A Venetian courtesan is a romantic, intriguing figure that continues to inspire artists from centuries ago on.

A courtesan is a beautiful woman balancing between the abyss and the throne, she is the child of malice and the incarnation of intelligence and talent, loved by everyone and needed by none, today she is shining on the top notch of society and tomorrow she is dying from syphilis at city hospital. These women lived in a beautiful and hard epoch that persecuted them, but couldn’t do without them and abetted their labor.

To understand who was called courtesans in Venice it is enough to read the republic’s official document issued in 1542. It underlines that “any single woman who has intimate connection with one or more men and also any married woman who does not live with her husband but separately and who has intimate connection with one or more men is considered a prostitute”.

In the middle of 16th century the number of such women amounted to 10 % of the general number of Venice’s inhabitance. Some Venetian, having come back to his native city after a long living abroad, pronounced in astonishment: “Venice has turned into a real bordello!”

The great city on the water was always notable for independence and easier manners. Even inquisitors, chosen by the Senate, tried to rather pacify than to incite the strictness of Roman Catholic Church dignitaries, that is why life of courtesans in Venice was much more peaceful than in other cities of Europe.

That didn’t mean that Venetian lords paid no attention to public morality, but they tried to keep control of this phenomenon, not abusing the given power and not equaling courtesans to the general evil and malice. And though the prostitutes were often forced to resort artifices and evasions, lagoon in its entirety bore the atmosphere of tolerance.

It was obvious for Venice’s authorities that courtesans are capable of doing a lot of good to the city. At the end of the 15th – the beginning of the 16th century an uncommon edict was issued: it prescribed that prostitutes who lived in special quarters had to sit at the windows with their legs outside and their breasts naked to be more attractive to men thus keeping them out of homosexual connections.

A document that is preserved till our days corroborates the fact that in Venetian Republic of the 15th-16th centuries Venice witnessed far too wide a contagion of homosexualism especially in intellectual and religious circles. Besides, prostitution was always a profitable type of business. Courtesans got payment from foreign travelers and put the funds into local banks in favour of the city’s economy.

Courtesans were divided into two main categories. The first one consisted of the so-called “honest” courtesans - cortigiane “oneste”. Their honesty had nothing to do with chastity but meant bourgeois way of life, culture and good manners. Honest courtesans lived on the allowance of one or several rich protectors, men of high society, as a rule. They possessed definite independence and freedom of travel, were taught rules of decent conduct, could make conversations, and sometimes they possessed high culture and literature talent.

To the second, a less fortunate category, belonged courtesans of lower classes. Some of them, for one reason or another, couldn’t become “honest” courtesans, others, having once been bestowed with the high destiny, then fell down in the underworld…

Thanks to splendid gifts of their protectors, honest courtesans became proprietors of real estate, lounged in luxury, as the most refined princesses they arranged daily entertainments. The courtesans’ occupation was so profitable that some mothers were ready to spend a lot of money on their daughters’ education hoping to sea their child in ward of some grand seigneur. Of course, not all the “honest” courtesans possessed such palaces but many of them had good and warm houses.

Honest courtesans spent much time on care for their body– in this they were not at all different from ladies of high society. Some writers of the Renaissance epoch stated that the Venetian qedeshas were even better-groomed and kempt than women of decent society. Clothes of “honest” courtesans were at times so much similar to that of the great ladies that it was often hard to distinguish by eye, who was who.

Some English traveler, passing by Venice, described women seen in the city in such a manner: “Light hairs of Venetian ladies are dressed in thick plaits that make a kind of horns not carried by anything over the head; from the back side a black veiling falls down on the shoulders covering neither hair, nor shoulders, nor breasts that are naked nearly to the belly. The women seem to be taller than the men as they wear shoes with very high platforms (50 cm), that is why two servants go along with the mistress: one for the lady to lean on and the other to carry the mistress’ dress’ tail. Young and elderly ladies move with a totter showing their naked breasts to everyone on their way”.

Courtesans of the inferior rank didn’t of course wear such expensive clothes but nevertheless they used silk fabrics, gold bracelets, silver chains and gauzy silk stockings.

The enduring working day of courtesans started with their going for a walk accompanied by amateurs that, trying to foresee their wishes, presented innumerable gifts to the beauties.

It might happen that courtesans, along with the same retinue, called on a church causing negative voices of the community and the authorities. When in a church, they continued their pleasures spooning and tittering with the admirers, shouting out impurities and exercising inappropriate gestures as if they were not in a church but at a bally show.

The amusement went on in courtesans’ houses some of which turned to popular worldly salons, where the city’s elite gathered. Salons of such famous courtesans as Imperia, Madrema-non-vuole, Tullia, d’Aragona, Gaspara Stampa and Veronica Franco whose portrait you can see on the right, were attended by renowned artist, poets, members of local authority and foreign noblemen. Except for important guests, who a courtesan admitted to a special boudoir, all the rest were invited to a general salon. To cause the amateurs’ jealousy the mistress of the house would infrequently retrocede for some time with one of the guests to her bedroom.

The highest salons would make conversations about literature, poetry and arts. Imperia read books in Latin and compose verses. Madrema-non-vuole was so ingenious in the art of communication that she was compared to Cicerone, she knew all Petrarca and Boccaccio and a lot of Latin verses by heart. Gaspara Stampa and Veronica Franco were considered talented poetesses by Venetian society. Visitors of such salons left mentions of courtesans in their literature works.

In those days there were all in all quite few social public entertainments, and those were usually carnival or religious cavalcades, or sometimes celebrations in honor of some high-ranked guests. That is why young and educated people weren’t too much eager to spend wistful evenings en famille with wives that had simply no skill in talk. They were lured to the courtesans’ society, where they could have fun and a good conversation.

Nevertheless, the life of courtesans was not always that serene. One of the most dangerous venereal diseases of those days was syphilis. Its first victims were courtesans, and they were the main spreaders of it. In distinction from the rich and respected diseased that could resort to curing by famous doctors or simply leave the high society and hide from peoples glances in their luxurious palaces, prostitutes were sentenced to hardest physical and moral anguish. The sickened courtesans became fully excluded from social life, they would be fated to losing all the clients and full desolation. Before decaying to such a condition, courtesans would try to somehow conceal their disease to continue the profitable craft. Not having any possibility to seek help from doctors, they oftentimes resorted to help of various charlatans, who offered “charmlike” cures for the disease. And though in 1530 the disease went on the down grade, many courtesans would still suffer torments and sorrow, cheated by charlatans and forgotten by their lovers.