On his 300th birthday year back in 1725, Giacomo Casanova remains one of history’s most enigmatic men, one whose name evokes visions of candle-lit assignations and whispered promises but whose life was an endlessly revolving kaleidoscope of experience, intelligence, and reinvention. Far, far more than cartoon figure of tireless ladies’ man, Casanova was an alchemist, an early spy who created the term “secret agent,” a diplomat, musician, actor, and, above all, an extraordinary writer whose memoirs still beguile readers today. In an unmissable feature for The SpeciaList, cultural historian Lia Celi takes us into Venice’s narrow alleys and shadowy courtyards, in the footsteps of this incredible man. Directed by Anna Bressanin, filmed by Matteo Calore, cut by Elisabetta Abrami, and designed by Pomona Picture, this journey draws back its lens to find a Casanova as much formed by his great, pulsating city as he formed its lasting mythos.
A Renaissance Man of the Enlightenment
Giacomo Girolamo Casanova was born on April 2, 1725, in Venice, where he entered life amidst great palaces, masked balls, and intrigue. A son of players, he came of age in a city that thrived on spectacle and concealment, qualifications which were to define his life. Although history remembered him most for his conquests of women, detailed in his lengthy memoir, Histoire de ma vie, Casanova’s abilities were much wider in scope. A polymath who navigated 18th-century intellectual and cultural fashions with unbroken ease,
The many pages of memoirs that were written by Casanova in French, rather than being an enumeration of affairs of the heart, are an enumeration of affairs of state. He haunted Parisian courts and salons of Vienna, keeping company with philosophers, monarchs, and rascals and observing them for us with the clarity and integrity that make his book a standard of literary historicity. His pages create an enigmatic figure: libertine, scholar’s intellect, gambler’s finesse, and fugitive who sweet-talked his way to nobility.
The Alchemical Heart of Venice
Lia Celi’s journey begins at the Pharmacy of Ercole d’Oro, one of Venice’s lost alchemical traditions hidden in its maze of alleys, or calli. In Casanova’s time, pharmacies were not simply dispensaries, but laboratories where apothecaries compounded herbs, minerals, and mysterious substances in hopes of discovering elixirs and enlightenment. Alchemy, as an art to match his passion to transmute base experience into gold, attracted Casanova, always an intriguer in the mysterious arts. The shop, which is as full as it is of rows of old flasks and yellowed tomes, is proof of the period’s interfusion of science and magic, which Casanova embodied.
Maddalena Di Sopra, who represented pharmacies, says that Venice’s apothecaries were pharmacological pioneers, their calling filled as it was with pragmatism as well as tradition. To Casanova, these shops would likely have been an inspiration, as his interest in natural order secrets as well as of the heart of man.
Drinking History at the World’s Oldest Café
From the drug store, Celi brings us to Caffè Florian, oldest in the world, dating back to 1720 in the center of Piazza San Marco. In its heyday, this refined salon was where intellectuals, artists, and fixers convened, its tables filled with arguments about philosophy, politics, and passion. Casanova, an avid habitué, would have done anything to be within its walls, where ideas flowed as unselfconsciously as coffee. Cristiana Rivolta, Caffè Florian spokesperson, calls it a “living museum” of Venetian life, its gold ceilings and mirrored walls little changed from the 18th century.
Here, where he undoubtedly honed his craft as raconteur, he spun stories of his travels and exploits for customers. The lasting sophistication of Café Florian is an insight into his Venice—a world of excess, of beauty, of intellectual ferment, where every conversation was an exercise in theater, where every meeting could be an adventure.
The Secret Casino: A Site of Seduction
The odyssey’s culmination is in the Casino Venier, an old “casino” nowadays hidden behind an insurance company’s unimposing face. In the 18th century, these private salons were not, as one is familiar today, dens of chance, but quiet social clubs of games, parties, and, in terms of Casanova, courting. Saved today by the Alliance Francaise, the Casino Venier still has its frescoes and hidden niches evoking that clandestine world of assignations arranged by Casanova.
Roberto Mazzetto of Stamperia Venezia comments that these casinos were the beat of high Venetian society, where identities and taboos were concealed behind masks. To Casanova, however, they were theaters to his charisma, where he took on roles as lover, spy, and diplomat to perfection. The Casino Venier, in its worn grandeur, is an ancient time capsule, retaining the glamour and intrigue of Casanova’s Venice.
‘Casanova: The Spy: Builder of Secrets,’
In addition to his amourous exploits, the secret agent life that Casanova pursued also contributes to his legend of excitement. Correctly accused of inventing the phrase “secret agent,” he served as an informant to the Venetian Inquisition, running an extensive network of spies that covered the entire continent of Europe. His memoirs detail covert assignments, ciphered letters, and breakouts like his infamous break from Venice’s Piombi prison in 1756, an experience that further cemented his mastery of transformation.
Chiara Vedovetto of Musei Civici di Venezia explains that Casanova’s spying was a mirror of the delicate power balance game of 18th-century Europe. Venice, the ageing maritime republic, was a political hot spot, and Casanova’s charisma and guile were perfectly suited to him as a spy. The facility with which he moved from court to court and culture to culture, from Paris to St. Petersburg, testifies to his diplomatic genius, which was as considerable as his erotic one.
A Writer’s Lasting Legacy
While Casanova’s life as lover, alchemist, and spy is the stuff of myth, it is in his writing that he is ensured of immortality. Histoire de ma vie is an autobiography of literary brilliance, weaving vivid storytelling and philosophic meditation upon love, liberty, and humanity. Written in exile in his final years in Bohemia, it is autobiography as one man looking back upon a life of triumph and regret. Its frank exploration of desire and moral sensitivity shocked its readers of his time but is read today as an affirmation of Casanova’s humanity.
Historian of culture Lia Celi reminds us that memoirs of this sort by Casanova are not just most obviously a memoir but also a cultural history, an echo of the zeitgeist. His Venice of intrigues and carnivals lives in his pages, and he invites us to trail him down its canals and into its salons.
