Dear Reader, I feel the need to start this post with a trigger warning because Cassanova was not a good guy. This post contains themes of rape, pedophilia and other forms of abuse and manipulation. Please proceed with caution.
If you look up Casanova in a dictionary, you’ll get variations on this theme: “a man of carnal adventures”, “a connoisseur of seduction”, “a charming and seductive lover”, “a man who is very fond of women and has many love affairs”, “a man who seduces or attempts to seduce women as a matter of habit”, “a man who has amorous adventures”.
In modern parlance, the dude’s a playa.
I often heard the term growing up. “He’s a real Casanova, that one.” It was always said with an indulgent grin, like it was a good thing. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Because women do love the bad boys, don’t they? Men would envy him (“How do you do it, man?), and women would be intrigued, because clearly if so many other women were attracted to him, there must be something, well… extraordinary about him, right?
A certain mystique has formed around Casanova over the centuries. He has become, in our minds, a sort of sexual Superman. You couldn’t be blamed for thinking he was a fictional character, although he was, unfortunately, quite real. There have been books, movies, limited series, plays, operas, songs, and even ballets written or inspired by him, because one thing we all know is that sex sells. Even he knew that.
The reason he drew my focus is that Dear Husband and I visited Venice, Italy last year, and while there, we toured the Doge’s Palace, including its old prison called the Piombi, or the “Leads.” It was called that because it was up in the attic under a lead roof, which made it swelteringly hot in the summer and freezing cold in the winter. You can read my blog post about that here, but to make a long story short, while there, I learned that Casanova had spent 16 months in that prison (without even knowing what he had been charged with for the first two). The charge seems to have been “an affront to religion and common decency.” He was sentenced to 5 years, but he managed to escape. (A brief description of said escape can be found on his Wikipedia page.)
Frankly, I couldn’t care less about his sexual exploits. I was just dying to know more about his prison break and what got him there in the first place. And lucky me, the man wrote an autobiography. Good God, did he ever. I’m listening to it in audiobook form. There are many different translated versions out there, but I’m listening to this book: The Story of My Life, by Giacomo Casanova, and its audio version is divided into 3 volumes. Volume 1 is, I kid you not, 47 hours long. And (spoiler alert), we did not arrive at the prison for the first 41 hours.
So let me start by giving you a basic sense of the man in general, aside from all things sexual, so you’ll understand how he got into this mess in the first place. That way, those of you who will find the sexual predator portion of his personality too repugnant to contemplate can stop reading at that point. Although I will tell you that after that I go into an interesting explanation of STDs and their horrific treatment in the 1700’s, along with a story he tells as an eyewitness to the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria’s incredibly prudish policies that made Vienna as unpleasant to live in for a time as the Handmaid’s Tale, and then round that off with a hilarious story about how Casanova debunked a religious miracle. So how about this? I’ll bracket all the sexual exploitation stuff with caution tape so you can scroll past it if you so desire. Because truly, the other stuff is fascinating. (I think it’s all fascinating, actually, but I get it if some of it is triggering.) Onward.
Here’s the first thing you need to know about Casanova. He was no aristocrat. He just pretended to be one. I’m fairly certain that if it weren’t for his long-winded, sexually charged autobiography, he would have died in obscurity. In fact, although an article about his prison break came out while he was still alive, the first, highly abridged edition of his autobiography only came out about 22 years after he was dead. His fame was so posthumous that no one is quite sure where his grave is, although it’s somewhere in or around modern day Duchcov, in the Czech Republic, where he died.
I have finished Volume 1, and I have learned what I set out to learn—everything about the prison break and how he got there in the first place. But I’ve also learned so much more. Casanova was born in 1725 and died in 1798. And while I’m quite sure much of his story, particularly the sexual exploits, are gross exaggerations (because some of the things he describes are all but physically impossible, and no one could have as much dumb luck and quick wit as he claimed to have), it does give some interesting insight into the 1700’s.
Granted, I doubt most people were as morally debauched as Casanova, but here and there you get little glimpses of what the real 1700’s must have been like, as opposed to his version, or the PBS version we have all come to know. Yes, society was highly restricted, but they did let their hair down. Yes, women were cloistered, especially in the upper classes. Yes, there were inquisitions and duels and people went to the opera and to church. But there were also ways around the rules, and people took advantage of them. They also cracked jokes and got angry with each other and could say really raw and insulting things just like they can today.
It also was a time of extremes in education. The more educated were not nearly as innocent and sheltered from the realities of life, even if the women might be forcibly protected from it. The less educated, on the other hand, were innocent to such a shocking degree that many did not know where babies come from, even as adults. They knew about childbirth, yes, as many grew up on farms, but the actual process of making babies could be a mystery. Many of them believed in magic and evil spirits, and since some of the medical and scientific beliefs made life feel rather “magickal” and unpredictable, there was not very much around to disabuse them of those theories. And just as today, the less education you have, the more easily you can be persuaded to believe nonsense. And this left them as easy prey for conmen.
That, too, kept me interested in this book, because Casanova is the most talented, unrepentant psychopathic conman I have ever heard of. Not that I admire him for it. On the contrary. I find a lot of his actions deplorable. My interests are akin to slowing down to gape at a car accident. I can’t seem to help myself. That, and I want to see how it happened so that I can avoid it ever happening to me.
So, let me tell you a little about this man who never made an honest living in his life. He was a parasite like no other. He managed to get free room and board from a man for months on end by making him believe that he could raise hidden treasure from the ground… when the time was right. And the time never seemed to be just right.
Somehow, he always found rich patrons to support him for the bulk of his life. I have no idea why, as he did not treat them well. He even stole one lifelong patron’s fiancée (and later dumped her once the damage was done) because he knew that the marriage would mean that less money would come his way, and he couldn’t have that, now, could he? And yet the man continued to support him.
These patrons got him into society’s inner circles. He claims to have met popes, cardinals, monarchs, and people such as Voltaire, Goethe, and Mozart, and people high up in the court of the King of France. Independent sources seem to bear this out.
His first patron sent him off to seminary, but of course the whole celibacy thing wasn’t ever going to work for Casanova, so when all was said and done that was an epic fail. He was kicked out due to a sexual scandal. I got the impression that he was never particularly religious. He often poked fun at religion in Volume 1, at least, and he had a downright hatred of Jesuits and Jews alike.
Still believing he needed the outward appearance of a career (he was still young), and liking the look of the uniform, he then purchased a military commission and had a rather extravagant uniform tailor made. He never saw action. It doesn’t even sound like he was ever trained. And yet he managed to insert himself into a comfortable and safe position. Even so, he found his duties boring and advancement too slow, had an affair with his commander’s wife, gambled away all his pay, and sold his commission to someone else so he could afford to return to Venice.
He was just 21 when he decided it was a good idea to become a professional gambler. Throughout his life, gambling would be his most self-destructive addiction. (His sex addiction, on the other hand, would be more destructive to everyone around him.) Needless to say, the gambling career didn’t last long. He lost everything. His patrons and his way of charming people into giving him loans is what usually bailed him out of his financial difficulties.
This was one of his lowest points (at least in the first volume). Since his early patrons were of the religious type, and were scandalized by his behavior in seminary and not interested in bailing him out, he was now destitute and desperate, so he took a job with a bunch of guys in a band. He played violin every night at a theater. (I’m dying to know what kind of music they played, but he doesn’t really say.) Unfortunately, he doesn’t exactly build up a nest egg during this period, because every night, after he and his bandmates got off work, they would run around Venice, getting drunk, causing trouble and pulling pranks. And here’s one of the first times I got well and truly disgusted with Casanova. (To find out why, you’ll have to read beyond the caution tape further down.)
Fortunately his rowdy band days were cut short. He saw a rich man collapse, and got him to a physician who turned out to be a quack. Over the next several days, he watched the man get increasingly sick because the physician kept bleeding him and coating his entire chest with a thick paste infused with mercury. Casanova correctly surmised that this treatment was a horrible idea and should be stopped immediately, and when the man took his advice, he of course vastly improved. The man decided that Casanova had saved his life and he became his lifelong benefactor.
Casanova also seduced the man into thinking he had alchemical, cabbalistic, and magical secret knowledge, and would be able to predict his benefactor’s future, and be able to advise him as to how to choose the right path to ensure that things would always go well for him. In essence, he became his consultant/puppet master. Casanova was still in his 20’s at this point, and between the money from this wealthy man, and the fact that he sometimes was able to increase it through gambling and grifting, Casanova often did quite well for himself. He was able to move in much better circles. He dressed better, ate better, attended fancy parties, and had access to higher caliber women. Let the games begin.
So, you’ve already gotten a sense of the quality of this man’s character, with or without the sexual element. Now you’ll have a better understanding of why, according to Casanova, he was charged with “an affront to religion and common decency.”
First of all, you have to understand that the Council of Ten in Venice was just as formidable as the Spanish Inquisition. They didn’t have to even allow you to defend yourself. They could use torture to exact confessions, and they could pass judgment and execute you on the very day they hauled you in, based simply on rumors and innuendo, so their charges didn’t have to be reasonable, and their verdicts didn’t have to fit the crimes. We of course only have Casanova’s word for this, but he claims he got 5 years (and was in the prison for two months before he was even told why he was there) for the following:
One day he met someone for the first time who took an interest in three of the books in his home. They were books on magic and how to summon elementary spirits. Casanova didn’t believe in them. He just found them amusing. The man said he knew a collector who might be interested in buying them, and asked if he could take them for a few days in order to show them to this collector. Casanova, always interested in extra money, said yes. The man actually brought them to the state inquisitors instead. Upon further scrutiny, they decided that he was a notable magician. They started looking further into his life. One person complained that he had inclined her son toward atheistic opinions. Another said Casanova had seduced his nephew. A paid informant said he only believed in the devil, and he knew this because when he lost while gambling he would curse, but he never cursed the devil. He was accused of eating meat all year ‘round, of only going to hear fine masses, and he was vehemently suspected of being a Freemason. He was also known to socialize with foreign ministers, and since he lived with three noblemen (his benefactors) and was seen with large sums of money, he must be getting paid by the foreign ministers for worming secrets out of the noblemen.
By the way, he was indeed a magician, as it helped him further his cons. And he was a Freemason, in order to gain contacts, again for his cons. He was attracted to Rosicrucianism for the same reason. In hindsight, we can see these things as mere tools for his grift rather than affronts to religion and common decency as they appeared back then. He was a white collar criminal, not evil incarnate based on the above. Because of that, if it weren’t for what is below this caution tape, I’d actually feel sorry for Casanova. But were I to do so, more than 100 women and their descendants would be spinning in their graves. Now, read on at your own risk.
As I said, it was while he was in that band that I really began to despise Casanova. For the most part up to this point, he’d been having affairs with women who plausibly had given their consent (or were at least compensated for their efforts). But in this case, he and these boys were out on the town, getting drunk and rowdy, when they came upon this girl, a barmaid if I remember correctly, and they all decided to take a turn with her. I think there were five of them. (Maybe seven. Does it really matter?) But Casanova tells us she liked it. A lot. Like she was a dog in heat.
I doubt that. Just from a physical standpoint, that couldn’t have been pleasant. And in terms of attraction, the odds of her feeling desire for every single one… Nah. I just doubt it. I really do. So he’s either lying and thinks we’re so stupid we’ll fall for it, or he’s so deluded that he couldn’t tell how traumatic a gang r**e is to a woman, or he’s such a psychopath that he just flat out didn’t care.
If I hadn’t been driving while listening to the audiobook, and if it had been possible, I would have reached into the 1700’s and punched him in the throat. (I did shout at him, though. But I detected no remorse.) He never mentions her again, so apparently they all just left her to pick up the pieces.
Apparently, he describes 120 sexual escapades in the entire book. That wouldn’t surprise me at all, having listened to just 1/3rd of it. In just this part, I’m quite certain that he described several threesomes with women who were related to one another or were at least good friends whom he claims were never the least bit jealous of each other, a definite r**e while riding in a coach (but he insists she admitted afterward that she liked it despite her protests), several implied liaisons with adolescent boys, and a very upsetting and manipulative relationship with a clearly vulnerable young person who may or may not have been a transexual in need of a lot of emotional support who he then casts off like an old shoe once he gets what he wants. Scattered amongst these encounters are visits to prostitutes who all found him to be incredibly talented between the sheets, and they, after all, should know.
His sexual exploits actually became tedious after a while. They had a common theme. He’d zero in on a young, vulnerable girl, often as young as 14 or 15. She’d be insecure, or poor, or in distress, emotionally exposed or incredibly naïve, or desperate for a life change. He’d then convince her (and possibly even himself) that he’d never loved anyone as much as he did her, that she was the most beautiful creature on the face of the earth, that he couldn’t live without her, and that his passion was such that he simply could not control himself. Then he’d deflower her, or have her cheat on her husband, or ruin her reputation to the extent that any chance of a decent future in her town was questionable. Then he’d lose interest and immediately latch onto his next victim. Really. That abruptly. He was all about the pursuit and conquest, and then… meh. No more adrenaline there. Next.
When he did bother to say good-bye, they would both shed copious amounts of tears, and hers were never because he had treated her like crap. No, it was because the loss of the best love of her life was so romantic, and so bittersweet, and so inevitable, and therefore tearfully, tragically acceptable. (Yeah. Right. I’m not surprised that the violin was his instrument of choice.)
One poor girl thought he was going to save her from her impoverished circumstances, but instead he impregnated her. Then, when confronted by her mother and the magistrate, he denied the child was his, implying that it could have been just about anybody’s, even though he knew darned well that it was his. He also knew that she was too poor to raise the child on her own, so she was forced to abandon the child, his child, to an orphanage, and what did he do? He walked away without so much as a backward glance, not thinking about what he had done to her, or giving the child a second thought, or even giving any indication that he had considered the possibility that he should have taken any responsibility for his actions.
He seemed to have a particular affinity for maids in family-run inns. Most of whom seemed to give him a wake up call by crawling into bed with him, scantily clad, not understanding the implications of their actions. So how on earth could he have helped himself under the circumstances? (Please.)
He fell in love with one who, at the ripe old age of 15, refused to have sex before marriage despite his declarations of love and all his progressive grooming. Eventually, he told her that if they declared that they are married before God (not before clergy or in a church, and definitely not legally, mind you), that would be sufficient. She fell for it. Unfortunately, that didn’t convince her father, who promptly sent her to a convent until her age of majority. But Casanova still managed to see her secretly, continued to call her his wife, and she became pregnant. She hid the pregnancy beneath the nun’s habit, but it nearly killed her, because she also had to hide the 3-day miscarriage, and nearly bled to death for her troubles. Casanova appeared to be greatly distressed for an entire week until she was out of the woods.
And then he immediately fell in love with the girl’s French teacher/best friend, who was also a nun, but an older, more sophisticated one, who was familiar with having affairs and sneaking out of the convent. They began having regular encounters, sometimes while knowingly being watched by her other lover, a French diplomat who enjoyed voyeurism, and eventually our girl of the miscarriage was drawn in for threesomes, and she was more than happy to participate in this jealousy-free dynamic, until such time as Casanova pawned her off on some other man.
I doubt that Casanova realized how many psychological insights he gave the world regarding his sexual predation. I don’t know if he was in total denial of how warped his actions were, or if he was completely aware, and just attempting to convince the readers that really, he meant well. This is something I’ve wondered about every sexual predator I’ve ever heard of. You’d think, by now, we’d know more about what makes them tick, given how many there are out there. But no.
Either way, a few passages in Volume 1 made me blink. Here they are:
He starts off by saying, “I was all my life the victim of my senses; I have delighted in going astray and I have constantly lived in error, with no other consolation than that of knowing I have erred. … My follies are the follies of youth. You will see that I laugh at them, and if you are kind you will laugh at them with me.”
From that I get that he knows he did wrong, but I’m not sure he gets the extent of his wrongs. Or maybe he just isn’t admitting it. He goes on to say, “I expect the friendship, the esteem, and the gratitude of my readers. Their gratitude, if reading my memoirs will have given them instruction and pleasure. Their esteem if, doing me justice, they will have found that I have more virtues than faults; and their friendship as soon as they come to find me deserving of it by the frankness and good faith with which I submit myself to their judgment without in any way disguising what I am.”
What he is. Not who. What.
If he truly thinks he isn’t attempting to disguise who he is, then he is deluded. Or he is trying to pull the wool over our eyes by saying he’s not disguising who he is. Do you see how frustrating this is?
Throughout his life, he professes a pure love for women. He thinks they are perfect creatures. He claims to all but worship them. He swears he would give his life to defend their honor. And yet he uses them, lies to them, abandons them, makes their lives harder than they were before they met him. And here’s what he has to say about women and intelligence, which he claimed to value in women:
“After all, a beautiful woman without a mind of her own leaves her lover with no resource after he had physically enjoyed her charms.” His attitude toward educated women, however, not quite as positive. “In a woman, learning is out of place; it compromises the essential qualities of her sex. … No scientific discoveries have been made by women. To go plus ultra requires a vigor which the female sex cannot have. But in simple reasoning and in delicacy of feeling we must yield to women.”
One time he had the audacity to rescue a woman from another conman/sexual predator, and he was filled with outrage that the poor woman had been so ill-used. That is rather like letting the fox into the hen house. He, of course, rescued her right into his own arms, and then the fox moved on to another hen.
And this passage, in particular, was very enlightening, in terms of projection, and makes it quite clear that, on some conscious level, anyway, he knows exactly how he plays his game, and has, in fact, put a lot of thought into it.
At one point, he meets a 16-year-old Italian girl Paris. She’s an orphan in distress. Oddly enough, she seems to bring out paternal instincts in him, even though he finds her attractive. He actually is quite proud of himself for not hitting on her. Instead, he gives her the following advice:
“You are now in a city in which your destiny must unfold itself, and which all the fine qualities which nature has so bountifully bestowed upon you and which ultimately may cause your fortune may likewise cause your ruin. For here, my dear countrywoman, wealthy men despise all libertine women except those who have offered them the sacrifice of their virtue. If you are virtuous and are determined upon remaining so, prepare yourself to bear a great deal of misery. If you feel yourself sufficiently above what is called prejudice, if in one word you feel disposed to consent to everything in order to secure a comfortable position, be very careful not to make a mistake. Distrust altogether the sweet words which every man will address to you for the sake of obtaining your favors, for his passion, once satisfied, his ardor will cool down, and you will find yourself deceived. Be wary of your adorers. They will give you abundance of counterfeit coin, but do not trust them far.
If only he had made that speech 120 other times.
So, by now you’re probably asking yourself if I’m going to subject myself to volumes two and three of this memoir, both of which are equally long. Believe me, I’ve had to think long and hard about that. I’ve got to say that Casanova is a disgusting pig of a man who doesn’t deserve anyone’s attention, and if I saw him on the street I’d be tempted to run over him with my car.
Unfortunately, he’s the bathwater of this memoir. There’s still a baby here. I’ve learned so much from the first third of the book that I can’t in good conscience stop reading (or rather, listening) now. Yes, I’ll take an extremely long break and read about decent people and things for several months to cleanse my soul (any suggestions?) before having to wade back into his scummy waters again, but I have learned quite a bit. And, heaven help me, he is a good storyteller, even if much of it is a disgustingly self-justifying ego-massage.
Here are a few of the fascinating things I’ve learned that have made the experience worthwhile:
Another common theme in the memoir, naturally, is that Casanova contracted a sexually transmitted disease more than once, and while he only hinted at the treatments, you still get the impression that they were horrific. Sicko that I am, I had to do a little more research on this. There was a lot more information available than I expected.
In a detailed paper I found this chapter: Cassanova’s Guide to Medicine: 18th Century Medical Practice: Chapter 10: The Great Cure: 1747, Wesel – 1761, Munich – 1764, Wesel – 1766 Dresden. It states that Casanova mentioned contracting an STD, most likely either Syphilis or Gonorrhea, no fewer than ten times between the ages of 18 and 41 in his memoirs. The first 4 times, he somehow managed to treat himself with a regimen of diet, rest, and saltpeter. (That seems questionable, but who knows.)
The fifth time, however, was so severe that he finally went against his own instincts and took the treatment that was most common back then: mercury. It was wintertime, so he had to shut himself up for six weeks, subject himself to extreme heat for maximum absorption of the metal, and also so that he could sweat out the toxins. During that time he sort of lost his mind, accepted religion and swore off women. Naturally, that didn’t last long.
That experience scared him so badly, though, that the next two times he had an STD he went back to self-treatment. But his outbreak at age 36 is the one that most fascinates me. At this point, his lover was a countess, and she did not want the rumor of her lover’s venereal disease causing a scandal, so she convinced Casanova to hide it for much longer than he normally did, and therefore it gained more of a foothold in his body than it normally did, and when he finally couldn’t take it any longer, he was forced to run off to another city and resort to mercury once again.
He found a physician whom he thought was reputable, as that man had been taught by a physician who had treated Casanova successfully in the past. Also, this doctor did not believe in bloodletting, which was a practice that Casanova had always passionately disapproved of. This doctor prescribed a strict diet, sweat baths and mercury massages for 6 weeks, at the end of which Casanova felt worse than when he started. He was “terrifyingly thin” and had “two monstrously big inguinal tumors”. The doctor attempted to lance them, but he cut an artery which caused Casanova to nearly bleed to death and seek another physician.
That next physician prescribed manna pills, diluted milk and barley water. Nothing else for two and a half months. Casanova seemed to think that restored him to health, but he also admitted that he didn’t start gaining weight again until after that. Once that happened, he was right back to his old tricks.
Another fascinating article which I highly recommend, entitled Casanova: Patient Zero and other insights into sexual health in the 1700s, claims that he ran into a physician in the town of Orsera who was extremely grateful to him, because a year earlier, he had passed an STD to a housekeeper, who then passed it to another man, who passed it to his wife, who also passed it on, and in less than a month, the physician had 50 clients. So local Croatian gossip could very well be one of the earliest epidemiological investigations, which pinpointed Casanova as patient zero in that particular outbreak. Yay, him, I guess, for drumming up business.
He had two more severe cases of STDs after that, both times treated with mercury, and he implies that the last time, at age 41, was due to the fact that his looks were fading due to age (and possibly facial disfigurement due to tertiary syphilis), and he had therefore lowered his standards in women. (And lower class women, of course, were more apt to be diseased.) Another interesting tidbit that came out in his memoirs, which he wrote from around age 64 until his death at age 73, was that in his 20’s he had 30 teeth, and at the time he was writing the memoirs, he had only one left.
One of the side effects of mercury is that it causes gum ulcers and loose teeth.
The sad part about all this is that condoms of a sort did exist at the time, and Casanova knew about them. Granted, they weren’t as effective as the ones we use today, and whether he knew that they could be used as a prophylactic is unknown, but he did know, at least, that “preservative sheaths” could protect against “a certain fatal plumpness.” He also knew that if they didn’t prevent that “plumpness”, that something could still be done about it (i.e. an abortion, which was a whole lot more common in the 1700’s than it is today. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, pro-lifers.)
Another fascinating insight into the 1700’s was the time Casanova spent in Vienna, Austria. The Empress Maria Theresa was in power at the time, and she ruled with an iron fist. She decided that of the seven deadly sins, lust was the one that could never be forgiven. Sex was only allowed inside of marriage. There was to be no prostitution. Men were to have no mistresses. If wives were found cheating, they were to be locked up, even if their husbands did not want the scandal. Lewdness and illegitimate love of any kind was unacceptable.
To enforce this rule, she employed a legion of spies called the Chastity Commission, and as they dressed like commoners, you never knew if you were being watched or not. Women who lived alone, in particular, were in constant danger. Every single thing they did was questioned. If they entered a building, when they came out, they’d be questioned. What were you doing in there? Why did it take so long? The spy could accuse them of prostitution whether it was true or not, and they could be carried off to prison on the spot. After a while, these spies began to realize that they could rob these women. Give me all your money and I’ll let you go.
The entire town began to distrust strangers, and visitors to Vienna were treated accordingly. One time, Casanova was leaning against a wall, and a spy told him to move along or he’d be arrested. When he asked why, he was told that a woman was looking at him. When he looked around, he saw a woman looking out of a 4th story window. When he told some friends about it, they weren’t surprised, as things like that happened all the time. The only way women could avoid being accused of soliciting was by having their head down with rosary beads in hand, because they knew that the Empress would be enraged if a spy arrested a woman who was praying or on her way to church. Shades of the Handmaid’s Tale. How scary.
This last story will give you some insight into what an entertaining storyteller Casanova could be. I can see how he could charm people. I can also see how pragmatic he was, and how he didn’t take religion seriously. And he clearly could spot an illusion a mile away. It takes one to know one.
A Jesuit Monk told Casanova that he was headed to a church to verify a miracle. That intrigued him. He asked for details. The monk told him that the Empress Maria Amalia, the widow of Charles VII, whose body was still on view to the public, had warm feet even though she was dead. Casanova replied, “Perhaps something keeps them warm.”
The monk invited him to come along so that he could assure himself personally. Casanova then goes on to say, “To neglect such an opportunity would have been to lose the chance of mirth or edification, and I was as desirous of the one as of the other. Wishing to be able to boast that I had seen a miracle, and one moreover of a peculiar interest to myself (I’ve always had the misfortune to suffer from cold feet), I went to see the mighty dead. It was quite true that her feet were warm, but the matter was capable of a simple explanation, as the feet of her defunct majesty were turned toward a burning lamp at a little distance off.”
I can see how Casanova might be entertaining at a dinner party. He could be charming and funny, and heaven knows he had plenty of stories to tell. He walked on the wild side, and was probably not like anyone else you’d ever meet. But he was also an itinerate gambler, a grifter, a parasite, and a conman. Every once in a while, as with other psychopaths I’ve known, I noticed his mask slip a little bit in his memoirs. He’d get a little irritated, and become tired of pretending to be who people wanted him to be, and actually show his disdain. It would be brief, but it would be startling. And if I could see it in a memoir, I’m sure it was downright rattling in real life.
What made him so attractive to the ladies? His looks? Personally, he doesn’t do it for me, but perhaps it’s a 1700’s thing. And syphilis certainly did him no favors as time went on. His prospects? He had none, and while he put on a good show, the veneer must have been quite thin and easy to penetrate with very little effort. I’m quite sure that the reason he traveled as much as he did was that after he offended more than one or two people, word got around and he started to get shunned.
If I actually get around to listening to volumes two and three and gain more insights, I’ll be sure to let you know, but as with most psychopaths, according to the Wikipedia page, his life came to a rather sad and lonely end. He never married, and any children he had were unclaimed. He became a librarian for a count in Dux Castle in what is now the Czech Republic. He found life there, out among the peasants, boring, and that’s why he wrote his memoirs. The count increasingly ignored him, and he was thoroughly disliked by the other inhabitants of the castle. In the end, his only friends were his Fox Terriers.
Once again, I’d almost feel sorry for the man, but for the fact that he spent his entire life using and abusing other people for his own gain, and appears to have felt absolutely no remorse for it, so his sad and loveless end was his own doing.
And if you need one last thing to remove his romantic mystique from your mind, maybe this will help: the English version of Giacomo Girolamo Casanova is James Jerome Newhouse. Not so sexy anymore, are you, Jimmy? When all was said and done, you were all sizzle and no steak.
So, the next time you are tempted to call someone a Casanova (wink, wink, nudge, nudge…), maybe think twice.
Additional Sources:
Bones of a Young Child Reveal Painful History of Mercury-Based Treatments
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