Walking the streets of Giacomo Casanova means entering the streets and squares, theaters, prisons and luxury apartments in Venice. In this very special year, which prohibits parties and gatherings, an alternative way to celebrate Valentine's Day in Venice is to enjoy an itinerary dedicated to the most famous seducer ever... to fall even more in love with your sweetheart.
CASANOVA HOUSE IN CALLE MALIPIERO
It is the mid-eighteenth century and we are in the heart of a city that represents one of the most important economic and cultural centers in Europe. In
Calle della Commedia, now Calle Malipiero, there is the house where Casanova was born in 1725. We imagine it to be beautiful and airy, arranged over several floors with a space also for parties. In those rooms you can breathe art: his mother is one of the most famous actresses in Europe that he rarely sees, entrusted instead to the care of his beloved grandmother. A few steps and you arrive at the Grand Canal and Palazzo Malipiero, with its large rooms where the nobility walked.
Carlo Goldoni lived a few steps away and was able to describe the tenants, the same ones that Giacomo Casanova frequented, starting with Teresa's father, his first lover. Precisely this love cost him the friendship and protection of the landlord, Senator Malipiero, who was also in love with the young woman.
THE OLDEST CASINO IN EUROPE
The second stage of this romantic Valentine's Day in Venice will take you to the San Marco district, in Campo San Maurizio, where you still seem to hear the verses of Giorgio Baffo, poet and libertine whom Casanova identified as his mentor.
In his witty and obscene poems, the nocturnal face of the city is hidden, with parties, ladies with veiled faces and the hours spent at the game table. The latter was, in fact, the other great passion of our Casanova and Venice still preserves, like a jewel, what can be considered the oldest casino in Europe: the Ridotto di San Moisè inside Palazzo Dandolo.
Here, where you entered masked so as not to be recognized, immense fortunes passed to the point that the Government of the Serenissima was forced to order its closure. It is said that Casanova spent his evenings here waiting for him to fall night to visit one of his many lovers.
Each street in this city has a myriad of stories to tell, following the historical events or the adventures of its characters, from Casanova to Goldoni to Corto Maltese.
Buying a house in Venice means immersing yourself in this atmosphere. Begin to breathe it by browsing the gallery of our houses for sale in Venice, which in their ancient rooms may have witnessed Casanova's intrigues live, such as the one - the most famous - that led him to the island of Murano.
In fact, in our itinerary we could not miss a stop at the convent of Santa Maria degli Angeli where M.M. lived, the nun that Casanova managed to seduce. Even today, next to the Venier stop, you can spot the wooden pier and the small door from where the woman secretly left to meet our adventurer who was waiting for her sitting in a gondola.
BACARI AND CAFES OF VENICE
A VISIT TO THE "PIOMBI" (LEADS) PRISON
Casanova's life, however, was also full of dark periods. Our Valentine's Day in Venice can only end in the place where our seducer spent the most difficult fifteen months of his life: the Piombi prison , in the attic of the Doge's Palace.
From here he managed to escape, as he himself tells, by exploiting a hole in the roof. From that moment Casanova's journey into the heart of Europe begins, the second chapter in the life of the most famous libertine of the Serenissima. And of the world.
Mon - Fri 9/13 - 14/18
Saturday & Sunday - By appointment