One of the most famous-ever natives of the Italian city of Venice was Giacomo Casanova (1725-1798), who has gone down in history as the greatest lover of all time, and whose name is a byword for seduction. The popular image we have of Casanova - perpetuated in the recent Heath Ledger Hollywood movie and the David Tennant BBC TV movie - is that of a talented but feckless rake, making his way across Europe via the beds of other men's wives.
This is only partially fair. As well as being a great lover, Casanova was a talented musician, businessman, playwright and mathematician. He made real contributions to the science of geometry, helped Mozart with the libretto for Don Giovanni and wrote a long and mostly accurate autogiography which has come down to us as one of the leading historical sources used to learn about life in eighteenth century Europe.
Casanova was also an adventurer, and its this aspect of his life that you can really make contact with if you happen to be visiting Venice. In his late twenties, Casanova upset the authorities in Venice with his licentious, semi-fraudulent lifestyle. He was brought to trial on trumped up charges and imprisoned in "i Piombi" - "the Leads" - Venice's most secure prison. The Leads lie in a large building adjoining the Doge's palace off St. Mark's Square, and during your tour of the palace you can access them by walking across the high level Bridge of Sighs, which crosses the canal that divides the palace from the dungeon.
The Leads are so called because they don't lie in any cold, damp, cellar, but rather right underneath the lead roof tiles of the top floor of the palazzo. It was assumed that any prisoner who managed to even get up on to the roof wouldn't be able to find a way down, or would plunge to his death. Casanova, however, made it - and with his accomplice became the only person in history to successfully escape from the Ducal prison.
Touring the Leads today you can see the low cell in which Casanova was held, and marvel at the appalling conditions that prisoners had to put up with for years at a time. If you find yourself in Venice, the palace and the prison are must-sees.
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