Giovanni Giacomo Casanova (April 2, 1725 –
June 4, 1798) was a Venetian
adventurer, author, and philanderer. His autobiography,
Histoire de ma vie (Story of My Life), 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 the Italian-born libertine Giacomo Casanova that, a full two centuries after his death, his name
remains synonymous with the art of seduction. But for the years he spent in the employ of Count Waldstein of Bohemia as a
librarian, Casanova, "the world's greatest lover" — a one-time consort of European royalty, popes and cardinals, and man known to
the likes of Voltaire, Goethe and Mozart — would have been consigned to obscurity. As it was, he barely found the peace to write
his memoirs.
Biography
Early years
Giovanni Giacomo Casanova was born in Venice in 1725 to actress Zanetta Farussi, wife of actor
Gaetano Giuseppe Casanova, cousin to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte. Giacomo was the first of six children,
being followed by Giovanni Alvise (1730–1795), Faustina Maddalena (1731–1736), Maria Maddalena Antonia Stella (1732–1800),
Gaetano Alvise (1734–1783), and Francesco (1737–1803). Because of his mother's profession, many have 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, who was a member of the patrician family that owned the San Samuele theatre where Zanetta and Gaetano had worked;
however, in his autobiography he did not mention this.
His father died when he was eight. His mother, with six children to feed, kept her five youngest at home and sent Casanova to
boarding school in Padua on his ninth birthday,
supposedly for the good of his health. She returned to Venice; Casanova would not see her again for a year. She was able to
afford boarding school because before Gaetano died in 1733 he had appealed to the Grimanis to take care of his family. At
boarding school he showed great academic promise and quickly became his teacher's favourite. He was naturally quick-witted, with
an intense appetite for knowledge and a perpetually inquisitive mind. It was also here that he came into contact with the
opposite sex for the first time when his teacher's younger sister apparently masturbated
him at the age of eleven. At the age of sixteen he lost his virginity in the arms of two sisters who, according to his account,
threw themselves at him. Also at age sixteen, he obtained his doctorate in Law from the University of Padua, where he had studied moral philosophy, chemistry, mathematics, and law. He was
keenly interested in medicine and later in life regretted not having made a career out of it, although he showed himself to be an
instinctively good amateur physician.
In Venice and elsewhere
In 1740 Casanova was back in Venice where he started his clerical law career in the church as
an abbé. By now he had become something of a dandy — tall and dark, his long hair powdered, scented, and elaborately curled. He
quickly ingratiated himself (something he was to do all his life) with a 76-year old Venetian senator, Alvise Gasparo Malipiero,
the owner of Palazzo Malipiero. Malipiero moved in the best circles and taught young
Casanova a great deal about good food and wine and how to behave in society. He never spent much time on his church career, due
to his restless nature and preoccupation with sex.
His career in the church was short and tainted by scandals. After he left the church, he bought a commission to become a low
ranking military officer for the Republic of Venice, and went to Constantinople after which he was stationed a short period on Corfu. He
found his advancement too slow and boring and soon abandoned his military career. Back in Venice, he became a violinist in the
San Samuele theatre, which was still owned by Grimani. At the age of 21, he saved the life of a Venetian nobleman from the
Bragadin family, who became his life-long patron and raised Casanova to the status of a wealthy gentleman. Casanova left Venice
in 1748, due to another scandal, this time about a freshly buried corpse dug up in order to play a practical joke — the victim
went into a coma, never to recover — and charges of rape against a young girl, of which he was later acquitted.
Fugitive and chevalier
Portrait of Casanova by Pietro Longhi
Having spent time in Paris, Dresden, Prague, and Vienna, he returned to his home town of Venice in 1753. In July 1755,
at age thirty, he was arrested and convicted for his interest in magic (witchcraft) by the Inquisitori di Stato in Venice, and imprisoned in "I piombi" ("The Leads"), a famous prison attached to
the Doge's palace. Casanova was sentenced to five years but was informed of neither trial
nor sentence. Casanova hints at knowing his crime, dismisses it, and does not openly acknowledge it in his memoirs. On the
first of November 1756, he escaped from what was one of the most secure prisons of his time;
no inmate before Casanova had successfully escaped.[1] He fled to Paris, where he arrived on the same day (January 5 1757) that Robert-Francois
Damiens made an attempt on the life of Louis XV — some sources say literally
minutes afterwards, though others argue the time of day.
In Paris he became one of the trustees of the first state lottery, an
enterprise that allowed him to gather a large fortune. A protégé of Marquess Jeanne d'Urfé, he
pretended to be a Rosicrucian and an alchemist, a role that allowed him to meet some of
the most prominent figures of the era. Among them were Madame de Pompadour,
Count of St Germain, d'Alembert and
Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In 1758 he was entrusted with a mission of selling the
state bonds in Amsterdam. He succeeded and the following year was rich enough to found a silk
manufactory. However, much of his wealth was lost on constant affairs with his female workers. For his debts Casanova was
imprisoned at Fort-l'Éveque, but was liberated four days afterwards, on insistence of Marquess
d'Urfé. He sold the rest of his belongings and acquired another mission to Holland. This time, however, he failed and he had to
flee to Stuttgart, where he lost the rest of his fortune. On one night he lost 4000
Louis; this is roughly one million euros by modern
standards.[2]
He was yet again arrested for his debts, but managed to escape to Switzerland, where he
initially intended to become a Catholic monk. However, he changed his mind and instead visited Albrecht von Haller and Voltaire. 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). When Pope Clement XIII presented Casanova with the Papal Order of the Éperon d'Òr, Casanova was overjoyed
that he could at last honestly call himself a Chevalier. In 1761, Casanova represented Portugal at the Augsburg Congress, which France had organized in an attempt to end the
Seven Years' War.
During his lifetime, Casanova traveled extensively over Europe and managed to visit all its capitals, being expelled from many
due to various scandals. In 1766, he was expelled from Warsaw due to a pistol duel with Count
Colonel Franciszek Ksawery Branicki over an Italian actress, a ladyfriend of
theirs. Both were wounded. It was one of more than a few duels Casanova would fight in his life.
Casanova was permitted to return to Venice in 1774 after eighteen years' exile, but was expelled again 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.
Retirement
Casanova retired in 1785 by becoming the librarian to Count Joseph Karl von Waldstein, a chamberlain of the emperor, in the
Castle of Dux, Bohemia (now Duchcov Castle, Czech Republic). It was at the Castle of Dux that he
wrote his autobiography. His last years were dull, painful, boring, and frustrating for Casanova. Although he got on well with
the Count, the Count had his own preoccupations and had little time for his librarian, often ignoring him at meals and failing to
introduce him to important visiting guests. Casanova was thoroughly disliked by most of the other inhabitants of the Castle of
Dux and the servants were often spiteful to the old man.[citation needed] His Memoirs were still being compiled at the time of his death; although 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. Casanova died on June 4th 1798. His last words are said to be: "I have
lived as a philosopher and I die as a Christian"
Casanova's other desires
Although best known for his prowess in seduction, he was recognised by his contemporaries as an extraordinary person.
Prince Charles de Ligne, a great Austrian statesman who knew most of
the prominent individuals of the age, thought that Casanova was the most interesting man he had ever met and said of him, "there
is nothing in the world of which he is not capable". Count Lamberg wrote that he knew "few persons who can equal him in the range
of knowledge and, in general, of his intelligence and imagination".
During Casanova's numerous travels he encountered notable figures such as Pope Clement
XIII, Catherine the Great, Frederick the Great (who afterwards commented on his good looks), Madame de Pompadour, Crebillon, who was also
his French teacher, Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin, and
many others. He was present at the premiere of Mozart's Don Giovanni and possibly made last-minute revisions to Lorenzo Da
Ponte's libretto. Although Casanova took the role of businessman, diplomat, spy, politician, philosopher, magician, and
writer, with more than twenty books and several plays credited to his name (including a translation of the Iliad and a history of Poland — "Istoria della turbolenze della Polonia") —
most of which were generally admired — for the greater part of his life he was a stranger to work, living largely on his quick
wits, luck, social charm, and the money freely given to him by others.
Sinner or sinned against
Judith Summers' biography of Casanova paints a different picture of him than the traditional one. She describes how he was
attracted to strong-minded women who presented him with an intellectual as well as a romantic challenge. He did not pursue sex
for its own sake and if he had nothing to say to a woman, rarely wanted to sleep with her. She also puts forward the theory that
among his 200 plus lovers were many women who took advantage of his kindness, generosity, and vulnerability.
A story to which there is more than seems at first glance is the gorgeous nun who slipped Casanova a note suggesting he meet
her in private. Casanova waxed lyrical about tasting the forbidden fruit and trespassing
on the rights of the omnipotent husband. However, it transpired that the nun, M.M, was a
sexual predator beholden to François de Bernis, the French
ambassador, who was fully complicit of the seduction of Casanova and who most likely observed their
first tryst from a secret chamber. Casanova fell deeply in love with M.M; however, she always put the ambassador first and
outdid Casanova in her sexual extremism by seducing his female fourteen-year-old former lover,
first into a three-in-a-bed romp including herself and Casanova, and then with the ambassador.
The debauchery of this young girl he had loved sickened Casanova, but he was so in love he colluded.
Nor was the nun the only one to take advantage of Casanova's nature. The greatest love of his life, Henriette, as he called
her (her real name was most likely Adelaide de Gueidan), took advantage of him to secure passage to Parma, was ensconced in the finest accommodation at his expense, then abandoned him with the instruction that if
they were to meet in future he was not to acknowledge that he had known her. That she was on the run from a husband who intended
her for a convent due to her infidelity and that Casanova had first encountered her in the arms of a Hungarian soldier she had
enlisted to assist her passage to Parma did not seem to prepare him for the outcome. Though 'adopted' by a rich Venetian senator
whose life he had saved, and with a small private income, Casanova was by no means rich and the maids and language teachers he
had hired for Henriette had decimated his finances. He sought solace in sex in Paris, at one point keeping twenty lovers in
twenty apartments.
The most devastating blow was yet to come, however. Marianne de Charpillon was a fresh-faced courtesan of sixteen being touted
around London by her family in the hope of finding a suitor rich enough to support them all. With only a basic grasp of English
and — it would seem — of the wiles of women, Casanova was captivated by the French-speaking prostitute. She teased, tormented,
and tantalised him, being set up in a house in Chelsea along the way yet still not
succumbing to his physical advances. On one occasion she curled up into a ball making penetration impossible and driving the
furiously frustrated Casanova almost to rape. Yet, when he would attempt to distance himself from her, she pursued, lavishing
gifts on him. He even forgave her indiscretions: upon catching her in flagrante with her male hairdresser, he smashed the
house up before being reduced to a penitent submissive in a matter of minutes by this teenager, despite being a supposedly
worldly man in his thirties. Ultimately she ruined his confidence in women and in himself, which goes some way towards explaining
why the man whose name would become synonymous with lovers spent the last sixteen years of his life as a broken man working as a
librarian in a remote corner of Bohemia.
It is alleged that his only revenge on Marianne de Charpillon before fleeing London was to buy a parrot, teach it to say
"Charpillon is a greater whore than her mother!", and resell the parrot in the market.
Unusual for his time, Casanova was egalitarian towards the sexes.[citation needed] He accepted women as his equals and was non-judgmental about their
behaviour, according them the same status to do as they wished as he did men.[citation needed]
Quotations
"I am writing My Life to laugh at myself, and I am succeeding."[3]
Works
- 1752 - Zoroastro, tragedia tradotta dal Francese, da rappresentarsi nel Regio Elettoral
Teatro di Dresda, dalla compagnia de' comici italiani in attuale servizio di Sua Maestà nel carnevale dell'anno MDCCLII.
Dresda.
- 1753 - La Moluccheide, o sia i gemelli rivali. Dresda
- 1769 - Confutazione della Storia del Governo Veneto d'Amelot de la Houssaie,
Amsterdam (Lugano).
- 1772 - Lana caprina. Epistola di un licantropo. Bologna.
- 1774 - Istoria delle turbolenze della Polonia. Gorizia.
- 1775 - Dell'Iliade di Omero tradotta in ottava rima. Venezia.
- 1779 - Scrutinio del libro "Eloges de M. de Voltaire par différents auteurs".
Venezia.
- 1780 - Opuscoli miscellanei - Il duello - Lettere della nobil donna Silvia Belegno alla nobildonzella Laura Gussoni.
Venezia.
- 1781 - Le messager de Thalie. Venezia.
- 1782 - Di aneddoti viniziani militari ed amorosi del secolo decimoquarto sotto i dogadi di Giovanni Gradenigo e di Giovanni Dolfin. Venezia.
- 1782 - Né amori né donne ovvero la stalla ripulita. Venezia.
- 1786 - Soliloque d'un penseur, Prague chez Jean Ferdinande noble de Shonfeld imprimeur
et libraire.
- 1787 - Histoire de ma fuite des prisons de la République de Venise qu'on appelle les Plombs. Ecrite a Dux en Boheme
l'année 1787, Leipzig chez le noble de Shonfeld.
- 1788 - Icosaméron ou Histoire d'Edouard, et d'Elisabeth qui passèrent quatre vingts un ans chez les Mégamicres, habitans
aborigènes du Protocosme dans l'intérieur de notre globe, traduite de l'anglois par Jacques Casanova de Seingalt Vénitien
Docteur ès loix Bibliothécaire de Monsieur le comte de Waldstein seigneur de Dux Chambellan de S.M.J.R.A. A Prague à l'imprimerie
de l'école normale.
- 1790 - Solution du probleme deliaque démontrée par Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, Bibliothécaire de Monsieur le Comte
de Waldstein, seigneur de Dux en Boheme e c., Dresden, De l'imprimerie de C.C. Meinhold.
- 1790 - Corollaire à la duplication de l'Hexaèdre donné à Dux en Bohème, par Jacques
Casanova de Seingalt, Dresden.
- 1790 - Démonstration géometrique de la duplication du cube. Corollaire second, Dresden.
- 1794 - Histoire de ma vie, first fully published by F.A. Brockhaus, Wiesbaden and Plon, Paris.
1960
- 1797 - A Leonard Snetlage, Docteur en droit de l'Université de Gottingue, Jacques Casanova, docteur en droit de l'Universitè de Padoue.
In popular culture
- Casanova, a piece for Cello and Winds by Johan deMeij
- Casanova, an Opera by Johann Strauss Jr
- Casanova, a 1971 BBC Television serial
- Fellini's Casanova, a 1976 feature film by Federico Fellini starring Donald Sutherland
- Casanova, a 1987 TV movie starring
Richard Chamberlain and Marina
Baker[1].
- Casanova, a 2005 BBC Television serial featuring David Tennant as young Casanova and Peter O'Toole as the older
Casanova.
- Casanova, a 2005 feature film featuring Heath
Ledger, Sienna Miller and Charlie Cox.
- 'Casanova', a 2007 play by Carol Ann Duffy and Told By An Idiot theatre company starring
Hayley Carmichael as a female Casanova
- Casanova, a The Divine Comedy album
- Casanova in Hell, a song by UK group Pet Shop Boys, from their 2006 album
Fundamental
- Chris "Casa Nova" Ostreicher, a character from the 1999 film American Pie.
- The R&B music group, Levert, had a number one single in 1987 titled
"Casanova".
- Russian TV series The Formula Of Love (Формула Любви)
- In the Kurt Vonnegut novel Mother Night,
the main character writes a book titled "The Monogamous Casanova", referring to his own Casanovic relationship with a single
woman.
- La Nuit de Varennes, a 1982 film featuring Marcello Mastroianni.
- A Ty Beanie Baby bear was released in December 2006 named Casanova, as a symbol for
Valentine's Day and the man who shared this name.
- An abductor and killer of young women who calls himself 'Casanova' appears the 1997 feature film Kiss the Girls.
- In an episode of Relic Hunter, Sydney and Nigel search for a book which apparently contains the secrets of Casanova's sexual
charm.
- Casanova in Bohemia, a sympathetic and gently ribald novel about Casanova's last years at Dux, Bohemia; by
Andrei Codrescu (2002; publisher?).
- Giamo Casanunda is a dwarvish
character appearing in several of the Discworld novels by fantasy writer and satirist Terry Pratchett. Casanunda's personality and
predilections (as well as his punnish name) are obviously inspired by the historical Casanova.
- In an episode of That '70s Show, after Eric is
caught masturbating in a bathroom, his father remarks, "Well, if it isn't Casanova- the man who seduced himself.
- The song Orchestra of Wolves seems to be based loosely on Casanova, a song on the album Orchestra of Wolves by Gallows (band)
- A song titled "My Casanova", by the European pop group Smile.dk
Notes and references
-
- In-line:
- ^ (French) Giacomo Casanova
(1787). Histoire de ma fuite des prisons de la République de Venise qu'on appelle les Plombs. Leipzig:
Shonfeld.
- ^ (English) Hartmut Günther (2002). The Casanova Tour. Giacomo
Casanova. Casanova Magazine. Retrieved on 2006-10-27.
- ^ Casanova, G: Personal correspondence to Johann Ferdinand Opiz. January 10,
1791
-
- Biography:
- (English) Derek Parker (2002). Casanova. London: Sutton Publishing. ISBN 0-7509-3182-5.
- (Polish) Roberto Gervaso (1990). Casanova. Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy. ISBN
83-06-01955-5.
See also
External links
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
pms:Giacomo Casanova
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