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Abstract. Trying to discover the "secret" of Casanova is not new; there have been many attempts to pursue this quest. What could be novel, the author hopes, is the answer provided by this essay to the eternal question: of what exactly did Giacomo Casanova's seductive qualities consist? Let us risk this answer: his philosophy.
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WHAT MAKES CASANOVA THE prototype of the seducer? This is the question that many have tried to answer, such as Hermann Kesten, in his study dedicated to this character, whose name has become a common proper noun in almost all European languages. Was the incredible force of Casanova's seduction made possible by a certain technique or, better, an art with rules that everyone can master? As he says in The Story of My Life, "The chief business of my life has always been to indulge my senses." Is it possible that this was the nucleus that radiated such a mysterious force? Did he discover something extraordinary, Kesten asked, that escaped the knowledge of the rest of the people?1 Yes, indeed, Giacomo Casanova discovered something out of the ordinary that he practiced by instinct, rather than constructing a theory about it, leaving that for the Romantics. In the famous letter "To Dorothea," Friedrich Schlegel maintained a bold thesis: "philosophy is indispensable to women,"2 being an elixir of eternal youth.3 "Wouldn't it be better to deal with it, as they do in reality, in a natural way, for example as Molière's gentleman deals with prose? Namely just through the collation with oneself and the friends that want the same thing."4
Casanova knew better than anybody, or rather guessed, that women have a profound need for philosophy, and through that he became the conqueror par excellence. For the Romantics the feminine nature had a totally different meaning. Even the most systematic of all the Romantic philosophers, Friedrich Schleiermacher, expresses his inclination toward the feminine nature, because there is something profound in his soul that most men rarely understand.5 Another philosopher gives us, the readers, the following confession: "The first of my wants, the greatest, strongest, and most insatiable, was wholly in my heart; the want of an intimate connection, and as intimate as it could possibly be: for this reason especially, a...