Cagliostro

Alessandro, Conte di Cagliostro (d. August 26, 1795), known more popularly simply as Cagliostro, was an Italian adventurer and occultist associated with Egyptian Rite Freemasonry. Many authorities identified Cagliostro as having been Giuseppe Balsamo (b. June 2, 1743), a Palermo-born Jew, contrary to more far-fetched claims of his mysterious origins as the son of a Maltese grand-master or a prince in the Ottoman-controlled Trebizond Eyalet, but any such identifications have been treated with some suspicion in certain esoteric quarters.

Contemporary

 * &mdash; an English translation from the Italian of Giovanni Barberi (1748-1821), a magistrate at Cagliostro's trial in Rome, as published by the Stamperia Camera Apostolica.