He had not been long in the city before he attached himself to a young
girl of the name of Serafina, otherwise Lorenza Feliciani, who lived
near the Trinità di Monti. She was born at Monte Rinaldo in the diocese
of Fermo, but her father’s crimes had driven him from his native place
and forced him to seek refuge in Rome. One of her brothers was in the
army, and at a later date was present at the siege of Ancona with
General Cubiers. Lorenza’s father was called Luca Andrea, but he changed
his name after he came to Rome. When Cagliostro asked for his daughter
in marriage he gave his consent at once, and the wedding took place on
the 26th of February. Cagliostro immediately applied himself to the task
of undermining his wife’s virtue, silencing her scruples by saying “that
adultery was no sin in a woman who was actuated simply by motives of
self-interest,” and by thus selling his honour he succeeded in raising a
small sum of money. By and by he made the acquaintance of a certain
Ottavio Nicastro, a Sicilian who called himself the Marchese Agliata and
who afterward died on the scaffold for premeditated murder. This man
falsified an official brevet of the king of Prussia in favour of his
friend, representing Balsamo as having been the colonel of one of the
Prussian regiments of which he wore the uniform.
But “rogues fall out when honest men agree,” and these two were no
exception to the rule. Nicastro suddenly denounced Balsamo to the
governor of Rome as a forger, and the latter had to seek safety in
flight. Nicastro, however, seemed immediately to repent of what he had
done, and accompanied Balsamo in his hurried departure. The precious
pair then visited Loreto, Bologna, Bergamo and Genoa, in all of which
places they carried on their usual nefarious practices, among other evil
deeds forging a bill for twenty-five scudi payable in Savoy. At Genoa
Agliata absconded with everything he could lay hands on, and Balsamo
took his wife to Nice and thence to Spain, giving out that he was going
on a pious pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James of Compostello.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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