3 - Calle de la Comedia
Calle Malipiero 3082 - Casanova Family House
Leaving his grandmother’s house behind, from the Calle de La Munghe…
Turn right briefly back on to Calle dei Orbi.
Take the first left down Calle dei Tedeschi.
Turn left on Salizzada Malipiero.
Take the second street on your left, Calle Malipero (named Calle de la Comedia in Casanova’s day).
For many years, until historians recently proved otherwise, it was widely assumed Casanova was born here and a plaque still states “In a house on this street, old Calle de la Comedia, born 2 April 1725, Giacomo Casanova."
While his actual birthplace may be disputed, this street is perhaps still the most important in Casanova’s Venice.
In 1728, on returning from two years acting in London, it is believed Gaetano and Zanetta Casanova bought the house at number 3082 (on your left), reuniting a three year old Giacomo with the family, which now included his one year old brother Francesco (who was born in London and whose real father is rumoured to have been King George II). He would be joined by a further brother and two sisters whilst living here.
It is believed that Casanova lived here from 1728, as a three year old child until the age of eight, when his 36 year old father died in the property from a tumor caused by the wrong medicine being prescribed for an ear infection.
A popular actor with Venetian nobility, Gaetano was visited by many of the powerful families whilst on his death bed and passed responsibility of his young family to the influential theatre owner, Michele Grimani, whom it is suspected was Giacomo's real father.
“Two days before his passing, he summoned us all around his bed, along with his wife and the Signori Grimani, Venetian nobles, whom he engaged to be our protectors.”
Giacomo’s mother, Zanetta Farussi, an actress at the Teatro San Samuele on the end of the street, rented the home out whilst she travelled across Europe with the theatre, leaving the young Casanova in the care of his grandmother at her home on Calle De La Muneghe.
Following his studies in Padua, Casanova would return to his family home on Calle de la Comedia in 1739, aged 14, living here with his brother Francesco until the age of 18 (in 1743).
“I was placed in excellent lodgings with my brother Francesco, who had been enrolled to study theatrical architecture. My sister and younger brother lived with my grandmother in a house that belonged to her and in which she wanted to die, since her husband had died there. The house I lived in, large and very well-furnished, was the same in which I had lost my father, the rent for which my mother continued to pay.”
The house had a beautiful entrance and a large ballroom, in which a 17 year old Casanova would host a party in 1742 for the 19 year old Giulietta Preati, a beautiful famous opera singer and mistress to Marco Muazzo, a rich Venetian nobleman. It was at this party that the two would swap make-up and clothes in Casanova's third floor bedroom, for one round of dances. She would hit him over the ear in disgust at his sexual advances as they got changed. His womanising ways obviously not being perfected by this point.
Following his grandmother's death, and with his own mother now living an actor's life in Poland, Casanova was evicted from his childhood home when the Grimanis sold his family estate. Casanova managed to sell all the furniture and fittings, pocketing the profits for himself and selfishly disregarding his younger siblings, before being sent to the priesthood on the island of Murano in March 1743.