![]() ![]() His quick wit and education allowed him to preen with the upper echelons of Venetian society, first with Senator Alvise Gasparo Malipiero, then with Don Matteo Bragadin, when Casanova saved the patrician’s life and he suffered a stroke. He graduated with a law degree at age 17. He did, however, enter the University of Padua in 1737 at the age of 12. Not to spoil the ending, but Giacomo Casanova never did get together with Bettina. “I have always loved it and done all that I could to make myself loved by it.” Casanova’s Middle Years “I was born for the sex opposite to mine,” Casanova later reflected. “She washed my face and neck and chest,” Casanova later recalled, “and gave me childish caresses which, since I was bound to consider them innocent, chided myself for letting them trouble me all the more….She aroused the most intense emotions in me.”Ĭasanova’s encounter with Bettina awakened a lifelong pursuit of women in the world’s most notorious womanizer. Wikimedia Commons Young Giacomo in a sketch by his brother, Francesco.īettina cared for his hair, brushing out the vestiges of neglect from the Paduan landlady. Above all, he became acquainted with Bettina, Gozzi’s pretty teenage sister. Thanks to the priest, the boy grew familiar with theology, classical languages, and music. When he was nine years old, little Casanova was sent 20 miles inland to Padua - for the drier air, and to receive an education.Īfter a flea-bitten start in Padua with a neglectful landlady, Casanova roosted with the schoolmaster-priest Dr. Casanova memoires free#“It would be ridiculous to attribute my cure to these two absurdities,” Casanova wrote, “but it would be a mistake to hold that they could not contribute to it….Nothing is harder to find than a learned man whose mind is entirely free from superstition.” Young Casanova: The Youth Of A Libertine His health improved, and in less than a month he learned to read. ![]() Then, for the first of many times, a woman’s touch changed the course of his life. When she left, he remained unchanged at first. Later that night, a dazzling woman climbed down the chimney and spoke to him in words he couldn’t understand, and kissed him. ![]() The “witch” treated him and told him he’d be visited by a beautiful stranger. Not born to Venetian high-aristocracy or even respectable merchant class, he was born in April 1725 to two actors, Gaetano Casanova and Zanetta Farussi.īoth parental figures would become archetypes for young Casanova: the latter for abandoning him and forever coloring his association with women, the former for casting doubt on his son’s parentage.įrancesco Guardi/Wikimedia Commons The Venetian lagoon, looking toward the island of Murano. Giacomo Casanova’s ChildhoodĮven in the pleasure-capital of 18th century Venice, Casanova’s origins were less than blue-blooded. On Halloween of 1756, Casanova pulled off one of the greatest jailbreaks in history, escaping from Venice to continue a life of unapologetic debauchery. He was certainly shaped in many ways by the charms of his watery homeland, but also found his humid home a trifle stifling - particularly from the I Piombi jail, high in the attic of the Doge’s Palace. Giacomo Casanova was a lover, hero, villain, seducer, rapist, peacock, and libertine. Like any good offspring, her favorite son shared these selfsame traits. For a place nicknamed La Serenissima, or serene, the Republic of Venice conjured a fair amount of unease. Casanova memoires serial#Giacomo Casanova's memoirs are celebrated for their thorough depiction of life in 18th-century Europe, but they also detail the escapades of a serial rapist.Įighteenth century Venice was a city of twisting canals, deceptive masks, seductive music, mysterious fog, cutthroat politics, and dreaded prisons. ![]()
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