Donna's a poison and it 0:13:09.360 --> 0:13:12.079 you know, has a romantic sounding name, right right. There 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:13.480 are other things that were rumored to be in it, 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:16.320 including many of which I've never heard of before toad, flax, 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:20.880 Spanish fly, snap dragon, penny wart, and the spittle of 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:21.400 mad men. 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:24.280 The spittle of mad men. 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:26.640 I know, Like imagine being like someone whose job it 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:31.040 is to be like the madman who sells his spittle. Yeah, 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:32.560 like what if you went to therapy and you were 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:34.320 like feeling better, b to be like, no, I got 0:13:34.320 --> 0:13:37.400 to keep it up. I might. My job depends on this. 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:41.960 Yeah. I also because I am a dummy sometimes I 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:45.160 wanted to make sure I want. I don't know exactly 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:46.720 or I didn't know before I read it right now, 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:49.960 like where arsenic actually comes from? Okay, I don't know, 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:55.079 Well it sounds like okay. Inorganic arsenic compounds, they're found 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:59.200 in soils, sediments, and groundwater. They either occur naturally or 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:03.440 as a result of mining or smelting and industrial use 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:08.800 of arsenic. Organic arsenic compounds are mainly found also in 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:12.520 fish and in shellfish. So I'm wondering, like how did 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:16.400 these women procure Ah? 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:18.400 This is perfect? That is literally the next sentence in 0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:18.880 the script. 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:22.240 Oh hell, like see it was worth the little flip 0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:26.360 fumble there, but like, yeah, it says arsenic is found 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:29.880 in the natural environment in some abundance in the Earth's 0:14:29.920 --> 0:14:33.240 crust and in small quantities in rock, soil, water and 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:37.160 air like that is that's wild. 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:42.720 I don't know, it's just a yeah, something to think about. Yeah, 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:46.640 So they needed arsenic. So they found a priest. They 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:49.160 found one of these sort of fallen priests that was 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:52.000 talking about earlier in the Magical Underworld. His name was 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:56.000 Father Girolama and his brother was an apothecary, and so 0:14:56.040 --> 0:15:00.560 he hooked them up and this religious overlap continued. They 0:15:00.640 --> 0:15:02.920 didn't always sell it as Aqua Tafauna, and it's actually 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:05.040 possible they never sold as Aqua tafauna, and that's just 0:15:05.040 --> 0:15:07.560 like the myth name that gets attached to it. But 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:10.400 they definitely sold it for a while under the name 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:14.680 Mana of Saint Nicholas. And because when I first started 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:16.480 researching this, it would talk about how sold as holy 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:19.600 water or cosmetics. But the wacky thing is that it 0:15:19.640 --> 0:15:25.000 was both at once. Speaking of skincare routines, Mana of 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:28.040 Saint Nicholas was meant to be the oil that dropped 0:15:28.040 --> 0:15:30.720 from Saint Nicholas's bones where it was held in a church, 0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:33.680 or maybe they like pour the oil over his bones. 0:15:33.840 --> 0:15:37.160 I'm not sure, and this holy oil got sold in 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:40.360 the street as not as poison as a as a 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:43.920 kind of regular scam. So this holy oil when it 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:47.000 wasn't just poisonous, regular scam and it was sold for 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:51.600 the purpose of fighting acne and other facial blemishes. Interesting, 0:15:52.360 --> 0:15:56.280 So this is what they labeled their poison as because 0:15:56.320 --> 0:15:59.200 basically it's like the woman will have all of the 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:03.480 different you know, cosmetics on the shelf and the man 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:05.640 never touches any of it whatever, Right, so it's a 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:08.600 safe place to put it. And so they labeled it 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:10.680 in these like vials that look very holy and they 0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:12.240 have Saint Nicholas on them or whatever. But it's just 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:15.680 meant to be this like fucking you know, face blemish 0:16:15.720 --> 0:16:17.080 cream oil whatever. 0:16:17.440 --> 0:16:20.520 Hey, facial oils are still used today. Oh yeah, people 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:23.360 stand by them. So it's like you're onto something again. 0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:26.560 Yeah, I don't use an oil, use a cream. But 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:29.200 I also but I'm like, I like my crow's feet. 0:16:29.240 --> 0:16:31.240 I want everything else to stay youthful, but. 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:33.160 I like my crows feet is like a sign of 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:35.840 like you've lived happy time. 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:38.920 Yeah, totally. I get out in the sun enough the 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:42.040 forehead wrinkles. I would take some oil that dropped off 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:47.920 of Saint Nicholas's bones. Maybe the blood of innocence, especially billionaires, 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:53.120 the blood of Yeah, can we can, Sophie, can we 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:55.680 be sponsored by the blood of billionaires? 0:16:56.360 --> 0:16:57.160 Yeah? Why not? 0:16:57.480 --> 0:16:58.200 Hell? Yeah? 0:16:58.240 --> 0:16:59.120 Wow, she's the best? 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:03.480 Yeah, and uh, it is it is that time? It's 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:06.840 that time. Well that you did that without even trying. 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:12.919 Do you have a husband, is he a great person? 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:15.720 If he's not a great person, are you living in 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:19.520 a time when divorce is not an option? Well, aqua 0:17:19.560 --> 0:17:24.000 tafauna four drops administered to wine over the course of 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:28.879 four months, and you will be a widow. Here's some 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:35.560 other ads. We are back and speaking of people who 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:38.120 are mostly in it for the money, these women were 0:17:38.119 --> 0:17:40.520 mostly in it for the money, right, that's you know, 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:42.359 their whole thing, which is like people are like, oh, 0:17:42.400 --> 0:17:43.880 they're in it for the money. I'm like, oh, yeah, 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:45.520 they're in it for the like means by which they 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:47.520 feed themselves and take care of their families, like win 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:49.000 a bunch of fucking monsters, right. 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:52.720 Yeah exactly, because but I mean it's like freedom in 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:54.560 a lot of ways, like freedom from their husbands, but 0:17:54.680 --> 0:17:56.560 also like money will give you freedom as. 0:17:56.400 --> 0:17:58.840 Well, and in a lot of ways too right, totally, 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:01.000 it's the it's it's a agency in a lot of ways. 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:03.399 The problem is that people have too much agency and 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:06.439 other people too little agency. But they did have some 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:09.480 altruistic moments, and in particular, they would give the poison 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:12.159 out for free to women who couldn't afford it, who 0:18:12.240 --> 0:18:16.240 really needed to reach widowhood. Decades into her poisonous career, 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:20.080 at least twenty one years into it, probably longer than that. 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:24.080 Juliet Tafana died peacefully in her bed in sixteen fifty one. 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:27.640 She was like seventy years old. She didn't die from poison. 0:18:28.320 --> 0:18:31.440 She'd never been caught. She lived her whole fucking life 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:35.200 as fucking and she's Actually it's possible she invented to 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:39.560 fauna and then like named it after her mentor you know, 0:18:39.640 --> 0:18:44.280 I don't know, and her friends, including possibly her stepdaughter, 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:49.560 carried on without her. And I tried really hard. I 0:18:49.600 --> 0:18:51.080 think that I think this is enough of a pop 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:54.560 culture reference that I'll get Sophie's attention and love, which 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:55.840 is why I make this podcast. 0:18:56.200 --> 0:18:57.840 I you get that for free. 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:01.840 Oh thanks. So I tried to find an earl killed 0:19:01.840 --> 0:19:05.119 by the gang because of the country song about killing 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:08.800 earl or almost die. Yeah, yeah, thanks, because I want 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:11.760 to make an earl's got to die doike. Yeah, but 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:14.400 I didn't find an earl, but I did find a duke. 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:18.639 Francesco Ses, the Duke of Siri, was thirty years older 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:22.119 than his wife when he suddenly died, and she was 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:27.399 suddenly doing way better in life. But in sixteen fifty 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:30.159 eight the Poisoner's gang came to the attention of the authorities. 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:35.639 And I that's the way it's always phrased, right, I 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:38.240 struggle to imagine that they kept it up for thirty 0:19:38.280 --> 0:19:41.040 years unnoticed. I bet they were paying someone off. They 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:43.240 were protected by some kind of crime syndicate or just 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:45.119 I don't know the Catholic Church, which was basically the 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:48.760 biggest crime syndicate in Rome at the time, because why 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:53.919 would they protect them, though I presume money is my 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:56.720 main guess. I presume that they were paying someone off 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:01.480 or power, right right, right, yeah, like giving them poison, 0:20:01.720 --> 0:20:05.600 I you know, of providing abortions for their mistresses. 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:06.520 Like hmmm. 0:20:06.960 --> 0:20:10.080 That's a good point, because the magical underworld was an 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:12.479 open secret. And the reason we know this is that 0:20:12.480 --> 0:20:15.040 the women who are selling this poison shit. They like 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:18.120 kept receipts, and they like would like issue written promises 0:20:18.160 --> 0:20:20.960 of payment like wow. And I think it wasn't like 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:27.239 payment for services rendered, dead husband or whatever. But they 0:20:27.280 --> 0:20:30.800 were like being very above ground about how they handled 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:34.080 a lot of their finances. M But history doesn't like 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:36.440 talking about whether or not they were in the bed 0:20:36.600 --> 0:20:39.120 with Catholic Church or some other crime syndicate or something. 0:20:39.280 --> 0:20:42.160 I don't know. I don't know exactly, but it seemed 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:43.960 like an open secret and I doubt that they were 0:20:43.960 --> 0:20:47.000 doing this for thirty years unnoticed. Right how did they 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:49.080 get caught? Multiple versions of the story you will be 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:52.719 shocked to know. One version of the story is that 0:20:52.760 --> 0:20:54.960 so many people were fessing up in confessional that the 0:20:54.960 --> 0:20:57.320 pope decided had to do something about it because I 0:20:57.320 --> 0:20:59.600 guess the people, you know, the priests would like to 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:01.960 turn around and tell the confessions to the pope or whatever. 0:21:02.920 --> 0:21:03.880 I don't believe that one. 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:07.720