Giacomo Casanova was born in Venice in 1725. His parents, both actors, wanted him to become a priest, but their hopes were dashed when, at sixteen, he was expelled from the seminary for immoral misconduct. Probably best-known for his reputation as a womanizer, Casanova was in turn a secretary, a soldier in the Venetian army, a preacher, an alchemist, a gambler, a violinist, a lottery director, and a spy. He translated Homer's Iliad into Italian and collaborated with Da Ponte on the libretto for Mozart's Don Giovanni. He retired in 1785 to the castle of a friend - Count Waldstein of Bohemia -...
Giacomo Casanova was born in Venice in 1725. His parents, both actors, wanted him to become a priest, but their hopes were dashed when, at sixteen, he...
The notorious adventurer and seducer Giacomo Casanova tells of his travels - on the run from the authorities of his native Venice - around northern Europe, poking fun at the ruling classes he encounters there, before focusing on a pivotal incident that occurs in Warsaw. Insulted by a Polish count over an Italian ballerina, Casanova finds himself forced to challenge his rival to a duel, and the sequence of events and their aftermath are described with gusto by the narrator. A rollicking autobiographical account by one of the most iconic figures of eighteenth-century Europe, The Duel is...
The notorious adventurer and seducer Giacomo Casanova tells of his travels - on the run from the authorities of his native Venice - around northern Eu...
