Hey, you think you know Casanova. Charming guy, ridiculous number of dates, probably wore a lot of velvet, sure.

But here's what nobody tells you. The man was also a mathematician, a spy, a prison escape artist,

and somehow ended up helping invent the French National Lottery. So maybe we don't know Casanova at all.

Drop a comment right now. Where are you watching from?

What time is it?

I genuinely want to know who's here for this,

because tonight we're not talking about the myth,

the winking cartoon character they named Cheap Cologne after.

We're talking about the real Giacomo Casanova,

a kid who grew up with nothing,

figured out how power actually works, and spent

60 years running circles around kings, cardinals, and everyone in between. Venice, Paris, London,

Warsaw. The man was basically a one-person international incident, so get comfortable. This story has

seduction, yes, but also betrayal, a daring prison break, a near-suicide on a London bridge,

and one of the most fascinating minds of the 18th century quietly going to pieces in a cold bohemian castle.

Ready? Let's go.

Let's start with a city.

Not just any city, a city that had absolutely no business

existing in the first place. Venice sits in the middle of a lagoon, balanced on millions of

wooden stakes hammered into the muddy floor of the Adriatic Sea, and somehow, against every

reasonable expectation of physics and common sense, it has been standing for over

a thousand. Years. Which, if you think about it, already tells you something important about

...