Dangerous liaisons

"Casanova's Women" shows that the world-famous rake spread joy -- even empowerment -- among his 116 lovers, not to mention V.D., pregnancy and social disgrace.

By Stephen Amidon

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Dec. 2, 2006 | What, then, was his secret? Was it a silver tongue that no woman could resist? Was it his outlaw reputation and his celebrated good looks? His ability to let frustrated women express their sexuality in an oppressive society? Or was he just really well hung?

Actually, Casanova's profligacy seemed to have a lot to do with furniture, or rather a lack thereof in 18th century Europe. Time and again, the great seducer's campaign to lift every skirt between Barcelona and Bucharest was facilitated by the fact that there simply were not enough beds to go around. Take, for example, his "conquest" of Donna Lucrezia Castelli, the Neopolitan woman Casanova seduced during the course of a long carriage trip from her hometown to Rome in 1744, as described by Judith Summers in "Casanova's Women."

"The vettura (carriage) was a small, slow-moving vehicle pulled by a single team of mules, and the journey north would take six days and entail five overnight stops at rustic coaching inns along the way ... for a flat fee a vetturino (driver) made all the sleeping and eating arrangements for his passengers, whoever they were, and in order to make as much profit as he could from the trip he would hire only one room for all of them at each inn."

It is easy to see how Casanova and Lucrezia, sleeping just a few feet from each other while her oblivious husband snored away, wound up lovers. Throughout Summers' book, proximity breeds promiscuity. Casanova's famous loss of virginity to two Venetian sisters, Nanetta and Marta Savorgnan, happened when he was forced to "innocently" share their room due to a lack of a guest bed in their home. Despite a promise to behave, the boy just could not help himself once the three of them were tucked into the room's sole bed. "By the time he opened his eyes again the candle had been snuffed out, the room was in total darkness and the sisters, dressed only in their loose linen chemises, lay curled up on either side of him, both apparently asleep. His word of honour that he would not molest them, which he had given only minutes earlier, suddenly counted for nothing."

Sixteen years later, Casanova once again found himself in a communal bedroom situation with Donna Lucrezia, although this time the extra bedmate was Leonilda, the illegitimate teenage daughter from their first affair.

"For Casanova, who with good reason counted himself 'the happiest of mortals' to have both beauties in bed with him, the moment was so exciting that he lost his usual exceptional self-control. Forced to withdraw before he ejaculated, he left Lucrezia unsatisfied. 'Moved to pity, Leonilda helped her mother's soul on its flight with one hand, and with the other she puts a white handkerchief under her gushing father,' [Casanova] later wrote ... Leonilda then demanded that Casanova look at her while he kissed her mother. This three-sided doubly incestuous combat continued until late in the night and resumed at dawn."

We'll deal with Casanova's disturbing penchant for incest later, but for now the reason for highlighting the sleeping arrangements is to point out that these were very different times from our own well-furnished era. Casanova and his lovers lived in a period where intimacy and constraint were commingled in ways it is often challenging for us to understand. Although it is tempting for us to think of our ancestors as living in a sexual Stone Age, in many ways they were capable of a sophistication that can only be bred when there are great obstacles to be overcome. This seems particularly true for Casanova's women. Far from being ignorant virgins ripe to be tricked into the sack, or frivolous society women looking for hedonistic pleasure, they prove to be a remarkably resourceful and occasionally empowered group for whom sex with the libertine could be an act of rebellion instead of dalliance or capitulation.

Take Casanova's mysterious "MM," for example, who historians now agree was almost certainly Marina Morosini. Born into a patrician family, she wound up, like so many women of her time, an unwilling nun at the notorious Venetian convent of Santa Maria degli Angeli. As Summers points out, residency at a nunnery had more to do with grim socioeconomic reality than with any religious vocation. "Being forced to become a nun was a common fate of the unmarried daughters of Venice's noble families, not least because the dowry required to become a bride of Christ was far less than that required to secure a good husband." Bridling to find herself held in this de facto prison, the 22-year-old set out to seduce Casanova after spotting him in the convent's chapel. (He was already romancing two other nuns.) Through a variety of maneuvers that would qualify her for membership in any spy agency, MM was able to get word to Casanova that she wanted him as a lover. (She was already sleeping with François de Bernis, the French ambassador to Venice.) Before long, they were making love in the secret apartment de Bernis kept for her, complete with "a pretty box filled with hand-made condoms" and a peephole so the voyeuristic Frenchman could watch her and Casanova make love.

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