Count Cagliostro, alchemy conman

1743 Count Alessandro di Cagliostro (d. August 26, 1795), late 18th-century roving adventurer, freemason and alchemist who mixed with most of the major figures in Europe at that time, including Casanova, Mozart, Goethe and Catherine the Great.

There are two Cagliostros, or at least, two accounts of his life. In one popular version he was a cunning fraud, and in the other, he was a nobleman and great magus.

The former states that Cagliostro was born Giuseppe Balsamo to a poor family in Palermo, Sicily, and when his father died he was educated at the expense of some of his mother’s relatives. It has been said that he robbed his uncle and forged a will, and spent time in Palermo’s prisons more than once. His reputation as a charlatan is so great, he even shows up as a crooked Marvel Comics character ...