Joseph Balsamo

Giuseppe Balsamo ( Joseph Balsamo ), known as Alessandro, count de Cagliostro, was an Italian adventurer born with (Palermo, in 1743 and died in the pontifical prison of San Leo, close to Urbino in 1795). Mysterious character who went famous to the 18th century, it was born from an obscure family. Its true name was Joseph Balsamo . During its life, it adopted various pseudonyms (in particular Count Pellegrini, Mélissa, Fenice, Hérat or knight of the Holy Cross) but the name which made its fame is that of Count de Cagliostro , inspired by the name of its godmother.

Its life

The life of Cagliostro is badly known. It was undoubtedly born in a humble family from Palermo, took to the dress of the brothers of the Mercy, looking after monks, was male nurse then doctor. Driven out its community for indelicacies, shown swindle, it was obliged early to leave its fatherland and traversed under different names the Greece, the Egypt, the Arabia, the Perse, the island of Malta, Naples, Rome, and almost all the cities of Europe; it acquired in its voyages the knowledge of some secrecies Alchimique S and medicinal, and was made a great reputation by marvellous cures. It arrived to France in 1780, was fixed during some time at Strasbourg, where it was accepted with enthusiasm, then came to Paris where he did not excite less admiration, and was some time with the mode in the high society. It was presented to the aristocratic public in Thaumaturge and as an initiate under the patronage of a large strong lord denied, the cardinal of Rohan, prince-bishop of Strasbourg, large chaplain of France, which it had enjôlé for various reasons: miracle cures, Freemasonry.

Cagliostro said the disciple of the Count of Saint-Germain, adventurer mysterious, who, with Versailles, where it had shone towards 1750 - 1760, declared himself immortal. He also claimed to have waters of youth, serum of perpetual youth. He sold elixirs, pills, made turns of magic and Sorcellerie, and claimed to reveal deaths. It imported into France the Franc-maçonnerie known as Egyptian woman (of Memphis Misraïm). Its success, extraordinary in the Parisian good company, is explainable by the atmosphere of time: freemasonry was with the last style. But the career of this wizard of living room was broken by the swindle in which it was implied with the cardinal of Rohan known as Affaire of the collar of the queen.

He was imprisoned with the Bastille, then expelled of France (1786). He withdrew himself in England, then went in Suisse and finally in Italy. Returned in Italy, he wandered in various cities before being stopped by the Sainte Enquiry in 1789 like suspect practicing freemasonry; he was judged there and condemned by pontifical justice in 1791 to the capital punishment, pains which was commuted to a perpetual prison; he was imprisoned until his death. He died in 1795, with the Rocca di San Leo, close to Urbino in the area of the Steps (Italy).

The majority see in Cagliostro only one skilful charlatan; some look it like a really extraordinary man, a true miracle-worker, endowed with the gift to predict. What there is of some, it is that it produced surprising effects, and that he always lived in a great opulence. It was supposed that it was the agent of a secret society Freemasons who provided for his expenditure. One published in Rome, in 1790, a Vie of Cagliostro , extracted the parts of his lawsuit; it was translated into French.

Chronology

1743, (June 2nd) - Giuseppe Balsamo is born in Palermo.
1756, enters to the convent of the " Fatebenefratelli" in Caltagirone.
1758 (?) go back to Palermo.
1764/1767, visit Minor Asia and Egypt.
1768, arrives at Rome, marries Lorenza Feliciani.
1769, meets Casanova in Aix-en-Provence.
1770/1776, voyage in Europe (Barcelona, Madrid, Lisbon, London, Paris, Venice, Naples, Brussels, Germany, North Africa, Palermo).
1776/1777, London: is initiated in Massonerie, leaves for Brussels.
1778/1783, voyages: Venice (second meeting with Casanova), Paris, Strasbourg, Petersbourg, Warsaw, Basle). Takes the name of Count de Cagliostro.
1784, Lyon: Found the cabin maçonique" wisdom triomphante".
1785, arrives at Paris: implied in the business of the collar of the queen, it is stopped.
1786, cleared, it is released from the Bastille but is expelled of France.
1789, arrested in Rome by the enquiry, imprisoned with the castle St Angel.
1791, end of its lawsuit: condemned to death, the sentance is commuted to life imprisonment. Is transferred to the papal prison from high security from San Leo (close to Urbino).
1795, August 26th: Died of Joseph Balsamo/Count de Cagliostro.

Two different optics

Its life of adventurer can be seen under two angles, that of the black legend, and that of the “ Golden Legend ” (speech revérentiel evoking the hagiographies of Jacques de Voragine).

Critical sight

Wire of small shopkeepers, he would have initially been brother begging. Having helped in the hospitals, it could be able to be claimed doctor, but having made several irregularities, it flees and visited the East (Egypt? ) and big cities of Europe (London, Warsaw, St Petersbourg), where a reputation diffused by the clubs preceded it maconnic. He claimed to have medical secrets, of which the receipt of philosopher water, able to return youth (the myth of the Fountain of Youth was very in vogue with XVIIIe). Arrived at Paris in 1785, its success was triumphal, but he visited the Bastille and was exiled the following year: He had been mentioned as associated to the Cardinal of Rohan in the business of the Collar. Continuing its voyages and its life of itinerant “Guru”, it was betrayed by his wife, however a long time obliging, and was delivered to the enquiry of Rome in 1789. Condemned to the perpetual prison as illuminated and freemason, a monk would have strangled it in his dungeon. Alexandre Dumas seized the figure of Joseph Balsamo to try to give a mysterious coloring to his cycle of novels (Joseph Balsamo, the Collar of the Queen, Ange Pitou, the Countess of Charny and the Knight of House-Red) located at the end of the XVIIIe century.

Apologetic sight

The name Balsamo would be of Eastern origin and Cagliostro would be an authentic sicilian wizard. It would have really had proven capacities of cures and would have been an indicator board of spiritism while revealing “shades” (the Theosophy recognizes it like one of its precursors). It founded “Egyptian masonry” in Lyon by establishing it within traditional obediences, and the initiates of these cabins hold it for the continuator of the Count of German St. However, Goethe, which was mason and in search for “secrecies” visit in its prison returned to him (it is supposed that Goethe had known German St) and declared on this subject “the disciple is not worth the Master”. Cagliostro was openly praised to have returned the Collar malefic and to have precipitated the fall of the aristocracy. The French Army - which counted devoted Egyptian masons approaching Rome, it would have been removed not to be released by his/her brothers.

Anecdotes

Giuseppe Balsamo inspired by many writers. Of course Alexandre Dumas in her novels Joseph Balsamo (1846), the Collar of the queen (1849), the Countess of Charny (1853), but one also finds it in Large Cophte of Goethe, Enlightened the of Gerard de Nerval, the Count Cagliostro of Thomas Carlyle, the Visionary of Schiller or the Empire color blood of Denis Côté. It even was the subject of a television serial Joseph Balsamo. One can also note the Countess of Cagliostro, which is one of the character recurring of the adventures of Arsène Lupin of Maurice Leblanc - or Rouletabille of Gaston Leroux- and in the Castle of Cagliostro of Hayao Miyazaki.

Report of a transmutation carried out by Cagliostro:

Here a detailed report/ratio reporting the way in which, on June 7th, 1870, Cagliostro " fît" money in a maconnic cabin of Warsaw, such as one of its members consigned it in a description of this experiment: Cagliostro made me weigh a mercury book that I had, already purified. Before that, it had ordered to me to distill rainwater until all the liquid evaporates, leaving a deposit which it called " Vierge" ground; or " secunda materia". There remained approximately 16 grains about it. On his instructions, I had also prepared a lead extract. After all these preparations were completed, it came to the cabin and entrusted to me the task to carry out the whole of the operation of my own hands. I did this according to his instructions in the following order: The virgin land was placed in a balloon and half of mercury was added there. I added then 30 drops of lead extract. When I agitated a little the flask, mercury appeared dead or strongly frozen. I then poured the supplement of lead extract on the remaining mercury which remained nonfaded. I have then to place together the two mercury portions in a larger balloon. After having agitated it, all the contents took to some extent same solid consistency. The color turned to the dirty gray. The unit was then agitated in a vase with half filled. Cagliostro gave me then a small piece of paper proving to be only the packing of two other pellets. They contained a brilliant powder of carmine color undoubtedly weighing a tenth of grain. The powder was mixed in the container and Cagliostro then swallowed the three packing papers. During this time, I recovered the contents of the plaster vase of Paris, prepared beforehand with warm water. As the container was filled, Cagliostro took it my hands, adding to it even more plaster of Paris and pressing the whole of its own hands. It returned it to me in order to dry the unit on a charcoal fire. The vase was placed in a bed of ashes on the furnace with blower. Fire was lit and the container left thus during one half an hour. Then one withdrew fire thanks to a pair of grips and one transported it in the cabin. The vase was broken there and in the content rested a money mass weighing 14 ounces and half .......

Meeting with Casanova in Aix-en-Provence in 1769.Mémoires of J. Casanova De Singalt (volume VIII Chapter I).

Extract: Dining and soupant each day with table of host, one spoke one day about a pilgrim and a pèlerine who had just arrived. They were Italian, they came to foot from St Jaques de Compostelle, in Galicia, and they were to be people of high birth, since while arriving in the city they had distributed broad alms. One said that the pèlerine was to be charming, of approximately eighteen years, and that, very tired, it had gone to lie down while arriving. In the capacity as Italian, I due to put to me at the head of the band to go to make a visit with these two characters who were to be fanatic excessively pious people or rascals. We found the pélerine sitted on an armchair, having the air of an exceeded of tiredness, and interesting person by its great youth, its beauty which a color of sadness recorded singularly, and by a metal crucifix yellow, long of six inches, that it held between her hands. The pilgrim, who arrongeait shells on a mantelet of black oil-cloth, did not move; he appeared to say to us, while carrying his glances on his wife, whom we should deal only with her. He appeared to have twenty-four or twenty-five years, from small size, rather well was uncoupled, and related to his figure enough returning, boldness, insolence, the sarcastic remark and the friponnery; all opposite of its wife, who posted the nobility, modesty, the naivety, softness, and this timid decency which gives such an amount of charm to an young woman. The pèlerine says to me that it was Roman. As for him, I judged it Napolitain or Sicilien.Son passport, gone back to Rome, announced it under the name of Balsamo; it bore the name of Séraphine Feliciani, name which it did not change; as regards him, in ten years will find we it under the name of Cagliostro .....

Minutes of its lawsuit

declaration of Cagliostro

“I am not of any time nor of any place; apart from time and space, my being spiritual saw its eternal existence and, if I plunge in my thought by going up the course of the ages, if I extend my spirit towards a mode of existence distant from that which you perceive, I become that which I wish. Taking part consciously in the absolute Being, I regulate my action according to the medium which surrounds me. My name is that of my function and I choose it, like my function, because I am free; my country is that where I fix my steps temporarily. You go back to yesterday, if you want it, by raising you of years lived by ancestors who were foreign for you; or of tomorrow, by the illusory pride of a size which will be perhaps never yours; me, I am That which Is. I have only one father: various circumstances of my life made me suspect on this subject the large ones and moving truths; but mysteries of this origin, and the reports/ratios which link me with this unknown father, are and remain my secrecies; that those which will have to guess them, to foresee them as I did, include/understand me and approve me. As for the place, per hour when my material body, it there has some forty years, was formed on this ground; as for the family that I chose for that, I want to be unaware of it; I do not want to remember last not to increase the already heavy responsibilities for those which knew me, because he is written: " You will not make fall the aveugle." I was not born from the flesh, nor of the will of the man; I was born from the spirit. My name, that which is with me and of me, that which I chose to appear in the middle of here you are that I claim. That which one called me with my birth, which one gave me in my youth, it under which, in other times and places, I was known, I left them, as I would have left obsolete clothing and from now on useless. Me here: am Noble and Traveller; I speak, and your heart quivers by recognizing old words; a voice, which is in you, and who had keep silent yourselves since good a long time, answers the call of the mienne; I acted, and peace returns in your hearts, health in your bodies, the hope and courage in your hearts. All the men are my brothers; all the countries are expensive to me; I them course so that, everywhere, the Spirit can descend and find a way towards you. I do not ask the kings, of which I respect the power, that hospitality on their grounds, and, when it is granted to me, I pass, making around me the most possible good; but I do nothing but pass. Am I a Noble Traveller? Like the wind of the South, as the bright light of the South which characterizes the full knowledge of the things and the active communion with God, I come towards North, the fog and the cold, giving up everywhere with my passage some pieces of me, spending me, decreasing me at each station, but leaving you a little clearness, a little heat, a little force, until I would be stopped and finally fixed definitively at the end of my career, per hour when the pink will flower on the cross. I am Cagliostro. Why do you need something moreover? If you were children of God, if your heart were not so vain and so curious, you would have already included/understood! But you need details, signs and parabolas. However, listen! Let us go up well far in the past, since you want it. Any light comes from the East; any initiation, of Egypt; I was three years old like you, then seven years, then the age of man, and, starting from this age, I did not count any more. Three septenary of years makes twenty and one years and carries out the plenitude of human development. In my first childhood, under the law of rigor and justice, I suffered in exile, like Israel among the foreign nations. But, as Israel had with him the presence of God, as Metatron kept it in its ways, in the same way a powerful angel took care on me, directed my acts, clarified my heart, developing the latent forces in me. He was my Master and my guide. My reason was formed and specified; I questioned myself, I studied myself and I became aware of all that surrounded me; I went on journeys, several voyages, as well around the room of my reflections as in the temples and the four parts of the world; but when I wanted to penetrate the origin of my being and to go up towards God in a dash of my heart, then, my impotent reason was keep silent and left me delivered to my conjectures. A love which attracted me towards any creature in an impulsive way, an irresistible ambition, a major feeling of my rights to any thing of the Earth to the Sky, pushed me and threw me towards the life, and the progressive experiment of my forces, their sphere of action, their play and their limits, was the fight that I have to support against the powers of the world; I was given up and tried in the desert; I fought with the angel like Jacob, the men and the demons, and those, overcome, taught me the secrecies, which relate to the world of darkness so that I can never be mislaid in any the roads from where one does not return. One day after how much voyages and years the Sky exauça my efforts: he remembered his servant and, adorned bridal clothes, I have the grace to be allowed, like Moïse, in front of the Eternal. Consequently I received, with a new name, a single mission. Free and Master of the life, I any more but did not think of employing it for the work of God. I knew that it would confirm my acts and my words, as I would confirm his name and his kingdom on the ground. There are beings which do not have any more guardian angels; I was these. Here is my childhood, my youth, such as your anxious and eager spirit of words the advertisement; but what it lasted more or less of years, which it ran out with the country of your fathers or in other regions, which imports with you? Amn't I a free man? judge my manners, i.e. my actions; said if they are good, known as if you saw some more powerful, and, consequently, you do not occupy of my nationality, my row and my religion. If, continuing the happy course of its voyages, one of you one day with these grounds of the East approaches which saw me being born, that he remembers only me, that he pronounces my name, and the servants of my father will open in front of him the doors of the Holy City. Then, that it returns to say to his brothers if I misused among you of an untrue prestige, if I took in your residences something which did not belong to me! ”

End

Condemned to died for heresy, sentence commuted to life imprisonment, Cagliostro are transferred " without hope of grace and under narrow surveillance" April 20th, 1791 with the fortress of San Leo. It will remain there until its death, which has occurred in the night from August 26th to 27th 1795. It is initially installed in the cell " trésor" surest, but also the most degraded and wettest of the fortress, where it profits nevertheless from certain regards and services in conformity to its social status. Gradually its mental faculties give up it. It expresses excesses of violences which end up irritating its geôliers. Following an escape bid, it is " emmuré" in the cell " it pozzetto" considered to be even surer, kind of well where it could be supervised. The account Sempronio Semproni, lord of the manor of San Leo, sent a mail to Rome: " No precaution seems to us excessive to ensure the monitoring of the prisoner, being a being which at a complex, cheating bottom and manipulator (...) a mixture of mischievousness and cheating, whose no precaution can guarantee. In prison, Cagliostro in order to exasperate its geôliers, alternates hunger strike and ill-considered request for food… that finally he refuses. It requires meals different from the other prisoners, wants chocolate the every day. Its general state continues to worsen. The end of Cagliostro begins about midday on August 26th, 1795. A crisis of apoplexy makes him lose knowledge for always. A guard discovers it inanimate and gives alarm, but the doctors and the priests present do not succeed in reanimating it. He dies in the night. Officially it is buried on August 28th, 1795 at 11 p.m. with the extreme point of the mount of San Leo, towards occident, halfway between the 2 buildings intended for the sentinels " Palazzetto" and " Casino". His Serafina wife had already died a front year, with the convent of Sant' Apollonia in Rome.

The escape bid

Locked up in the fortress of San Leo, Cagliostro, at the beginning, enjoys freedoms in conformity with its social status. It has at its disposal of the books, of the charts; it is dedicated to its business like with observations of astronomy. (Still today, on the walls of the buildings which were allocated to him, one can observe the paintings and drawings carried out by his care. Its meals, that it pays of its pocket, are cooked separately, especially for him. Thanks to the assistance of its assistants, with whom it still has contacts, it does not miss anything. It is not allowed to him to have scissors nor of razor. For fear it cannot to mutilate, one allocates a personal barber to him: a soldier of the garrison which makes him its toilet. He thinks that he benefitted from this concession, (only moment during which there remains alone with only one keeps), to subject it under hypnosis. Guard once at its mercy, the conduit outside the fortress, by discrete passages. Thus, transformed into workman of maintenance, it succeeds in crossing the threshold of the fortress, with the nose and the beard of the guards, the face partly hidden by an old man châpeau with broad edge; the presence of the soldier who accompanies it not waking up any doubt. However, once outside the fortress, it is betrayed by a detail: an officer of passage is intrigued by the quality and the smoothness of the boots which the simple workman wears. the officer approaches the workman and discovers the face to him: he uncovers Cagliostro. This one is stopped and renewed in prison. To avoid other attempts it is from now on recluse with the cell " it pozzetto" , which does not have a door but only one opening on the top, by which one forwards to him food without one being able to cross his glance, this in order to make obstacle " with arts subtle of Cagliostro". The official excuse of the change of cell, near the offices of the ecclesiastical court of Rome, is that of the health condition of the prisoner. The géoliers seek to hide the attempt of almost successful escape, fear of beings blames for their lightness. From this moment, the reclusion of Cagliostro becomes really terrible. There remain thus " emmuré" until the end of its life.

Testimony: The Burial

One did not find the burial of Cagliostro. A particular fact occurred in 1797, at the time of the catch of Rocca de San Leo by the French Army under the orders of the Dombrowski general. The general gave the prisoners remainders in freedom. Those accompanied by various soldiers unearthed the remainders of Cagliostro took its cranium to clink glasses there with found freedom. This macabre fact was reported by an eyewitness: Mr. Marco Perazzoni, deceased in 1882, at the 96 years age, the prelate Oreglia di S. Stefano. " When the count died, I was 7 years old. I remember his burial very well. Its body, equipped, deposited on a leaf of door out of wooden, was transported to shoulder by 4 men, which, once left the fortress, went down towards the esplanade. Those were tired and perspired much (it was August). In order to rest, they posed the skin on the parapet of small a puit (which still exists) and they went to drink wine glass. Then they recovered the corpse and conduirent it instead of the burial. Me, held by the hand by one of my relationship, I followed the sad one and miserable convoy. As there was no priest, this convoy had a diabolic aspect. At its sight, the rare passers by fled by making the sign of cross. Once the pit dug, the corpse was descended at the bottom. Under its head, they reflect a large stone, on its face an old handkerchief, then they covered ground. A few years after, arrived the Poles who took the fortress. Those gave in freedom condannés which helped by soldiers are reflected to dig the burial, enparèrent cranium of Cagliostro and drank there wine, this in the canteens tale Nardini de San Leo… "

Partial source

Theodore Flournoy, Of the Indies to the planet Mars : Personification of Balsamo by Léopold (Chapter IV - § II), Balsamo.html Léopold and truth Joseph Balsamo (Chapter IV - § III), Study on a case of sleepwalking with glossolalie , Alcan Editions and Eggimann, Paris and Geneva, 1900.
Memories of J.Casanova De Singalt (TomeVIII Chapter I, n°15à20 Page) New Edition Garnier Brothers 1880:

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