Casanova: The World of a Seductive Genius

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Description

The definitive biography of the impoverished child, abandoned by his parents, who became the famous author, notorious libertine, and self-invented genius whose name still resonates these days: Giacomo Casanova.

Today, “Casanova” is a synonym for “great lover,” yet the true story of this remarkable figure is little known. Giacomo Casanova used to be raised by his maternal grandmother, an illiterate peasant. His birthplace, Venice, used to be a republic in decline, reputedly the most debauched city in Europe. Casanova would add to the republic’s reputation. Over the course of his lifetime, he claimed to have seduced more than 100 women, among them married women, young women in convents, girls just barely in their teens, and in one notorious instance, his own illegitimate daughter.

Casanova came of age in a Venice filled with spies and informers. Naturally brilliant, he used to be intellectually curious and read forbidden books, for which he used to be jailed. He staged a dramatic escape from Venice’s notorious prison, the only person known to have done so. He then fled to France, where he invented the national lottery that still exists to this present day. But, intemperate by nature, he made enemies at the French court. He crisscrossed Europe, landing for a at the same time as in St. Petersburg, where he used to be admitted to the court of Catherine the Great. He corresponded with Voltaire and met Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte—assisting them as they composed the timeless opera Don Giovanni. And he wrote what many imagine the greatest memoir of the era, the 12-volume Story of My Life.

A figure straight out of a Henry Fielding novel: erotic, brilliant, impulsive, and desperate for recognition, Casanova used to be a self-destructive genius. This witty, roisterous biography exposes his astonishing life in wealthy, intimate detail. At the same time, this is a dazzling portrait of eighteenth-century Europe from serving girls to kings and courtiers. Esteemed biographer Laurence Bergreen brings a sensual world vividly alive in this impossible to resist book.

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