Who is Casanova? Casanova - who is this? The story of Giacomo Casanova

Giovanni Casanova (1725–1798) is the author of numerous historical works, the fantasy novel “Ixameron” and the memoir “The Story of My Life”, in which the great Italian heartthrob not only described his love affairs, but also gave an extensive description of the mores of his contemporary society.

Casanova ( full name Giovanni Giacomo Casanova de Sengalt – noble title, which he appropriated for himself) was from Venice. The initial interests of young Giacomo were far from sensual yearnings. He wanted to take holy orders, but, entangled in love affairs, he could not resist the call of his flesh. The young writer traveled around Europe for several years, after which he returned to Venice, where he was imprisoned in 1755 for deception and blasphemy. In 1756, Giacomo fled to Paris and then to Berlin, where he received an audience with Frederick the Great. After several more years of wandering, in 1782, the unlucky lover settled in the Czech Republic, in the castle of Count Waldstein, with whom he studied kabbalism and alchemy.

Love in all its manifestations was the highest meaning of Casanova's existence. However, his novels did not end with a wedding, since more love he valued his freedom. “I loved women madly, but I always preferred freedom to them,” wrote Giacomo Casanova.

In the love game, Casanova was attracted by the effect that he had on women: he made them laugh, intrigued, embarrassed, lured, surprised, exalted (such are, say, his adventures with Mrs. F. in Corfu, K.K. in Venice, Mademoiselle de la Mour in Paris). “By persuading the girl, I persuaded myself, the case followed wise rules mischief,” he wrote about the victory achieved thanks to improvisation. For the sake of his beautiful eyes, he moved from city to city, putting on a livery to serve the lady he liked.

Giacomo was an extraordinary personality: he combined sublime feeling and carnal passion, sincere impulses and monetary calculation. A constant source of income for Casanova was the sale of young girls, whom he bought, taught the science of love, and then, with great benefit for himself, gave in to others - financiers, nobles, the king. However, this famous lover should not be blamed for all mortal sins. He was a product of his time, which dictated standards of behavior to him. Louis XV turned France into a huge harem. Beauties arrived from all over the world and even from other countries; parents brought their daughters to Versailles in case the king would pay attention to them during a walk.

Casanova taught some girls social manners and had philosophical conversations with them. He entered into intimate relationships with everyone indiscriminately: with aristocrats, with prostitutes, with nuns, with simple girls, with his niece, maybe with his daughter. But none of Casanova’s mistresses ever reproached him, since physical intimacy did not occupy the first place in communicating with women.

It is known that during his life Giacomo was fond of magic, sometimes devoting everything to it. free time. Residents of neighboring houses often reported him to the authorities, but he surprisingly easily evaded responsibility. Only once, on charges of witchcraft, the Venetian police imprisoned him in the famous Plomba prison under the lead roofs of the Doge's Palace in Venice.

Now it is difficult to reliably say what role supernatural forces played, but Casanova managed to get out of the casemate, from which it was impossible to get out to an ordinary person. In an impregnable Venetian dungeon, he cut a passage to the lead roof. The escape brought the adventurer fame throughout Europe.

It is not surprising that Paris greeted the young rake with delight. Among the French, captivated by the charm of the great heartthrob, was the Marquise d'Ufre, who was attracted by Casanova's large, bottomless eyes and Roman nose. According to contemporaries, he completely stupefied her. With the air of an expert, Giacomo told d'Ufre that when she turned 63 years old, she would have a son, die, and then be resurrected as a young girl. The enchanted marquise did not even notice how cleverly Giacomo had meanwhile taken possession of her millions and, escaping from capture in the Bastille, hurried to Voltaire in Ferme.

He assessed states from the point of view of the success of his adventures. He was dissatisfied with England, since in London he lost all his funds because of the enterprising Madame Charpillon, whose husband almost killed Casanova. Already an elderly man, Giacomo wrote: “Love is a search.” Based on this statement, there was no end to his search. Giacomo remembered some women not without a tinge of contempt, others with a feeling of gratitude.

The characters of Casanova and Don Juan have little in common. The first one was never pursued jealous husbands and embittered fathers. Women did not bother him with their jealousy. What is the secret of his charm? Casanova had an extraordinary appearance, was attentive and generous. But the most important thing is that he knew how to talk about everything in the world: about love, about medicine, about politics, about agriculture.

If common language Casanova did not find his charm with a potential victim, then he refused love. Once he was offered to spend the night with the famous courtesan Kitty Fisher, who demanded a thousand ducats per night from an ordinary client. Casanova refused because he did not know English, and for him love without communication was not worth a penny.

Already at the age of 38, he felt fed up. After the failure with the courtesan Charpillon, he began to be content with easy victories: public women, tavern maids, bourgeois women, peasant women, whose virginity could be bought for a handful of sequins. Sexual interest began to disappear, and then Giacomo decided to express himself in the literary field. At the end of his life, he wrote a memoir, “The Story of My Life,” which generated mixed reviews.

Casanova described every episode of his love affairs with complete sincerity; his memoirs gave the impression of a document. As is absolutely clear from these memoirs, Casanova could satisfy two women at once. This was the case with Helen and Hedwig, two girls whom he deflowered at the same time. “I enjoyed them for several hours, going from one to the other 5 or 6 times before I became exhausted. During the breaks, seeing their submissiveness and lustfulness, I forced them to take complex poses according to Arstino’s book, which entertained them beyond measure. We kissed each other in all the places we wanted. Gedwiga was delighted and enjoyed watching.”

One day, Casanova hosted an “oyster dinner” with champagne for two nuns, Armalliena and Elimet. Beforehand, he heated the room so hot that the girls were forced to take off their outerwear. Then, having started a game during which one took an oyster from the other directly from the mouth, he managed to drop a piece into the corset of first Armalliene, then Elimet. The extraction process followed, then he examined and compared their legs by touch.

Casanova repeatedly noted how sweet the feeling of power was for him, how he liked to pay people with whom he had just amused himself. Failures in love irritated him and infuriated him. When Madame Charpillon laughed at him, he scratched her, knocked her down, broke her nose, that is, he responded in the most cruel way.

For other adventurers, it was considered important to make money or glorify their name. For Casanova, money and fame were only a means to achieve a single goal - love. In 1759, Casanova was in Holland. At that time he was already rich, respected, and before him lay an easy path to calm and lasting prosperity. But this was not what the restless Giacomo needed: new encounters excited his imagination. For the sake of his beautiful eyes, which lingered on him longer than decency required, he could disguise himself as a hotel servant, give feasts, play Voltaire’s “Tardan” and settle for a long time in a tiny Swiss town, where short time managed to seduce an aristocrat from high society, the daughters of an innkeeper, a nun from a provincial monastery, a learned girl skilled in theological debates, maids in the Bernese baths, the charming and serious Dubois, some ugly actress and, finally, even her hunchbacked friend. All his actions were subject to one rule: it is much easier to seduce two women together than separately.

Speaking about Casanova, it cannot be said with certainty that this man was always immersed in hasty and indiscriminate debauchery. This only happened when he wanted to get rid of the pain after breaking up with true love. Among the countless women mentioned by this famous libertine, there are several who left a deep imprint on his soul. The best pages of the memoirs are dedicated to them. When talking about them, Casanova avoided obscene details, and their images were created with such vividness that they become people close to the reader.

Casanova's first love for Nanette and Marton, two nieces of the good Signora Orio, was pure and virginal, like the morning dew. “This love, which was my first, taught me nothing in the school of life, since it was completely happy, and no calculations or worries disturbed it. Often all three of us felt the need to turn our souls to Divine Providence in order to thank him for the obvious protection with which it removed from us all accidents that could disturb our peaceful joys ... "

Giacomo Casanova's love for the singer Teresa, who traveled disguised as a castrato, for a long time felt like pain in his heart. This strange girl combined nobility and a clear mind that inspired respect. He had never thought so seriously about marriage as he did that night in a small hotel in Sinigaglia. However, marriage was impossible, and Teresa made every effort to convince him of this. “It was the first time in my life that I had to think before deciding to do anything,” he wrote in his memoirs.

During his stay in Corfu, Casanova experienced feelings reminiscent in their complexity and versatility of the themes of modern literary works. Many years later, the memory of the patrician F.F. made Casanova exclaim: “What is love? This is a kind of madness over which reason has no power. This is a disease to which a person is susceptible at any age and which is incurable when it affects an old person. O love, an indefinable being and feeling! God of nature, your bitterness is sweet, your bitterness is cruel..."

Rosalia did not occupy the first place in Giacomo’s life; she flashed through his life like a bright comet. Casanova picked up Rosalia in one of the Marseilles brothels. “I tried to tie this young lady to me, hoping that she would remain with me until the end of my days and that, living in harmony with her, I would no longer feel the need to wander from one love to another.” But, of course, Rosalia also left him, and the search began again. Instead of his betrayed lover, Casanova met La Corticelli. The insidious dancer forced him to go through the torments of jealousy and deception. She skillfully weaved intrigues against him and cheated on him at every opportunity. But from the tone of his stories one can judge that always, even at the moment of their final break, this frivolous creature inspired boundless passion in the adventurer who was beginning to grow old.

Casanova's last significant romance took place in Milan. He was then still at the zenith of his fame. “My luxury was dazzling. My rings, my snuff boxes, my watches and chains, showered with diamonds, my order cross of diamonds and rubies, which I wore around my neck on a wide crimson ribbon - all this gave me the appearance of a nobleman.” Walking around the outskirts of Milan, Casanova met Clementine, in his words, “worthy of deep respect and the purest love.” Reflecting on the feelings that overwhelmed him at that time, he wrote: “I loved, I was loved and I was healthy, and I had money that I spent for pleasure, I was happy. I liked to repeat this to myself and laughed at the stupid moralists who insist that there is no real happiness on earth. And just these words, “on earth,” aroused my gaiety, as if it could be somewhere else! Yes, gloomy and short-sighted moralists, there is happiness on earth, a lot of happiness, and everyone has their own. It is not eternal, no, it passes, comes and passes again... and, perhaps, the amount of suffering, as a consequence of our spiritual and physical weakness, exceeds the amount of happiness for each of us. Maybe so, but that doesn’t mean that there is no happiness, great happiness...” Separation from Clementine caused him unbearable suffering, because even then Casanova felt that he was saying goodbye to his last happiness.

In London, Casanova met not his beloved woman-friend, as he had hoped, but a most dangerous predator. A Frenchwoman from Besançon, bearing the surname Charpillon, was destined to become worst enemy Casanovas. It was fiery and dangerous love! Madame Charpillon was as if woven from cunning, whims, cold calculation and frivolity, mixed in the most amazing way. She ruined Casanova completely and brought him to prison.

Lovers have more than once sorted things out through beatings. For example, once she almost strangled him, another time Casanova rushed at her with a dagger in the park. Charpillon dared to cheat on him repeatedly. One day Casanova caught her on a date with a young hairdresser. Mad with jealousy, Giacomo began to destroy everything that came to his hand. Charpillon barely escaped with his life.

One day Casanova was informed that Charpillion was dying. Recalling this difficult moment for him, Giacomo said: “Then I was gripped by a terrible desire to commit suicide. I came to my place and made a will in favor of Bragadin. Then I took the pistol and headed towards the Thames with the firm intention of crushing my skull on the parapet of the bridge.” A meeting with a certain Edgar saved his life. Imagine Giacomo’s indignation and indignation when the next day he met Charpillion at a ball among the dancers. “The hair on my head started to move and I felt terrible pain in my legs. Edgar later told me that when he saw my pallor, he thought that I was about to fall into an epileptic fit. In the blink of an eye, I pushed aside the audience and walked straight towards her. I started telling her something that – I don’t remember. She ran away in fear." This was the last meeting with Charpillon.

After his death, Casanova became the hero of numerous literary works and then films. The great Italian director Federico Fellini showed in his film (1976) a gifted man who tries in vain to use his talents, but in this world only his sexual energy is in demand.

Casanova Giacomo

Full name Giacomo Girolamo Casanova de Seingalt (b. 1725 - d. 1798)

Venetian international adventurer, soldier, writer and secret agent in the service of the French King Louis XV. The author and hero of world-famous memoirs, distinguished by extreme frankness in description intimate life their creator. The memoirs brought him scandalous fame and made his name synonymous with debauchery and trickery.

The whole world knows about the great Italian seducer of women, Giacomo Casanova. But probably few people know that the famous adventurer tried his hand not only in this field. Casanova appeared to his contemporaries as a writer, translator, chemist, mathematician, historian, financier, lawyer, musician, alchemist... The main thing in his desires, of course, remained sensual pleasure. However, the only true symbol of Giacomo’s life was... the game. Who was he anyway? IN different times the famous adventurer posed as a Catholic priest, a Muslim, an officer, or a diplomat. In London, he once said to a lady he knew: “I am a libertine by profession, and you have made a bad acquaintance today.”

About himself he wrote: “I, Giacomo Casanova, am a Venetian, by inclinations a scientist, by habits an independent person and so rich that I do not need anyone’s help. I travel for pleasure. During my long suffering life I have been the victim of intrigues on the part of scoundrels.” He concluded his memoirs with assurances that he “lived as a philosopher should” and “dies as a Christian should.” The adventures of Giacomo provide the best answer to the question of what the famous interlocutor of the crowned heads, a prisoner of European prisons and a regular at gambling houses and dens, was like.

He enjoyed the favors of the Prussian king Frederick the Great, who was interested in his opinion on affairs public administration, was an adviser to the Prince of Stuttgart, in whose court he instilled French morals, dined with the wife of Louis XV, and had conversations with the Marquise de Pompadour. Casanova knew Catherine II and even wanted to become personal secretary empress or tutor of the Grand Duke. Meanwhile, each of the actions of the famous Italian became just another adventure.

The future great seducer was born on April 2, 1725 in the Most Serene Republic of Venice in the family of the actor Gaetano Casanova and the daughter of a shoemaker, Zanetta Farussi. However, there is reason to believe that Giacomo’s real father was the owner of the San Samuele Theater, the Venetian patrician Michele Grimani. “I was not born a nobleman - I achieved the nobility myself,” Casanova once declared, for whom the question of his origin had always been very sensitive.

Giacomo was 2 years old when his mother, a young actress, went to London. There she played in an Italian comedy, became the mistress of the Prince of Wales and gave birth to a child with him. On this basis, it is assumed that Casanova's brother, Francesco, is the illegitimate son of King George II of England. Francesco Casanova became a famous artist, the author of battle paintings. It was for him that Catherine the Great commissioned the painting “The Battle of Ochakovo,” which is kept in the Hermitage. Casanova had two more brothers and a sister: Giovanni - an artist, a student of Mengs, director of the Dresden Academy of Arts; Gaetano - priest and preacher; Mary Magdalene is a dancer at the Dresden Opera House.

For the first nine years of his life, Giacomo lived with his grandmother Marzia Farussi. His father died when the boy was eight years old.

Two years later, his mother goes to St. Petersburg with the troupe of actors "Comedy dell'Arte". And Giacomo is sent to Padua, where he lives in a boarding house with Dr. Gozzi, who gives him violin lessons and introduces him to the sciences. Casanova continues his education at the University of Padua. In 1741 he took monastic vows and became a novice. Then he begins to travel: first to Corfu, then to Constantinople.

In 1743, Casanova was accepted into the theological seminary, but was soon expelled from there for behavior inappropriate for a clergyman. And again on the road - Ancona, Rome, Naples, Calabria, Naples, Ancona again. In Rome, Casanova was accepted into the service of Cardinal Acquaviva and talked with Pope Benedict XIV. Accused of complicity in the kidnapping of a girl, of which he was absolutely innocent, Casanova was forced to leave Rome. In Ancona he meets Teresa Bellino, a young castrato singer. He is seized by suspicions that the singer is actually a woman in disguise...

After an adventure with Bellino (her real name was Angiola Calori, an outstanding singer who later received all-European fame), Casanova took off his cassock and entered military service. On the island of Corfu he became an aide-de-camp to the commander of the galleasses, Giacomo da Riva. From Corfu he goes again to Constantinople. In 1746, Casanova returned to Venice and became an ordinary violinist at the Teatro San Samuele. He played at weddings and parties, even helping the famous Antonio Vivaldi compose oratorios. And he seduced, he seduced...

For the sake of a pair of beautiful eyes, the would-be clergyman moved from city to city. He had philosophical conversations with some ladies, and even gave one a whole library. Casanova slept with aristocrats, prostitutes, nuns, girls, his niece, maybe his daughter. But in his entire life, it seems, not a single mistress has reproached him for anything. However, love was not only a vital need for Casanova, but also a profession. He bought the girls he liked (most of all he liked young, thin brunettes), taught them the science of love, social manners, and then, with great benefit for himself, gave in to others - financiers, nobles, the king. Making poor girls happy was one of Casanova’s constant sources of income.

In the spring of 1746, one of the dark nights, Casanova met a man in a red robe in Venice, who dropped a letter before his eyes. Giacomo picked up and returned this letter to the owner. The man in the robe turned out to be Venetian senator Matteo Giovanni Bragadini. As a token of gratitude, Bragadini offered to give Casanova a ride in his gondola. On the way, the senator suffered a stroke. Casanova ordered the gondola to stop and found the doctor. After first medical aid, he took the patient home, where two of the senator’s friends, the Venetian patricians Marco Dandolo and Marco Barbaro, immediately ran. Casanova realized that the doctor was treating the patient incorrectly, and took up the matter himself. The next morning the senator felt great. This is how Casanova met his patrons.

The Venetian patricians secretly practiced cabalism and alchemy. Casanova admitted that he himself is interested in this and that he has his own Kabbalistic method, although he is not entirely sure of its reliability. Together they set out to check it - and the method worked. Bragadini, Barbaro and Dandolo asked different questions, and the oracle gave them exactly the answers they expected. The patricians were convinced that young Casanova was a great sorcerer.

Casanova would use the trick with his own Kabbalistic method more than once, especially in Paris with Madame d'Urfe, a wealthy marquise who blindly believed in magical abilities Casanovas.

Having left the musical field, Casanova, taking advantage of Bragadini’s friendship and benevolence, settled in his house as his named son and began to practice magic and fortune-telling in his spare time. The adventurer characterized his then lifestyle in a few words: “I was not poor, gifted with a pleasant and impressive appearance, a desperate gambler, a spendthrift, a talker and a bully, not a coward, a female admirer, a clever eliminater of rivals, a cheerful companion... I made enemies for myself every step, but I knew how to stand up for myself and therefore I thought that I could afford anything.”

What captivated me most about Casanova was his innate artistry, his ability to attract and instantly interest people. The famous Italian was brilliantly able, while remaining himself, to alternately and thoughtfully transform into either a socialite, an irresistible devourer of women's hearts, or a wise philosopher who had absorbed the texts of hundreds of scientific books, or into a highly experienced specialist in mining and finance, giving competent advice on these issues, either in a prominent politician or in a venerable diplomat...

A contemporary wrote about his appearance: “He would be beautiful if he were not ugly: tall, built like Hercules, dark face... He is proud, because he is nothing and has nothing... Rich imagination and natural liveliness, experience of numerous travels, tried profession, firmness of spirit and contempt for worldly goods make him a rare person, most interesting to get to know, worthy of respect and devoted friendship of the small number of people who have gained his favor.”

Casanova's patrons, Senator Bragadini and his friends Barbaro and Dandolo, advised him to leave Venice for a while - they feared that the state Inquisition might accuse their friend of blasphemy and witchcraft.

But at this time, Giacomo's romance with Henrietta unfolded - a love story that inspired the creation of literary works, among others, English writer Richard Aldington and Russian poetess Marina Tsvetaeva.

No other woman evoked such tender memories in Casanova’s soul as Henrietta, whom he met in the company of a Hungarian officer in Cesena. The three months that he lived with her in Parma were the happiest time in his life: “Whoever thinks that a woman cannot fill all the hours and moments of the day, thinks so because he never knew Henrietta... We loved each other with all our hearts.” with the strength of which we were only capable, we were completely content with each other, we lived entirely in our love.”

In 1750, Casanova went to France: “In Lyon I became a free mason. Two months later, in Paris, I rose to the second level, and a few months later - to the third, in other words, I became a master. This is the highest level. All other titles that have been bestowed on me over time are just pleasant inventions and, although they have a symbolic meaning, they do not add anything to the title of master.”

Casanova then traveled through Central Europe and returned to Venice, where he continued his previous lifestyle. He incurred the hostility of the Inquisition and on July 26, 1755 he was accused of Freemasonry, licentious lifestyle, freethinking, occultism and sentenced to five years of detention in the Doge's Palace. After 15 months, Casanova escaped from Piombi prison, which he later described in “The Story of My Escape,” written in French and published in Prague in 1788.

And again wanderings: Milan, Ferrara, Bologna. Play everywhere, revelry everywhere... In Paris, Casanova gained the trust of Minister Choiseul, tried his hand at business and trade, but brilliantly failed... And again he set out on wanderings: Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Russia and again - Europe.

He played a lot during these years, because the game, in fact, was the only true meaning of his life.

At the age of twenty, the Italian wrote: “I need to somehow earn my living, and in the end I chose the profession of a player.” Luck often accompanied Casanova in gambling, which gave serious reason to many of his biographers of that time to transparently hint: the famous Italian “suspiciously often enjoyed the favor of His Majesty Chance in everything related to gambling.” However, the luck could be explained by the fact that Casanova well remembered the instructions of his named father Bragadini: “Do not pay a debt if you lose by word of mouth, never whist, but keep the bank yourself and quit the game as soon as luck begins to go to your partner’s side.” .

History knows that only once, finding himself in Venice and entering a gambling house where, by the way, only players of noble birth enjoyed the privilege of holding a bank, Casanova lost 500,000 gold sequins in one night. However, he soon managed to fully compensate for the losses incurred. True, the main merit here belonged to his next mistress, who, with her own money, managed to win back the seemingly irretrievably lost gold. However, the Italian earned the most significant amount of his life not from gambling, but from organizing the state lottery in Paris in 1757.

Then the King of France decided to open a Higher Military School. But this venture required 20 million livres. At the same time, the government did not want to turn to the help of the state or royal treasury, but intended to receive the necessary amount from the people. But how to get people to voluntarily fork out money? And then Casanova came onto the stage, inviting the king to organize a lottery.

He convincingly argued that people would be willing to buy up lottery tickets, since there would be quite large prizes in the drawing, and the money raised would certainly bring profit to the king. In addition, the lottery, according to the scammer’s plan, was to be held under the auspices of the crown, and not on behalf of private entrepreneurs, which would significantly strengthen the confidence in it on the part of ordinary people and dispel any doubts about the honesty and integrity of the organizers. Eventually the offer was accepted and Casanova was appointed official representative king, responsible for conducting the lottery. It was then that he turned around, heading six of the seven sales branches lottery tickets. In addition, Casanova was given a reward of 4 thousand livres.

Within two months, Casanova grew rich and lusted. He hired nice apartment, furnished it beautifully, acquired a carriage and surrounded himself with luxury befitting a collector of royal millions. Soon the whole of Paris knew his face. Everywhere - in theaters, at parties, at balls, people came up to him, seduced by the opportunity to win, shoved money into his hands and asked him to send lottery tickets. How it all ended, history is silent. But it is known that never before has fortune bestowed such favor on Casanova. The lottery venture, according to him, turned out to be the most successful, although the last major enterprise of the brilliant rogue.

Whatever Giacomo did during the remaining 35 years of his life! He sold the “recipe for eternal youth” and the “formula of the philosopher’s stone”, and sold the beauty of young girls. But not only that. When the days of Jacobin terror arrived in revolutionary France, old Casanova sent an angry multi-page letter to Robespierre, which contained the following words: “What right do you have to ruin the lives of thousands and thousands of people for the sake of“ general happiness ”? We must leave people their beliefs, even their prejudices - I argued about this with Voltaire in 1760. Otherwise, you make them unhappy.”

The next few years of his life are an endless series of carousings, romantic incidents and card games. However, eventually satiety set in and fatigue creeped in. Increasingly, failures awaited Casanova in love affairs, various kinds of tricks and gambling.

“Love is only curiosity” - this phrase often appears in Casanova’s memoirs. There was tireless curiosity real passion this person. He was not a banal favorite of women, he was not a happy darling, an accidental dilettante. He treated relationships with women the way a serious and diligent artist treats his art. Casanova was not always immersed in hasty and indiscriminate debauchery. Such periods happened to him only when he wanted to drown out the memories of the past. great love and an eternal thirst for something new.

Among the countless women mentioned by this “professional libertine,” there are several who left a deep mark on his soul. The best pages of the memoirs are dedicated to them. When talking about them, Casanova avoided obscene details. Their images become as close and vivid for readers as the image of the Venetian adventurer himself. The young seducer's first love was in the spirit of a peaceful Venetian novel. He was sixteen years old, and he loved Nanette and Marton, two nieces of the good Signora Orio: “This love, which was my first, taught me nothing in the school of life, since it was completely happy, and no calculations or worries disturbed it "

A slight touch of elegy appeared in his second love. Perhaps this is because it took place in Rome, in the evergreen gardens of Ludovisi and Aldobrandini. There Giacomo loved Lucrezia: “Oh, what tender memories are connected for me with these places!..”

During his stay on the island of Corfu, Casanova experienced love, reminiscent in its complexity and torment of the themes of modern novels. Long story this love is dramatic. Many years later, the memory of the Venetian aristocrat Andriana Foscarini, hidden behind the initials “F. F.”, made Casanova exclaim: “What is love? This is a kind of madness over which reason has no power. This is a disease to which a person is susceptible at any age and which is incurable when it affects an old person. O love, an indefinable being and feeling! God of nature, your bitterness is sweet, your bitterness is cruel..."

He picked up his next friend, Rosalia, in one of the Marseilles brothels: “I tried to tie this young lady to me, hoping that she would stay with me until the end of my days and that, living in harmony with her, I would no longer feel the need to wander from one love for another." But, of course, Rosalia also left him, and his wanderings began again.

Instead of a devoted lover, Giacomo met the little dancer La Corticelli, who made him experience jealousy and the bitterness of deception. She was from Bologna and “all she did was laugh.” She caused Casanova many troubles of all kinds: she intrigued against him and cheated on him at every opportunity. But the tone of his stories reveals that never, even at the moment of their final break, this “madcap” was indifferent to the heart of the adventurer who was beginning to grow old.

This continued until 1764, when in London 38-year-old Casanova, having fallen passionately in love with the young courtesan Charpillon, was met with cold and contemptuous calculation, rather than reciprocity. And then, Casanova recalled, “I realized that my youth was behind me...”

After a stormy affair with Charpillon, the great seducer decided to retire. For the next thirty years there were probably no women in his life at all. Casanova now received pleasure only from food, from writing memoirs and from reading. He began a lengthy reminiscence of his century. They were not published for a long time, because the publishing houses, apparently, were afraid of his revelations, and the next generation of romantics did not believe in the existence of Casanova himself.

Ultimately he had to return to Venice, where he found a living as a police informant. In 1782, another scandal forced him to leave Italy.

Three spacious rooms of an ancient castle in a picturesque corner of Northern Bohemia last refuge adventurer and writer Giacomo Casanova. One day, on the way from Vienna to Berlin in 1785, he met Count Joseph Wallenstein. And he invited the decrepit old man (Giacomo was in his seventies) to become a librarian in his castle, where Casanova spent the last thirteen years of his life.

Here in Dux, in Bohemia (modern Duchkov), “Memoirs” and the five-volume novel “Icozameron” came out from the pen of the famous Venetian. Casanova's memoirs, written in French, date back only to 1774. At first, their authenticity was questioned, but special research confirmed the authenticity of those mentioned in them. historical events and characters. The author clearly embellished his adventures, presenting himself as “a hero of debauchery and love victories.”

He carried on a lively correspondence with numerous addressees in different cities Europe, even met with many, but in the end he turned into an eternally dissatisfied, sick and grumbling old man who lived out his days almost completely alone. On June 4, 1798, Giacomo Girolamo Casanova died. The name of the great Italian adventurer is a household name to this day. And be that as it may, he left his mark on history...

“Love is my calling, not my profession,” Casanova liked to repeat. For him, love itself always contained the highest meaning of life; all other victories, defeats and blessings - in comparison with it - are secondary. This amazing person All my life I was convinced that love cannot be divided into a “high feeling” and a “venal”, “base”, “carnal” passion, for the soul and body are a single whole, therefore all components of love are one and inseparable. And even despite the fact (or perhaps due to the fact) that Casanova honestly admitted: “I loved women madly, but I always preferred freedom to them,” the incomparable Italian did not know defeat in love.

From the book Aces of Espionage by Dulles Allen

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Casanova To a Venetian woman whom I have never forgotten. Let's try to compare his biography in terms of what he experienced (and not the spiritual essence or depth of knowledge), for example, with the biographies of Goethe, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his other contemporaries. How narrowly focused

Most of our contemporaries associate the name Giacomo Casanova with numerous amorous adventures. However, this is not entirely true. First of all, Casanova was one of the most educated and mysterious people of its time.

Son of an actress and an aristocrat

It is known that Casanova was born on April 2, 1725 in Venice. His real name is Giacomo Girolamo. The boy's parents were actors Gaetano Giuseppe Casanova and Zanetta Farussi. But according to one version, Giacomo’s father was his mother’s lover, the Venetian patrician Michele Grimani.

The child was raised by his maternal grandmother, Marcia Farussi. The boy turned out to be capable of science and by the age of sixteen he had already graduated from the University of Padua, with two doctoral degrees - in theology and law. After this, the young man went on a journey: first to the Greek island of Corfu, and then to Constantinople.

Handyman

Having no special means, Casanova worked in a wide variety of fields. The Encyclopedia Britannica describes him as "Preacher, writer, warrior, spy and diplomat." He also studied mathematics, history, finance, music, served as a librarian for Count Waldstein in the Czech castle of Dux and was even a member of the Masonic order.

Giacomo traveled all over Europe. He visited France, Holland, Spain, Austria, Russia, Switzerland, Prussia, and Poland. Moreover, among his acquaintances were the most outstanding people of that time - Rousseau, Voltaire, Mozart, Saint-Germain. He communicated with monarchs, ministers, cardinals and even the Pope.

From the hands of Pope Clement XIII, our hero received the Order of the Golden Spur for his services in the field of diplomacy. At the same time, Venetian inquisitors sentenced Casanova to five years in the Piombi prison for allegedly practicing witchcraft. Giacomo was the first to escape from there, and even together with a prisoner from the next cell!

In France, Casanova was in the service of King Louis XV. One of the missions entrusted to him was a secret inspection navy. He also negotiated with Dutch bankers on behalf of the Ministry of Finance. In Spain, he promoted the plan to populate the Sierra Morena with Swiss and Bavarian peasants. Russian Empress Catherine II was offered to hold agrarian reform, colonize the Volga region and Siberia, breed silkworms near Saratov...

However, it main goal- to occupy a high position at one of the European courts - was never achieved. All his projects gave only temporary results, and then he had to look for something new. More than once Casanova tried to organize his own enterprises, but each time he went broke. True, the nobility accepted him as an equal. No one had any idea that the “Chevalier de Sengalt” or “Count Jacob Casanova de Farussi” was actually the grandson of a Venetian shoemaker.

By the way, Casanova was quite a prolific author. In addition to the twelve-volume autobiography “The Story of My Life,” he wrote the fantasy novel “Icozameron”, the book “The History of Troubles in Poland” and others works of art. He also translated Homer's Iliad into Italian and wrote a number of mathematical treatises.

Knight of Love

Although there were indeed many love affairs in Casanova’s life, he still cannot be called a 100% Don Juan. In his memoirs, the great adventurer mentions only 144 ladies with whom he had relations. True, in one of Giacomo’s letters he admits that in fact he had about three times more women than described in his autobiography.

Well, even if there were about five hundred of them. If we consider that the described period of sexual adventures covers approximately forty-five years, it turns out that on average Casanova had eleven affairs per year. The number is, of course, impressive, but not astronomical.

It is worth adding that Casanova acted quite nobly with women, he was always generous to them, trying to fulfill any whim of his next lover. He could sacrifice important things for the sake of the lady of his heart, and in love he tried not so much to take as to give. Moreover, you will not find bad reviews about any of the women in his memoirs. Although there were reasons: mistresses often sought to use Giacomo to their advantage or even rob him completely.

There is a legend that women who come to look at Casanova’s grave in a quiet cemetery in Duchcovo, Czech Republic, certainly cling with the hem of their clothes to the iron cross installed there. It seems that the great adventurer maintains his reputation even after death.

On April 2, 1725, Giacomo Casanova, one of the most outstanding historical heroes of the Renaissance, was born. He became famous not so much thanks to his love affairs, how much thanks to his extraordinary personality and spirit of adventure.

During his life, Casanova managed to be a church official, a lawyer, a military man, a musician, an assistant, a spy, a writer and even a librarian.

False nobleman

Giacomo Girolamo Casanova was born in Venice on April 2, 1725 in the family of actor and dancer Gaetano Giuseppe Casanova and actress Zanetta Farussi. To rotate in high society, Giacomo appropriated to himself the title of nobility and the name - Chevalier de Sengalt.

17 year old genius

At the age of only 12, Casanova entered the University of Padua. At 17, he already had a law degree. However, Giacomo himself always wanted to become a doctor. He even prescribed his own medications for himself and his friends.

Gambler

While still studying at the university, Casanova began gambling for money and quickly found himself in debt. At the age of twenty-one, he decided to become a professional gambler, but lost all his savings.

Casanova played throughout his adult life, winning and losing large sums money. He was trained by professionals, and he could not always overcome the desire to cheat. At times, Casanova teamed up with other swindlers to make money.

As Casanova himself explained his addiction in his memoirs: “Greed forced me to play. I loved spending money, and my heart bled when the money was not won at cards.”

Mason and sorcerer

As a child, Casanova suffered from nosebleeds and his grandmother took him to a local witch. And although the “magic” ointment that the witch gave to Casanova turned out to be ineffective, the boy was delighted with the mystery of magic. Later, Giacomo himself would demonstrate “magical” abilities, which were in fact ordinary tricks. In Paris, he posed as an alchemist, which gained him popularity among the most prominent figures of the time, including the Marquise de Pompadour, the Comte of Saint-Germain, d'Alembert and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

During his trip to France in Lyon, Casanova became a member of the Masonic society, which attracted him with its secret rituals. People with intelligence and influence were accepted into society, which later turned out to be very useful for Casanova: he received valuable contacts and access to secret knowledge.

Inquisition and prison break

Due to his involvement in Masonic lodges and interest in the occult, Casanova attracted the attention of the Inquisition. In 1755, Giacomo was arrested and sentenced to five years in Piombi - the "Prison of Lead".

An apostate priest from a nearby cell helped him escape from prison. Using an iron pike, they and Casanova made a hole in the ceiling and climbed onto the roof of the prison. They lowered themselves from the roof using a rope made from sheets.

Some historians believe that in fact Giacomo was helped to pay off one of his wealthy patrons. However, the state archives preserve some confirmation of the adventurer’s story, including information about the repair of the ceiling of the cells.

Inventor of the lottery

Having escaped from prison to Paris, Casanova had to find a means of subsistence. Then he came up with the idea of ​​raising money for the state using the first national lottery. The tickets sold out successfully, and Giacomo gained popularity and earned enough money to once again shine in the world.

Spy

The French Foreign Minister de Berny, who was an old friend of Casanova, sent him on a spy mission to Dunkirk in 1757. Giacomo completed the task brilliantly, gaining the trust of the captains and officers of the fleet. He found out information about the structure of ships and their weak points.

Respectable Librarian

Casanova's last years were spent at Dux Castle in Bohemia (Czech Republic), where he worked as a library keeper for Count Joseph Karl von Wallstein.

Loneliness and boredom recent years life allowed Casanova to concentrate, without distraction, on his memoirs, entitled “The Story of My Life.” If not for this work, his fame would have been much less or the memory of him would have disappeared completely.

How many women did Casanova have?

Giacomo Casanova is known as a seducer and conqueror of women's hearts. In his memoirs he does not name exact number mistresses, rounding the figure to several hundred. A researcher of Casanova's biography, Spaniard Juancho Cruz, calculated that Giacomo had 132 women, that is, about three novels a year. By today's standards, this may seem like a very modest result to some.

However, Casanova became famous for his art of seduction, flirtation and the passion with which he indulged in love. Relationships with women were the meaning of his life. He saw something special in each lover. Most of all, Casanova loved Italian women. His mistresses were usually between 16 and 20 years old. By social origin, most of them were maids, but many of those seduced belonged to the highest circles of society.

The famous Venetian adventurer, “citizen of the world,” as he certified himself, Giacomo Girolamo Casanova (1725 - 1798), whose name became a household name, was not only one of the most interesting people of his era, but also its symbol, its reflection. Before his contemporaries and descendants, his readers, he appeared as a truly versatile, encyclopedically educated person: poet, prose writer, playwright, translator, philologist, chemist, mathematician, historian, financier, lawyer, diplomat, musician. And also a gambler, a libertine, a duelist, a secret agent, a Rosicrucian, an alchemist who penetrated the secret of the philosopher's stone, who knows how to make gold, heal, predict the future, and consult with the spirits of the elements. But what is true in the myth that he created about himself?

Casanova's memoirs were published at the beginning of the 19th century, when the literature of romanticism began to incessantly turn to the legend of Don Juan. The eternal image of the Seducer appears in Byron and Pushkin, Hoffmann and Mérimée, Heiberg and Musset, Lenau and Dumas. It was in this tradition that Casanova’s notes were perceived, which for many years were considered the height of indecency. They were banned from publication and hidden from readers.

There were even purely biographical grounds for such an interpretation - Casanova was keenly interested in his literary predecessor, helped his adventurer friend Da Ponte write the libretto for Mozart of the opera “Don Giovanni” (1787). But Casanova’s “Don Juan list” can only amaze the imagination of a very exemplary family man: 122 women in thirty-nine years. Of course, such lists in Stendhal and Pushkin are shorter, and in the famous novels of those years, which were labeled “erotic” (such as the most fascinating “Phoblas” by Louvet de Couvray, 1787 - 1790), there are fewer heroines, but is that true? Is that a lot - three love affairs a year?

Casanova's personality was hidden under many masks. Some he put on himself - a native of Venice, where the carnival lasts six months, a hereditary comedian, a performer in life. Another masquerade costume was put on him by the era, a literary tradition that fit the memoirs into its context. Moreover, the traditions (the one in which the notes were created, and the one in which they were perceived) were directly opposite - what for the 18th century seemed to be the norm, in XIX century became an exception.

The adventurer's main wealth is his reputation, and Casanova carefully maintained it all his life. He immediately turned his adventures into fascinating stories that occupied the society (“I spent two weeks going to lunches and dinners, where everyone wanted to listen in detail to my story about the duel”). He treated his oral “short stories” as works of art; even for the sake of the all-powerful Duke de Choiseul, he did not want to shorten the two-hour story about the escape from Piombi prison. These stories, partially recorded and published by him, naturally grew into memoirs, which largely retained the intonation of live oral speech, a performance in faces played out in front of the listener. Casanova created “The Story of My Life” in his declining years (1789 - 1798), when few people remembered him, when his friend Prince de Ligne introduced him as the brother of the famous battle painter. Casanova was unbearable at the thought that his descendants would not know about him, because he was so eager to make people talk about himself, to become famous. Having created memories, he won the duel with Eternity, the approach of which he almost physically felt (“My neighbor, Eternity, will know that, by publishing this modest work, I had the honor of being in your service,” he wrote, dedicating his last work to Count Waldstein ). The legendary man arose precisely when the memoirs were published.

But, recreating his life anew, transferring it to paper, Casanova moved into the space of culture, where different, artistic laws apply. Each era creates its own patterns of behavior, which we can reconstruct from memoirs and novels. In his everyday behavior, a person involuntarily, and more often consciously, is guided by models known to him (for example, French politicians XVII - XVIII centuries diligently imitated the heroes of Plutarch, especially in times of social upheaval: the Fronde, the Revolution, the Napoleonic Empire; this tradition survived until the Paris Commune). Moreover, when the old society perishes (in 1789, when Casanova began his memoirs, the French monarchy fell, in 1795 after the third partition Poland ceased to exist, and in 1798, the year of his death, disappeared from political map The Venetian Republic, conquered by Napoleon's troops), it is literature that preserves the memory of behavioral norms and offers them to the reader.

Giacomo Casanova belonged to two cultures - Italian and French, which he spent most of his life entering into. Casanova wrote his first literary creations in his native language, but at the end of his life he completely switched to French (although he continued to sin with Italianisms). At that time it was a truly international language, it was spoken in all European countries, and Casanova wanted it to be read and understood everywhere. “The Story of My Life” has become a phenomenon of French culture. It is from this perspective, it seems to us, that it is most fruitful to consider Casanova’s memoirs, although, of course, there was a strong memoir tradition in Italy. Suffice it to recall “The Life of Benvenuto Cellini” (1558 - 1566), a great artist and adventurer who escaped from prison and spent many years in France, like our hero.

Casanova’s memoirs, which at first raised doubts among both readers and researchers about their authenticity (bibliophile Paul Lacroix even considered them to be the author of Stendhal, who really valued the Venetian’s notes), are, in general, very truthful. For many episodes, documentary evidence was found already in the 20th century. Of course, Casanova tries to present himself in the most favorable light, keeping silent about what discredits him, but in many cases he breaks the chronology, rearranges events, combines similar ones (for example, turns two trips to the East into one), following the laws of narration, the requirements compositions. The logic of the plot, the actions of the character he depicts on the pages of his memoirs, can subjugate the truth of life. So, when Casanova’s benefactor and victim Marquise d’Urfe broke off relations with him, he informs the reader that she died - for him she ceased to exist.

In “The Story of My Life” several plot traditions are clearly visible: the adventure and picaresque novel, the psychological story coming from the 17th century, the career novel and the “list” novel of love victories that developed in France during the Enlightenment, and memoirs. It is against their background that the true originality of Casanova’s notes is revealed.

In France, as often happens, interest in memoirs arose after periods of strong social upheaval: religious wars(1562 - 1594), Frondes (1648 - 1653). Prose then was dominated by multi-volume baroque novels, where the heroic and gallant adventures of centuries ago were glorified in a sublime style - as in “Artamen, or the Great Cyrus” (1649 - 1653) by Madeleine de Scudéry. Memoirs that described the recent past brought into literature genuine and cruel events, bloody dramas, love affairs, military exploits, examples of high nobility and calculating meanness. It was under the influence of memoirs that psychological stories began to emerge at the end of the 17th century (“The Princess of Cleves” by Madame de Lafayette, 1678), which supplanted the Baroque epic and prepared the way for the “plausible” novel of the 18th century.

Memoirs were written (or, less often, secretaries composed for them) queens (Marguerite of Valois, Henrietta of England), ministers (Sully, Richelieu, Mazarin), nobles, court ladies, military leaders, judges, prelates (Dukes of Bouillon, Angoulême, Guise, de Rohan , Mademoiselle de Montpensier, Marshal Bassompierre, first president of parliament Mathieu Molay, Cardinal de Retz, etc.), aristocratic writers (Agrippa d'Aubigné, Francois de La Rochefoucauld). The popularity of memoirs was so great that at the turn of the 17th - 18th centuries, the interpenetration of “fiction” and “documentary” prose began. Fake memories of genuine ones appeared historical figures. They were produced in large numbers by the gifted writer Gaetan Courtille de Sandra, the most famous of which are “Memoirs of M. d’Artagnan” (1700), where military exploits, espionage, deceptions, political intrigues and, most importantly, success with women bring good luck to a musketeer.