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The Spana Prosecution was a major criminal case which took place in Rome in the Papal States between January 1659 and March 1660. [1]
The Papal authorities under the leadership of lieutenant governor Stefano Bracchi investigated a case involving a criminal net of poisoners, mainly women, for selling the famous poison Aqua Tofana to clients who wished to commit murder, in particular women who wished to become widows. [1] The process involved over forty people, including professional poisoners and clients, some of them members of the aristocracy, and resulted in punishment ranging from exile and lifetime house arrest to the execution of five main figures, among them the central figure Gironima Spana. [1]
In 1624, a woman by the name Giulia Mangiardi (1581-1651) arrived to Rome from Palermo in Sicily. Her proper name was Giulia Mangiardi, but she has traditionally become known in history under the invented name "Giulia Tofana", because she was the inventor of the poison Aqua Tofana, which she sold commercially in Palermo. [1] Traditionally, she is said to have named the poison after her alleged mother Thofania d'Adamo, but there is nothing to indicate that d'Adamo was the mother of Giulia Mangiardi, though Mangiardi may have been her disciple. [1]
Since her second husband Ranchetti Cesare (1564-1654) wasted the family money, she started to manufacture and sell the poison in Rome to support the family. Historians point to her dying in her sleep in 1651 with no one aware of her poisoning activities. [2]
Her business was taken over by stepdaughter from her first marriage with Niccolo Spano Lorestino, Gironima Spana, who was established as an astrologer, but had been initiated by her stepmother in how to manufacture and sell the poison. Gironima Spana appears to have expanded the business inherited from her stepmother. She manufactured the poison and sold it personally, but she also employed women associates to sell the poison for her: in at least some cases, these associates were former clients. [1] Normally her associates only sold the poison, but in some cases, notably in the case of Giovanna De Grandis, she also taught them to manufacture it. Since the apothecaries did not sell arsenic to women, Spana and Giovanna De Grandis employed the service of the male priest Padre Don Girolamo as a go-between. [1] The poison was mainly sold to women clients, often women in unhappy marriages, with the intent to murder their husbands. [1] Gironima Spana, in her career as an astrologer, had access to wealthy clients among the Roman aristocracy. It appears that the business was successful enough to expand outside of the then city borders of Rome, as the Spana organization employed at least one seller, Maddalena Ciampella, in Palestrina. [1]
On 31 January 1659, the poison dealer Giovanna De Grandis was arrested in flagrante in Rome, charged with trafficking a lethal poison and imprisoned at the Tor di Nona for questioning. [1] The investigation was handled by the Papal authorities under the leadership of lieutenant governor Stefano Bracchi. [1] The investigation was to result in the major Spana Prosecution, which was to last until March 1660.
Giovanna de Grandis confessed her guilt on 1 February. After her confession she started to name names of her business associates and clients. Her testimony was essential to the development of the Spana Prosecution. She pointed out Gironima Spana herself, who was arrested on 2 February, followed by a number of arrests and interrogations of accused poison dealers and clients. [1] Between 10 and 11 February, Elena Gabrielli Cassana, Angela Armellina, Elena Ferri and Teresa Verzellina were all arrested. Gironima Spana herself resisted the interrogation for months until she finally made her confession.
The arrested people were imprisoned in the Papal prison of Tor di Nona for questioning. Torture was sometimes used during the interrogations, but only in individual cases and not routinely. When used, it was normally in the form of the strappado. [1] The prisoners were also confronted with each other. Each person was interrogated to make their own confession and name accomplices and clients. With this method, the investigation grew in number. Eventually, over 40 people were involved in the investigation. [1]
Some of the clients named for having bought and used poison were not arrested. Many of them, particularly those belonging to the upper classes, were left out of the formal investigation in consideration of their social status. [1] In the case when they were interrogated, the interrogation did not take place at the Tor di Nona but in their private residence after they had been granted Papal immunity in exchange for a confession, which ensured that they would be given no formal sentence. [1] One such incident was the case of the noblewoman Anna Maria Conti, who was interrogated in her own home; she confessed herself guilty after having been granted Papal immunity, and was thus not punished.
The Papal authorities viewed the women who manufactured and sold poison as more guilty than the women who bought and actually used the lethal poison. [1] In the end, only seven women were executed. On 5 July 1659, the central figure Gironima Spana and her five associates Giovanna De Grandis, Maria Spinola, Graziosa Farina and Laura Crispoldi were all executed by hanging on Campo de' Fiori. [1] These executions were followed by the hanging of Cecili Verzellina 6 March 1660; on the same day, Teresa Verzellina, Benedetta Merlini and Cecilia Gentili were flogged through the streets and banished. Many others were sentenced to house arrest or banishment, while a large part of those accused had been given Papal immunity in exchange for their confession.
The Spana Prosecution ended with the find of a bottle with a liquid in the garden of Spana on 17 March 1660. The liquid was given to a dog at Tor di Nona, who died in 22 March. With this, the investigation was finally closed. The Pope gave the order that the documents regarding the trial should be sealed at the Castel Sant'Angelo, since he wished to avoid spreading knowledge about the poison and the bad example of the women. [1] The archives were not discovered again until the 1880s in the Archivo di Stato. [1]
The Spana Prosecution was a major scandal which became infamous already when it occurred. Francesco Sforza Pallavicino used the Spana Prosecution in the 1660s as his paradigm for "pontifical commitment to law and order", and the case was often commented by Italian jurists during the 18th-century. [1]
During the 17th-and 18th-centuries the trial was often the subject of crime chronicles and described in various sensationalist literature, becoming heavily influenced by myths and legends with time. [1] A typical early description was: "Account of the most Grievous Crime of Making the Poisonous Beverage Acquetta or Acqua Toffanica, Concocted and Put to Use in Rome by Gironima Spara and Four Other Companions, all Widows, who Poisoned their Husbands and Many Other Men, and Were All Hanged". [1]
Popular myth described an organization of female serial killers who murdered hundreds of husbands until they were caught in a trap by a Papal governor. [1] The name of Gironima Spana was spelled in various different ways. Gironima Spana has been confused with her stepmother Giulia Mangiardi, who has been popularly referred to by the name Giulia Tofana because she invented the poison Aqua Tofana. [1] Giulia Mangiardi has been claimed to be the daughter of the poisoner Tofania d'Adamo (executed in 1633), and sometimes claimed to be one of those executed in 1659, despite in fact having been dead for eight years by then. [1]
The poison Aqua Tofana and consequently its inventor "Giulia Tofana" (Giulia Mangiardi) and the Spana Prosecution became famous and heavily mythologized during the 19th-century, and many incorrect statements about the subject became repeated as facts long into the 20th-century. [1]
This is a list of people who were formally charged, accused, interrogated or otherwise implicated in the Spana organization of processional poisoners which were put on trial during the Spana Prosecution. [1] They are mentioned by name (sorted by first name, which was the custom during the case), form of involvement, and the legal action taking place against them, or absence thereof.
The Spana investigation has been fictionalized in the novel The Book of Secrets by Anna Mazzola (2024).
1659 (MDCLIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar, the 1659th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 659th year of the 2nd millennium, the 59th year of the 17th century, and the 10th and last year of the 1650s decade. As of the start of 1659, the Gregorian calendar was 10 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.
A potion is a liquid "that contains medicine, poison, or something that is supposed to have magic powers." It derives from the Latin word potio which refers to a drink or the act of drinking. The term philtre is also used, often specifically for a love potion, a potion that is supposed to create feelings of love or attraction in the one who drinks it. Throughout history there have been several types of potions for a range of purposes. Reasons for taking potions ranged from curing an illness, to securing immortality to trying to induce love. These potions, while often ineffective or poisonous, occasionally had some degree of medicinal success depending on what they sought to fix and the type and amount of ingredients used. Some popular ingredients used in potions across history include Spanish fly, nightshade plants, cannabis, and opium.
Catherine Monvoisin, or Montvoisin, née Deshayes, known as "La Voisin", was a French fortune teller, commissioned poisoner, and professional provider of alleged sorcery. She was the head of a network of fortune tellers in Paris providing poison, aphrodisiacs, abortion, purported magical services and the arranging of black masses, with clients among the aristocracy and became the central figure in the famous affaire des poisons. Her purported organization of commissioned black magic and poison murder was suspected to have killed 1,000 people, but it is believed that upwards of 2,500 people might have been murdered.
Aqua Tofana was a strong poison created in Sicily around 1630 that was reputedly widely used in Palermo, Naples, Perugia, and Rome, Italy. It has been associated with Giulia Tofana, or Tofania, a woman from Palermo, purportedly the leader of a ring of six poisoners in Rome, who sold Aqua Tofana to would-be murderers.
The Affair of the Poisons was a major murder scandal in France during the reign of King Louis XIV. Between 1677 and 1682, a number of prominent members of the aristocracy were implicated and sentenced on charges of poisoning and witchcraft. The scandal reached into the inner circle of the king. It led to the execution of 36 people.
The Tor di Nona is a neighborhood in Rome's rionePonte. It lies in the heart of the city's historic center, between the Via dei Coronari and the Tiber River. Its name commemorates the Torre dell'Annona, a mediaeval tower which once stood there and was later converted into one of the city's most important theatres, the Teatro Tordinona, later called the Teatro Apollo.
Maria Renata Singer or Saenger von Mossau was a Bavarian nun executed for heresy, witchcraft, apostasy and satanism, one of the last people executed for these charges in Germany and Europe.
Giovanna Bonanno was an alleged Italian witch and professional poisoner known as la vecchia dell'aceto, "The Old Vinegar Lady."
Giulia Tofana was an Italian professional poisoner. She sold a poison called Aqua Tofana to women who wanted to murder their husbands because of domestic abuse or other forms of violence at home.
Gironima Spana was an Italian poisoner and astrologer. She was the central figure in the infamous Spana Prosecution against a net of poison merchant women in Rome who distributed the poison Aqua Tofana to clients who wished to commit murder, in particular women who wished to become widows. She was executed alongside four women accomplices for having distributed poison to clients with the intent of murder. She has also been called Girolama Spara, Girolama Spala, L’ Astrologa, La Profetessa, and L'Indovina, but Gironima Spana was the spelling she herself used in court documents.
Giovanna De Grandis was an Italian poisoner. She was one of the central figures of the infamous Spana Prosecution, one of only six to be executed among over forty people to be implicated.
Thofania d'Adamo or Teofania di Adamo, Epifania d'Adamo or La Tofania was an Italian poisoner.
Anna Maria Caterina Aldobrandini, Duchess of Cesi (1630–1703) was an Italian aristocrat. She was one of the people implicated in the infamous Spana Prosecution.
Maria Spinola was an Italian poisoner. She was one of the central figures of the infamous Spana Prosecution, one of only six to be executed among over forty people to be implicated.
Laura Crispoldi was an Italian poisoner. She was one of the central figures of the infamous Spana Prosecution, one of only six to be executed among over forty people to be implicated.
Graziosa Farina was an Italian poisoner. She was one of the central figures of the infamous Spana Prosecution, one of only six to be executed among over forty people to be implicated.
Sulpizia Vitelleschi (1635–1684) was an Italian heiress. She was one of the people implicated in the infamous Spana Prosecution.
Anna Maria Conti was an Italian painter's wife. She was one of the people implicated in the infamous Spana Prosecution.
Cecilia Verzellina was an Italian poisoner. She was one of the central figures of the infamous Spana Prosecution. Of the over forty people implicated in the trial, she was one of six to be executed. While the other five executed women where poison sellers and poison makers, she was the only client to be executed.
SPANA or Spana may refer to: