Guiseppe Balsamo, the Count of Cagliostro, was an 18th-century Sicilian who became a magician, a mystic, a healer, a Freemason, swindler and, last but not least, a pornographer. He was famous throughout Europe, and so popular in France that his imprisonment for allegedly stealing a diamond necklace from Marie Antoinette fanned the flames of revolution ... the Count was so controversial that he became the central figure in both Goethe's Faust, Part One and Mozart's the Magic Flute. the Count's story is told through the eyes of seven of his contemporaries, including Casanova, Goethe and Catherine the Great.