When Giulia Tofana She grew up surrounded by apothecaries and potions of all kinds, she did not calculate that her legacy would reach the present day. He was born in 1620 and had to witness the execution of his mother when he was barely 13 years old.. She was condemned by the viceroy of Naples, the Spanish Fernando Afán Enríquez de Ribera y Téllez-Girón, for having murdered her husband.

That event marked him for life. Her mother, a murderer, had been convicted after evidence led to her person. In this sense, she would be the young Giulia who would look for a new way to commit murder and get away with it. From a very young age she was aware of the difficulties that women suffered in a world dominated by men who, on certain occasions, mistreated and ignored their wives.

Thus, the young orphan created the tofana water, a tasteless, odorless and transparent poison that is difficult to detect. Apparently, according to the chronicles of the time, the effect could be regulated by whoever administered it according to the dose and quantities used. Its exact composition is unknown, but it is estimated that among the ingredients were the arsenic and cymbalaria. What yes It is known who this concoction was aimed at: men..

And Giulia He dedicated himself to selling this poison to lower-class women who were trapped in complicated marriages.. “A perfect poison, therefore, which however is not for everyone: champion of justice, Giulia only sells it to women to get rid of annoying and abusive husbands who have not chosen“, said the writer Adriana Assini in a book dedicated to the figure of Giulia.

In this way, cities like Rome were involved in a considerable increase in male deaths. Nobody knew what was happening and lovers, husbands and, in short, men of high birth – mainly – died everywhere.

Arrest and conviction

Finally, the authorities They were able to find the murder weapon of this businesswoman and serial killer. One of her clients had regretted trying to murder her husband and chose to betray Giulia, who took refuge in a church.

The woman enjoyed a certain popularity in Rome and thus avoided circumventing the trial. However, when a rumor spread that she had poisoned the waters of historic Rome, the police forced entry into the church and took Giulia away for questioning.

The torture to which she was subjected He was truly cruel and ended up confessing to having killed about 600 men between 1633 and 1651.. Obviously, she could not have known the figures, since she had dedicated herself solely to the sale of Tofana water.

Giulia was executed by hanging in the Campo de’ Fiori together with her daughter Girolama and three collaborators in July 1659, with the intention of ending the fatal enterprise that the Palermo woman had started.

However, that drink continued to be sold for years and frightened men who felt unwell for decades. In fact, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartbelieved that he had been poisoned by Tofana water.

“Someone gave me tofana water and calculated the precise moment of my death,” he said just before he died in 1791. Mozart had had an intense sexual life that we currently know thanks to his correspondence.

“I will welcome your noble person as he deserves, I will seal my letterhead on your buttocksI will kiss your hands, I will shoot the shotgun out of your anus, I will hug you too much, I will put enemas on your front and back, I will pay you what I owe you without neglecting a hair and I will let out -and let it resonate- a fart man (and maybe also something solid)”, he wrote to his cousin Marianne, to give an example.

Most likely, the world-famous musician was thinking of a woman who had tried to take revenge for some past controversy, so he believed that he had ingested Giulia’s concoction. Mozart died after intense pain and vomiting on December 5, 1791 and Tofana water, although extinct, is still latent in the history books thanks to its inventor.Giulia Tofana.

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