The last alchemist : Count Cagliostro, master of magic in the age of reason / Iain McCalman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McCalman, Iain.

Contributor:

Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cagliostro, Alessandro, conte di, 1743-1795.

Cagliostro, Alessandro.

Occultists--Europe--Biography.

Occultists.

Europe.

Genre:

Biographies.

Penn Provenance:

Gotham Book Mart (former owner) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copy)

Physical Description:

xii, 272 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : HarperCollinsPublishers, [2003]

Summary:

Who was Count Cagliostro? Depending on whom you ask, he was either a great healer and mystic or a dangerous charlatan whose revolutionary notions and influences threatened to undermine the monarchies of France and Russia. Whatever else he was, Count Alessandro di Cagliostro, the leader of an exotic brand of freemasonry, was indisputably one of the most visible and influential men of the later 18th century, overcoming poverty and an ignoble birth to become the darling -- and bane -- of upper-crust Europe.

He was a muse to William Blake and the inspiration for Mozart's The Magic Flute and Goethe's Faust. Catherine the Great chased him out of Russia; Louis XVI had him thrown in the Bastille for the alleged theft of Marie Antoinette's diamond necklace; and he was arrested for heresy by the Inquisition. He spent the last five years of his life in solitary confinement in an Italian prison, where he died in 1795. Here is the compelling story of this often overlooked, yet unforgettable man.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [247]-272).

Local Notes:

Gotham Book Mart Collection copy has dustjacket retained.

ISBN:

0060006900

OCLC:

51204096