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Casanova´s 300th birthday

Seducer and brand

Giacomo Girolamo Casanova, born on 3 April 1725 in Venice, is today primarily famous and notorious as a womaniser. He is synonymous with the successful seducer. This is why the enterprising adventurer would probably have his name protected as a trade mark today - like so many others who want to profit from his reputation. During his lifetime, however, his womanising contributed only marginally to his fame. The extremely versatile Casanova was simply a master at making a name for himself time and again.

It is sometimes said that Casanova was the first man to be famous for being famous. In fact, it was a prison break in 1756 that made his name throughout Europe: his spectacular escape from the lead chambers of the Doge's Palace in Venice (he had spent 14 months there for ‘abusive verses against the holy religion’). Europe's high society wanted him to personally tell all about this coup de grace; it opened every doors to him.

In fact, Casanova socialised with some of the most famous and influential personalities of his time, meeting kings and queens, popes, artists and philosophers. A brilliant social rise for an upstart from a poor background!

Allround adventurer

Casanova was a man of many talents. The art of seduction was probably his greatest. And that doesn't just mean his amorous conquests. He was able to convince people - depending on the need and occasion - of his business ideas, his intellectual abilities, his expertise, his good cards or even his magical powers.

There was hardly a field in which he was not active: Casanova had a doctorate in law, but had also been ordained as a priest before embarking on his very worldly way of life. He was an orchestral violinist, merchant, speculator, officer, freemason, mathematician, alchemist, writer, theatre director, translator, historian, diplomat, informer and philosopher. He even made a quick buck as a mining expert once.

Above all, however, he was a gambler in the truest sense of the word. He won and lost vast sums at the gambling table, risked and speculated, was involved in duels and brawls, plunged headlong into reckless deals and love affairs and cared little for the broken hearts or destroyed livelihoods he left behind along the way. Everything was a stage for him, the son of an actor couple; life was a play, a great comedy (at least until old age purified him somewhat).

All over Europe

Hardly anyone was as cosmopolitan and well-travelled as he was. His footprints (and the children of his affairs...) can be found all over Europe. From Corfu to Constantinople, from Madrid to Moscow, from London to Livorno - Casanova was almost everywhere, and usually more than once.

In Munich, for example (by the way, there is the word mark ‘Casanova di Bavaria’, 3020162164984), he gambled away a huge fortune during his second stay in 1761. He also caught a venereal disease, which put him on the sickbed (unsurprisingly, this happened to him quite often). He fled to Augsburg, where he was nursed back to health for months (and screwed the ladies of the house for thanks).

Charmer and trickster

He had to leave a place head over heels several times. For example, when French king Louis XV himself expelled him from Paris after one of his most audacious swindles was discovered. Casanova had bamboozled an elderly lady, the highly educated Marquise d'Urfé, who was also prone to alchemy and the occult. She was convinced that he was a magician and could transfer her soul into the body of a male child, which would finally open up the spirit world to her completely. ‘When I left, I took her soul, her heart, her mind and what little common sense she had left with me,’ Casanova later recalled.

Casanova, who liked to call himself the ‘Chevalier de Seingalt’, thus stood in the same line as the legendary swindlers of his time such as the ‘Count of St Germain’ or Cagliostro (both of whom he also met in person).

It was his memoirs that made Casanova the proverbial seducer

Despite all his adventures, the soldier of fortune would probably have been long forgotten today if he had not written down his memoirs as a grumpy old librarian in ‘retirement’ at Dux Castle (Duchcov) in Bohemia. His ‘Historie de ma vie’ is now regarded as world literature, a cultural and historical source of the highest calibre; the manuscript is one of the most expensive in the world and is owned by France. It only appeared in print decades after his death. It became famous for its ‘juicy’ passages, the numerous affair stories, some of which are described in great detail. Depending on the edition and target audience, either these salacious episodes were shortened - or everything else...

Casanova mentions 116 ‘conquests’ in his memoirs (which cover around 40 years). The ‘dark figure’ of unnamed sexual partners (prostitutes, female employees, servants, etc.) is probably much higher. The tone of his memoirs is rather moderate, but occasionally the aged author can't resist bragging about the duration (up to twelve hours!) and other parameters of the intimate get-together.

A wise debauchee

His self-assessment: ‘I was never a seducer by profession, because when I seduced, I knew nothing about it, but was seduced myself’. His ‘infatuation’, as he called it, was always his justification for false promises, unscrupulous manipulation or shameless exploitation of the moment (he only rejected the use of violence). Elsewhere, he characterised himself quite insightfully as a 'Cyprian' or ‘libertine’ - but with the addition: smart women knew exactly what they were getting into with guys like him...

But we mustn't forget: Casanova was a child of his time, an enormously sensual epoch. In the decades before the French Revolution, an extremely libertine attitude towards physical pleasures prevailed, especially in the ‘better’ circles - in the Rococo period, people liked to let it roll. Love was regarded by many as a gallant game, a pastime; infidelities were seen as an elegant social pleasure (Casanova: ‘The Frenchman is jealous of his mistress, never of his wife!’).

Casanova Brands and trade marks: luxury and lust

Since it was Casanova's amorous adventures that made his name famous and immortal, it is not surprising that there are numerous trade marks for ‘vicious’ pleasures that tie in with this image.

There are Casanova word marks (cancelled or still valid) for luxury goods such as tobacco (1090360), ice cream (1186677), wine (1169797), playing cards (2017665), sweets (397382332) or tobacco goods (EM 007250798). But also for clothing (602127), Food (IR 431901) or bathroom fittings (1172769). And of course for massage devices (399074724) or brothels (3020100565551). A mail-order company for erotic toys has also secured Casanova word marks (305713167, EM 006722144). Not forgetting the praline word mark 'Casanova Liebensbissen' ('love bites', 303072997)!

Legendary lover as lottery operator

Casanova, the gambler, celebrated one of his greatest business successes when, in 1757, he persuaded the French court to set up a state lottery under his direction (5 out of 90 numbers). As expected, Casanova and his clients reaped considerable profits: ‘The lottery,’ Casanova later wrote, ‘is very profitable for governments, which exploit the greed or covetousness of the public in all convenience.’ To this day, the states earn very well from their lotteries, which is why they continue to work on optimising them - see, for example, ‘Procedure for operating a lottery roulette system’ ( DE102005031274A1), „Lottery or cash register terminal’ ( DE102018009011A1 (1,1 MB)) oder ‘Lottery gaming community system’( DE202013012274U1).

In addition to the lottery business, numerous other project ideas haunted Casanova's memories, including the founding of a tobacco factory in Madrid, a soap factory in Warsaw or a silkworm farm in Russia, as well as a cheese encyclopaedia or a canal from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic.

The ageing Don Juan

It sounds like a nice final punchline that the old Casanova met Mozart and his librettist Lorenzo da Ponte in Prague in 1787 when they were preparing the premiere of ‘Don Giovanni’. The title character (the proverbial ‘Don Juan’ in Spanish) has so many similarities with Casanova that it could easily have been inspired by him. In fact, Casanova is said to have contributed some drafts to the libretto of the opera (but they were probably not used).

Unlike the womaniser in Mozart's opera, Casanova met an unspectacular end: in his memoirs (which break off after 1774), he bitterly recorded the decline in his physical abilities and attractiveness with increasing age. He would have liked to have been remembered as a philosopher and scholar - instead, he went down in history as a legendary seducer and representative of an eventful, sensual epoch. Giacomo Casanova died on 4 June 1798 at Dux Castle.

Text: Dr. Jan Björn Potthast; Pictures: Perrault, Guide complet du canotage, CC 0 via Wikimedia Commons, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons, DPMAregister, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Last updated: 19 March 2025