Casanova, Giacomo Girolamo

Prominent Refugees, 2 June 1725

Giacomo Girolamo Casanova, Chevalier de Seingalt

Casanova, remembered today as a scoundrel and the world's greatest lover, spent the last 13 years of his life in exile in a castle in Duchcov, Bohemia, where he served as a librarian for his Freemason friend Count Waldstein. It is here that Casanova wrote "L'Histoire de ma Vie" (History of My Life), a 12-volume account of his life without which one might never have heard of him.

Casanova's mother was widowed at the age of 25 and managed to support her children by performing as an actress throughout Europe. But she practically abandoned the young Casanova, who was placed in the care of his grandmother. He trained to become a priest, but was expelled from the seminary in 1741 for scandalous conduct.

Casanova travelled across Europe, taking on numerous careers including violinist, professional gambler, journalist, translator of the Iliad, soldier for the Venetian army, alchemist, businessman and spy. Although he came from a poor family, he spent his life at court. He was at one time director of the state lotteries in Paris and an agent of Louis XV. He entertained Goethe, Voltaire, Schiller and the young Beethoven. While Mozart was composing his opera "Don Giovanni" in Prague, Casanova assisted his librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte, by scribbling a few lines for the libretto inspired by his own amorous experiences.

To the wealthy and bored, Casanova could discourse on a wide range of subjects. He drew up a blueprint for a soap factory and devised a grammatical lottery for the city of Prague that aimed to teach the player French. He anticipated science fiction with his utopian adventure tale "Icosameron" (1788), and wrote treatises on the Enlightenment, atheism, and the education of young women.

Casanova wrote of how, on his arrival in Vienna in 1747, Empress Maria Theresa set up a Chastity Commission to curb sexual licentiousness. However, recent biographies testify that Casanova was actually in some ways an early feminist – an admirer of women's intelligence and an enthusiastic accomplice in the pursuit of their sexual pleasure.

Casanova got involved in one intrigue after another, including duels, imprisonment, daring escapes and near beheading. He wrote a book about his escape from imprisonment in the Doge's Palace in Venice in 1756, where he was serving a sentence for immorality and blasphemy.

He returned to his hometown and served as a police spy for the Venetians, but was exiled in 1782 for libel. At the age of 57 he began writing his witty autobiography.

Yet the book was censored for centuries and only in 1960 did the original French version come to light. A recent book published by French philosopher and writer Philippe Sollers, "Casanova L'Admirable", argues that far from being a libertine, Casanova was a "philosopher in action". In Sollers' view, "people did not want to see Casanova as a writer, so they turned him into a beast".