writer – Timeless Italy Travels

Casanova2 — *Giacomo Girolama Casanova’s Memoir, “History of My Life.”*

“I will begin with this confession: whatever I have done in the course of my life, whether it be good or evil, has been done freely; I am a free agent.”

Giacoma Casanova entered this world practically on-stage. Born to parents of the theatre in 1725 Venice, he lived his theatrical lifestyle with passion. His true occupation has been summed up as quick-witted, with steely nerves, luck, social charms, and the knack for gaining money from the gratitude of some or by trickery of others. He was known by his contemporaries as extraordinary, with a far-reaching intellect and a rare curiosity about life. Known to have hobnobbed with Voltaire, Ben Franklin, Catherine the Great and Mozart, Casanova had no lack of social skills.

His memoir, penned by his own hand beginning in 1789, exposed him as a man far more intellectual than the playboy figure painted of him on film. Had it not been for his many sexual escapades, he would have been a multi-talented dignitary of some kind. But his lust for the pleasure and presence of the opposite sex was, for him, his undoing.

“I have always loved and done all that I could to be loved. I was born for the opposite sex. All of my life I was the victim of my senses. I have delighted in going astray. Cultivating pleasure was always the chief business of my life…”

His original erotic manuscript, all 3,700 pages, was purchased in 2010 for the modest amount of $9.6 million. Now kept in the Bibliotheque nationale de France in Paris, in two black archival boxes, those who have examined it have described his handwriting as elegant and precise. It had been hidden away in private hands since Casanova’s death in 1798. The French government had every intention of obtaining the original manuscript, and did so by an anonymous benefactor.

Bibliotheque de nationale Paris — *Bibliotheque nationale de France*

The manuscript, simply titled The Story of My Life, did formerly appear in 1821. Even though it had been heavily censored, it was denounced from the pulpit and put on the Vatican’s Index of Prohibited Books. Since then, society has grown more tolerant of morally explicit material. In 2011, several of the pages-alternately provocative, ribald, boastful, philosophical, tender and somewhat shocking, were put on public display in Paris with plans to show them in Venice as well. Although Casanova was born in Venice, a French government commission has consecrated it a ‘national treasure,’ in France. He spent much of his life in Paris and spoke predominately French, which was the language of intellectuals in the 18th century.

Casanova was clearly one of Europe’s most captivating and misconceived characters. According to writer Tom Vitelli, a leading American Casanovist, “he would have been surprised to discover that he is remembered first as a great lover. Sex was part of his story, but it was incidental to his real literary aims. He only presented his love life because it gave a window onto human nature.”

Already an established writer, Casanova translated ‘The Iliad’ into his Venetian dialect, wrote a science fiction novel along with several mathematical dissertations. He lived the last fourteen years of his life at the hidden Castle Dux in Bohemia, which today is the Czech Republic, as the librarian for Count Waldstein. It was here he wrote his notorious memoir.

Miraculously, Casanova’s manuscript survived in excellent condition. Entrusted to his descendants, it was kept for twenty-two years, then sold to Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus, a German publisher from Leipzig. The Brockhaus family kept it safely tucked away for almost 140 years. Escaping a direct hit by a bomb in World War II, a family member pedaled it on a bicycle across Leipzig to be stored in a bank security vault. Winston Churchill inquired after its fate when the U.S. Army occupied the city in 1945. It was finally transferred back to its German owners in Wiesbaden by American truck.

The first French uncensored edition was published in 1960, soon to be followed by an English edition in 1966. Casanova has since been cast as a most engaging luminary, a celebrity of sorts. “It’s a wonderful point of entry into the study of the 18th century. Here we have a Venetian, writing in Italian and French, whose family lives in Dresden and who ends up in Dux, in German-speaking Bohemia. He offers access to a sense of a broad European culture,” says Vitelli. Most of his memoir has been verified by historians as accurate. A fantastic read, his more than 120 notorious love affairs are intermingled with duels, swindles, arrests, escapes, gamblers, meetings with royalty, and generally living on the edge.

“The readers of these Memoirs will discover that I never had any fixed aim before my eyes, and that my system, if it can be called a system, has been to glide away unconcernedly on the stream of life, trusting to the wind wherever it lead.”

Giacomo Girolama Casanova

* http://pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/casanova/casanova.htm.

* http://smithsonianmag.com/travel/Who-Was-Casanova.html

* The Complete Works of Jacques Casanovede Seingalt by Giacomo Casanova, http://gutenberg.org/ebooks/2981

Fly on, fly on…..strait to my own far country in the north where you will be safe from man.” Axel Munthe

They came to Capri by the thousands: wood pigeons, thrushes, turtle-doves, waders, quails, golden orioles, skylarks, nightingales, swallows and redbreasts. They came every spring to rest upon the cliffs, high up Monte Barbarossa above San Michele, as they migrated to the northern lands. Little did they know that deadly nets awaited them, spread out by the men of the island. They would be caught and sold to Parisian restaurants or blinded to be used as decoys, their singing attracting other birds to the nets. Capri appeared to them as a resting oasis but in reality became a living hell.

Born of an age-old tradition inspired by a primitive culture, one man challenged everything.

“The wild cruel beast is not behind the bars of the cage. He is in front of it.” Axel Munthe

Axel Munthe, tormented by this massive bird slaughter, appealed to the higher powers to ban this merciless act. When he was refused, he trained his dogs to bark at night. He fired a cannon. He did all within his power to end this cruelty until, years later, he bought Monte Barbarossa from the ex-butcher who for years had blinded some of the captured birds. He turned it into a bird sanctuary. Fully realizing that many of the islands poor made their living from the bird hunt, he entitled them to the sanctuary’s proceeds.

What kind of man would go to such lengths to transform a way of life? Who would risk all that he had, all that he was? A reputation he had worked hard to earn? A man who battled death relentlessly, fighting hard for the living? A soul full of love and mercy? A dreamer of light and life and beauty?

A Swedish physician, born in 1857, Axel was all of these. A humanist, writer, philanthropist, and lover of animals, he knew the depths of despair as a Red Cross relief worker in the Naples cholera epidemic of 1884. He witnessed the never-ending triumph of death. Accompanied by a donkey named Rosina and his dog Puck, he made his daily rounds through the squalor and sickness.

“No doubt help has come from every part of the country, from every part of the world, but even here, as is so often the case, it is the poor who have exercised the greatest charity, the silent self-sacrificing devotion has come from those who have next to nothing themselves.”

Undaunted, however, throughout his life he continued to travel and supply medical aid to the needy while also supporting soup kitchens, orphanages and children’s clinics. Axel truly lived his calling as a physician. And yet his spirit remained free to inspire, to create, to invite others to dare to dream.

But how was he able to provide free healthcare to the poor? What enabled him to build San Michele, to purchase Monte Barbarossa and his other properties on Capri?

He attended the rich to minister to the poor. His practice in Rome was geared toward the wealthy, the foreign dignitaries in residence, including the royal Swedish family. He soon earned the lofty entitlement as Queen Victoria’s personal physician, which he kept until her death.

Ah, the animal lover….Imagine a home with eight dogs, turtles, a mongoose, a Siamese cat, a little owl, and a monkey named Billy. These were his delight at San Michele. Billy, however, never ceased to exasperate him. A right roguish lad, he fought with the Fox Terrier, kidnapped the Siamese kitten, and ate the turtle’s eggs!

“I built it (San Michele) on my knees, like a temple to the Sun, where I would seek knowledge and light from the radiant God whom I had worshipped all my life.”

Passing through San Michele, I couldn’t help but feel inspired by the light and shades of color that so attracted Axel. He believed that the soul needed more space than the body, a longing for beauty, which he imaginatively expressed through San Michele. Light and airy, boundless and free, a brilliant refuge from the darkness, created to inspire dreams, visions, playful pretense, to create, and to heal. Yet sadly, the very thing he desired most in life became impossible to bear. His eyes were weak, and intensive sunlight on Capri became too much to tolerate. He wore dark glasses, but eventually was forced to flee to the west side of the island. There he lived in his shadier medieval fortress Torre di Materita.

Torrre di Materita — *Torre di Materita*

In the final chapter of his book, “The Story of San Michele,” published in 1929, he describes a scene where he is in heaven standing before the judgement seat. Already angry with him for his earthly conduct, he is rebuked by the Old Testament forefathers for bringing his old faithful dog, who waits for him at heaven’s door. Suddenly birds flutter around him and bring him help in the form of St. Francis of Assisi. The slight Umbrian saint, surrounded by a flock of birds and his following of beggars and outcasts, comes up beside him. His very presence calms the multitude. Axel rests his head on the frail saint’s shoulder, passing into eternity.