Giulia Tofana

Giulia Tofana (also spelled Toffana, Tophana, Tophania) (died in Rome, 1651) was an Italian woman claimed to have been a professional poisoner. Historians claim she was a distributer of a poison called Aqua Tofana (supposedly invented by Thofania d'Adamo, who may or may not have been Giulia's mother) to women who wanted to murder their husbands.^[1]

Giulia Tofana
Born	possibly Palermo
Died	1651 Rome
Nationality	Papal States
Other names	Giulia Mangiardi
Known for	Aqua Tofana poisoning

Biography

The poison "Manna di San Nicola" (Aqua Tofana), by Pierre Méjanel.

Information about Giulia Tofana's background is sparse. She was thought to have been born in Palermo.^[2] Speculation by historians that she may have taken the first name of her mother as her last name (a common practice at the time) led them to believe that she was the daughter of another Palermo poisoner, Thofania d’Adamo, but there is nothing to indicate that d'Adamo was the mother of Giulia. Thofania d’Adamo was accused of poisoning with an arsenic concoction called Aqua Tofana and executed on 12 July 1633.^[3] She may have had the married name Giulia Mangiardi.^[4] Writer Craig A. Monson claims in his 2020 book The Black Widows of the Eternal City: The True Story of Rome’s Most Infamous poisoners that Giulia was from Coriglione not Palermo, had a married name of Giulia Mangiardi, and that her last name "Tofana", and the relationship with Thofania d’Adamo was an invention of an 1880s historian.^[5]

After her husband's death, Giulia remarried in 1624 to the well-off real estate investor Cesare Ranchetti (1564-1654). Husband, wife, and their stepchildren moved to Rome in 1624 for unknown reasons (there were claims that Giulia was called up before the Holy Office of the Inquisition or that she poisoned and robbed a man from Genoa).^[6] They may have traveled to Rome to live with an uncle of one of their stepdaughters, a cleric named Andrea Lorestino. According to one version of events, Giulia Tofana fled to Rome and set up a poisoning ring that began to sell this poison to women who wanted to murder abusive or inconvenient spouses. This tale included 6 women in this poisoning ring active in the 1650s, including Girolama Spara, who took over after Giulia's death.^[1]

Tofana's involvement in all of this is not confirmed. The only recorded evidence of poisoning activities was the executions of Thofania d'Adamo in 1633, and Girolama Spara in 1659 (claimed to be the daughter of Giulia Tofana).^[7]

Death

Historians point to Giulia Tofana dying in her sleep in 1651 with no one aware of any poisoning activities.^[3][1]

Confusion of her activities with other poisoners active in the area has led to tales that she died in 1659, or 1709, or 1730, with further elaboration that she took sanctuary in a convent and continued to manufacture and distribute poison for many years until she was found out, executed, and her body thrown over the wall of the church that had provided her with sanctuary.^[3]

See also

• Catherine Deshayes Monvoisin
• Giovanna Bonanno
• Angel Makers of Nagyrév
• My Last Duchess, a poem by Robert Browning