Veronica Franco

Veronica Franco (Venice, 1546-1591) was a poet and cortigiana onesta, a socially prominent courtesan, in Renaissance Venice. She wrote in Italian in a city where women rarely published, and her case shows how a woman could combine literary culture with a profession that carried a heavy stigma.

She came from a middle-class family of citizens. Her mother, Paola Fracassa, had been a courtesan before marrying, and later brought Veronica into the trade in its most refined form. Around 1563 Veronica married the physician Paolo Panizza, a man fond of gambling and drink. In 1564, while pregnant, she reclaimed her dowry and separated from him.

Her success was considerable. She was listed among Venice's most distinguished courtesans in a catalogue published around 1565, and she counted senators, cardinals and scholars among her clients. She is also said to have had a brief relationship with King Henry III of France. She published Terze rime in 1575, with the support of the poet Domenico Venier, and Lettere familiari a diversi in 1580, which she edited herself. Her letters, addressed to figures of the day, are now a valuable source on everyday Venetian life.

Hard times came with the plague of 1575, which forced her to leave the city and cost her much of her property. In 1577 she was accused of witchcraft before the Inquisition, a charge often brought against courtesans. She was acquitted, probably thanks to her ties with the nobility. Her later life becomes obscure: she lost much of her wealth and, when her last major patron died, had no financial support. She is believed to have died in relative poverty in the parish of San Moisè around 1591.

Her legacy lies in her defence of women and their right to speak in public, at a time when they were expected to stay silent. Scholars now read her as an example of the tension between the private world of women and the public world of men. Her life inspired Margaret F. Rosenthal's book The Honest Courtesan (1992) and the film Dangerous Beauty (1998).