The woman at the centre of the poisoning network was Giovanna de Grandis. Her main income was as a cavamacchia, someone who removed stains from clothes. Giovanna was friends with a Sicilian widow called Girolama Spana who had learnt the recipes for the poison from her stepmother. Women of this kind often show up in the criminal archives, either widowed or simply abandoned by their husbands, often with children in tow; they were poor and skirted on the edge of destitution. They worked as laundresses, sellers of ‘secrets’ – cosmetics, love charms, magic – or as procurers for younger women. Aqua
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