So infamous a womanizer was the Italian-born libertine Giacomo Casanova
that, a full two centuries after his death, his name remains synonymous
with the art of seduction. But if not for the years he spent in the employ
of Count Waldstein of Bohemia as a librarian, Casanova, "the world's
greatest lover"—-a one-time consort of European royalty, popes and
cardinals, and man known to the likes of Voltaire, Goethe and Mozart-—may
have been consigned to obscurity. As it was, he barely found the peace to
write his memoirs.