Cécile de Roggendorff's Letters to Casanova Published

A collection of letters from Cécile de Roggendorff to Giacomo Casanova has been published. Casanova, then 72 and living in Bohemia at the Castle of Dux as librarian to Count Waldstein, corresponded with the 21-year-old Countess, who was orphaned and poor. She initiated the correspondence after hearing about him from her brother, addressing him as confidant, father, and platonic lover. Only her letters survive, but they reveal Casanova's responses, in which the former libertine, now puritanical, offered moral lessons. Roggendorff wrote that she was "enemy of ordinary men" and that "the most vicious man is worth more than one who knows neither glory, ambition, nor greatness." The two never met. The postface is by Alain Buisine. The same publisher also released Angelo Mainardi's essay "Le Monde secret de Casanova," exploring Casanova's lesser-known roles as a Freemason and alchemist.