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The Woman Whose ‘Cosmetics’ Poisoned Over 600 Unwanted Husbands
Her Aqua Tofana was ‘divorce-in-a-bottle’
Giulia Tofana was nothing if not an entrepreneur. She saw a need — divorce being practically impossible to obtain for the 17th century Italian woman — and she set out to fill it. Between 1633 and 1651 over 600 unwitting husbands were hurried along to meet their maker after ingesting poison their wives had purchased from Giulia.
Poisonous proclivities ran in La Tofana’s family. Her mother, Thofania d’Adamo, murdered her own husband, Francis d’Adamo, and was executed in Palermo, Sicily on July 12, 1633. Giulia, then just 13 years old, followed in her mother’s footsteps — first professionally, working as an apothecary concocting perfumes and cosmetics, and finally, to her own execution in Rome in July, 1659.
Giulia’s daughter, Girolama Spera, and three employees were executed along with her, effectively ending a tri-generational family ‘cosmetic’ business that might have been the envy of today’s Kardashians, save for its criminal intent.
In its heyday, Giulia’s Aqua Tofana product made a killing (pun intended), in part due to its clever packaging. The “Queen of Poison” sold her powdered makeup in pretty containers that looked right-at-home beside perfume bottles on a prospective widow’s dressing…
