Secret Poisoners, Society of
Part of The Encyclopedia of Southern Italy.
Secret Poisoners, Society of: A secret society of supposed ancient origins known to have existed in Italy during the 16th and 17th centuries. Its members were feared throughout Europe for their abilities to create and utilize unique poisons. One of its best-known members was Tofana, a woman from Palermo, who created the deadly liquid poison known as Aqua della Tofara. During the pontificate of Alexander VII, a faction of the society was known to be active in Rome. Its members consisted of a group of young women under the leadership of an old Sicilian woman named Hieronyma Spara, who had been a pupil of Tofana. They came under suspicion of murder when the husbands of the women all died suddenly under mysterious circumstances. The authorities arrested the women who, under tortured confessed to poisoning their husbands. Spara and four others were publicly executed.
It is possible that Locusta, the woman who supplied the Roman empress Agrippina with the poison to murder her husband Claudius, was also a member of this society of poisoners. She also provided the poison which the Emperor Nero used to kill Britannicus, Claudius’s son. Locusta’s poisons of choice seem to have been cyanide and belladonna. She was finally executed in January AD 55 by Nero’s successor Galba.