by
Giacomo Casanova
Recipient: Papal Order of the Golden Spur, 1759.
from an original edition first published 1788, Prague, in French.
translated and annotated
by John M. Friedberg
Copyright 1995
Giacomo Casanova is often confused with Don Juan.
Don Juan is a fictional character, perpetuated by many European writers from Tirso De Molina in Spain in the 16th Century through Mozart's Librettist Da Ponte (quite possibly with Casanova's collaboration*), to George Bernard Shaw in the 20th.
Casanova was born in Venice in 1725 and died in the Bavarian Castle of the Duke of Dux in 1798. He was real and this story is true.
Casanova, about age 25.
Portrait by his brother, Francesco, who was better known for battle scenes.
Daybreak*, July 25, 1755, Casanova, then age 30, was rousted from sleep by forty State Archers and thrown in jail without charges, without trial, and without knowledge of his sentence. Fifteen months later, thanks to ingenuity, courage and a hand sharpened pike, he accomplished one of only 4 escapes from I Piombi (the "leads") in the 200 years the Inquisition kept meticulous but secret records.
Halloween
1998
In honor of Casanova's
And what an escape it was! He broke through the leaded roof of the Doge's Palace at midnight on Halloween, 1756, got away at dawn in a gondola, and fled to Paris where he was received by Mme. Pompadour.
Casanova's Patron
Mme. Pompadour
by Boucher
(the full portrait shows her holding a book - books were big in the Enlightenment).
Today the name "Casanova" may be synonymous with Don Juan's, but in his lifetime he was best known for this story which gave him entree into ballrooms and bedrooms all over Europe and England for the rest of what has been called "the age of reason, the century of pleasure."
He was a Venetian but he wrote in French to reach more readers. The 18th Century saw the first people to make a living by writing and books were Casanova's second favorite delight. Especially this one.
In 1788 he personally oversaw the publication of this book and it is the only part of his posthumously published "Mémoires" that is certifiably word-for-word his.
I Piombi, as I have come to call it, is a masterpiece, a remarkable man's lifetime best work. And it has never been translated and published in English as he intended: to stand alone.
Casanova took pride in writing "like we speak." His sentences run on breathlessly at times; halt and turn at others. He was criticised for writing with an Italian accent but his words make the stone walls scream and his wit allows us to bear it. He wanted the reader to like him and there's little doubt about his seductive powers.
A more flattering likeness.
He also took pride in his honesty which I have done my utmost to honor in this rendering of his work, a labor of love conceived in Venice this past summer. (1995)
If you get to Venice, check out the marble gargoyles whose "mouths of truth" served as mail-slots for "denontie secrete," secret denunciations.
"So voracious was their (the Council of Ten) desire to pry that, throughout Venice, they set up the famous Lions' Mouths, by which Venetians could inform the Council anonymously of their suspicions of their neighbors."
from JH Plumb: The Italian Renassance.
Take the tour of the Doge's Palace and you'll go from the noisy dazzle of St. Mark's Square on (and too often awash in) the Grand Canal, through the sumptuous but somber meeting halls where the ceilings and walls are ornamented with immense murals and the furniture consists of straight backed thrones and giant globes of the world.
You'll pass through shadowed halls lined with suits of armor and rack after rack of crossbows and blunderbusses, steel tipped arrows, swords and pikes of every description.
You'll cross the lovely Bridge of Sighs, so-called for the moans of condemned prisoners being dragged back and forth. And then, from a dank passageway, you'll look through the barred windows of the cells where it is too dark to see, too low to stand.
This book can and has been interpreted many ways. Take it as a window on times past; or a parable of the indivdual versus the state or the triumph of reason over injustice but, above all, take it the way Casanova meant it - as extraordinary entertainment.
Illustration
(one of two)
from the original 1788 publication
* Lorenzo Da Ponte, the famous lyricist, 24 years younger than Casanova and also a Venetian, knew him, lent him money, and usually got advice in lieu of repayment. He describes him in his memoires as "this very rare mixture of good and evil." He writes:
"It was about that time, in the year 1777,(in Venice) that I had occasion to meet him (Casanova) and gain a certain intimacy with him in the house, now of Zaguri, now of Memmo, who both loved all that was good in him and forgave the bad. They taught me to do likewise; and thorough examination made of the man, I could not say, even now, (1807) on which side the scales tipped. A short time before I left Venice a difference of opinion as to some fatuous point of Latin prosody estranged him from me - that eccentric man would never be left in the wrong."
from Memoirs of Lorenzo Da Ponte, J.B. Lippincott, 1929, p 117
In this memoire Da Ponte discusses the controversy over Casanova's veracity and supports the truth of Casanova's story of his escape from I Piombi.
To Casanova's Foreword
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catch the Folies Beregeres(RealAudio)
* Plus ca change, plus ca reste le meme" - secret police traditionally come visiting at dawn e.g.:
"Arrest: The manner and timing of the subject's arrest should be planned to achieve surprise and the maximum amount of mental discomfort. He should therefore be arrested at a moment when he least expects it and when his mental and physical resistance are at their lowest - ideally in the early hours of the morning. When arrested at this time, most subjects experience intense feelings of shock, insecurity and psychological stress, and have great difficulty adjusting to the situation."
- from Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual - 1983, a handbook written by the Central Intelligence Agency to teach Latin American security forces. Cited in Harper's Magazine, April, 1997, p 23.
LINK TO INTERNATIONAL CASANOVISTS
