Casanova, Giacomo

CASANOVA, GIACOMO. - Adventurer, b. in Venice on 2 April 1725, d. on 4 June 1798 at Dux (Bohemia), where he had retired to the castle of the Count of Waldstein in the capacity of librarian and wrote his Mémoires, reliving his thousand erotic and business ventures, his travels, his gambling and courtly adventures. He had been in France, at Dresden, at Vienna, at Prague, at St. Petersburg, in Holland, in Switzerland, everywhere weaving ruinous commercial enterprises and amorous adventures. In 1755 he was arrested and tried under the accusation of Freemasonry and magic, but after fifteen months in prison he managed to escape from the Piombi (see the Histoire de sa fuite, Leipzig 1788).

Despite certain open declarations of reverence for religion ("chaque chose qu'il avait faite c'était par l'ordre de Dieu," he had the Prince of Ligne say), C. was a man exclusively thirsting for worldly life. His wandering while living by expedients, his esprit of a libertine are of interest to the history of eighteenth-century manners, of which he, along with Balsamo, is the most sensational representative. Posthumously, in 1822, the Mémoires were published.

Giorgio Petrocchi