An Outline
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Giacomo Girolamo Casanova is born in Venice on 2 April, in a house on the Calle della Commedia, near the Teatro San Samuele. His parents are actors: Gaetano Giuseppe Casanova and Zanetta (née Farussi)--though Giacomo will later claim in Né amori né donne (1783) that his true father was the Venetian nobleman Michele Grimani, whose family owned the theater where his parents were employed. His parents are frequently absent, on tour or abroad, and Giacomo is raised almost entirely by his maternal grandmother, Marzia Farussi. Casanova is a sickly child. He will later describe the first years of his life as a nearly vegetative state that lasted until the age of eight.
1733
Giacomo's chronic nosebleeds are cured by "magic"; his father dies.
1734-1738
Casanova is sent to board in Padua, where he studies with Dr. Gozzi. He falls in love with Gozzi's younger sister, Bettina, and learns his first lessons about women.
1738-1742
He is a student of Law at the University of Padua. However, his studies do not require him to reside permanently in that city, and from 1739 he lives mostly in Venice, returning to Padua as necessary to take exams.
He is tonsured on 14 February. He is befriended by his neighbor, the Venetian nobleman and Senator Alvise Malipiero. Amorous adventures with Teresa Imer, Nanetta and Marta Savorgnan, Giulietta.
1741
He receives the four minor ecclesiastical orders in January, and becomes an abate. He decides to attempt a career in the Church.
1742
He receives his degree as a doctor of civil and canon law from the University of Padua. His mother, then in Warsaw, decides to give up the lease on her house in Venice. Casanova is placed in the seminary of San Cipriano, but is quickly expelled. According to Childs, Casanova may at this point have become secretary to Giacomo da Riva who had been appointed "Governor of the Galleys" in the Venetian possession of Corfu, accompanying his master there, and perhaps also visiting Constantinople. The Histoire does not place Casanova in Corfu or Constantinople until 1745; the autobiography probably conflates and confuses several different episodes of his life. In any case, Casanova seems to have left, or been asked to leave, da Riva's service before March, 1743.
1743
Casanova returns to Venice. Marzia Farussi dies on 18 March. Casanova is imprisioned in the Fortress of Sant'Andrea from the end of March until 27 July. Through Zanetta's influence, Casanova is appointed secretary to Bernardo da Bernardis, the new Bishop of Martirano, in Calabria. In October, Casanova travels independently to Rome, expecting to join the Bishop's entourage there. Misadventures with Frate Stefano along the way. Arriving in Martirano before the year's end, Casanova is horrified by the cultural poverty of rural Calabria, and asks permission to leave the bishop's service.
1744
Casanova travels to Rome, pausing to visit Naples (May). He meets Donna Lucrezia, her husband, and her sister; he has a torrid affair with Lucrezia. In June, he enters the service of Cardinal Acquaviva, the Spanish ambassador to the Holy See, and believes that he is on his way to a great career in the Church.
Casanova is an unwilling accessory in the attempted elopement of Barbaruccia, his French teacher's daughter. Though he is innocent, Casanova's reputation is ruined, and the Archbishop reluctantly dismisses him. During his return to Venice, he meets the supposed castrato soprano Bellino (later called Teresa Lanti; actually Angiola Calori), and refuses to believe that "he" is not a woman. Casanova unmasks her; they fall in love and plan to marry. He later decides that he can not bear the social degradation of being the unemployed husband of a woman of the theatre--in a century in which actresses and singers were often considered little better than prostitutes--and gives Bellino-Teresa her "liberty." Casanova is back in Venice by the beginning of April. According to the Histoire, this is the point at which he becomes da Riva's secretary and accompanies him to Corfu. Inconclusive affair with Mme F. On leaving da Riva's service, Casanova visits Constantinople (possibly his second visit), then returns to Venice.
1746
To support himself, Casanova must work as a violin player in the orchestra of the San Samuele theater; he considers the occupation ignominious. On 21 April, he meets the Venetian patrician Matteo Giovanni Bragadin. Casanova helps Bragadin when he suffers a stroke, and takes charge of his medical treatment. Bragadin and his friends have a strong, superstitious interest in magic; they believe that the young Casanova's uncanny medical expertise could only arise from mystical origins. He uses his knowledge of the cabala to establish ascendancy over them. Bragadin takes Casanova as his unofficial adopted son, and provides him with a large allowance. For the next three years, Casanova lives the life of a young nobleman devoted to pleasure.
1749
Casanova's wild life brings him to the attention of the State Inquisitors, who had almost unchecked authority over state security and public order. On Bragadin's advice, he leaves Venice for a time. At Cesena, he meets the mysterious adventuress Henriette, then accompanies her to Parma and Geneva. Casanova's affair with Henriette is one of the greatest loves of his life; it lasts from July until the following February.
Henriette reluctantly leaves Casanova to return to her family (February). Casanova is again in Venice between April and May. On 1 June, he departs for Paris. During his journey, while stopping over in Lyons, he becomes a Freemason. Membership in this select group provides him with an invaluable network of important contacts, from which he benefits for the rest of his life.
1750-52
Casanova's first stay in Paris. He spends his time as a dedicated observer of French culture and mores, and an avid (if not entirely successful) student of the language. He frequents the Balletti's, a theatrical family as famous for its moral rectitude as for its talent. The young Manon Balletti will later fall deeply in love with him. In October, Giacomo and his brother Francesco depart for Dresden. In Saxony, where his mother is an actress in the Elector's service, Casanova composes his first extended literary work: the play La Molucheide.
Casanova returns to Venice by way of Prague and Vienna, arriving at the end of May. Affair with C.C. (Caterina Capretta). Casanova asks Bragadin to ask her father, a prosperous merchant, for her hand in marriage. C.C.'s father puts her into a convent. There she meets M.M., a nun who is having an affair with the Abbé de Bernis, the French ambassador to Venice. This soon becomes a ménage à quatre, which continues until the ambassador's return to France. Meanwhile, Casanova is under surveillance by the State Inquisitors, ostensibly because of his "occult" knowledge and activities--but more probably because his contacts with both foreign ambassadors and members of the Venetian government were seen as a potential danger to the state. Casanova is arrested during the night of July 25-26, 1755, and imprisoned in the "Leads": the cells under the lead roof of the Ducal Palace. He escapes on the night of October 31-November 1, 1756 and flees Venice, eventually making his way to Paris. Far from making him a social outcast, Casanova's "great escape" and his highly polished description of it make him a sought-after guest in good society. .
1757
He arrives in Paris on 5 January. With the support of the Abbé de Bernis and his own mother wit, he participates in the foundation of the French state lottery, and becomes wealthy. He also is entrusted with a secret mission to Dunkirk on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He meets the Marquise d'Urfé, and impresses her with his knowledge of the occult. Believing that Casanova is a master adept who can help her accomplish the "great work" of being reborn as a man, d'Urfé becomes his patron. For the next seven years Casanova will skillfully play on the credulity of this otherwise intelligent and intellectual woman, swindling her for perhaps a million francs.
1758
In October, he goes to Holland on another secret mission, this time to negotiate the sale of French bonds. Again, he uses his cabala to impress the unwary and to enrich himself. Affair with Esther.
1759
Casanova returns to Paris in early January. He is accused of procuring an abortion for Giustiniana Wynne (lover of his friend, the Venetian patrician Andrea Memmo), but succeeds in proving the allegation false. He sells his interest in the lottery, and invests unwisely in a silk-printing factory. The business is far less profitable than he had hoped, and when an employee steals most of the factory's liquid assets, Casanova's partners and creditors suspect fraud. Their accusations lead to his imprisonment in the For-l'Évêque prison, but he is released after four days, when Mme D'Urfé intercedes for him. Despite his legal troubles, he is soon entrusted with another important financial mission to Holland. This time the mission is unsuccessful. Shortly after his arrival in Holland, a French court finds him guilty of forging bills of exchange. The following years are marked by Casanova's restless wanderings throughout Europe. Some scholars have suggested that during this period Casanova was employed as a spy, but no conclusive evidence of this has yet come to light.
In February, Casanova leaves Holland for Cologne, where he is accused of evading a debt; the case against him is dismissed. In March, he is in Stuttgart, where he falls victim to professional card sharps. Unable to pay his pledges to them, Casanova is again imprisoned. He escapes, and flees to Zurich, where he visits the Benedictine abbey of Einsiedel and briefly considers becoming a monk--an idea he gives up to pursue the young Baroness de Roll. In July, he visits Voltaire at "Les Délices." Casanova heads south, passing through Grenoble, Avignon, Marseilles, Toulon, Antibes, Nice, Genoa, and Florence. He is implicated in the negotiation of a false bill of exchange; though innocent, he is ordered to leave the city. December finds Casanova in Rome, where he spends time with his brother Giovanni, and with Giovanni's friends and colleagues, the painter Raphel Mengs and the art historian Johann Winkelmann. He is received by Pope Clement XIII, who makes him a knight in the Papal Order of the Holy Spur.
1761
Casanova visits Naples, where he meets, woos, and proposes marriage to Leonilda, the seventeen-year-old "mistress for form's sake" of the impotent Duke of Matalone. However, when Casanova meets Leonilda's mother, she turns out to be Donna Lucrezia, with whom he had had a torrid affair in 1744. She tells Casanova that Leonilda is his daughter, and prevents what would have been an incestuous marriage. This does not stop Casanova from going to bed with both of them, though he pays his "attentions" exclusively to Lucrezia. Casanova returns to Rome, and continues on to Florence, Modena, Parma, and Turin, where he remains until May. At the instance of his friend, Count Gian Giacomo Marcello Gamba de la Perosa, Casanova is asked to represent Portugal at the Augsburg Congress. From mid-August to mid-December, Casanova is in Augsburg. When the Congress does not meet, he returns to Paris.
1762
In Paris, Casanova is in contact with Mme d'Urfé, who replenishes his purse. He tells her that the time for her "regeneration" is at hand. This occult operation is to be performed at d'Urfé's ancestral château of Pontcarré; a second attempt is made at Aix-la-Chappelle. Casanova's confederate in this swindle is Marianne Corticelli. When Corticelli threatens to unmask him unless she is given a larger cut, Casanova convinces Mme d'Urfé that Corticelli has been possessed by an evil spirit, and that the operation must be delayed. Casanova sends Corticelli to Turin, and himself goes to Geneva, where he has an affair with Hedwige, the intellectual daughter of a protestant minister. He then goes to Turin, but is expelled from the city for reasons unknown. He returns to Geneva.
1763
Casanova is allowed to return to Turin, and continues on to Milan where he spends carnevale, then to Genoa and Marseilles, where he attempts another "regeneration" of Mme d'Urfé. His new collaborators are his brother Gaetano, and his secretary Giacomo Passano. Like Corticelli, they too cause difficulties and are sent away. This time, however, the operation continues with the help of Marcolina--initially Gaetano's lover, now Casanova's. In a mysterious ceremony, Casanova "impregnates" Mme d'Urfé, telling her that she will die when her son is born, but that her consciousness will live on in the the body of her child. D'Urfé loses her faith in Casnova's magical powers only after she discovers that she is not pregnant. Casanova's seven-year con game finally comes to an end. He returns to Paris in May. In June, he leaves for London, probably to be out of reach of the disillusioned d'Urfé. Love affair with Pauline. Disastrous obsession for Marianne Charpillon, a prostitute who leads him on, bilks him for a large sum of money, and humiliates him at every turn. It is from this point that Casanova dates the decline of his life.
1764
Faced with prosecution for debt, Casnova flees England in March. In June, he is in Berlin, where Frederick the Great offers him a post as governor of a corps of Pomeranian cadets. Dissatisfied with the offer, Casanova refuses. In September, he is bound for Russia. He arrives in Saint Petersburg in December.
Casanova visits Moscow and meets Catherine the Great. He leaves for Poland, arriving in Warsaw in October. He attracts the interest of King Stanislas Poniatowski, and probably hopes to be offered employment at the Polish court.
1766
Instead, he quarrels over an actress with Count Xavier Branicki. They fight a duel, in which Branicki is severely wounded. His prospects dashed, Casanova leaves the country in July. He goes to Dresden, where his mother is living. He remains there until December, then leaves for Vienna. Casanova's duel with Branicki attracts a great deal of attention all over Europe: people seem to think that if a member of one of Poland's most noble families would condescend to fight him, this Casanova must be someone worthy of note. Casanova remains proud of this episode for the rest of his life.
1767
In Vienna, he is accused of breaking the law against gambling, and is expelled from the city. From January to the end of the summer, he wanders slowly back toward Paris: from Augsburg to Schwetzingen, from Mannheim to Mayence, from Cologne to Spa. He arrives in Paris in October; in November the King issues a lettre de cachet which forces him to leave the country. It is probable that Mme d'Urfé's family requested his expulsion. Casanova heads for Spain.
1768
In Madrid, Casanova is again searching for permanent employment. He drafts a plan for the colonization of the Sierra Morrena by a group of Swiss-German immigrants, hoping to be named Lieutentant Governor of the colony. He cultivates the Venetian ambassador Alvise Mocenigo, whose support he needs to receive the nomination. However, Casanova indiscreetly tells an acquaintance that the Ambassador's secretary (and reputed homosexual lover) "Count" Manuzzi is in fact not really a nobleman. This earns him the hostility of his embassy, and sinks any possibility of his nomination to the post he seeks. He leaves Madrid for Barcelona. There he becomes involved with the mistress of the Captain General of Catalonia, and meets his former collaborator and now implacable enemy Giacomo Passano. At Passano's instigation, Casanova is jailed for forty-two days. In prison, he works on a refutation of de la Houssaie's Histoire du gouvernement de Venise, hoping to convince the Venetian State Inquisitors to permit him to return from his long exile. He is released from prison on December 28.
1769
Leaving Spain, Casanova travels through southern France; at Aix-en-Provence he falls gravely ill, and remains there in convalescence from the end of January until the end of May. During his illness, he is assisted by a devoted nurse, but when he recovers and asks her name, no one knows who she is or where she has gone. By chance, he enounters her in Croix d'Or, shortly after leaving Aix. To his amazement, the nurse tells him that she is a servant of the same Henriette whom Casanova had lovcd twenty years earlier, and that it was at her mistress's orders that she had cared for him with such devotion. Casanova and Henriette exchange letters: now a wealthy widow, she does not wish him to return to Aix, because that would cause gossip. She does, however, assure him of her undying love, and says that if he ever needs money, her purse is open to him. Casanova continues his voyage through southern France, to Turin and from there to Lugano, where he publishes his Confutazione della Storia del Governo Veneto d'Amelot de la Houssaie.
In March, Casanova is on his way southward again, to Parma, through Bologna to Florence, Rome, and Naples, where he lives the life of a gambler, winning and losing large amounts. Returning northward, he stops in Salerno, where Donna Lucrezia and Leonilda are now living. The latter has married a seventy-year-old Marquis, and is unsatisfied in her marriage. This time, Casanova devotes his "attentions" to his daughter--six months later, he hears that she is pregnant. Casanova returns to Rome, where he re-establishes contact with his old friend the Abbé de Bernis, now a cardinal. In July, Casanova departs for Florence; he is again expelled from the city in December. He sets out for Bologna, arriving there in late December.
1771-1774
In Bologna, Casanova publishes his Lana caprina, a satire in which he pokes fun at the debate between two university professors regarding whether or not women's reason is controlled by the uterus. He leaves Bologna in September, going first to Ancona, then to Trieste, where he remains for two years. Attempting to convince the Venetian State Inquisitors to allow him to return from exile, Casanova does some small diplomatic chores and undertakes some minor secret investigations on behalf of the Serenissima repubblica. At the same time, he works on his Istoria delle turbolenze della Polonia. On 15 November, 1774, he is finally allowed to return to Venice, his long wanderings over ... temporarily.
1775-1783
After his return to Venice, Casanova has difficulty making ends meet. Hoping to make a living as a writer, he translates Homer's Iliad into Italian verse, writes a stinging commentary on Voltaire, publishes a monthly literary magazine (the Opuscoli miscellanei), prints an account of his duel with Branicki, and translates novels my Mme Riccoboni and Mme Tencin. He also tries his hand as a cultural entrepreneur, engaging a troupe of French actors to perform (in French) at the Teatro Sant'Angelo. To stimulate public interest, he publishes a weekly theatrical magazine, entirely in French, called Le Messager de Thalie. None of these literary ventures enjoy success, and Casanova is forced to supplement his income by acting as a spy for the State Inquisitors--the same institution that had earlier condemned him to the "Leads." His circumstances are sweetened by his relationship with an obscure, uncultured seamstress named Francesca Buschini, whose letters to him demonstrate her sincere and tender devotion. In 1782, disaster strikes. Casanova is working as a part-time secretary to the Genoese diplomat Carlo Spinola. Spinola had forgotten a debt to a certain Carletti. Casanova proposes to obtain an acknowledgement of the debt, for a fee. He brings Spinola's signed pledge to Carletti at the palace of the Ventian nobleman Carlo Grimani; when Casanova and Carletti disagree about the terms of Casanova's fee as broker, Grimani takes Carletti's side. In the ensuing argument, blows are given and received, and Casanova's courage and honor are publicly called into question. In revenge, Casanova writes Né amori né donne, a thinly-disguised allegory in which he claims not only that he is the illegitimate son of Grimani's father, Michele, but that Grimani was the illegitimate son of another Venetian nobleman. These accusations attract the ire of the Venetian government, and on 17 January, 1783, Casanova is forced to leave Venice.
For the next year, Casanova wanders Europe in search of permanent employment: to Vienna, returning secretly to Venice in June for no more than a few hours, from there to Bolzano, Innsbruck, Augsburg, Frankfurt, Aix-la-Chapelle, and Spa, where he spends a month. Then on through the low countries to Paris, arriving there in September. He lives with his brother Francesco for three months, meets Benjamin Franklin, and considers participating in an expedition to Madagascar. In the end, he moves on to Vienna, Dresden, Berlin, and Prague, still seeking employment--without success. Returning to Vienna in February, 1784, he becomes secretary to the Venetian ambassador Sebastiano Foscarini. Presumably at Foscarini's behest, and perhaps as an attempt once again to convince the Venetian government to let him return, Casanova publishes a series of works supporting Venice's position in a diplomatic incident with Holland. He renews his acquaintance with Lorenzo da Ponte, Mozart's librettist. In February, 1784, Casanova meets Count Josef Karl Emmanuel von Waldstein, a fellow Freemason with an interest in magic. Waldstein offers him a position as librarian at his castle in Dux, in what is now the Czech Republic. Casanova hesitates, but after Foscarini's death he has no better alternative, and accepts the offer.
1786-98
Casanova's life at Dux is
not happy. True, his duties as librarian are not taxing, and he has
the leisure to write a great deal. He publishes a history of his
escape from the "Leads," (1787); the Icosameron, a proto-science-fiction
novel (1788); and a series of mathematical studies on the problem of the
duplication of the cube (1790). Numerous manuscripts remain unpublished
until after his death: a critique of the French writer Bernardin de Saint
Pierre; a portrait of Empress Catherine II of Russia; a satire on human
customs, foibles, and frailties; a comment on the Gregorian and Julian
calendars; and others. He also makes several trips away from Dux:
to Prague in 1787, where he meets Mozart and perhaps helps revise the libretto
of Don Giovanni; to Leipzig and Dresden in the following year; again
to Prague in 1791, where he meets his son by Leonilda; and in 1795 to Weimar
in the vain hope of finding employment at the Ducal court there.
Nor is he completely isolated, even at Dux: he regularly visits his close
friend the Prince de Ligne, receives occasional visits from old friends,
and carries on an extensive correspondence with old friends and new.
But he feels isolated, and worse than isolated--misunderstood and
persecuted. His publishing ventures, especially the Icosameron
which he had hoped would make him famous, are spectacularly unsuccessful.
Worse, during Waldstein's protracted absence, the major domo of the château,
a certain Georg Feldkirchner, takes offense at Casanova's pretensions to
be a gentleman. Feldkirchner and another servant do everything they
can to humiliate and torment the elderly librarian; among other pranks,
they rip a portrait of the author from one of his books, and hang
it up in the castle privy. Though Feldkirchner and his confederate
are dismissed when Waldstein returns, Casanova suffers, raging impotently
in unsent "Lettres écrites au sieur Faulkircher par son meilleur
ami, Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, le 10 Janvier 1792." Impotence--even
figurative impotence--does not sit well with Casanova, and he falls into
what now might be called clinical depression. There is only
one cure. Casanova had begun writing his Histoire de ma vie
as early as 1790; in it, he proposes to "jouir par réminiscence,"
to enjoy the pleasure of memory. By 1792, a first draft is completed.
Casanova shows it to a few of his friends, and keeps writing, rewriting,
retouching ... remembering. The History of my Life becomes
a virtual substitute for his unlivable life at Dux. Casanova never
finishes his autobiography, which ends in 1774 with his return to Venice.
Everything after that date was sad for Casanova--too sad to give the pleasure
of memory, and better avoided altogether. In 1797, the Venetian
Republic came to an end, defeated by Napoleon almost without a contest.
Perhaps Casanova would have returned once more, to spend his last years
in his homeland, if he had not fallen ill with an infection of the urinary
tract in April of 1798. On his deathbed, he gives his manuscript
of the Histoire de ma vie to his nephew-in-law, Carlo Angiolini.
Casanova dies at Dux on 4 June, 1798. According to the
Prince de Ligne, his last words are: "I have lived as a philosopher, and
die as a Christian."
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