The Story Of The 17th-Century Woman Who Used Makeup To Save Women

For hundreds of years, arsenic poisoning has been quite a “hit,” among aspiring widows. It’s tasteless and odorless. Arsenic was the perfect (read: discrete) way to off someone without raising suspicion. This was especially true in the 17th century when divorce wasn’t an option.

And one 17-century woman used arsenic in a widespread way. Enter Giulia Tofana. An entrepreneur, innovator, and (some might say) altruist, this business owner thought of a way to help other women escape bad marriages and abusive husbands. In fact, many of the people Tofana sought to help were forced to wed in arranged marriages.

How did one woman manage such an immense task?

Tofana created an empire, selling a deadly potion called Aqua Tofana.

It was laced with arsenic, lead, and belladonna. Her practice was fatal, but many people appreciated the service nonetheless.

This product escaped notice for so long, but how?

She marketed it as a cosmetics line. (Gives the whole “looks can kill” thing a brand-new meaning, doesn’t it?)

Tofana’s concoction led to the demise of more than 600 men.

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And she worked over the course of many years, making her one of the most successful serial offenders in history. Until, in a weird plot-twist, a bowl of cold soup caused her downfall, that is.

Giulia Tofana built an Italian cosmetics empire with deadly ingredients.

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Just a few drops of her magic potion could kill a man.

But the women who bought the products typically spread the doses out.

Spreading the doses over a few days or weeks helped to avoid suspicion. Their husbands would perish slowly.

And yet, her identity still remains a mystery.

Although Tofana may have been somewhat of a mafioso (some people dubbed her the Queen of Poison), no one has seen a portrait of her.

Tofana had two ingenious disguises for her potion.

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She distributed the potion in two forms. It could be sold as powdered makeup or hidden in small bottles embellished with images of Saint Nicholas of Bari. And who would question makeup that looked saintly?

She may have picked Saint Nick for a reason.

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Allegedly, the historical Saint Nick saved young girls from a life of night-walking by helping pay their dowries. Maybe she thought Saint Nick wasn’t doing enough to protect girls and women, so she stepped it up a notch.

Either bottle would blend in with the other lotions and perfumes on a woman’s dresser.

It didn’t look suspicious to anyone, especially the men who were on the receiving end of the tincture.

And administering the tincture was easy.

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The doses could be added to almost any food or liquid.

Aqua Tofana was untraceable.

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Thanks to her apothecary skills, Tofana was able to create a poison that couldn’t be found in the bloodstream.

This was one of the smartest things Tofana did.

If any of her customers faced suspicions, they’d be able to remain guilt-free. In fact, when any medical professional performed an autopsy on one of the deceased husbands, no remnants of poison would be unearthed.

Now the coast might not be entirely clear.

The wife would just have to play the part of a grieving widow until the dust settled. Then, she’d be able to live her life freely.

The poison started working slowly.

After the first couple of doses, the victim may show symptoms similar to a cold. Nothing to worry about, right?

The third dosage stepped it up a notch.

By the victim’s third dose, vomiting, a burning stomach, and other digestion issues were common. But it still didn’t raise suspicion.

The fourth dose did the deed.

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The best part about the slow-acting nature of this substance? It gave the men time to repent and shape their wills accordingly – maybe even giving everything to the wife that was dosing him!

Atropa belladonna was actually used in cosmetics back then.

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In the 17th century, some women dropped belladonna-infused droplets into their eyes to enlarge their pupils.

Men found this wide-eyed look more alluring.

Because of course, they did. The term “Belladonna” also refers to “beautiful women.”

Belladonna also has a more menacing name.

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It can also be referred to as deadly nightshade. This is because the actual berries are dark in color and can cause death if ingested.

They’re also known as the devil’s berries or murderer’s berries.

Some people claim they’re the same berries that caused Juliet to appear dead in Romeo and Juliet.

Tofana sold her poisonous mixture for more than 50 years.

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Talk about a successful business model. Tofana was able to make a living for over 50 years selling discreet poison.

But not everyone was happy with the results.

In the 1650s, one of Tofana’s customers had a change of heart after she dropped a bit of poison into her husband’s bowl of soup.

Filled with regret, the woman begged her husband not to eat the soup.

Of course, he became suspicious of her strange behavior. Consequently, he forced his wife to explain what happened.

Once she confessed, the husband turned her in.

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During the wife’s interrogation (and most likely torture), she told the authorities she bought the poison from Tofana.

There are a few different versions of what happened following the woman’s confession.

In one version of the story, Tofana was retired and living in the country when someone warned her of the execution.

She ran, but her daughter and employees were killed.

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In this version of events, authorities found the Aqua Tofana owner and garroted her immediately. There’s even a ghost tour in Rome where visitors can see the house where Tofana lived and concocted her potions.

Rumor has it, you can hear the woman calling for her lost daughter.

Pretty spooky, huh? Except, this probably isn’t the way things really went down. In the other version of history, Tofana was elderly and still living in Rome when she was warned.

Instead of skipping town, she ran to a nearby church.

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Fortunately, the church members welcomed her inside with open arms. Until a nasty rumor spread, that is.

Someone spread a rumor that Tofana poisoned the town’s water supply.

Word moved quickly and before she knew it, the church was stormed. And Tofana was handed over to the authorities.

She didn’t give up immediately.

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But authorities tortured Tofana until she confessed to poisoning more than 600 men between 1633 and 1651. That’s at least 18 years’ worth of employment.

Tofana faced execution with her daughter and three employees.

Following the fatal sentence, the authorities threw the woman’s body back over the wall of the church that helped her. The clergy members were left to dispose of her remains.

Some of Tofana’s customers were also punished.

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After the mastermind confessed, several Aqua Tofana buyers denied knowing about the transaction. They claimed that their powders or bottles were for cosmetic purposes only.

Other buyers weren’t so lucky.

Those who couldn’t successfully convince the authorities that their Aqua Tofana was just makeup were thrown into prison or executed.

Some of Tofana’s accomplices were entombed in the Palazzo Pucci dungeons.

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An immurement is a form of imprisonment in which a person is confined within an enclosed space with no exits.

So some women were literally sealed within the walls of the dungeon.

Many of them were left to perish from starvation and dehydration.

The richer clients were “quietly strangled.”

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To avoid scandal or becoming the talk of the town, Tofana’s well-to-do clients were quietly strangled in prison. (Oh, to be rich.)

Unfortunately, being strangled was one of the more humane execution methods.

In the middle ages, public torture and execution were common. Execution included beheading, burning, crushing, boiling, and hanging among other monstrous methods.

Tofana’s potion lived long after her death.

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Even Wolfgang Mozart claimed that he’d been poisoned by Aqua Tofana. He died at 35, but no one is sure what caused his death.

He died more than 100 years after Tofana’s reign as the queen of poison.

If this poison was the only way for women to get out of a toxic marriage, what might that say about the composer?

There could be an alternative reason behind the man’s passing, though.

He apparently had a high fever and rash – could they be attributed to an illicit elixir?

Reportedly, Mozart also lost consciousness.

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Consequently, modern medical researchers wondered if Mozart merely faced the same epidemic that afflicted other young men from his time period.

The result would point to a less nefarious cause of illness.

In fact, he could have contracted edema or streptococcus. These particular diseases caused swelling, heart failure, and rashes.

We may never find out what happened.

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A University of Amsterdam ophthalmologist, Dr. Zegers, noted that it’s rather impossible to completely determine what caused Mozart’s early end, however.

“It will take several years, or maybe longer,” he said.

“Before anyone can come up with a better diagnosis than this one.”

Quick note: In the 17th-century women were considered property.

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Back then, women and young girls were often considered solely for their monetary value and child-bearing abilities.

First, their fathers owned them.

Later in life, their husbands took control.

How so?

Amy Louise Erikson, a law and property historian, noted:

Under the common law fiction of coverture (that a wife’s legal identity was covered by her husband), an English woman upon marriage lost the great majority of her property to her husband.

Oftentimes, she lost many of her personal freedoms as well.

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It was almost normal for a husband to mistreat his wife.

In theory, he could abuse her, sell her, put her in danger (with constant childbearing), or leave her in poverty if he wanted.

Women had no financial, social, or political power.

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They may have considered poison as their only way out.

Can you blame them?

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During the Renaissance, women had three ways to provide for themselves – get married, beg, or sell themselves.

An early Italian divorce it is, then.

What other choice did these women have?

Tofana wasn’t the only apothecary owner in the family.

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Giulia Tofana was the daughter of Thofania d’Adamo – a woman who faced executed after being accused of taking her husband’s life. And that man may or may not have been Tofana’s father.

Did she use poison? It’s possible.

But the family connection didn’t end with Tofana. Her daughter, Girolama Spera, also had a hand in the family business.

In some stories, people confuse Aqua Tofana with Hieronyma Spara.

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If you look up Hieronyma Spara, also known as “La Spara,” you’ll find a similar story about a woman selling poison to young and unhappy wives.

But it’s not the same story or the same woman.

In the story of “La Spara,” women gathered in the apothecary owner’s home and were arrested together.

Maybe Tofana followed in her mother’s footsteps.

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She was a widow, after all.

Many people even described her as young and beautiful.

Or did her time with the apothecaries inspire her female-led enterprise?

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Whether she received the recipe from her mother or her potion-making friends, one thing is for sure. This woman was a martyr and a heroine.

Do you think Tofana did the right thing?