92 Facts About Casanova

Giacomo Girolamo Casanova was an Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice.

Casanova often signed his works as "Jacques Casanova de Seingalt" after he began writing in French following his second exile from Venice.

Casanova has become so famous for his often complicated and elaborate affairs with women that his name is synonymous with "womanizer".

Casanova associated with European royalty, popes, and cardinals, along with the artistic figures Voltaire, Goethe, and Mozart.

Casanova spent his last years in the Dux Chateau as a librarian in Count Waldstein's household, where he wrote the story of his life.

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Giacomo Girolamo Casanova was born in Venice in 1725 to actress Zanetta Farussi, wife of actor and dancer Gaetano Casanova.

For Casanova, the neglect by his parents was a bitter memory.

Casanova moved in with the priest and his family and lived there through most of his teenage years.

Early on, Casanova demonstrated a quick wit, an intense appetite for knowledge, and a perpetually inquisitive mind.

Casanova entered the University of Padua at 12 and graduated at 17, in 1742, with a degree in law.

Casanova had studied moral philosophy, chemistry, and mathematics, and was keenly interested in medicine.

Back in Venice, Casanova started his clerical law career and was admitted as an after being conferred minor orders by the Patriarch of Venice.

Casanova shuttled back and forth to Padua to continue his university studies.

However, Casanova was caught dallying with Malipiero's intended object of seduction, actress Teresa Imer, and the senator drove both of them from his house.

Casanova proclaimed that his life avocation was firmly established by this encounter.

On meeting Pope Benedict XIV, Casanova boldly asked for a dispensation to read the "forbidden books" and from eating fish.

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.

In search of a new profession, Casanova bought a commission to become a military officer for the Republic of Venice.

Casanova joined a Venetian regiment at Corfu, his stay being broken by a brief trip to Constantinople, ostensibly to deliver a letter from his former master the Cardinal.

Casanova soon abandoned his military career and returned to Venice.

However, despite protests from the attending physician, Casanova ordered the removal of the ointment and the washing of the senator's chest with cool water.

Casanova had dug up a freshly buried corpse to play a practical joke on an enemy and exact revenge, but the victim went into a paralysis, never to recover.

Casanova was later acquitted of this crime for lack of evidence, but by this time, he had already fled from Venice.

Casanova penetrated his outward shell early in their relationship, resisting the temptation to unite her destiny with his.

Casanova came to discern his volatile nature, his lack of social background, and the precariousness of his finances.

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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.

In Lyons, Casanova became companion and finally took the highest degree of Scottish Rite Master Mason.

Casanova stayed in Paris for two years, learned the language, spent much time at the theater, and introduced himself to notables.

Casanova then visited Prague and Vienna, where the tighter moral atmosphere of the latter city was not to his liking.

In Venice, Casanova resumed his escapades, picking up many enemies and gaining the greater attention of the Venetian inquisitors.

Casanova was placed in solitary confinement with clothing, a pallet bed, table, and armchair in "the worst of all the cells", where he suffered greatly from the darkness, summer heat, and "millions of fleas".

Casanova was housed with a series of cellmates, and after five months and a personal appeal from Count Bragadin, was given warm winter bedding and a monthly stipend for books and better food.

Just three days before his intended escape, during a festival when no officials would be in the chamber below, Casanova was moved to a larger, lighter cell with a view, despite his protests that he was perfectly happy where he was.

Casanova solicited the help of the prisoner in the adjacent cell, Father Balbi, a renegade priest.

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.

Casanova reconnected with his 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.

In Casanova's view, "deceiving a fool is an exploit worthy of an intelligent man".

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 of Saint-Germain, d'Alembert, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Casanova was paid well for his quick work and this experience prompted one of his few remarks against the and the class on which he was dependent.

Casanova was entrusted with a mission of selling state bonds in Amsterdam, Holland being the financial center of Europe at the time.

Casanova had reached his peak of fortune, but could not sustain it.

Casanova 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".

Casanova sold the rest of his belongings and secured another mission to Holland to distance himself from his troubles.

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Casanova 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.

Casanova 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.

In 1760, Casanova started styling himself the Chevalier de Seingalt, a name he was to use increasingly for the rest of his life.

Casanova traveled to England in 1763, hoping to sell his idea of a state lottery to English officials.

Casanova interviewed many young women, choosing one "Mistress Pauline" who suited him well.

Casanova went on to the Austrian Netherlands, recovered, and then for the next three years, traveled all over Europe, covering about 4,500 miles by coach over rough roads, and going as far as Moscow and Saint Petersburg.

Not lacking either connections or confidence, Casanova went to Russia and met with Catherine the Great, but she flatly turned down the lottery idea.

The hand recovered on its own, after Casanova refused the recommendation of doctors that it be amputated.

Casanova 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 Marquise d'Urfe.

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.

Casanova tried his usual approach, leaning on well-placed contacts, wining and dining with nobles of influence, and finally arranging an audience with the local monarch, in this case Charles III.

Casanova received a small stipend from Dandolo and hoped to live from his writings, but that was not enough.

Casanova 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.

Casanova 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.

Casanova has a manner of saying things which reminds me of Harlequin or Figaro, and which makes them sound witty.

Casanova now had little money for gambling, few willing females worth pursuing, and few acquaintances to enliven his dull days.

Casanova's Iliad was published in three volumes, but to limited subscribers and yielding little money.

Casanova got into a published dispute with Voltaire over religion.

In 1779, Casanova found Francesca, an uneducated seamstress, who became his live-in lover and housekeeper, and who loved him devotedly.

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Casanova's health had deteriorated dramatically, and he found life among peasants to be less than stimulating.

Casanova was only able to make occasional visits to Vienna and Dresden for relief.

In despair, Casanova considered suicide, but instead decided that he must live on to record his memoirs, which he did until his death.

Casanova visited Prague, the capital city and principal cultural center of Bohemia, on many occasions.

Casanova is known to have drafted dialogue suitable for a Don Juan drama at the time of his visit to Prague in 1787, but none of his verses were ever incorporated into Mozart's opera.

Casanova was buried at Dux, but the exact place of his grave was forgotten over the years, and remains unknown today.

Casanova 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".

Casanova wrote in French instead of Italian because "the French language is more widely known than mine".

Casanova has a good ear for dialogue and writes at length about all classes of society.

Casanova celebrates the senses with his readers, especially regarding music, food, and women.

Casanova 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.

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.

Casanova's actions are considered by many in modern times to be predatory, despite his claims to contrary ; he frequently targeted young, insecure or emotionally exposed women.

In 1774, when he was almost 50, Casanova encountered in Trieste a former lover, the actress Irene, now accompanied by her nine-year-old daughter.

Casanova gambled throughout his adult life, winning and losing large sums.

Casanova was tutored by professionals, and he was "instructed in those wise maxims without which games of chance ruin those who participate in them".

Casanova was not above occasionally cheating and at times even teamed with professional gamblers for his own profit.

Casanova was recognized by his contemporaries as an extraordinary person and a man of far-ranging intellect and curiosity.

Casanova has been recognized by posterity as one of the foremost chroniclers of his age.

Casanova 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.

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Casanova was a servant of the establishment and equally decadent as his times, but a participant in secret societies and a seeker of answers beyond the conventional.

Casanova was, by vocation and avocation, a lawyer, clergyman, military officer, violinist, con man, pimp, gourmand, dancer, businessman, diplomat, spy, politician, medic, mathematician, social philosopher, cabalist, playwright, and writer.

Casanova wrote over twenty works, including plays and essays, and many letters.

Casanova's novel Icosameron is an early work of science fiction.

Casanova is a well of knowledge, but he quotes Homer and Horace ad nauseam.

Casanova is sensitive and generous, but displease him in the slightest and he is unpleasant, vindictive, and detestable.

Casanova believes in nothing except what is most incredible, being superstitious about everything.