Written by Lila Winstanley
03/03/2024
Content Warning: Death
The year was 1659, in Rome, five gang members are hanged and 40 of their clients are imprisoned for life. The crime: murder, its victims: abusive husbands, and the weapon of choice: a poison disguised as a cure for blemishes. 160 years later, Mozart lies on his deathbed and claims he has been poisoned by ‘Aqua Tofana’: an odourless, colourless, tasteless, and essentially undetectable poison. So, what is this notorious poison, and who are the women responsible for its creation?
The first record of Aqua Tofana was in Palermo, Sicily in 1632 when Francesca la Sarda was executed for poisoning her victim. In July 1633, Teofania de Adamo was killed for the exact same crime. Teofania is believed to be the inventor of the poison, which killed its victims in three days and caused vomiting, extreme thirst and severe pain in the throat and stomach. Teofania suffered a particularly gruesome death, either being hung, drawn and quartered or bound alive in a canvas sack and thrown from the roof of a bishop’s palace. Exceptionally cruel punishments, even for the standards of the time.
Evidence next traces the poison to Rome in the 1650s, with a woman named Guilia Tofana. She may have been Teofiana’s daughter, as Sicilian children of parents with rare names often took these as their surname, yet there is no evidence for a connection between these women beyond such a tradition. Whilst in Rome, Tofana recruited accomplices, to help make and distribute the poison. The substance was likely based on arsenic and thought to be acquired through a priest, Father Girolamo, whose brother was an apothecary with seemingly dubious morals. The liquid was hidden in glass jars labelled ‘Manna of St Nicholas’, supposedly water formed in the tomb of Saint Nicholas in Bari which is believed to have healing powers. The poison was sold under the inconspicuous cover of helping women to remove blemishes from their faces.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the case of Aqua Tofana is the distinct clientele of the operation — women driven to such desperation within marriage, that murder was the only option they felt they had. Renaissance ideals of rebirth did not apply to rights for women, whose status remained much like the Middle Ages — property of her father or husband, and therefore at their mercy. Though individual distributors in Tofana’s gang specialised in different social circles, clients came from all classes. Some poor women were even given the poison free of charge, the motive of money being superseded by pity or retribution.
The most notable victim of Aqua Tofana was the Duke of Ceri, nephew to the future Pope Innocent XI, whose father was a distinguished scientist and friend of Galileo. For the aristocracy, marriage was a political asset for which women were the currency. The duke’s wife, Maria Aldobrandini, was 30 years younger and a member of an extremely powerful Roman clan. She had fallen for Count Santinelli, a notorious rake, and acquired the poison with the hopes of escaping her arranged marriage to remarry him. Despite the unclear nature of the duke’s death, no autopsy was conducted, and Maria initially escaped suspicion of poison.
The ringleader, Tofana, died peacefully and was never charged of any crimes, but her accomplices did not share the same luck. There are three hypotheses regarding how the poisoners were discovered. Firstly, that they became overconfident, and the sudden profusion of similar murders made the cause of death clear. Secondly, a client admitted to a priest during confession that she had plotted to kill her husband, and at the offer of immunity, this story was leaked. Finally, the police may have arrested one of the distributors of the poison who was carrying a sample and, realising that this was not a solo operation, laid a trap to catch the other women involved.
On July 6th 1659, the five gang members were hung before a notably large crowd. Evidence was heard for 46 cases of murder at the trial, though some historians place the total number of deaths caused by Aqua Tofana at near 600. Whilst women of all walks of life suffered under the hands of the patriarchy, powerful clients were shielded from conviction by their wealth and privilege. In contrast, 40 lower class women freed themselves from the walls of abusive marriages just to be imprisoned for life for murder. Maria Aldobrandi’s name was absent from the trial under the request of the Pope, and she was, rather ironically, punished only with remarriage.
Historical evidence refutes Mozart’s belief that Aqua Tofana was undetectable; pamphlets of the poison’s symptoms were published after the trial in Rome. So why did the poison become so notorious? Why did its reputation transcend truth and gain a supernatural status feared 160 years later? Perhaps because of the threat such a substance posed to the ‘natural’ order of society. With a few drops of Aqua Tofana, marriage crumbled and with it the patriarchal hierarchy which otherwise held women captive. The more challenging question here is what would you do in the same situation? Were the gang operating a social service, providing freedom from persecution, in a discrete, corked bottle? Or perhaps that is too charitable, and this was simply murder on an epic scale, allowing their clients to play judge, jury and executioner whilst the gang profited from their pain.
Bibliography
Dash, M. (2015). Aqua Tofana: slow-poisoning and husband-killing in 17th century Italy. [online] A Blast From The Past. Available at: https://mikedashhistory.com/2015/04/06/aqua-tofana-slow-poisoning-and-husband-killing-in-17th-century-italy/#more-2762 [Accessed 9 Feb. 2024].
Dash, M. (2017). Chapter 6 – Aqua Tofana. [online] ScienceDirect. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128095546000068 [Accessed 9 Feb. 2024].
Iacob, A. (2021). The Role of Women During the Italian Renaissance. [online] The Collector. Available at: https://www.thecollector.com/role-of-women-in-italian-renaissance/ [Accessed 9 Feb. 2024].
Italian Renaissance Learning Resources. (2019). Husbands and Wives. [online] Available at: http://www.italianrenaissanceresources.com/units/unit-2/essays/husbands-and-wives/ [Accessed 9 Feb. 2024].
St. Nicholas Center. (n.d.). Devotion & Use of Manna. [online] Available at: https://www.stnicholascenter.org/who-is-st-nicholas/saint-in-bari/manna [Accessed 9 Feb. 2024].
Featured Image Credit: Aqua Tofana: Why historic experts are convinced she murdered Mozart. [online] Available at: https://filmdaily.co/obsessions/true-crime/aqua-tofana/ [Accessed 3 March. 2024].
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