In the era of sports-world lotharios like Wilt Chamberlain (who claims to have had sex with more than 20,000 women) and Dennis Rodman (who may yet surpass that total), it is slightly shocking to discover that Giacomo Casanova, the famously irascible Italian lover, boasted of a mere 132 seductions. His legend -- enhanced by the recent republication of his 12-volume memoir, which runs some 4,000 pages -- seems to be yet another example of how style will always triumph over statistics.
Casanova was a man of many guises -- author, actor, priest, soldier, spy, banker, physician and translator. In "Casanova: The Man Who Really Loved Women," Lydia Flem, a Belgian psychoanalyst and critic, wants to add the word "feminist" to this list. The author of two previous books on Freud, Flem glowingly outlines Casanova's life in 18th century Venice in an effort to prove that he is not only one of history's most valiant and colorful characters but also one of its most misunderstood.
The facts of Casanova's life are fairly straightforward. When he was barely a year old, his actress mother abandoned him to the care of his grandmother while she traveled to London to perform. He saw his father die when he was 8. Surely, as Flem reveals, one answer to his nomadic, pleasure-seeking life was that he was forever searching for the parental comfort that was taken from him at a young age. Casanova's search for an identity of his own was a preoccupation, and admitting he was the son of a pair of actors never got him far. He invented a noble lineage for himself and later went by the self-styled name of Chevalier de Seingalt.
Casanova experienced his first sexual encounter at age 11, when he was sent to a seminary to study for the priesthood. (His seducer was a priest's sister, Bettina.) Later, when he returned home to Venice, still in his priestly garb, he fell into bed with two sisters at the same time. Learning the ropes at a young age clearly prepared him for his bizarre, often comical, escapades later in life. His greatest love, Henriette, was a cross-dresser who passed herself off as a castrato. And at one point, he makes love to and nearly marries the daughter of one of his exes -- who turns out to be his own daughter. But for all his adventurousness, as Flem notes, don't expect vivid descriptions and steamy details from reading Casanova's memoirs. Draped in proper 18th century euphemism, often with an ecumenical touch, he prefers to reveal how he "conquered the ebony fleece," "got close to the altar frieze" and "performed the gentle sacrifice."
Rather than viewing Casanova traditionally, as a characteristic womanizer, Flem sees him as a sentimental, noble gentleman; a lover of life who wants to share his happiness and indulge his intellectual and literary tastes with women. This may well be true, but Flem stretches it a bit far in likening him to a proto-feminist. "There is not a trace of misogyny in Casanova," she claims. "Women are his masters. The feminine so fascinates him that he would like to merge with it." That's hard to imagine in a man who called the independence of women a "source of great evil" and said he'd rather die than give up his manhood.
Casanova wasn't merely a macho seducer, though. In his struggle with time and the specter of old age, he eventually resigns himself to spending the final years of his life working as a librarian in a Bohemian castle, where he devotes 13 hours a day crafting his memoirs. It is in writing -- and thinking, imagining and remembering -- that he now finds the deepest pleasure; always with the thought that the words that make up his life will secure him both happiness and long-lived fame. Upon reading an excerpt of Casanova's manuscript, a contemporary urged him to publish it before his death (which he steadfastly refused to do), raving, "One-third ... made me laugh, one-third gave me an erection, one-third gave me food for thought." In an odd way, it seems a fittingly quantified response to a man who led a life that was, by any record, immeasurably full.
Minggu, 15 Maret 2009
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Plot 1
Casanova is love with Francesca, who thinks he is a friend of himself even though he is engaged Victoria, who is the love of Giovanni, Francessca's brother. Francessca is betrothed to Paprizzio who thinks Casanova is the feminist writer Guardi, who is really Francessca's nomme de plume. Amidst all these secret identities and misunderstandings, the Catholic Church sends Pucci to bring Casanova and Guardi to trial for heresy.
Plot 2
Casanova is a 2005 American romantic film directed by Lasse Hallström based on the life of Giacomo Casanova, starring Heath Ledger as Casanova.The film opens with a young woman tearfully leaving her son to live with his grandmother. She promises to come back for her boy. Several years later, in 1753, in Venice, Casanova, portrayed by Heath Ledger, is notorious for his success and promiscuity with women, his adventures being represented in puppet theatres around the city. The Doge, the ruler of the city, is sympathetic to Casanova, but cannot be too lenient to avoid trouble with the church. He warns Casanova that he must soon marry or he will be exiled from the city. Casanova is in love with Francesca (Sienna Miller), who writes illegal feminist books under the name of a man, Bernardo Guardi, and argues for women's rights as Dr. Giordano de Padua. However, her mother (Lena Olin) pushes her to marry Paprizzio (Oliver Platt), a rich man from Genoa whom she has never seen. When Paprizzio arrives in Venice, Casanova lies to him and says that the hotel he booked is closed and he persuades him to stay at his house. Casanova also lies and says that his nom de plume is Bernardo Guardi. While Paprizzio, preparing to visit Francesca, stays at Casanova's house, Casanova visits Francesca, pretending to be Paprizzio. Piazza San Marco, Francesco Guardi, 18th century. During the Venetian Carnival, Casanova confesses his true identity to Francesca, which makes her angry. Casanova is arrested by the Venetian Inquisition for crimes against sexual morality, such as debauchery and heresy with a novice. However, he saves Francesca by pretending to be Bernardo Guardi, which impresses her very much. At his trial, Francesca reveals that it is in fact she who is Bernardo Guardi, and both are sentenced to death. Just as Casanova and Francesca are about to be hanged in the Piazza San Marco, they are saved by an announcement that the Pope gave amnesty to all prisoners who were to be executed on that day, as it was the Pope's birthday. It is later discovered that the "Cardinal" who gave the announcement was actually an impostor who happens to be Casanova's stepfather, wedded to his long-lost mother who came back for him just as she promised when Casanova was a child. As they all escape on Paprizzio's boat, Francesca's brother, Giovanni (Charlie Cox), stays behind to continue Casanova's legendary womanizing
Casanova is love with Francesca, who thinks he is a friend of himself even though he is engaged Victoria, who is the love of Giovanni, Francessca's brother. Francessca is betrothed to Paprizzio who thinks Casanova is the feminist writer Guardi, who is really Francessca's nomme de plume. Amidst all these secret identities and misunderstandings, the Catholic Church sends Pucci to bring Casanova and Guardi to trial for heresy.
Plot 2
Casanova is a 2005 American romantic film directed by Lasse Hallström based on the life of Giacomo Casanova, starring Heath Ledger as Casanova.The film opens with a young woman tearfully leaving her son to live with his grandmother. She promises to come back for her boy. Several years later, in 1753, in Venice, Casanova, portrayed by Heath Ledger, is notorious for his success and promiscuity with women, his adventures being represented in puppet theatres around the city. The Doge, the ruler of the city, is sympathetic to Casanova, but cannot be too lenient to avoid trouble with the church. He warns Casanova that he must soon marry or he will be exiled from the city. Casanova is in love with Francesca (Sienna Miller), who writes illegal feminist books under the name of a man, Bernardo Guardi, and argues for women's rights as Dr. Giordano de Padua. However, her mother (Lena Olin) pushes her to marry Paprizzio (Oliver Platt), a rich man from Genoa whom she has never seen. When Paprizzio arrives in Venice, Casanova lies to him and says that the hotel he booked is closed and he persuades him to stay at his house. Casanova also lies and says that his nom de plume is Bernardo Guardi. While Paprizzio, preparing to visit Francesca, stays at Casanova's house, Casanova visits Francesca, pretending to be Paprizzio. Piazza San Marco, Francesco Guardi, 18th century. During the Venetian Carnival, Casanova confesses his true identity to Francesca, which makes her angry. Casanova is arrested by the Venetian Inquisition for crimes against sexual morality, such as debauchery and heresy with a novice. However, he saves Francesca by pretending to be Bernardo Guardi, which impresses her very much. At his trial, Francesca reveals that it is in fact she who is Bernardo Guardi, and both are sentenced to death. Just as Casanova and Francesca are about to be hanged in the Piazza San Marco, they are saved by an announcement that the Pope gave amnesty to all prisoners who were to be executed on that day, as it was the Pope's birthday. It is later discovered that the "Cardinal" who gave the announcement was actually an impostor who happens to be Casanova's stepfather, wedded to his long-lost mother who came back for him just as she promised when Casanova was a child. As they all escape on Paprizzio's boat, Francesca's brother, Giovanni (Charlie Cox), stays behind to continue Casanova's legendary womanizing
csv2
Casanova: Giovani Giacomo Girolamo Casanova was born in Venice in 1725 in a house near the theater where both of his parents worked as actors. There is no evidence to support Casanova's later claim that his real father was the owner of the theater, a Venetian nobleman. His parents often toured with travelling stage productions, so little Giovani was raised almost entirely by his maternal grandmother. He recounts in his biography that he was a sickly child until his eighth year when his chronic nosebleeds were cured by "magic" at about the time that his father died. Shortly thereafter he began his education, first in a private Padua school, where he had his first amorous encounters, and then in the University of Padua Law School. By 1742, at age 17, he had graduated with a degree in civil and canon law and also had been ordained (minor orders only -- not the priesthood) and was a titular (i.e., non-resident) Abbot.
Later in 1742, Casanova entered a seminary to study for the priesthood but was quickly expelled when his further encounters with women are discovered. He took a secretarial position with a Venetian official in Corfu but soon was dismissed. He spent a few months in prison in 1743, but his mother got him out. For the next several years, he went through several more jobs and had one love affair after another, and he fell in with a circle of alchemists and "magicians." In short order he established himself as the head of the group and convinced a rich Venetian to support him in a grand style. For as long as that lasted, he devoted his life to pleasure.
But in 1749 it all crashed down when his extraordinary lifestyle attracted the attention of the Venetian State Inquisitors. Casanova fled Venice on the advice of his patron and began his travels in Europe. There were occasional opportunities to return to his home city, but most of his time was spent in other European capitals where he mixed with high level nobility and academics. In 1753 he returned to Venice where he had additional notorious love affairs and in 1755 he was again imprisoned, ostensibly because of his occult activities, but more likely because of his suspicious contacts with foreign diplomats -- he may have been a spy. He escaped after a few months (his version of the story was published in one of his later books) and fled to Paris, where his recent exploits and his "great escape" gained him access to the highest social circles. He parlayed this into a position on the board of the French state lottery, which made him very rich, and he also continued, over the next several years, to have notorious and financially rewarding relationships with women. During these years he also went on several secret missions for the French government -- perhaps the Venetians were right, and he was a spy.
In succeeding years, Casanova wandered around Europe, making and losing fortunes, had more brushes with the law (sometimes getting out of jail through the influence of his many satisfied ladies), fought a few duels, and began to keep score of his many affairs. He had his ups and downs, had a hard time finding permanent employment, and, at one point, he even considered entering a monastery, but he quickly rejected that idea when he meets another young Baroness.
Throughout the process, Casanova appeared to keep his entire ever-growing list of female friends happy and, also, almost invariably friendly. He didn't "love them and leave them", but rather he kept adding additional names to his list of sometimes companions.
During this period he met all the European intellectual crowd and hobnobbed with the glitteratti. Among them were Mozart and his librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte. And this is where the story of Casanova's long running soap-opera life gets even more confusing.
Casanova collaborated with Da Ponte and Mozart in the writing and production of the Mozart's opera Don Giovanni -- pages of rewrites in all three hands were found among the thousands of pages of documents Casanova left behind. Nobody knows the real extent of Casanova's contribution to the opera, which is an adaptation of the story of Don Juan, a totally fictional character, who, was introduced to literature by Tirso de Molina (the pen name of a Spanish monk, Fray Gabriel Tellez) in 1630, in his verse drama, El Burlador de Sevilla.
The fictional Don Juan, unlike Casanova, did not leave his many conquests smiling, and Tirso's story, like Mozart's adaptation, is a moral tale about human and supernatural vengeance against this kind of unloving malefactor. Although the fictional Don Juan and Casanova had completely opposite viewpoints on women, the stories of the fictional Don Juan and the real Casanova were conflated and were even, to some extent, reversed as a result of the opera and of Casanova's known participation in writing it. In fact, most people still think that Don Juan was a romantic lover and that Casanova was an uncaring rogue. No one can argue that Casanova's promiscuity was excusable, but it is clear that he was at least as interested in making his many women friends happy as in satisfying his own wide ranging desires.
Casanova's fame in his own time was such that he attracted the attention of other famous and infamous people. Among the famous, was Benjamin Franklin when Franklin was in Paris representing the infant American republic.
For many years, he was able to keep up his famous simultaneous correspondences with many different women, but he was having more and more difficulty just making a living. To make ends meet he began writing about his own adventures, probably embroidering and expanding them as he went along. He also had more purely literary output, however, including a translation of Homer's Iliad into Italian verse, commentaries on current philosophy, and theatrical criticism. He was the entrepreneur for a French-language theater group in Venice and also published a French language theater magazine there to drum up business for the theater.
Eventually, his opportunities dwindled even more, and he reluctantly accepted employment as the librarian of a fellow Freemason, Count Joseph Karl Emmanuel von Waldenstein. The pay was adequate, but the position was at the Count's castle in the town of Dux (Duchcov) in what is now the Czech Republic, which did not offer the variety of experiences that Casanova had envisioned for his declining years. With no other prospects on the horizon, Casanova packed himself off to the small town and began the most productive stage of his literary life. He first published the story of his daring escape from the Venetian state prison and quickly followed that with a proto-science-fiction novel, the Icosameron. He produced a series of mathematics treatises (mostly advanced geometry), more philosophical commentaries, satires, biographies and profiles (notably, Catherine the Great of Russia), and, most importantly, twelve volumes of his own autobiography, which he never completed.
In 1797 the Venetian Republic fell, and Casanova contemplated a final return to his ancestral city. But in the spring of 1798 he contracted a urinary infection, apparently having no connection to his previous amorous adventures, and he died in June of that year. On his deathbed he gave the most recent draft of his autobiography to a nephew, and the posthumous publication of his memoirs assured his place in history.
Well, almost. Publishers were so shocked by what they read in the manuscript that only drastically expurgated and Bowdlerized (but still awfully racy) versions were published for more than 150 years. The first unexpurgated English translation was not published until 1962.
Later in 1742, Casanova entered a seminary to study for the priesthood but was quickly expelled when his further encounters with women are discovered. He took a secretarial position with a Venetian official in Corfu but soon was dismissed. He spent a few months in prison in 1743, but his mother got him out. For the next several years, he went through several more jobs and had one love affair after another, and he fell in with a circle of alchemists and "magicians." In short order he established himself as the head of the group and convinced a rich Venetian to support him in a grand style. For as long as that lasted, he devoted his life to pleasure.
But in 1749 it all crashed down when his extraordinary lifestyle attracted the attention of the Venetian State Inquisitors. Casanova fled Venice on the advice of his patron and began his travels in Europe. There were occasional opportunities to return to his home city, but most of his time was spent in other European capitals where he mixed with high level nobility and academics. In 1753 he returned to Venice where he had additional notorious love affairs and in 1755 he was again imprisoned, ostensibly because of his occult activities, but more likely because of his suspicious contacts with foreign diplomats -- he may have been a spy. He escaped after a few months (his version of the story was published in one of his later books) and fled to Paris, where his recent exploits and his "great escape" gained him access to the highest social circles. He parlayed this into a position on the board of the French state lottery, which made him very rich, and he also continued, over the next several years, to have notorious and financially rewarding relationships with women. During these years he also went on several secret missions for the French government -- perhaps the Venetians were right, and he was a spy.
In succeeding years, Casanova wandered around Europe, making and losing fortunes, had more brushes with the law (sometimes getting out of jail through the influence of his many satisfied ladies), fought a few duels, and began to keep score of his many affairs. He had his ups and downs, had a hard time finding permanent employment, and, at one point, he even considered entering a monastery, but he quickly rejected that idea when he meets another young Baroness.
Throughout the process, Casanova appeared to keep his entire ever-growing list of female friends happy and, also, almost invariably friendly. He didn't "love them and leave them", but rather he kept adding additional names to his list of sometimes companions.
During this period he met all the European intellectual crowd and hobnobbed with the glitteratti. Among them were Mozart and his librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte. And this is where the story of Casanova's long running soap-opera life gets even more confusing.
Casanova collaborated with Da Ponte and Mozart in the writing and production of the Mozart's opera Don Giovanni -- pages of rewrites in all three hands were found among the thousands of pages of documents Casanova left behind. Nobody knows the real extent of Casanova's contribution to the opera, which is an adaptation of the story of Don Juan, a totally fictional character, who, was introduced to literature by Tirso de Molina (the pen name of a Spanish monk, Fray Gabriel Tellez) in 1630, in his verse drama, El Burlador de Sevilla.
The fictional Don Juan, unlike Casanova, did not leave his many conquests smiling, and Tirso's story, like Mozart's adaptation, is a moral tale about human and supernatural vengeance against this kind of unloving malefactor. Although the fictional Don Juan and Casanova had completely opposite viewpoints on women, the stories of the fictional Don Juan and the real Casanova were conflated and were even, to some extent, reversed as a result of the opera and of Casanova's known participation in writing it. In fact, most people still think that Don Juan was a romantic lover and that Casanova was an uncaring rogue. No one can argue that Casanova's promiscuity was excusable, but it is clear that he was at least as interested in making his many women friends happy as in satisfying his own wide ranging desires.
Casanova's fame in his own time was such that he attracted the attention of other famous and infamous people. Among the famous, was Benjamin Franklin when Franklin was in Paris representing the infant American republic.
For many years, he was able to keep up his famous simultaneous correspondences with many different women, but he was having more and more difficulty just making a living. To make ends meet he began writing about his own adventures, probably embroidering and expanding them as he went along. He also had more purely literary output, however, including a translation of Homer's Iliad into Italian verse, commentaries on current philosophy, and theatrical criticism. He was the entrepreneur for a French-language theater group in Venice and also published a French language theater magazine there to drum up business for the theater.
Eventually, his opportunities dwindled even more, and he reluctantly accepted employment as the librarian of a fellow Freemason, Count Joseph Karl Emmanuel von Waldenstein. The pay was adequate, but the position was at the Count's castle in the town of Dux (Duchcov) in what is now the Czech Republic, which did not offer the variety of experiences that Casanova had envisioned for his declining years. With no other prospects on the horizon, Casanova packed himself off to the small town and began the most productive stage of his literary life. He first published the story of his daring escape from the Venetian state prison and quickly followed that with a proto-science-fiction novel, the Icosameron. He produced a series of mathematics treatises (mostly advanced geometry), more philosophical commentaries, satires, biographies and profiles (notably, Catherine the Great of Russia), and, most importantly, twelve volumes of his own autobiography, which he never completed.
In 1797 the Venetian Republic fell, and Casanova contemplated a final return to his ancestral city. But in the spring of 1798 he contracted a urinary infection, apparently having no connection to his previous amorous adventures, and he died in June of that year. On his deathbed he gave the most recent draft of his autobiography to a nephew, and the posthumous publication of his memoirs assured his place in history.
Well, almost. Publishers were so shocked by what they read in the manuscript that only drastically expurgated and Bowdlerized (but still awfully racy) versions were published for more than 150 years. The first unexpurgated English translation was not published until 1962.
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Soldier, spy, diplomat, writer, adventurer, chiefly remembered from his autobiography, which has established his reputation as the most famous erotic hero. Casanova's memoirs are a fascinating but unreliable account of his adventures with 122 women - according to his own counts - but they also provide an intimate portrait of the manners and life in the 18th century. His countless projects, employments, and initiatives took him through the courts of Europe - in Paris he was employed to do some espionage work by Louis XV and from London he tried to sell the secret of a cotton red dye to his own country.
"I saw that everything in the world that is famous and beautiful, if we rely on the descriptions and drawings of writers and artists, always loses when we go to see it and examine it up close." (from History of My Life, 1966-71)
Giacomo Casanova was born in Venice. His father, Gaetano Casanova was an actor, who also directed some plays. He had married in 1724 Giovanna Maria (Zanetta) Farussi, an actress, and a perfect beauty. In his childhood Casanova suffered from nose bleeds, and his parents thought that he would not live long. Strong women dominated his life: his mother and a witch who helped him to stop the bleeding. Later in his life he occasionally dressed himself as a woman. Casanova's parents left him in the care of his maternal grandmother, Marzia Farussi, and went off to London. Zanetta and Gaetano returned to Venice in 1728. Casanova's father died in 1733 but Zanetta turned down all her suitors and decided to support her children on her own. However, she soon left Venice and ended in Dresden, where she was a member of the Comici Italiani ensemble.
According to Casanova's History of My Life, he learned to read in a less than a month. In 1734 Casanova was sent to live with Doctor Gozzi in Padua. He received a good education, and showed early extraordinary cleverness. He studied at the University of Padua and at the seminary of St. Cyprian from where he was expelled for scandalous conduct. Drinking and love affairs ended his plans to become a priest, but he never gave up his belief in the existence of an immortal God. "What assumes me that I have never doubted Him is that I have always counted on His providence, turning to Him through the medium of prayer in all my moments of distress, and finding my entreaties always answered." Casanova served in the army for some time, played violin, but not very successfully, and worked for the lawyer Manzoni. In 1742 he received his doctorate from Padua. In 1744 he became a secretary to Cardinal Acquaviva of Rome. A scandal again forced Casanova to leave the city and he traveled in Naples, Corfu, and Constantinople, settling in Venice. He had a love affair with Signora F. and in 1746 he was a violinist in the San Samuel theater in Venice.
Casanova enjoyed good health until very late in life - he was five feet nine inches and he had a very dark skin. He contracted his first venereal disease in adolescence and the pox, gonorrhea, 'Celtic humors,' and other venereal diseases marked different periods of his life. He also learned the rudiments of medicine and when sick he recovered by following a strict diet of nitrate water for six weeks. Although his sex life was very lively, he did not enjoy orgies, which were popular among the high society. Once he said: "Real love is the love that sometimes arises after sensual pleasure: if it does, it is immortal; the other kind inevitably goes stale, for it lies in mere fantasy."
Casanova met in 1749 his great love, the young and mysterious Frenchwoman, Henriette, in Cesena. "People who believe that a woman is not enough to make a man equally happy all the twenty-four hours of a day have never known an Henriette." Henriette left him, returned to his family, and Casanova remembers it in his autobiography as one of the saddest moments in his life. "What is love?" he asked, and compared love to an incurable illness and divine monster. He went to Lyons, where he was received as a Freemason. By 1750 he had worked as a clergyman, secretary, soldier, and violinist in several countries.
Suspected by the Inquisition, Casanova traveled from town to town - to Paris, Dresden, Prague, and Vienna, and then to Venice. In Dresden he traslated the opera Zoroastre into Italian and his mother had the role of Erinice in the play. With François Prévost d'Exiles he wrote a play, LES THESSALIENNES, which had four performances at the Comédie-Italienne in Paris in 1752. His parody of Racine's The Thébaïde, is performed in Dresden in 1753.
Casanova's freedom ended in 1755 for a year. He was arrested, his manuscripts, books, works on magic, and Arentino's book on sexual positions were seized. Casanova was denounced as a magician and sentenced for five years in lead chambers under the roof of the Doge's Palace. The dungeos is extremely hot. He managed to escape with his friend, Father Balbi. "I then turned and looked at the entire length of the beautiful canal, and, seeing not a single boat, admired the most beautiful day one could hope for, the first rays of a magnificent sun rising above the horizon..." Casanova made his way to Paris, where his escape made him a celebrity. Like Dostoevsky later, Casanova was a gambler and in 1757 he introduced the lottery. This invention made him a millionaire. He also established a workshop for manufacturing printed silk, hiring twenty young girls to do the work. From the marquise D'Urfé he cheated huge sums of money.
During his years in exile Casanova came in contact with such luminaries as Louis XV, Rousseau, and Mme. Pompadour. In 1760 he fled from his creditors and traveled across Europe. Casanova continues his adventures in Naples, England, Germany, and Spain. He translated Voltaire's comedy L'Ecossaise for Pietro Rossi's troupe of actors in Genoa. In 1772 he wrote, in Italian, the well-documented History of Unrest in Poland. Between 1774 and 1782 he worked as a spy for the Venetian inquisitors of state. His literary efforts did not meet success. In 1787 Casanova met Mozart in Prague, and attended the first performance of the opera Don Giovanni. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte, but Casanova had earlier told the composer some episodes of his life. In one text Casanova sees that women are responsible for Don Giovanni's evil deeds: "The blame lies entirely with the female sex for bewitching his mind and enslaving his heart. Oh, seducing sex! Source of pain! Let a poor innocent person go in peace." (from Casanova or the Art of Happiness by Lydia Flem, 1997)
Casanova wrote seven issues of OPUSCOLI MISCELLENEI, ten of MESSAGER DE THALIE, one of TALIA, an adaptation of a novel by Mme de Tencin, and The Siege of Calais. His novel, NE AMORI NE DONNE, OVVERO LA STALLA RIPULITA, sent him into a second exile. In Prague he published SOLILOQUE D'UN PENSEUR, a denunciation of Cagliostro and Saint-Germain and next year appeared an episode from his Story of My Flight. From 1785 he spent as a librarian in the service of the Count of Waldstein in the castle of Dux, Bohemia (now Duchcov, Czech Republic). During his last years the toothless Casanova concentrated on his memoirs "to keep from going mad or dying of grief". His physician, James Columb O'Reilly, had adviced him: "For several moths you must give up gloomy studies which tire the brain, and sex; for the time being you must be lazy, and, as a kind of relief, you might review the happy days spent in Venice and other parts of the world." The Memoirs written in French, tell the story of Casanova's life until 1744. They give a colorful picture of the culture of the 18th century Europe. Original manuscript, sold by Casanova's family to the German firm of F.A. Brockhaus in 1821, was not released until 1960. The texts used up that time were based on a 28-volume German translation (1822-1828) and a highly inaccurate French edition (1838). The integral French text was first published as Histoire de ma vie in 1960-1962. The first full English edition was translated by W.R. Trask in six volumes (1966-71).
Casanova died on June 4, 1798. Among his last lady friend was Cecile von Roggendorf, a twenty-two-year-old canoness, and Elise von der Recke, who sent him soup and wine.
Casanova's main work was his autobiography, first published in complete form in the 1960s. He also published verse, translation of the Iliad, a satirical pamphlet on Venetian aristocracy, and an utopic novel L'ICOSAMERON, where brother and sister spend 81 years inside the Earth, meet strange creatures called Mégamigres, and mate in the new Eden. The novel occupies 5 volumes, and was probably influenced by Voltaire's Micromégas and Ludvig Holberg's Nicolaii Klimii Iter Subterraneum (A Journey to the World Underground). - Other adventure stories inside the earth: Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Edgar Rice Burrough's Pellucidar novels.
Casanova's unpublished works include ESSAI DE CRITIQUE SUR LES MOEURS, SUR LES SCIENCES ET SUR LES ARTS (Critical Essay on Morals, Sciences, and Arts); LUCUBRATION SUR L'USURE (Lucubration on Usury); and REVERIE SUR LA MESURE MOYENNE DE NOTRE ANNEE ET SELON LA REFORMATION GREGOIRE (Reflections on the Common Reckoning of Our Year According to the Gregorian Reform). At his death he left behind some 8,000 pages of other manuscripts. - Films: Casanova (1918), dir. by Alfréd Deésy; Casanova - The Loves of Casanova (1927), dir. by Alexandre Volkoff; Casanova (1928), starring Michael Bohnen; Casanova (1933), dir. by René Barberis; Adventures of Casanova (1948), dir. by Roberto Gavaldón; Casanova '70 (1965), dir. by Mario Monicelli, starring Marcello Mastroianni; "Casanova" (1971, short film), dir. by Mark Cullingham and John Glenister; Fellini's Casanova (1976), dir. by F. Fellini; Casanova & co (1977), dir. by Franz Antel, starring Tony Curtis; Casanova - Il Veneziano, vita e amori di Giacomo Casanova (1987, television film), dir. by Simon Langton; Casanova (1981, television film), dir. by Kurt Pscherer; Casanova (1990), dir. by Morten Lorentzen; Casanova (2004, television film), dir. by Richard Blank; Casanova (2005), dir. by Lasse Hallström
For further reading: The Other Casanova by Paul Nettl (1949); Casanova: A New Perspective by J. Rivers Childs (1960); Casanova by John Masters (1969); Life of Casanova by Mitchell Buck (1977); The Quadrille of Gender: Casanova's Memoirs by Francois Roustang (1988); The Man Who Really Loved Women by Lydia Flem (1997); Casanova in Love by Andrew Miller (1998 - note: fictional story of Casanova in London); Casanova: His Known and Unknown Life by Endore Guy (2001) ; Casanova and His Time by Edouard Maynial (2003) A
"I saw that everything in the world that is famous and beautiful, if we rely on the descriptions and drawings of writers and artists, always loses when we go to see it and examine it up close." (from History of My Life, 1966-71)
Giacomo Casanova was born in Venice. His father, Gaetano Casanova was an actor, who also directed some plays. He had married in 1724 Giovanna Maria (Zanetta) Farussi, an actress, and a perfect beauty. In his childhood Casanova suffered from nose bleeds, and his parents thought that he would not live long. Strong women dominated his life: his mother and a witch who helped him to stop the bleeding. Later in his life he occasionally dressed himself as a woman. Casanova's parents left him in the care of his maternal grandmother, Marzia Farussi, and went off to London. Zanetta and Gaetano returned to Venice in 1728. Casanova's father died in 1733 but Zanetta turned down all her suitors and decided to support her children on her own. However, she soon left Venice and ended in Dresden, where she was a member of the Comici Italiani ensemble.
According to Casanova's History of My Life, he learned to read in a less than a month. In 1734 Casanova was sent to live with Doctor Gozzi in Padua. He received a good education, and showed early extraordinary cleverness. He studied at the University of Padua and at the seminary of St. Cyprian from where he was expelled for scandalous conduct. Drinking and love affairs ended his plans to become a priest, but he never gave up his belief in the existence of an immortal God. "What assumes me that I have never doubted Him is that I have always counted on His providence, turning to Him through the medium of prayer in all my moments of distress, and finding my entreaties always answered." Casanova served in the army for some time, played violin, but not very successfully, and worked for the lawyer Manzoni. In 1742 he received his doctorate from Padua. In 1744 he became a secretary to Cardinal Acquaviva of Rome. A scandal again forced Casanova to leave the city and he traveled in Naples, Corfu, and Constantinople, settling in Venice. He had a love affair with Signora F. and in 1746 he was a violinist in the San Samuel theater in Venice.
Casanova enjoyed good health until very late in life - he was five feet nine inches and he had a very dark skin. He contracted his first venereal disease in adolescence and the pox, gonorrhea, 'Celtic humors,' and other venereal diseases marked different periods of his life. He also learned the rudiments of medicine and when sick he recovered by following a strict diet of nitrate water for six weeks. Although his sex life was very lively, he did not enjoy orgies, which were popular among the high society. Once he said: "Real love is the love that sometimes arises after sensual pleasure: if it does, it is immortal; the other kind inevitably goes stale, for it lies in mere fantasy."
Casanova met in 1749 his great love, the young and mysterious Frenchwoman, Henriette, in Cesena. "People who believe that a woman is not enough to make a man equally happy all the twenty-four hours of a day have never known an Henriette." Henriette left him, returned to his family, and Casanova remembers it in his autobiography as one of the saddest moments in his life. "What is love?" he asked, and compared love to an incurable illness and divine monster. He went to Lyons, where he was received as a Freemason. By 1750 he had worked as a clergyman, secretary, soldier, and violinist in several countries.
Suspected by the Inquisition, Casanova traveled from town to town - to Paris, Dresden, Prague, and Vienna, and then to Venice. In Dresden he traslated the opera Zoroastre into Italian and his mother had the role of Erinice in the play. With François Prévost d'Exiles he wrote a play, LES THESSALIENNES, which had four performances at the Comédie-Italienne in Paris in 1752. His parody of Racine's The Thébaïde, is performed in Dresden in 1753.
Casanova's freedom ended in 1755 for a year. He was arrested, his manuscripts, books, works on magic, and Arentino's book on sexual positions were seized. Casanova was denounced as a magician and sentenced for five years in lead chambers under the roof of the Doge's Palace. The dungeos is extremely hot. He managed to escape with his friend, Father Balbi. "I then turned and looked at the entire length of the beautiful canal, and, seeing not a single boat, admired the most beautiful day one could hope for, the first rays of a magnificent sun rising above the horizon..." Casanova made his way to Paris, where his escape made him a celebrity. Like Dostoevsky later, Casanova was a gambler and in 1757 he introduced the lottery. This invention made him a millionaire. He also established a workshop for manufacturing printed silk, hiring twenty young girls to do the work. From the marquise D'Urfé he cheated huge sums of money.
During his years in exile Casanova came in contact with such luminaries as Louis XV, Rousseau, and Mme. Pompadour. In 1760 he fled from his creditors and traveled across Europe. Casanova continues his adventures in Naples, England, Germany, and Spain. He translated Voltaire's comedy L'Ecossaise for Pietro Rossi's troupe of actors in Genoa. In 1772 he wrote, in Italian, the well-documented History of Unrest in Poland. Between 1774 and 1782 he worked as a spy for the Venetian inquisitors of state. His literary efforts did not meet success. In 1787 Casanova met Mozart in Prague, and attended the first performance of the opera Don Giovanni. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte, but Casanova had earlier told the composer some episodes of his life. In one text Casanova sees that women are responsible for Don Giovanni's evil deeds: "The blame lies entirely with the female sex for bewitching his mind and enslaving his heart. Oh, seducing sex! Source of pain! Let a poor innocent person go in peace." (from Casanova or the Art of Happiness by Lydia Flem, 1997)
Casanova wrote seven issues of OPUSCOLI MISCELLENEI, ten of MESSAGER DE THALIE, one of TALIA, an adaptation of a novel by Mme de Tencin, and The Siege of Calais. His novel, NE AMORI NE DONNE, OVVERO LA STALLA RIPULITA, sent him into a second exile. In Prague he published SOLILOQUE D'UN PENSEUR, a denunciation of Cagliostro and Saint-Germain and next year appeared an episode from his Story of My Flight. From 1785 he spent as a librarian in the service of the Count of Waldstein in the castle of Dux, Bohemia (now Duchcov, Czech Republic). During his last years the toothless Casanova concentrated on his memoirs "to keep from going mad or dying of grief". His physician, James Columb O'Reilly, had adviced him: "For several moths you must give up gloomy studies which tire the brain, and sex; for the time being you must be lazy, and, as a kind of relief, you might review the happy days spent in Venice and other parts of the world." The Memoirs written in French, tell the story of Casanova's life until 1744. They give a colorful picture of the culture of the 18th century Europe. Original manuscript, sold by Casanova's family to the German firm of F.A. Brockhaus in 1821, was not released until 1960. The texts used up that time were based on a 28-volume German translation (1822-1828) and a highly inaccurate French edition (1838). The integral French text was first published as Histoire de ma vie in 1960-1962. The first full English edition was translated by W.R. Trask in six volumes (1966-71).
Casanova died on June 4, 1798. Among his last lady friend was Cecile von Roggendorf, a twenty-two-year-old canoness, and Elise von der Recke, who sent him soup and wine.
Casanova's main work was his autobiography, first published in complete form in the 1960s. He also published verse, translation of the Iliad, a satirical pamphlet on Venetian aristocracy, and an utopic novel L'ICOSAMERON, where brother and sister spend 81 years inside the Earth, meet strange creatures called Mégamigres, and mate in the new Eden. The novel occupies 5 volumes, and was probably influenced by Voltaire's Micromégas and Ludvig Holberg's Nicolaii Klimii Iter Subterraneum (A Journey to the World Underground). - Other adventure stories inside the earth: Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Edgar Rice Burrough's Pellucidar novels.
Casanova's unpublished works include ESSAI DE CRITIQUE SUR LES MOEURS, SUR LES SCIENCES ET SUR LES ARTS (Critical Essay on Morals, Sciences, and Arts); LUCUBRATION SUR L'USURE (Lucubration on Usury); and REVERIE SUR LA MESURE MOYENNE DE NOTRE ANNEE ET SELON LA REFORMATION GREGOIRE (Reflections on the Common Reckoning of Our Year According to the Gregorian Reform). At his death he left behind some 8,000 pages of other manuscripts. - Films: Casanova (1918), dir. by Alfréd Deésy; Casanova - The Loves of Casanova (1927), dir. by Alexandre Volkoff; Casanova (1928), starring Michael Bohnen; Casanova (1933), dir. by René Barberis; Adventures of Casanova (1948), dir. by Roberto Gavaldón; Casanova '70 (1965), dir. by Mario Monicelli, starring Marcello Mastroianni; "Casanova" (1971, short film), dir. by Mark Cullingham and John Glenister; Fellini's Casanova (1976), dir. by F. Fellini; Casanova & co (1977), dir. by Franz Antel, starring Tony Curtis; Casanova - Il Veneziano, vita e amori di Giacomo Casanova (1987, television film), dir. by Simon Langton; Casanova (1981, television film), dir. by Kurt Pscherer; Casanova (1990), dir. by Morten Lorentzen; Casanova (2004, television film), dir. by Richard Blank; Casanova (2005), dir. by Lasse Hallström
For further reading: The Other Casanova by Paul Nettl (1949); Casanova: A New Perspective by J. Rivers Childs (1960); Casanova by John Masters (1969); Life of Casanova by Mitchell Buck (1977); The Quadrille of Gender: Casanova's Memoirs by Francois Roustang (1988); The Man Who Really Loved Women by Lydia Flem (1997); Casanova in Love by Andrew Miller (1998 - note: fictional story of Casanova in London); Casanova: His Known and Unknown Life by Endore Guy (2001) ; Casanova and His Time by Edouard Maynial (2003) A
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