CAGLIOSTRO, ka-lytl'stro, ALESSANDRO, Count (1743-95). An Italian impostor, whose real name was Giuseppe Balsamo. He was born in Palermo, of poor parentage. June 2, 1743. When thirteen years old he ran away from a seminary where he had been placed, and was afterwards sent to a monastery at Cartagiore. Here he became assistant to the apothecary of the monastery. and picked up that scanty knowledge of chemistry and medicine which, in an age at once skeptical and credulous, imposed upon so many respectable individuals. He left the monastery or was ejected, and for a time led 'the loosest life' in Palermo. When 26 years old, he found it highly advisable to leave his native place. In company with a certain sage. named Althotas, Cagliostro is vaguely represented as traveling in Greece, Egypt, and Asia. In Venice lie married a very beautiful woman named Lorenza Felieiana, who became a skillful accomplice in his schemes, and captivated many admirers, while Cagliostro swindled them. In Italy and Germany lie posed as a physician, philosopher, alchemist, Free mason, and necromancer, and did a lively busi ness in his 'elixir of immortal youth.' He was not so successful in Saint Petersburg at the Court of the shrewd Catharine H. From Saint Petersburg he went to Warsaw. where he grew rich on titled dupes in spite of being exposed.
In 1780 he was in Strassburg, later in Paris, then in England, and in 1785 again in Paris, where he was lodged in the Misfile for his share in the affair of the Diamond Necklace (q.v.). His plausibility secured his liberation, and he went to England, but there and elsewhere he found little scope for the continued exercise of his peculiar talents, and he returned to Italy in 1789. He had established a spurious Egyptian Masonic rite, and his continuance in this work in Rome led to his condemnation by the Inquisi tion. His sentence of death was commuted to life imprisomnent, and he died in 1795. His wife ended her days in a convent.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. In Notes and Queries. FourthBibliography. In Notes and Queries. Fourth Series, Vol. X. (London, 1872), appeared a Ca gliostro bibliography by William E. A. Axon. who had just written (1871) a series of papers on Cagliostro for the Dublin LTn•rcrsity Maga zine. Consult: in Thomas Carlyle's Miscellane ous Essays, "Count Cagliostro;" also, The Life of Count Cagliostro (London, 1787) : The Life of Joseph Balsamo, Commonly Called Count Ca gliostro, etc. (London, 1791). Much spurious ma terial has appeared concerning Cagliostro's life. Such are the so-called Memoires authentiques (Paris, 1786).