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We have finally gone through Casanova's own personal preface, and we take up chapter one of the memoirs, which is about his family pedigree and childhood.
Of course, it is only appropriate that Casanova’s life should spring from wild, romantic, passionate beginnings. His father, Gaetan-Joseph-Jacques, was a dancer and then an actor, and it is about him that Casanova is writing.
_ _ _
Whether from fickleness or from jealousy, he abandoned the Fragoletta, and joined in Venice a troupe of comedians then giving performances at the Saint-Samuel Theatre. Opposite the house in which he had taken his lodgings resided a shoemaker, by name Jerome Farusi, with his wife Marzia, and Zanetta, their only daughter - a perfect beauty sixteen years of age. The young actor fell in love with this girl, succeeded in gaining her affection, and in obtaining her consent to a runaway match. It was the only way to win her, for, being an actor, he never could have had Marzia’s consent, still less Jerome’s, as in their eyes a player was a most awful individual.
The young lovers, provided with the necessary certificates and accompanied by two witnesses, presented themselves before the Patriarch of Venice, who performed over them the marriage ceremony. Marzia, Zanetta’s mother, indulged in a good deal of exclamation, and the father died broken hearted.
I was born nine months afterwards, on the 2nd of April, 1725.
-- Casanova, The Memoirs
Of course, it is only appropriate that Casanova’s life should spring from wild, romantic, passionate beginnings. His father, Gaetan-Joseph-Jacques, was a dancer and then an actor, and it is about him that Casanova is writing.
_ _ _
Whether from fickleness or from jealousy, he abandoned the Fragoletta, and joined in Venice a troupe of comedians then giving performances at the Saint-Samuel Theatre. Opposite the house in which he had taken his lodgings resided a shoemaker, by name Jerome Farusi, with his wife Marzia, and Zanetta, their only daughter - a perfect beauty sixteen years of age. The young actor fell in love with this girl, succeeded in gaining her affection, and in obtaining her consent to a runaway match. It was the only way to win her, for, being an actor, he never could have had Marzia’s consent, still less Jerome’s, as in their eyes a player was a most awful individual.
The young lovers, provided with the necessary certificates and accompanied by two witnesses, presented themselves before the Patriarch of Venice, who performed over them the marriage ceremony. Marzia, Zanetta’s mother, indulged in a good deal of exclamation, and the father died broken hearted.
I was born nine months afterwards, on the 2nd of April, 1725.
-- Casanova, The Memoirs
