The Last Alchemist: Count Cagliostro, Master of Magic in the Age of Reason
288
The Last Alchemist: Count Cagliostro, Master of Magic in the Age of Reason
288Paperback(Reprint)
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Overview
Who was the mysterious Count Cagliostro?
Depending on whom you ask, he was either a great healer or a dangerous charlatan. Internationally acclaimed historian Iain McCalman documents how Cagliostro crossed paths — and often swords — with the likes of Catherine the Great, Marie Antoinette, and Pope Pius VI. He was a muse to William Blake and the inspiration for both Mozart's Magic Flute and Goethe's Faust. Louis XVI had him thrown into the Bastille for his alleged involvement in what would come to be known as "the affair of the necklace." Yet in London, Warsaw, and St. Petersburg, he established "healing clinics" for the poorest of the poor, and his dexterity in the worlds of alchemy and spiritualism won him acclaim among the nobility across Europe.
Also the leader of an exotic brand of Freemasonry, Count Cagliostro was indisputably one of the most influential and notorious figures of the latter eighteenth century, overcoming poverty and an ignoble birth to become the darling — and bane — of upper-crust Europe.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780060006914 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HarperCollins |
| Publication date: | 04/13/2004 |
| Series: | Harper Perennial |
| Edition description: | Reprint |
| Pages: | 288 |
| Sales rank: | 665,726 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.31(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.65(d) |
About the Author
At around the age of sixteen he began writing: "My first publication was an article in the Rhodesia Herald on early Portuguese exploration of the lands that now include Zimbabwe." McCalman says he grew up in Africa "in a context where people around me believed in magic, and I felt sympathy with that without it penetrating my own beliefs". This, he believes, was an advantage in writing about Cagliostro's life and work.
He migrated to Australia, where he completed his BA Hons in History and MA at Canberra's Australian National University, and his PhD at Melbourne's Monash University. He has worked in many Australian and overseas universities, and has received awards for his teaching and scholarship, most recently the Federation Centenary medal in 2002. Currently President of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, McCalman became a Professor in History in 1994 and Director of the Humanities Research Centre at ANU a year later. He is currently a Federation Fellow at the ANU - one of the few humanities recipients - and will use the fellowship to research a multi-media project on the "moving picture spectacles" of 18th-century painter (and key Cagliostro enemy) Philip de Loutherborg, and a history of the impact of spectacular Australian landscapes on scientists in Darwin's age.
Iain McCalman specializes in eighteenth-century and early-nineteenth British and European cultural history and has a particular interest in popular culture and "low life".
Along with his many academic achievements, McCalman has developed an interest in the uses of other media for history and has been active in developing collaborative projects linking university-based research to the work of other cultural institutions, and recently was a historical consultant for and participant in the television series The Ship, a re-enactment of Cook's Endeavour voyage. "I had to snatch my reading during occasional interludes between climbing 140 feet up the rigging, sleeping like a fruit bat in a hammock, and crunching on hard tack biscuits and sauerkraut," he says of the journey, and admits it was a little bit "Big Brother at sea".
He is also writing a travel-book cum political memoir called The Gun in the Lake, based on his early life and experiences in Nyasaland.
Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
Freemason
Freemason: A member of the fraternity called, more fully, Free and Accepted Masons.
Count Giovanni Giacomo Casanova was bored out of his mind. It was March 1769; on doctor's orders the legendary seducer had been trapped for nearly three weeks now inside the Three Dolphins Inn, Aix-en-Provence, recovering from a serious bout of pneumonia.
The visit had begun well enough. He'd promised himself the treat of a spring stay in warm southern France in compensation for having spent an uncomfortable six weeks locked in a jail cell in Barcelona for passing false bills of exchange. After these rigors, he'd anticipated with delight the thought of spending a week or two in the ancient French provincial capital of Aix, near to an old friend, the marquis d'Argens, a philosopher and voluptuary with a similar appetite for women, food, and fine conversation. Casanova was also tantalized by the prospect of attending the city's famous Easter festival, said to be the most saturnalian in France.
The slight discomfort of being given a room next-door to a nosy cardinal was offset by the advantage of the inn's location -- close to Aix's elegant main street, the cours de Mirabeau, with its canopy of shady trees and bustling outdoor cafés. A group of young men interested in sensual pleasures made for affable company at the breakfast table; they listened to Casanova's stories as if to holy writ.
Like him, these were adventurers -- men who lived on chance and imposture -- but they were only small fry; trainees and amateurs gathered in the presence of a master. They hung on Casanova's words because he'd excelled in Europe's riskiest profession. Every substantial town or city swarmed with members of his fraternity. There were no fixed credentials in this business, no certain pitches, no reliable sources of income. The perils were great, the pitfalls many. Adventurers had to live by their wits, charm, and courage, always ready to make a bold advance or a quick retreat. You might find yourself traveling in a magnificent six-horse coach on one day; chained to the oar of a prison galley the next.
At dining tables, gaming houses, salons, and operas Casanova brushed up against scores of half-familiar figures whose newly minted titles were as extravagant as his own -- his preferred title chevalier de Seingalt was an utter invention based on letters picked at random from the alphabet. A good adventurer also needed an attractive professional repertoire and remarkable versatility so that he could offer himself as an entertainer or musician, a painter or an actor, an animal trainer or an expert in fireworks. Many, Casanova included, made claims to special knowledge, touting themselves as astrologers, philosophers, inventors, magicians, or healers. A reliable standby was to present yourself as a foreign soldier, a traveling clergyman, or a government offcial on diplomatic business. Casanova had worked them all.
Despite occasional setbacks, Casanova could think of no freer or more satisfying trade. With most of Europe at peace, borders were delightfully porous; passports were relatively easy to obtain; and a real or forged letter of introduction to some local dignitary would open doors, provided you were equipped with stylish clothes and a good coach. Europe's myriad petty rulers craved novelty and spectacle: all a good adventurer needed was to select the right hook for local conditions. Casanova specialized in sexual charm, magical imposture, and cardsharping, but when necessary he'd turned his hand to organizing lotteries, inspecting mines, and posing as a healer. Since every European ruler, large or small, aspired to imitate France's former Sun King, Louis XIV, and all nobles, however provincial, modeled their dress and manners on those of France, one had only to acquire the language, fashion, and taste of Paris. No one could excel Casanova in dancing the minuet or turning a polished compliment.
At Aix, there was plenty of opportunity to test these skills. Soon after arriving in the city he was invited to dine with d'Argens, who was staying at his brother's château in the countryside. The fare proved splendid. He filled his mouth with Madame d'Argens's exquisite crostata, a huge, crusted meat pie, crammed with little sausages, sweetbreads, mushrooms, artichoke hearts, fatted goose livers, and much else. Holding up his end of the bargain, Casanova shone. He set everyone laughing by frightening a Jesuit who dared to criticize his bawdy conversation. The miserable priest blanched with fear when Casanova declared that the pope, currently under election, was sure to be the hatchet man Cardinal Gagnelli, a Franciscan eager to crush the meddling Society of Jesus. Such anticlerical badinage delighted a young Berliner called Gotzkowski, who quietly promised to introduce Casanova to a livelier set of libertines gathering in town every day for "parties of pleasure."
The Easter carnival also exceeded Casanova's best hopes: its masquerades, dances, and buffooneries were the most frenzied he'd seen, and he'd seen plenty. Venice's carnevale had been one of his formative experiences. Extending for the last week before Lent, it drew revelers from all over the country. Aix proved even better. On 25 March he cheered the procession through the city center, as the Devil, Death, and Deadly Sins, in comic dress, struggled to avoid kneeling to the Creator. Putting on a mask of his own -- no doubt his favorite commedia dell'arte disguise, hook-nosed Pulcinella -- he prowled through the streets in search of giggling masked beauties. A whirl of "assemblies, balls, suppers, and very pretty girls" made him stay into Lent: one could not better the intoxicating mix of sex and religion.
But as so often these days, now that he'd reached the age of forty-four, retribution followed on the heels of his keenest pleasures. As he was riding back into town in an open chaise after a visit to D'Argens, the icy north wind chilled him to the bone ...
The Last Alchemist. Copyright © by Iain McCalman. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.What People are Saying About This
“[A] rich, fantastic, devilishly romantic book ... utterly absorbing ... a charming puzzle from beginning to end.”
“Iain McCalman writes history which has the teasing, exciting psychological ambiguity of the best fiction.”
“[A] fascinating life.... Smoothly written, deeply researched,and persuasively argued.”
“THE LAST ALCHEMIST is presented with wit and elegance.”
Reading Group Guide
Introduction
Was Count Cagliostro a sinner or a saint -- the worst scoundrel of his age or a great occult healer?
Freemason, necromancer, shaman, copt, prophet, rejuvenator, heretic, and, ultimately, immortal -- Count Cagliostro was known by all these names and yet, perhaps, least known by his real name, Giuseppe Balsamo. In this "rollicking narrative [about] a fantastic rogue" (Boston Globe), historian Iain McCalman opens the door into the life of the greatest enchanter of the 18th century.
Born in Palermo, Sicily, in 1743, Giuseppe Balsamo grew up a poor street thug. But put to work as a chemical apprentice at a monastery, Balsamo soon earned local fame as an alchemist until he was forced to flee after conning a merchant out of a fortune. From that moment, Balsamo embarked on an adventure that would allow him to enter the worlds of artists, royalty, and religious figures ... if only for a little while.
Because "a good adventurer also needed an attractive professional repertoire and remarkable versatility," he crafted reputations that were as sensational as they were suspicious. He could turn mercury into gold, converse with the ghosts of the dead, predict future events, cure illness and disease, and knew the great secret of eternal youth.
Charismatic and cunning, he changed his name to Colonel Pellegrini, and then, later, to Count Alessandro di Cagliostro. Early on in his travels, he discovered both his true love -- his wife, Seraphina -- and his true passion -- Freemasonry. He would use both to charm the nobility all over Europe while constructing a curious social pattern -- at first excited acceptance upon his arrival, followed by scandal, then public outrage and exile -- in every country he visited. But ironically, it would be his loyalty to Seraphina and Freemasonry that would lead Cagliostro to his final undoing.
Crossing paths with such historical figures as Casanova, Catherine the Great, Marie Antoinette, and Pope Pius VI, Cagliostro remains, even today, a controversial character who was involved in scandals like "the affair of the necklace," as well as humanitarian acts like opening healing clinics for the poor. A restless wanderer and a robin hood of sorts, he acquired as many followers as he did critics. By analyzing the Cagliostro phenomenon, author McCalman has written a biography that is "perceptive, intelligent, and -- by no means least -- immensely entertaining" (Washington Post).
Questions for Discussion
- What do Sicilians believe to be Cagliostro's first elixir?
- What three elements of the Templar myth attracted Cagliostro?
- How were Casanova and Cagliostro similar? Where did they differ?
- What was "the transformative moment of [Cagliostro's] life?"
- Cagliostro had many enemies, but whom do you consider to be his true nemesis -- Casanova, Elisa von der Recke, Catherine the Great, Marie Antoinette, Countess Jeanne de Valois de La Motte, Théveneau de Morande, the de Loutherbourgs, Cardinal Doria, Pope Pius VI, or his wife Seraphina?
- How did Cagliostro prove his credentials to the Masons of Mitau?
- What miscalculation did the Count make in Saint Petersburg?
- Cagliostro diagnosed a patient in Saint Petersburg: "Thou art possessed by the demon of pride, and that drives thee out of thy mind" (page 88). Discuss the irony of this statement.
- Which one of Cagliostro's "professions" combined his three great skills -- magic, religion, and medicine?
- In the "the affair of the necklace," what act eventually led to the plan's downfall? Which participant paid the highest price?
- Who were the Count's greatest champions throughout his life?
- What fateful moment "threw Cagliostro into the maelstrom of subversive politics" and why?
- When the Count died in jail, what did Governor Semproni do to make sure he was dead?
- There are those that believe Cagliostro influenced some monumental events in history. Discuss these theories as well as some of the popular myths that emerged after his death. In your opinion, what does Cagliostro's life and death represent in historical terms?
About the Author
Dr. Iain McCalman is the Director of the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University. He is also an internationally renowned cultural historian and author/editor of seven scholarly works, including the widely acclaimed Radical Underworld: Prophets, Revolutionaries and Pornographers in London, 1795-1840 and, most recently, The Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age.