he 10th century,
their place being taken by four "judges" of the four provinces, Cagliari,
Torres, Arborea and Gallura. In the 12th century Musatto, a Saracen,
established himself in Cagliari, but was driven out with the help of the
Pisans and Genoese. The Pisans soon acquired the sovereignty over the whole
island with the exception of Arborea, which continued to be independent. In
1297 Boniface VIII. invested the kings of Aragon with Sardinia, and in 1326
they finally drove the Pisans out of Cagliari, and made it the seat of
their government. In 1348 the island was devastated by the plague described
by Boccaccio. It was not until 1403 that the kings of Aragon were able to
conquer the district of Arborea, which, under the celebrated Eleonora
(whose code of laws--the so-called _Carta de Logu_--was famous), offered a
heroic resistance. In 1479 the native princes were deprived of all
independence. The island remained in the hands of Spain until the peace of
Utrecht (1714), by which it was assigned to Austria. In 1720 it was ceded
by the latter, in exchange for Sicily, to the duke of Savoy, who assumed
the title of king of Sardinia (Cagliari continuing to be the seat of
government), and this remained the title of the house of Savoy until 1861.
Cagliari was bombarded by the French fleet in 1793, but Napoleon's attempt
to take the island failed.

(T. AS.)

CAGLIOSTRO, ALESSANDRO, COUNT (1743-1793), Italian alchemist and impostor,
was born at Palermo on the 8th of June 1743. Giuseppe Balsamo--for such was
the "count's" real name--gave early indications of those talents which
afterwards gained for him so wide a notoriety. He received the rudiments of
his education at the monastery of Caltagirone in Sicily, but was expelled
from it for misconduct and disowned by his relations. He now signalized
himself by his dissolute life and the ingenuity with which he contrived to
perpetrate forgeries and other crimes without exposing himself to the risk
of detection. Having at last got into trouble with the authorities he fled
from Sicily, and visited in succession Greece, Egypt, Arabia, Persia,
Rhodes--where he took lessons in alchemy and the cognate sciences from the
Greek Althotas--and Malta. There he presented himself to the grand master
of the Maltese order as Count Cagliostro, and curried favour with him as a
fellow alchemist, for the grand master's tastes lay in the same direction.
From him he obtained introductions to the great hous