Sometime in the summer of 1791, or perhaps even earlier, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart fell ill. His biographer, Franz Niemetschek, described him as pale and melancholy. Despite his declining health, Mozart remained dedicated to his work, focusing on completing his Requiem. He even conducted the premiere of The Magic Flute on 30 September. However, by late November, his condition worsened dramatically. He became bedridden, suffering from swelling, pain, and persistent vomiting. Around two weeks later, on 5 December, he died at his home in Vienna.
The cause of Mozart’s death has been the subject of much speculation and debate. With few eyewitness accounts and no thorough medical examination, researchers have proposed various possibilities, including streptococcal infection, rheumatic fever, kidney failure, and even poisoning. Mozart himself was deeply troubled by his deteriorating health and feared he was being poisoned. “I feel definitely,” he confided to his wife, Constanze, “that I will not last much longer; I am sure I have been poisoned. I cannot rid myself of this idea.”
“Death Comes to the Banquet Table” by Giovanni Martinelli, circa 1635.
Constanze later told the musician Vincent Novello and his wife, Mary, that Mozart believed the poison was Aqua Tofana, a colourless, tasteless, and odourless liquid that could be mixed with the victim's food without detection. When administered gradually, it mimicked symptoms of common illnesses such as cholera or influenza, slowly debilitating the victim until the final, fatal dose was given.
This poison, whose principal active ingredient was arsenic, is believed to have been invented by an Italian woman named Thofania d'Adamo in the 17th century. According to contemporary accounts, Aqua Tofana was first formulated around 1630 and quickly gained notoriety in southern Italy, particularly among women seeking to rid themselves of their husbands and claim their inheritances.
Thofania d'Adamo and her assistant, Francesca la Sarda, who initially produced and distributed the poison, were soon caught and executed for their crimes in 1633. Di Adamo was reportedly hanged, drawn, and quartered, though another account claims she was "closed and bound, alive, in a canvas sack… [and] thrown from the roofs of the bishop’s palace into the street in the presence of the populace."
While d’Adamo and la Sarda met their fate, several other women involved in the operation fled to Rome, where they continued manufacturing and selling Aqua Tofana. This group was led by Giulia Tofana, who may have been d’Adamo’s daughter. In Rome, Tofana expanded the operation, recruiting more women and establishing a clandestine poisoning ring that catered to desperate and scheming clients alike. The group reportedly obtained arsenic through a priest, whose brother was an apothecary. They combined it with lead and possibly belladonna, creating a colourless, tasteless liquid that could be easily mixed with water or wine and discreetly administered during meals.
To conceal its true purpose, the poison was often sold in glass jars labelled as Manna of St. Nicholas—a popular healing oil supposedly collected from the bones of the saint in a church in Bari. It was also marketed as a cosmetic product, purportedly used to remove facial blemishes, allowing it to be discreetly kept in a household without arousing suspicion.
A glass bottle containing Manna di San Nicola. Aqua Tofana was sold, disguised as Manna, in bottles like this.
The poison’s greatest asset was undetectability. “Administered in wine or tea or some other liquid by the flattering traitress, [it] produced but a scarcely noticeable effect; the husband became a little out of sorts, felt weak and languid, so little indisposed that he would scarcely call in a medical man,” wrote Chamber’s Journal.
The key to its effectiveness lay in careful, controlled dosing. When given gradually, Aqua Tofana mimicked the progression of a natural illness, making the victim’s decline appear as the onset of a lingering disease rather than deliberate poisoning.
“After the second dose of poison, this weakness and languor became more pronounced,” continued the Chamber’s Journal. “The beautiful Medea who expressed so much anxiety for her husband’s indisposition would scarcely be an object of suspicion, and perhaps would prepare her husband’s food, as prescribed by the doctor, with her own fair hands. In this way the third drop would be administered, and would prostrate even the most vigorous man. The doctor would be completely puzzled to see that the apparently simple ailment did not surrender to his drugs, and while he would be still in the dark as to its nature, other doses would be given, until at length death would claim the victim for its own…”
Giulia Tofana died in 1651, but her network continued to operate under the leadership of Girolama Spara until authorities caught the group in 1658. Aqua Tofana is believed to have claimed at least 600 victims. Spara herself reportedly boasted, “I’ve given this liquid to more people than I’ve got hairs on my head.”
In July 1659, five members of the gang were hanged before an unusually large crowd. One of their clients was also executed, while more than forty others—women who had purchased the poison—were sentenced to life in prison.
But how much truth is there to the story of Aqua Tofana and its makers? Historian Mike Dash, who has written extensively on the subject, states that there is evidence confirming the existence and executions of both Teofania di Adamo in 1633 and Girolama Spara in 1659 for crimes of poisoning. Information about Giulia Tofana, however, is sparse, though she is believed to have been active in the 1650s.
Jeanne III of Navarre Buying Poisoned Gloves from Catherine de Medici's Parfumeur, René by Pierre-Charles Comte, 1858
Dash argues that while arsenic-based poisons were widely used in Italy during the 17th and 18th centuries, Aqua Tofana’s reputation as a precise and insidious poison was largely a product of later embellishments. In 1709, the French traveller Jean-Baptiste Labat described the capture and execution of an elderly woman in Naples who sold bottles of clear poison disguised as saint’s manna. Around the same time, Pius Nikolaus von Garelli, physician to Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, claimed to have seen legal documents attributing 600 deaths to the use of Aqua Tofana. In 1730, Johann Keysler, a Fellow of the Royal Society, wrote of an aged female poisoner known as "Tophana" who had allegedly murdered hundreds and was imprisoned in Naples.
“This elaboration of claims resulted in belief in a poison that was very widely feared, but never actually existed,” Dash wrote. He further suggests that many deaths attributed to Aqua Tofana were likely due to natural causes and that its notorious reputation was largely the result of a moral panic.
Also read:
Marie Lafarge: The Arsenic Poisoner
The Angel Makers of Nagyrév
Whether Aqua Tofana was truly the perfect undetectable poison or merely the product of myth and exaggeration, its legend endured. The fear of secret poisoning, often associated with women, became deeply ingrained in European society. The 17th and 18th centuries saw a series of high-profile poisoning scandals, reinforcing the idea that deadly substances could be wielded with cunning and discretion.
One of the most notorious cases was the Affair of the Poisons in France (1677–1682), in which a network of fortune tellers, alchemists, and poisoners was accused of supplying toxic potions to members of the aristocracy—including some linked to King Louis XIV’s court. The scandal led to arrests, executions, and lingering paranoia about clandestine poisoners operating in elite circles. Similarly, the infamous Marquise de Brinvilliers, executed in 1676, was said to have tested poisons on the poor before using them to eliminate her own family members.
These cases, like Aqua Tofana, fed into the broader fear that poison was the weapon of choice for those who sought to kill without detection. Whether real or exaggerated, such stories shaped perceptions of crime, justice, and treachery in early modern Europe. Even today, the name Aqua Tofana lingers in popular culture as a symbol of subtle, insidious murder—a whisper of death hidden in a glass of wine.
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