Giacomo Casanova for him, however, he could only roam across Spain, with little to show for it. In Barcelona, he escaped assassination and landed in jail for 6 weeks. His Spanish adventure a failure, he returned to France briefly, then to Italy. In Rome, Casanova had to prepare a way for his return to Venice. While waiting for supporters to gain him legal entry into Venice, Casanova began his modern Tuscan-Italian translation of the "Iliad", his "History of the Troubles in Poland", and a comic play. To ingratiate himself with the Venetian authorities, Casanova did some commercial spying for them. After months
Giacomo Casanova the only relief left to me was not to think of the future." Overcoming his inertia, Casanova set upon another escape plan. He solicited the help of the prisoner in the adjacent cell, Father Balbi, a renegade priest. The spike, carried to the new cell inside the armchair, was passed to the priest in a folio Bible carried under a heaping plate of pasta by the hoodwinked jailer. The priest made a hole in his ceiling, climbed across and made a hole in the ceiling of Casanova's cell. To neutralize his new cellmate, who was a spy, Casanova played on