Wonderful and transgressive Venice: The other half of the Casanova legend

By Marco Giacomo Tirapani Pizzoli Tabboni

This book is full of wonderful photos taken by the author, who invites the reader on a journey amusing and at the same time cultured through courts, streets, "rii" and "campielli". Giacomo Casanova walks with Marco Giacomo along his "Wonderful and transgressive Venice", proposing lexical curiosities, etymologies, proverbs, legendary stories from his "adventures". The book captures Casanova's narrative talent in a way that entertains, amazes and, above all, inspires the reader to explore Venice away from the beaten track.

Marco Giacomo Tirapani Pizzoli Tabboni is an emerging author of historical travel guides. His photos are skillful, passionate ad artistic. In his books he meets historical figures and walks with them. He also talks about history, art, life, and makes jokes with them. Pope Benedict and the poet Giosuè Carducci in Bologna, Giacomo Casanova in Venice. This is Marco Giacomo’s third book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Edimill Media
• Release date: Feb 3, 2024
• ISBN: 9791281137059

Book preview

Wonderful and transgressive Venice

Wonderful and transgressive Venice

The other half of the Casanova legend

Marco Giacomo Tirapani Pizzoli Tabboni

Foreword by

Sabine Herrmann

Edimill media

Contents

Contarina flag

Page from Casanova Histoire de ma vie

Book review. Dani’s Books

Foreword

Introduction

Prologue

The meeting with Casanova – the monumental complex of St. Mark's Square

Venetian allegories

The charm of the Basilica of San Zaccaria

Venice è in aqua et non ha aqua

Casanova at the Osteria all'Insegna delle Spade - Giustiniana Wynne

Origin of two famous words - Venetian locutions - the lagoon dragon

Freemasonry - symbols - a special snuffbox

Barbers fashion and... The memory of the adventure with the Greek

The stele del pan the last in Venice

Gondolas – forcole – remèr and the Lotto of the Knight

Lectio magistralis of the Knight - Cagliostro – the Ghetto

Venetian: the language that evolved into dialect

Venetian Transgressions – Catherine, M. M. and Monsieur de Bernis

The wonders of Rialto and... more, much more

Casanova from spy to spy – textiles, typography, and the war of mirrors

The magnificence of Francesco Guardi

A happy memory

A night with Nanette and Martòn: double entendres and passionate games

The meeting with Bellino... The surprise and the stay in Bologna

The Venetian bàcari, lights and ombre

The loves of a lifetime: Henriette – Lucrezia – Leonilda

Giacomo, father, and grandfather of the son - brother of his mother

Basilica della Salute – Feast of the Redentore– Venice and coffee

Sunset in Piazza San Marco - a singular farewell

Casanova. Short biography

Other images in the work not produced by the author

Sources

Acknoledgements

Sabine Herrmann

About the Author

Persons, charachters and places quoted in the book

Endnotes

EAN 13 - 979-12-81137-09-7

Copyright © 2024 Edimill media

The typescript of the book, the images contained therein, and their reproduction in digital format, are protected by copyright together with the personal rights of the author, the ownership of which is exclusive to Marco Giacomo Tirapani Pizzòli Tabboni. The publishing contract, valid and applicable, is implemented with Edimill media. It is therefore forbidden to reproduce by any means (electronic, mechanical, reprographic, digital) permanent or temporary, even partial, any adaptation, dissemination, communication and distribution to the public, without the prior and explicit consent of the copyright holder. Any infringement will be prosecuted in accordance with the applicable laws.

To my Wife

who has always been with me

and follows me in my dreams

Many thanks to our partners

Serenissima Travel - in the footsteps of Giacomo Casanova

Paoletti digital image foto video

New Murano Gallery S.r.l.

A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault.

Saint John Henry Newman

Contarina flag

Flag of the Republic of Venice

Fig. A - Correr Museum of Venice - Contarina XVII C. flag of the Serenissima Republic of Venice

Page from Casanova Histoire de ma vie

Fig. B Giacomo Casanova page taken from Histoire de ma vie

(Source Gallica. BNF. FR/NAF 28604)

Book review. Dani’s Books

By Daniela Cioni

I have had the privilege to read a preview of the new book by Marco Giacomo Tirapani Pizzoli Tabboni who, setting aside for a moment his Bologna, turns his inquisitive gaze to perhaps the most enchanting city of our Bel Paese as Italy is so often called. Like a woman of a certain age who continues to exert her charm over people without losing her admirers, Venice lying on the lagoon appears eternally desirable, a dispenser of beauty that bewitches everyone thanks to her magical atmosphere. We well know that behind a seductive aura there is always the dark, transgressive part that, while upsetting us, we remain unconsciously drawn to. And who if not Casanova, libertine par excellence, could accompany our author as he wanders around the city, the person who, thanks to his refined dialectics, has been able to refine the art of persuasion or, better, of deception, to the point of enchanting men, and especially women, of all kinds and ages. And Venice is always there, witness and captivating accomplice to all his conquests. This book presents itself as a highly intimate dialogue between two good old friends who along the streets of the Serenissima exchange historical and artistic notions, question themselves on traditions and popular folklore, all of which interspersed with the spicy stories about our Casanova who, like a true sexpert , shares pearls of wisdom while abandoning himself to his most colourful memories. The style is the carefree and jovial, one to which the author has always accustomed us with that unmistakable ironic tone that emerges from the words giving us a fluid and pleasurable read. And then what is there to be said about the excellent and fitting photos that frame the entire context and that remind us once again of the beauty of this city, encouraging us to visit it again and again because every calle, every alleyway, every campo, small square, every glimpse will never cease to surprise us.

Foreword

by Sabine Herrmann

In 2021 Venice celebrated 1600 years ab urbe còndita, as March 25, 421, according to the Chronicon Altinate, is considered the Serenissima’s date of birth. From about 540, outpost of the Byzantine Empire, the lagoon city developed its own articulated government structure, headed by the Doge and important control systems such as the Great Council, the Council of Ten and the Senate. Lucrative long-distance trade in the Mediterranean and the favourable commercial treaties with the great powers made Venice a crossroads, the meeting point of peoples and commercial exchanges, whose coat of arms and emblem, the Marciano Lion, was omnipresent both in the city and in the Venetian territories. The population that lived there did not have a nationality, instead it had a citizenship. Despite this, the expansionist ambitions of the Ottoman Empire and the growing importance of foreign trade at the end of the fifteenth century increasingly weakened Venice's position in the international power structure, which experienced a final peak in the eighteenth century.

Thanks also to its exceptional location, there is probably no other city where almost 2000 years of history have been preserved in such a special way in such a small space. On the facades of the palaces, you can still find ancient remains of Byzantium, status symbols of influential families. At the centre of the campi (fields), although today closed by a bronze lid, there are richly decorated wells, which the artist Giovanni Grevembroch (1731-1807) documented in his eighteenth-century drawings. Let's not forget the richly furnished casini and palaces, whose interiors have remained practically unchanged since the eighteenth century, rightly remembered by the author.

For the watchful observer who explores Venice away from the tourist crowds and wants to discover its secrets, these can be found among calli and campielli, everywhere, indicated in these pages: curiosities, history, customs and lots of art.

Marco Giacomo Tirapani Pizzoli Tabboni who recently published Bologna Around with His Eminence and Bologna Genius Loci: Four days with Giosuè Carducci, this time organizes his skilful hunt for clues (historical and iconographic) in a special way, because he chooses as his guide through the city one of the most famous Venetians: Giacomo Casanova who will celebrate his three hundredth birthday in 2025. Born near the church of San Samuele, in the San Marco district, Casanova embodies like no one else the Venice of the eighteenth century and its last renaissance before the Napoleonic conquest. As a son of his city, the culture of the senses and pleasure played an important role for him. His most complete work, Histoire de ma vie, is not so much descriptive of the art treasures and architectural monuments of Venice but is found there as a backdrop, the fashionable stage of interpersonal relationships, intrigues and love affairs. His work also seeks to clarify another aspect: he offers us the cosmopolitan Casanova, one of the first Europeans, who nonetheless never ceased to be Venetian, despite the fact that after his escape from the Piombi, he was exiled from his beloved hometown. Casanova spent the last years of his life as a librarian at Dux Castle in Bohemia, witnessing the sunset of the Serenissima through the letters of the few confidants he had left. There he wrote about the experiences, a man of the senses, making his life flow once again before his mind’s eye.

It is from here that the author wishes to start, that is, proposing Giacomo Casanova as a man of his times, of the century of contradictions, because even today he embodies - unjustifiably - the bon vivant, the brazen seducer who give rise to the legend of Casanova. Son of the mannered Venetian elegance in this story he invites the reader on a journey, full of evocative images, amusing and at the same time cultured through courts, streets, rii and campielli, in what the author defines as wonderful and transgressive Venice, proposing lexical curiosities, etymologies, proverbs, legendary stories from his adventures. Marco Giacomo manages to capture Casanova's narrative talent in a way that entertains, amazes and, above all, inspires the reader to explore Venice away from the beaten track.

Sabine Herrmann

Venice, 18 October 2023

Introduction

A story about Venice and Casanova, no small feat, the result of recklessness rather than courage: Venice passes, but Casanova...

Since his death, illustrious Casanovists have carried out research and in-depth studies both on him and his vast literary work, commenting on it and proposing it again, filling the shelves of libraries and bookstores with new books. Conjectures, theories, which have accentuated its vices and recognized, often with difficulty, its virtues. Currently, the Giacomo Casanova Foundation and the eponymous Academy together want to give fresh energy to Casanovism: the activity is feverish as in 2024 the bicentenary of his Mémoires will be celebrated and in 2025 the tricentenary of Casanova’s birth. But that’s not all for Venice: 2024 is also the year of Marco Polo and the city is set to pay tribute, 700 years after his death, to the world’s greatest traveler. "A message of hope, peace and brotherhood."

The aim of this story is to propose Casanova, not as a man detached from that time, the black sheep, but a Venetian inclined like the others, whether nobles or commoners, dedicated to the same practices, all perfectly integrated within the immoral, deeply corrupt, lustful, eighteenth-century Venetian society.

Casanova of the eighteenth century, a complex historical moment now close to an inevitable decline, in his Mémoires writes a detailed story from which, between one anecdote and the next, emerges a person who is certainly cunning and prone to lasciviousness, no more than many other more important characters albeit much less famous than him. Intelligent, cultured, skilled, it is clear that he has simply taken advantage of the opportunities given to him by that vast impudent offer, mind you not only carnal: perhaps so much bitterness towards him derives from having been a chronicler of that decline, to have pointed the finger at the vices and trades of the powers that be?

Casanova, as Piero Chiara reminds us, was relegated by nineteenth-century historians and writers to pornographic literature and among the adventurers, as if having lived by risking everything had been morally negative, a reason for indignation and abhorrence.

He has always matched his passion for women with his deep love for Venice that in this story, far from being a guide, it is proposed in a simple way, giving important historical information always free of knowing and sententious tones, but with a smile, just like a friend would do.

Before leaving room for the reading itself, I would like to cite the self-absolution that he wrote on his deathbed, probably arising from the comparison between his life and that of many characters known in the past, certainly unworthy and not only to his judgment:

"I am administered and provided with all the spiritual passports necessary for a Christian to enter after this earthly life, into the realm of the immortal blessed."

Prologue

My dear friend, I never saw the thing before that I should be afraid to describe. But to tell what Venice is, I feel to be an impossibility. […] I have never in my life been so struck by any place as by Venice It is the wonder of the world. Dreamy, beautiful, inconsistent, impossible, wicked, shadowy damnable old place, I entered it by night, and the sensation of that night, and the bright morning that followed, is a part of me for the rest of my existence. […] Venice was such a splendid Dream to me, that I can never speak of it, from sheer inability to describe its effect upon my mind. ¹

Thus wrote a fascinated Charles Dickens to a friend, following his stay in Venice in 1844. And he was right because Venice is the city of amazement, of the light that pervades and fascinates, of the enshrouding fog that that makes people and things disappear and magically reappear, it is the vision that goes beyond the human imagination with its scenarios of amenity and deep melancholy. Those who go there only to celebrate ceremonies, romantic anniversaries, thinking exclusively of the setting make a mistake because seeing it, breathing it will cause an incurable addiction.

Let's take a step back, back to the early 1800s when the Ponte della Libertà, which connects Venice to the mainland, was not even designed yet; the Venetians like to say: "Se no ghe fusse el ponte el mondo sarìa na ìsoea", if there were no bridge, the world would be an island. The city was accessible only by water. We would sail in the Adriatic, then enter the lagoon and finally access the basin of San Marco.

Well, the emotion of those who arrived there for the first time was no different from that felt by the Venetian sailors, the merchants who returned after a long voyage. Being able to navigate again through the canals of the Lido, Giudecca, the Grand Canal, finally see again the pier of the Piazzetta, Palazzo Ducale, the columns of San Marco and San Todaro, called Porta da Mar ², the facades of the Marciana Library, the Riva degli Schiavoni, the austere façade of the Prisons, the basilica of the island of San Giorgio Maggiore and the Golden Ball of Punta della Dogana, often brought tears to the eyes of even the toughest.

I had the privilege of sailing there and being able to see all this at sunset, when