Giulia Tofana — Pharmacist
My dearest reader,
I am on vacation this weekend and, as I’m sure you have learned by now, I’m not one to prepare these stories in advance. Every Saturday I promise myself that the following week is the week I will start writing earlier, and I never do. I think it’s time that we all (me mostly) agree that I like to put things off until the last minute because I enjoy the stress. What does that say about me?
Our story today is morally ambiguous. Picture this: it is the 1600’s in Rome; you have been searching for a life partner and have finally found one. Caught up in the joy of being rescued from living in destitution, you fail to realize that your chosen mate is abusive AF until it is too late. Divorce is not an option yet. Your well meaning friend tells you about the local pharmacist who can rescue you from this misery.
Her name is Giulia Tofana. She grew up with an abusive father, and understands the struggle well. Her mother, Thofania d’Adamo, was accused of murdering her husband and executed. So Giulia has a solution for escaping abusive partners: poison.
She spent a lot of time in apothecaries after the death of her parents and eventually developed her own poison called: Aqua Tofana — a slow acting poison disguised as healing oil (Manna of St Nicholas of Bari) that mimicked signs of illness before eventually killing its victim. Giulia sold this poison to men and women who wanted to be free of their abusive spouses. Because of her familiarity with the struggle of abused wives, her clientele was predominantly women. She sympathized with them, and coached them through the poisoning process: she taught them to cry and act severely distressed, and even demand a coroners exam to not seem suspicious. The slow acting nature of the poison meant that the victim in question had enough time to accept his inevitable death and get his affairs in order and ensure that his soon-to-be-widow would be well taken care of.
As is the case with all customers, someone finally revealed the nature of her business to the authorities after being beaten and abused by her suspicious husband. But she was a popular figure, and her fans helped her escape to a church that gave her sanctuary. Eventually, a rumor spread that she had poisoned Rome’s water supply and the authorities detained her. Under torture, she revealed that she had helped poison over 600 men in Rome alone. She was executed along with her daughter and her helpers. Those who had purchased Aqua Tofana from her were either executed or bricked into the dungeons of the Palazzo Pucci.
Like most very-old stories, there are some false narratives around her story: that she was present in Naples after her execution in Rome, or that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart may have been poisoned by Aqua Tofana.
I assume we can all agree that murder is wrong. But the fact of the matter is that in the 1600s, without the concept of divorce, the only murder-less alternative to those stuck in abusive relationships was waiting for the spouse to die of natural causes, or to escape to a brothel and turn to prostitution. I did say this was a morally ambiguous story. I will leave you, and go back to my vacation, with this question: Was Giulia Tofana a murderous monster or a sympathizer giving people with limited options an out?
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- JOKE
