Memoirs of a Gigolo Volume Nine

By now, he had become something of a dandy—tall and dark, his long hair powdered, scented, and elaborately curled. However, Casanova was caught dallying with Malipiero's intended object of seduction, actress Teresa Imer, and the senator drove both of them from his house. Casanova proclaimed that his life avocation was firmly established by this encounter. Scandals tainted Casanova's short church career. After his grandmother's death, Casanova entered a seminary for a short while, but soon his indebtedness landed him in prison for the first time. An attempt by his mother to secure him a position with Bishop Bernardo de Bernardis was rejected by Casanova after a very brief trial of conditions in the bishop's Calabrian see.

On meeting the pope , Casanova boldly asked for a dispensation to read the "forbidden books" and from eating fish which he claimed inflamed his eyes. He also composed love letters for another cardinal. When Casanova became the scapegoat for a scandal involving a local pair of star-crossed lovers, Cardinal Acquaviva dismissed Casanova, thanking him for his sacrifice, but effectively ending his church career.

Books by Livia Ellis (Author of Memoirs of a Gigolo Volume One)

In search of a new profession, Casanova bought a commission to become a military officer for the Republic of Venice. His first step was to look the part:. Reflecting that there was now little likelihood of my achieving fortune in my ecclesiastical career, I decided to dress as a soldier I inquire for a good tailor My uniform was white, with a blue vest, a shoulder knot of silver and gold I bought a long sword, and with my handsome cane in hand, a trim hat with a black cockade, with my hair cut in side whiskers and a long false pigtail, I set forth to impress the whole city.

He joined a Venetian regiment at Corfu , his stay being broken by a brief trip to Constantinople , ostensibly to deliver a letter from his former master the Cardinal. Casanova soon abandoned his military career and returned to Venice. At the age of 21, he set out to become a professional gambler, but losing all the money remaining from the sale of his commission, he turned to his old benefactor Alvise Grimani for a job.

Casanova thus began his third career, as a violinist in the San Samuele theater , "a menial journeyman of a sublime art in which, if he who excels is admired, the mediocrity is rightly despised. My profession was not a noble one, but I did not care. Calling everything prejudice, I soon acquired all the habits of my degraded fellow musicians.

They also sent midwives and physicians on false calls. Good fortune came to the rescue when Casanova, unhappy with his lot as a musician, saved the life of a Venetian patrician of the Bragadin family, who had a stroke while riding with Casanova in a gondola after a wedding ball. They immediately stopped to have the senator bled. Then, at the senator's palace, a physician bled the senator again and applied an ointment of mercury—an all-purpose but toxic remedy at the time—to the senator's chest.

This raised his temperature and induced a massive fever, and Bragadin appeared to be choking on his own swollen windpipe. A priest was called as death seemed to be approaching. However, despite protests from the attending physician, Casanova ordered the removal of the ointment and the washing of the senator's chest with cool water. The senator recovered from his illness with rest and a sensible diet. As they were cabalists themselves, the senator invited Casanova into his household and became a lifelong patron. I took the most creditable, the noblest, and the only natural course.

I decided to put myself in a position where I need no longer go without the necessities of life: No one in Venice could understand how an intimacy could exist between myself and three men of their character, they all heaven and I all earth; they most severe in their morals, and I addicted to every kind of dissolute living.

For the next three years under the senator's patronage, working nominally as a legal assistant, Casanova led the life of a nobleman, dressing magnificently and, as was natural to him, spending most of his time gambling and engaging in amorous pursuits. Casanova had dug up a freshly buried corpse to play a practical joke on an enemy and exact revenge, but the victim went into a paralysis, never to recover. And in another scandal, a young girl who had duped him accused him of rape and went to the officials. Escaping to Parma , Casanova entered into a three-month affair with a Frenchwoman he named "Henriette", perhaps the deepest love he ever experienced—a woman who combined beauty, intelligence, and culture.

In his words, "They who believe that a woman is incapable of making a man equally happy all the twenty-four hours of the day have never known an Henriette. The joy which flooded my soul was far greater when I conversed with her during the day than when I held her in my arms at night. Having read a great deal and having natural taste, Henriette judged rightly of everything.

As noted Casanovist J. Perhaps no woman so captivated Casanova as Henriette; few women obtained so deep an understanding of him. She penetrated his outward shell early in their relationship, resisting the temptation to unite her destiny with his. She came to discern his volatile nature, his lack of social background, and the precariousness of his finances. Before leaving, she slipped into his pocket five hundred louis, mark of her evaluation of him. Crestfallen and despondent, Casanova returned to Venice, and after a good gambling streak, he recovered and set off on a grand tour , reaching Paris in Casanova was also attracted to Rosicrucianism.

It was in Lyons that a respectable individual, whose acquaintance I made at the house of M. I arrived in Paris a simple apprentice; a few months after my arrival I became companion and master; the last is certainly the highest degree in Freemasonry, for all the other degrees which I took afterwards are only pleasing inventions, which, although symbolical, add nothing to the dignity of master. Casanova stayed in Paris for two years, learned the language, spent much time at the theater, and introduced himself to notables.

Soon, however, his numerous liaisons were noted by the Paris police, as they were in nearly every city he visited. In , his brother Francesco and he moved from Paris to Dresden , where his mother and sister Maria Maddalena were living. His new play, La Moluccheide , now lost, was performed at the Royal Theatre, where his mother often played in lead roles.

He finally returned to Venice in His police record became a lengthening list of reported blasphemies, seductions, fights, and public controversy. Senator Bragadin, in total seriousness this time being a former inquisitor himself , advised his "son" to leave immediately or face the stiffest consequences. On 26 July , at age 30, Casanova was arrested for affront to religion and common decency: Casanova primarily in public outrages against the holy religion, their Excellencies have caused him to be arrested and imprisoned under the Leads.

The following 12 September, without a trial and without being informed of the reasons for his arrest and of the sentence, he was sentenced to five years imprisonment. He was placed in solitary confinement with clothing, a pallet bed, table, and armchair in "the worst of all the cells", [48] where he suffered greatly from the darkness, summer heat, and "millions of fleas". He was soon housed with a series of cellmates, and after five months and a personal appeal from Count Bragadin, was given warm winter bedding and a monthly stipend for books and better food.

During exercise walks he was granted in the prison garret, he found a piece of black marble and an iron bar which he smuggled back to his cell; he hid the bar inside his armchair. When he was temporarily without cellmates, he spent two weeks sharpening the bar into a spike on the stone.

Memoirs of a Gigolo Volume Nine

Then he began to gouge through the wooden floor underneath his bed, knowing that his cell was directly above the Inquisitor's chamber. In his new cell, "I sat in my armchair like a man in a stupor; motionless as a statue, I saw that I had wasted all the efforts I had made, and I could not repent of them. I felt that I had nothing to hope for, and the only relief left to me was not to think of the future. Overcoming his inertia, Casanova set upon another escape plan. He solicited the help of the prisoner in the adjacent cell, Father Balbi, a renegade priest.

The spike, carried to the new cell inside the armchair, was passed to the priest in a folio Bible carried under a heaping plate of pasta by the hoodwinked jailer. The priest made a hole in his ceiling, climbed across and made a hole in the ceiling of Casanova's cell. To neutralize his new cellmate, who was a spy, Casanova played on his superstitions and terrorized him into silence.

The spy remained behind, too frightened of the consequences if he were caught escaping with the others.

Romance Writer Working Hard for the Money

Casanova and Balbi pried their way through the lead plates and onto the sloping roof of the Doge's Palace, with a heavy fog swirling. The drop to the nearby canal being too great, Casanova prised open the grate over a dormer window, and broke the window to gain entry. They found a long ladder on the roof, and with the additional use of a bedsheet "rope" that Casanova had prepared, lowered themselves into the room whose floor was 25 feet below. They rested until morning, changed clothes, then broke a small lock on an exit door and passed into a palace corridor, through galleries and chambers, and down stairs, where by convincing the guard they had inadvertently been locked into the palace after an official function, they left through a final door.

Thirty years later in , Casanova wrote Story of My Flight , which was very popular and was reprinted in many languages, and he repeated the tale a little later in his memoirs. Thus did God provide me with what I needed for an escape which was to be a wonder if not a miracle.

I admit that I am proud of it; but my pride does not come from my having succeeded, for luck had a good deal to do with that; it comes from my having concluded that the thing could be done and having had the courage to undertake it. He knew his stay in Paris might be a long one and he proceeded accordingly: His first task was to find a new patron. He reconnected with old friend de Bernis , now the Foreign Minister of France. Casanova was advised by his patron to find a means of raising funds for the state as a way to gain instant favor.

Casanova promptly became one of the trustees of the first state lottery , and one of its best ticket salesmen. The enterprise earned him a large fortune quickly. In Casanova's view, "deceiving a fool is an exploit worthy of an intelligent man". Casanova claimed to be a Rosicrucian and an alchemist , aptitudes which made him popular with some of the most prominent figures of the era, among them Madame de Pompadour , Count de Saint-Germain , d'Alembert , and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

So popular was alchemy among the nobles, particularly the search for the " philosopher's stone ", that Casanova was highly sought after for his supposed knowledge, and he profited handsomely. De Bernis decided to send Casanova to Dunkirk on his first spying mission. He remarked in hindsight, "All the French ministers are the same. They lavished money which came out of the other people's pockets to enrich their creatures, and they were absolute: The down-trodden people counted for nothing, and, through this, the indebtedness of the State and the confusion of finances were the inevitable results.

A Revolution was necessary. As the Seven Years' War began, Casanova was again called to help increase the state treasury. He was entrusted with a mission of selling state bonds in Amsterdam , Holland being the financial center of Europe at the time. The French government even offered him a title and a pension if he would become a French citizen and work on behalf of the finance ministry, but he declined, perhaps because it would frustrate his Wanderlust. He ran the business poorly, borrowed heavily trying to save it, and spent much of his wealth on constant liaisons with his female workers who were his " harem ".

Unfortunately, though he was released, his patron de Bernis was dismissed by Louis XV at that time and Casanova's enemies closed in on him. He sold the rest of his belongings and secured another mission to Holland to distance himself from his troubles. This time, however, his mission failed and he fled to Cologne , then Stuttgart in the spring of , where he lost the rest of his fortune. He was yet again arrested for his debts, but managed to escape to Switzerland.

Weary of his wanton life, Casanova visited the monastery of Einsiedeln and considered the simple, scholarly life of a monk. He returned to his hotel to think on the decision, only to encounter a new object of desire, and reverting to his old instincts, all thoughts of a monk's life were quickly forgotten. In , Casanova started styling himself the Chevalier de Seingalt, a name he would increasingly use for the rest of his life.

Casanova traveled to England in , hoping to sell his idea of a state lottery to English officials. He wrote of the English, "the people have a special character, common to the whole nation, which makes them think they are superior to everyone else. It is a belief shared by all nations, each thinking itself the best.

And they are all right. While working the political angles, he also spent much time in the bedroom, as was his habit. As a means to find females for his pleasure, not being able to speak English, he put an advertisement in the newspaper to let an apartment to the "right" person. He interviewed many young women, choosing one "Mistress Pauline" who suited him well. Soon, he established himself in her apartment and seduced her. These and other liaisons, however, left him weak with venereal disease and he left England broke and ill. He went on to the Austrian Netherlands, recovered, and then for the next three years, traveled all over Europe, covering about 4, miles by coach over rough roads, and going as far as Moscow and St Petersburg the average daily coach trip being about 30 miles.

Again, his principal goal was to sell his lottery scheme to other governments and repeat the great success he had with the French government, but a meeting with Frederick the Great bore no fruit and in the surrounding German lands, the same result. Not lacking either connections or confidence, Casanova went to Russia and met with Catherine the Great , but she flatly turned down the lottery idea. In , he was expelled from Warsaw following a pistol duel with Colonel Franciszek Ksawery Branicki over an Italian actress, a lady friend of theirs. Both duelists were wounded, Casanova on the left hand.

The hand recovered on its own, after Casanova refused the recommendation of doctors that it be amputated. He tried his usual approach, leaning on well-placed contacts often Freemasons , wining and dining with nobles of influence, and finally arranging an audience with the local monarch, in this case Charles III. When no doors opened for him, however, he could only roam across Spain, with little to show for it. In Barcelona, he escaped assassination and landed in jail for 6 weeks.

His Spanish adventure a failure, he returned to France briefly, then to Italy. In Rome, Casanova had to prepare a way for his return to Venice. While waiting for supporters to gain him legal entry into Venice, Casanova began his modern Tuscan-Italian translation of the Iliad , his History of the Troubles in Poland , and a comic play. To ingratiate himself with the Venetian authorities, Casanova did some commercial spying for them. After months without a recall, however, he wrote a letter of appeal directly to the Inquisitors.

At last, he received his long-sought permission and burst into tears upon reading "We, Inquisitors of State, for reasons known to us, give Giacomo Casanova a free safe-conduct So is our will. At first, his return to Venice was a cordial one and he was a celebrity. Even the Inquisitors wanted to hear how he had escaped from their prison. Of his three bachelor patrons, however, only Dandolo was still alive and Casanova was invited back to live with him. He received a small stipend from Dandolo and hoped to live from his writings, but that was not enough. He reluctantly became a spy again for Venice, paid by piece work, reporting on religion, morals, and commerce, most of it based on gossip and rumor he picked up from social contacts.

No financial opportunities of interest came about and few doors opened for him in society as in the past. At age 49, the years of reckless living and the thousands of miles of travel had taken their toll. Casanova's smallpox scars, sunken cheeks, and hook nose became all the more noticeable.

His easygoing manner was now more guarded. Prince Charles de Ligne , a friend and uncle of his future employer , described him around He would be a good-looking man if he were not ugly; he is tall and built like Hercules, but of an African tint; eyes full of life and fire, but touchy, wary, rancorous—and this gives him a ferocious air.

It is easier to put him in a rage than to make him gay. He laughs little, but makes others laugh. He has a manner of saying things which reminds me of Harlequin or Figaro , and which makes them sound witty. Venice had changed for him.

Giacomo Casanova

Casanova now had little money for gambling, few willing females worth pursuing, and few acquaintances to enliven his dull days. He heard of the death of his mother and, more paining, visited the deathbed of Bettina Gozzi, who had first introduced him to sex and who died in his arms. His Iliad was published in three volumes, but to limited subscribers and yielding little money. He got into a published dispute with Voltaire over religion. When he asked, "Suppose that you succeed in destroying superstition. With what will you replace it? When I deliver humanity from a ferocious beast which devours it, can I be asked what I shall put in its place.

In , Casanova found Francesca, an uneducated seamstress, who became his live-in lover and housekeeper, and who loved him devotedly. Other publishing and theater ventures failed, primarily from lack of capital. In a downward spiral, Casanova was expelled again from Venice in , after writing a vicious satire poking fun at Venetian nobility. In it, he made his only public statement that Grimani was his true father.

Forced to resume his travels again, Casanova arrived in Paris, and in November met Benjamin Franklin while attending a presentation on aeronautics and the future of balloon transport. He also became acquainted with Lorenzo Da Ponte , Mozart 's librettist, who noted about Casanova, "This singular man never liked to be in the wrong.

In , after Foscarini died, Casanova began searching for another position. A few months later, he became the librarian to Count Joseph Karl von Waldstein , a chamberlain of the emperor, in the Castle of Dux , Bohemia now in the Czech Republic. The Count—himself a Freemason, cabalist, and frequent traveler—had taken to Casanova when they had met a year earlier at Foscarini's residence. Their sixth album, , was a critical and commercial success but continued the move toward mainstream pop.

Roth formally parted ways with his bandmates on April 1, In his autobiography, Crazy From the Heat , Roth characterized Van Halen's music just before his departure as "morose. Roth wished to record an album quickly, tour, and shoot a movie. It's not 'Dave Singing' or ' Elvis '. In June , Roth briefly reunited with Van Halen, to great public fanfare. In , Cherone confirmed the longtime rumor that he had already been chosen long before the MTV incident, connoting that Van Halen used Roth to create public interest in the hits collection.

In , rumors swirled that Roth and the members of Van Halen had recorded several new songs together and were attempting yet another reunion. Roth later confirmed that information, but nothing came of the music. A rumored box set did not materialize. In late , Roth assembled a virtuoso solo band, consisting of guitarist Steve Vai previously of Frank Zappa 's band , bassist Billy Sheehan previously of Talas , and drummer Gregg Bissonette previously of Maynard Ferguson 's big band. The album saw Roth return to hard rock music, but also incorporated some of his more eclectic musical tastes, ranging from jazz to speed metal.

Eat 'Em and Smile met with widespread commercial and critical success, charting at No.

In January , Roth released Skyscraper , a more experimental recording featuring the hit single " Just Like Paradise. Soon after Skyscraper' s release, Billy Sheehan left Roth's band due to musical differences. Both parts of the stage show were featured in the "Just Like Paradise" music video. Before starting a support tour for A Little Ain't Enough , Becker was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease , rendering him unable to perform onstage.

Guitarist Joe Holmes stood in for Becker during the tour. Later in , Nirvana and grunge rock emerged, altering musical tastes and suddenly making Roth's brand of hard rock seem unfashionable.

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Roth's band fractured shortly following the tour's completion. With one exception — 's well-received DLR Band album, featuring guitarist John 5 and drummer Ray Luzier — until his reconciliation with Van Halen in , Roth would utilize hired-hands and studio musicians on his club and amphitheater solo tours. The arrest made headlines [19] and became a late-night television punch-line. It literally says 'Buick, Chevy, Other'. If I was looking for publicity, I would have pooped on the sidewalk.

The album failed to achieve positive critical or commercial success, proving to be Roth's first solo effort not to achieve RIAA Gold or Platinum status shortly after its release. The support tour found Roth playing smaller venues in the U. Your Filthy Little Mouth saw a remastered re-release in In , Roth returned with an adult lounge act, performing largely in Las Vegas casinos, with a brass band that featured Nile Rodgers, Edgar Winter , and members of the Miami Sound Machine.

It also featured several exotic dancers , who in Roth's words were "so sweet, I bet they shit sugar! The page book was a selected collection of 1, pages of monologues, which were recorded and transcribed by a Princeton University graduate who followed Roth around for almost a year. The book received mostly positive critical and reader reaction, and helped to reinvent Roth's image as a popular wit and adventurer, with a bon vivant personality. The album featured a popular song, "Slam Dunk", which, like a majority of the album, was co-written by rising guitar hero and longtime Roth fan, John 5.

The album was considered a return to form for Roth by critics. In , Roth contacted the Songs of Love Foundation asking if he would be able to sing a song for an ailing child. He went on to record a "Song of Love" for 9-year-old Ashley Abernathy who was battling leukemia.

In , The "Song for Song: Despite the monetary success and publicity generated by the tour, Roth's future with Van Halen seemed uncertain. Vice City , playing on rock station V-Rock , while generally, Roth became more visible than he'd been in years, e. In , Roth released his final solo album called Diamond Dave , which included one last self-penned John 5 collaboration among numerous cover songs.

Regarding this, Roth was quoted on his website as saying, "Mom says I'm going to look like Lee Marvin in 10 years whether I'm in movies or not, so I might as well get after it! The performance was witnessed by over , people live in Boston, and by millions more on U. In , Roth appeared on two tracks of an album entitled Strummin' with the Devil which cover a number of classic Van Halen songs, in bluegrass style.

This album topped out at 66 on the U. Roth was tapped to replace his friend, Howard Stern , on terrestrial radio, following Stern's departure from terrestrial to Sirius Satellite Radio. Roth's show lasted for four months, and ended in a lawsuit. During the course of the show, Roth maintained a relationship with Howard News reporter Steve Langford.

Issues included Roth's firing, the missing podcast, and his show being cut off early. On January 24, , after much anticipation, Billboard. On March 8 the official Van Halen website posted a letter from Eddie Van Halen stating that Ed did not feel he could perform his absolute best and the tour with Roth would be postponed.

The Van Halen brothers did not attend due to Eddie's condition. Roth was to perform with the band Velvet Revolver ; however, conflict with the band caused his part to be canceled. Both Anthony and Hagar thanked Roth publicly for his contribution to the band during the awards acceptance. Roth did not attend the ceremony and the event was considered yet another public embarrassment for the band.

The conflict was rumored to be based on song selection. On G4's animated comedy show titled Code Monkeys , Roth was depicted in the s, giving an inspirational speech to keep the others from taking up jobs at Bellecovision and asked, "Would David Lee Roth leave Van Halen? On August 13, , six months after the initial reunion tour was postponed, it was finally confirmed by Van Halen with Roth at a press conference in Los Angeles that they would start the tour again in September At that conference, Eddie Van Halen stated that he and Roth were "like brothers" now.

Calling Van Halen a "real band," both Van Halen and Roth spoke of the possibility of further worldwide touring and a new album in mind for the future. Van Halen played to nearly one million people during 74 arena shows throughout the United States and Canada, beginning September 27, in Charlotte, N. In December , Van Halen announced a tour with Roth. That same month, the band made its first foray into American television by appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live!

In the show Roth speaks about a wide variety of topics including making music videos with Van Halen , tattoos and sarcasm. On November 1, a music video was posted dedicated to the victims of Hurricane Sandy. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

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