QI The Book of the Dead

Byron, when he lived in Venice, in just two years). On the other hand, it was enough to give him gonorrhoea at least eleven times, and when he died in 1798 it was from a bladder complaint probably caused by repeated venereal infections.

    The detail and humour of Casanova’s memoirs make for a compelling read. He relates that he lost his virginity to two sisters and that their lovemaking was punctuated by an impromptu dinner of bread and cheese. Falling for a castrato singer called Bellino, and convinced she is a woman in disguise, he groped her crotch, only to find an unmistakable bulge. Indefatigable as ever, he reasoned this must be a ‘monstrous clitoris’, and his persistence paid off. ‘Bellino’ was indeed a woman called Teresa, who wore a false phallus to get round the papal ban on women singing in church choirs. Needless to say, she became his mistress. In Venice, he enjoyed a ménage à trois with the French ambassador and a nun. He nearly seduced a beautiful young woman who turned out to be his own daughter by a former lover. A few years later, they met again and this time he deliberately seduced her and slept with her and her mother simultaneously. Untroubled by shame, he also bedded his niece, encouraged a twelve-year-old novice nun to fellate him through a grille, and seduced all five daughters from one family in exchange for rescuing their parents from ruin. But he didn’t get it all his own way. In London a courtesan called Marianne Charpillon refused to go to bed with him and then stole all his money. He was so upset by this that he decided to kill himself by jumping into the Thames, and only stopped when a friend persuaded him to go a pub and get drunk instead. To get revenge, he trained a parrot to recite: ‘Miss Charpillon is more of a whore than her mother.’ This so enraged Miss Charpillon that she took legal advice on whether or not she could sue a parrot for libel.
    Casanova had better luck with the Marquise d’Urfé, one of the richest women in Paris, who was impressed by his deep knowledge of the Cabbala. He convinced her that he could helpher be reincarnated and that part of the necessary ritual involved his having sex with her. The Marquise was so physically repulsive he had to fake two of his three orgasms. This wasn’t his usual problem – he was afflicted by premature ejaculation through most of his life – although he claimed he could make love at least six times a night with the help of a special concoction of chocolate and egg-white. He also fixed the oyster’s reputation as an aphrodisiac, sometimes eating fifty for breakfast, declaring that the best sauce for an oyster was his lover’s saliva. A special treat was eating live bivalves off a girlfriend’s breasts.
    In 1755 Casanova’s sexual intrigues, combined with his dabbling in banned Masonic rites and magic, earned him a five-year sentence in Venice’s Piombi prison. He stuck it out for nine months before escaping by breaking through the roof of his cell and walking out of the main gates when they were opened the next morning. Forced to seek exile in France, he came up with his greatest and most lucrative financial scam – inventing the French national lottery. Now in his mid-thirties, he enjoyed a brief spate of wealth and fame, styling himself the Chevalier de Seingalt (an entirely bogus title). He met – and was disappointed by – Voltaire, arguing with him over religion; he discussed powered flight with Benjamin Franklin and taxation policy with Frederick the Great; and made friends with Lorenzo Da Ponte, Mozart’s favourite librettist. (It seems likely that Da Ponte’s masterpiece, Don Giovanni , was based at least in some part on Casanova, who may even have contributed to the writing himself.)
    Casanova’s own literary ambitions never quite came together until the very end of his life. He wrote forty-two books, including a history of Venetian government, a history of Poland and a much-admired translation of Homer’s Iliad into modern Italian. He even produced a five-volume science-fiction novel, Isocameron , which predicted the motor car, the aeroplane, television and many other inventions. His plays were performed across Europe but he was never in one place long enough to capitalise on his reputation. Fame, money and love all had a way of deserting him. He never came close to getting married, although he did, in his late twenties, fall heavily for a young Frenchwoman called Henriette:
    They who