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 Giacomo Casanova is often confused with Don Juan and they
are not the same. Giacomo Casanova is not the literary character but the real
historical person who lived some time back and left the traces in the world history.
However, the most of information we know about Giacomo is found from his own
records and it is too hard to believe and trust the memoirs especially when it
matters the spy stories and love affairs.
It is well-know that Casanova wrote of the real events and
about real people of the past. We know also that Casanova, the famous spy and
the lover, ended in Bohemia, in the castle Dux as a librarian. Along with the count
Waldstein, the owner of the castle, Casanova was involved in magic and witchcraft;
he used to raise ghosts and tried to acquire the elixir.
His life was dull and tedious, though, and the only relief
he found in those famous memoirs which are liked by the world for over two and
a half centuries. No wonder if the bored librarian of the dullest town colored
the truth a lot. He passed the desirable for reality. He added the intrigue
that never existed. And everything could happen and however we are inclined to
believe that was factual.
Casanova fascinated lots of women and even after he was dead
for many years. In spite of the reputation of the incredible lover, lady-killer
and a womanizer, Casanova was mostly involved in the spying. Yet, the wonderful
ability to charm women was just the great tool in his major activity.
Giacomo Casanova was born in 1725 in Venice. His mother
was an actress and his father was thought to belong to the nobles of Palafox
family, though it is not evidenced.
From the early childhood Casanova kept in touch with people
of the higher Venetian society, attachés and aristocrats from abroad. His close
relationships with the abbot Berni, the Count of the Lyons, the ambassador of France
in the Venetian Republic brought to the involvement of Casanova into the spying
activity. When the abbot was assigned the minister of Foreign Affairs in
France, he charged Casanova with important missions far from the high society
life.
So, in 1758 Casanova was dispatched to Dunkerque with the
mission to evaluate the fighting efficiency of the French fleet. Casanova had a
charisma to fascinate people, he could get on well with people and introduced
as the captain of ships, as the rich loafer, who is rich but ignorant and
attractive, and he managed to get on the appropriate ships and keep in touch
with the officers.
The people who could not reveal the authentic nature and
thoughts of the spy were open to him. And later on, Casanova depicted in his
memoirs that it was too easy to report on all the information accumulated. He did
not have to use the spying approaches and steal into their places in darkness.
The officers were totally opened to him telling all the advantages and
drawbacks. Everything that Casanova needed.
The Ministry of Navy had to spend around five hundred louis d'or
to arrange the trip of Casanova to Dunkerque apart from the additional
expenditures. Casanova considered he did nothing special and the mission was effortless
enough to execute by any person.
The life of Casanova included all ups and downs. He used to be
the lieutenant of the Venetian Fleet on the Corfu Island and a year later he
earned up as a violinist at the theatre San Samuele. A year later Casanova faced
with the senator Bragadin and rendered the first aid during the heart attack
and became the adoptee son to the senator and as a result, he was happy and
rich.
Two years later Casanova was accused of blasphemy and violence
and he had to leave Venice. Further, the craft, Paris and Germany were in his
life and Venice eventually. He was arrested and imprisoned to Piombi and he
escaped from there to Paris and to Holland, Germany and Switzerland where he
met with Voltaire. The geography of his adventures was vast, fro, Russia to
Spain.
Casanova was always involved in love affairs though he was
not successful all the time. He failed, for instance, with Charpion in England.
Though, he succeeded more often than failed. Plenty of
letters to Casanova from various women were discovered and published. And the
letters helped to reveal the truth about the love affairs of that womanizer.
The memoirs found he fame and success not because of the
true facts depicted, the style itself was fascinating. When the memoirs were
first published, the authorship was attributed to Stendhal.
The censorship thoroughly deleted all erotic scenes from
Casanova’s memoirs and as a consequence we have the adventurous memoirs like
that of Marco Polo. With the lapse of the time the memoirs of Casanova were
published as it was without any deletions and omissions.
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