A novel about a dazzling and dangerous life – about the man who was the inspiration behind Mozart’s Sarastro and Goethe’s Faust.
The self-appointed Count Cagliostro is one of the 18th century’s most famous and enigmatic figures – occultist, miracle healer and charlatan. In 1791, Count Cagliostro is taken to court by the Grand Inquisitor Zelada. Worshipped by the European aristocracy, adored by the masses and revered as the »grand cophta« by the brothers of his Egyptian Masonic lodge, Cagliostro usually remains silent at interrogations, but the »confessions penned by my own hand in the Bastille« provide an eloquent account of an astonishing life which is always on the brink of disaster and soon has Zelada under its spell. From early youth, Cagliostro knew how to captivate and deceive people, and in doing so managed to advance his own interests.
In the style of a picaresque novel, Michael Schneider describes the unlikely rise of a Palermo street urchin, born Giuseppe Balsamo, to celebrated healer and lodge-master. A man who was always at risk of blowing his cover, someone in constant search of new adventures and blessed by good fortune. A life alongside his accomplice Countess Serafina which culminated in the so-called »affair of the diamond necklace«. Michael Schneider describes a single-minded man who is not satisfied with his lot in life, a man who risks a lot, gains a lot, but ultimately faces losing everything again. A rebel with a cause, a man who revolts against the church, deceives the rich and the noble and uses his medical knowledge to treat the poor for free. A man who experiences one narrow escape after the next – until the Inquisition strikes.
