Casanova: Actor, Lover, Priest, Spy

by Ian Kelly

Overview

In Casanova, noted author Ian Kelly traces the life of Giacomo Casanova, a man whose very name is synonymous with sensuality, seduction and sexual prowess. But Casanova was more than just a great lover. A businessman, diplomat, spy, and philosopher, he authored more than twenty books, including a translation of The Iliad. Confidant to many infamous characters—including Madame de Pompadour, Voltaire, and Catherine the Great—Casanova was undoubtedly charismatic. But how exactly did he seduce himself into infamy?

In this richly drawn portrait, Casanova emerges as very much a product of eighteenth-century Venice. He reveled in its commedia del arte and Kelly posits that his successes as both a libertine and a libertarian grew from his careful study of its artifice and illusion. Food, travel, sex: Casanova’s great passions are timeless ones and Kelly brings to life in full flavor the grandeur of his exploits. He also articulates the fascinating personal philosophy that inspired Casanova’s quest to bed all manner of women.

A riveting look at the life of the most legendary lover of all time, this is destined to become the definitive biography of Giacomo Casanova.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781440642517
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/16/2008
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	416
File size:	1 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Ian Kelly’s books Cooking for Kings: The Life of Antonin Careme, the First Celebrity Chef and Beau Brummell: The Ultimate Man of Style were published to wide acclaim in both the United Kingdom and the United States. A writer, an actor, and the director of television documentaries, he writes frequently about food and travel for many British publications, among them The Times and The Guardian. He lives in London with his wife and their two children.

Editorial Reviews

…entertaining and highly readable…
—The New York Times

Toni Bentley

Venice, Paris and other cities where Giacomo Casanova (1725-1798) restlessly traveled are brought to vivid life by food and travel writer Kelly (Cooking for Kings). Remembered today primarily for his sex life, Casanova was a polymath who trained to be a priest, worked as a violinist, soldier, faith healer and librarian, made and lost fortunes and wrote 42 books plus plays and opera libretti. He was born to an actress in Venice who thought the sickly boy was an imbecile and sent him away, aged nine, to be educated in Padua, where he flourished. The 17-year-old had his first sexual affair with two sisters, a scenario repeated throughout his life with other sisters, mothers and daughters, and even nuns. This life of sexual adventures produced eight illegitimate children and included falling in love with an apparent castrato who turned out to be a woman en travestie; he also enjoyed a life of wealth and social status in Venice after saving the life of a senator. Imprisoned there by the Inquisition, he escaped to Paris, becoming a fixture on the city's social scene. Kelly presents a colorful, sprightly biography of a singular man. Illus. (Oct.)

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Publishers Weekly

The ultimate self-invented "new man" of the new world of 18th-century Europe, Casanova has become such a figure of legend that it requires a biography such as Kelly's to place him correctly in context. As a biographer, Kelly (Beau Brummell ) has a flair for deconstructing what seems outrageous and inexplicable and making sense of a turbulent life. A citizen of Venice, Casanova was at home all over Europe, easily making inroads into the ranks of power and prestige via the church, the theater, and the aristocracy. His connections helped him in whatever pursuit he was engaged in at the time, be it espionage, literary aspirations, scams, or his constant and infamous seductions. The "facts" in Casanova's own autobiography often defy belief, but Kelly's deft handling of the historical facts separates truth from fiction and offers background information that counterbalances Casanova's claims. The book's contents are interestingly arranged into acts, scenes, and intermezzos that perfectly capture the theatricality and staged quality of Casanova's life. Although the biography does lose direction when it becomes a graphic and unpleasant catalog of sexual escapades, the historical overview of the man and the era is very well done. Recommended where interest demands.-Elizabeth Morris, Barrington Area Lib., IL

Library Journal

British biographer and cultural correspondent Kelly (Beau Brummell, 2006, etc.) fleshes out the complex 18th-century Venetian—principally known and caricatured as a serial seducer—as a significant intellectual chronicler of his age.

No biographer who takes on Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) can avoid covering the vast amount of boudoir and biological specifics the subject was only too eager to document. Kelly does not shrink from the task, but he consistently strives to put these aspects of Casanova's character within a larger context. Not just a great lover, but a writer, diplomat and philosopher, Casanova authored more than 40 books. Certainly, the man got around as did few in his time, and rubbed shoulders (and thighs) with the great and near great. His keen eye for their mores, predilections, virtues and vices resulted in a unique cultural record of an era that the French Revolution would bring violently to a close. Noting that he undoubtedly had friends as well as lovers who went to the guillotine during the Terror, Kelly notes, "In this new testament for the modern world, Giacomo Casanova cast himself as messiah and lead actor, lover, sex-god and principal protagonist but also as lead fall-guy, comedian, fraudster, grifter and dupe." Born to a popular actress (and probably not fathered by her husband), Casanova grew to need the rich and the titled because he was neither, yet he always felt destined for the undeserved lifestyle he largely enjoyed. Kelly acknowledges the inaccuracies and exaggerations that populate Casanova's memoirs—thousands of extant manuscript pages were not sorted and published in French (the language he chose to write in) until 1960. The author adds thathistorians eventually corroborated much that critics initially disputed.

Kelly's immersion in the Casanova story pays off handsomely.

Agent: Ivan Mulcahy/Mulcahy & Viney

Kirkus Reviews