‏Giacomo Casanova‏

Born to acting parents, Casanova was a sickly child and was raised almost entirely by his grandmother. As a young man, he went to Padua to board with a Doctor Gozzi, and fell in love with Gozzi's younger sister, Bettina. After learning his first lessons about women, Casanova set out as an adventurer across Europe, falling in love often along the way. One of his first great loves was Angiola Calori, a supposed castrato whom Casanova unmasked; they planned to marry, but Casanova decided he could not bear the indignity of being the unemployed husband of a woman of the theatre. After he and Angiola broke up, he met the mysterious Henriette in Cesena, who becomes his next great love. However, Henriette reluctantly left him to return to her family, and Casanova journeyed on to France, where he became a Freemason. In his long, wild, and scandalous life, he made the acquaintance of such figures as Frederick the Great of Prussia, Voltaire, the Chevalier d'Eon, Benjamin Franklin, and Catherine the Great of Russia. In 1784, he accepted the offer of Count Josef Karl Emmanuel von Waldstein to work as a librarian at the Count's castle in Dux, where Casanova lived out the rest of his days. According to his friend, the Prince de Ligne, Casanova's last words were: "I have lived as a philosopher, and die as a Christian."