Giacomo Casanova, The World's Most Famous Womanizer, was Born This Day, 2 April

Casanova - by Adriano C. Public Domain

I'm not sure why I'm posting this on Msanthropeonline. After all, he LOVED women, and so, he must have been very charming. Maybe I would have fallen for him if I'd lived in the 18th century and met him. Yes, knowing me, I can be taken in by a sparkling wit and and engaging manner.

But he was ruthless and manipulative and deceitful. And women were his "victims" although possibly that is too strong a word.

He was born in Venice on 2 April 1725 and called himself by all manner of uppity titles, Baron, Count, Chevalier, to impress the ladies and other useful contacts. He hobnobbed with the best of society, Voltaire, Goethe and Mozart, and was on familiar terms with royalty.

His autobiography which he wrote while working as a librarian in Bohemia, was Histoire de ma vie. (Story of my life.) 

The following quote he made about love is courtesy of his page on Wikipedia.

Real love is the love that sometimes arises after sensual pleasure: if it does, it is immortal; the other kind inevitably goes stale, for it lies in mere fantasy. 

So, clearly, this intellectual did have some idea of what real love was; nevertheless he is known for his numerous and brief amorous adventures with women.  

One particularly bizarre incident occurred in Paris. He managed to convince an aristocratic woman, Marquise d'Urfe, that he could use his knowledge of the occult to turn her into a young man, his goal being some sort of payoff. Of course, as he would have known, his plan didn't work and the lady lost interest in his alleged occult abilities.

Why was Casanova impelled to pursue and seduce so many women?  

For a start, he was constantly in debt. As a result, he moved around Europe at an alarming rate. Perhaps he was never able to stay anywhere long enough to develop anything concrete.

There could be another likely cause. At age 9, his mother, a theatre actress who was constantly on tour, packed him off to a boarding house in Padua. (His father had already died when he was eight years old.)  The conditions were terrible and he felt angry and abandoned. Maybe this caused him to go off in search of love - and yet not be able to trust anyone sufficiently to commit to a lifetime relationship. (All this is just speculation on my part. No doubt a deeper study of the man might produce further possibilities.)

If I get around to reading his autobiography I will let you know! 

Casanova died in 1798. 

You can find a short biography with a video about Casanova here.