After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - The Perfume Poisoner Who Killed 500 Men

Episode Date: November 3, 2025

Deep in Renaissance Rome, it is said that a woman called Giulia Tofana supplied poison to kill some 500 abusive men.Is this the stuff of myth and folklore? What historical truth is there to be found? And how was Santa involved in this story?!Join Anthony and Maddy as they go back to the 17th century to explore this story more.This podcast was edited by Tim Arstall and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Freddy Chick.You can now watch After Dark on Youtube! www.youtube.com/@afterdarkhistoryhitSign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, we're your host's Anthony Delaney and Maddie Pelling. And if you would like After Dark myths, misdeeds and the paranormal, ad-free and get early access, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries with top history presenters and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. They say she helped kill some 500. men. They say her lethal concoction flowed through 17th century Rome like a secret river, carrying away schools of abusive husbands. The poison was simply known as Aqua Tafana, the silent killer, and behind it stood a specter. Julia Tafana, apothecary, perfumer, poisoner. But was

Julia an angel of the alleyways or the architect of a quiet massacre? Join us as we follow the supply chain of a legend, from the deadly recipes and a network of helpers to the papal courts where her name was recorded before the Roman Inquisition. From the poisonous underworld of 17th century Rome, this is after dark. It's a dark December night in Vienna, 1791, and while the wind rattles outside, inside, candles flicker in windows, lighting the face of a fevered genius. gang amadeus mozart clutches the bedsheets eyes burning with a terror no music can resolve i am poisoned he murmurs with aqua taffana whether or not he was the victim of the infamous poison one thing is certain its name coils through time like a slow invisible venom aqua taffana a widow maker's weapon the

whispered signature of a shadow merchant, Julia Tafana. But was she a myth, a legend, a serial killer? Or was she something far more unsettling to those in power? A mirror invented to be held up to the society highlighting the poison of the patriarchy itself. Ciao, Tutti. Always got Italian. Is that the extent of your Italian? Hello, my name's Anthony. And I'm Maddie.

And today we are talking about a woman who has become the stuff of legend, as Maddie said. Strangely, you can even buy her perfect. fume, which is ironic given what we're about to talk about. We see her shadow in the history books, in trial records. Yet, what do we actually know about Julia Tafana? The woman who provided poison to kill what some historian's estimate is 500 people in... 500 men, specifically. Men are people too in 17th century Rome. So what does her story tell us? Why does it endure? And why is it one that has been told again and again over the centuries and in various different ways. Let's delve into it and find out more over to Maddie.

Had you ever heard of this? Yeah, but surface level. Like, I've done literally no research apart from look up my notes for this. He's super profusch. I'm going to give you a little bit of context first. So in terms of what's going on in this moment, we're kind of looking really at about 1630 to 1650. That's the period our story is set in. Although even that is a little bit woolly, because as we're going to find out, we don't know.

huge amount of specific detail about her. It is really hard to pin her down and who she was, where exactly she came from. Can I just say on that point then, I was surprised that this is such a relatively late history given that we know so little, because actually, by now, things are formalised. There's writing, there's documents, there's records to be had. So the wooliness is interesting in itself. I'll just bench that idea, but I just thought it was interesting. Yeah, I think, bear that in mind. Oh, okay. So in terms of what's happening in this moment. Of course, we have the English Civil War. Not very relevant to Italy, but that is happening. Charles I first, of course, executed 1649. The 30 years war was happening largely in Central Europe. This is ongoing conflict between the Catholics and Protestants. Millions die in this conflict. And it really does reshape Europe. So this is a significant moment of turmoil, of conflicting ideas about what the world is. Everything we always do is a significant one of turmoil. This is a super chill time. Actually, there's nothing else going on. It's all fine. This is not one of the

No, none of them are, I suppose. In terms of Italy itself, so Italy was not a unified state. Yes. So it's a patchwork of different states and kingships, largely controlled, actually, by foreign powers, primarily by Spain, which ruled the South and Milan in the North. If you were a bit of Italy. I have been to Rome. She's the basic bit of. I know, that's what I mean.

And then we have the Holy Roman Empire, which has kind of nominal authority over the northern territories as well. through the papal states in central Italy which of course are ruled over by the Pope including Rome and then we have the Republic of Venice which is its whole other thing whenever I talk about Venice I just think of the really great Casanova film

with Heath Ledger in Oh do you think that's a great film We need to do more film stuff When we get to bonus content We are going to do bonus episodes somewhere and there will be films in there because oh we should talk about it I love it I like Heath Ledger

I think I saw it in a sweet spot Okay and then if you watch it now though you'll be like Oh God yeah I believe like this is appalling but at the time yes now one of the things that you are talking about here you're talking about papal states you're talking about monarchy's in spain ruling parts of italian states you're not talking very much about things that women are necessarily being part of that ruling papacy etc etc so what is the status of women during this year so this is very much a patriarchal society

and not a joking what not only this but the the church in this moment really make sure that women are not included in these kind of public forums, let's not forget that the Roman inquisition, much like the Spanish Inquisition, is happening in this moment. There are tribunals set up by the Catholic Church all across Italy to combat things like heresy and women very much fall into these categories because women be doing naughty things. In terms of women's status in 17th century Italy, and of course this might depend slightly based on state to state, you are the property of your husband or your father if you're not married. Arranged marriage is completely normal. society is dominated by these big Catholic families and women are traded between them as

chattel essentially. There's no divorce, of course, under Catholic law. There can be legal separation, for example, in cases of impotence. So if the marriage can't be consummated, that can be a means where you could escape. Domestic abuse in this moment is considered a private matter and not of interest to anyone outside the home. So you have nowhere to go if you're abused by your husband and very much bear that in mind as we go through this history because this is going to be the motivation for a lot of what happens. Education is really limited in this moment. So lots of women are sort of semi-literate, especially in the lower classes, become literate kind of by happenstance as they come into contact with different printed text.

They might be able to read and write or, for example, keep the books of their businesses or the husband's businesses, but largely women have very little education unless they are in the aristocracy, in which case it's very much kind of like, performative education. Like you might be able to read some poetry or play the lute or something. Play the lute. That's the poshest thing I think of. Yeah, but true though, right?

It's this performance of womanhood like you're saying. It's like this is what women do. And a performance of a particular kind of womanhood where you are on show, you are literally performing to visitors who come into home. You are there to make your husband proud to bolster his status in the world or your family status, you know, if you're not married within your father's household. you are not there to have an independent life or any kind of independent thought or creativity.

It's not for you, babe. Or wield power or, you know, that's not. And then this is where this conversation comes in and we've spoken about this before and after dark about the idea, and we'll come to Julia herself now in just a second, but I just want to insert this here of poison as an outlet for that power that they are otherwise denied,

that they being women, are otherwise denied. And we associate that with women. deadly wielding Yeah, yeah Yeah, but we also know that men poisoned to people particularly by the time when it comes to Victoria

Yeah, it's a very kind of 19th century Victorian except of like, you know, arsenic is the lady's choice kind of thing but poison in this moment is going to be helpful to women

Yes, so that is a real thing that we're about to see in this case at the very least. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Julia. But one. So Julia Tafana is her name potentially.

Oh, one of these. Yes. We don't know when she's born right, but we know she's likely born in Palermo in Sicily. We know a few early biographical details but again

they're very vague there's a lot of editing in the centuries that have followed kind of changing the details. Is she noble or is she what do we know her class status? Lower class we Okay so she's really has no power

in the society. I'll buy that then because you know we talked earlier about me being a little bit suspicious about how little we know about her but given that she is She's not an aristocratic woman Okay, that tracks then.

Yeah, exactly. There was a tradition at the time in Italy of taking your mother's first name as your surname. Taking your mother. Oh, okay. I imagine this is if you are not married, but you're going out into the world, right? What would your first name be? My mother's surname was Falks. Oh.

So, yeah, which is a sort of bastardization over time of forks. We have lots of connections to Warwickshire Forkses and maybe. Jesus Christ, my family tree is boring. I imagine yours is just very, very. island based That's me You said that, not me Yeah, I said that I can say that

But yes So you would have been Foukes Foux Yeah, what would you be Buggy? Buggy Yeah

That's a great name Oh it's a bit weird God I mean Buggy Delaney All right I'll go with that I'll tell her she missed a trick A 1920s

American gangster Yeah yeah Bugsy below Who your favorite Bugsy Malone I do actually It's true Buggy Delaney's in town

Anyway, sorry, I derailed. We're expecting the shipwrent from Buggy Delaney any time now. Oh, my God. I love that. But she, okay, there's a custom that you're taking. Yeah. And so there's speculation that her mother is this person who was well-known at the time called Tafania de Damo and who is she, you might ask, she is a poisoner in her own right.

So this is potentially a family business. But I'm saying potentially because the connection between them is very, very, very, loose so bear with but she was a sicilian woman who moved to palermo so she's in the right place to have julia okay there are things that potentially add on line up um and she is supposedly the inventor of this concoction called aquitafana the demo woman or whatever name is not julia didama okay yeah so this woman if she is the mother is executed on the 12th of july 1633 So Julia herself would have been a child at this point and she's executed for poisoning her own husband

and for trafficking illegal lethal poison so selling it to other people as well there is a suggestion that she's the mother because of this connection with poison because the name connection and because Julia herself goes into the family business the family business being healing or apothecary work with a side of murder

or simply supplying a murder weapon to other people who then go and do the crime. So that is potentially a little bit of her background. Now, we do know that Julia is married twice. Julia's married twice, okay. And I will say that a lot of the information that we have about her comes from publications after her own lifetime written by men of the church.

So again, Pinchers off. Agendas. We do know that Julia is married twice. So she's married the first time. We don't know who her husband is, but her surname in this moment is Mangiani. We know that he dies because she is. married a second time so he must have popped his clogs is he murdered we don't know we don't even

know what her name is so who knows also it's a 17th century Italy so probably just like tripped over got cut and got sepsis yeah yeah yeah yeah whatever but we do know that she's married again in 1624 whether the marriage actually takes place in that year we're not sure and by 1624 they have children and stepchildren so it's a bit of a blended family and they move to Rome some historians have said that they are fleeing because she has been caught poisoning a man in Genoa. I don't know what's going on here. So there's just so much speculation. Yeah.

It's really, really hard to get to who she is. Some people think that her surname of Tafana, who she's known by as, you know, as Julia Tafana is actually a fabrication and it's a 19th century invention to link her to that earlier woman. Right. Okay. Who this woman, Julia Tafana, actually is, is so hard to get to. Because at first I were thinking, no way she's related to that other woman.

Then I'm thinking, well, they have the same stern name. They're from the same area. But that just could be a... But now that, yeah. Jesus. Yeah. So what we do know is that she goes into this business of creating perfumes, creating concoctions to heal people, and also crucially poison.

Okay. So we do know that she is into perfumery, poisonery, unfficially, and healing, you know, unctious potions and all. that kind of thing. Yeah. And you know, this is, on the one hand, work that is available to women in this period, but also puts you under the spotlight of the Inquisition, of the church. You know, you're a woman dealing out life, health, potentially death and justice without the control of institutions like the church. You're a little bit dodgy. She has like networks of trade. Yes. She does have a shop, we believe. And skill, right? And skill. But she's,

what is visibly being sold in the shop and what is actually being sold to customers could be different. Could be two separate things. Yeah. Yeah. So talk to me then a little bit about the skill in the trade. Yeah. Talk to me about what that looks like. What's the crossover between

perfumery, poisoning? I can imagine it's like mixing shit together basically. But like, is that what we're looking at here? Yeah. So she creates her famous poison, Aquitaphana, which may have been created by her mother before her. It may have already existed. and she is simply harnessing this existing recipe. But just to be clear, because for me, I mean,

on the surface of it, Aquitifana is a perfume. Yeah, so this is bottled as a perfume. It's bottled liquid. Yep, yep, yep. It's sometimes bottled as holy water as well, ironically. It's in disguise, but it is definitely a poison. It's made up of ground arsenic and lead that are boiled together. So not something that's going to make you smell nice,

not something you want on your skin. Lead's going to take a wild cully, but arsenic will do pretty quickly. Yeah, exactly. and the idea is that she's selling this to clients, whoever, and we'll go on to talk about who her clients are, and that they can then take that back to their own domestic space, and they are most commonly slipping it into food or drink of their victims. So this is something that you once want to consume.

Oh, wait, she's not doing the poisoning necessarily, although she may have had killed a couple of people and been on the run, and we don't know. But she is selling this purposefully to people. He's just the supplier, my friend. She's not taking responsibility. She's like, you do you. I've made my magic arsenic lead concoction. Roll up, roll up.

Yeah. This is for rats. Exactly. Perfew for rats. This is totally legit. This isn't for husbands. The liquid is clear, odourless and looks like water. So it is going under the radar.

Unless you know what you have purchased and you know how to use it, nobody's going to know where it is. Also, if it is administered a little. bit consistently over time in something like food or drink can mimic a natural death or an illness leading to death was that the lead maybe

yeah I suppose it must be or just in a fasting start being ill so essentially she's handing out something that is not detectable as a poison and that can convincingly make a murder seem like a natural death

yeah so it's not really a way to detect this or trace it it. It's kind of bizarre it. It's kind of bizarre in a way because we don't encounter this very often. We can encounter poisoning all the time. we don't really encounter a supply chain that's not coming just from a pharmacy and, you know, they're putting it in their poison books. I know we're talking about a different century here. But like this isn't how these poison stories go usually. Yeah, I know. It's unusual. So there's an image. It's a later image, admittedly. It's a 19th century image, but of a bottle of Aquatifana, which was infamous in the centuries after Juliet supposedly lived if she did at all. Again, this is all kind of a little bit of speculation.

So Aquitifano was so notorious in the centuries, well, first of all, the generations, then the centuries after Julia's death, that it was still in the 19th century in the popular imagination. And we have here an image of a bottle of it. Please describe. So this is, there's a lovely little scene in the background of a man in what looks like like an empathicry's work show. Women have been written out of this history by the 19th century. Even even by the poisoning histories that you'd expect to see the main. It's very cute, see, it's very like, you know, there's loads of herbs and bottles and receptacles and there's a man grinding something and there's a book or some kind of recipe book there and there's kind of Bunsen Burnry type things except in a 17th century context and a big fireplace. And then in the centre of that over it, we have a bottle, which is distinctly not very 17th century looking.

And on it it says manna di San Nicola. and it is a picture of a man who we know is St. Nicholas, Santa basically, it's giving St. Patrick. He's got the crook and he's got that little hat thing. I love that you read it that way. Yeah, it looks like St. Patrick to me. And then, bizarrely, there are three babies in a tub, in a bathtub thing, but like it's a wooden bathtub. Reaching up to him, no idea what the hell that's about. And it's kind of weird. Two of them look like they've got holes in their heads, which is weird. This has gone so funny. Yeah. It's a very strange thing. It's not the Santa. We know and love, and yes, here we are. What is Santa doing in this story? As we say, this is a much later 19th century kind of depiction of this. But what's interesting is that Aquitifana becomes associated with St. Nicholas. Wow. We think of Santa as delivering presents at Christmas, making everything magical for children.

But in the 17th century, he's associated with the protection of girls who are being trafficked or abused in some way. Oh, well. So, yeah, which is kind of an interesting. Pre-present Santa. Yeah. It kind of ties into this idea. that the Aquitofana is being sold to protect women and that it sort of has this seal of

approval from Old St. Nick. Oh, that's interesting. And this is an idea that obviously has survived until at least the 19th century. And by protect women, you mean in order to poison the men that they're pissed off with? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or that have wronged them legitimately in some way. Yeah, exactly. Oh, that's interesting.

Yeah, so we think. Kind of like pepper spray in that sense. Like, you need this because you were in trouble. Yeah, it's like it would be nice to not need the people. pepper spray or the aquitifana men don't be abusing the wives that's interesting so we think and this is based on accounts that come just after julia's life but also a real life trial that happens in the generation afterwards as well that aquitaphana during julia's lifetime was used to kill at least 500 husbands at least 500 female clients of hers who came to her but the clients are

women then. The clients are predominantly women, if not exclusively. And they are taking this stuff home. And there is an understanding, I suppose, that we can never get to the true number because most of these deaths appeared natural. And so there's no record of them. They wouldn't have been flagged. But how many men across these Italian prince ships are dropping dead because of this? Okay. I'm going to exclusively reveal the answer here today. Not 500. I know. This is some Victorian bloke. See, no, I don't even think it's Victorian.

I think it comes from the church in the panic after her lifetime of like, look what women have been doing. Even that quickly. Like, we haven't paid any attention to them and look what they've been doing behind our backs without our consent. They've been plotting against us and bringing down the paper. Either way, it's not true. Like, it's not ringing true much of this. I mean, surely that's a lot of presumably youngish men dropping dead.

Yeah. That it would get noticed. Also, 500's a lovely round number. Yeah, it is, yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, some estimates are at 600, so it could be somewhere in between. I don't buy it. Let's stick with potentially Julia.

Mm-hmm. We know that she's moved around. We know that she's married a couple of times. She has children and stepchildren. We sort of know. Yeah. We sort of know that she has this business selling to mostly women in order that they might be able to kill their husbands. Mm-hmm.

How does this story, choosing my words purposely, come to an end then? Okay, so Julia's downfall. if she existed comes when one of her clients by Isaac or Defana from her takes it home is going to kill her husband but she panics at the last second

like get it together and she tells her husband what's going on she confesses everything to him she's like Brian I've never meant to do it Julia sold it to me I just wish you'd pick the wet towels up

off the bathroom floor like you just you've taken me to the edge personal insight into his life there? Yeah. So the husband inevitably goes to the authorities. And she, Julia, this is, seek sanctuary in a church nearby.

She rushes there and hides there. There is a rumor that when she's in sanctuary in this church, that she poisons the water supply there, which I think is just such nonsense. Like, why would she do that? Because then surely she would die. But I suppose this idea of like a vindictive, moral-less woman who just wants to poison the heart of society.

Like, this is taken root out of the story. Papal authorities, though, are like, we've got to nail this bitch. Like, she has got to go down for something. And they break the sanctuary, the sacred. Can you do that? Well, if you're the papal authorities, you can. Sure, for a woman, nobody's going to stop you. And she's arrested in around 1659, and she is taken into custody.

We do know her name appears in Roman Inquisition and ecclesiastical records of the time. So someone with this name is arrested for this crime. Okay, that's something. So she is arrested by the papal authorities. She is supposedly tortured and she is executed. There is an anecdote that she confesses to having supplied poison that kills over 500 men. Again, it's really unclear.

Now, a more concrete bit of history happens just after her supposed death. In 1659, there's a trial called the Spahn a Prosecution trial. And this is a trial that supposedly, the central figure of this, is a woman called Geronima, Sparner, who is the stepdaughter of Julia. Like, again, we're getting this idea, I suppose, with Julia's own mother as the inventor of it and stuff, this idea of kind of female lineage and poison being handed down. Exactly. It's like, women are bad, and they pass bad things down and not good. So it's very like the antithesis of the patriarchy, I don't buy for a second that this is.

necessarily her actual daughter. But this trial really did happen. And over 40 people, including sellers and clients who'd been using poison, were arrested. Some were members of the aristocracy. This ran the gamut of society, and this was in Rome at the time. And this huge trial takes place. Murders are proved. This network of sale is proved. All these women who are trading this silently and secretly. And the punishment for these 40 people ranged from some were exiled and some are in lifetime house arrest, which don't forget, if you have attempted to poison your husband and now you're in house arrest for the rest of your life, it's not great. Did those husbands die?

Some did, some did not. There were five main figures in the trial who were executed, including Sparner, who's the supposed stepdaughter of Julia, and they were either women who had killed men with poison or who had supplied it and were known to supply it to vast numbers in Sparner's case. So there is a little bit of tangible history. There's a couple of cases in particular that come out of this. So there's one woman called Anna Maria Conti, who she's 19. She's married off the second time to a French painter who's twice her age, and he is violent. And there's a quote here that says, this is from her, supposedly from the trial.

She said, although I was pregnant with Simon's child, he threatened me with a knife, even with the baby I was carrying. Once he laid hands on my throat so violently to strangle me that he left bruises and went after me with a naked sword, i.e. a sword taken out of his scappard. So let's just circle back to the motivation of some of these women for killing the men in their lives. Did she exist? What do you think? I don't like it, Maddie. It's frustrating history. I feel like it's too woolly, like we were saying at the beginning.

But she has a long legacy, or rather the Aquitifana has a long legacy. It's weird, right? Because I've heard of this person, as I say. You see it referenced on social media quite a lot. Yeah, she's quite a popular kind of TikTok dark history. Yeah, yeah. And also goes into, we talk about this, sometimes this kind of girl bustification thing of certain figures in the past. Yeah, and it's easy to be like, you go, girl, killing your 500 abusive men.

And yeah, though, if people are drawing naked swords on you, do what you need to do to survive. You know what I mean? And that's the thing that bothers me about this. There is actually at the centre of it a really grim actual history of male violence, domestic violence, the oppression of women in this period. and that is Julia Defana therefore a kind of folk hero who's grown up in this context in her own lifetime or the lifetime of the women who believed in her. Aquatofana was clearly a thing that existed that was sold and used to kill people. It really was a poison that was available.

And I think there's something as well to be said about the fact that the church is the church who give this history of most of what we have comes from. Yeah. This is my problem. And there's a kind of like, I suppose an attempt to say, here's this one woman who did this and she was the problem. She was the poisoned apple rather than be like, oh, this is a systemic issue in society that women feel the need to do this in order to escape the terrible circumstances that they find themselves in and as a means of survival. That's not acknowledged by the church. Instead, it's like there's one woman, she's corrupted all the others, this is bad.

I cannot emphasize enough how untrustworthy church sources in the main, not always, are, particularly when they're narratively driven. Yeah. We know the church lies throughout history and today. We know that they fabricate neat narratives in order to control. Yeah. Like, so they're not a trustworthy institution. They are powerful. They are domineering.

They control so much of what we know of the middle. ages and into the early modern era, and then that starts to loosen its grip on, you know, by the time we get to the 18th century, which is good for us. But I don't trust this shit. Like, it annoys me actually a little bit. It's frustrating. It is frustrating. And you know, the question that's often asked of her and there's so much online about her is, you know, is she a serial killer or a heroin? Is she the hero? We're talking about she existed. But I think this is thing, I think the question is, did she exist? And why do we want to pin this on one? Yeah, yeah, yeah, rather than looking at this wider problem. What I will say, this is a nice little anecdote, is that the infamy of Aquitaphana

was such that in the 18th century, when Mozart, the composer, was on his deathbed, he was telling people, as they came into his bedroom, that he was dying because he'd been poisoned by Aquitaphana. Oh. And he did not have a particularly great relationship with women. No, he didn't. Yeah. And he was very dramatic as well. Yeah. So again, do you trust him? But like the fact that that is, I like him, but still in popular imagination. Yeah, over 100 years later. Yeah, yeah, that he's lying there as deathbed going, oh my God, I've been poisoned by him.

Women, yeah. Women have got me finally. So, yeah, I think the question is not, is she a serial killer or heroin, but did she exist at all? And what can this history tell us about women's lives in the past? And I think that is how it's useful. Yes. Right.

Now, listen, off you go and do some Googling on that and tell us what you think in the comments either on the podcast on Spotify or on wherever you're watching this on YouTube that's annoyed me now just because any time the church comes into it I just get annoyed that's just my personal gig guys

sorry to bring that to the table look if you have enjoyed this episode do go back and listen to some of our other poisoning episodes we've got Palmer the Poisoner we have we've got loads others I can't think of them right but they're there and they're more factually grounded than this is so if you enjoy a bit of poison

go and look at those thank you so much for listening to this episode or watching, if you're watching on YouTube, if you haven't already, take a migratory trip over to YouTube and you can discover us there. We're now in full 4K, I don't know, HD. We need all the filters. We can only apologise for it. But we're over there and we're talking on sofas today and it's very comfy and we're enjoying it. We will see you again next time and after dark one. We'll be talking about more grim, dastardly and dark deeds from the past. Until then, see you soon. Thank you.