Story of my life (Giacomo Casanova)

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Title page of an edition from 1910

History of my life (original title: Histoire de ma vie ) is the title of the memoirs of the Italian writer and adventurer Giacomo Casanova (born April 2, 1725 in Venice , † June 4, 1798 at Duchcov Castle (Dux) in Bohemia , today the Czech Republic ) who called himself Chevalier de Seingalt .

The manuscript describes Casanova's life from his birth until 1774 on around 1,800 double pages. Casanova wrote the autobiographical work in French . His memoirs form the “ opus magnum ” of his literary work and have been translated into more than 20 languages ​​from 1822 onwards.

In February 2010 , the Bibliothèque nationale de France acquired the manuscript for around 7.2 million euros.

content

Alleged portrait of Giacomo Casanova, painting by Anton Raphael Mengs, around 1760

The memoirs of Giacomo Casanova primarily caused a sensation because of the erotic adventures described therein. Often they are reduced to just that. Numerous, drastically shortened versions are limited to the erotic parts and bring the memoirs closer to pornography . Other 'cleaned up' edits exclude precisely these passages. The work, however, is part of world literature and is of great cultural and historical value.

The manuscript begins with a description of Casanova's ancestry and his birth in 1725. Through his travels through Switzerland, France, Spain, England, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Poland, the present-day Czech Republic and Russia, he came into contact with important contemporaries from politics, art and science. From the age of sixteen to sixty he was out and about with few breaks.

He met rulers like Frederick the Great and Catherine the Great . He spoke to Popes Benedict XIV and Clement XIII. and had personal contact with the intellectual elite of the 18th century, such as the French enlightener Voltaire , Johann Joachim Winckelmann , Lorenzo da Ponte , Albrecht von Haller , Crébillon and Anton Raphael Mengs .

He devoted an extensive section to the description of his spectacular escape from the lead chambers , a prison in the Doge's Palace of the Republic of Venice . The memoirs break with the return of 49-year-old Casanova to Venice in 1774, after eighteen years of exile.

With detailed descriptions of aristocratic and bourgeois life, on royal courts, in salons , monasteries and brothels, Casanova provides a detailed picture of society in pre-revolutionary Europe. As a cultural and historical testimony, the memories of Giacomo Casanova are not surpassed by other memoirs of the 18th century.

History of the manuscript

Histoire de ma vie, Volume 1, foreword
Histoire de ma vie, Volume 1, Chapter 1, original manuscript Folio 13r

Casanova began writing his memoirs at Dux Castle in 1789/1790 at the age of 64.

In 1794 Casanova met the diplomat and writer Charles Joseph Prince de Ligne . The prince asked Casanova to read the memoirs. Casanova decided to revise the manuscript beforehand. After reading the first three volumes of the manuscript, Ligne suggested giving the manuscript to a publisher in exchange for an annuity for Casanova. In 1797, however, Casanova turned to the royal Saxon cabinet minister, Count Camillo Marcolini, with a request to help him with a publication. However, there was no publication during Casanova's lifetime.

In May 1798, Carlo Angiolini, the husband of a niece of Casanova, traveled from Dresden to Dux to Casanova's deathbed and after his death returned to Dresden with the manuscript. When Angiolini died in 1808, the manuscript came into the possession of his daughter Camilla. In 1813, Camillo Marcolini remembered the manuscript and offered Camilla 2,500 thalers, who refused the offer as too low. When Camilla got into financial hardship after a few years, she had the manuscript sold in 1821 to the Leipzig publisher F. A. Brockhaus , which published a first, abridged edition in German between 1822 and 1828. In response to a pirated print in French, Brockhaus brought out its own French edition. The translator did not return four chapters of the manuscript to the publisher. The material was lost.

The original manuscript was kept in the publishing house in Leipzig until 1943 and then survived the Allied air raids on Leipzig in an air raid shelter . After 1945 and the relocation of the publishing house to Wiesbaden , the work was stored there in a Deutsche Bank vault . The extensive collection of materials on Casanova and the manuscript, which had been created by Brockhaus-Verlag over many decades, including the correspondence with the two editors of Casanova's letters, Gustav Gugitz and Aldo Ravà (1879–1923), remained in Leipzig and was in the until 2010 Holdings 21083 FA Brockhaus, Leipzig, in the Saxon State Archives Leipzig.

In 2010, the Bibliothèque nationale de France acquired the manuscript for over 7 million euros, the library's most expensive acquisition to date. It is believed that the manuscript contains pages that have not yet been viewed or published.

reception

The story of my life has been included in the ZEIT library of 100 books . Manès Sperber wrote the essay on the novel .

Edition history

From 1838 to 1960 all editions of the memoirs were derived from translations by Schütz, Tournachon or Laforgue. The Brockhaus-Plon edition forms the text basis of all important editions since the 1960s:

Schütz translation (1822–1828)

The publisher Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus commissioned the poet and essayist Wilhelm von Schütz to translate the book into German. An abridged translation of the first volume was published as early as 1822. The collaboration between Brockhaus and Schütz lasted until 1824 and the publication of the fifth volume. The other volumes were transferred by an unknown translator.

Tournachon translation (1825–1829)

Due to the success of the German edition, the French publisher Tournachon decided to publish the book in France. Tournachon had no access to the original manuscript and had the German translation translated into French. The text has been greatly shortened.

Laforgue adaptation (1826–1838)

In response to Tournachon's pirated printing, Brockhaus brought out his own French edition, for which Jean Laforgue (1782–1852) revised the original manuscript. Laforgue removed numerous passages with religious and political views of Casanova as well as sexual allusions and added his own text sections. In addition, he did not send four chapters of the manuscript back to the publisher. The French volumes were published from 1826 to 1838 and were added to the Index Librorum Prohibitorum list in 1834 .

The Brockhaus-Plon edition (1960–1962)

In 1960, a collaboration between Brockhaus and the French publisher Plon resulted in the first complete and authentic edition of the text. The content of the four lost chapters was added from the Laforgue version. The German translation by Heinz von Sauter was published by Propylaen Verlag from 1964 to 1967 . It was only given to buyers who proved they were of legal age .

The new edition by Lahouati and Luna (2013-2015)

Following the acquisition of the manuscript by the French state, a new edition in three volumes was published from 2013 to 2015 under the direction of Gérard Lahouati and Marie-Françoise Luna, published by Éditions Gallimard in Paris.

Quotes

  1. ↑ "I wrote in French and not in Italian because the French language is more widely spoken than mine." - Volume 1, preface
  2. ↑ “I did not write these memoirs for the youth; because this must be preserved in ignorance so that it does not fall. ”- Volume 1, Preface

literature

Major expenses

French
  • Histoire de ma vie . 6 double volumes, Brockhaus / Plon. Wiesbaden and Paris 1960–1962.
  • Histoire de ma vie . 3 volumes, Édition établie sous la direction de Gérard Lahouati et Marie-Françoise Luna avec la collaboration de Furio Luccichenti et Helmut Watzlawick, Gallimard (Éditions de la Pléiade), Paris 2013–2015, ISBN 9782070148424 .
German
  • From the memoirs of the Venetian Jacob Casanova de Seingalt, or his life, as he wrote it down at Dux in Bohemia , translated into German by Wilhelm von Schütz, 12 volumes, Brockhaus, Leipzig 1822–1828.
  • Story of my life . Edited and introduced by Erich Loos . Translated into German for the first time after the original version by Heinz von Sauter, 12 volumes, Propylaen, Berlin 1964–1967.

Secondary literature

  • Ansgar Bach: Giacomo Casanova in Dresden. His Dresden affairs and the family . Kopfundwelt, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-9816632-1-1 .
A monograph on the stays in Dresden and the early edition history of the memoirs with a view to the consultants, translators and editors Ludwig Tieck , Wilhelm von Schütz and Jean Laforgue who were living in Dresden at the time .
  • Ansgar Bach: Casanova and Leipzig. His Leipzig affairs and the memoirs . Kopfundwelt, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-9816632-0-4 .
A monograph on the stays in Leipzig and the edition history of the memoirs at Brockhaus.

Web links

Wikiquote: Giacomo Casanova, Memoirs  - Quotes
Wikiquote: Histoire de ma vie (Casanova)  - Quotes (French)
Commons : Histoire de ma vie  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Annemarie Leibbrand-Wettley, Werner Leibbrand (Ed.): Forms of Eros. Cultural and intellectual history of love . Volume 2, Karl Alber, Freiburg and Munich 1972, p. 293, ISBN 3-495-47256-8
  2. ↑ a b Rose-Maria Gropp: Build yourself up on this body of text . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, February 18, 2010, accessed on April 21, 2013.
  3. ↑ Dombrowski, p. 2
  4. ↑ Glaser, p. 161
  5. ↑ From the memoirs of the Venetian Jacob Casanova de Seingalt, or his life, as he wrote it down at Dux in Böhmen, translated into German by Wilhelm von Schütz, Volume 4, Brockhaus, Leipzig 1823, pp. 365-543
  6. ↑ Glaser, p. 163
  7. ↑ Glaser, p. 165
  8. ↑ Rolf Reichardt (Ed.): Handbook of political-social basic concepts in France 1680-1820 . Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1992, p. 36, ISBN 3-486-55913-3
  9. ↑ a b c d e Bertram, pp. 155–157
  10. ↑ Manès Sperber: Casanova's manuscript kept secret for 140 years . In: Die Zeit, No. 38/1979, September 14, 1979
  11. ↑ Bertram, pp. 158-159