Video: The incredible adventures of the great magician and adventurer Count Cagliostro in Russia
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
Personality Count Cagliostro was one of the most controversial and discussed in the history of the XVIII century. He was called a great magician and charlatan, healer and hypnotist, freemason and mystic, scientist and alchemist. It is now almost impossible to separate the reliable facts of his biography from the legends and anecdotes associated with his adventures. We associate his image primarily with his film incarnation in the film "Formula of Love" … Oddly enough, some episodes of Count Cagliostro's incredible adventures in Russia did take place in reality.
The 18th century was a period of revival of interest in alchemy and magic, when scientific discoveries were no less amazing than tricks and miracles. It was fertile ground for magicians, seers, alchemists and charlatans of all stripes. However, few managed to gain trust and interest in themselves for a long time, and also make a lot of money from demonstrating their skills. It is still unclear how Count Cagliostro did it.
By the time the count arrived in Russia, his name was already well known in Europe. They said that he turns lead into gold, reads thoughts at a distance, summons the souls of the dead, owns the secret of the composition of the elixir of youth. But in Russia, no one knew about him, and it took a lot of effort for him to make people talk about him. However, the count was perfectly able to spread rumors about himself where they were lacking.
He arrived in St. Petersburg in 1779 under the name of the Spanish Colonel Count Phoenix, as evidenced in the St. Petersburg Gazette. Cagliostro wanted to impress the empress, but he failed. But the favorite of Catherine II, Prince Potemkin, became interested in his experiments. Although, according to rumors, it was not the Count's abilities that won him over, but the beauty of his young wife Lorenza.
The wife of Count Cagliostro Lorenz Feliciani was actively involved in all her husband's adventures. So, in St. Petersburg, she said that she was actually 60 years old, and she owes her beauty to the elixir of youth. Soon, the count earned a lot of money selling a miracle drug. Cagliostro conducted seances, cast out demons, and practiced healing. He even allegedly cured assessor Ivan Islenev of a severe form of cancer.
His success lasted until a noble lady approached him with a request to cure her newborn son. The child died, and Cagliostro replaced him with a baby bought from the peasants. Of course, the mother discovered the substitution, and a scandal erupted. In addition, Catherine II was very annoyed with Potemkin's hobby for the count's wife. The couple of adventurers had to leave Russia in a hurry. The empress's revenge was very subtle - she wrote a comedy where Cagliostro was ridiculed as a charlatan and a deceiver. Since then, the image of the count has appeared in Russian literature more than once.
Alexei Tolstoy wrote in 1921: “The famous Cagliostro made a lot of noise here in St. Petersburg. At Princess Volkonskaya he cured sick pearls; with General Bibikov, he increased the ruby in the ring by eleven carats and, in addition, destroyed an air bubble inside it; Kostich, the player, showed the famous waist in a punch bowl, and Kostich won over one hundred thousand the next day; the chambermaid Golovina brought out the shadow of her late husband from the medallion, and he talked to her and took her hand, after which the poor old woman went completely crazy …”.
The basis of A. Tolstoy's story was the widespread legends and anecdotes about the famous magician, as well as the essay by V. Zotov "Cagliostro, his life and stay in Russia" (published in "Russian antiquity" in 1875) and the essay by E. Karnovich "Cagliostro in St. Petersburg" ("Ancient and New Russia", 1875). And in 1984, director Mark Zakharov, based on the story by A. Tolstoy, shot the lyric comedy Formula of Love.
The name of another great adventurer, Jeanne de la Motte, was associated with Count Cagliostro: what Milady was actually branded for
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