In a signal encounter with the famous French philosopher and writer Voltaire, Casanova explains that “I amuse myself by studying people as I travel . . . it is fun to study the world while passing through it.” Indeed, Giacomo Casanova de Seingalt, traveller, adventurer, musician, lover, escaped convict, and avid reader, brings to his monumental The Story of My Life(Histoire de ma vie) an explicit relish—and aptitude—for intimate observations on human nature, customs, gastronomy, science, literature, economics, and religion. Giacomo Casanova began writing his memoirs in approximately 1791, in the relative isolation of the Castle of Dux in Bohemia, where he served as the librarian for Josef Karl Emmanuel, Count Waldstein. His memoires run to several volumes of gripping narrative, being considered to be the most authentic source of the European social customs of the Eighteenth Century.
