Through the childhood and the adolescence of Giacomo Casanova (from his memoirs), this is a description of how people live in the Venice of the 18th century: customs, habits, medecine, religion and most of all - the omnipresence of hypocrisy. It tells of the youth of Casanova, that, after an unhappy childhood and early ecclesiastical activity in Venice, became abbot, abandoned his vocation for the love of a countess; despite the plot, more than a portrait of Casanova the film wants to be a vivid fresco of the Venetian society of the time