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    The Last Alchemist: Count Cagliostro, Master of Magic in the Age of Reason
    The Last Alchemist: Count Cagliostro, Master of Magic in the Age of Reason
    The Last Alchemist: Count Cagliostro, Master of Magic in the Age of Reason
    Ebook353 pages8 hours

    The Last Alchemist: Count Cagliostro, Master of Magic in the Age of Reason

    By Iain McCalman

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    About this ebook

    Freemason ... Shaman ... Prophet ... Seducer ... Swindler ... Thief ... Heretic

    Who was the mysterious Count Cagliostro?

    Depending on whom you ask, he was either a great healer or a dangerous charlatan. Internationally acclaimed historian Iain McCalman documents how Cagliostro crossed paths -- and often swords -- with the likes of Catherine the Great, Marie Antoinette, and Pope Pius VI. He was a muse to William Blake and the inspiration for both Mozart's Magic Flute and Goethe's Faust. Louis XVI had him thrown into the Bastille for his alleged involvement in what would come to be known as "the affair of the necklace." Yet in London, Warsaw, and St. Petersburg, he established "healing clinics" for the poorest of the poor, and his dexterity in the worlds of alchemy and spiritualism won him acclaim among the nobility across Europe.

    Also the leader of an exotic brand of Freemasonry, Count Cagliostro was indisputably one of the most influential and notorious figures of the latter eighteenth century, overcoming poverty and an ignoble birth to become the darling -- and bane -- of upper-crust Europe.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateOct 13, 2009
    ISBN9780061868399
    The Last Alchemist: Count Cagliostro, Master of Magic in the Age of Reason
    Author

    Iain McCalman

    Iain McCalman is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a historian, a social scientist, and an explorer. He is the author of the award-winning Darwin's Armada, The Seven Ordeals of Count Cagliostro, and Radical Underworld. A professor of history at the University of Sydney, he has served as the president of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and the director of the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University. McCalman has also been a historical consultant and narrator for documentaries on the BBC and ABC, and has been interviewed by Salon and the World Science Festival.

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      The Last Alchemist - Iain McCalman

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