[6] Born to a family of actors, Casanova studied law at the University of Padua and received minor orders in the Catholic Church with a view towards pursuing a career as a canon lawyer.

Among other exploits, Casanova escaped from the Piombi prison, to which he had been confined by order of the Venetian Council of Ten for offenses against religion and morals, and later helped convince the authorities of the Kingdom of France to establish a state lottery as a source of revenue.

Casanova, who often misrepresented himself as an aristocrat, used a variety of pseudonyms, including Baron or Count of Farussi (his mother's maiden name) and the invented title Chevalier de Seingalt (French pronunciation: [sɛ̃ɡɑl]).

[8][9] At the time of Casanova's birth, the city of Venice thrived as the pleasure capital of Europe, ruled by political and religious conservatives who tolerated social vices and encouraged tourism.

As a child, Casanova suffered nosebleeds and his grandmother sought help from a witch: "Leaving the gondola, we enter a hovel, where we find an old woman sitting on a pallet, with a black cat in her arms and five or six others around her.

Casanova thus began his third career, as a violinist in the San Samuele Theater, "a menial journeyman of a sublime art in which, if he who excels is admired, the mediocrity is rightly despised.

"[27] He and some of his fellows, "often spent our nights roaming through different quarters of the city, thinking up the most scandalous practical jokes and putting them into execution ... we amused ourselves by untying the gondolas moored before private homes, which then drifted with the current".

I decided to put myself in a position where I need no longer go without the necessities of life: and what those necessities were for me no one could judge better than me.... No one in Venice could understand how an intimacy could exist between myself and three men of their character, they all heaven and I all earth; they most severe in their morals, and I addicted to every kind of dissolute living.For the next three years under the senator's patronage, working nominally as a legal assistant, Casanova led the life of a nobleman, dressing magnificently and, as was natural to him, spending most of his time gambling and engaging in amorous pursuits.

Before leaving, she slipped into his pocket five hundred louis, mark of her evaluation of him.Crestfallen and despondent, Casanova returned to Venice, and after a good gambling streak, he recovered and set off on a grand tour, reaching Paris in 1750.

[35] In Lyon, he entered the society of Freemasonry, which appealed to his interest in secret rites and which, for the most part, attracted men of intellect and influence who proved useful in his life, providing valuable contacts and uncensored knowledge.

[46][48] He was placed in a single-person room with clothing, a pallet bed, table, and armchair in "the worst of all the cells",[49] where he suffered greatly from the darkness, summer heat, and "millions of fleas".

[60] Casanova claimed to be a Rosicrucian and an alchemist, aptitudes which made him popular with some of the most prominent figures of the era, among them Madame de Pompadour, the Count of Saint-Germain, d'Alembert, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

[61] He met his match, however, in the Count of Saint-Germain: "This very singular man, born to be the most barefaced of all imposters, declared with impunity, with a casual air, that he was three hundred years old, that he possessed the universal medicine, that he made anything he liked from nature, that he created diamonds.

On occasion, he would also call himself Count de Farussi (using his mother's maiden name) and when Pope Clement XIII presented Casanova with the Papal Order of the Golden Spur, he had an impressive cross and ribbon to display on his chest.

[76][77][78] He returned to Paris for several months in 1767 and hit the gambling salons, only to be expelled from France by order of Louis XV himself, primarily for Casanova's scam involving the Marquise d'Urfé.

He tried his usual approach, leaning on well-placed contacts (often Freemasons), wining and dining with nobles of influence, and finally arranging an audience with the local monarch, in this case Charles III.

While waiting for supporters[81] to gain him legal entry into Venice, Casanova began his modern Tuscan-Italian translation of the Iliad, his History of the Troubles in Poland, and a comic play.

At last, he received his long-sought permission and burst into tears upon reading "We, Inquisitors of State, for reasons known to us, give Giacomo Casanova a free safe-conduct ... empowering him to come, go, stop, and return, hold communication wheresoever he pleases without let or hindrance.

Prince Charles de Ligne, a friend (and uncle of his future employer), described him around 1784: He would be a good-looking man if he were not ugly; he is tall and built like Hercules, but of an African tint; eyes full of life and fire, but touchy, wary, rancorous—and this gives him a ferocious air.

There is reason to believe that he was also in Prague in 1791 for the coronation of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II as king of Bohemia, an event that included the first production of Mozart's opera La clemenza di Tito.

The isolation and boredom of Casanova's last years enabled him to focus without distractions on his Histoire de ma vie, without which his memory would have been considerably diminished, if not blotted out entirely.

He puts a happy face on his days of loneliness, writing in his work, "I can find no pleasanter pastime than to converse with myself about my own affairs and to provide a most worthy subject for laughter to my well-bred audience.

[97] A letter by him in 1792 states that he was reconsidering his decision to publish them, believing that his story was despicable and he would make enemies by writing the truth about his affairs, but he decided to proceed, using initials instead of actual names and toning down the strongest passages.

Despite an excellent moral foundation, the inevitable fruit of the divine principles which were rooted in my heart, I was all my life the victim of my senses; I have delighted in going astray and I have constantly lived in error, with no other consolation than that of knowing I have erred.

Multi-faceted and complex, Casanova's personality, as he described it, was dominated by his sensual urges: "Cultivating whatever gave pleasure to my senses was always the chief business of my life; I never found any occupation more important.

[114] As William Bolitho points out in Twelve Against the Gods, the secret of Casanova's success with women "had nothing more esoteric in it than [offering] what every woman who respects herself must demand: all that he had, all that he was, with (to set off the lack of legality) the dazzling attraction of the lump sum over what is more regularly doled out in a lifetime of installments".

"[33] Casanova's actions can be considered by many in modern times to be predatory, despite his own claims to the contrary ("my guiding principle has been never to direct my attack against novices or those whose prejudices were likely to prove an obstacle"), especially since he frequently targeted young, insecure, or emotionally-exposed women.

[124] He was, by vocation and avocation, a lawyer, clergyman, military officer, violinist, con man, pimp, gourmand, dancer, businessman, diplomat, spy, politician, medic, mathematician, social philosopher, cabalist, playwright, and writer.

[108] Born of actors, he had a passion for the theater and for an improvised, theatrical life, but with all his talents he frequently succumbed to the quest for pleasure and sex, often avoiding sustained work and established plans, and got himself into trouble when prudent action would have served him better.

Rounding out the portrait, the Prince also stated: The only things about which he knows nothing are those which he believes himself to be expert: the rules of the dance, the French language, good taste, the way of the world, savoir vivre.