Say the name, and the mind boggles: Pope Casanova. Yet if history had taken a
different turn, a trainee priest named Giacomo Casanova could well have
risen to wear the mantle of the most senior spiritual leader on earth.
That is how history’s greatest libertine first made it to Rome: as a young
curate with his sights set on the Holy See. (He was nothing if not
ambitious, was Casanova.) Had he stayed the course, what parties there might
have been at the Vatican... but the world would lack his History of My Life,
detailing everything – and everyone – he did after he abandoned the church.
Today, Rome remains both a very sexy city and a profoundly churchly one: think
of Anita Ekberg cavorting in the Trevi fountain, and all that baroque
architecture, with its marriage of the sublime and the earthy, its orgiastic
saints and its dimpled cherubs.
As a guide to this sexy-sacred Rome, you could do a lot worse than the
aspiring priest Giacomo Casanova, the original sinner himself. His tales of
Rome are a frothy broth of Catholicism, romance, gossip and coffee – which
more or less reflects how things have stayed.
When the 19-year-old Casanova moved to Rome in 1745, as secretary to the
pontiff’s right-hand man, Cardinal Acquaviva, his boss was described as “the
only man in Rome more powerful than the Pope”. Acquaviva lived in the
Palazzo di Spagna, at the bottom of the Spanish Steps. It was, and still is,
quite an address.
Casanova had an apartment on the fourth floor; today, it is the Spanish
embassy. For a boy from the backstreets of Venice, it was an exciting step
into the purpled corridors of power. Snoop around the area and you can still
see traces of what was once a sovereign possession of Spain, outside the
jurisdiction of the Roman or papal authorities.
“RCDS” is cut into pavements and walls – Regia Corte di Spagna, marking the
border of Spanish diplomatic immunity. This is why Casanova, working for a
Spanish cardinal, thought he would be able to get away with less than
priestly behaviour. He was wrong.
Immediately, he began frequenting the fashionable coffee houses on the “Strada
Condotto”, now Via Condotti, and one of these still exists: Caffe Greco.
Rome’s oldest cafe, it maintains much of its 18th-century decor, along with
the coffee-and-nicotine patina from 250 years devoted to some favourite
Roman pursuits: gossip, theology and looking cool.
Not many young priests seem to hang out at Caffe Greco now – prices have moved
on, and there’s more Campari than coffee on offer – but it’s worth braving
the crowds of shoppers for an authentic experience of old Rome.
Elsewhere, the spirit of religious pomp that attracted Casanova to a career in
Rome survives. On my first weekend there, I happened on three sublime
moments in churches. First, the scattering of rose petals from the oculus of
the Pantheon. (This happens only at Pentecost.)
Second, a Mass at San Giovanni dei Fiorentina that featured exquisite music on
its original baroque organ, with the odd howl from an unexpected part of the
congregation – this is one of the Roman churches that still allows dogs at
Mass, just as in Casanova’s day. And third, a heart-stoppingly beautiful
concert rehearsal of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater at Santa Maria sopra Minerva.
The city seems to offer these dramatic reminders of the divine in our midst
every few paces. As Casanova himself observed, if you are undecided about
God, in Rome it makes sense to give in to the idea, at least for a while.
The Minerva district, around the Pantheon, was well known to young Father
Casanova, because, on the coach to Rome, he had met a woman from that part
of town. This is where it all started unravelling for our aspiring pope.
Anna Maria Monti changed his path in life for ever – and Casanova insisted
that on this and several subsequent occasions he was less the seducer than
the willingly seduced. Some women, apparently, have a thing about clergymen.
This is borne out today by an unusual bestseller for the Vatican – a calendar
of hunky young priests, many of whom look more set on Casanova’s career than
the one for which they have been photographed.
Casanova and Anna Maria went on a jaunt together to Frascati – a delightful
short trip out of Rome. Famous for its crisp white wines, the town boasts
heavenly views, and several spectacular villas stand testament to the
immense power of the church in Casanova’s time. Acquaviva owned one himself,
the Grazioli, now a world-class boutique hotel, its restaurant named after
him.
For me, though, the most spectacular Frascati gardens are at the Villa
Aldobrandini, where Anna Maria finally got her man. They were open to the
public in 1745, just like today, and remain intensely romantic.
They luxuriate over an entire hillside, offering views to the horizon, but
also unexpected pockets of privacy and many surprises: gargoyles and masks
cut into the rock face, cascades and follies and topiary, and (as Casanova
recalled) turf “banquettes”, perfect for what turned into a marathon
alfresco defrocking session.
But someone had seen them. Thus began Casanova’s gradual expulsion from Rome
and from the clergy. The city, he was told, “is small, and the longer you
stay here, the smaller it gets”. Over dinner, drinks, at the theatre or at
Mass, gossip was Rome’s main trade – and so it remains. Just as Casanova’s
sins set tongues wagging, so the arrival of an English writer, daring to
write about Casanova, opens unexpected doors for me.
One of them, at the Caccia Club, is perhaps the most exclusively aristocratic
door in the city. I am taken there by Prince Oddone Colonna, whose ancestry
stretches right back to Julius Caesar. We are to dine in Rome’s most elite
club, its premises in the piano nobile of the Palazzo Borghese, lined with
priceless antiques and signed photographs of the royals of Europe.
If I pass this test, I’ll be introduced to a Monsignor whose family owns one
of the Venetian palazzos where Casanova lived. This is how things work in
Italy, I am told.
We dine among liveried servants, 50ft under the frescoed ceiling of Pauline
Borghese’s ballroom. I pass muster and get invited to a more churchly dinner
the following Sunday. This is to be at the Bolognese, on Piazza del Popolo:
a favourite of Tom Cruise and (on Sundays) cardinals.
It serves classically Italian food, including 18th-century favourites such as
boiled meats with candied mustard fruits, and sorbets stuffed into walnut
shells. A real taste of la dolce vita as lived by Rome’s more worldly
clergy. I duly win an invitation to the Bragadin palazzo on my return to
Venice.
Anna Maria knew Casanova would not be staying long in Rome, either. This may
be why she chose to seduce the all-too-willing seminarian in the first
place: she wanted a child and her husband was impotent. So while Casanova’s
Roman holiday left him devoid of a career, it left Anna Maria with a
daughter – not to mention some unusually picturesque memories of Frascati.
“To fit in in Rome,” Casanova later wrote, “one must be a chameleon...
insinuating, a great dissimulator, often base, ostensibly sincere, always
pretending,” which makes him sound quite scarred by his expulsion from the
church. In truth, I think the cynicism he learnt in Rome stood him in good
stead, as did his lessons in the art of lovemaking from an older woman in
Aldobrandini’s heavenly gardens.
He remained forever attached to Catholicism, however, in particular that
strand of Roman worldliness that knows the divine and corporeal are often
bedfellows. “If a man is so unfortunate as not to have religion and loathes
pretence,” he wrote, “he should leave Rome and seek his fortune in London.”
Which is precisely what he did.
— Ian Kelly travelled as a guest of Italian Journeys and the Hotel
Bernini Bristol
— Starting on Monday, June 24, Ian Kelly’s Casanova (Hodder £20) is Radio
4’s Book of the Week. To buy a copy for the reduced price of £18, including p&p
in the UK, call The Sunday Times BooksFirst on 0870 165 8585
Travel brief
Getting there: airlines flying to Rome include British Airways (0844
493 0787, www.ba.com), Jet2 (0871 226 1737, www.jet2.com),
Ryanair (www.ryanair.com) and Aer
Lingus (0870 876 5000, www.aerlingus.com).
Where to stay: in Rome, the Hotel Bernini Bristol (00 39-06 488931, www.sinahotels.com)
has a roof garden and lots of marble, with doubles from £252. More modest is
the Hotel Campo de’ Fiori (06 6880 6865, www.hotelcampodefiori.com),
where doubles start at £95. In Frascati, Villa Grazioli (06 945 4001, www.villagrazioli.com)
has doubles from £166.
Casanova spots: Caffe Greco is at 86 Via Condotti (06 679 1700). Villa
Aldobrandini is open to the public on request; tickets (£2.50) are available
at the Frascati tourist office. Meals at the Bolognese restaurant (1-2
Piazza del Popolo; 06 361 1426; closed Mondays) cost about £40 a head. There
are great outside tables, but these need to be booked.
Packages: Italian Journeys (020 7373 8058, www.italianjourneys.com)
has three nights, B&B, at the four-star Hotel Piranesi, near the Spanish
Steps, from £459pp, including flights from London and private transfers. Or
try Kirker (020 7593 2288, www.kirkerholidays.com)
or Citalia (0871 200 2004, www.citalia.com).
Note to Su.
What do you think the big palazzo like building is that you can see about ten degrees to your left when you are standing at the bottom of the Spanish Steps, festooned in red and yellow flags? The offices are up the river.
Marius, Sansepolcro, Italy
Note to Mr Kelly: the Spanish Embassy is nowhere near the Spanish Steps - it is on the other side of the river up above Trastevere.
Regards,
Su
Suzan Smith, Harrogate, UK
"They're spoonfeeding Casanova
To get him to feel more assured
Then they'll kill him with self-confidence
After poisoning him with words"
And when I say Dylan, I don't mean Dylan Thomas.
Andrew Milner, Karuizawa, Japan