90 Facts About Giacomo Casanova

Giacomo Casanova is chiefly remembered for his autobiography, written in French and published posthumously as.

Giacomo Casanova spent his final years in Bohemia, where he served as librarian to the household of Count Waldstein and resided at Dux Castle.

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

Giacomo Casanova was the first of six children, followed by Francesco Giuseppe, Giovanni Battista, Faustina Maddalena, Maria Maddalena Antonia Stella, and Gaetano Alvise.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Giacomo Casanova quickly ingratiated himself with a patron, 76-year-old Venetian senator Alvise Gasparo Malipiero, the owner of Palazzo Malipiero, close to Casanova's home in Venice.

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

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

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

When Giacomo Casanova became the scapegoat for a scandal involving a local pair of star-crossed lovers, Cardinal Acquaviva dismissed Giacomo Casanova, thanking him for his sacrifice, but effectively ending his church career.

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

Giacomo 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.

Giacomo Casanova soon abandoned his military career and returned to Venice.

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

Giacomo 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.

Giacomo Casanova was later acquitted of the crime for lack of evidence, by which time he had already fled from Venice.

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

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

Crestfallen and despondent, Giacomo 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, Giacomo Casanova became companion and finally took the highest degree of Scottish Rite Master Mason.

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

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

Giacomo Casanova was placed in a single-person room 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".

Giacomo Casanova was later housed with a series of cellmates.

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

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

The drop to the nearby canal being too great, Giacomo Casanova prised open the grate over a dormer window, and broke the window to gain entry.

Thirty years later in 1787, Giacomo 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.

Giacomo Casanova reconnected with his old friend de Bernis, now the Foreign Minister of France.

Giacomo Casanova was advised by his patron to find a means of raising funds for the state as a way to gain instant favor.

Giacomo Casanova promptly became one of the trustees of the first state lottery, and one of its best ticket salesmen.

Giacomo Casanova duped many socialites with his occultism, particularly the Marquise Jeanne d'Urfe, using his excellent memory which made him appear to have a sorcerer's power of numerology.

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

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

Giacomo 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.

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

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

Giacomo 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".

Unfortunately, though he was released, his patron de Bernis was dismissed by Louis XV at that time and Giacomo Casanova's enemies closed in on him.

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

Giacomo Casanova was yet again arrested for his debts, but managed to escape to Switzerland.

Weary of his wanton life, Giacomo Casanova visited the monastery of Einsiedeln and considered the simple, scholarly life of a monk.

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

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

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

Giacomo 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.

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

Giacomo 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, Giacomo Casanova would have difficulty overcoming his notoriety and gaining any fortune, so he headed for Spain, where he was not as notorious.

Giacomo 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.

In Rome, Giacomo Casanova had to prepare a way for his return to Venice.

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

Giacomo Casanova reluctantly became a correspondent 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.

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

Giacomo Casanova now had little money for gambling, few willing females worth pursuing, and few acquaintances to enliven his craven, impulsive tendencies.

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

Giacomo Casanova got into a published dispute with Voltaire over religion.

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

In 1785, after Foscarini died, Giacomo Casanova began searching for another position.

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

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

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

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

Giacomo 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 Don Giovanni.

Giacomo Casanova was buried at Dux, but the location of his grave has been forgotten.

Giacomo 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".

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

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

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

Giacomo 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.

Scams of all sorts were common, and Giacomo Casanova was amused by them.

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

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

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

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

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

Giacomo 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.

Giacomo 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.

Giacomo 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.

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

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

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

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

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