(Presentazione di Maurizio Costanzo)
Presentazione di Maurizio Costanzo
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Giacomo Girolamo Casanova was born in Venice in 1725 to actress Zanetta Farussi, wife of actor and dancer Gaetano Casanova. Giacomo was the first of six children, being followed by Francesco Giuseppe (1727–1803), Giovanni Battista (1730–1795), Faustina Maddalena (1731–1736), Maria Maddalena Antonia Stella (1732–1800), and Gaetano Alvise (1734–1783).
Early on, Casanova demonstrated a quick wit, an intense appetite for knowledge, and a perpetually inquisitive mind. He entered the University of Padua at twelve and graduated at seventeen, in 1742, with a degree in law ("for which I felt an unconquerable aversion"). It was his guardian's hope that he would become an ecclesiastical lawyer. Casanova had also studied moral philosophy, chemistry, and mathematics, and was keenly interested in medicine.
After studying for the priesthood, serving in the Venetian army, and playing the violin at the San Samuele Theatre, he found his true vocation as a successful parasite, conducting amatory affairs, intriguing, gambling, cheating, and duping the gullible with his pretended magic powers.
A life of adventure took him all over Europe.
After 15 months Casanova escaped on Nov. 1, 1756, as he tells in the romantic Histoire de ma fuite ("Story of My Escape"), written in French in his old age and published at Prague in 1788.
He returned to France and resumed his intrigues and love affairs, amassing a fortune as director of a government lottery and in other ventures, and adopting the title "Chevalier de Seingalt. "
Thereafter he traveled across Europe from Spain and England to Poland and Russia, but his personal charms had begun to wane, and his dubious reputation preceded him.
He supported himself by gambling, spying, writing, and, especially, by his power to seduce women, and his personal charm affected the foremost persons of his time.
In 1785 Casanova retired to the castle of Dux, Bohemia, where his friend Count Waldstein employed him as librarian.
His memoirs, written in French, became world-famous.
Only abridged versions were published until 1960, when the complete memoirs began to appear in French and in German translation; they were published in English in 1966.
Other papers, in prose and verse, were released in 1930.
(Presentazione di Maurizio Costanzo)
