Before becoming Mozart’s celebrated librettist, Lorenzo Da Ponte spent some of the most formative years of his intellectual life in Venice.
The city offered a vibrant cultural scene: some of Europe’s most prestigious theatres, literary salons, intellectual discussions, and an atmosphere of lively exchange of ideas.
In this environment, Da Ponte refined his taste for poetry and theatre, as well as his keen observation of human nature, qualities that would shape his future career.
According to his memoirs, Da Ponte found in Pietro Zaguri a patron and an important intellectual mentor.
Zaguri welcomed him into his home not only as a secretary but also as a promising young intellectual, providing him with an environment in which he could read, engage in discussions and broaden his knowledge.
Indeed, Zaguri’s home was a meeting place for educated patricians, writers and men of the theatre — a place where ideas flowed freely.
Da Ponte recounts that, for a time, he was Zaguri’s “fellow student”: a description that reveals a close intellectual relationship, characterised by exchanges, discussions and a shared passion for poetry and literature.
Zaguri, who was passionate about theatre and writing, found in Da Ponte a kindred spirit: a young man capable of absorbing and reinterpreting the culture of his time.
It was precisely in 1777, at Zaguri’s residence, that Da Ponte met Giacomo Casanova.
The Venetian adventurer, who had recently returned to the city, was a frequent visitor to the palace and took part in the conversations that enlivened Zaguri’s evenings.
The meeting between the two — so different in character and destiny — marked a significant moment in Venetian cultural life: a young aspiring man of letters, a cultured patrician and a man who had led an extraordinary life, brought together for a time under the same roof.
Despite the promising beginning, the relationship between Da Ponte and Zaguri did not last indefinitely.
The young librettist, endowed with a restless spirit and a lively love life, came into conflict with the patrician, who ended up driving him away from his home.
Although a relatively minor episode in their biographies, it reveals Zaguri’s sensitive nature, his openness to friendship but also his susceptibility to disappointment, as well as Da Ponte’s restless and unpredictable character.
The brief period spent together by Da Ponte, Zaguri and Casanova reveals the richness of Venice’s intellectual scene in the 1770s.
These were years in which art, politics, literature and social life were closely intertwined, creating opportunities for intellectual exchange and creativity.
Within this network of encounters and personal relationships, Da Ponte developed his talents, Zaguri deepened his intellectual interests, and Casanova’s remarkable personality continued to leave its mark.
Would you like to discover the palace where Casanova actually lived? Visit the Permanent Museum dedicated to Giacomo Casanova at Palazzo Zaguri.
