Giacomo Girolamo Casanova : biography
On the 2nd of April in 1725 in Venice a boy named Giacomo was born – he was the future legendary adventurer and a virtuoso of love Casanova.
Probably one of the reasons that explained an uncommon life of Casanova was heredity. His father Gaetano left his parental home in youth and followed strolling players when he liked one girl from the troupe, Fragoletta. For five years the beloved lived together but finally they parted. The result of this love was the fact that Gaetano learnt to play in comedies but he wasn’t talented in acting. After he left his first troupe he attached himself to Venetian comedians and when they arrived in Venice he fell in love with shoemaker’s daughter Zanetta Farussi. She was only sixteen and he couldn’t hope that parents would let her marry him. Gaetano and Zaretta appeared in front of the priest without parents’ approval. This marriage caused the death of girl’s father, but mother forgave daughter and son-in-law only when Gaetano made a promise never to make wife play on stage. Actually Gaetano didn’t live up to his promise. Gaetano died nine years later and left to Zanetta five children apart from Giacomo as a memory of him.
Giacomo was a very weak and sickly boy, he often refused to eat and seemed to be weak-minded. Even mother’s address to the famous doctor of Padua had only one result: the doctor made a diagnosis “hemoconcentration” and recommended to keep the child outdoors. At the age of nine the boy was sent to the boarding school near Padua only in order to get rid of him.
Studying came easily for Giacomo. Two years later he began to learn from the priest when he met his first love – a thirteen year old Bettina who was a sister of his teacher. He was only eleven years old but the girl absolutely didn’t worry about the disproportion in age and she experienced the secrets of carnal love with great pleasure. When the priest got to know about it he doubted that Giacomo could become an exemplary abbot and would rather burn with the god of love than sparkle with love to God.
At the age of fifteen Giacomo Casanova left Padua and went to his native Venice. His first position that he managed to get was a post of a preacher in the San-Samuel church. In this very place he was christened formerly. But the young man’s career already collapsed when he was pronouncing the second sermon. Actually it wasn’t the fault of Giacomo – after he had a substantial dinner and made a special attention to astringent Sicilian vine the young man went up on the pulpit and with a high-coloured began to tell something indistinct face to district parish and then he fainted. The young abbot was taken away from the church on hand… Moreover later it came out that Casanova found a way to deflower simultaneously two sisters and meanwhile he showed such tenderness and attentiveness that the fame of his amorous art spread all over the city like a flash. At that time manners were rather free and Casanova had a peculiar queue of women including sophisticated ladies and curious girls – everyone wanted to feel the talent of the young abbot. Casanova didn’t refuse to anyone and by the sweat of his brow worked in women’s beds day and night. Senhoritas and noble matrons considered their lover to be very virtuosic and made him little gifts to remind of them: golden coins, expensive fur, adornments with jewels.
Although Casanova received a lot of invitations to visit rich women in their estates with the certain purposes he preferred to go to the island Murano in the San Kiriano seminary. There he with the young seminarian literally was absorbed in Petrarka’s and Horazio’s books. They were “reading” around the clock, in the library in the daytime and in beds at night. The prefect found them at this process and was very disappointed and displeased. In the morning Casanova with his lover appeared in front of the rector of the seminary who sentenced them to seven slashes of cane and exiled Casanova to the San Andrea di Lido fort for amendment. This way Giacomo became a prisoner for the first time.
