Вероника Франко: поэт, куртизанка и голос эпохи Возрождения

Italian poet and courtesan

Veronica Franco (1546–1591) was an Italian poet and courtesan in 16th century Venice. She is known for her notable clientele, feminist advocacy, literary contributions, and philanthropy. Her humanist education and cultural contributions influenced the roles of Courtesans in the late Venetian Renaissance. In her notable works, Capitoli in Terze rime and Lettere familiari a diversi ("Familiar Letters to Various People"), Franco uses perceived virtue, reason, and fairness to advise male patricians and other associates. She exercised greater autonomy in her authorship than any other traditional Venetian woman due to her established reputation and influence.

Veronica Franco was born to a family in the Cittadino class. She developed her position in Renaissance Venetian society as a cortigiana onesta (Honest Courtesan), who were intellectual sex workers who derived their position in society from refinement and cultural prowess. They served in contrast to other sex workers such as cortigiana di lume or meretrice ('harlots'), who were lower class prostitutes. Franco received a respectable humanistic education at a young age from her brother's tutor, an unusual opportunity for Venetian women. She continued her education by mixing with learned men, writers, and painters. Franco learned additional skills from her mother, Paola Fracassa, who had an interest in finding suitable clients for her, as well as marrying her off. While still in her teens, Franco was briefly married to a mature, wealthy physician named Paolo Panizza. She supported her children along with a household of tutors and servants for most of her life. In 1565, when she was about 20 years old, Veronica Franco was listed in the Catalogo de tutte le principal et più honorate cortigiane di Venetia (Catalog of all the Principal and most Honored Courtesans of Venice), which gave the names, addresses, and fees of Venice's most prominent prostitutes; her mother was listed as the person to whom the fee should be paid (her "go between"). From extant records, we know that, by the time she was 18, Franco had been briefly married and had given birth to her first child; she would eventually have six children, three of whom died in infancy. As one of the più honorate cortigiane in a wealthy and cosmopolitan city, Franco lived well for much of her working life, but without the automatic protection accorded to "respectable" women, she had to make her own way. She studied and sought patrons among the learned. In 1575, during the epidemic of plague that ravaged the city, Franco was forced to leave Venice and lost much of her wealth when her house and possessions were looted. The embodiment of her role in the public realm was made evermore tangible, amongst the literary circles and the Venetian public during her polemic literary battle with Maffio Venier. The poem referenced above Capitolo 16, A Challenge To A Poet Who Has Defamed Her – is believed to have been one of the many directed to Maffio Venier. These poems are Capitolo XIII, XVI, and XXIII of her literary publication, Terze Rime.

In the 1974 film "Sex Through the Ages" (originally titled "On the Game"), Louise Pajo played the part of Veronica Franca, a 16th century Venetian prostitute. In the film she appears in two scenes. One in which she seduces the homosexual King of France, Henry III; and another in which she is a sufferer of syphilis. Franco's life was recorded in the 1992 book The Honest Courtesan, by US author Margaret F. Rosenthal. Catherine McCormack portrayed Veronica Franco in the 1998 movie Dangerous Beauty, released as A Destiny of Her Own in some countries, based on Rosenthal's book. In the 2000s Franco prompted scholarly inquiries on "what it meant to be a public woman in Cinquecento Venice". This directly pertained to her duality of both a courtesan and a published poet. Franco is referenced to have been a "living performance of public art—a renowned courtesan whose body was available to a certain exclusive clientele, a published author, and a public presence." In 2013, her work was interpreted as adopting "a position of public authority that calls attention to her education, her rhetorical skill, and the solidarity she feels with women." She embodied in writing a duality, toggling between and addressing both private and public life matters. Her publications have allowed her work and proto feminist efforts to transcend time.