I've been looking for some information about Casanova. I've always thought he was a personage from a book. But, apparently, he has really lived. And had written some books too.
I've also discovered that the name of the castrato wasn't Belino, and that Henriette isn't from Venice. Could anybody tell me the true story of Casanova? Or is there perhaps a book available which tells this?
Giacomo Casanova was a real person and Bellino was the name of the castrato.
You can read the memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt here
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/c/casanova/c33m/
"Did you like question 10, Moony?" asked Sirius.
"Loved it" said Lupin briskly
Quite right! He was indeed a real person. If you don't want to have to sit at a computer to read the story you can buy Casanovas memoirs from Amazon (or any good bookshop). By all accounts the tv series wasn't as far off reality as you might think. Happy reading!
shareDo you perhaps have the title of the book, the writer and the ISBN on you? I don't want to buy a fake story of Casanova, you know.
shareTry this one....
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1589634144/qid=1119390133/sr=2-2/ref=sr_2_11_2/202-4580689-4737419
Basically if the books says it's the memoirs and the author is Jaques Casanova then it's the one you want.
Good Luck!
"Did you like question 10, Moony?" asked Sirius.
"Loved it" said Lupin briskly
[deleted]
Reading Histoire de Ma Vie, according to Casanova, the castrato was in fact called Bellino.
shareTry: History of my Life, Author: Giacamo Casanova. Its his auto-biography, there are like 5/6 volumes though
Giacomo Casanova was indeed a real person and although the TV show doesn't have the full facts (Bellino,Henriette etc) its about 98.9% accurate!! The up and coming film about Casanova is all lies by way!
shareWhat are the full facts about Bellino and Henriette?
shareI read somewhere, that there are about 12 volumes, but maybe they've been broken down into smaller sections or something. But yeah I couldn't find out about Henriette, does the tele-movie honsetly show what happened between them?
shareA good (and reliable, read university) site with a summary of Casanova's life and works is
http://www.dickinson.edu/~emery/Casanova.htm
i'm not sure but i think that Henriette was one of the longest, or the longest relationship that he had, hence why the drama used her as the love of his life. I also read that he had sex with his daughter, instead of his son having sex with her. Again, i'm not sure how reliable a source it was so don't quote me on that.
shareCasanova did have sex with his daughter, but the series would never have shown it. Otherwise, it was fairly accurate as far as his conquests were concerned, (the nuns, the sisters, the old woman etc), they are all based on real women. Casanova didn't sleep with as many women as most people think, he was just better at it than most.
Movies don't create psychos, movies make psychos more creative!
Exactly where did you read about this happening? And did he know before he was "with" her?
shareI knew nothing about Casanova except that he was a legendary lover but it's clear this was a fabulist take on the story. If nothing else, there's the impossibility of a genuine castrato giving birth!
I missed the first episode because I thought, ho hum, another costume drama. So wrong! This was a real romp. Amusingly anachronistic dialogue and music - didn't I hear klezmer in one of the scenes?
Thankfully, yes!Giacomo Casanova existed, he was born in 1725 in Venice and died in the Czech Republic in 1798.He was a great writer,recognised today as one of the finest of his day,though he never got enough recognition in his own lifetime for it.He was also a scholar and a philosopher, holding debates with the likes of Voltaire and Rousseau! Many of his contemporaries held him in great esteem and he probably met all the people worth meeting in his time.
The castato's real name was Angiola Calori,though he calls her Teresa in his autobiography.She wasn't actually a castrato at all, but a woman pretending to be castrato because at the time, it was forbidden for women to sing professionally in the Vatican States (but not elsewhere in Italy).I think Casanova changed many of his former lovers' names in his book out of tact,since some of them were well-known ladies from aristocratic families, etc.He was hardly going to reveal all about the steamy affairs he had with women bearing some of his day's most well-known high-ranking names! Henriette was French.
Russel T Davies did a great job turning Casanova's life into a story, he tactfully managed to rearrange and dramtise the facts, e.g, Casanova really did get shot in the hand, but not by Grimani. He did get imprisoned in The Leads, but not because of Henriette.
I just finished reading 'The Story Of My Life', written by Casanova himself, but I have no idea how accurate this edition is. I'm not sure that you would even be able to find a 100% accurate edition of his memoirs, as it was censored every time it was translated from the original manuscript. But I'd love to read more if anyone can suggest anything
You need to get an edition based upon the Brockhaus-Plon manuscript, and that's the only way you'll know that it hasn't been changed. The original manuscript was only published in its entirety in 1960. Before that, every other edition had been based upon the "corrected" Laforgue edition. To find out more, have a look at this link: http://users.dickinson.edu/~emery/editions.htm
In English, it's the Willard Trask edition that you'll want to get, the only translation in English which is based upon Casanova's untouched, original manuscript.
Thanks heaps for that, I'll see if I can hunt it down. Casanova's writing was so....brilliant, 'The Story of My Life' left me clawing my eyes out for more, and it just ends so abruptly in his mid forties. He never did finish his memoirs, did he?
shareYou're most welcome! If I'm not remembering this wrong, I read somewhere that the last three or four chapters from his Memoirs were lost by Laforgue, the French editor who completely changed them to suit early 19th century taste. I also read that Casanova's original manuscript, written in his own handwriting and stored in Germany in the Brockhaus publisher's offices, was very nearly lost in a fire provoked by a bombing during WW2! But apparently, someone had had the presence of mind to change its location literally days before those offices were burnt down. Had they been lost in that fire, the original manuscript would never have been published in 1960, and we would still have only Laforgue's heavily edited version to go by! And that wasn't Casanova's real voice, really--what a loss that would have been!
Yeah, I was totally hooked when I read the memoirs as well--I couldn't get enough of them! Was there anything more exciting than the prison break? Though I have reservations about the David Tennant mini-series,I still think it did a good job of capturing something of Casanova's real spirit. My main complaint was that he resembled a contemporary English lad too much, and you didn't get a sense of how cultured and well read he was in reality. But the mini-series had its stengths as well. Casanova was so witty and funny, you don't get a sense of that in most traditional film adaptations, don't you think? The mini-series did a brilliant job of putting that across, I think. Casanova's "clumsiness" is never really shown normally,he's always portrayed as this smarmy womaniser who never fails. He could be like that as well, but the way he often also laughs at himself and describes his f ***-ups in his autobiography is ultimately what makes him so interesting and unique, I think.
I agree about the mini series not showing how cultured Casanova really was, as well as not showing the ways in which he was constantly studying those around him and learning from them.
I loved the way that Casanova didn't apologise to the reader about his actions. He asked them not to judge him, and apologised if he thought he might offend people. I also love that he took full responsibility for everything that happened to him.
What was the reason for Casanova being imprisoned in The Leads? In the mini-series it's because of Henriette, but if I remember correctly, in his memoirs he says that he didn't know why he was imprisoned.
You make a great analysis of the reasons that make reading Casanova so captivating, I totally agree with all your views!
The fact Casanova never really learnt about the charges against him, which led to his emprisonment was one of his greatest sources of frustration. It's true that Henriette had nothing to do with his being thrown in jail, as the mini series would have it. Also, Henriette was actually already married when she first met Casanova (and running away from her husband, dressed up as a boy). And it wasn't Grimani she was married to at all,who may well have been Casanova's half brother in real life! (Casanova's actress mother had worked at the theatre owned by Grimani Senior, who was likely to have been one of her lovers at the time that Giacomo was conceived! They don't mention this in the mini series, not even in passing!)
By the way, knottyemily-1, I sent you a private message a couple of days ago, but it hasn't disappeared from my outbox yet. It looks like you may not have received it!
Casanova was a victim of the Venetian Inquisition, whose attention he came to because of his mingling with those in the upper classes (while he was merely the son of an actress). That was his real crime. He was considered a con man and social climber by the Venetian Inquisition. A recently, really good book on Casanova (which I just finished reading) is "Casanova: Actor, Lover, Priest, Spy" by Ian Kelly.
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