CASANOVA RETURNS TO FRANCE
The Bibliothèque Nationale de France has acquired the manuscript of 18th-century Venetian libertine Giacomo Casanova’s Histoire de ma Vie. An anonymous “financial company” paid €7 million to acquire it for the library. Casanova, who once hobnobbed with Madame de Pompadour and Rousseau in France, wrote his memoirs in French, and the manuscript, the only one known to survive, is his edited version, prepared for publication.