History of My Life: Introduction by John Julius NorwichThe name of Giacomo Casanova, Chevalier de Seingalt (1725-98), is now synonymous with amorous exploits, and there are plenty of these, vividly narrated, in his memoirs. But Casanova was not just an energetic lover. In his time he was a diplomat, businessman, trainee priest, traveler, prisoner, magician, confidence man, gambler, professional entertainer, and charlatan. He financed business projects, organized lotteries, wrote opera libretti, and dabbled in high politics. Above all he was an autobiographer of enduring brilliance and subtlety who left behind him what is probably the most remarkable confession ever written. Casanova explored to the full all the possibilities eighteenth-century Venice offered by way of love and profit before being imprisoned, escaping from jail, and fleeing from the city to begin travels that took him across Europe. In Moscow and London, Berlin and Constantinople, he met the famous men and women of his time—Catherine the Great, Voltaire, Louis XV, Rousseau—and recorded his encounters for the memoirs he wrote in retirement at the end of his life. History of My Life is by turns touching, thrilling, wonderfully comic, and quite irresistible. The present edition, which includes approximately one third of Casanova's enormous (and unfinished) book, contains all his major adventures and all his greatest affairs of the heart. |
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Contents
Introduction | ix |
Select Bibliography | xxiii |
Foreword | lxvii |
Preface | 15 |
CHAPTER I | 27 |
My first love | 35 |
Bettina believed mad Father Mancia The smallpox I leave Padua | 52 |
with Senator Malipiero with Teresa Imer with the niece of my parish | 68 |
CHAPTER I | 191 |
return to Rimini and my arrival in Bologna | 207 |
Naples and I go to Venice where I enter my countrys service I sail | 223 |
lead a dissolute life Zawoiski Rinaldi LAbadie | 249 |
CHAPTER I | 267 |
young Frenchwoman I see Genoveffa again and present her with a fine | 276 |
Volume Ten | 957 |
who takes care of me The Marquis dArgens Cagliostro | 1148 |
A ball at my house Giulietta humiliated My return to Pasiano | 93 |
Signor Malipiero I no longer have a house | 109 |
Bishop but do not find him Fortune provides me with the means | 117 |
Don Lelio Caraffa I go to Rome in delightful company and there | 129 |
The Marchesa G Barbara Dalacqua My bad luck and my departure | 159 |