2 - Calle de la Muneghe
Calle de la Muneghe 2993 - Casanova's Birthplace & Grandmother's House
After visiting Fondamenta De Le Scuole, the site of the Teatro San Samuele, continue on to the very end of the street, turning right on to Calle Del Orbi and then head to the end of this road, turning right at the end. Take the first street on your right, Sotoportego Calle De E Muneghe, which is where academics believe - with some certainty - that Casanova was born here (and not, as previously claimed, on Calle de la Comedia) on Easter Monday, 2nd April 1725.
The address, Calle de le Muneghe 2993, is where - again academics have recently corrected - that his grandmother, Marzia Farussi, lived following the death of her husband in the same premises, who Casanova writes "died of a broken heart" when his daughter, Zanetta, Casanova's mother, became an actress.
The building belonged to the Procuratie di San Marco and housed six poor families, including the widowed Marzia together, it is believed, with her 17 year old daughter and new 27 year old son-in-law, who probably lived here during their first year of marriage in 1724 until they departed for theatre work in London during 1726, leaving the one year old Giacomo to be raised by his grandmother in this house.
“My mother left me in the care of her own mother, who had forgiven her as soon as she learned that my father had promised never to force her to appear on stage. It is the sort of promise all actors make to middle-class daughters they marry, promises they never keep because their wives never bother to hold them to their word.”
When his parents returned to Venice in 1728, the three year old Casanova was reunited with them at the new family house around the corner on Calle de la Comedia, where he was brought up until his father's premature death in 1733, when he was just eight years of age.
With his widowed mother pursuing an acting career abroad, he moved back in to the care of his grandmother on Calle de le Muneghe, together with his four younger brothers and sisters, before his mother sent him to boarding school in Padua, a year later in 1734, where he was to live with Doctor Gozzi, a 26 year old priest.
“I was kissed goodbye, ordered always to obey her, and left there. Thus my family rid of me.”
As a 17 year old, Casanova would later nurse his beloved grandmother in ill health until her death on 18th March 1743 in the same Calle de le Muneghe home in which her husband had died.
Walking down the street, you will find the pretty Corte De La Muneghe on the left, long presumed to be the home of Casanova's grandmother, at number 2979, until recent studies disproved that idea.