Product Description

Veronica Franco was a 16th-century Venetian beauty, poet, and protofeminist. This collection presents the eroticism and eloquence that set her apart from the chaste, silent woman prescribed by Renaissance gender ideology. As 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. Courtesans needed to be beautiful, sophisticated in their dress and manners, and elegant, cultivated conversationalists. Exempt 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. Franco 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. Through Venier's protection and her own determination, Franco published work in which she defended her fellow courtesans, speaking out against their mistreatment by men and criticizing the subordination of women in general. Venier also provided literary counsel when she responded to insulting attacks written by the male Venetian poet Maffio Venier. Franco's insight into the power conflicts between men and women and her awareness of the threat she posed to her male contemporaries make her life and work pertinent today.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #542245 in Books
• Published on: 1999-01-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 326 pages

Customer Reviews

Revealing letters and poetry written by a C16th Venetian courtesan
This is a great series (Other Voices in EM Europe) making non-canonical works and writers available at an accessible price. And this volume is one of my favourites. Veronica Franco was one of the most beautiful and successful of the C16th Venetian courtesans (Dangerous Beauty [DVD] [1998] is a romantic 'version' of her life), but far, far more than a pretty face, she was also intelligent, intellectual and a great writer.

This is the first translation into English of 15 of the 50 letters she published, and all the poetry. Influenced by the classical letter collections (Cicero, Seneca, Pliny) she makes the medium her own, referencing Cicero in the title (ad familiares) and yet setting up a fascinating dialogue with Ovid's 'dual letters' from the Heroides (Heroides: 001 (Loeb Classical Library)).

Her poetry, too, engages with classical models, particularly Latin love elegy (Catullus, Propertius, Tibullus, Ovid) but re-writes it from a woman's view, turning some of the conventions on their head.

Witty, vivid, graceful, Veronica Franco uses her writing to both advertise her intellectual and erotic skills as a courtesan, and yet at the same time ensure that she is the subject of her own sexuality, rather than just a commodity exchanged for male pleasure.

Great poetry, a vivid picture of Renaissance Venice, and a strong personality: this collection is a bargain at the price.