He claimed to have travelled as a child to Medina, Mecca, and Cairo and upon return to Malta to have been admitted to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, with whom he studied alchemy, the Kabbalah, and magic.
Early life
Giuseppe Balsamo
was born to a poor family in
Albergheria,
which was once
the old Jewish Quarter of
Palermo, Sicily.
Despite his family's precarious financial situation, his grandfather and uncles made sure the young Giuseppe received a solid education:
he was taught by a tutor and later became a novice in
the Catholic Order of St. John of God,
from which he was eventually expelled.
During his period as a novice in the order,
Balsamo learned chemistry as well as a series of spiritual rites.
In 1764, when he was twenty one,
he convinced
Vincenzo Marano
-a wealthy goldsmith-
of the existence of a hidden treasure
buried several hundred years
previously at Mount Pellegrino.
The young man's knowledge of the occult, Marano reasoned, would be valuable in preventing the duo from being attacked by magical creatures guarding the treasure.
In preparation for the expedition to Mount Pellegrino, however,
Balsamo requested
seventy pieces of silver
from Marano.
When the time came for the two to dig up the supposed treasure, Balsamo attacked Marano, who was left bleeding and wondering what had happened to the boy-in his mind, the beating he had been subjected to had been the work of djinns.
The next day, Marano paid a visit to
Balsamo's house in
via Perciata
(since then renamed via
Conte di Cagliostro),
where he learned the young man had left the city.
Balsamo (accompanied by two accomplices) had fled to the city of Messina.
By 1765-66,
Balsamo found himself on the island of
Malta,
where he became an auxiliary (donato)
for
the Sovereign Military Order of Malta
and
a skilled pharmacist.
Travels
In early 1768
Balsamo
left for Rome,
where he managed to land himself a job
as
a secretary to
Cardinal Orsini.
The job proved boring to Balsamo and he soon started leading a double life, selling magical "Egyptian" amulets and engravings pasted on boards and painted over to look like paintings.
Of the many Sicilian expatriates and ex-convicts
he met during this period, one introduced him to
a seventeen-year-old girl named
Lorenza Seraphina Feliciani
(ca. 8 April 1751 - 1794),
known as Serafina,
whom he married 1768.
The couple moved in with
Lorenza's parents and her brother
in the vicolo delle Cripte,
adjacent to the strada dei Pellegrini.
Balsamo's coarse language and the way he incited Lorenza to display her body contrasted deeply with her parents' deep-rooted religious beliefs. After a heated discussion, the young couple left.
At this point Balsamo befriended
Agliata,
a forger and swindler,
who proposed to teach Balsamo
how to forge letters, diplomas and myriad other official documents.
In return, though, Agliata sought sexual intercourse with Balsamo's young wife, a request to which Balsamo acquiesced.
The couple
traveled together to
London,
Лондон
where Balsamo, now styling himself with one of several pseudonyms and self-conferred titles before settling on
"Count Alessandro di Cagliostro",
allegedly met
the Comte de Saint-Germain.
Cagliostro traveled throughout Europe,
especially to Courland, Russia, Poland, Germany, and later France.
(Курланд (сейчас в Латвии), Россия, Польша, Германия, Франция)
His fame grew to the point that
he was even recommended as a physician to
Benjamin Franklin
during a stay in Paris.
On April 12, 1776
"Joseph Cagliostro"
was admitted as
a Freemason
of the Esperance Lodge No. 289 in Gerrard Street, Soho, London.
(Масон Английской Ложи в Лондоне)
In December 1777
Cagliostro and Serafina
left London (Лондон)
for the mainland,
after which
they travelled through various German states,
visiting lodges of
the Rite of Strict Observance
looking for converts to Cagliostro's
"Egyptian Freemasonry".
In February 1779
Cagliostro traveled to
Mitau,
Митай,
where
he met
the poetess
Elisa von der Recke.
In September 1780,
after failing
in Saint Petersburg
to win the patronage of Russian Tsaritsa Catherine the Great,
(Пытался завладеть патронажем и покровительством Екатерины Великой в Российской Империи, в Сант-Петебурге, но эта затея провалилась, и Калиостро уехали во Францию).
the Cagliostros
made their way to
Strasbourg,
at that time in France.
In October 1784,
the Cagliostros
travelled to
Lyon.
On December 24, 1784 they founded
the co-Masonic mother lodge
La Sagesse Triomphante
of his rite of Egyptian Freemasonry at Lyon.