Venetians

by Paul Strathern

  However, Casanova’s most celebrated exploit, for which he would become famous throughout Europe, was neither amatory nor took place abroad. In 1753 he returned to Venice, where for two years he continued with his usual behaviour in the boudoir, at his writing desk and in the casinos. In July 1755 the network of spies acting for the Council of Ten brought his behaviour to the attention of the Venetian Inquisition and he was arrested. The official charge was heresy – and there is no doubt that he did continue to practise ‘the magical arts’. However, Casanova’s cause cannot have been helped by the fact that he had circulated a scurrilous poem poking fun at religion, his gambling had recently ruined an influential senator, and he was having an affair with the mistress of one of the Inquisitors.

  Casanova was marched off to the Doge’s Palace, where he was led up to the notorious cells known as Il Piombi (‘The Leads’), which were housed beneath the lead roofing of the palace. These cells were so low that it was impossible to stand upright; giant rats scampered over the floor and the place was infested with fleas. In winter the cells became freezing cold, while during summer the lead roof heated to such a temperature that the atmosphere was all but suffocating. Casanova was tried in his absence from court, and sentenced to five years in prison. But he was not informed of the verdict. For all he knew, when the heavy cell door slammed closed and was bolted behind him, he was liable to be detained in The Leads for the rest of his life. Such was all too often the case.

  No one had ever escaped from The Leads before, but the man who had escaped from so many angry husbands, irate gamblers and even hired assassins now set about planning the impossible. This would take more than a year of careful preparation, mishaps and false alarms, until early on the evening of 31 October 1756 he was at last ready. With the aid of a sharpened iron spike, and the assistance of a disgraced monk called Marin Albi in the next cell, Casanova eventually managed to break out onto the rooftop. After clambering over the lead roofing and heaving himself precariously along gutters, overcoming crippling cramp in the process, Casanova happened by chance across a ladder left by some builders. The two of them then scrambled down and broke through a lower window, though this was still way above ground level. Once inside, they found that they were in a locked room inside the main part of the Doge’s Palace, but by this stage Casanova was so exhausted that he fell asleep, being woken by Albi at around five in the morning. He now used his spike to open the door and they passed through a succession of rooms, corridors and chambers, until they found themselves confronted by a large door that proved impervious to all Casanova’s efforts.

  It was at this stage that Casanova noticed how his endeavours had left him ‘torn and scratched from head to foot and covered with blood’. He proceeded to tidy himself up as best he could, so that if they managed to get out of the building ‘he would look like a man who had attended a ball and later gone looking for a house of ill repute where he had been beaten up’. Albi looked less conspicuous in his ragged robes, and had sustained fewer injuries as he had simply followed behind Casanova after he had hacked his way and broken through the obstacles in their path. Casanova now tried opening the window of the room in which they were trapped, but they were spotted by a passer-by on the quayside below. The passer-by assumed they had mistakenly been locked in the building overnight and went to get the caretaker, who came and unlocked the door to the room where the two of them were trapped. Boldly Casanova brushed past the caretaker, leading Albi down the main stairway of the Doge’s Palace, across the Piazzetta to the quayside, where they took a gondola and were eventually delivered to the mainland. Here, after several further adventures, Casanova and Albi finally made their way overland to the edge of Venetian territory, where they parted company and Casanova made good his escape.

  This is but a brief summary of the actual sequence of events. The detailed description that Casanova gives of his imprisonment in The Leads and his consequent escape is one of the most exciting in literature, inspiring writers from Alexandre Dumas to Franz Kafka.* But is his story true? It has been suggested that Casanova in fact bribed his way out of The Leads. Indeed, his written account is filled with unlikely details – yet bills for the repair of the damages that Casanova and Albi caused during their daring, dangerous escape across the rooftops and through the chambers have been found in the ubiquitous Venetian archives. Casanova’s account may well have contained the occasional embellishment, but astonishingly it would appear in the main to be true.

  The story of his daring escape spread through Europe, and by the time he reached Paris in 1757 he was famous. Here he had a further stroke of good fortune when he became involved in setting up the first French state lottery. From this he made a fortune, but lost it in an ill-judged investment in a silk-printing factory. However, eventually – inevitably – the life of seduction (and disease), gambling, spying and hack-writing started to take its toll. His teeth began to fall out, and he suffered from diminishing sexual potency. In 1784, whilst in Vienna, he formed a friendship with Count Joseph von Waldstein, based on their shared interest in magic. Waldstein became so enamoured of Casanova’s company that he offered him the post of librarian at his castle at Dux in Bohemia (now Duchcov in the Czech Republic). Fifty-nine years old, broke and all but toothless, Casanova had little choice but to accept this generous offer.

  He now found himself living in isolation amidst the hills and woodlands of provincial Bohemia. The count soon lost interest in him and spent increasingly long periods away from home, leaving Casanova at the mercy of the hostile German major-domo and his servants. Plunged into despair, and with little else to do, in 1790 Casanova began writing his memoirs, whose twelve volumes would occupy him through the ensuing years. Alone and in failing health, he longed to return home, but by now the Venice he had known had ceased to exist.

  Europe had become a different world. Following the French Revolution the continent had been plunged into the Revolutionary Wars, as an alliance supported by the Prussians and the Hapsburg Austrians attempted to reinstate the monarchy. After the execution of Louis XVI in 1793, and the death of his heir Louis XVII two years later, the forty-year-old Louis XVIII had become claimant to the throne of France; and, with the encouragement of the Hapsburg emperor Francis II, he took up residence in the safety of Verona, which was in neutral Venetian mainland territory. Though not a participant in the Revolutionary Wars, Venice remained closely allied to Hapsburg Austria, which counted much of northern Italy as its territory. During the long years of pursuing its policy of neutrality, Venice had neglected its militia, which now consisted of a comparatively small army of mainly Serbo-Croatian conscripts. The Republic thus had little alternative but to acquiesce to the presence of Louis XVIII in Verona, where the French claimant soon set up a court attracting many monarchist exiles. Meanwhile the French revolutionary government protested in the strongest possible terms, insisting that if Venice did not expel Louis XVIII and his court it would forfeit its neutral status and be regarded as an enemy. Venice, protected by the Austrian occupancy of Milan, took scant notice of this impotent threat.

  Then suddenly the situation was transformed. In early April 1796 Bonaparte led the French army across the Alps into northern Italy, quickly outwitting the Austrians, forcing them into retreat. The French demanded once more that Louis XVIII be expelled from Verona or the city would no longer be regarded as neutral territory; at the same time the Austrians insisted that Venice should not comply. Faced with Bonaparte’s advancing army, Venice caved in; and on 21 April, Louis XVIII departed from Verona. The emperor Francis II was outraged, and Venice now found itself under increasing threat from both sides.

  In May, Bonaparte secured a major victory over the Austrians at the Battle of Lodi, where thousands of imperial troops were taken prisoner, and a few days later he marched triumphantly into Milan. By June the Austrians were under siege at Mantua, just five miles from the Venetian border. Venice’s neutrality was once more threatened when Austrian troops marching south to relieve Mantua de
manded permission to cross Venetian territory. The weak and ill-trained Venetian army was in no position to oppose this demand and the Republic weakly conceded. This time it was Bonaparte’s turn to be outraged.

  Up until now Venetian policy had been characterised by weakness. Caught between two major powers, it had dithered, seeking to appease one side and then the other. The Republic was devoid of leadership. It was as if more than seventy years of inglorious neutrality, combined with the increasingly repressive internal policy maintained by the Council of Ten and its network of informants, had crushed all trace of individuality. Da Ponte and Casanova were far from being the only free spirits to seek their fortune in Europe and the New World. With the administration characterised by the spirit of the committee, the enterprise that had once been the glory of the city had now all but vanished. Just a few years earlier one of the Republic’s few successful businessmen had lamented that the city’s life-blood – trade – ‘is falling into final collapse. The ancient and long-held maxims and laws which created and could still create a nation’s greatness have been forgotten’. As in trade, so in all other matters. Even the Council of Ten’s efforts to maintain a police state were beginning to falter. Many Venetian citizens had been stirred by the French Revolution and ideas of liberty. There was even muttered talk of the overthrow of the oligarchy and the establishment of a truly democratic republic.

  Doge Lodovico Manin had by this time been in office for some seven years and was in his seventies. In failing health and partially deaf, he was more inclined to spend his time in religious devotions than the affairs of the Republic, his negligence allowing the once-great Venetian fleet to dwindle to a mere 390 merchantmen. Less than three months after Manin’s election, the news of the French Revolution had reached Venice, causing consternation amongst the Council of Ten – and now French revolutionary troops were camped at the Republic’s borders, fewer than fifty miles from the lagoon itself. Where previously the Council of Ten and the Senate had dithered in their foreign policy, from this point on their jittery indecisiveness would lead to catastrophic blunders.

  By now Bonaparte himself had marched north, pursuing the Austrians across the Alps. The Venetians were thus astonished when in the autumn of 1796 he offered them an alliance. In fact the Venetians should not have been surprised: Bonaparte was desperate to protect his overstretched army. But when his reassuring offer was put to the Senate, they voted to turn it down. It is all but impossible to think of a rational explanation for this self-destructive decision. Under the circumstances, continuing neutrality was out of the question. It has been suggested that the senators were afraid that an alliance with France would mean the spread of subversive ideas. Either way, Bonaparte immediately ordered his troops to march into Verona, in order to protect his supply lines, and there was nothing that Venice could do about it.

  Six months later, two incidents would put the Venetians in a yet more precarious position. The citizens of Verona rose up against the French, and were savagely put down – again with no attempt at Venetian intervention. Shortly afterwards three French ships attempted to sail into the lagoon. As Venice remained technically neutral, strictly speaking this did not constitute an act of aggression. Indeed, it seems the French intended none. On the other hand, the French appeared to be unaware that the Council of Ten had issued an order barring all foreign ships from entering Venetian waters. As the French warships entered the lagoon, they were fired upon by Venetian defence batteries at the Sant’Andrea fort. Two of the French ships managed to turn and sail for the open sea, but the third received direct hits from the Venetian cannon fire. Its captain and a number of French sailors were killed and the ship immobilised. This was undeniably an act of war, and the French were not slow to brand it as such.

  As if matters were not bad enough, Venice’s ally Francis II had now entered into peace negotiations with Bonaparte. Venice found itself standing alone against the might of the French revolutionary army. Panic swept through the city as the news came in that French troops were overrunning the mainland territories, and by the end of April 1797 the revolutionary army was lining the shores of the lagoon. The island city, wall-less and defenceless, now stood within range of the French artillery.

  The end was swift in coming. On 9 May, Bonaparte issued an ultimatum that boiled down to two alternatives: either Venice surrendered or it would be destroyed. The city appeared to have little option. On 12 May, the tearful seventy-two-year-old Doge Manin appeared before the Great Council and asked them to vote. By now most of its members had already disappeared from the city. The remaining 537 voted by 512 to twenty to surrender, with five abstaining, and then fled the chamber in disarray, casting off their robes so that they could slip away undetected through the crowd gathered outside in the Piazza San Marco. They had effectively voted themselves out of existence. Three days later French soldiers sailed across the lagoon and took possession of the city. They encountered no resistance. When the city and the nearby islands had been secured, 4,000 soldiers of the revolutionary army staged a parade, accompanied by brass bands, in the Piazza San Marco. The watching citizens well understood the significance of the event: this was the first time in Venice’s long history that foreign troops had set foot in their city. Further humiliations marking the end of the independent Republic soon followed. Bonaparte ordered that a ‘Tree of Liberty’ be planted in the Piazza San Marco, beneath which the doge’s corno, and other insignia of office, were ceremonially burned, along with a copy of the Golden Book listing all the noble families. The deposed doge and the former members of the Grand Council who had not fled the city were then made to dance around the flames, while the watching citizens were encouraged by the French soldiers to jeer at their former masters. Next it was the turn of the city itself to be dismantled. The French army began taking down the bronze horses of San Marco and removing other treasures, in preparation for their transshipment to France. The city’s destruction, both political and symbolic, was now complete. The 1,000-year-old Republic of Venice was no more.

  * Originally written in French as L’Histone de ma vie (History of My Life), this entertaining if somewhat repetitive description of Casanova’s life and multifarious seductions (real and imagined) stretches to a dozen volumes.

  * Casanova’s description appears in his short work Escape from The Leads, as well as in Volume Four, Chapters 14 and 15, in the more readily available Everyman translation of his History of My Life.

  Image Gallery

  Illuminated manuscript of Marco Polo’s first voyage, showing Emperor Baldwin II of Constantinople bidding Marco Polo and his father farewell, a blessing by the Patriarch, and the explorers entering the Black Sea (1333).

  A Venetian plague doctor in his protective mask (Jan van Grevenbroeck, early nineteenth century).

  Detail of The Miracle at Rialto Bridge by Carpaccio, showing the old wooden structure with its drawbridges which could be raised to allow tall-masted ships to pass through to the Rialto landing stage (1494).

  Doge Loredan by Giovanni Bellini, capturing the austere majesty of the ruling doge in all his finery (1501).

  Gentile Bellini’s portrait of the Ottoman sultan Mehmet II, the conqueror of Constantinople (1480).

  Two Venetian Courtesans by Carpaccio (c. 1490). Some experts now suggest that this may depict two aristocratic wives waiting for their husbands to return from hunting.

  The painting by Titian of the young Caterina Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus, dressed as St Catherine of Alexandria (c 1542).

  The monument to the great Venetian condottiere Colleoni by Verrocchio (1490). At the time it was the greatest equestrian statue cast in bronze.

  The Battle of Lepauto by Vicentino, which hangs in the Doge’s Palace (1603).

  Painting of the Doge’s Palace by Canaletto, with a view down the Riva dei Schiavoni (late 1730s). To the left are the two columns of the Piazzetta.

  The Piazza San Marco by Guardi (after 1780). He ended up selling his paintings to passing tourists here.


  Ismael Mengs’s engraving of Casanova (eighteenth century).

  Select Bibliography

  Because this is intended as a popular work I have not included endnotes with an exhaustive and meticulous list of sources for quotations and precise information, which can often extend the endmatter by as much as a quarter the length of the actual text. Instead I have indicated in the text the sources of most direct quotes and have given here a bibliographical round-up of the works that I consulted, which may prove useful for further reading.

  Ackroyd, Peter, Venice: Pure City (London, 2009)

  Anderson, R.C., Naval Wars in the Levant 1559–1853 (Liverpool, 1952)

  Anderson, Sonia P., An English Consul in Turkey (Oxford, 1989)

  Aretino, Pietro, Selected Letters (London, 1976)