chaperone. He planned an
assignation with the young
one, and his accomplice, a
peasant woman, gave the
older one a dose of opium so
that she would sleep soundly
while the lovers enjoyed
themselves. Unfortunately it
was an overdose and the old
nun died. However, Casanova
comforted the young one:
“Do not weep, Madame: let
us submit ourselves to the
will of God.”
The contraceptives
available in Casanova’s day
were primitive and he never
used them because he said
they spoilt his pleasure. So
there were several occasions
when he met a son or
daughter he did not know he
had fathered. Once, passing
through Naples, he was
smitten with one of the Duke
of Matalona’s mistresses, a
beautiful 17-year-old called
Leonilda, whose face seemed
vaguely familiar. However, hedecided to marry her. The
duke and Leonilda were quite
willing, but when her mother
arrived to sign the marriage
contract she gave a cry and
fainted. It turned out that she
was Donna Lucrezia Castelli,
whom Casanova had seduced
in a garden in Rome. Later,
Leonilda, Lucrezia and
Casanova undressed and got
into bed together, and as
Leonilda watched the other
two at work, she commented:
“So is that what you did18 years ago when you
engendered me?” Eight
years later Leonilda, by then
married, and Casanova had
another tryst, after which
she gave birth to a boy who
was both Casanova’s son and
his grandson.
The Histoire, which stops in
1774, 24 years short of
Casanova’s death, is said to
record 120 love affairs, and if
that is correct Damrosch has
evidently been selective in
what he includes. Even so
the pornography palls after a
while. The two most exciting
chapters are about Casanova’s
escape from a cell in the Ducal
Palace in Venice, and about a
duel he fought with a Polish
nobleman whose mistress
Casanova had inadvertently
chatted up. Even allowing for
the fact that Casanova’s is the
only surviving account of both
events, he clearly behaved
with great calmness and
courage. He showed the same
qualities in what proved the
turning point of his life. In 1746
he was reduced to playing the
violin in a makeshift orchestra
at a wedding celebration.
Leaving at dawn he saw a
nobleman drop a letter as he
was about to climb into his
private gondola. Retrieving it,
he handed it to the nobleman,
who offered him a lift in his
gondola. But on the way the
nobleman, Signor Bragadin,
suffered a stroke.
A doctor arrived, bled
the patient and applied a
mercury plaster to his chest.
The next day the plaster had
begun to cause fever and
convulsions, so Casanova,
who had always been
interested in medicine, seized
control and ripped the plaster
away, whereupon Signor
Bragadin fell into a peaceful
sleep. Restored and grateful,
he treated Casanova as his
adopted son and installed him
in an apartment with elegant
clothes, a private gondola and
a regular supply of cash.
Less honourably Casanova,
who fancied himself as a
magician, screwed huge sums
out of the fabulously wealthy
Marquise d’Urfé by
persuading her that instead of
dying she could be incarnated
into a young boy.
Damrosch’s biography
is undoubtedly a huge
achievement, at once erudite
and vivid. By the end I was
almost convinced that
Casanova was worthy of such
prodigious scholarship. cfirst “grande passion”,
when he was “drowned in
supreme pleasure”.
Sex with nuns also excited
him. He planned to marry a
young woman called Caterina,
the daughter of a wealthy
Venetian family, but her
father insisted she should be
shut away in a convent until
she was 18. There she fell in
love with another beautiful
nun, whom Casanova had
already slept with, called
Marina. It thrilled him to
make love to a bride of Christ,
and more so if she wore her
nun’s habit. However, in the
end they all three made love
together “in a state of nature”,
while a friend of Casanova’s,
a practised voyeur, watched
through a peephole.
Another adventure with
nuns took place in Aix-les-
Bains, where Casanova saw
a beautiful young nun, who
reminded him of Marina,
walking with an aged nun asCHILDREN’S
BOOK OF THE WEEKNICOLETTE JONES
Small!
by Hannah Moffatt,
illustrated by Rory Walker
Everything with Words
£6.99, age 7-10Harvey Small is small
and ten years old, but his
mother has bought him a
pair of stilts and very long
dungarees and enrolled him
in the only available school
— for gifted giants. He
may be stomped into a
sandwich if his true nature
is discovered, but there is
also a chance, for the first
time, of making friends.
Enter the gormless but
enthusiastic Walloping
Toenail. The arrival of an
Umbridge-like school
inspector, some incomplete
predictions from the
Fortune Teller in the Cellar
and a dance show lead to
a happy ending and
Harvey’s discovery that not
everything is his fault.
Funny and yucky, with
characterful caricatures by
Rory Walker, this book is
very enjoyable silliness that
suggests the author was
having fun and is likely to be
a hit read aloud. Expect a
sequel involving vampires.WATCH OUT FOR
On My Papa’s Shoulders
by Niki Daly Otter-Barry
Books £12.99, age 3-7Illustrated by the masterly
Niki Daly, this tender and
inclusive picture book
celebrating family and
fatherhood describes
walking to school with
four different family
members, and the small
joys of the journeys.Passion Richard Chamberlain
as Casanova; left, his portraitCasanova
recorded 120
love affairs in
his memoir
ova’s dark side
22 May 2022 23