Casanova, Giovanni Giacomo

Casanova, Giovanni Giacomo

(born April 2, 1725, Venice—died June 4, 1798, Dux, Bohemia) Italian ecclesiastic, writer, soldier, spy, and diplomatist. Expelled from a seminary for scandalous conduct, he launched a dissolute career that took him throughout Europe. In Venice in 1755 he was denounced as a magician and imprisoned; he escaped and fled to Paris, where he mingled with the aristocracy. Fleeing from creditors, he took the name Chevalier de Seingalt and traveled again before returning to Venice in 1774 to become a spy for the Venetian inquisitors of state. He spent his late years (1785–98) as librarian to the Count von Waldstein in Bohemia. His huge autobiography, first published in 12 volumes in 1825–38, gives a splendid picture of 18th-century Europe; it established his reputation as an extraordinary seducer of women.