In 17th-century Italy, women did not have easy lives. If you weren’t stuck in an unhappy marriage, you might be living on the streets. Additionally, society at the time provided no means of escape for women who were married off to violent husbands. At least, until one woman decided to take control of her own destiny.
Aqua Tofana🩸☠️
Created by Giulia Tofana in 1633, this poison was used by wives who wished to escape abusive relationships by murdering their husbands.
In total 600+ men were killed and Giulia remained in business for 50 years, making her history’s most successful serial killer. pic.twitter.com/zyZ3kmnoEq— Orb (@ori_sucks) August 3, 2021
Giulia Tofana may be one of the deadliest serial killers you’ve never heard of, but she was adored by women who were trapped by abuse and despised and feared by men.
The truth about Tofana’s life and how she used a legal cosmetics company to conceal a clandestine operation aiding abused women in killing their husbands have come to light thanks to historians.
Giulia Tofana killed 600 men in Renaissance Italy – or so the legend goes.
Follow in her footsteps to discover her story.
Wishing Shelf Readers Award Winner#KindleDeal #HistoricalFiction #Italy https://t.co/rA22l6qiFQ pic.twitter.com/G7YhBVCVFE— Deborah Swift (@swiftstory) September 4, 2022
Giulia Tofana, who was 13 years old when her mother Thofania d’Amado was executed for killing her husband, experienced a very dark and distinct turn in life after being born in Sicily in 1620.
It’s believed that either the young Giulia’s mother or a family friend taught her how to create poison. For nearly two decades, she made poisonous face cream placed into bottles that were packaged with images of St. Nicholas, the patron saint of children and the single and infamous for saving young women from sex traffickers.
Arsenic, lead, and deadly nightshade are said to have combined to produce cold-like symptoms before the unfortunate sufferer passed away a few days later. Because the poison could not be traced, wives effectively conducted the ideal crime.
Men were given unrestricted control in 1630s Italy, when rape and marital violence were commonly tolerated and women had no influence over politics, society, or the economy.
In a society where the divorce was nearly unheard of, hundreds of people were compelled into violent or miserable marriages. their sole route out? becoming a widow.
In the 17th C Giulia Tofana set up a poisoning ring in Rome that sold poison to women who wanted to escape abusive/inconvenient spouses. Aqua Tofana was made of lead, arsenic & belladonna. It was packaged in cosmetic bottles & was added to food or hot chocolate #FaustianFriday pic.twitter.com/cnm7DlXtdJ
— Folklore, Food & Fairytales (@FairytalesFood) June 3, 2022
Giulia Tofana only accepted clients through her previous satisfied clients since the ladies relied on a trusted currency because the industry was so risky. Giulia’s game presented a risk of self-exposure to anyone who left it.
Historian Mike Dash described Aqua Tofana as a “severe challenge” to “a world in which men ruled as petty tyrants over their own families”.
https://twitter.com/whitfield_riley/status/1557641981509132288
“Even the most aristocratic of daughters were chattels to be auctioned off into often loveless marriages,” he added.
A bowl of soup would eventually cause Tofana to be sold out. After buying the poison and putting it in her husband’s soup, the woman panicked at the last minute and eventually gave in to his demands and told him everything.
Dash shares that the accounts of what happened to Tofana after she was found out were contradictory, with one claiming that she took refuge in a church and continued to make her poison until her death.