August 6, 2025 • 19 mins
Provides an in-depth look at the Kesslitz affair, a dramatic 1775 murder case in Hamburg involving a Silesian noble, Joseph von Kesslitz, and Count Visconti, a purported Italian adventurer. The text outlines the forensic details of Visconti's death, the subsequent legal investigation, and the diplomatic ramifications that drew in several European powers, including Prussia, Spain, France, and the Holy Roman Empire. It also profiles the key individuals involved—Kesslitz, Visconti, Anna Maria Romellini (Visconti's mistress and Sanpelayo's lover), and Antoine Sanpelayo (the Spanish consul)—exploring their personal histories, motivations, and social contexts within 18th-century European society and politics. The sources reveal the complex interplay between personal narratives, legal procedures, social norms, and international relations in the era.
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You can listen and download our episodes for free on more than 10 different platforms:
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Get the Book now from Amazon:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay, let's dive in. Imagine stepping into a cold, stark
anatomy chamber in Hamburg. The date is October nineteenth, seventeen
seventy five. It's quiet, almost unnervingly.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
So, yeah, plinical chilling exactly.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
And there are these two physicians, Bolton and Crop, standing
over a body on a slab. It's a man looks
maybe in his forties, described as having a well formed body,
but it's horribly disfigured, horribly.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
They count twenty three fresh wounds, cuts, slashes, punctures, just brutal.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
And nine of those are actual stab wounds. Two of them,
the report says, are absolutely mortal. They went straight through
the heart.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
You can also say cuts on his hands, right, defensive
wounds suggests he fought back hard.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
He definitely did. And his face. The description just says
it was horribly mutilated. It's a shocking scene, it really is.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
And immediately makes you ask, I mean, the sheer number
of wounds, the ferocity, This wasn't random. It feels personal,
deeply personal, or maybe just a really desperate struggle.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Right, This isn't just any crime scene. It's the start
of something much bigger.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
M hmm. The whole historical drama unfolding.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Absolutely, so the big question, how did this man, who
they initially identify as Count Fisconti end up like this,
so brutally murdered.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
That's what we're digging into, because this.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Really isn't just a straightforward true crime story. It's well,
it's a deep dive into this incredibly tangled web involving sex,
the law, and some very high stakes diplomacy right across
eighteenth century Europe.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
It's got everything it does.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
We're gonna piece together what happened that night, introduce you
to the uh fascinating sometimes pretty scandalous people involved, and
they are fascinating, and show you how this like private
act of violence just completely spiraled into a major international incident.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
And here's a really key thing for understanding this whole
story and maybe history in general. Sometimes so much of
what we think we know comes from these conflicting.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Accounts, totally unreliable narrators.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Absolutely everyone involved, Wisconki's mistress or love, the man accused
of the killing, They altered their own version. Was it
a tragedy, a melodrama, maybe even a farce.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
They were building their own stories.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
They were constructing their memories, you know, shaping the narrative
as they spoke, often to protect themselves. So our job
and yours is the listener, is to sift through this
mosaic knowing that the truth here is.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Wow, it's complicated, okay, So let's set the scene backtrack
a bit to the evening before the body was found.
It's October eighteenth, seventeen seventy five, maybe five thirty pm. Joseph,
Count Fisconti, or so he's called, He's just been released
from arrest back in Bergamot, and he arrives in Hamburg
after traveling from Braunschwig. Okay, he gets a room pretty
(02:42):
quickly at an inn, the stott Cockenhagen, and literally the
first thing he does he sends his valet straight to
an address on the Neuer Wall, which was a very
fashionable street.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Heading somewhere specific. Then Whose place was it?
Speaker 1 (02:54):
It's the home of a woman named Anna Maria Romalini.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Ah.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Okay, the plot thickens, it does, and the moment Missconti
walks into her room, things apparently get heated. Immediately he
demands she pack her things and leave with him.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Now just like that, What does she say?
Speaker 1 (03:09):
She refuses? She tells him nothing there is actually hers.
It all belongs to another man on Kwanda, San Pelaio,
her lover.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Oooh okay, that probably didn't go down well, not at all.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Visconti is furious. He pulls out a knife, threatens to
slit open her belly. Whoo and get this, he apparently
reminds her he'd done exactly that to another woman in
Italy who he thought was unfaithful.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Okay, so this guy has a known history of extreme violence.
That's chilling and crucial context definitely.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Romalini is understandably terrified, so she sneakily sends her servant
out to find San Pelayo, her lover, telling him Visconti
is there and using her badly, trying to get back
up smart but sam Palio doesn't show up right away,
so she gets more desperate and sends her cook, this
time with another urgent message, find Joseph if Baron von
(04:01):
Keslitz and beg him to come immediately.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
So she's reaching out to another friend Keslits. Things just
to be escalating quickly.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
They are, But here's a twist. Romlini didn't know that
sam Pelio had actually gone to check on her earlier.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Oh what happened?
Speaker 1 (04:14):
He found out Visconti was still inside, but instead of
going in himself, he just turned around and went to
Dryer's coffee house.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Huh avoided the confrontation. Makes you wonder why doesn't it?
Was he scared.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Calculating It's hard to say. Dryers, though, was apparently the
place to be seen in Hamburg, a real social hub, nobles, intellectuals, merchants.
Everyone was there playing cards, billiards, gossiping.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Right the center of things.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
And that's where sam Palio finds his friend, Baron von Keslitz.
He's in the middle of a card game with a
Prussian lieutenant, a doctor, and a merchant.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
So sam Pelio interrupts this game.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Yeah. He pulls Keslitz aside, tells him Visconti is there,
maybe planning to abduct Ramalini, maybe steal property. He convinces
Keslotz to come with him, just to talk Visconti in
a friendly fashion, persuade him to leave peacefully.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
And Kesloitz agrees, I mean getting involved in someone else's
messy affair.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
He hesitated at first. Apparently Keslitz was a Prussian nobleman,
a former military officer probably didn't want to get dragged
into this, but you know, sam Palo was his friend,
so he eventually agreed.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Okay, so Keslitz and sam Pleo heads back to Romolini's place.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
They do, and Kesloitz, being maybe the more diplomatic of
the two, takes the lead. He speaks to Visconti in
very friendly terms, calls him my esteemed friend, tries to mediate.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Trying to de escalate.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
San Palo mostly silent, apparently just standing there while Keslitz
does the talking.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Interesting.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Keslitz suggests, look, if Romalini really is your wife, maybe
she should just leave with you now and sort out
her belongings later, you know, to avoid a bigger scandal,
save her reputation.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
He's reasonable on the surface.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
And surprisingly, after some discussion, Visconti actually agrees. They even
send the cook out to get a coach. It seems
like it might actually be resolved.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah. There's always a butt in these stories, isn't there.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Oh yeah, this calm moment, it was, as the record say,
just the calm before the storm. The coach arrives and
everything just explodes.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
What happens? How does it.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Turn Ssconti suddenly grabs Romalini tries to literally drag her
down the stairs.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Okay, so much for friendly a greep.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
She fights back, resists fiercely, so he grabs a small
pair of scissors they're just lying nearby, and stabs her
in the hand with them, wounds her palm and.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Fingers vicious just like that.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Then he twists her arms, apparently so violently she thought
they were dislocated, rips her dress, trim leans in close
and whispers these furious threats in Italian, something about her
and another person ending up panged, and all the while
he's glaring daggers at Sam Pelaio.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Wow, the rage is just palpable.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
He shoves her towards the window again, threatening to rip
her open if she doesn't leave with him right then.
Then he turns to Caslotz and says, basically, leave us alone,
let me and Saan Pelio sort this out.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Privately, which Keslotz refuses to do.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Why yes, he refuses. Then, as the struggle continues, Bisconti
reaches into his pocket as if for a weapon exactly.
Romolini screams, oh Jesus, he's drawing a knife. Keslitz quickly
pulls her away. Tells her to get out of the room.
San Pealo shouts he's gonna call the city watch, and
the coach driver downstairs, probably hearing the commotion, just gives
(07:21):
up and drives away.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Chaos, absolute chaos. What is Romolini? See?
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Her account is well specific, but maybe partial. She claims
Visconti actually missed her when he lunged. She thought he
was trying to stab her and accidentally struck Keslots in
the face with the blade instead.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Okay, that's a detail.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Then she fled, locked herself in her bedroom, started screaming
fire murder out the window to raise the alarm.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Smart move. Did you see anything else?
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Later, she says she peeked through the glass panel in
the door connecting her bedroom to the sitting room, and
she saw Keslots and sam Palio standing there looking stunned,
heads drooping, she said, and Visconti. Yes, Pisconti was lying
on the ground in his blood, with his head on
a chair cushion.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
So she saw the aftermath, yes, yeah, But critically, she
insisted she never saw Keslitz draw his sword.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Ah, that's huge. Her not seeing the sword drawn begins
a major point later, doesn't it, especially given the extent
of Asconti's injury.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Precisely because when you match her testimony or lack of
testimony on that point with the autopsy those twenty three wounds,
two fatal ones to the heart, it raises serious questions
about simple self defense.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Yeah, it sounds more like overkill or at least a prolonged,
frenzied attack. And with only Keslitz and sample Io in
the room with Wisconti, well looks bad. Two against one.
People immediately started suspecting conspiracy or maybe, like the prosecutor suggested,
a lust for revenge.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Which brings us neatly to the people involved. Let's unpack
who these individuals actually were, Starting with the victim, Count Wisconti.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
The accomplished adventurer, as some called him.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Right turns out, after the autopsy, they discovered he wasn't
noble at all, not of Ascanti. He was actually the
son of a barber from Milan.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Wow, so the title was completely fake.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Completely, He just adopted the name. Apparently it wasn't uncommon
back then for people working for or associated with big
families to just take their names. Yeah, with impunity, As
one source put it, so.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
He built this whole persona and tell you something about
social mobility, or at least the appearance of it. In
the eighteenth century, image was everything.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
He was described as a vagabond, card sharp, impostor and
thief and violent. We know about his history of scams
like cheating merchants in Breslau using fake bills of exchange, and.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
That reputation as an Italian knife fighter, apparently quite formidable,
even against several people at once.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Yes, and they found opium powder in his pocket. The
speculation was he might have used it, you know, to
kind of amp himself up, boost his stamina or courage
before a fight.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Which, of course Keslitz's lawyer Daytonhoff would later use strategically
paint Visconti. Is this almost superhuman adda visari to make
the self defense claim more plausible.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Exactly, It's all about crafting the narrative. Now, Anna Maria Romolini,
the court is on the courier. Her life is just
as complex.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
She really is a fascinating figure. Started as a singer
and dancer, apparently first debauched as the records rather Judgementalley
put it by Prince Poniatowski, brother of the King of
Poland when she was very young.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
And she had a daughter from that relationship, right.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
But what's really extraordinary is her side hustle, if you
can call it that. As a secret courier during the
bar Confederation rebellion.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
In Poland, she was carrying secret letters between Warsaw and Dresden,
sometimes dressed as a man.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yeah, dealing with top figures like Marshall Richelieu, who gave
her valuable gifts for delivering dispatches, and this Russian general
of Praxin apparently saw through her disguise pretty quickly, found
it amusing and gave her presents worth thousands of ducats.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
It's incredible. It shows that the kind of hidden roles
women could play, the risks they took, the agency they
found an unexpected way.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Absolutely, but her social position was always fragile, as a
mistress not a wife. Her value depended on keeping of appearances,
maintaining a degree of respectability.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
So any whiff of scandal, any suggestion she was just
a common whore, could ruin her relationship with sam Pelio,
cut off her support precisely.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
It threatened her entire existence, and later she made some
pretty serious accusations against Sampello herself right.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
She claimed he manipulated her by bringing her daughter to Hamburg,
playing on her maternal feelings, and then she said he
stole letters from her that supposedly proved his guilt in.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
The murder, which adds another layer of intrigue and betrayal
to the whole affair. Then there's Sampelio himself and Twanda Sampelio.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
The mercurial merchant consul. He was a successful Spanish merchant
in Hamburg, big in the linen trade with Bill Dao,
but his role.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
As a consul that was a bit murky, wasn't it.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Very people in Hamburg apparently saw it as mostly honorary
only in name. They thought of him as just a businessman,
though he did have significant protection from Spain's foreign minister Grimaldi.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
And that protection seems to have counted for a lot. Yeah,
the way he was treated during the investigation is striking,
it really is.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
He was never arrested, never charged as an accomplice, even
though he was right there. That really annoyed a lot
of people in Hamburg. Understandable you've seen out and about
even dining with the French minister Dela howse on the
very night Visconti was killed. People blamed his frivolous behavior
and scandalous libertinage for sparking the whole tragic event, Yet
he faced no consequences.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
It definitely seems like connections mattered a lot, which leaves us.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
With Keslotz Joseph von Keslitz, the brave, beleaguered cavalier, a
Prussian nobleman former military officer, served under Frederick the Great
in the Seven Years.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
War with distinction too. He fought bravely at places like
Kai and Freiburg. Prince Heinrich even gave him three hundred
reichstaller as a reward, a very significant amount of money
back then.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
But after the war, like many former soldiers, he struggled financially.
He ended up becoming a traveling gem dealer to make
ends meet, which.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
He insisted was still honorable for a nobleman right.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
And it was during these travels, specifically in Bresla, that
he first crossed paths with Wisconti, so they had.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
A prior connection. Now, the big question hanging over Keslitz
is self defense. How did his defense reconcile that twenty
three wounds on Visconti, with the fact that Keslitz himself
wasn't seriously hurt.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
That was the core legal battle. The prosecutor kept pushing back,
highlighting the two on one situation, suggesting it pointed towards
revenge rather than just defense.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
And Keslitz's background played a huge role in his defense strategy,
didn't it.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Absolutely. His lawyer argued that as a person of a
military condition, Keslitz was entitled to a broader interpretation of
self defense than an ordinary civilian might be his honor,
his training, it was all brought into play.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
So this local murder case is rapidly escalating. It's not
just about these individuals anymore. It's pulling in international powers
because of who they are and Hamburg's own unique situation exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Hamburg had this really complex legal system. There was constant
tension between the Senate, the city council, the top court
kind of the establishment, and then grit the lower court
with citizen judges.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
And those citizen judges were very protective of their civic
freedoms right they didn't like being pushed around.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Fiercely protective. This internal friction made Hamburg kind of vulnerable
when big outside powers started leaning on them, and then.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
There was the gas in Wrect tell us about that, Ah.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Yes, that was a public proclamation of the details of
a murder, read out loud in the streets. It wasn't
just a legal step. It was a major public shaming.
It could completely destroy someone's reputation, and.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Prussia desperately wanted to avoid that.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
For Keslotz vigorously. They called it a mere convention, but
they knew the damage it would do to the honor
of a Prussian nobleman and officer. They fought tooth and
nail to prevent it.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
So Prussia gets involved. Frederick the Great himself is concerned.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Deeply concerned. Keslitz was his subject to his former officer.
Prussia saw it as a matter of national honor, but
also an opportunity, an opportunity yeah, to assert influence over Hamburg.
It tied into economic interest too, like the Silesian linen
trade that flowed through the city. They'd had diplomatic clashes
with Hamburg before, like the Kochlitz case involving another Prussian lieutenant,
(15:24):
so they knew how to apply pressure.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
And it wasn't just Pressia leaning on Hamburg.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Was it no way San Palo had his powerful connection
in Madrid, the Foreign Minister Grimaldi. So Spain got involved,
demanding protection for their consul or quasi console in France.
France didn't have its own minister in Hamburg then, so
they ended up mediating. But the French minister who handled it,
de la House, was seen as being very pro Sampileo.
(15:48):
Other diplomats accused him of clear favoritism.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
So you've got Hamburg, this small independent city state, this
republican island in a monarchical ocean, trying to assert its
own sovereignty while being squeezed by Prussia, Spain in France.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
It became this huge diplomatic battleground, layered on top of
the murder investigation and the internal squabbles between the Senate
and the citizen courts just made everything even more complicated.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
What a mess. So how did it all resolve for
the main players? What happened to Keslitz?
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Well, after more than seven months locked up quite a
long time, the higher court eventually confirmed the lower court's decision.
Keslitz had to swear the urfed, which was a formal
oath promising never to seek revenge or cause any more
trouble related to this incident.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Okay, a standard procedure in some ways, and then.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
He was released. Interestingly, the city praters ended up covering
most of his legal costs and expenses, which were enormous,
over five thy seven hundred marks. That kind of sum
would have bankrupted most people.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
So he walks free eventually. What about Sampalo?
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Sampalaya remained free throughout He even actively worked to silence
Romolini afterwards.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
How So, she.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Tried to publish those letters she had, the one she
claimed proved his guilt while she was in Holland, but
the Spanish ambassador there stepped in, confiscated the letters and
sent them back to Samplio.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Wow, so her story gets completely suppressed, buried by diplomatic intervention.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Effectively, Yes, her chance for any kind of public hearing
or vindication was just shut down.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Which brings us back to that central theme, the elusive
nature of truth in all this.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Absolutely, even with all the testimonies, the autopsy, the diplomatic notes,
what really happened in that room between Visconti, Keslitz and
sam Pleo, we just can't know for sure.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
It's multiple truths, isn't it. Each person's story, shaped by
their motives, their fears, their own fictions in the archives.
As the historian who study this put it.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
It's a perfect phrase for it. But this whole affair,
this very personal tragedy, it became a huge sensation across Europe,
a real cause, celeb more than.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Just a lured crime story. It tapped into all these
anxieties and interests of the time about honor, status, the
power of nations, the rights of citizens, the roles of
men and women.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
It really flex those broader societal shifts and prejudices, showing
how individual lives get caught up in these grand historical forces. Diplomacy, honor, ambition,
it's all there.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
It's a potent mix.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
So reflecting on all this centuries later, what does the
steep dive into one bloody night in Hamburg tell us,
I think it shows just how tightly human passions, social
rank and political games were woven together.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Yeah, shaping not just the outcome of a murder case,
but how people saw themselves, how truth itself was defined
and contested.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
It really makes you think, doesn't it, how much of
our own stories, the ones we tell ourselves, the ones
we tell other people, are built not just on hard facts,
but on the narratives we choose, the way we frame things.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
That's a really interesting point. We all construct narratives, consciously
or not.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Maybe as you go about your day, think about the
stories you hear, the ones you tell. Where do you
see those elements playing out? The tragedy, the melodrama, maybe
even the farce. It's only something to chew on.
Okay, let's dive in. Imagine stepping into a cold, stark
anatomy chamber in Hamburg. The date is October nineteenth, seventeen
seventy five. It's quiet, almost unnervingly.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
So, yeah, plinical chilling exactly.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
And there are these two physicians, Bolton and Crop, standing
over a body on a slab. It's a man looks
maybe in his forties, described as having a well formed body,
but it's horribly disfigured, horribly.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
They count twenty three fresh wounds, cuts, slashes, punctures, just brutal.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
And nine of those are actual stab wounds. Two of them,
the report says, are absolutely mortal. They went straight through
the heart.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
You can also say cuts on his hands, right, defensive
wounds suggests he fought back hard.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
He definitely did. And his face. The description just says
it was horribly mutilated. It's a shocking scene, it really is.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
And immediately makes you ask, I mean, the sheer number
of wounds, the ferocity, This wasn't random. It feels personal,
deeply personal, or maybe just a really desperate struggle.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Right, This isn't just any crime scene. It's the start
of something much bigger.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
M hmm. The whole historical drama unfolding.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Absolutely, so the big question, how did this man, who
they initially identify as Count Fisconti end up like this,
so brutally murdered.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
That's what we're digging into, because this.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Really isn't just a straightforward true crime story. It's well,
it's a deep dive into this incredibly tangled web involving sex,
the law, and some very high stakes diplomacy right across
eighteenth century Europe.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
It's got everything it does.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
We're gonna piece together what happened that night, introduce you
to the uh fascinating sometimes pretty scandalous people involved, and
they are fascinating, and show you how this like private
act of violence just completely spiraled into a major international incident.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
And here's a really key thing for understanding this whole
story and maybe history in general. Sometimes so much of
what we think we know comes from these conflicting.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Accounts, totally unreliable narrators.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Absolutely everyone involved, Wisconki's mistress or love, the man accused
of the killing, They altered their own version. Was it
a tragedy, a melodrama, maybe even a farce.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
They were building their own stories.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
They were constructing their memories, you know, shaping the narrative
as they spoke, often to protect themselves. So our job
and yours is the listener, is to sift through this
mosaic knowing that the truth here is.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Wow, it's complicated, okay, So let's set the scene backtrack
a bit to the evening before the body was found.
It's October eighteenth, seventeen seventy five, maybe five thirty pm. Joseph,
Count Fisconti, or so he's called, He's just been released
from arrest back in Bergamot, and he arrives in Hamburg
after traveling from Braunschwig. Okay, he gets a room pretty
(02:42):
quickly at an inn, the stott Cockenhagen, and literally the
first thing he does he sends his valet straight to
an address on the Neuer Wall, which was a very
fashionable street.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Heading somewhere specific. Then Whose place was it?
Speaker 1 (02:54):
It's the home of a woman named Anna Maria Romalini.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Ah.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Okay, the plot thickens, it does, and the moment Missconti
walks into her room, things apparently get heated. Immediately he
demands she pack her things and leave with him.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Now just like that, What does she say?
Speaker 1 (03:09):
She refuses? She tells him nothing there is actually hers.
It all belongs to another man on Kwanda, San Pelaio,
her lover.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Oooh okay, that probably didn't go down well, not at all.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Visconti is furious. He pulls out a knife, threatens to
slit open her belly. Whoo and get this, he apparently
reminds her he'd done exactly that to another woman in
Italy who he thought was unfaithful.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Okay, so this guy has a known history of extreme violence.
That's chilling and crucial context definitely.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Romalini is understandably terrified, so she sneakily sends her servant
out to find San Pelayo, her lover, telling him Visconti
is there and using her badly, trying to get back
up smart but sam Palio doesn't show up right away,
so she gets more desperate and sends her cook, this
time with another urgent message, find Joseph if Baron von
(04:01):
Keslitz and beg him to come immediately.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
So she's reaching out to another friend Keslits. Things just
to be escalating quickly.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
They are, But here's a twist. Romlini didn't know that
sam Pelio had actually gone to check on her earlier.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Oh what happened?
Speaker 1 (04:14):
He found out Visconti was still inside, but instead of
going in himself, he just turned around and went to
Dryer's coffee house.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Huh avoided the confrontation. Makes you wonder why doesn't it?
Was he scared.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Calculating It's hard to say. Dryers, though, was apparently the
place to be seen in Hamburg, a real social hub, nobles, intellectuals, merchants.
Everyone was there playing cards, billiards, gossiping.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Right the center of things.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
And that's where sam Palio finds his friend, Baron von Keslitz.
He's in the middle of a card game with a
Prussian lieutenant, a doctor, and a merchant.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
So sam Pelio interrupts this game.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Yeah. He pulls Keslitz aside, tells him Visconti is there,
maybe planning to abduct Ramalini, maybe steal property. He convinces
Keslotz to come with him, just to talk Visconti in
a friendly fashion, persuade him to leave peacefully.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
And Kesloitz agrees, I mean getting involved in someone else's
messy affair.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
He hesitated at first. Apparently Keslitz was a Prussian nobleman,
a former military officer probably didn't want to get dragged
into this, but you know, sam Palo was his friend,
so he eventually agreed.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Okay, so Keslitz and sam Pleo heads back to Romolini's place.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
They do, and Kesloitz, being maybe the more diplomatic of
the two, takes the lead. He speaks to Visconti in
very friendly terms, calls him my esteemed friend, tries to mediate.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Trying to de escalate.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
San Palo mostly silent, apparently just standing there while Keslitz
does the talking.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Interesting.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Keslitz suggests, look, if Romalini really is your wife, maybe
she should just leave with you now and sort out
her belongings later, you know, to avoid a bigger scandal,
save her reputation.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
He's reasonable on the surface.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
And surprisingly, after some discussion, Visconti actually agrees. They even
send the cook out to get a coach. It seems
like it might actually be resolved.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah. There's always a butt in these stories, isn't there.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Oh yeah, this calm moment, it was, as the record say,
just the calm before the storm. The coach arrives and
everything just explodes.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
What happens? How does it.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Turn Ssconti suddenly grabs Romalini tries to literally drag her
down the stairs.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Okay, so much for friendly a greep.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
She fights back, resists fiercely, so he grabs a small
pair of scissors they're just lying nearby, and stabs her
in the hand with them, wounds her palm and.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Fingers vicious just like that.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Then he twists her arms, apparently so violently she thought
they were dislocated, rips her dress, trim leans in close
and whispers these furious threats in Italian, something about her
and another person ending up panged, and all the while
he's glaring daggers at Sam Pelaio.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Wow, the rage is just palpable.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
He shoves her towards the window again, threatening to rip
her open if she doesn't leave with him right then.
Then he turns to Caslotz and says, basically, leave us alone,
let me and Saan Pelio sort this out.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Privately, which Keslotz refuses to do.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Why yes, he refuses. Then, as the struggle continues, Bisconti
reaches into his pocket as if for a weapon exactly.
Romolini screams, oh Jesus, he's drawing a knife. Keslitz quickly
pulls her away. Tells her to get out of the room.
San Pealo shouts he's gonna call the city watch, and
the coach driver downstairs, probably hearing the commotion, just gives
(07:21):
up and drives away.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Chaos, absolute chaos. What is Romolini? See?
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Her account is well specific, but maybe partial. She claims
Visconti actually missed her when he lunged. She thought he
was trying to stab her and accidentally struck Keslots in
the face with the blade instead.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Okay, that's a detail.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Then she fled, locked herself in her bedroom, started screaming
fire murder out the window to raise the alarm.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Smart move. Did you see anything else?
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Later, she says she peeked through the glass panel in
the door connecting her bedroom to the sitting room, and
she saw Keslots and sam Palio standing there looking stunned,
heads drooping, she said, and Visconti. Yes, Pisconti was lying
on the ground in his blood, with his head on
a chair cushion.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
So she saw the aftermath, yes, yeah, But critically, she
insisted she never saw Keslitz draw his sword.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Ah, that's huge. Her not seeing the sword drawn begins
a major point later, doesn't it, especially given the extent
of Asconti's injury.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Precisely because when you match her testimony or lack of
testimony on that point with the autopsy those twenty three wounds,
two fatal ones to the heart, it raises serious questions
about simple self defense.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Yeah, it sounds more like overkill or at least a prolonged,
frenzied attack. And with only Keslitz and sample Io in
the room with Wisconti, well looks bad. Two against one.
People immediately started suspecting conspiracy or maybe, like the prosecutor suggested,
a lust for revenge.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Which brings us neatly to the people involved. Let's unpack
who these individuals actually were, Starting with the victim, Count Wisconti.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
The accomplished adventurer, as some called him.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Right turns out, after the autopsy, they discovered he wasn't
noble at all, not of Ascanti. He was actually the
son of a barber from Milan.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Wow, so the title was completely fake.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Completely, He just adopted the name. Apparently it wasn't uncommon
back then for people working for or associated with big
families to just take their names. Yeah, with impunity, As
one source put it, so.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
He built this whole persona and tell you something about
social mobility, or at least the appearance of it. In
the eighteenth century, image was everything.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
He was described as a vagabond, card sharp, impostor and
thief and violent. We know about his history of scams
like cheating merchants in Breslau using fake bills of exchange, and.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
That reputation as an Italian knife fighter, apparently quite formidable,
even against several people at once.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Yes, and they found opium powder in his pocket. The
speculation was he might have used it, you know, to
kind of amp himself up, boost his stamina or courage
before a fight.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Which, of course Keslitz's lawyer Daytonhoff would later use strategically
paint Visconti. Is this almost superhuman adda visari to make
the self defense claim more plausible.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Exactly, It's all about crafting the narrative. Now, Anna Maria Romolini,
the court is on the courier. Her life is just
as complex.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
She really is a fascinating figure. Started as a singer
and dancer, apparently first debauched as the records rather Judgementalley
put it by Prince Poniatowski, brother of the King of
Poland when she was very young.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
And she had a daughter from that relationship, right.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
But what's really extraordinary is her side hustle, if you
can call it that. As a secret courier during the
bar Confederation rebellion.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
In Poland, she was carrying secret letters between Warsaw and Dresden,
sometimes dressed as a man.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yeah, dealing with top figures like Marshall Richelieu, who gave
her valuable gifts for delivering dispatches, and this Russian general
of Praxin apparently saw through her disguise pretty quickly, found
it amusing and gave her presents worth thousands of ducats.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
It's incredible. It shows that the kind of hidden roles
women could play, the risks they took, the agency they
found an unexpected way.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Absolutely, but her social position was always fragile, as a
mistress not a wife. Her value depended on keeping of appearances,
maintaining a degree of respectability.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
So any whiff of scandal, any suggestion she was just
a common whore, could ruin her relationship with sam Pelio,
cut off her support precisely.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
It threatened her entire existence, and later she made some
pretty serious accusations against Sampello herself right.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
She claimed he manipulated her by bringing her daughter to Hamburg,
playing on her maternal feelings, and then she said he
stole letters from her that supposedly proved his guilt in.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
The murder, which adds another layer of intrigue and betrayal
to the whole affair. Then there's Sampelio himself and Twanda Sampelio.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
The mercurial merchant consul. He was a successful Spanish merchant
in Hamburg, big in the linen trade with Bill Dao,
but his role.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
As a consul that was a bit murky, wasn't it.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Very people in Hamburg apparently saw it as mostly honorary
only in name. They thought of him as just a businessman,
though he did have significant protection from Spain's foreign minister Grimaldi.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
And that protection seems to have counted for a lot. Yeah,
the way he was treated during the investigation is striking,
it really is.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
He was never arrested, never charged as an accomplice, even
though he was right there. That really annoyed a lot
of people in Hamburg. Understandable you've seen out and about
even dining with the French minister Dela howse on the
very night Visconti was killed. People blamed his frivolous behavior
and scandalous libertinage for sparking the whole tragic event, Yet
he faced no consequences.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
It definitely seems like connections mattered a lot, which leaves us.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
With Keslotz Joseph von Keslitz, the brave, beleaguered cavalier, a
Prussian nobleman former military officer, served under Frederick the Great
in the Seven Years.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
War with distinction too. He fought bravely at places like
Kai and Freiburg. Prince Heinrich even gave him three hundred
reichstaller as a reward, a very significant amount of money
back then.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
But after the war, like many former soldiers, he struggled financially.
He ended up becoming a traveling gem dealer to make
ends meet, which.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
He insisted was still honorable for a nobleman right.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
And it was during these travels, specifically in Bresla, that
he first crossed paths with Wisconti, so they had.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
A prior connection. Now, the big question hanging over Keslitz
is self defense. How did his defense reconcile that twenty
three wounds on Visconti, with the fact that Keslitz himself
wasn't seriously hurt.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
That was the core legal battle. The prosecutor kept pushing back,
highlighting the two on one situation, suggesting it pointed towards
revenge rather than just defense.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
And Keslitz's background played a huge role in his defense strategy,
didn't it.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Absolutely. His lawyer argued that as a person of a
military condition, Keslitz was entitled to a broader interpretation of
self defense than an ordinary civilian might be his honor,
his training, it was all brought into play.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
So this local murder case is rapidly escalating. It's not
just about these individuals anymore. It's pulling in international powers
because of who they are and Hamburg's own unique situation exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Hamburg had this really complex legal system. There was constant
tension between the Senate, the city council, the top court
kind of the establishment, and then grit the lower court
with citizen judges.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
And those citizen judges were very protective of their civic
freedoms right they didn't like being pushed around.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Fiercely protective. This internal friction made Hamburg kind of vulnerable
when big outside powers started leaning on them, and then.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
There was the gas in Wrect tell us about that, Ah.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Yes, that was a public proclamation of the details of
a murder, read out loud in the streets. It wasn't
just a legal step. It was a major public shaming.
It could completely destroy someone's reputation, and.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Prussia desperately wanted to avoid that.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
For Keslotz vigorously. They called it a mere convention, but
they knew the damage it would do to the honor
of a Prussian nobleman and officer. They fought tooth and
nail to prevent it.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
So Prussia gets involved. Frederick the Great himself is concerned.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Deeply concerned. Keslitz was his subject to his former officer.
Prussia saw it as a matter of national honor, but
also an opportunity, an opportunity yeah, to assert influence over Hamburg.
It tied into economic interest too, like the Silesian linen
trade that flowed through the city. They'd had diplomatic clashes
with Hamburg before, like the Kochlitz case involving another Prussian lieutenant,
(15:24):
so they knew how to apply pressure.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
And it wasn't just Pressia leaning on Hamburg.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Was it no way San Palo had his powerful connection
in Madrid, the Foreign Minister Grimaldi. So Spain got involved,
demanding protection for their consul or quasi console in France.
France didn't have its own minister in Hamburg then, so
they ended up mediating. But the French minister who handled it,
de la House, was seen as being very pro Sampileo.
(15:48):
Other diplomats accused him of clear favoritism.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
So you've got Hamburg, this small independent city state, this
republican island in a monarchical ocean, trying to assert its
own sovereignty while being squeezed by Prussia, Spain in France.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
It became this huge diplomatic battleground, layered on top of
the murder investigation and the internal squabbles between the Senate
and the citizen courts just made everything even more complicated.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
What a mess. So how did it all resolve for
the main players? What happened to Keslitz?
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Well, after more than seven months locked up quite a
long time, the higher court eventually confirmed the lower court's decision.
Keslitz had to swear the urfed, which was a formal
oath promising never to seek revenge or cause any more
trouble related to this incident.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Okay, a standard procedure in some ways, and then.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
He was released. Interestingly, the city praters ended up covering
most of his legal costs and expenses, which were enormous,
over five thy seven hundred marks. That kind of sum
would have bankrupted most people.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
So he walks free eventually. What about Sampalo?
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Sampalaya remained free throughout He even actively worked to silence
Romolini afterwards.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
How So, she.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Tried to publish those letters she had, the one she
claimed proved his guilt while she was in Holland, but
the Spanish ambassador there stepped in, confiscated the letters and
sent them back to Samplio.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Wow, so her story gets completely suppressed, buried by diplomatic intervention.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Effectively, Yes, her chance for any kind of public hearing
or vindication was just shut down.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Which brings us back to that central theme, the elusive
nature of truth in all this.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Absolutely, even with all the testimonies, the autopsy, the diplomatic notes,
what really happened in that room between Visconti, Keslitz and
sam Pleo, we just can't know for sure.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
It's multiple truths, isn't it. Each person's story, shaped by
their motives, their fears, their own fictions in the archives.
As the historian who study this put it.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
It's a perfect phrase for it. But this whole affair,
this very personal tragedy, it became a huge sensation across Europe,
a real cause, celeb more than.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Just a lured crime story. It tapped into all these
anxieties and interests of the time about honor, status, the
power of nations, the rights of citizens, the roles of
men and women.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
It really flex those broader societal shifts and prejudices, showing
how individual lives get caught up in these grand historical forces. Diplomacy, honor, ambition,
it's all there.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
It's a potent mix.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
So reflecting on all this centuries later, what does the
steep dive into one bloody night in Hamburg tell us,
I think it shows just how tightly human passions, social
rank and political games were woven together.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Yeah, shaping not just the outcome of a murder case,
but how people saw themselves, how truth itself was defined
and contested.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
It really makes you think, doesn't it, how much of
our own stories, the ones we tell ourselves, the ones
we tell other people, are built not just on hard facts,
but on the narratives we choose, the way we frame things.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
That's a really interesting point. We all construct narratives, consciously
or not.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Maybe as you go about your day, think about the
stories you hear, the ones you tell. Where do you
see those elements playing out? The tragedy, the melodrama, maybe
even the farce. It's only something to chew on.
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