![]() ![]() This collection presents the eroticism and eloquence that set her apart from the chaste, silent woman prescribed by Renaissance gender ideology.Īs an "honored courtesan", Franco made her living by arranging to have sexual relations, for a high fee, with the elite of Venice and the many travellers - merchants, ambassadors, even kings - who passed through the city.Ĭourtesans needed to be beautiful, sophisticated in their dress and manners, and elegant, cultivated conversationalists.Įxempt from many of the social and educational restrictions placed on women of the Venetian patrician class, Franco used her position to recast "virtue" as "intellectual integrity," offering wit and refinement in return for patronage and a place in public life.įranco became a writer by allying herself with distinguished men at the centre of her city's culture, particularly in the informal meetings of a literary salon at the home of Domenico Venier, the oldest member of a noble family and a former Venetian senator. Veronica Franco was a 16th-century Venetian beauty, poet, and protofeminist. ![]()
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