Casanova's Guide to Medicine: 18th Century Medical Practice

By Lisetta Lovett

Forget the stereotype! Giacomo Casanova's (1725-1798) reputation as libertine has sadly eclipsed his talents as scholar, linguist, prolific writer and manqué doctor. Fortunately for us, he wrote his memoirs at the end of his life on the advice of his doctor to control his propensity to depression. Although these often have been harvested for information on political, cultural and social aspects of his time, the insights they give about medical practice and the lived experiences of illness have been largely neglected. This book addresses this deficiency through exploring in detail what Casanova wrote on a variety of conditions that include venereal disease and female complaints, duelling injuries, suicide, skin complaints and stroke and even piles. These descriptions provide alternately grim and amusing insights about public health measures, the doctor-patient relationship, medical etiquette and the dominant medical theories of the era. To help the reader understand the historical significance of the medical subjects covered, the author integrates throughout the book an extensive historical context drawn from contemporary sources of information and current history of medicine literature

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jun 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9781526779229

Book preview

Chapter 1

Understanding Casanova, His Memoirs and their Historical Context

‘There are few more delightful books in the world’

Havelock Ellis, Affirmations (1898)

‘He did not live to write, but wrote because he had lived, and when he could live no longer’

Arthur Symons, ‘Casanova at Dux’;

Preface in Memoirs of Casanova (1902)

Say the name ‘Casanova’ now, and most people conjure up the image of a libertine or womanizer. One reason for this is that even though he was not as promiscuous as many of his contemporaries, he chose to describe his amorous exploits in great detail and by good fortune his writings survive. It is certainly true that Giacomo Casanova was easily captivated by women, taking great delight in courting those whom he found beautiful and intelligent. But unlike many of his male peers, he respected women and frequently earned their long-term respect. He was sensitive to a society where double standards prevailed in regard to male and female sexual activity, and compassionate, to the point of risking his own reputation through helping women who had been – or might be – compromised by exploitative, philandering men.

This is not to say that he was an angel. Nor would some of his behaviour meet the moral standards of today. But it is a mistake to judge from a temporal distance of over 250 years. In order to evaluate fairly, we have to put him in his social context. Casanova lived during the height of the Enlightenment, subscribing to the ideals of his era such as individualism, the power of Reason, the pursuit of happiness, personal liberty and sexual licence. His life is full of episodes that reflect these beliefs. We know about them because he chose to write with candour about both his amorous encounters and other escapades. He readily acknowledges that some of these do not reflect well on his character, but rarely makes excuses for himself or justifies any of his deeds, good or bad. At times he reflected whether to burn his Memoirs, simply because they were such an honest account, but then argued that dishonesty would defeat their purpose, namely to provide him with occupation and a vicarious enjoyment through reminiscence. Dwelling on old memories enabled him to stave off the depression that afflicted him in a bleak, lonely old age beset with irritations. By writing for ten to twelve hours a day he could ‘hinder black melancholy from devouring his poor existence, or sending him out of his mind’.¹ Since his most pleasant memories were of his love affairs, he lingers on these in a way that reveals his pleasure in the game of courting and the subtle teasing dynamic that preceded the sexual act. By allowing the curtain to drop early on his descriptions of these encounters, he avoids explicit detail, thereby leaving something to the reader’s imagination.

Casanova’s amorous adventures today eclipse all his other achievements, which is a pity, since he was a prolific writer of scholarly texts that include forty-two books and plays, philosophical and satirical treatises, operatic libretti, poetry, writings on canon law, geometry and calendars, a translation of Homer’s Iliad into Italian and five volumes of a science-fiction novel. These achievements are only given passing reference in the Memoirs. Had he written more about the process of writing these intellectual works, it is likely that the Memoirs would not have been so culturally informative or entertaining. However, many of Casanova’s contemporaries did seem to appreciate him, recognizing him as a serious scholar, a gifted linguist (he spoke French, Greek and Latin as well as some German, Russian and English) and a great raconteur who was well travelled and well connected with many of the courts of Europe. One contemporary, Count Max de Lamberg, described him as ‘a man of letters, a man of profound knowledge’,¹ and continued a correspondence with him for twenty-five years. The Prince of Ligne wrote that ‘Casanova has a mind without an equal, from which each word is extraordinary and each thought a book.’² A Berne magistrate, in a letter of introduction in 1760 to an academic in Roche, described him as worthy of acquaintance, a curiosity and enigma who was very knowledgeable and interested in natural history, chemistry and the cabbala.³ During his life he was seen as a celebrity, a status that Casanova liked to fuel, and did so successfully on the back of his exciting escape from I Piombi (The Leads), a notorious Venetian prison where he had been imprisoned for eighteen months in 1754. Some were aware that he was a Freemason. Many, like the magistrate, regarded him with some curiosity and caution, given his reputation for gambling and involvement in the cabbala (see Endnote 1). He was a polymath with a range of talents and occupations, who had co-invented the highly successful state lottery in France, staged theatrical events to the delight of various European courts and discoursed seriously with most of the leading intellectuals of his time. These included Voltaire at Ferney, with whom he fell out, Rousseau at Montmorency, Fontanelle, D’Alembert and Crébillon in Paris and Benjamin Franklin in London. Despite all these achievements, most contemporary popular films have preferred to reduce him to the cartoonesque figure of the thoroughly immoral womanizer and neglected his scholarship.

Amongst Casanova’s many claims to scholarship was a knowledge of medicine. As a teenager, he had wanted to study medicine at Padua but was not allowed to by his mother and his guardian, the Abbé Grimani, who both insisted he become an ecclesiastical lawyer. However, his interest in medicine continued throughout his life. He took many opportunities to discourse with physicians who were up to date on such matters and writes about these encounters in his Memoirs. There is evidence that he was familiar with the medical works of Professor Boerhaave of Leiden (1668–1738),⁴ one of the most respected physicians and medical teachers in early eighteenth-century Europe. He was clearly impressed because he often referred with approval to physicians who had been pupils of the famous professor. Casanova’s descriptions of symptoms and treatments suggest that he was an informed observer of his own health and that of others. His comments reveal an understanding of ancient Greek medical theory, although limited familiarity with newer medical paradigms. He provides insights on how a wide range of conditions were understood, managed and experienced, as well as the relationship between patients and their health advisors. On occasions Casanova used his medical knowledge to advise others, but never as a formally hired practitioner, rather as a friend. He was anxious not to be seen as a quack, but at times found that his advice was more readily followed when pretending it arose from interpretations of the cabbala.

Thanks to Casanova’s interest in medicine and his own medical complaints, the Memoirs provide a rich source of information on a variety of illnesses. One of the most feared was the pox (syphilis), which is the subject of the following chapter. Casanova describes at length his personal experiences of this disease, as well as those of numerous friends and acquaintances. He writes not only about the symptoms but also about the treatments employed, including the ‘Great Cure’, mercury. In doing so, he vents his anger at the quacks that prescribed incompetently and thereby caused significant suffering and even death. His descriptions provide a testimony to the tragic lived effects and stigma experienced by the victims of venereal disease during his era.

The subject of women’s health issues arises repeatedly in the Memoirs. This is hardly surprising given Casanova’s interest in women, but one reason he knows so much on subjects such as contraception, the risks of childbirth and methods of procuring abortion is because women trusted and confided in him. The chapter devoted to this subject begins on a light note with the presentation of green sickness, first described by Hippocrates in about the fourth century BCE, and its cure, namely marriage, or at least loss of virginity. The episodes described illustrate the challenges women faced living in a world of gendered double standards.

Given that the previous two chapters are largely about sexual medicine and obstetrics, chapter four digresses from the strict confines of medical practice to explore sexual behaviours and attitudes. Masturbation, homosexuality, paedophilia and adultery are common topics in the Memoirs, which present the reader with numerous tableaus. These reveal the contested social, political, religious and legal responses of the era. The themes of gender inequality and double standards commonly arise, where philanderers enjoyed respect but fallen women were stigmatized and often sunk into terrifying poverty. This chapter puts the episodes described in an historical context and offers a revised version of Casanova’s behaviour. He emerges as a man quite sensitive to the injustices women faced and someone who often supported women who had become the victims of less moral men. However, he was also a product of his time, which means that many today would judge his behaviour as morally reprehensible.

Chapter five returns to medical subjects by focusing on the serious health concern of infectious diseases. Throughout the Memoirs there are repeated references to smallpox, tuberculosis, plague, malaria and influenza, and their effect on Casanova’s friends and acquaintances. Although in the eighteenth century there existed the notion of contagion – the ability of disease to spread from one person to another – there was no consensus on how this occurred. The proof of the existence of invisible organic particles – germs – was not to occur until near the end of the nineteenth century. Ancient Greek and Galenic ideas, which held that bad air – miasma – led to epidemics, still dominated eighteenth-century understanding. This bad air was thought to arise from unburied corpses, marshes, stagnant water or foul-smelling vapours from the earth’s depths. Whether a person succumbed or not depended on hereditary factors and, most importantly, his or her attention to lifestyle, known as the non-naturals, which included diet, exercise and sleep. The experiences of the Black Death and influenza in the proximate previous centuries had led to the observation that the best way to escape an epidemic was through avoidance of contact with infected persons and goods. This realization led to public health measures such as isolation, quarantine and fumigation. Quarantine was an experience that Casanova frequently experienced, particularly given that he lived in his first three decades in the Venetian Republic, where public health measures became a model for the rest of Europe.

Chapters six and seven describe a range of acute and chronic conditions – some fatal, others trivial – taken from the Memoirs. All these conditions and their treatment are put into historical context through reference to the state of contemporaneous medical understanding. Chapter six includes apoplexy (stroke), the falling sickness (epilepsy), fevers and gout. Chapter seven describes the social isolation, physical pain and personal distress experienced by many of the people whom Casanova encountered who suffered with a skin complaint. Social responses varied from revulsion to making scratching an attractive habit, as was the case in Bologna, where the ‘Bolognese itch’ was ubiquitous. Social distaste was the more common reaction and led some sufferers to withdraw entirely from society. Chapter seven also considers the impact of disorders of the gut. Despite improvements in anatomical and physiological understanding, the process of digestion was the source of robust debate between those championing very different medical paradigms. Nevertheless, one view that has its origins in ancient Greek medicine remained. This was the belief that an intimate connection or sympathy existed between the gut and brain by virtue of neuronal pathways. Nervous theory became a fashionable diagnosis, not just of gut complaints but a whole range of symptoms. By the end of the eighteenth century, suffering with a nervous disorder was regarded as the hallmark of the refined and sensitive upper classes.

Chapter eight picks up the theme of nervous theory by examining episodes of suicide, melancholy and ‘frenzied madness’ described in the Memoirs. Like many of his scholarly contemporaries, Casanova held quite ambivalent views about the rights and wrongs of suicide, even though he had made serious suicidal plans whilst living in London. This chapter explores contemporary views and describes episodes in the Memoirs of suicide and the reactions of the public to its occurrence. Melancholia affected Casanova on several occasions, particularly in his old age. The way in which this condition was understood and its relationship with the notion of temperament are also examined. The chapter closes with a look at what we would now call addictive behaviours, such as gambling and drinking, the fate of women who were deemed mad and Casanova’s comments on madness in the monarchy.

Chapter nine moves onto a completely different medical area, that of injuries arising from duelling, accidental injuries and surgical interventions. Casanova’s experiences of gangrene and avoidance of amputation from a duelling injury are described at length. This leads us into a consideration of contemporary medical knowledge and practice with regard to serious injury. Carriage accidents and horse-riding injuries were common, and those in the Memoirs highlight the role of the bonesetters and their relationship with the surgeons. After describing an interesting attempt at a cataract operation, we turn to the misery of piles, with which Casanova suffered recurrently during his life following his imprisonment in The Leads.

Casanova’s encounters with his various health advisors were often fraught. Chapter ten describes some of these episodes in detail and illustrates how tensions arose between licensed or trained practitioners and the unlicensed charlatan or empiric. A recurring question is the extent to which doctors practised ethically in the eighteenth century. Encounters are described that reveal medical attitudes towards confidentiality, telling patients the truth (particularly to the terminally ill patient) and consent to undertake procedures. Casanova was on occasions the recipient of some good medical care, which he describes with gratitude. He also admired a number of doctors, who are described in this chapter.

Chapter eleven focuses on Casanova’s use of remedies such as sneezing powders, smelling salts and ‘taking the waters’ in one of the many European spa towns. These towns, thanks to their natural springs, became increasingly popular in the eighteenth century. Casanova was one of many visitors, often more attracted by the opportunities for sexual liaisons and gambling than the therapeutic benefits of the waters!

In order not to impede the narrative, up to this point the book does not give much detail about medical theories present in the eighteenth century, how they evolved and why ancient medical theories continued their influence for so long. Chapter twelve provides this background for the interested reader. It is followed by a brief chapter summarizing what Casanova’s Memoirs tell us about the health concerns of ordinary people and lay understanding about medical conditions and their treatment.

Some acquaintance with major political, social-cultural and philosophical developments of the Enlightenment era is helpful to appreciate medical practice and progress in the eighteenth century. These developments also facilitate an understanding of the world in which Casanova lived, as well as the attitudes and behaviour of his many friends and acquaintances who came from a diversity of backgrounds. What follows is a broad-brush sketch of the changing European map and political stage, and then a description of the rise of the public sphere, which allowed people to congregate and exchange ideas more freely. There were many reasons for this change, including royal enlightened patronage, improved travel and the rise and popularity of printing and newspapers. There were also many factors that facilitated the Enlightenment project, most significantly the philosophical currents that challenged the authority of the Church and were responsible for the radical philosophical ideas of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. An acquaintance with these is crucial to understanding how they influenced scholars to shift their approach to exploring how the natural world, including the human body, worked. This shift in mindset led to what we now regard as the scientific method, which was to have significant implications for the understanding and development of medicine.

The Memoirs covers forty-nine years of the mid-eighteenth century, from 1725–74. During this time the world political stage changed due to several wars, the most significant of which was the quasi-global Seven Years’ War (1756–63), which encompassed South Asia, Canada and the West Indies. This war led to a repositioning of the great European powers, with Britain becoming a dominant colonial power while France and Austria both experienced loss of prestige and considerable debts. The war also led to the rise of two new Eastern powers: Russia and Prussia. None of these five powers escaped post-war economic penalties, although the extent varied. France’s foreign debts were particularly high; Russia and Prussia emerged without bad debt, but strained domestic resources. All were keen to preserve European peace in the war’s immediate aftermath in order to aid domestic recovery, though it was a more complex task to negotiate amongst five rather than three great powers. One eventual victim of the Seven Years’ War was to be Poland, which was partitioned soon after a further war between Austria, Prussia and Russia and then totally seized by them so that by 1795 it no longer existed as a separate country. The Ottoman Empire did not do too well either. This was partly due to the emergence of Russia and its expansionism under the rule of Catherine II. Although the Ottomans declared war on Russia in 1768, Russia made significant territorial gains in south-eastern Europe. It followed up this victory with absorption of Crimea in 1783 and then, having made a treaty with Austria, embarked on another war against the Ottomans (1787–92), with Austrian military support, in which Russia acquired more land. Whilst this was happening, the French revolutionary decade began in 1789, a circumstance that appalled Casanova despite his periodic resentments towards the nobility.

The Seven Years’ War does not seem to have inhibited Casanova from his travels, since during those years he visited France, Holland, Germany, England and Switzerland before returning to Italy. France’s desperation to stave off bankruptcy may explain why he was commissioned in 1758 to sell French government bonds in Amsterdam at a profitable rate, which he accomplished whilst also making himself a significant personal profit. That profit, along with his lottery funds accrued through being lottery director and salon-keeper, supported an extravagant lifestyle in Paris, where he rented two sumptuous properties with gardens, stables, cellars and cooks, and kept two carriages and five highly bred stallions. This episode in his life reveals an appetite for hedonism and conspicuous consumption that was so typical of the eighteenth century.

During this period, Casanova enjoyed the company of royalty and many of the nobility, even though he was neither by birth. That he was so easily accepted may be partly due to his wealth, since as the eighteenth century progressed, economic status increasingly defined social status. In addition, Casanova was an excellent raconteur, whose individualism, ready wit, polymath talents and education would have certainly appealed to those of the nobility who subscribed to Enlightenment ideas and participated in literary societies and intellectual salons. Such cultural and scholarly activities attracted royal support and patronage by the mid- and late eighteenth century. By then the priorities of most European courts had markedly shifted, from being centres of ostentatious display and power to cultural and political centres that supported Enlightenment ideals. Courts across Europe at different times in the eighteenth century funded libraries, associations, academic societies, masonic lodges, art galleries and forms of commercial entertainment. For example, Frederick II of Prussia, Catherine the Great of Russia, Joseph II of Austria and Charles III of Spain, most of whom Casanova met, became well known in the second half of the century as rulers who more or less identified with Enlightenment ideals; Louis XV of France and his grandson Louis XVI, who was guillotined, were the exceptions to this trend. These benevolent despots abandoned their claim to the divine right of kings whilst hanging on to an absolutist framework in which they considered themselves to have supreme authority. They justified this by supporting a better life for their subjects through establishing more public accountability and rights for their citizens. Their support for more openness mandated the development of intellectual and egalitarian public spheres where men, although rarely women, could congregate to discuss freely matters of common interest, independent of rank, wealth or office. Frederick’s tolerance of free and public discussion led to Berlin becoming an important centre for printing. Joseph of Austria, who believed in the moral value of drama, created a theatre in the vernacular. In addition, he moved the Imperial Picture Gallery to one of the imperial palaces, Upper Belvedere, which opened in Vienna in 1781, becoming one of the first museums in the world open to the public. Catherine made attempts to reform the Russian educational system and opened the Smolny Institute for young women of the nobility, which later accepted those of the petit-bourgeoisie. As King of Naples, Charles revitalized skilled craftsmanship, built the first opera house in Europe (the Teatro di San Carlo), and established a National Archeological Museum to house the finds from Herculaneum and Pompeii. Once he became King of Spain, he founded the National Art Museum and the Museo del Prado.

Changes in the print trade and experiments in relaxation or removal of censorship, which was normal in the eighteenth century, led to a reading frenzy due to the increase in availability of journals, pamphlets and books. These books ranged from encyclopedias – notably the highly influential embodiment of Enlightenment thought, Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts and Crafts, edited by Diderot and D’Alembert from 1751–72 – to travelogues such as John Byng’s Rides Around Britain in 1790, and popular scientific and medical works that will be referred to in future chapters. The popularity of the novel, which concentrated on the thoughts and emotions of its heroines, as seen particularly in the books of Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding in the mid-eighteenth century, helped to spread the culture of individualism. Weeklies like Addison’s Tatler and Steele’s Spectator were freely available in the popular coffee houses that were springing up in most European cities. By the end of the century there were two or three thousand of them in London alone.

Apart from theatre, opera and oratorios, there were other opportunities for social gatherings, such as the spa towns throughout Europe and pleasure gardens, like those of Vauxhall and Ranelagh in London. Some destinations, though, were more elitist. Casanova’s former mistress, Mrs Cornelys, ran popular ticketed balls and assemblies in London but would not give him a ticket because he was not of the nobility; his irritation galvanized him to find a way to attend. The plethora of associations that arose at this time provided further opportunities for socializing and exchange of ideas. Their roots are found in the seventeenth century, but number and type – such as musical, political, religious, scientific and literary – increased exponentially in the eighteenth. Their proliferation testifies to a growing intellectual liberalism that allowed several academic disciplines to develop into what we would consider a recognizably modern form. These included the social sciences – described then as the science of man – and the natural sciences, such as physics or natural history. Liberalism extended to toleration of new political and religious ideas, which questioned contemporary practices and sought reform in most domains of life, particularly in the Catholic Church and judiciary. One of the more controversial types of associations was that of Freemasonry, which originated in England in the early eighteenth century and soon spread across Europe, despite a papal indictment in 1738. Ostensibly it was based on a democratic ideal in which election and recorded proceedings occurred. The initiation ceremony was meant to strip new members of the outward signifiers of privilege and rank. However, in reality they were quite exclusive organizations because the cost of fees and uniform disbarred many. Their reputation as centres of subversion is questionable, given that members of royalty became members or even Grandmasters, such as Frederick II, Joseph II and later, George IV. Casanova was elected to the Freemasons whilst in Lyon, France, and although he does not often refer to its merits, it is likely that it was advantageous to him in making his way in society.

A charismatic feature of Casanova’s personality is that he comes across as equally comfortable in the company of nobles as that of shopkeepers, theatre performers or the poor and marginalized. He had the ability to move between different strata of society with ease. Although the eighteenth century saw growing state involvement in welfare, it was a grim time to exist for those with little money or on the wrong side of the law. Certain occupations were considered dishonorable and placed people on the margins of society, such as the trades of gravedigger, hangman, bailiff, prostitute, mole catcher or charcoal burner. Particular ethnic and religious groups like Gypsies and Jews were stigmatized. Despite an apparent move to religious tolerance, anti-semitism continued to be rife and even arises in Voltaire’s Candide. Casanova was no exception, although for a while revised his views after living with a Jewish family for some weeks. Another marginalized group of individuals were those of no fixed abode such as peddlers, itinerant musicians and entertainers; Casanova was frequently in the company of the latter, for whom he held a natural sympathy and regard. This is not surprising given that he was the son of two actors and had grown up in Venetian theatreland. His own theatrical talents and well-recorded ability to make people listen to him possibly stem from these early theatrical exposures.

The Memoirs demonstrate how easy it was to descend to impecuniosity and the workhouse or face the judiciary, prison or even the death sentence. Punishments were harsh, although most crime was that of theft or unpaid debts rather than violence. Casanova often paid acquaintances’ debts so they could be released from prison or financially supported people who were in stricken circumstances. He was no stranger himself to poverty, and at times was forced to live a frugal life. One such time was when he hastily had to leave England, having unknowingly used fraudulent banknotes. The penalty for this crime was death.

Travel is a key theme in the Memoirs. Railways had not yet been introduced for passenger travel in the eighteenth century, although in Britain trains were being used for transportation of coal. Canal systems were developed in the seventeenth century throughout Europe and extended into long-distance networks in the eighteenth century. They played a vital role in the economic development of the time through promoting trade. Passenger travel was mainly by road. In his earlier years Casanova travelled on horseback, but following an accident he resorted entirely to carriage; both modes of travel could be dangerous. Speed, safety and comfort depended on the state of the roads, which varied considerably across Europe, and the standard of the coaches. Their efficacy increased during the century with more efficient use of horses, and their comfort improved once springs were introduced. The wealthy tended to travel in post chaises, which were introduced to France in the eighteenth century and comfortably accommodated two passengers. Samuel Johnson was so impressed on travelling with Boswell on one occasion that he commented that should he ever be devoid of other responsibilities, he would happily spend his life in a post chaise travelling with a pretty woman. Carriage travel provided one of the few opportunities for amorous assignations in private, so it is not surprising that such scenarios frequently appear in the Memoirs. The introduction of turnpike roads, with a further cost to the user, and regular passenger services helped to speed up travel, but there remained the constant threat of highwaymen. Casanova was advised by Lord Pembroke whilst in England to travel with two purses so that he could surrender the smaller one to the highwayman; fortunately he was never accosted. The close of the century witnessed balloon flight with Montgolfier’s demonstrations in the 1780s, one of which Casanova saw. Improvements in transport also meant that mail was more quickly delivered. This held benefits not just for family and friends engaged in social correspondence, but for the philosophes and other scholars of the era who were always exchanging ideas. So important was letter-writing that Casanova frequently declined social engagements just because he needed to catch up with his correspondence. A European postal service had been available to the general public as early as 1600, whereas it was not until 1784 that the first regular mail coaches between London and Bristol were introduced in England.

There are many contradictions and tensions in the eighteenth century, not least with regard to religion and the supernatural. Casanova always maintained that he was a Christian and believer in an Almighty, but he was violently anti-clerical. Like many of his contemporaries he was superstitious, although often somewhat embarrassed by this because he saw himself as primarily a man of reason. The Church was still a very strong institution in the eighteenth century and the belief in the existence of the Almighty was ubiquitous; very few people, even if they had doubts, were prepared to publicly deny God’s existence. One such was Baron d’Holbach, who argued the case for atheism in his book System of Nature (1770), which was published anonymously although his authorship was widely known. A few went so far as to characterize themselves as Deists, that is, believers in God whilst rejecting divine revelation and intervention, as well as any mediation by the Church. Implicit in their stance rested a challenge to a corrupt administrative behemoth, the Church, rather than a belief in a transcendental being.

Reservations about the authority of the Church were hardly new to the eighteenth century, and can be located within an intellectual current that runs throughout Europe from the fourteenth century onwards called classical humanism. This movement attempted to reconcile Christianity with rediscovered classical texts and wisdom, found particularly in the writings of Plato as well as Cicero and Plotinus and the doctrines of atomism, and Epicureanism (see Endnote 2). One of the main beliefs of classical humanism was that a great universal order exists where nature is a reflection of the mind of the deity and the universe is a hierarchy, a chain of being in which everything has its predestined place. Each place was thought to have its earthly correspondence, so just as God was the absolute ruler in heaven, kings were the absolute rulers of their nations. Although these beliefs buttressed the doctrine of the divine right of kings, a further effect of classical humanism was the creation of a new standard of secular scholarship by which the authority of the Church could be tested. Its most famous advocate was the Catholic priest and scholar Erasmus (1466–1536), who urged reading the original Christian texts directly rather than relying on interpretations given by priests; this led the way to the Reformation, and by the eighteenth century numerous dissenting religious groups had arisen that challenged the authority of all the established churches. Thus, one legacy of humanism was the provision of an alternative classical intellectual framework that gave educated people the equipment to consider a range of subjects, from ethics to aesthetics, without deferring to Christian doctrine.

By the seventeenth century, the neo-platonic cosmological view of classical humanism described above had come under attack thanks to the rise of rationalism and empiricism. Basically, they held contradictory epistemological approaches. The best-known exponents of rationalism, which was based on classical thought, were the continental philosophers Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz, who believed that reason was superior to experience. They argued that man’s knowledge is a priori, that is it arises from a process of deductive reasoning from innate principles or assertions. This can occur because every individual is born understanding the nature of reality, free will, God’s existence and the relation of mind and body. In contrast, the advocates of empiricism, such as John Locke, Bishop Berkeley and David Hume, suggested that everything man knows – including what the rationalists called innate – is based on our sense experiences, which through the process of reflection allow man to develop more complex or sophisticated levels of understanding. For the empiricists, experience trumped conclusions reached by reasoning from a few basic assertions; experience and observation were the means by which man could know about how the natural world and humans functioned. Both philosophical approaches shared the view that man has a unique and powerful faculty of reasoning.

The first major empiricist was Francis Bacon (1561–1626), who was regarded as the founder of experimental philosophy by the time of the Enlightenment. He conceived of science as being based on observation and experimentation, where conclusions are arrived at by a process of induction, that is, a posteriori. (In brief, the process involved three stages: collection of data by observation, drawing general conclusions and testing these with new observations.) This is antithetical to the rationalist approach, where knowledge is developed through a process of deductive reasoning, a priori, from innate principles. Bacon’s contemporaries Galileo Galilei and Johannes Kepler made major astronomical discoveries through this scientific approach. Later in the sixteenth century, Newton – who once famously said: ‘If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants’ – published Principia in 1687. Here he showed through experiments and observation that there are mechanical laws that govern the motions of the earth and the heavenly bodies, and that the mysteries of the universe could be reduced to simple universal principles of mathematics.⁵ Medicine was influenced by what was happening in the philosophical and scientific world, and in some places followed a similar path of experimentation and observation, yet – as will be explained later in this book – remained highly constrained by ancient classical medical texts.

Some of the most characteristic ideas of the Enlightenment era were equality, freedom, individualism, utilitarianism and market deregulation. Understanding these ideas and where they came from is important to help us contextualize the Memoirs, and in particular the actions and mores of not only Casanova but also the people he describes. So let us have a brief look at how one of the most influential political philosophers of the early modern era contributed to the development of these typical notions of the Enlightenment.

In the seventeenth century, John Locke (1632–1704) wrote Two Treatises of Government (1669), which became a highly regarded source of liberal political philosophy to the extent that it influenced the form of the American constitution at the end of the eighteenth century. In them, Locke asserts that men in a civilized society should be free and equal. Men should not harm others, in their life, health, liberty or possessions. Governments are there to act in the interests of men and should only govern when the governed consent. Abuse of political power is a justification for overthrowing them. Locke claims that the purpose of society is to preserve and protect property, and asserts there should be freedom to trade without government regulation because economic freedom is an intrinsic part of individual freedom. Locke further asserts that the choice of religion was an individual right and that civil government should operate separately from the Church. This philosophy of liberalism privileged the individual’s rights and dignity and put them centre stage, thereby challenging despotic governments and monarchs adhering to notions of divine right.

By the middle of the eighteenth centuries, these ideas were firmly in circulation.

Tolerance and individual freedom with regard to religion, sexual behaviour and even suicide were advocated by many of the philosophes. With regard to sexual activity, the philosophes challenged the Christian view that it was only acceptable for the purposes of procreation. They argued for ‘natural law’, where any activity was acceptable provided it seemed reasonable and natural, and did no harm to the individual or society. This was in contrast to the Church’s fixed set of moral values. Behaviour was thus a matter of personal liberty and choice, as long as it adhered to certain constraints. Moreover, the philosophes argued, God was a beneficent being who had gifted men and women with sexual desire and pleasure for their enjoyment and happiness. Why, then, would he wish them to deny theirselves unless their pleasure led to harm? This argument was one of Casanova’s favourites when persuading women to sleep with him.

Casanova wrote the Memoirs at the end of his life whilst living at Dux Castle in Bohemia, where he worked nominally as a librarian to Count Joseph Charles de Waldstein from