Licentiousness

In his book dedicated to the legend of Don Juan, Georges Gendarme de Bevotte presents and studies each of the writings on the myth, from its Spanish origin up to the Romantic period. He speaks of the Italian Don Juan of the 17th century, in these words :
( …) the Italian Don Juan is instinctive and selfish. (…) with him, the feelings of honour, charity, and mercy, never fight against the tyranny of desires. This overwhelming power of instinct rests on selfishness: only his pleasure, only his impulses have any value.
He has removed from his life his duties towards humanity, estimating that man's only duty is to obey his nature and to assure his own self a limitless development.
   
Pic de La Mirandole
In fact, the Italian Don Juan is first of all the worthy heir to the spirit of the Renaissance that studied antiquity, a period during which men “ had nature for their guide ”. The Italian humanist of the 15th and 16th centuries looked at the past in a new light, distanced himself from faith as taught in the Middle Ages and developed a freedom and individualism that compelled him to act when he discovered the intrinsic greatness of man. Pic de La Mirandole wrote at the time :
He (God) took man, this work of indefinite type, and having placed him at the centre of the world, spoke to him thus: Oh, Adam, we did not give you a determined place, nor a defined physiognomy, nor any particular gift, so that the place, the physiognomy, the gifts that you yourself would have wished, you can have and possess according to your desires and according to your will.
   

If the world became thus changeable according to man's will, why should the very character of Don Juan have been submitted to divine laws? Why should he not feel the equal of the divinities and capable of mastering his surroundings ?
It is in this precise manner that Don Giovanni expresses himself when his valet Coviello mentions the judgment of the Heavens in the Convitato di Pietra (Act II - Scene 3) by Preudarca :

Coviello :
(…) Beware, because the Heavens regard us.

Don Giovanni :
But what do you know about the Heavens you fool? The Heavens are but a construct of matter, just like us !
The Heavens have much deficiency to correct (…) I would like to hear their complaints, I would like them to tell me why I offend !
Did you ever hear them complain, or see them indignant to throw my mistakes back at my head ?
That they would mind their own business: have they nothing better to do than to think about me ?
If they want at all price to correct something, that they first correct their own imperfections !
The Heavens and the Gods are only chimerical beings created by deadly simpletons. (…)
These Heavens are nothing else but a creature like myself and I must not fear them, because one doesn't fear one's own self.

This declaration contains identical terms to those of Apuleius, whom the intellectuals of the 16th century rediscovered with great appetite :
Man is a great miracle, because he tames the earth, challenges the elements, knows the demons, mingles with the spirits, transforms all and sculpts divine pictures. He is an admirable being, worthy of esteem and respect, who assumes the nature of a god as if he was himself a god.

Giordano Bruno
   
Giordano Bruno

But the Italian Don Juan is not only a man influenced by the ideas of the Renaissance. He also belongs to his century, during which this humanist freedom found other expressions, closer to rebellion. In the meantime, the Council of Trent and the Counter Reformation,
with the entire religious impedimenta imposed by the Catholic church of Rome, created a climate of uneasiness and bewilderment.
From the end of the16th century, Italy numbers many atypical and singular characters who question the foundations of Christianity. In this way scientists and philosophers examine the Copernican theories, and develop a scepticism that worries the church but which seduces libertines and adventurers.
It is the case of the philosopher Giordano Bruno for whom God ceases to be the creator of the universe to become the soul of the world that infuses all things and therefore nature herself.
Or of Tommaso Campanella for whom : Nature is the only reality, and only the senses and experience can open the doors of the mystery.
   
It is not then astonishing that Gendarme de Bevotte should finish the portrait of the Italian Don Juan in these words : Thus, he assured the triumph of the senses over reason; of the individual over society. In the end, there is nothing else in the immorality of the Italian Don Juan. It is this mood that will finally prevail in the later works and notably in Molière, but it is necessary to note that he was created in Italy.