The Last Alchemist: Count Cagliostro, Master of Magic in the Age of Reason by McCalman, Iain - 2003

New York: HarperCollins, 2003. Book. New. Hardcover. First Edition. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. First edition, 8vo. Hard cover binding, 272 pp. Who was the mysterious Count Cagliostro? Depending on whom you ask, he was either a great healer and mystic or a dangerous charlatan whose revolutionary notions and influences threatened to undermine the 18th-century monarchies of France and Russia. Whatever else he was, Count Alessandro di Cagliostro, the leader of an exotic brand of Freemasonry, was indisputably one of the most influential and notorious figures of the day, overcoming poverty and an ignoble birth to become the darling and also the bane of upper-crust Europe. Historian Iain McCalman uses seven key episodes in Cagliostro's political and spiritual evolution to provide a panoramic portrait of European culture and history, documenting 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. New in new dustjacket..