Who was Giulia Toffana?
Alchemist and successful businesswoman, professional poisoner, vigilante or a rebel who did not accept the role assigned to her as a woman?
What seems clear is that she was a woman of great intelligence who managed to develop, in 17th century Rome, the formula for a colorless poison that left no trace.
Hundreds of women from the town, but also from the upper echelons, got hold of the magical product, with which they murdered their husbands and thus freed themselves from cruel and unwanted marriages, at a time when femicide was legal.
La Toffana
, which was performed at the Almagro Festival, now reaches the stages of the Teatro de la Abadía, in a production written by Vanessa Monfort and directed by María Herrero, where it can be seen until the 13th of this month.
The Inquisition trial, which condemned the accused to the gallows, is the backdrop for this psychodrama starring four actors, Victoria Teijeiro, Amaranta Munana, Aitor de Kintana and María Herrero herself, who give life to 10 characters throughout three moments of this story.
With a stage of moving mirrors that move from right to left, the choice of centering the play on the process of the Holy Inquisition gives it the opportunity to give it a
thriller
structure , make a
flashback
to reconstruct the events and allow the public make their own judgement.
A scene from 'La Toffana'.Javier Naval
"We are facing a fascinating character, typical of the world of Shakespeare, before three generations of murderous women," says Vanessa Monfort (Barcelona, 47 years old), in a meeting with the actress and director María Herrero (Murcia, 39 years old).
It has been a joint effort of years, during which they have searched and read everything about this stranger, someone as untraceable as her poison, who improved the formula inherited from her mother, condemned as a witch, to create a colorless and odorless poison, which left no trace, the famous "toffana water".
Just three drops were enough, supplied over a few weeks, for the chosen one to die sweetly.
Born in Palermo (Sicily), in the 17th century, and moved to a convent in Rome after the violent death of her mother, Giulia Toffana managed to create, together with her daughter Girolama and an assistant, a secret distribution network throughout the court of the Popes, which ended when the Inquisition set a trap for them, infiltrating the wife of the then head of the guard.
They were tried and sentenced to death in November 1659. Their names were never engraved on their tombstones.
a pioneer
The author and director want to make it clear that their job is not to judge any character, and more so a confessed murderer like Giulia Toffana, who helped end the lives of 602 husbands, but rather to talk about a time when that the only way for women to free themselves was to become a widower.
"She was a pioneer, a great scientist with a clear sense of morality regarding what she did, at a time of clear historical setback in terms of women's rights," says Herrero.
“We are talking about the passage from alchemy to chemistry, from the High Middle Ages, in which women could have businesses, to the Renaissance, which was only beneficial for men.”
“After the great plagues and the drop in birth rates, the Rome of the Popes arrives and women are forced to lock themselves in their homes, basically to give birth.
It is at this time, in which femicide was permitted by law, that Giulia Toffana lives, a girl who at the age of 13 witnessed the execution of her mother, an apothecary who poisoned her abusive husband, who is dismembered in a public square”, adds Monfort, who makes it clear that he is talking about the causes and the motive, but not the justification.
“As a playwright I am not looking for justification, because we are talking about a psychopath who killed 602 men and who has her own moral reasons,” explains the author, for whom Toffana is, without a doubt, the first serial killer in history, who follows a pattern to kill men similar to the one his mother used with his father,
while his daughter, Girolama, is the one who manages to infiltrate the court of the Popes and makes the business flourish, thanks to her great commercial eye.
"They created a pyramid sale, like today's Thermomix," adds Monfort, who wonders: "What if Giulia was the pioneer of the Sicilian mafia, the leader of a group of women who organized to kill their husbands?" .
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