Bedtime Stories Pt. I

Giulia of Sicily & her infamous Acqua Tofana

photo of my aunt (not Giulia) by Letizia Battaglia

Giulia Tofana lived during the mid 1600s in Sicily & for more than 50 years dispensed the infamous ‘Aqua Tofana,’ or ‘Acqua Tufania.’ She was known as an extraordinarily beautiful and kind herbalist who spent her time working in apothecaries revising her mother’s original recipe for Tofana which she only sold/ gave to women trapped in non consensual and abusive marriages. Giulia lived during a time of arranged marriages, where young girls were either married off to strangers as business transactions or were sexually assaulted and then married to the abuser as a result, etc, this shit was really rampant and has persisted til quite recently in certain areas. Giulia’s mother, Thofania d’Adamo was accused of poisoning her husband whom she tried to separate from due to abuse but was denied repeatedly & ultimately executed in Palermo despite never having been found guilty. So naturally Giulia was in complete opposition to the oppression of women & the lack of rights they had to protect themselves from abuse. Since men of this time had legal power to mistreat their spouses and prevent them from divorce, Giulia provided these women an ‘early Italian divorce,’ and quickly became known as ‘the friend of troubled wives’ throughout the kingdom of two Sicilys, Naples, and Rome. A master formulator, this poison was colorless, odorless, and tasteless, and was concocted in such a way that didn’t leave a trace, nor cause any of the pain characteristic of poisons throughout time. It was subtle and worked slowly, leaving folks pretty mystified as to what the cause of death was for these dudes. She disguised the potion as holy healing oil or a cosmetic product to avoid suspicion and is said to have most often gave this potion away for free, making her quite the anomaly as far as professional poisoners go. The existence alone of Acqua Tofana was a true challenge to what was imposed as the natural order of the time. Though she was eventually found out by authorities, her community went to extremes to protect her from punishment and successfully hid her in churches throughout Southern Italy for over a year before they caught up with her 🌋🌋🌋