Page 90 - All About History - Issue 18-14

Casanova: The Ultimate Playboy

Sexually
transmitted diseases
With no effective protection against STDs, other
than abstinence, and little in the way of treatment,
Casanova suffered a variety of unpleasant venereal
diseases. According to some sources he suffered
from up to 11, including the pox, gonorrhoea and
syphilis. He would treat them himself
by administering mercury.

An illustration of Scuola Grande di San Marco in Venice,
as it looked in the 18th century

A depiction of Casanova’s improbable escape from the
Casanova has become synonymous with the
city he lived much of his life in; Venice doge’s palace, where he had been imprisoned for ‘anti-
Catholic behaviour’
History’s ultimate playboy believed that in “Whatever I have hugely influential in Europe as the centre of the
wooing a woman, no amount of compliments powerful Venetian Republic. Ruled by oligarchies
was excessive, finding the opposite sex responded done in the course descended from the leading families of the city’s
favourably to his words. Seduction was an art, a glorydays, thegrandestpalacesandfinestartworks
passion in itself for Casanova who admitted he of my life, whether inallofEuropeweretobefoundinVenice.Dukes
found the thrill of affairs, not simply the physical it be good or evil, headedacouncilthateffectivelyruledthecityand,
acts, so addictive. When words failed, he was wont while many inhabitants were Roman Catholics, the
to seduce women with oysters, finding that women has been done Venetians had little interest in the conservative zeal
enjoyed eating them in the same volumes as oftheCatholicChurch.
him and that they also enjoyed ‘the oyster game’, freely” YeteventherelativelydecadentVenicehadits
passing the shellfish from mouth to mouth. limits. Casanova’s notoriety was growing, with
Through a variety of conquests, openly Venice’s inquisitors increasingly outraged by
promiscuous behaviour and mischief – such as Europe. On his travels he bedded women but also his licentious behaviour. Casanova’s patron Don
exhuming a fresh corpse to play a practical joke on met some of the most notable citizens of the day Bragadin, being a former inquisitor himself, advised
an enemy, who never recovered from the fright – – Casanova would claim to have hobnobbed with his charge to leave Venice immediately and not
Casanova began to attract unwanted attention, such Mozart, Voltaire and Benjamin Franklin – before return. A state spy, Giovanni Manucci, was engaged
as from the Venetian Inquisition, who investigated returning to his birthplace. to discover more about Casanova’s freemasonry
‘anti-Catholic behaviour.’ In 1749 he was forced to Despite its waning influence as a port and and collection of forbidden books.
flee the city, spending the next four years touring mercantile city, the city-state of Venice was still The inevitable happenend in 1755 when

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