In early 1768 Balsamo left for Rome, where he managed to land himself a job as a secretary to Cardinal Orsini. The job proved boring to Balsamo and he soon started leading a double life, selling magical "Egyptian" amulets and engravings pasted on boards and painted over to look like paintings. Of the many Sicilian expatriates and ex-convicts he met during this period, one introduced him to a seventeen-year-old girl named Lorenza Seraphina Feliciani (ca. 8 April 1751 – 1794), known as "Serafina", whom he married 1768.