Self-professed Prometheus of the Enlightenment, Cagliostro claimed he could do all these and more. He was a prodigy of vaporware: at twenty, despite his peasant background, he convinced a Palermo goldsmith named Marano that he could find a vast treasure, if only Marano would provide him sixty ounces of gold and meet him a secret country location at midnight...whereupon Marano was beaten and robbed by thugs dressed as red devils.
Calling himself by turns the Chevalier de Fischio, the Marquis de Melissa, or the Baron de Belmonte (he had a knack for alliteration), Cagliostro bounced among Europe's great cities, along the way acquiring a wife and partner (Lorenza Feliciani, called Serafina) telling tales, charming the nobility, and building up small fortunes by selling his elixir against old age and decay. Nobles and scholars both succumbed to his spell; a besotted Goethe visited him in Palermo, finally gaining an audience only overcoming Cagliostro's brilliant bombastic salvo, "If your science is greater than mine, you have no need of my acquaintance; if mine is greater, I have no need of yours."
Encountering the Comte de Saint Germain, Cagliostro became fascinated by Egyptian Freemasonry, which (as the Comte de Cagliostro, on which name he finally settled), he introduced to England, spinning a tale of descent from Elijah and Enoch and hinting that he himself was thousands of years old. Proving there is no fool like a con man, he gave two hundred pounds to Lord Scot, "whose effects had not arrived from Scotland and who had no banker in London."
After London became too hot, he emigrated to Paris, where Louis XVI lionized him at court. And in 1785 he found himself embroiled in The Affair of the Necklace, a swindle worthy of Ross Thomas or Elmore Leonard (recently made into what sounds a deliciously awful movie with the admirably chosen Christopher Walken as Cagliostro.
Strap yourself in, for this rapidly gets confusing as Whitewater. Cagliostro's friend and protector Cardinal de Rohan found himself out of royal favor. Hearing his laments, Madame Jeanne de la Motte Valois, descendant of the original line of French kings whose title had been stripped from her, persuaded the cardinal that Marie-Antoinette coveted a particular jeweled necklace worth 1,600,000 francs (64,000 pounds). Though Rohan could not afford so vast a sum, Madame de la Motte got him to persuade the jeweler to sell it on credit -- the Queen's promissory note. Rohan drew up such a paper which, after an interval, Madame de la Motte returned with the words "Bon, bon -- approuve -- Marie Antoinette" written in the margin. Collecting the necklace, Rohan delivered it to de la Motte. After a few anxious days' waiting, Rohan had a dimly lit encounter (thoughtfully arranged by de la Motte) with the Queen, who presented him with a flower of her affections.
Except, of course, it wasn't the Queen. And the necklace was gone. Rohan and de la Motte were arrested, whereupon Madame de la Motte immediately denounced Cagliostro, claiming she had given the necklace to him and implying he was the mastermind behind the whole thing. In the dock after six months in the Bastille, Cagliostro spun yet another magnificent story of his life -- childhood in Medina living in the Grand Mufti's palace, three years studying mysteries in Mecca where he was adopted by the Cherif of Mecca. Why should he steal a diamond necklace when the Cherif of Mecca had provided for him, in every city in Europe, accounts with every principal bank? He had only to say the word "Acharat" and all his wants were supplied!
Eventually acquitted (as was the hapless Rohan), Cagliostro then sued the Bastille jailers for filching his powder of transmutation and precious manuscripts. Back in England, he told his story to Lord George Gordon with such passion and conviction that Gordon wrote an inflammatory Letter to the Editor accusing Marie-Antoinette herself of perfidy -- for which Gordon was sued for libel by the French Ambassador, convicted, fined, and imprisoned.
By 1789 Cagliostro was in Rome, where (for resuming his practice of founding Masonic Lodges) he was arrested by the Inquisition, imprisoned in Castel Sant'Angelo, and after eighteen months sentenced to die. After numerous appeals, the Pope commuted the sentence to life in prison, and in 1791 Cagliostro was lifted in a basket, via a crane, up to a doorless single cell in San Leo castle, its only entry a window bearing on a sheer, hundred-foot drop. Every instant of his meager isolated existence, a far cry from his flamboyant excesses of yore, could be observed through a small ceiling grill. On August 26, 1795, he died of a heart attack. So strong was the myth of his immortality that new First Consul Napoleon had to issue a report to convince people he was dead.