Zanetta Farussi – actress

Venetian performer who gave birth to a legendary womaniser

Giacomo Casanova, whose mother was
 the actress Zanetta Farussi

Zanetta Farussi, the comedy actress who was the mother of the notorious adventurer, Casanova, was born on this day in 1707 in Venice.

At the age of 17, Zanetta had married the actor Gaetano Casanova, who was 10 years older than her.

He had just returned to Venice after several years with a touring theatrical troupe, to take a job at the Teatro San Samuele.

Farussi’s parents opposed the marriage because they considered acting to be a disreputable profession.

But Farussi soon began working at Teatro San Samuele herself and the following year she gave birth to a son, Giacomo, who was to grow up to make the name Casanova synonymous with womanising and philandering.  Giacomo Casanova would later claim that his real father was Michele Grimani, who owned the Teatro San Samuele.

Zanetta and Gaetano accepted a theatrical engagement in London where Farussi gave birth to their second son, Francesco, who became a well-known painter.

They returned to Venice in 1728 and went on to have four more children. The youngest child was born two months after the death of his father. 

The Teatro San Samuele, where Farussi found work

The same year, Farussi met the playwright Carlo Goldoni in Verona and he wrote a short comedy for her called La Pupilla (The Female Ward), which was inspired by the jealous infatuation she had inspired in a famous actor and theatrical impresario of the day. It was presented as an interlude with his tragicomedy, Belisario.

In 1737 Farussi signed a long contract to appear in Italian comedies in Saxony.

The following year she made her debut in Pilnitz, near Dresden, on the occasion of the proxy wedding of Crown Princess Maria Amalia.

Farussi eventually visited Warsaw, where she presented two short theatrical pieces she had written herself.

When the Seven Years War started, the Saxon court suspended the activities of the Italian comedy troupe and the actors all retired and were granted an annual pension.

The playwright Carlo Goldoni

During the war, Farussi sought refuge in Prague but as soon as it was safe she returned to Dresden where she was to remain for the rest of her life. She was joined by one of her sons, Giovanni, who taught at the Academy of Fine Arts there, and one of her daughters, Maria Maddalena, who married the court organist, Peter August.

Meanwhile, her eldest son, Giacomo Casanova, had graduated in law from the University of Padua. At various times during his life he worked as a clergyman, military officer, violinist, businessman and spy. Throughout his life it was a recurring pattern that he embarked on passionate affairs with women, ran out of money and was imprisoned for debt.

He was locked up for a time in the Doge’s Palace in Venice in terrible conditions, but he eventually escaped through the ceiling of his cell, broke back into the building through a window, walked out through the main entrance and made his escape in a gondola across the lagoon on his way to exile in France.

Farussi, who was known in theatrical circles as La Buranella, a reference to her family roots on the island of Burano, died in 1776 in Dresden.

Travel tip:

The church of San Samuele, just beyond the waterbus stop

Teatro San Samuele, where Farussi began her theatrical career, was an opera house and theatre at the Rio del Duca, between San Samuele and Campo Santo Stefano. It was first opened in 1656 in Venice and the playwright, Carlo Goldoni, was the theatre’s director between 1737 and 1741. The theatre was destroyed by fire in 1747 but then rebuilt and it remained a theatre until the building was demolished in 1894. San Samuele is in the San Marco sestiere and has a waterbus stop on the right bank of the Grand Canal before you reach the Rialto.

Goldoni's home was the beautiful Palazzo Centani

Travel tip:

The playwright, Carlo Goldoni, who wrote more than 250 comedies, was born in the beautiful Gothic Palazzo Centani in Venice. The palace, in Calle dei Nomboli in the San Polo district, is now a centre for theatrical studies and has a collection of theatrical memorabilia on display. It is open to the public every day except Wednesday.

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Giacomo Casanova – adventurer

Romantic figure escaped from prison in a gondola 

A portrait of Giacomo Girolamo Casanova painted in 1760
 by the German artist Anton Raphael Mengs

Author and adventurer Giacomo Girolamo Casanova was born on this day in 1725 in Venice.

He is so well known for his affairs with women that his surname is now used as an alternative word for ‘womaniser’.

But Casanova’s autobiography, ‘Story of My Life’, has also become regarded as one of the most authentic sources of information about European social life produced during the 18th century.

Casanova was widely travelled, had several different professions and was a prolific writer but he spent a lot of his time having romantic liaisons and gambling.

The Venice into which he was born was the pleasure capital of Europe, a required stop on the Grand Tour for young men coming of age, because of the attractions of the Carnival, the gambling houses and the courtesans.

Casanova graduated from the University of Padua with a degree in law and had a short career as an ecclesiastical lawyer before setting out on his adventures.

He was attractive to women, being tall and dark and wearing his long hair powdered and curled.

At various times he worked as a clergyman, military officer, violinist, businessman and spy. But throughout his life it was a recurring pattern that he embarked on passionate affairs with women, ran out of money and was imprisoned for debt.

Casanova wrote more than 20 novels, plays, and collections of essays and letters but despite his talent he was frequently distracted by his quest for pleasure and never worked for sustained periods at anything.

The Bridge of Sighs links the Doge's
Palace with the prison 

He would go off on his travels abroad and then return to Venice to carry on seducing women, gambling, getting into fights and making enemies.

Eventually he was arrested and imprisoned in a wing of the Doge’s Palace in terrible conditions. According to his memoirs, he hatched a daring escape plan, making a hole in the ceiling of his cell, climbing on to the roof, breaking back into the building through a window and walking out past the guard on the main entrance before making his escape in a gondola across the lagoon.

He fled to Paris, where he started the first state lottery. He was then sent on a spying mission by a Government minister and earned enough money to start his own business. But he became distracted by having affairs with his female employees, lost his money and ended up in prison for debt again.

On his return to Venice after many years he was treated like a celebrity for a while and dined out on the tale of his escape from his prison cell in the Doge’s Palace. But he was soon expelled from the city and had to set off on his travels again.

He spent his final years living in the Castle of Dux in Bohemia as librarian to Count Joseph Karl von Waldstein. There he enjoyed the time to write and produced his memoirs.

Casanova died at the age of 73 in Dux, which is now part of the Czech Republic, but the exact location of his grave is not known.

Travel tip:

Casanova’s cell in the Doge’s Palace was at the top of the building. These cells were referred to as piombi cells because of the piombo (lead) in the roof. He was better off than the prisoners left to fester in the pozzi cells, which were named after wells, because they were all dark dungeons. On a tour of the Doge’s Palace you can cross the Bridge of Sighs to the prison and see the cell from where Casanova planned his audacious escape.

The first gambling house in Venice required players to
wear masks, as depicted in this 18th century painting

Travel tip:

The streets between St Marks’ Square and the Rialto Bridge were Casanova’s stamping ground. Calle Vallaresso next to the Piazza was home to several gambling houses he frequented. Nowadays tourists flock to Harry’s Bar at the end to sample the Bellini cocktail invented by its founder, Giuseppe Cipriani. In the adjacent Calle del Ridotto, the first public gaming house in Europe was allowed to open in 1638 with the proviso that players came wearing a mask.  Casanova wined and dined his conquests at Cantina Do Spade near the Rialto Bridge, even mentioning the traditional Venetian osteria, in Calle delle Do Spade, in his memoirs.

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