When he was thirteen years of age, Balsamo's parents determined he should be trained for the priesthood, but he ran away from his school. He was then confined in a Benedictine monastery. He showed a remarkable taste for natural history, and acquired considerable knowledge of the use of drugs; but he soon tired of the discipline and escaped. For some years he wandered about in different parts of Italy, living by his wits and by cheating. A goldsmith consulted him about a hidden treasure; he pretended to invoke the aid of spirits, frightened the goldsmith, got sixty ounces of gold from him to carry on his incantations, left him in the lurch, and fled to Messina. In that town he discovered an aged aunt who was sick; the aunt died, and left her money to the Church. Balsamo assumed her family name, added a title of nobility, and was known henceforward as the Count Alessandro Cagliostro. In Messina he met a mysterious person whom he calls Altotas, and from whom, he says in his Memoir, he learnt much. The following account of the meeting of Balsamo and the stranger is taken from Waite's book: "As he was promenading one day near the jetty at the extremity of the port he encountered an individual singularly habited and possessed of a most remarkable countenance. This person, aged apparently about fifty years, seemed to be an Armenian, though, according to other accounts, he was a Spaniard or Greek. He wore a species of caftan, a silk bonnet, and the extremities of his breeches were concealed in a pair of wide boots. In his left hand he held a parasol, and in his right the end of a cord, to which was attached a graceful Albanian greyhound.... Cagliostro saluted this grotesque being, who bowed slightly, but with satisfied dignity. 'You do not reside in Messina, signor?' he said in Sicilian, but with a marked foreign accent. Cagliostro replied that he was tarrying for a few days, and they began to converse on the beauty of the town and on its advantageous situation, a kind of Oriental imagery individualising the eloquence of the stranger, whose remarks were, moreover, adroitly adorned with a few appropriate compliments." Although the stranger said he received no one at his house he allowed Cagliostro to visit him. After various mysterious doings the two went off to Egypt, and afterwards to Malta, where they performed many wonderful deeds before the Grand Master, who was much impressed. At Malta Altotas died, or, at anyrate, vanished. Cagliostro then travelled for some time, and was well received by noblemen, ambassadors, and others in high position. At Rome he fell in love with a young and beautiful lady, Lorenza Feliciani, and married her.