Page 86 - All About History - Issue 18-14

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THE LAYBOY

Join history’s most famous lover in decadent Venice as he beds

nuns, foreign spies and countless wives of other men

enice, 1753. Masked strangers been entranced by beautiful women, the latest Square. Not wishing to disobey the city’s duke,
walk the streets, topless of whom is a noblewoman with an important he quickly complies and scurries off. Without her
prostitutes ply their trade husband. Such problems can be easily overcome husband, the lady readily accedes to Casanova’s
on the Ponte delle Tette though and the annual carnival allows for myriad offer of a romantic meal. She would later become
and gondolas line canals, opportunities. In this instance the husband in one of the 133 women history’s most-famous lover
staffed by gondoliers sporting question is dressed as a clown – thinking quickly, claimed to have slept with.
the colours of the houses they serve. Parties fill the Casanova marches over to the couple and declares Giacomo Casanova was born in 1725 and was
lavish homes of the city’s aristocracy, decorated that the duke has ordered all clowns to the San quickly recognised as an intelligent child; so much
with marble floors and crystal chandeliers, Giorgio Maggiore, a small island opposite St Mark’s so that he was sent to study law at the University
with hidden rooms and floors to house furtive of Padua at the tender age of 12. After that he
behaviour. Despite outwardly decrying carnality, embarked on a succession of doomed careers
18th-century Venice is very much a place of easy that saw him attempt to make a living in the
virtue and flexible morality. It’s a city almost made church, through gambling, playing the violin and
to order for Giacomo Casanova. as a soldier. Finding none to his liking – he
The playboy has always was expelled from the priesthood

Written by Robin Brown

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