The Venetians: A New History: from Marco Polo to Casanova (51 page)

At the same time he found occasion to pursue his other two callings, which he also claimed to follow with a passion – namely, literature and gambling. With regards to the former, his talent was in its infancy during these early years, though he was already showing signs of being an accomplished poet. However, his gambling was another matter. His favourite game was faro, which depended upon the turn of the card, where the odds were usually almost even, and for this he used his own gambling system, which was a variation on the Martingale method. In its simplest form, this involves doubling your next bet each time you lose – an apparently plausible process that often results in winnings, but does eventually prove ruinous, as Casanova was to discover time and time again. In 1743, after his expulsion from the seminary, he tried to earn a living at the Ridotto and other casinos, but soon found himself in such deep debt that he was imprisoned in the fortress of Sant’Andrea on an island in the lagoon. Probably through the background influence of his natural father, he was soon released, and departed from Venice to take up an appointment as a secretary in the employment of the Church. He ended up in Rome as secretary to Cardinal Acquaviva, the Spanish ambassador to the Holy See. In the course of this work Casanova had an audience with the worldly Pope Benedict XIV, who was so charmed by his wit and learning that he invited Casanova to visit him regularly in the Vatican. At the same time Casanova had his first encounter with a pretty young castrato whom he initially mistook for a girl, but who offered to spend the night with him ‘either as a boy or a girl, whichever I chose’. Uncharacteristically, Casanova turned down this offer.

At first Cardinal Acquaviva was highly impressed by his talented eighteen-year-old secretary, even employing him to write love-poems to one of his long string of amatory conquests, a certain ‘Marchesa G’. Indeed, Casanova performed this task so well that the cardinal felt obliged to insert a few faults in his verses, in case the marchesa thought them too accomplished to be the cardinal’s own work. Perhaps inevitably, Casanova was soon
dismissed from his post, for the unlikely misdemeanour of enabling his French tutor’s daughter to elope with another man (though not until he had made his own unsuccessful attempt on her virtue). He could be altruistic as well as unlucky.

There now followed long years of travelling, during which he would pass through cities from Constantinople to St Petersburg, and all capitals in between, with occasional return visits to Venice. During the ensuing decades he pursued his three ruling passions with varying success. His gambling was at best modestly successful, more often than not ending in disaster. His literary pursuits met with passing success: his first play was put on in Dresden to some critical acclaim, he translated
The Iliad
, edited magazines, kept up his interest in the occult, was elected to the distinguished Arcadian Academy in Rome, and almost certainly collaborated with Da Ponte and Mozart on
Don Giovanni
. Meanwhile he obsessively indulged in the pursuit for which his name had become a byword. What drove this obsession, which at times took on the proportions of a full-scale addiction?

Psychologists have pointed to the behaviour of his mother. And to the absence of a father – both that of his shadowy natural father and that of the man whose name he took on, who was frequently away touring with his mother and died when Casanova was eight. Others suggest that whilst he was with his grandmother he was the centre of attention amidst a company of worshipping women, and that he merely sought to prolong this paradisiacal situation into adult life. Casanova’s own explanation is disarmingly simple: he was constantly falling in (and out of) love – and there is no doubting the compelling force and capriciousness of his serial infatuations, hinting at some form of deep emotional instability. Whatever the explanation, there is no denying that Casanova’s ‘affairs’ certainly numbered well into three figures. There are also some compelling external reasons for his behaviour. The eighteenth century was a notoriously promiscuous era, and nowhere more so than Venice. The all but non-existent sexual morality in the city in which Casanova grew up must surely have played a significant role in encouraging his behaviour, which can only have been boosted by the confidence that his many early conquests assuredly gave him. Later he was certainly aided by the fact that his reputation
preceded him. This led him to increasingly bold and multifarious escapades – perhaps the most monstrous of which would involve an affair with his own seventeen-year-old illegitimate daughter, which resulted in her giving birth to a boy who was both his son and his grandson.

Gambling, spying, editing, fighting duels, avoiding assassination attempts, practising magic, self-administering medicines for the inevitable succession of sexual diseases that he contracted, spells in gaol, as well as banishment from a string of major European cities (including Madrid, Vienna, Florence, Turin and Barcelona) and personal banishment from France by Louis XV – all these give an indication of the occupational hazards that his compulsion led him to endure. But there were also high moments (quite apart from those of a sexual nature). In the course of his travels he met many of the leading figures of his age: Louis XV, popes Benedict XIV and Clement XIII (who was so impressed that he invested Casanova as a Knight of the Golden Spur, a papal order of chivalry, no less), Rousseau, Voltaire, Madame Pompadour, Frederick the Great of Prussia (whose offer of employment he turned down), Catherine the Great of Russia (whom he advised to reform the Russian calendar, to bring it into line with that operating in Europe) … and so it went on.

However, Casanova’s most celebrated exploit, for which he would become famous throughout Europe, was neither amatory nor took place abroad. In 1753 he returned to Venice, where for two years he continued with his usual behaviour in the boudoir, at his writing desk and in the casinos. In July 1755 the network of spies acting for the Council of Ten brought his behaviour to the attention of the Venetian Inquisition and he was arrested. The official charge was heresy – and there is no doubt that he did continue to practise ‘the magical arts’. However, Casanova’s cause cannot have been helped by the fact that he had circulated a scurrilous poem poking fun at religion, his gambling had recently ruined an influential senator, and he was having an affair with the mistress of one of the Inquisitors.

Casanova was marched off to the Doge’s Palace, where he was led up to the notorious cells known as
Il Piombi
(‘The Leads’), which were housed beneath the lead roofing of the palace. These cells were so low that it was impossible to stand upright; giant rats scampered over the floor and the place was infested with fleas. In winter the cells became freezing cold,
while during summer the lead roof heated to such a temperature that the atmosphere was all but suffocating. Casanova was tried in his absence from court, and sentenced to five years in prison. But he was not informed of the verdict. For all he knew, when the heavy cell door slammed closed and was bolted behind him, he was liable to be detained in The Leads for the rest of his life. Such was all too often the case.

No one had ever escaped from The Leads before, but the man who had escaped from so many angry husbands, irate gamblers and even hired assassins now set about planning the impossible. This would take more than a year of careful preparation, mishaps and false alarms, until early on the evening of 31 October 1756 he was at last ready. With the aid of a sharpened iron spike, and the assistance of a disgraced monk called Marin Albi in the next cell, Casanova eventually managed to break out onto the rooftop. After clambering over the lead roofing and heaving himself precariously along gutters, overcoming crippling cramp in the process, Casanova happened by chance across a ladder left by some builders. The two of them then scrambled down and broke through a lower window, though this was still way above ground level. Once inside, they found that they were in a locked room inside the main part of the Doge’s Palace, but by this stage Casanova was so exhausted that he fell asleep, being woken by Albi at around five in the morning. He now used his spike to open the door and they passed through a succession of rooms, corridors and chambers, until they found themselves confronted by a large door that proved impervious to all Casanova’s efforts.

It was at this stage that Casanova noticed how his endeavours had left him ‘torn and scratched from head to foot and covered with blood’. He proceeded to tidy himself up as best he could, so that if they managed to get out of the building ‘he would look like a man who had attended a ball and later gone looking for a house of ill repute where he had been beaten up’. Albi looked less conspicuous in his ragged robes, and had sustained fewer injuries as he had simply followed behind Casanova after he had hacked his way and broken through the obstacles in their path. Casanova now tried opening the window of the room in which they were trapped, but they were spotted by a passer-by on the quayside below. The passer-by assumed they had mistakenly been locked in the building overnight
and went to get the caretaker, who came and unlocked the door to the room where the two of them were trapped. Boldly Casanova brushed past the caretaker, leading Albi down the main stairway of the Doge’s Palace, across the Piazzetta to the quayside, where they took a gondola and were eventually delivered to the mainland. Here, after several further adventures, Casanova and Albi finally made their way overland to the edge of Venetian territory, where they parted company and Casanova made good his escape.

This is but a brief summary of the actual sequence of events. The detailed description that Casanova gives of his imprisonment in The Leads and his consequent escape is one of the most exciting in literature, inspiring writers from Alexandre Dumas to Franz Kafka.
*
But is his story true? It has been suggested that Casanova in fact bribed his way out of The Leads. Indeed, his written account is filled with unlikely details – yet bills for the repair of the damages that Casanova and Albi caused during their daring, dangerous escape across the rooftops and through the chambers have been found in the ubiquitous Venetian archives. Casanova’s account may well have contained the occasional embellishment, but astonishingly it would appear in the main to be true.

The story of his daring escape spread through Europe, and by the time he reached Paris in 1757 he was famous. Here he had a further stroke of good fortune when he became involved in setting up the first French state lottery. From this he made a fortune, but lost it in an ill-judged investment in a silk-printing factory. However, eventually – inevitably – the life of seduction (and disease), gambling, spying and hack-writing started to take its toll. His teeth began to fall out, and he suffered from diminishing sexual potency. In 1784, whilst in Vienna, he formed a friendship with Count Joseph von Waldstein, based on their shared interest in magic. Waldstein became so enamoured of Casanova’s company that he offered him the post of librarian at his castle at Dux in Bohemia (now Duchcov in the Czech Republic). Fifty-nine years old, broke and all but toothless, Casanova had little choice but to accept this generous offer.

He now found himself living in isolation amidst the hills and woodlands of provincial Bohemia. The count soon lost interest in him and spent increasingly long periods away from home, leaving Casanova at the mercy of the hostile German major-domo and his servants. Plunged into despair, and with little else to do, in 1790 Casanova began writing his memoirs, whose twelve volumes would occupy him through the ensuing years. Alone and in failing health, he longed to return home, but by now the Venice he had known had ceased to exist.

Europe had become a different world. Following the French Revolution the continent had been plunged into the Revolutionary Wars, as an alliance supported by the Prussians and the Hapsburg Austrians attempted to reinstate the monarchy. After the execution of Louis XVI in 1793, and the death of his heir Louis XVII two years later, the forty-year-old Louis XVIII had become claimant to the throne of France; and, with the encouragement of the Hapsburg emperor Francis II, he took up residence in the safety of Verona, which was in neutral Venetian mainland territory. Though not a participant in the Revolutionary Wars, Venice remained closely allied to Hapsburg Austria, which counted much of northern Italy as its territory. During the long years of pursuing its policy of neutrality, Venice had neglected its militia, which now consisted of a comparatively small army of mainly Serbo-Croatian conscripts. The Republic thus had little alternative but to acquiesce to the presence of Louis XVIII in Verona, where the French claimant soon set up a court attracting many monarchist exiles. Meanwhile the French revolutionary government protested in the strongest possible terms, insisting that if Venice did not expel Louis XVIII and his court it would forfeit its neutral status and be regarded as an enemy. Venice, protected by the Austrian occupancy of Milan, took scant notice of this impotent threat.

Then suddenly the situation was transformed. In early April 1796 Bonaparte led the French army across the Alps into northern Italy, quickly outwitting the Austrians, forcing them into retreat. The French demanded once more that Louis XVIII be expelled from Verona or the city would no longer be regarded as neutral territory; at the same time the Austrians insisted that Venice should not comply. Faced with Bonaparte’s advancing
army, Venice caved in; and on 21 April, Louis XVIII departed from Verona. The emperor Francis II was outraged, and Venice now found itself under increasing threat from both sides.

In May, Bonaparte secured a major victory over the Austrians at the Battle of Lodi, where thousands of imperial troops were taken prisoner, and a few days later he marched triumphantly into Milan. By June the Austrians were under siege at Mantua, just five miles from the Venetian border. Venice’s neutrality was once more threatened when Austrian troops marching south to relieve Mantua demanded permission to cross Venetian territory. The weak and ill-trained Venetian army was in no position to oppose this demand and the Republic weakly conceded. This time it was Bonaparte’s turn to be outraged.