Giacomo Casanova was one of the most beguiling and controversial individuals of his or any age. Braggart or perfect lover? Conman or genius? He made and lost fortunes, founded two state lotteries, wrote forty-two books, along with plays, philosophical and mathematical treatises, opera libretti, poetry and 3,600 pages of memoirs, whilst recording hundreds of meals - as well, of course, as his affairs and sexual encounters with dozens of women and a handful of men. CASANOVA has a claim to be the father of contemporary sexual psychology as the first modern writer to suggest an understanding of sexuality as key to an understanding of ourselves. Acclaimed BEAU BRUMMELL author Ian Kelly reveals previously unpublished documents from the Venetian Inquisition, by Casanova, and his friends and lovers which give new insights into his life and his world. CASANOVA was a devotee of the Kaballah and credited his success in life and love to caballistic ideals of living in the moment. CASANOVA wrote as much about food as about sex, detailing what he ate, as well as who he slept with, in every major European city in the 18th century.C ASANOVA trained to be a priest, was an accomplished mathematician, collaborated on the libretto for Mozart's opera 'Don Giovanni' and founded state lotteries in France and London. on one of the rare occasions CASANOVA was turned down by a woman, he attempted to commit suicide by jumping off Westminster Bridge, but was dissuaded on the promise of a meal of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding in Covent Garden. This is the story of a man, but also of the book he wrote about himself. His own memoirs have brought him two centuries of notoriety. The world, and the way we look at ourselves in it, would never be the same again.