Casanova unveiled: new edition of his book reveals the man who loved liberty as much as women

Corrected version

story of his life give details of the sexual adventures while portraying a complex personality Bored and exiled in the pine forests of rural Bohemia, far from cities and women who loved and left aging Giacomo Casanova spent his last years writing his memoirs. Venice grew ceased to exist. The Paris she loved was in the throes of revolution. Writing was said in the preface, "The only solution I can think of that is not going mad or dying of grief".

The book History of My Life

History of my life

) published two decades after his death, in 1798, would ensure that the man whose name has become synonymous with womanizing not forgotten. Until now, however, the scope and details of sexual exploits of Casanova have been obscured, first by German Puritanism and in the mist of what experts describe as sloppy modern, even "defective" transcription his writings.

However, a new book by French publisher Robert Laffont, released in late April, aims to reveal Casanova in all its splendor. It is based on the original 3682 manuscript pages, acquired by the Biblioth?que Nationale de France in 2010 around € 7.5 million from an anonymous donor.

Jean-Christophe Igalens, professor at the University of Nice and specialist Casanova, who co-produced the book, said the notorious libertine as revealing "a whole lot more that has become clich?. Yes, it was a seducer, but he was impressed too. He loved women, women who had business with. It was not more than a superficial character who took a woman into bed, then left. had sex with rich women, "said Igalens

Observer ." For the reader, Casanova is often identified with the art of reinvention. He was able to change the name, change the country, reinvent a different future. This idea of ??not yielding to a destination is something that speaks to our modern world. "

In 1821, 23 years after Casanova's death, the manuscript

History of My Life

was sold by his nephew to a German publisher interested 18 - century Italian writers. Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus But the unpublishable work judged for immorality and the fact that the French text was sprinkled with Italian. It was published only after the text has been cleaned and removed passages deemed too crude, and for 140 years it was the only version available, while the original is stuck.

Yet seduced French writers, including Henri Beyle, known as Stendhal and Alfred de Musset, the poet and playwright. "In the 19th century, when it was discovered Casanova was indeed a very bourgeois writers, and Stendhal, Musset who reads this was a moral, a moral age was less restrictive than the limited and they lived," Igalens said.

The original manuscript was almost lost forever when Brockhaus offices received a direct hit from a bomb Allies in 1943. Winston Churchill reportedly asked his chance. Almost miraculously unharmed and was taken to a bank vault.

• In 1960, the original manuscript has been published in its entirety in the original French, followed by an English version in 1966. "The problem is that [the French] was published in a hurry and had a lot of mistakes and errors of transcription," said Igalens. "This problem is more serious. No shock discovery that will change the image of Casanova, but what makes this special are the variants and new pages are completely different. "

Igalens cites the story of Casanova's first visit to Paris in 1750, when he wrote about the visit

pleasure house

called Hotel Roule, managed by a Mrs. Paris.

.

"In the new transcript with a lot more details, Casanova describes more precisely the women in the house
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