Giacomo Casanova(1725-1798)
- Writer
Born to acting parents, Casanova was a sickly child and was raised
almost entirely by his grandmother. As a young man, he went to Padua to
board with a Doctor Gozzi, and fell in love with Gozzi's younger
sister, Bettina. After learning his first lessons about women, Casanova
set out as an adventurer across Europe, falling in love often along the
way. One of his first great loves was Angiola Calori, a supposed
castrato whom Casanova unmasked; they planned to marry, but Casanova
decided he could not bear the indignity of being the unemployed husband
of a woman of the theatre. After he and Angiola broke up, he met the
mysterious Henriette in Cesena, who becomes his next great love.
However, Henriette reluctantly left him to return to her family, and
Casanova journeyed on to France, where he became a Freemason. In his
long, wild, and scandalous life, he made the acquaintance of such
figures as Frederick the Great of Prussia, Voltaire, the Chevalier
d'Eon, Benjamin Franklin, and Catherine the Great of Russia. In 1784,
he accepted the offer of Count Josef Karl Emmanuel von Waldstein to
work as a librarian at the Count's castle in Dux, where Casanova lived
out the rest of his days. According to his friend, the Prince de Ligne,
Casanova's last words were: "I have lived as a philosopher, and die as
a Christian."
