The Last Alchemist: Count Cagliostro, Master of Magic in the Age of Reason

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Who was the mysterious Count Cagliostro? Depending on whom you ask, he was either a great healer and mystic or a dangerous charlatan whose revolutionary notions and influences threatened to undermine the monarchies of France and Russia. Whatever else he was, Count Alessandro di Cagliostro, the leader of an exotic brand of Freemasonry, 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 uppercrust Europe." "Internationally acclaimed historian Iain McCalman has not written a work of biography in the strictest sense; rather, he uses seven key "episodes" in Cagliostro's political and spiritual evolution to provide a dazzling panoramic portrait of eighteenth-century European culture and history. 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 The Magic Flute and Goethe's Faust. LouisXVI 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, a radical notion at that time; and his dexterity in the worlds of alchemy and spiritualism won him acclaim among the nobility across Europe." But it was his progress through the rites of Egyptian Freemasonry - including the Illuminati, a genuinely conspiratorial secret society dedicated to the overthrow of established religion and monarchy - that was both his highest achievement and his undoing. In 1791, on the order of Pope Pius VI, Cagliostro was arrested for heresy. He spent the last five years of his life in solitary confinement in an Italian prison, where he died in 1795.

FROM THE CRITICS

The New York Times

Iain McCalman, the director of the Humanities Research Center at the Australian National University, has written a biography of this rogue. Such a notorious figure has many chroniclers, but if Mr. McCalman hasn't dug up new evidence, he has assembled a readable and compact life that gracefully weaves in the politics and passions of the age. — Patricia Cohen

The Washington Post

So, who was he: "A spiritual seeker, a mystic and healer guided by a deeper purpose? Or a charlatan, an opportunist, a con man working on Europe's grand stages?" The question has fascinated many before and since Carlyle, among them Mozart, Alexandre Dumas, William Blake, Orson Welles and Umberto Eco. McCalman is scarcely as well known as these, but his contribution to the literature of Cagliostro is perceptive, intelligent and -- by no means least -- immensely entertaining. — Jonathan Yardley

Publishers Weekly

Cultural historian McCalman (editor, An Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age) presents an enlightening account of the career of one of the most famous charlatans of the 18th century, Count Alessandro di Cagliostro. He was born poor, in 1743, in Sicily, where he began his career as a petty street thug. Setting the pattern for the rest of his life, Cagliostro was forced to flee Sicily after defrauding a local merchant. He traveled all over Europe, usually one step ahead of the authorities, spreading his brand of Freemasonry and billing himself as an alchemist and healer. Tremendously charismatic, he gained legions of followers. In Russia, he tried to convert Catherine the Great to Freemasonry, but she viewed him as politically subversive and harried him out of the country. Cagliostro's journeys finally brought him to Italy, where he was hounded as a fake by the newspapers. The amorous adventurer Casanova described Cagliostro as a fraud who fleeced the gullible. While in Italy, his wife, Seraphina, grew tired of all the traveling and the constant bad publicity, and betrayed him to the Inquisition, which, shocked by his Freemasonry and his claims to have supernatural powers, sentenced him to life in prison; he died there in 1795. McCalman's account is adeptly researched and written with a light, charming touch; as the author makes abundantly clear, the Age of Reason was also an age of mysticism and downright quackery. 26 b&w illus. (June 6) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

In seven chapters, McCalman (Humanities Research Ctr., Australian National Univ.; editor, An Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age) explores the seven lives of Count Allesandro di Cagliostro-either "the greatest enchanter of the eighteenth century" or "the worst scoundrel of his age." In more or less chronological order, McCalman presents Cagliostro in the seven roles he assumed during his remarkable career, imaginatively re-creating his protagonist's encounters with both patrons and adversaries. Thus, "Freemason" is enlivened by the contest between Cagliostro and Casanova; "Necromancer" recounts Cagliostro's prowess as a spiritualist in the duchy of Courland-Zemgale; "Shaman" finds the count in conflict with Russia's Catherine the Great; "Copt" reveals that Cagliostro nearly ended his career in the Bastille after involving Marie Antoinette in a diamond necklace swindle; and "Prophet" is an account of his unsuccessful attempts to gain power and influence in England. In Cagliostro's two final roles, the ability to "enchant" that had hitherto preserved him has begun to weaken. After he is brought to trial in "Rejuvenator" and found guilty of 21 years of heretical beliefs and actions, he is sentenced to life imprisonment in the fortress of San Leo; in "Heretic," we find him dead at age 52 and buried in an unmarked pit. This entertaining work is recommended for larger public libraries with an interest in the 18th century.-Robert C. Jones, Warrensburg, MO Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

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