Casanova's Women (15 page)

Single-mindedly pursuing his goal – a good position in the Church – within hours of his arrival in Rome Casanova went to see Father Antonio-Agostino Giorgi and talked his way into a job as secretary to Cardinal Acquaviva who, as the Protector of Spain, was one of the most powerful men in the Vatican. From now on he would receive a salary of twenty Roman scudi a month, take private French lessons from a local advocate, Signor Delacqua, and lodge in beautiful rooms on the fourth floor of the Palazzo di Spagna, the extremely grand residence of the King of Spain's ambassadors. As soon as his future was settled he called at Lucrezia's mother's home near the Dominican church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. Lucrezia scarcely recognised him. The impetuous youth who had courted her on the journey from Naples seemed to have matured within the last twenty-four hours. His simple clothes had been replaced by a smart Roman wardrobe, and his impetuous behaviour had vanished. Towards her mother, Donna Cecilia Monti, Casanova was modest and respectful, and he took a lively interest in everyone around him, including Lucrezia's fifteen-year-old brother. When guests arrived that evening, Casanova's witty repartee dominated the conversation. He put himself out to charm his hostess and he succeeded: when he finally left late that night, Donna Cecilia sent her son-in-law running after him to tell him that, from now on, he was to regard himself as ‘a friend of the house, free to call on them without ceremony at any time'.
²⁴

Donna Cecilia's son-in-law may not have suspected Casanova's motives, but Father Giorgi, his mentor in Rome, certainly did. Gossip travelled fast in the city, and by the following day Giorgi had already heard of his protege's visit to the Minerva district; Rome was full of spies, and from now on every move the lovers made would be discreetly monitored. Giorgi warned Casanova against going to visit Donna Cecilia too often, even though hers was ‘a very respectable house frequented by people of integrity'.
²⁵
The unspoken message was that Casanova must put his career before pursuing women. He was outraged at this reining-in of his liberty. Deferring gratification went against his very nature. ‘To ensure the
would-be happiness of my future life, I was to commence by becoming the executioner of that which I already had, and the enemy of my heart,' was how he justified his defiant attitude. ‘I could only accept this logic by becoming a base object of contempt in my own eyes.'
²⁶
Still, he attempted to comply. Lucrezia had to wait two days for his next visit, and on that occasion he stayed for only an hour. Despite his meteoric professional rise he seemed sad, and the reason, Casanova told her meaningfully, was that his time was no longer his own. When Castelli joked that the real reason he looked so miserable was because he was in love with Lucrezia, Donna Cecilia told her son-in-law not to be so sure of himself. He might be blind to the sparks that were flying between the priest and her daughter, but she was not. The following morning, when Casanova sent the lawyer a poem he had written, everyone in the house with the possible exception of the recipient knew for whom it was really intended. Over the next few days Lucrezia read the lines so often that she could recite them by heart.

When Casanova absented himself from the house for some days, the unaware Castelli was dispatched to invite him to a family outing to Monte Testaccio, a small hill to the south of the city that was the scene of local festivities every October. Lucrezia knew that if she was ever to have the opportunity of being alone with Casanova it would happen then, and her excitement as they discussed the trip together was obvious. Casanova, too, was gambling on having the opportunity to seduce Lucrezia that day, and on the morning of the outing he deliberately arrived at the family's house in a hired
carrosse-coupé
, a covered four-wheeled carriage that seated only two people. In case Castelli became suspicious, he insisted on taking Donna Cecilia in it on the outward journey, leaving the lawyer to take his wife, Angelica and her betrothed, Don Francesco, in his large carriage. Continuing the ruse, Casanova openly flirted with Donna Cecilia all day long, so much so that her son-in-law insisted on driving her home himself, leaving Casanova to take Lucrezia in the two-seater. As an exercise in manipulation the plan had worked perfectly. The cuckold had fallen neatly into the trap.

The trip back to the Minerva district took half an hour, and Casanova and Lucrezia did not waste a moment of it in conversation. As soon as the others drove off ahead of them, they fell into each other's arms under cover of the dark night. The journey passed in a flash of delirious heavy petting and, perhaps, actual intercourse. The element of danger, coupled with their sexual chemistry, elevated their love-making to a different emotional level than either of them had ever experienced before. Interrupted by their return home, both parties quickly straightened their clothes and went into the house where Lucrezia somehow mustered enough sangfroid to spend the rest of the evening acting as if nothing untoward had happened.

Fearful of ruining his career prospects by seeing too much of his lover, Casanova avoided the Minerva district for the next few days. Lucrezia was not afraid to express her feelings of disappointment, as she had proved once before on the journey from Naples. It was impossible, she reprimanded him gently when he eventually called at her mother's house four days later, that Casanova had not had time to come and see her before now. Already skilled in the art of talking his way out of trouble, her lover swore that he had only kept away because their love was so precious to him that he would rather die than have it discovered. He proposed another family outing, this time at his expense to fashionable Frascati, a town famous for its lovely gardens and private villas, where he hoped they would be able to spend more time alone.

On the following Sunday, the Feast of St Ursula, Casanova arrived at Donna Cecilia's house at seven o'clock in the morning with two carriages: a phaeton seating four and a
vis-à-vis
, a light but well-upholstered carriage designed for two people to sit face to face in. As on the excursion to Testaccio, Donna Cecilia travelled with him on the outward journey. Crammed into the phaeton with her husband and the rest of her family, Lucrezia boldly declared that she would have her turn in the
vis-à-vis
on the way back. The fifteen-kilometre trip took two hours – there would be plenty of time for love on the return journey – and once they had arrived at
Frascati the party split up into small groups to explore the gardens of the Villa Ludovisi before lunch.

‘Frascati is a Paradise,' wrote Goethe when he visited the town in 1787. ‘The town lies on the slope of a mountain, and at every turn the artist comes upon the most lovely things. The view is unlimited; you can see Rome in the distance and the sea beyond it. The hills of Tivoli to the right, and so on.'
²⁷
These beautiful vistas enchanted the rest of Lucrezia's family, but she and Casanova only had eyes for each other. In the beautiful water gardens of the Villa Ludovisi they quickly wandered away from the others and threw themselves down on a grassy bank, overcome with a mixture of lust and emotion. This did not feel like a fleeting affair to either of them. In tears, Casanova told Lucrezia that she was the first woman he had truly loved; she was unique. He was her first love too, she confided, and he would certainly be her last. Sexual desire made her both reckless and fearless. Although she was usually terrified of snakes, when she spotted one close by she was convinced it was no danger to them, and even though her mother, husband and siblings were strolling in the vicinity she abandoned herself to Casanova there and then.

After meeting up at an inn for a fine lunch at Casanova's expense – the adventurer always entertained over-generously, perhaps out of fear that he would be found wanting – the party set off to explore the grounds of the famous Villa Aldobrandini, a massive sixteenth-century house which was the highlight of the area. Did Lucrezia's husband suspect nothing when his wife wandered off with their host down yet another tree-bordered walkway? She was convinced that Castelli either did not believe they were in love or made very little of their flirtation. Her mother, she suspected, knew everything but was minding her own business, while Angelica, who had been party to the collapsed bed, ‘is discreet, and besides, she has decided to pity me. She has no idea of the nature of my passion.'
²⁸

Passion certainly took hold of Lucrezia and Casanova that day. It was an insatiable hunger, and the constant threat of discovery only heightened their appetites. Luckily the gardens of the Villa Aldobrandini
had been laid out for lovers to lose themselves in: behind the house was a carefully-designed wilderness perfect for illicit idylls, and amid the formal terraced gardens at the front and the innumerable water features were endless paths, hidden grottos and dark leafy corners decorated with statues. In the middle of one particularly long and secluded tree-lined walkway, Lucrezia and Casanova found an arbour filled with turf seats, the most striking of which resembled a bed upon which were set two turf ‘bolsters', one at the head, the other parallel to it an elbow's length away. They both looked at this ‘eloquent bed'
²⁹
and laughed. Though it could be seen clearly from either end of the avenue of trees it would take anyone who approached it a good fifteen minutes to reach it. They unloosened their restrictive outer garments to get access to the naked flesh underneath their chemises: ‘Standing face to face, serious, looking only into each other's eyes, we unlaced, we unbuttoned, our hearts palpitated, and our quick hands hastened to calm their impatience. Neither of us having been slower than the other, our arms opened to tightly clasp the object of which they were to take possession. Our first combat made the beautiful Lucrezia laugh and swear that, having the right to shine everywhere, genius was never out of place. We both applauded the happy effect of the small bolster. After that our adventures varied, and they were all good but all, despite that, rejected to make way for others. At the end of two hours, enchanted with each other and looking into each other's eyes most tenderly, we said in unison these exact words:
Love, I thank you.'
³⁰

No sooner had they dressed and walked on than they stopped to make love again, this time on a long narrow bench which they straddled as if on horseback, and although they were forced to break off through exhaustion and lack of time, they resumed their love-making in the
vis-à-vis
on the two-hour journey back to Rome.

Lucrezia would not have another opportunity to be alone with Casanova until the end of November, when Angelica's fiancé Don Francesco invited him to join the family on an overnight trip to his country house in Tivoli. Here she and Angelica shared a bedroom
leading off a pretty orangery, and Casanova manoeuvred himself into the small intercommunicating chamber next door. While the sisters prepared for bed, he spied on them through the keyhole, and when he saw the seventeen-year-old virgin strip off her linen chemise, walk across the room stark naked and climb into bed beside her older sister, ‘I believe,' he confessed in his memoirs, ‘that I have never undressed more quickly.'
³¹
As soon as they extinguished the light he burst in on the two women and threw himself into Lucrezia's arms. With their unwilling witness lying naked beside them, they made love in a fast and furious manner, and after a short rest, began again. This time neither of them wished the act to end; luckily Casanova ‘excelled in the art of prolonging it', or so he boasted.
³²
Awaking at dawn, they made love for a third time, and only afterwards spared a thought for Angelica who had passed an embarrassing and sleepless night in the same bed. According to Casanova Angelica watched them make love for a fourth time, then Donna Lucrezia thrust her lover towards her sister and watched as he deflowered her.

It is at this point in his
Story of My Life
that Casanova's all-too-convincing account of his affair with Donna Lucrezia suddenly moves into the realms of fantasy. For did Lucrezia really feel so little for her sister that she was willing to jeopardise her entire future on a whim? ‘I have enlightened her,' Casanova reports her as saying to him after the event. ‘Instead of pitying me, she has to actually approve of me, she must love you, and since I am about to depart, I leave her to you.'
³³
Would a virgin on the point of being married really allow her sister's lover to take away her chastity just weeks before her wedding night, in her fiance's house, under his very nose, and with her mother and brother-in-law sleeping close by? Forced to collude in the affair against her will, Angelica had already made her distaste for her sister's lover apparent: the very day before, at Tivoli, she had told Casanova, ‘As soon as I am the mistress here, signore, the first person I will order my doors closed to is you.' Perversely, the adventurer interpreted this as a declaration of love. If he did indeed deflower Angelica at Tivoli the
chances are that, at best, he took advantage of her, and at worst, he did so against her will. Eighteen years later, Angelica still bore a grudge against Casanova: when he called on her at her marital home in Rome she gave him short shrift, and told him that she scarcely remembered ever having met him.

Several months later, on 17 January 1745, Angelica and her fiance were married at the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. Pointedly, Casanova was not invited to the wedding. Nor was Lucrezia present. A week after their visit to Tivoli, her husband had concluded his business in Rome and taken her back to Naples. It was the end of their pleasures, she told Casanova sadly before she left.

 

Lucrezia would never be able to forget her young lover, for within weeks of returning to Naples she realised that she was pregnant, and that the child she was carrying was his. With her usual frankness, she admitted as much, and Castelli accepted the situation with such generosity and good grace that one could almost believe that, after years of failing to produce an heir himself, he had planned the entire affair. When Lucrezia's daughter was born in July 1745, her husband stood at the font and himself named her Leonilda Giacomina – the feminine form of Giacomo. Even though she was not his biological child, he brought her up as his own; and little Leonilda never suspected otherwise.