“The Divine Comedy’s Casanova”, the announcer on the penultimate song of the album muses, “a collection of songs for bass, baritone and ensemble inspired by the writings of the eighteenth-century Venetian gambler, eroticist and spy”. To this day, it stands out as some of the best work by Neil Hannon and colleagues, each track examining in varied styles the themes of love, lust and lechery. Boasting hits like Something for the Weekend (whatever that might be), Becoming More Like Alfie (about a man’s descent into the life of one-night-stands associated with the cinematic character made famous by Michael Caine) Songs of Love (perhaps better known as the theme tune of Father Ted), The Frog Princess (again, a satirical look at one night stands) and Through A Long and Sleepless Night (with its references to cross dressing), the album is a sort of fifty-minute thematic exploration that is some twenty years ahead of its time.
It is doubtful there would have been much public enthusiasm for the eponymous hero’s antics were he alive today. Well-known former Hollywood producers spring to mind. Giacomo Casanova was born in Venice on 2 April 1725. Although ostensibly the son of an actor named Gaetano Casanova, he was really the offspring of Michele Grimani – the owner of the theatre where Casanova Sr. worked and a distant relative of the Doge of Venice. Casanova’s mother, Zanetta Farussi, also treaded the boards and had once been the mistress of George II when he was still the Prince of Wales. Ultimately, Casanova was brought up by his maternal grandmother and the Grimani family who facilitated his entry to the University of Padua when he was aged just twelve. He worked briefly for a lawyer in Venice and was later ordained as a minor member of the clergy before finally graduating as a Doctor of Law in 1742.
Casanova changed posts frequently during his life and was imprisoned at least twice (once in 1755 in Venice for allegedly being a magician although he escaped after fifteen months by burrowing through the ceiling using an iron bar; and again a few years later in England for assaulting a woman although he was released almost immediately). His various career moves began with the role of Private Secretary to Cardinal Acquaviva (the Spanish Ambassador around 1743), and were followed by: a commission in the army (which he would have purchased around 1744 before his dismissal on foot of a “scandal”); Second Violinist in in a Venetian theatre (1745); protégé of Senator Brigadin (whose life he is said to have saved in 1746); director of a state lottery in Paris; owner of a silk-printing firm; secretary to the Marquis of Roccaforte; a spy for the Inquisition (1776); a Venetian magazine writer and publisher; assistant to Sebastian Foscarini (the Venetian Ambassador to Vienna in 1783); librarian to Count Waldstein in Chateau Dux (1785); and finally an author of more than twenty books in his own right including Anecdotes of the 14th Century, History of the Troubles of Poland, a novel entitled Icosameron and a volume of his Mémoires.
Casanova was known to be a ruthless man. He was imprisoned for selling his family’s furniture and upon making his escape he allegedly assaulted the prosecuting lawyer quite badly. The seducer of over 10,000 women (as well as a number of men), it is said he used a pig’s bladder for contraceptive purposes but this did not prevent him fathering at least two illegitimate daughters. He also loved gambling – and not simply in terms of the various lotteries he ran. He played cards, particularly faro and piquet, and once played for nearly two whole days without breaking for a meal.
Indeed, it would take little imagination to view Casanova as a full-blown psychopath in the manner of the Psychopathy Checklist devised by the eminent Canadian forensic psychologist, Prof Robert Hare. Biographical detail suggests Casanova might be accused of glibness and superficial charm, a grandiose sense of self-worth, a tendency to lie and manipulate, a lack of empathy or remorse, a parasitic lifestyle, irresponsible behaviour, impulsivity, the need for stimulation or excitement, promiscuous sexual behaviour, poor behavioural controls, criminal versatility and recidivism. Casanova may well have scored highly on the scale.
Casanova died in Chateau Dux, Bohemia on 4 June 1798 aged 72. Throughout his life, he had suffered various ailments including gonorrhoea, syphilis, haemorrhoids, epistaxis (nosebleeds), pleurisy, pneumonia, gout and prostatitis. Perhaps most notably, Casanova contracted smallpox as a child and it left him with three pockmarks on his face. Naturally, there was no vaccination available at the time. Indeed, it was not until 14 May 1796 – just two years prior to Casanova’s death – that the British physician and naturalist Edward Jenner used scrapings from a cowpox rash on the finger of a dairymaid named Sarah Nelmes to inoculate a young boy, James Phipps, with the cowpox virus. On 1 July of the same year, he attempted to inoculate the boy with smallpox and, despite repeated attempts, was unsuccessful. In July 1798, Jenner published his case studies, entitled An Inquiry in to the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae, a Disease Discovered in some of the Western Counties of England, Particularly Gloucestershire, and Known by the Name of Cowpox.
In the 1750s, Casanova was presented at court to Catherine II of Russia. Otherwise known as Catherine the Great, the Empress is partly remembered (alongside Jenner) for promoting widespread inoculation against smallpox. As she died on 17 November 1796 (aged 66), Jenner’s expertise would not have been available to her, but Jenner was not the only pioneer in the fight against smallpox. In Europe at this time, at least half a dozen reigning monarchs including Queen Mary of England and Peter II of Russia had already succumbed to the infection. Peter III – the husband of Catherine – suffered a severe bout of the disease leaving him with ugly scars and little hair. Although Catherine did not contract smallpox herself, she witnessed its ravaging effects first hand.
As such, in 1768, Catherine invited the Scottish physician Dr Thomas Dimsdale to Russia to inoculate her and her 14-year-old (and only legitimate) son, the Grand Duke Paul. Unlike Jenner’s later method of vaccination, Dimsdale would introduce a trace amount of smallpox (rather than cowpox) into the body, a method that was ultimately quite dangerous and often resulted in the acquisition of the very illness they were trying to avoid. The procedure was however successful in Catherine’s case and that of her son and thus it was made available to over two million Russians by 1800.
So, who was this remarkable woman? Sophia Augusta Frederica von Anhalt-Zerbst was born in Prussia on 2 May 1729 and was of royal pedigree long before her marriage to the future Tsar of Russia. Her father was Prince Christian August von Anhalt-Zerbst, while her mother – Johanna Elizabeth von Holstein-Gottorp (the double-barrelled names are always a dead giveaway for aristocracy) – was the sister of the fiancé of Empress Elizabeth of Russia (a fiancé who unfortunately died of smallpox shortly before the wedding). The young Sophia – aged just 15 – married her mother’s cousin Karl Ulrich, who was Grand Duke of Russia at the time and the future Tsar Peter III. Alas, the marriage was not a success, possibly because of the legacy of smallpox on his physical and mental demeanour. The young Sophia is said to have been deserted by her husband on their wedding night and ordered to reside in a separate apartment. Sophia herself became Empress Catherine of Russia in 1762, aged just 33, after a coup d’état in which her husband was deposed and later murdered (possibly, indeed, by Catherine).
Catherine was both intelligent and ambitious. Under her rule, Russia’s territory expanded through military defeats of Poland and Turkey. She entertained the European intellectuals of the day, while harbouring a fervent ambition to reform and develop Russia. She was a prolific writer, penning plays such as The Paladin of Misfortune and short stories such as Prince Khlor, but this was only one of several key things that she held in common with Casanova. Both lives, as outlined, were touched by smallpox. Catherine, moreover, acquired some notoriety for her extra-marital affairs and is said to have had at least 21 lovers that included: her chamberlain Serge Saltykov (by whom she had two miscarriages); Count Stanislaus Poniatowski (the future King of Poland); an officer of the guard named Gregory Orlov (whom it is thought Catherine ordered to murder Peter III and with whom she also had an illegitimate son named Bobrinsky); and a cavalry officer named Gregory Potemkin (whose one eye did not deter the Empress from an alleged secret marriage to him in 1774).
Finally, like Casanova, Catherine received the ultimate accolade of being the subject of a song by the Divine Comedy, appearing on their 2016 album Foreverland. According to the song, “She could converse with the best; she knew Voltaire, Diderot and the rest,” as Neil Hannon makes reference to her penchant for entertaining at court the intellectuals of the day including, as we have said, Casanova. Voltaire referred to Catherine as the “Semiramis of the North” and this admiration was mutual in every respect. Catherine once gifted Voltaire a sable wrap and even went as far as to buy Voltaire’s library and a sculpture of him after his death in 1778. [She also bought Diderot’s library, as it happened]. It is thought to have been Voltaire who persuaded Catherine to introduce the smallpox inoculation into Russia; his views may have been influenced by the fact that he contracted the illness aged 27. Indeed, like Casanova after him, Voltaire was a rather sickly child and was not expected to live very long after his birth.
This birth occurred on 21 November 1694 in Paris. Voltaire was, of course, a pseudonym – an anagram of “Arouet l. i.” [le Jeune] and a derivative of his childhood nickname of Le petit volontaire (meaning “Little Wilful”). His real name was François-Marie Arouet and he was the third and youngest-surviving child of a successful notary (his father), while his mother was the daughter of the Record Keeper of the High Court. After the death of his mother when he was just seven years old, the young Voltaire was cared for largely by his godfather, the Abbé de Châteauneuf. He was educated by the Jesuits at Saint-Louis-le-Grand near the Sorbonne, and later acquired employment in a lawyer’s office in Paris. In 1717, he was imprisoned for a year in the Bastille for ridiculing the Regent, Philippe Duc d’Orléans and, while there, he penned Henriade, the epic poem that ultimately made him famous. But Voltaire wasn’t just famous; he was also very wealthy. He inherited a fortune from his father in 1721 and half his brother’s estate in 1745, received a generous annuity from the Prince Regent, and speculated successfully in Parisian lotteries and the corn trade.
During his career, Voltaire spent time as Royal Historiographer and Gentleman in Waiting to Louis XV and eventually retired to Geneva where he wrote prolifically and entertained notable guests that included Casanova. His most famous works include the tragedy Oedepe (1718), the novella Candide (1759) – which he is said to have written in just three days – and the Dictionnaire Philosophique (1764). Many of his political views were controversial, especially those on religion. He believed in a non-Christian God, although he converted to Catholicism in 1769. He was rather anti-Semitic in his views, but also quite humane. His views were partly responsible for the banning of torture for the purpose of confession in Russia, Germany and Austria.
Voltaire was a vain man with an active love life. He had various affairs, including a 20-year relationship with the Marquise de Châtelet, who was married at the time. Only five foot three, Voltaire was a dapper – even dandy – dresser who wore lots of rings and carried a cane. Among his attire was a sable wrap given to him, as we have said, by Catherine the Great. Voltaire was known to be a hypochondriac but he also had some genuine afflictions; he took laudanum for gout, and also suffered from sciatica and eye infections. He once famously said, “The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while Nature affects the cure”. Voltaire died on 30 May 1778 in Paris. He was refused burial there however, so he was instead embalmed and transported to Champaigne. In 1790 – the year after the French Revolution – his body was transferred to the Panthéon, although his tomb was desecrated in 1814 and the bones removed.
And thus we have three icons of the eighteenth century who have more in common than meets the eye. Aside from the fact that they all met at one stage or another, all were clever and ruthless, all took many lovers, all wrote prolifically, and all had their brush with smallpox. So, with Casanova and Catherine the Great well and truly covered in their catalogue, perhaps the Divine Comedy will include a song about Voltaire in their next album.
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