In 1791, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was working on his requiem mass when he fell seriously ill. From his deathbed, Mozart declared, “I feel definitely that I will not last much longer; I am sure that I have been poisoned.” He went on to claim, “Someone has given me acqua tofana and calculated the precise time of my death.”
Mozart wasn’t poisoned but he feared he might have fallen victim to the infamous potion of Giulia Tofana who was executed over a hundred years prior to Mozart’s death but whose notoriety (and perhaps her infamous recipe) lived on long after her death. Her poison was very popular.
During the mid-1600s, Tofana set up a factory to manufacture cosmetics in southern Italy. From this factory she sole woman’s cosmetics and religious healing oils. Most of the products were completely safe and normal so no one had reason to suspect Giulia Tofana was a merchant of death.
Giulia Tofana’s signature “special cosmetic” was Aqua Tofana a poison so potent that it could kill a man with as little as four drops, meted out over a matter of days or weeks. Aqua Tofana was completely tasteless, odorless, and colorless – making it the perfect poison to mix into a glass of wine or any other drink. The recipe was a mixture of arsenic, lead, and belladonna, all deadly poisonous substances.
Guilia Tofana became the most successful serial killer of men in 17th century Italy. Her motives were clear. In Italy during the 17th Century, women were often forced into marriage by their families without having a say in the matter. Once married, husbands had complete control over their wives and women were often completely powerless. Husbands could beat their wives without facing any punishment or subject them to all kinds of cruel treatments. Giulia Tofana’s poison offered women an “early Italian divorce,” by giving women the power to kill their husbands and become widows. With this special “cosmetic,” aspiring widows were able murder their husbands for nearly 50 years without being caught. It is estimated that she killed hundreds of men.
She was only discovered when a woman who had purchased Aqua Tofana from Giulia, stopped her husband from eating soup dosed with the poison. When her husband demanded to know why, the woman confessed and pointed the finger at Tofana as the seller of her poison. Tofana attempted to get sanctuary in a church, but eventually the church was stormed, and Giulia was handed over to Papal authorities, who tortured her. Giulia Tofana eventually confessed to poisoning over 600 men between the years 1633 and 1651. In July of 1659, Giulia Tofana was executed along with her daughter and three employees in Rome’s Campo de’ Fiori, a popular location for execution.
Italy destroyed the factory and all of Tofana’s recipes but the legend of Aqua Tofana continued long after Giulia’s death. Today, Texas and Florida are moving to eliminate a woman’s right to divorce through “covenant marriage” laws. These laws would eliminate “no fault” divorces and make all marriages (even those between non-Christian couples) conform to puritan standards where, like Italy in the 17th Century, the husband can abuse his wife without consequence and the only way out is death. Seems Giulia Tofana may have a new market in “red states” soon. Technically, it falls under the Right to Bear Arms and Giulia Tofana’s approach was certainly a “well regulated militia.”
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Michael Carver -- Historical Interpreter/Reenactor 