Giacomo Casanova Biography - Infos - Art Market Venedig 1725 - Dux 1798 Giacomo Girolamo Casanova was an Italian adventurer, writer and womanizer. Born on April 2, 1725 in Venice, he began a career as a cleric because his guardian, his grandmother, wished it. He studied theology and law in Padua. After he finished his studies, Casanova went to Rome and met Pope Benedict XIV, who learned to value him because of his conviviality. However, a love affair forced Casanova to leave Rome. Casanova returned to Venice and became a petty officer. Even so, blasphemous statements and amorous adventures with two nuns gave him a sentence of five yearsï¿½ imprisonment in 1755. Fifteen months later came Casanovaï¿½s legendary escape from the lead chambers in Venice. Forced into exile, Casanova led from now on an even more nomadic, varied life that would give him material for his stories. He gave himself the title "Chevalier de Seingalt" and became a beloved guest and companion at the most elegant courts in Europe.

The metropolises Paris, Rome, Madrid, Berlin and St. Petersburg were Casanovaï¿½s stopping points, among others, after 1757. He also met famous contemporaries such as Voltaire, Louis XV, Friedrich the Great, Catherine the Great and Pope Clement XIII. Gambling debts and erotic intrigues however forced Casanova to constantly and quickly change his location. Casanovaï¿½s relationship to the city of his birth, Venice, remained strained. After he was permitted to return in 1772, he found employment first as a theater director and a Venetian secret agent. However, tensions with the censorship board caused Casanovaï¿½s permanent departure from Venice. In 1785, Casanova finally settled down. As librarian for the Bohemian Count Waldstein, Casanova was able to devote himself above all to writing down the story of his eventful life at Castle Duchcov, beginning in 1790. His memoirs became a classic of erotic literature. Giacomo Girolamo Casanova died in Duchcov on June 4, 1798.

Giacomo Casanova - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Giacomo Casanova "Casanova" redirects here. For other uses, see Casanova (disambiguation) . Giacomo Casanova Gaetano Giuseppe Casanova Zanetta Farussi Giacomo Girolamo Casanova de Seingalt (April 2, 1725 – June 4, 1798) was a Venetian adventurer and author . His main book Histoire de ma vie (Story of My Life), part autobiography and part memoir , is regarded as one of the most authentic sources of the customs and norms of European social life during the 18th century. So famous a womanizer was he that his name remains synonymous with the art of seduction and he is sometimes called "the world's greatest lover". He enjoyed the company of European royalty, popes and cardinals, along with men such as Voltaire , Goethe and Mozart ; but if he had not been obliged to spend some years as a librarian in the household of Count Waldstein of Bohemia (where he relieved his boredom by writing the story of his life), he would probably be forgotten today.

Contents [ edit ] Youth Giacomo Girolamo Casanova was born in Venice in 1725 to actress Zanetta Farussi, wife of actor and dancer Gaetano Giuseppe Casanova. Giacomo was the first of six children, being followed by Giovanni (1730–1795), Faustina Maddalena (1731–1736), Maria Maddalena Antonia Stella (1732–1800), Gaetano Alvise (1734–1783), and Francesco (1737–1803). [1] Because of his mother's profession, it is suspected that some or all of these were fathered by men other than her husband. Casanova himself suspected his biological father to have been Michele Grimani, a member of the patrician family that owned the San Samuele theatre where Zanetta and Gaetano had worked. [2] Lending support to this, Grimani’s brother Abbé Alvise Grimani, became Casanova’s guardian.

[3] In his memoirs, however, Casanova provides an elaborate paternal genealogy to explain his birth, beginning in Spain in 1428. [4] The Republic of Venice during Casanova’s time was past its peak as a naval and commercial power. Instead Venice thrived as the pleasure capital of Europe, ruled by political and religious conservatives who tolerated social vices and encouraged tourism. It was a required stop on the Grand Tour , traveled by young men coming of age, especially Englishmen. The famed Carnival , gambling houses, and beautiful courtesans were powerful drawing cards. This was the milieu that bred Casanova and made him its most famous and representative citizen. [5] Casanova was cared for by his grandmother Marzia Baldissera while his mother toured about Europe in the theater. His father died when he was eight. As a child, Casanova suffered nosebleeds, and his grandmother sought help from a witch: “Leaving the gondola, we enter a hovel, where we find an old woman sitting on a pallet, with a black cat in her arms and five or six others around her.” [6] Though the unguent applied was ineffective, Casanova was fascinated by the incantation.

[7] Perhaps to remedy the nosebleeds (a physician blamed the density of Venice’s air), Casanova, on his ninth birthday, was sent to a boarding house on the mainland in Padua . For Casanova, the neglect by his parents was a bitter memory. “So they got rid of me,” he proclaimed flatly. [8] Conditions at the boarding house were appalling so he appealed to be placed under the care of Abbé Gozzi, his primary instructor, who tutored him in academic subjects as well as the violin. Casanova moved in with the priest and his family and lived there through most of his teenage years. [9] It was also in the Gozzi household that Casanova first came into contact with the opposite sex, when Gozzi’s younger sister Bettina fondled him at the age of eleven. Bettina was “pretty, lighthearted, and a great reader of romances. … The girl pleased me at once, though I had no idea why.

It was she who little by little kindled in my heart the first sparks of a feeling which later became my ruling passion.” [10] Although she subsequently married, Casanova maintained a life-long attachment to Bettina and the Gozzi family. [11] Early on, Casanova demonstrated a quick wit, an intense appetite for knowledge, and a perpetually inquisitive mind. He entered the University of Padua at twelve and graduated at seventeen, in 1742, with a degree in law (“for which I felt an unconquerable aversion”). [12] It was his guardian’s hope that he would become an ecclesiastical lawyer. [13] Casanova had also studied moral philosophy, chemistry, and mathematics, and was keenly interested in medicine. (“I should have been allowed to do as I wished and become a physician, in which profession quackery is even more effective than it is in legal practice.” [14] ) He frequently prescribed his own treatments for himself and friends. [15] While attending the university, Casanova began to gamble and quickly got into debt, causing his recall to Venice by his grandmother, but the gambling habit became firmly established.

Back in Venice, Casanova started his clerical law career and was admitted as an abbé after being conferred minor orders by the Patriarch of Venice. He shuttled back and forth to Padua to continue his university studies. By now, he had become something of a dandy—tall and dark, his long hair powdered, scented, and elaborately curled. He quickly ingratiated himself with a patron (something he was to do all his life), 76-year-old Venetian senator Alvise Gasparo Malipiero, the owner of Palazzo Malipiero , close to Casanova’s home in Venice. [16] Malipiero moved in the best circles and taught young Casanova a great deal about good food and wine, and how to behave in society. When Casanova was caught dallying with Malipero’s intended object of seduction, actress Teresa Imer, however, the senator drove both of them from his house. [17] Casanova’s growing curiosity about women led to his first complete sexual experience, with two sisters Nanetta and Maria Savorgnan, then fourteen and sixteen, who were distant relatives of the Grimanis.

Casanova proclaimed that his life avocation was firmly established by this encounter. [18] [ edit ] Early careers in Italy and abroad Scandals tainted Casanova’s short church career. After his grandmother’s death, Casanova entered a seminary for a short while, but soon his indebtedness landed him in prison for the first time. An attempt by his mother to secure him a position with bishop Bernardo de Bernardis was rejected by Casanova. [19] Instead, he found employment as a scribe with the powerful Cardinal Acquaviva in Rome . On meeting the Pope , Casanova boldly asked for a dispensation to read the “forbidden books” and from eating fish (which he claimed inflamed his eyes). He also composed love letters for another cardinal. But when Casanova became the scapegoat for a scandal involving a local pair of star-crossed lovers, Cardinal Acquaviva dismissed Casanova, thanking him for his sacrifice, but effectively ending his church career. [20] In search of a new profession, Casanova bought a commission to become a military officer for the Republic of Venice .

His first step was to look the part: Reflecting that there was now little likelihood of my achieving fortune in my ecclesiastical career, I decided to dress as a soldier … I inquire for a good tailor … he brings me everything I need to impersonate a follower of Mars. … My uniform was white, with a blue vest, a shoulder knot of silver and gold… I bought a long sword, and with my handsome cane in hand, a trim hat with a black cockade, with my hair cut in side whiskers and a long false pigtail, I set forth to impress the whole city. [21] He went to Corfu , after which he was stationed for a short period in Constantinople . [22] He found his advancement too slow and his duty boring, and he managed to lose most of his pay playing faro . Casanova soon abandoned his military career and returned to Venice. At the age of 21, he set out to become a professional gambler but losing all his remaining money from the sale of his commission, he turned to his old benefactor Alvise Grimani for a job.

Casanova thus began his third career, as a violinist in the San Samuele theater, “a menial journeyman of a sublime art in which, if he who excels is admired, the mediocrity is rightly despised. ... My profession was not a noble one, but I did not care. Calling everything prejudice, I soon acquired all the habits of my degraded fellow musicians.” [23] He and some of his fellows, “often spent our nights roaming through different quarters of the city, thinking up the most scandalous practical jokes and putting them into execution ... we amused ourselves by untying the gondolas moored before private homes, which then drifted with the current”. They also sent midwives and physicians on false calls. [24] Unhappy with his lot as a musician, good fortune came to the rescue when Casanova saved the life of a Venetian nobleman of the Bragadin family, who had a stroke while riding with Casanova in a gondola after a wedding ball. They immediately stopped to have the senator bled.

Then, at the senator’s palace, a physician bled the senator again and applied an ointment of mercury to the senator’s chest (mercury was an all-purpose but toxic remedy of the time). The mercury raised his temperature and induced a massive fever, and Bragadin appeared to be choking on his own swollen windpipe . A priest was called as death seemed to be approaching. Casanova, however, took charge and taking responsibility for a change in treatment, under protest from the attending physician, ordered the removal of the ointment and the washing of the senator's chest with cool water. The senator recovered from his illness with rest and a sensible diet. [25] Because of his youth and his facile recitation of medical knowledge, the senator and his two bachelor friends thought Casanova wise beyond his years, and concluded that he must be in possession of occult knowledge. Being cabalists themselves, the senator invited Casanova into his household and he became a life-long patron. [26] Casanova stated in his memoirs: I took the most creditable, the noblest, and the only natural course.

I decided to put myself in a position where I need no longer go without the necessities of life: and what those necessities were for me no one could judge better than me.... No one in Venice could understand how an intimacy could exist between myself and three men of their character, they all heaven and I all earth; they most severe in their morals, and I addicted to every kind of dissolute living. [27] For the next three years under the senator’s patronage, working nominally as a legal assistant, Casanova led the life of a nobleman, dressed magnificently, and as was natural to him, spending most of his time gambling and engaging in amorous pursuits. [28] His patron was exceedingly tolerant, but he warned Casanova that some day he would pay the price; “I made a joke of his dire Prophecies and went my way.” However, not much later, Casanova was forced to leave Venice, due to further scandals. Casanova had dug up a freshly buried corpse in order to play a practical joke on an enemy and exact revenge—but the victim went into a paralysis, never to recover.

And in another scandal, a young girl who had duped him accused him of rape and went to the officials. [29] Casanova was later acquitted of this crime for lack of evidence, but by this time he had already fled out of Venice. Portrait of Casanova by Alessandro Longhi Escaping to Parma , Casanova entered into a three-month affair with a Frenchwoman he named “Henriette”, perhaps the deepest love he ever experienced—a woman who combined beauty, intelligence, and culture. In his words, “They who believe that a woman is incapable of making a man equally happy all the twenty-four hours of the day have never known an Henriette. The joy which flooded my soul was far greater when I conversed with her during the day than when I held her in my arms at night. Having read a great deal and having natural taste, Henriette judged rightly of everything.” [30] She also judged Casanova astutely. As noted Casanovist J. Rives Childs wrote: Perhaps no woman so captivated Casanova as Henriette; few women obtained so deep an understanding of him. She penetrated his outward shell early in their relationship, resisting the temptation to unite her destiny with his.

She came to discern his volatile nature, his lack of social background, and the precariousness of his finances. Before leaving, she slipped into his pocket five hundred louis, mark of her evaluation of him. [31] [ edit ] The Grand Tour Crestfallen and despondent, Casanova returned to Venice, and after a good gambling streak, he recovered and set off on a Grand Tour , reaching Paris in 1750. [32] Along the way, from one town to another, he got into sexual escapades resembling operatic plots. [33] In Lyon, he entered the society of Freemasonry , which appealed to his interest in secret rites and which, for the most part, attracted men of intellect and influence who proved useful in his life, providing valuable contacts and uncensored knowledge. Many famous 18th Century men were Masons including Mozart and George Washington . Casanova was also attracted to Rosicrucianism . [34] Casanova stayed in Paris for two years, learned the language, spent much time at the theater, and introduced himself to notables. Soon, however, his numerous liaisons were noted by the Paris police, as they were in nearly every city he visited.

[35] He moved on to Dresden in 1752 and encountered his mother. He wrote a well-received play La Moluccheide, now lost. [36] He then visited Prague , and Vienna , where the tighter moral atmosphere was not to his liking. He finally returned to Venice in 1753. [37] In Venice, Casanova resumed his wicked escapades, picking up many enemies, and gaining the greater attention of the Venetian inquisitors. His police record became a lengthening list of reported blasphemies, seductions, fights, and public controversy. [38] A state spy, Giovanni Manucci, was employed to draw out Casanova’s knowledge of cabalism and Freemasonry, and to examine his library for forbidden books. Senator Bragadin, in total seriousness this time (being formerly an inquisitor himself), advised his “son” to leave immediately or face the stiffest consequences. [ edit ] Imprisonment and escape The following day, at age thirty, Casanova was arrested: “The Tribunal, having taken cognizance of the grave faults committed by G.

Casanova primarily in public outrages against the holy religion, their Excellencies have caused him to be arrested and imprisoned under the Leads.” [39] “ The Leads ” was the famous prison attached to the Doge's palace , across the Bridge of Sighs , named for the thick lead plates on the roof. Without a trial, Casanova was sentenced to five years in the “unescapable” prison. [40] At first, he was placed in solitary confinement. Over months, he was given reading matter, better food, and even an armchair, all provided by his patron. During walks he was granted in the prison attic, he found pieces of marble and an iron bar which he secreted back to his cell and hid in his chair. When he was absent temporary cell-mates, he turned the bar into a spike through a month of sharpening. Then he began to dig in the floor, realizing that his cell was just above the Inquisitor’s chamber. [41] Just three days before his intended escape during a festival (when no one would be in the chamber below), Casanova was moved to a “better” cell (with a view), despite his protests that he was perfectly happy where he was.

In his new cell, “I sat in my armchair like a man in a stupor; motionless as a statue, I saw that I had wasted all the efforts I had made, and I could not repent of them. I felt that I had nothing to hope for, and the only relief left to me was not to think of the future.” [42] Overcoming his inertia, Casanova set upon another escape plan. He solicited the help of the prisoner in the adjacent cell, Father Balbi, a renegade priest. The spike was passed to the priest in a folio Bible carried under a heaping plate of pasta by the hoodwinked jailer. The priest made a hole in his ceiling then climbed across and made a hole in the ceiling of Casanova’s cell. To neutralize his new cell-mate, who was a spy, Casanova played on his superstitions and terrorized him into silence. [43] When Balbi broke through to Casanova’s cell, Casanova lifted himself through the ceiling. He left behind a note with the motto “I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord”.

[44] The spy remained behind, too frightened of the consequences if he would be caught escaping with the others. Casanova and Balbi pried their way through the lead plates and onto the sloping roof of the Doge’s Palace, with a heavy fog swirling. The drop to the nearby canal being too great, Casanova pried open the grate over a dormer window, and broke the window to gain entry. They found a long ladder on the roof, and with the additional use of ropes, lowered themselves into the room whose floor was twenty-five feet below. They rested until morning, changed clothes, then broke a small lock on an exit door and passed into a palace corridor, through galleries and chambers, down stairs, and out a final door. It was six in the morning and they escaped by gondola. Eventually, Casanova reached Paris, where he arrived on the same day (January 5, 1757) that Robert-François Damiens made an attempt on the life of Louis XV . [45] Skeptics contend that Casanova’s tale of escape is implausible, and that he simply bribed his way to freedom with the help of his patron.

However, some physical evidence does exist in the state records, including repairs to the cell ceilings. Thirty years later in 1787, Casanova wrote Story of My Flight, which was very popular and was reprinted in many languages, and he repeated the tale a little later in his memoirs. [46] [ edit ] Return to Paris He knew his stay in Paris might be a long one and he proceeded accordingly: “I saw that to accomplish anything I must bring all my physical and moral faculties in play, make the acquaintance of the great and the powerful, exercise strict self-control, and play the chameleon.” [47] Casanova had matured, and this time in Paris, though still depending at times on quick thinking and decisive action, he was more calculating and deliberate. His first task was to find a new patron. He reconnected with old friend de Bernis, now the Foreign Minister of France. Casanova was advised by his patron to find a means of raising funds for the state as a way to gain instant favor. Casanova promptly became one of the trustees of the first state lottery, and one of its best ticket salesmen. The enterprise earned him a large fortune quickly.

[48] With money in hand, he traveled in high circles and undertook new seductions. He duped many socialites with his occultism, particularly the Marquess Jeanne d'Urfé, using his excellent memory which made him appear to have a sorcerer’s power of numerology . In Casanova’s view, “deceiving a fool is an exploit worthy of an intelligent man”. [49] Casanova claimed to be a Rosicrucian and an alchemist , aptitudes which made him popular with some of the most prominent figures of the era, among them Madame de Pompadour , Count de Saint-Germain , d'Alembert and Jean-Jacques Rousseau . So popular was alchemy among the nobles, particularly the search for the “philosopher’s stone”, that Casanova was highly sought after for his supposed knowledge, and he profited handsomely.

[50] He met his match, however, in the Count de Saint-Germain: “This very singular man, born to be the most barefaced of all imposters, declared with impunity, with a casual air, that he was three hundred years old, that he possessed the universal medicine, that he made anything he liked from nature, that he created diamonds.” [51] De Bernis decided to send Casanova to Dunkirk on his first spying mission. Casanova was paid well for his quick work and this experience prompted one of his few remarks against the ancien régime and the class he was dependent on. He remarked in hindsight, “All the French ministers are the same. They lavished money which came out of the other people’s pockets to enrich their creatures, and they were absolute: The down-trodden people counted for nothing, and, through this, the indebtedness of the State and the confusion of finances were the inevitable results. A Revolution was necessary.” [52] As the Seven Years War began, Casanova was again called to help increase the state treasury. He was entrusted with a mission of selling state bonds in Amsterdam , Holland being the financial center of Europe at the time.

[53] He succeeded to sell the bonds at only an 8% discount, and the following year was rich enough to found a silk manufactory with his earnings. The French government even offered him a title and a pension if he would become a French citizen and work on behalf of the Finance Ministry, but he declined, perhaps because it would impede his wanderlust. [54] Casanova had reached his peak of fortune but could not sustain it. He ran the business poorly, borrowed heavily trying to save it, and spent much of his wealth on constant liaisons with his female workers who were his “ harem ”. [55] For his debts, Casanova was imprisoned again, this time at Fort-l'Éveque , but was liberated four days afterwards, upon the insistence of the Marquess d'Urfé. Unfortunately, though he was released, his patron de Bernis was dismissed by Louis XV at that time and Casanova’s enemies closed in on him. He sold the rest of his belongings and acquired another mission to Holland to distance himself from his troubles.

[56] [ edit ] On the run This time, however, his mission failed and he fled to Cologne , then Stuttgart in the spring of 1760, where he lost the rest of his fortune. He was yet again arrested for his debts, but managed to escape to Switzerland . Weary of his wanton life, Casanova visited the monastery of Einsiedeln and considered the simple, scholarly life of a monk. He returned to his hotel to think on the decision only to encounter a new object of desire, and reverting to his old instincts, all thoughts of a monk’s life were quickly forgotten. [57] Moving on, he visited Albrecht von Haller and Voltaire , and arrived in Marseille , then Genoa , Florence , Rome , Naples , Modena , and Turin , moving from one sexual romp to another. [58] In 1760, Casanova started styling himself the Chevalier de Seingalt, a name he would increasingly use for the rest of his life.

On occasion, he would also call himself Count de Farussi (using his mother's maiden name) and when Pope Clement XIII presented Casanova with the Papal Order of the Éperon d'Òr , he had an impressive cross and ribbon to display on his chest. [59] Back in Paris, he set about one of his most outrageous schemes—convincing his old dupe the Marquess d'Urfé that he could turn her into a young man through occult means. The plan did not yield Casanova the big payoff he had hoped for, and the Marquess d'Urfé finally lost faith in him. [60] Casanova traveled to England in 1763, hoping to sell his idea of a state lottery to English officials. He wrote of the English, “the people have a special character, common to the whole nation, which makes them think they are superior to everyone else. It is a belief shared by all nations, each thinking itself the best.

And they are all right.” [61] Through his connections, he worked his way up to an audience with King George III, using most of the valuables he had stolen from the Marquess d'Urfé. While working the political angles, he also spent much time in the bedroom, as was his habit. As a means to find females for his pleasure, not being able to speak English, he put an advertisement in the newspaper to let an apartment to the “right” person. He interviewed many young women, choosing one “Mistress Pauline” who suited him well. Soon, he established himself in her apartment and seduced her. These and other liaisons, however, left him weak with venereal disease and he left England broke and ill. [62] He went on to Belgium, recovered, and then for the next three years,travelled all over Europe, covering about 4,500 miles by coach over rough roads, and going as far as Moscow (the average daily coach trip being about 30 miles in a day). Again, his principal goal was to sell his lottery scheme to other governments and repeat the great success he had with the French government.

But a meeting with Frederick the Great bore no fruit and in the surrounding German lands, the same result. Not lacking either connections or confidence, Casanova went to Russia and met with Catherine the Great but she flatly turned down the lottery idea. [63] In 1766, he was expelled from Warsaw following a pistol duel with Count Colonel Franciszek Ksawery Branicki over an Italian actress, a lady friend of theirs. Both duelists were wounded, Casanova on the left hand. The hand recovered on its own, after Casanova refused the recommendation of doctors that it be amputated. [64] Other stops failed to gain any takers for the lottery. He returned to Paris for several months in 1767 and hit the gambling salons, only to be expelled from France by order of Louis XV himself, primarily for Casanova’s scam involving the Marquess d'Urfé. [65] Now known across Europe for his reckless behavior, Casanova would have difficulty overcoming his notoriety and gaining any fortune. So he headed for Spain, where he was not as well known.

He tried his usual approach, leaning on well-placed contacts (often Freemasons), wining and dining with nobles of influence, and finally arranging an audience with the local monarch, in this case Charles III. But when no doors opened for him, however, he could only roam across Spain, with little to show for it. In Barcelona, he escaped assassination and landed in jail for six weeks. His Spanish adventure a failure, he returned to France briefly, then to Italy. [66] [ edit ] Return to Venice In Rome, Casanova had to prepare a way for his return to Venice. While waiting for supporters to gain him legal entry into Venice, Casanova began his modern Tuscan-Italian translation of the Iliad , his History of the Troubles in Poland, and a comic play. To ingratiate himself with the Venetian authorities, Casanova did some commercial spying for them. After months without a recall, however, he wrote a letter of appeal directly to the Inquisitors. At last, he received his long sought permission and burst into tears upon reading “We, Inquisitors of State, for reasons known to us, give Giacomo Casanova a free safe-conduct ...

empowering him to come, go, stop, and return, hold communication wheresoever he pleases without let or hindrance. So is our will.” Casanova was permitted to return to Venice in September 1774 after eighteen years of exile. [67] At first, his return to Venice was a cordial one and he was a celebrity. Even the Inquisitors wanted to hear how he had escaped from their prison. Of his three bachelor patrons, however, only Dandolo was still alive and Casanova was invited back to live with him. He received a small stipend from Dandolo and hoped to live from his writings, but that was not enough. He reluctantly became a spy again for Venice, paid by piece work, reporting on religion, morals, and commerce, most of it based on gossip and rumor he picked up from social contacts. [68] He was disappointed. No financial opportunities of interest came about and few doors opened for him in society as in the past. At age 49, the years of reckless living and the thousands of miles of travel had taken its toll. Casanova’s smallpox scars, sunken cheeks, and hook nose became all the more noticeable.

His easygoing manner was now more guarded. Prince Charles de Ligne , a friend (and uncle of his future employer), described him around 1784: He would be a good-looking man if he were not ugly; he is tall and built like Hercules, but of an African tint; eyes full of life and fire, but touchy, wary, rancorous—and this gives him a ferocious air. It is easier to put him in a rage than to make him gay. He laughs little, but makes other laugh. ... He has a manner of saying things which reminds me of Harlequin or Figaro , and which makes them sound witty. [69] Venice had changed for him. Casanova now had little money for gambling, few willing females worth pursuing, and few acquaintances to enliven his dull days. He heard of the death of his mother and more paining, he went to the bedside of Bettina Gozzi, who had first introduced him to sex, and she died in his arms. His Iliad was published in three volumes, but to limited subscribers and yielding little money. He got into a published dispute with Voltaire over religion.

When he asked, “Suppose that you succeed in destroying superstition. With what will you replace it?” Voltaire shot back, “I like that. When I deliver humanity from a ferocious beast which devours it, can I be asked what I shall put in its place.” From Casanova’s point of view, if Voltaire had “been a proper philosopher, he would have kept silent on that subject ... the people need to live in ignorance for the general peace of the nation”. [70] In 1779, Casanova found Francesca, an uneducated seamstress, who became his live-in lover and housekeeper, and who loved him devotedly. [71] Later that year, the Inquisitors put him on the payroll and sent him to investigate commerce between the Papal states and Venice. Other publishing and theater ventures failed, primarily from lack of capital. In a downward spiral, Casanova was expelled again from Venice in 1783, after writing a vicious satire poking fun at Venetian nobility. In it he made his only public statement that Grimani was his true father.

[72] Forced to resume his travels again, Casanova arrived in Paris, and in November 1783 met Benjamin Franklin while attending a presentation on aeronautics and the future of balloon transport. [73] For a while, Casanova served as secretary and pamphleteer to Sebastian Foscarini, Venetian ambassador in Vienna. He also became acquainted with Lorenzo Da Ponte , Mozart ’s librettist, who noted about Casanova, “This singular man never liked to be in the wrong.” [74] Notes by Casanova indicate that he may have made suggestions to Da Ponte concerning the libretto for Mozart’s Don Giovanni . [75] [ edit ] Final years in Bohemia In 1785, after Foscarini died, Casanova began searching for another position. A few months later, he became the librarian to Count Joseph Karl von Waldstein, a chamberlain of the emperor, in the Castle of Dux , Bohemia ( Duchcov Castle, Czech Republic ). The Count—himself a Freemason, cabalist, and frequent traveler—had taken to Casanova when they had met a year earlier at Foscarini’s residence.

Although the job offered security and good pay, Casanova describes his last years as boring and frustrating, even though it was the most productive time for writing. [76] His health had deteriorated dramatically and he found life among peasants to be less than stimulating. He was only able to make occasional visits to Vienna and Dresden for relief. Although Casanova got on well with the Count, his employer was a much younger man with his own eccentricities. The Count often ignored him at meals and failed to introduce him to important visiting guests. Moreover, Casanova, the testy outsider, was thoroughly disliked by most of the other inhabitants of the Castle of Dux. Casanova’s only friends seemed to be his fox terriers. In despair, Casanova considered suicide, but instead decided that he must live on to record his memoirs, which he did until his death. [77] In 1797, word arrived that the Republic of Venice had ceased to exist and Napoleon Bonaparte had seized Casanova’s home city. It was too late to return home. Casanova died on June 4, 1798 at age 73.

His last words are said to have been “I have lived as a philosopher and I die as a Christian”. [78] [ edit ] The memoirs The isolation and boredom of Casanova’s last years enabled him to focus without distractions on his Histoire de ma vie, without which his fame would have been considerably diminished, if not blotted out entirely. He began to think about writing his memoirs around 1780 and began in earnest by 1789, as “the only remedy to keep from going mad or dying of grief”. The first draft was completed by July 1792, and he spent the next six years revising it. He puts a happy face on his days of loneliness, writing in his work, “I can find no pleasanter pastime than to converse with myself about my own affairs and to provide a most worthy subject for laughter to my well-bred audience.” [79] His recollections only go up to the summer of 1774. [80] His memoirs were still being compiled at the time of his death.

A letter by him in 1792 states that he was reconsidering his decision to publish them believing his story was despicable and he would make enemies by writing the truth about his affairs. But he decided to proceed and to use initials instead of actual names, and to tone down its strongest passages. [81] He wrote in French instead of Italian because “the French language is more widely known than mine”. [82] The memoirs open with: I begin by declaring to my reader that, by everything good or bad that I have done throughout my life, I am sure that I have earned merit or incurred guilt, and that hence I must consider myself a free agent...Despite an excellent moral foundation, the inevitable fruit of the divine principles which were rooted in my heart, I was all my life the victim of my senses; I have delighted in going astray and I have constantly lived in error ... my follies are the follies of youth. You will see that I laugh at them, and if you are kind you will laugh at them with me. You will laugh when you discover that I often had no scruples about deceiving nitwits and scoundrels and fools when I found it necessary.

As for women, this sort of reciprocal deceit cancels itself out, for when love enters in, both parties are usually dupes. [83] Casanova is clear about the purpose of his book: I expect the friendship, the esteem, and the gratitude of my readers. Their gratitude, if reading my memoirs will have given instruction and pleasure. Their esteem if, doing me justice, they will have found that I have more virtues than faults; and their friendship as soon as they come to find me deserving of it by the frankness and good faith with which I submit myself to their judgment without in any way disguising what I am. [84] He also advises his readers that they “will not find all my adventures. I have left out those which would have offended the people who played a part in them, for they would cut a sorry figure in them. Even so, there are those who will sometimes think me too indiscreet; I am sorry for it.” [85] And in the final words, Casanova hints at adventures unrecorded: “The next morning at the appointed hour I see her in the carriage.

I pay her a brief compliment; I sit down beside her, and we set off.” [86] Uncut, the memoirs ran to twelve volumes, and the standard editions to nearly 1200 pages. Though his chronology is at times confusing and inaccurate, and many of his tales exaggerated, much of his narrative and many details are corroborated by contemporary writings. He has a good ear for dialogue and writes at length about all classes of society. [87] Casanova, for the most part, is honest about his faults, intentions, and motivations, and shares his successes and failures with good humor. [88] The confession is largely devoid of repentance or remorse. He celebrates the senses with his readers, especially regarding music, food, and women. “I have always liked highly seasoned food. ... As for women, I have always found that the one I was in love with smelled good, and the more copious her sweat the sweeter I found it.” [89] He mentions over 120 adventures with women and girls, with several veiled references to male lovers as well.

[90] [91] He describes his duels and conflicts with scoundrels and officials, his entrapments and his escapes, his schemes and plots, his anguish and his sighs of pleasure. He demonstrates convincingly, “I can say vixi (‘I have lived’).” [92] The manuscript of Casanova’s memoirs was held by his relatives until it was sold to F. A. Brockhaus publishers, and first published in heavily abridged versions in German around 1822, then in French. During World War II, the manuscript survived the allied bombing of Leipzig. The memoirs were heavily pirated through the ages and have been translated into some twenty languages. But not until 1960 was the entire text published in its original language of French. [93] [ edit ] The art of seduction For Casanova, as well as his fellow sybarites of the upper class, love and sex were more casual and less endowed with the seriousness later bestowed by the Romantic movement during the 19th century. [94] Flirtations, bedroom games, and short-term liaisons were common among nobles who married for social connections rather than love.

For Casanova, it was an open field of sexual opportunities (and disease). Although multi-faceted and complex, Casanova's personality was dominated by his sensual urges: “Cultivating whatever gave pleasure to my senses was always the chief business of my life; I never found any occupation more important. Feeling that I was born for the sex opposite of mine, I have always loved it and done all that I could to make myself loved by it.” [95] He was the archetype of Don Juanism . Casanova’s ideal liaison had elements beyond sex, including complicated plots, heroes and villains, and gallant outcomes. In a pattern he often repeated, he would discover an attractive woman in trouble with a brutish or jealous lover (Act I); he would ameliorate her difficulty (Act II); she would show her gratitude; he would seduce her; a short exciting affair would ensue (Act III); feeling a loss of ardor or boredom setting in, he would plead his unworthiness and arrange for her marriage or pairing with a worthy man, then exit the scene (Act IV).

[96] As William Bolitho points out in Twelve Against the Gods, the secret of Casanova's success with women “had nothing more esoteric in it than [offering] what every woman who respects herself must demand: all that he had, all that he was, with (to set off the lack of legality) the dazzling attraction of the lump sum over what is more regularly doled out in a lifetime of installments.” [97] He advises, “there is no honest woman with an uncorrupted heart whom a man is not sure of conquering by dint of gratitude. It is one of the surest and shortest means.” [98] Alcohol and violence, for him, were not proper tools of seduction. [99] Instead, attentiveness and small favors should be employed to soften a woman’s heart, but “a man who makes known his love by words is a fool”. Verbal communication is essential; “without speech, the pleasure of love is diminished by at least two-thirds”, but words of love must be implied not boldly proclaimed. [100] Mutual consent is important, according to Casanova, but he avoided easy conquests or overly difficult situations as not suitable for his purposes.

[101] He strove to be the ideal escort in the first act—witty, charming, confidential, helpful—before moving into the bedroom in the third act. Casanova claims not to be predatory (“my guiding principle has been never to direct my attack against novices or those whose prejudices were likely to prove an obstacle”); however, his conquests did tend to be insecure or emotionally exposed women. [102] Casanova valued intelligence in a woman: “After all, a beautiful woman without a mind of her own leaves her lover with no resource after he had physically enjoyed her charms.” His attitude towards educated women, however, was typical for his time: “In a woman learning is out of place; it compromises the essential qualities of her sex ... no scientific discoveries have been made by women ... (which) requires a vigor which the female sex cannot have. But in simple reasoning and in delicacy of feeling we must yield to women.” [103] [ edit ] Casanova and gambling As recorded, gambling played a large role in the high society that Casanova traveled in. It helped gain him women to seduce and men to scheme with and against.

In his memoirs, he discusses many forms of 18th century gambling—including lotteries, faro, basset, piquet, biribi, primero, quinze, and whist—and the passion for it among the nobility and the high clergy. [104] Cheaters (known as “correctors of fortune”) were somewhat more tolerated then than today in the casinos, and seldom caused affront. Most gamblers were on guard against cheaters and their tricks. Scams of all sorts were also common, and Casanova delighted in them. [105] Throughout his life, Casanova would gamble for recreation and as an occasional means of living, winning and losing large sums. He was tutored by professionals, and he was “instructed in those wise maxims without which games of chance ruin those who participate in them”. He was not above occasionally cheating. At times, he even teamed up with professionals. Casanova claims that he was “relaxed and smiling when I lost, and I won without covetousness”. However, when outrageously duped himself, he could act violently, sometimes calling for a duel.

[106] Casanova admits that he was not disciplined enough to be a professional gambler: “I had neither prudence enough to leave off when fortune was adverse, nor sufficient control over myself when I had won.” [107] Nor did he like being considered as a professional gambler: “Nothing could ever be adduced by professional gamblers that I was of their infernal clique.” [108] For Casanova, gambling was primarily a means for flirting, making connections, acting gallantly, and proving himself a gentleman among his social superiors. [ edit ] Casanova's fame and influence Although best known for his prowess in seduction for more than two hundred years since his death, Casanova was also recognized by his contemporaries as an extraordinary person, a man of far-ranging intellect and curiosity. Casanova was one of the foremost chroniclers of his age. He was a true adventurer, traveling across Europe from end-to-end in search of fortune, seeking out the most prominent people of his time to help his cause. He was a man of contradictory traits—generous and mean, honest and deceptive, fawning and aloof, skeptical and gullible, superstitious and rational.

He was a servant of the establishment and equally decadent as his times, but also a participant in secret societies and a seeker of answers beyond the conventional. He was religious, a devout Catholic, and believed in prayer: “Despair kills, prayer dissipates it; and after man trusts and acts.” But he also believed in free will and reason and clearly did not subscribe to the notion that pleasure-seeking would keep him from heaven, if heaven did indeed exist. [109] He was, by vocation and avocation, a lawyer, clergyman, military officer, violinist, con man, pimp, gourmand, dancer, businessman, diplomat, spy, politician, mathematician, social philosopher, cabalist, playwright, and writer. He wrote over twenty works, including plays and essays, and many letters. His novel Icosameron is an early work of science fiction. [110] Born of actors, he had a passion for the theater and for an improvised, theatrical life. But with all his talents, he frequently succumbed to the quest for pleasure and sex, often avoiding sustained work and established plans, and got himself into trouble when prudent action would have served him better.

His true occupation was living largely on his quick wits, steely nerves, luck, social charm, and the money given to him in gratitude and by trickery. [111] Prince Charles de Ligne , who understood Casanova well, and who knew most of the prominent individuals of the age, thought Casanova the most interesting man he had ever met: “there is nothing in the world of which he is not capable.” Rounding out the portrait, the Prince also stated: The only things about which he knows nothing are those which he believes himself to be expert: the rules of the dance, the French language, good taste, the way of the world, savoir vivre. It is only his comedies which are not funny, only his philosophical works which lack philosophy—all the rest are filled with it; there is always something weighty, new, piquant, profound. He is a well of knowledge, but he quotes Homer and Horace ad nauseam. His wit and his sallies are like Attic salt. He is sensitive and generous, but displease him in the slightest and he is unpleasant, vindictive, and detestable.

He believes in nothing except what is most incredible, being superstitious about everything. He loves and lusts after everything. ... He is proud because he is nothing. ... Never tell him you have heard the story he is going to tell you. ... Never omit to greet him in passing, for the merest trifle will make him your enemy. [112] “Casanova”, like “Don Juan”, is a long established term in the English language. According to Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th ed., the noun Casanova means “Lover; esp: a man who is a promiscuous and unscrupulous lover”. The first usage of the term in written English was around 1852. References in culture to Casanova are numerous—in books, films, theater, and music.

The Adventurous Life of History's Most Famous Lover, Casanova | ITALY Magazine The Adventurous Life of History's Most Famous Lover, Casanova Silvia Donati | Friday, June 3, 2016 - 06:00 “There is a happiness which is perfect and real as long as it lasts; it is transient, but its end does not negate its past existence and prevent he who has experienced it from remembering it.” - Giacomo Casanova Say the name ‘Casanova’ and, generally, people will associate it with the idea of playboy, libertine, serial lover and seducer. In fact, his name has even turned into a phrase – to be a Casanova – to imply a man who is very good at seducing women. And while it cannot be denied that Casanova was certainly good at it and had a large number of affairs, there is so much more to his figure than his lover’s escapades. He was a writer, an intellectual, a traveler, an adventurer, a subversive spirit, a provocateur.

His autobiography, Histoire de ma vie (Story of my Life), written in French, is considered a fine work of literature; it is not just a recollection of his love adventures (which he described to create an honest portrait of the human condition), but also an authentic portrayal of European customs and society in the 18th century. Giacomo Casanova was born in Venice in 1725 to two impoverished actors, at a time when the city teemed with life and energy, when the pursuit of pleasure and the good life was a trait that all Venetians shared. Should you wish to visit his childhood neighborhood, head to San Samuele, where a stone plaque on the wall of the tiny Calle Malipiero says that Casanova was born there. Early on, Casanova demonstrated a quick wit; he graduated in law from the University of Padua at 17; early on, he also discovered the pleasures of sex, thanks to two young, well-born sisters, as he would recall in his memoir; in fact, he wrote that his lifelong passion for women was established by this encounter. “I was born for the sex opposite to mine,” he wrote in the preface of his memoir.

“I have always loved it and done all that I could to make myself loved by it.” He was ‘adopted’ by a patron, the wealthy Venetian senator Alvise Gasparo Malipiero, the owner of Palazzo Malipiero, a palace located on the Grand Canal, close to Casanova’s first home. Malipiero taught him about fine food and wine and how to behave in society, and it was in that palace that Casanova began his intense social life, frequenting the best circles, conducting high society affairs, and acting like a dandy, which he could do very well. However, he was thrown out of the house when he was caught seducing the senator’s own object of desire, an actress. He later found another patron, another wealthy Venetian senator, Don Matteo Bragadin, who took him in after Casanova had saved his life (Casanova also had an interest in medicine). Showered with funds, he was able to live like a playboy aristocrat; he gambled heavily and (of course) engaged in numerous amorous pursuits.

But fortunes could turn quickly in the Venice of the time and, at the age of 30, Casanova was sent to prison by the Venetian Inquisition, which accused him of being as a cardsharp, a con man, a Freemason, an astrologer, a cabbalist and a blasphemer; most likely this came in retaliation for his attentions to one of the Inquisitor’s mistresses. He was imprisoned in the Doge’s Palace for 15 months, until he escaped through the roof. You can see the cell that Casanova shared with rats, as well as the Inquisition’s torture rooms during the Secret Itineraries tour organized by the Doge Palace. His escape forced him to leave Venice, beginning an exile of 18 years, but also marking the beginning of his life as an avid traveler. He spent a long time in Paris, but also traveled to many other European cities, especially when he got himself into trouble, which he continued to do. While he could always count on his personal charm to influence people, he often had to flee the creditors he made from gambling.

In 1774, when he was 49, Casanova obtained a pardon from the Inquisition and returned to Venice; he could not keep himself out of trouble though, and, after writing a satire that offended powerful figures, he had to flee the city again. This would be his final exile from Venice. With the approach of middle age, Casanova’s good fortunes with the ladies began to abate, and that was a bad blow for him. “The power to please at first sight, which I had so long possessed in such measure, was beginning to fail me,” he wrote. In addition, he was penniless, and moved from one European city to the next in search of a job, or a patron. “Fortune scorns old age,” he wrote. Finally, at 60, he was hired as librarian to Count Joseph Waldstein, a young nobleman who lived in Bohemia, in Castle Dux, about 60 miles north of Prague. His life there was lonely; he did not speak German and was not able to communicate with the locals. As the well-traveled and cosmopolitan man that he was, he felt constrained in such a small place.

He often fought with the staff of the count – once, he is said to have fought over how to cook pasta (how so very Italian of him). So miserable he felt that he is said to have contemplated suicide. His doctor thus suggested that he write his memoirs to ward off melancholy. It worked, and Casanova would go on to produce his masterwork, the vast Story of my life, apparently laughing all the time: “I am writing my life to laugh at myself, and I'm succeeding,” he wrote in a letter to a friend. “What pleasure in remembering one’s pleasures! It amuses me because I am inventing nothing. Worthy or not, my life is my subject, and my subject is my life.” When Casanova heard the news that Venice had been conquered by Napoleon in 1797, he decided to plan a trip there, but fell ill from a kidney infection and died in 1798. His memoir was not completed. It ends when Casanova was 49. It is thought he wanted to end it before he turned 50, when he felt he was no longer enjoying life.

“Cultivating whatever gave pleasure to my senses was always the chief business of my life,” he wrote, referring not just to physical pleasure, but to all pleasures of life. And why not. Topic: Trail of the unexpected: Casanova's Venice | The Independent Trail of the unexpected: Casanova's Venice With a month to go until Valentine's Day, Nick Boulos traces the path of Italy's legendary lover Saturday 14 January 2012 00:00 BST Click to follow The Independent Travel Spirit: Revellers gather in Caffè Florian Reuters Spring, 1745. Carnival fever grips Venice. Music and confetti fill the air; masked figures move mysteriously in the shadows; jovial couples in lavish costumes cross piazzas en route to glittering balls. But one couple has a date with history. Spellbound by a lady's beauty, the man who would one day become the world's most famous seducer springs into action. The fact that she was a noblewoman was inconsequential, that she was with her husband a mere inconvenience.

Posing as a state official, Giacomo Casanova frogmarched the hubby to San Giorgio Maggiore – a tiny island opposite St Mark's Square – before wining and dining his wife at Do Spade, a cosy tavern tucked away behind the Rialto market. Falling for Casanova's irrepressible charms, she soon became another notch on his worn bedpost. At least he bought her dinner. Rather more romantic meals will doubtlessly be in evidence in Venice exactly one month from today, when the classic Valentine's Day break to the city will be in full swing, along with this year's Carnevale. But Casanova's legend lives on. Indeed, the barmaid at Do Spade took great delight in retelling the Casanova story as I stopped by for some meatballs and a glass of red: a refuelling stop Casanova often made. Born to actors in 1725, Casanova railed against his lowly roots. "To be an actor in the 18th century was little better than being a prostitute," explained my guide, Rita Sartori, as we reached the spot where it all began.

A plaque on Calle Malipiero, a typically narrow Venetian street of crumbling brickwork, marks Casanova's birthplace. A sickly child, one of his earliest memories was apparently travelling by gondola to a witch doctor on the island of Murano. He was cured by what he described as a "magical ritual", which sparked a lifelong fascination in medicine, alchemy and black magic. But first, the church beckoned. Casanova left Venice, aged nine, to be educated in Padua. He returned six years later as an apprentice priest. The future looked bright. His first sermon took place at the San Samuele church, which overlooks the Grand Canal. It was also the site of his baptism, his parents' wedding and impressive 15th-century frescos. Sadly it is now closed to the public. The priestly Casanova was a success, with donations – and the odd love letter – flooding in. His second service, however, was described as being drunken and delirious, and signalled the first of many career changes. Violinist, librarian, theatre manager and secret spy are among the professions later to adorn his CV.

We strolled along Calle Larga XXII Marzo, a busy thoroughfare of luxury stores. At the far end stands the imposing church of San Moses. This house of God was once surrounded by houses of another kind: gambling dens that fed Casanova's other passion. His favourite spot for a game of cards is now the well-preserved marble breakfast room of the Hotel Monaco & Grand Canal near St Mark's. Given his promiscuity (112 conquests by his own reckoning), it's hardly surprising Casanova picked up the odd nasty infection. He is said to have cured himself of 11 bouts of syphilis by administrating mercury; such forward-thinking won him city-wide admiration. But, others didn't take so kindly to his outspoken views on science and medicine. The police came knocking at dawn on 26 July 1755. For the next 16 months, Casanova was kept at His Doge's Pleasure. A guided tour of the Doge's Palace reveals the reality of Casanova's incarceration – and his escape.

I reached the rafters of the 14th-century Gothic residence through a secret staircase beyond which the wood is no longer gilded and the walls are devoid of art work. You have to crouch to enter Casanova's cell high in "the leads" directly beneath the slated roof. The room is nothing more than a bare floor with a single barred window; I sympathised with Casanova, who stood over 6ft tall. No wonder he requested an armchair. Fearing a lifetime here, he plotted his escape. In what is probably his finest hour (fathering his own grandson being his lowest), he began carving through the floorboards under his armchair. But he was foiled just hours before his bid for freedom, when he was transferred. He tried again, this time helped by Balbi, a monk. They fled in the dead of night but found themselves locked in the Doge's grand Square Atrium. Undeterred, Casanova opened a window and called out to a watchman, who, thinking they were respectable guests, rushed up to let them out. The escapees left via the Golden Staircase, Alessandro Vittoria's white stucco and 24-carat gold masterpiece.

Of course, Casanova did not flee into the night never to be seen again. Instead, he crossed St Mark's for a coffee amid the frescos and hand-painted mirrors of Caffè Florian. I popped in to ponder his escape – but at €9 for a cappuccino I quickly thought better of it. Before leaving, Casanova took one last look at his homeland. He would not return for nearly 20 years. He describes the moment in his autobiography: "I... looked at the entire length of the beautiful canal and, seeing not a boat, admired the most beautiful day one could hope for." Travel essentials: Venice Getting there * The writer travelled with Cox & Kings (020-7873 5000; coxandkings.co.uk), which offers three nights' B&B at the Ca' Sagredo hotel, with return flights from Gatwick from £395.

* Airlines serving Venice include BA (0844 493 0787; ba.com) from Gatwick and Heathrow; easyJet (0843 104 5000; easyjet.com) from Gatwick; and Monarch (0871 940 5040; monarch.co.uk) from Gatwick, Birmingham and Manchester. Visiting there * Doge's Palace Secret Itinerary tours (museiciviciveneziani.it) cost €18. * Do Spade (00 39 41 521 0574; cantinadospade.it).

* Caffè Florian (00 39 41 520 5641; caffeflorian.com) More information * italiantouristboard.co.uk n The History of My Life by Giacomo Casanova More about: Going Postal: I am a free agent - Giacomo Casanova I am a free agent - Giacomo Casanova Giacomo Casanova by Anton Raphael Mengs “I will begin with this confession; whatever I have done in the course of my life, whether it be good or evil, has been done freely: I am a free agent” Giacomo Casanova Upon reading the excellent pieces by Tachybaptus concerning the Saints, I thought for the sake of balance that a piece about a sinner would not go amiss. Enter Giacomo Casanova, born in Venice in 1725, died in Bohemia in 1798, two years before the fin de siecle; his life therefore spanning a good three quarters of the 18th century.

There have probably been quite a few men like him, and probably more to come, but not many who have chronicled their lives as thoroughly has he has done in his “Story Of My life.” Fortunate for us that he was bored out of his skull working as the librarian to Count Joseph Karl von Waldstein in a remote castle in Bohemia in his latter years. As our European culture and identity are being threatened and challenged, perhaps as never before, it might be instructive to review the life of a true pan European, who travelled thousands of miles across the continent, mostly on the run it must be said, and who visited most of the great European cities. There have been many works based on his life story, books, plays, films, TV series etc, some good, some atrocious, and I just mention these in passing for those who want to delve further. I myself acquired an abridged version of his memoirs some years ago. Therein he writes about his infamous escape from The Leads prison, his pioneering of a state lottery, from which he made, and lost, a lot of money, his meetings with the great and the good and his various escapades with women and the resultant fallout with their husbands in some cases.

For the purposes of this little piece, I just want to concentrate on his visit to England in 1763-4. He came ostensibly to sell the idea of a state lottery to the relevant authorities, but I want to concentrate on the observations he made at the time about the English and how he thought they differed from their European counterparts. He observes,”The average Englishman (is) strong in the rights the law affords him, and careful not to do anything the law forbids him. The main characteristic of these proud islanders is their national pride, which puts them in their estimation far ahead of all the other races. It is only fair, however, to say that this fault is not confined to them; each country places itself in the first rank.” He goes on to say that the country is well cultivated, clean and beautiful, with good roads, and that he admired, “the perfect ease with which one could pay for everything with a mere scrap of paper.” It was typical of him that on his first day, after being disgusted by the lodgings offered to him by a former mistress, he visits the most ill famed coffee house in London, the Orange Coffee House, and immediately falls on his feet by meeting someone he knows by reputation.

He subscribes to the tune of four guineas for four editions of the Decameron which the fellow is working on, who then immediately helps him find suitable digs in Pall Mall. He could play the rich man with money swindled from an old dear he had promised to turn into a young man. Within a short space of time he had found himself a multi-lingual, Negro man servant, an excellent English cook who could speak French, and had discovered all the local watering holes which provided high class hookers. He describes a visit to the Drury Lane Theatre where a production starring the famed actor Garrick is running. That night's performance could not be put on for some reason, and Garrick had to come on stage to apologise, “They pelted him with apples and dirt. There was a cry of, 'Clear the Theatre!' The King, the Queen and the respectable portion of the audience made off in a hurry; in less than an hour everything inside the building was wrecked, only the four walls were left standing.

The sovereign people destroyed everything it could lay it's hands on, just to show it's sovereign power; then, satisfied with it's work, went off to swill beer and gin.” Makes you proud to be English. He goes on. “About a fortnight later, when the theatre was reopened, Garrick appeared before the curtain to beg the indulgence of the spectators. Before he could utter a word, a voice from the pit cried out, 'On your knees!” A thousand voices took up the cry, 'On your knees!' and the famous actor was obliged to ask the pardon in this humiliating position of the scum of the London slums. Thunders of applause told him the pardon was granted, and there was an end of the matter. The English people are like this, they scoff and hoot at King, Queen and Princes when the fancy takes them, and for this very reason royal personages are careful not to show themselves except on great occasions surrounded by hundreds of constables.” One more excerpt illuminates his thoughts about the English and their freethinking ways.

After a few weeks he starts to get lonely, missing the permanent company of a female in his domicile, so he decides to advertise for a lodger, with the permission of his landlady. “Second or third story to be let furnished, cheap, to a young lady, alone without encumbrances, speaking English and French, and receiving no visitors.” He wonders why his landlady starts cracking up at this suggestion. He soon finds out when crowds start to gather outside his lodgings having a good laugh at the ad he had put up. His man servant subsequently informs him that his notice has been reproduced in the St James's Chronicle with satirical comments. He says, with good humour, “English news-sheets are the most entertaining in the world. Everything that goes on is freely discussed. The journalists here have a knack of making the simplest things interesting. Happy the people in whose country one can say everything and write everything!” He goes on to have a happy time with his new lodger called Pauline, but that's another story. We've since had the Leverson Report ending centuries of the free press, and now the internet is under pressure.

It's time to fight for our heritage as Englishmen, and to fight for it here and now.

Question: In which European city was Giacomo Casanova born?
Answer: Venice