The Woman Who Poisoned Rome for Hire

Giulia Tofana was likely a brand name for a poison network originating in seventeenth-century Sicily.

Aqua Tofana used arsenic to mimic natural gastric illnesses and leave no physical evidence.

Slow-acting doses allowed victims time to write wills before their deaths appeared natural.

Seventeenth-century Roman women used poison as a tool for self-preservation and financial independence.

The Spana Prosecution of sixteen fifty-nine investigated a criminal network of over forty people.

Five principal women were executed to reassert state control over domestic assassination rings.