Count Cagliostro : A Life of Travel, Freemasonry & Heresy
Son of a modest merchant, Giuseppe Balsamo was born in Palermo in 1743 in a poor and working-class neighborhood. When his father died, he was taken in by his maternal uncles. It does not take long for him to be noticed by his "exuberance", which results in various petty crimes, scams and other quarrels. In his own way, he is a small chef, a skillful forger versed in chemistry, a rebellious spirit who will know the prison on several occasions: in Rome at Castel Sant'Angelo, in Paris at the Bastille, in London, in Saint Leo near Urbino, and of course in his native Palermo, at the Marchesi Palace.
At 23, he was forced to leave Palermo for Messina. The evening of his arrival, he has a meeting that will mark him forever. He meets a strange character with a long beard and multiple nationalities, Altotas, who claims to know the secret of the Philosopher's Stone. It was he, according to Cagliostro himself, who initiated him into the mysteries of the high priests of ancient Egypt and inspired him to travel. Thus, he went in turn to Egypt, Greece and Asia Minor under the name of Count of Cagliostro.
Birth of the Count Cagliostro
It was through his initiation ceremony into Freemasonry in London on April 12, 1777, that the young Palermo "officially" became Count of Cagliostro. Very quickly, he reached the rank of Grand Master of the London Lodge, then that of Grand Copt of a rite he established and which he called Egyptian Masonry. How did it come to this? By the quest for the rebirth of Man and by the practice of spiritual exercises, by observing six commandments and three imperatives which advocate love for God and his neighbor, respect for the king and for nature, meditation and rigorous application of the rules of the Order. Rules that he set himself, mixing Masonic rituals, Eastern rites and those of ancient Egypt, as he learned them during his long travels. However, his fame in the occult sciences also earned him a trial for heresy. For a long time, Cagliostro enjoyed unlimited fame in Europe. His predictions are famous, as are the healings and powers attributed to him, so much so that Goethe himself, while in Palermo, insists on visiting Cagliostro's birthplace.
For years Cagliostro traveled all over Europe; we tell all about him, he is revered or, on the contrary, despised. In turn, he will travel to Malta, France, Spain and Portugal. Then to London, Brussels, Amsterdam, Venice, Frankfurt, Leipzig, Berlin, Saint Petersburg, Warsaw, Paris, Strasbourg, Naples, then Paris again. He returned to Italy: Turin, Genoa, Milan, Verona, Trento then Rome, where he was arrested in May 1789.
Affair of the Diamond Necklace
Paris, 1785. Almost in spite of himself, Cagliostro found himself embroiled in what would pass as the greatest scandal of the 18th century: the Affair of the Diamond Necklace. While he was adviser to Cardinal de Rohan, he was contacted by two jewelers from whom King Louis XV had ordered, just before his death, a fabulous necklace for his favorite. Secretly, we are trying to resell this necklace to the new King Louis XVI, through secret negotiations with his wife, Marie Antoinette. Alerted, the people cry scandal in the face of the expensive luxury of the court, while poverty and famine overwhelm the country. Cagliostro is imprisoned in the Bastille. If his judges recognize his innocence, he is still forced to leave France. He goes to London, then to Rome, because his wife is nostalgic for the country. It is the end. After humiliations, abjurations and a long trial whose sentence is read in the presence of Pope Pius VI, Cagliostro is transferred "without hope of grace and under close surveillance" to the fortress of Saint Leo, near Urbino.
He died there in August 1795, after hard years of imprisonment. His death like his life will remain mysterious; even today, worshipers kneel in his cell.
Why Count Cagliostro ?
The name comes to him from the maternal side of his family. A cousin of her mother married a bourgeois from Messina, a certain Giuseppe Cagliostro. The city of Messina thus marks a decisive turning point in the life of the young rebel, for it is here that he begins to call himself Alessandro Cagliostro, a legendary name still today.
