"Casanova a Costantinopoli tra musica e cultura ottomana"

To mark the 300th anniversary of the birth of Giacomo Casanova (1725 –1798), the Giorgio Cini Foundation participated in the city's celebrations with a major exhibition entitled 'Casanova, Venice and Europe'. The aim of the catalogue of this exhibition is to paint a complex and multidisciplinary portrait of one of the most iconic figures in the history of Venice, who played a leading role in the last century of the Serenissima. In this context, my article examines Casanova's stay in Constantinople and the cultural network that linked Venice and Constantinople. Such a cultural network was not the only one, and my article examines the works of European observers and diplomats who dealt with Ottoman music and on the genral phnomenon of the Turkeries in European Art Music. In particular, I focus then on Venetian diplomats (baili) and scholars who took an interest in Ottoman music, such as Giambattista Donà (1627-1699) and Giambattista Toderini (1728-1799), a Venetian Jesuit abbott, contemporary of Casanova.