Joseph Balsamo, whatever has been advanced to the contrary by himself[AJ] or his admirers, was the son of Peter Balsamo and Felicia Bracconieri, both of humble extraction. He was born at Palermo, in Sicily, on the 8th of June 1743. His parents are authentically described as honest tradespeople and good Catholics, who were careful in the education of their offspring, and solicitous for their spiritual welfare. Their shop drew much custom in the populous neighbourhood which divided the handsome _Rue del Cæsaro_. While his children were still young, Peter Balsamo died, and, left under the inadequate control of a widowed mother, Joseph betrayed, even in his earliest years, a selfish and indolent disposition, greatly neglecting the scanty educational advantages which were afforded him. According to other accounts, he was taken under the protection of his maternal uncle, who endeavoured to instruct him in the principles of religion, and to give him an education suitable to his age and prospects; but, even from his infancy, he showed himself uniformly averse to a virtuous course of life. His uncle was a worthy _bourgeois_ of Palermo, who foresaw, by the vivacity and penetration of his nephew, that he might easily become proficient in letters and the sciences.[AK] By him he was desired to embrace an ecclesiastical career, as the royal road to distinction in those days. Accordingly, at the age of thirteen he was placed in the Seminary of St Roch di Palermo, where he proved his independence and aversion to discipline by continually running away. Recaptured in vagabond company, he was committed, with no very favourable character, to a certain father-general of the Bon Fratelli, who was passing through Palermo. The father-general took charge of him and straightway carried him to a Benedictine convent on the outskirts of Cartagirone. There the walls were high, and the caged dove was in the keeping of an inflexible _frère tourier_. He assumed perforce the habit of a novice, and the father-general discovering his aptitude for natural history and, more especially, his herbalistic tastes, placed him under the tuition of the conventual apothecary, from whom, as he afterwards acknowledged, he learned the first principles of chemistry and medicine. Figuier states that in a short time he was able to manipulate the drugs with astonishing sagacity; but even then it was remarked that he seemed eager to discover those secrets which would further the interests of charlatanry.[AL] In strict accordance with his natural perversity, he did not fail to give various instances of his innate viciousness, and drew down upon himself the continual chastisements of his superiors. One day the involuntary novice, whose irregularities were to some extent excusable on the ground of the constraint that was put on him, but who often outstripped all bounds, was set to read during dinner in the refectory a certain portion of an