Count Fosco Character Analysis

By Stephen Bray

Isidor, Ottavio, Baldassare Fosco, Count of the Holy Roman Empire, Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Brazen Crown, Perpetual Arch-Master of the Rosicrucian Masons of Mesopotamia; Attached (in Honorary Capacities) to Societies Musical, Societies Medical, Societies Philosophical, and Societies General Benevolent, throughout Europe is the most remarkable character in 'The Woman In White by Wilkie Collins.

Let us examine his titles, for if they are true they immediately present an enigma. Fosco is firstly a Count of the Holy Roman Empire. Pope Pius IX was the longest reigning Pope in history and the great antagonist of Italian unity. During his reign the firing squads and the scaffolds were kept busy day and night. He ruled individual states through division upon which he relied so greatly that he would not allow railways to be built in Papal States!

Opposition to the Papal States was violently suppressed. Therefore institutions of opposition were inevitably secret. For example on Sicily the Mafia started as a secret society. But another society opposed by the Church is that of Freemasonry. It would, of course, be possible to be both a Count of The Holy Roman Empire, and also the possessor of the title 'Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Brazen Crown', which is clearly an order of Freemasonry, but to list both on a witness statement, as Fosco does would stretch the credulity of any serious scholar knowlegable of these matters.

Was Count Cagliostro
The Model For Fosco?

In all probability Fosco's character is modelled upon that of Giuseppe Balsamo, (1743 ~ 1795). Balsamo assumed the title of 'Count' and the name Alessandro  Cagliostro. A street-smart child living on the streets of Palermo, Cagliostro committed a series of minor crimes in his youth and as a result fled Sicily travelling through Greece, Egypt, Persia, Arabia, and Rhodes. Apparently he studied alchemy.

Fosco claims to be an Arch-Master of the Roiscrucian Masons of Mesopotamia, and area named by the ancient Greeks, and situated between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in modern Iraq. Both rivers begin in modern Turkey. In other words the title infers that Fosco has travelled in the same region is the real Cagliostro.