Veronica Franco (commonly called, according to the custom of the time, with the female declination of the surname: Franca), she presented herself on the scenes of life with the gift of a rare naturalness. She comes to us in all her beauty depicted in the canvases from Tintoretto: round face, dark eyes and a blond hair braided around the head, wrapped in sumptuous clothes of the period as it was in use during the Renaissance. Note that they were just the women of Venice to influence fashion throughout Europe.
Born 1546 from a family which, although not patrician, could boast of belonging to the Venetian citizenship of the Serenissima. At that time Venice enjoyed magnificence and cultural stimuli from all over the world and was populated by about 150.000 inhabitants: theatres, printing works in calli, campielli in a teeming sociality.
However, in this frame of so intense as to appear unreal splendour, the freedom granted to women was limited and subject to male supremacy. While, married women found a greater guarantee (at least formal) of protection in the legitimacy of theirs status. While the courtesans calls "honor" to distinguish them from prostitutes, they moved between flattery and contempt, acceptance and repudiation.
Veronica, between 1560 and 1562, seemed to embrace the legitimacy of the condition of wife marrying a doctor named Paolo Panizza, but the marriage ended very soon. It was her mother who initiated her into the profession of Honesta Courtesan, which she herself practiced in her youth and despite the rather present competition (the rate of the period was around two scudi per service) she decided to choose to become a Venetian courtesan anyway. (The term courtesan indicates the sixteenth-century equivalent of the Greek hetaera, i.e. a cultured, refined and elegant woman, capable of accompanying herself to noble men, but rewarded for her services, even erotic ones. Not surprisingly, if the ideal gentleman of the courts is quietly called a courtier by Baldassare Castiglione in the homonymous treatise, the lady is instead called "woman of the palace" and not a courtesan, so as to avoid unpleasant misunderstandings.)
Veronica, however, did not easily adapt to her mother's choice but she could not do otherwise. However things were, that career of hers allowed her to become part of a world rich in cultural stimuli, where she will have the opportunity to meet important characters, fundamental to her role as a poet. As Dominic Venier, illustrious poet, soul of the "Ca' Venier" cultural circle, and protector of Veronica, who asks him to review his poems. Veronica becomes famous in Venice not only for her beauty, but also for her artistic talent: she can play, dance and sing, and then there are her "verses". Yes, she is a "writer" (as Dacia Maraini defines her), but she is still a prostitute.
Moved to a palace in Santa Maria Formosa, Veronica Franco made her home a place of culture where she invited musicians, painters and nobles. And where the guests, in addition to enjoying earthly pleasures, were also entertained by readings, music and philosophical discussions.
Veronica had a long list of Venetian but also foreign lovers who bore her no less than six children
The same Henry of Valois, next king of France, was among her lovers in sumptuous Venice. Veronica, for this occasion, gave the sovereign an enamel miniature that portrayed her and two sonnets written by her, thus consecrating her among the most desirable courtesans in Europe.
In the sixteenth century homosexual relationships were quite in vogue in the lagoon city and therefore to try to combat this tendency, prostitutes became a sort of incentive to "distract men from sinning against nature". In this regard, the Serenissima instituted the hanging of those who practiced sodomy, which was done in Piazza di San Marco, and then the burned bodies. But the prostitution of women also became a source of unparalleled wealth for the Republic, which regulated and controlled the activity and above all collected taxes on the profits.
emerging painter in Franco's Venice. XVI century.
Galleries of the Academy, Venice
In 1575, an inauspicious period for the Serenissima due to the plague, Veronica devoted herself mainly to her future publications: le Terzerime to which the sylloge must be approached Different remedies excellent authors in the death of the Illustrious Sign. Estor Martinengo Count of Malpaga. She was also the curator of the collection in memory of the young Brescian patrician, with twenty-six sonnets by authors linked to Veronica's circle, including the inevitable Domenico and Marco Venier, Bartolomeo Zacco, Celio Magno. While the Slightly were printed later, and exactly in 1580.
So sweet and savory I become,
when I find myself with a person in bed,
by which I feel loved and appreciated,
that my pleasure conquers all delight,
so that what seemed very narrow,
the knot of other people's love becomes tighter.
Phoebus, who serves the amorous goddess,
and in sweet guidedon from her he obtains what the blessed is more than being a god,
to reveal in my thought those ways that Venus uses with him,
while in gentle embraces she holds him;
whereby I, instructed in these, know how to work well in bed,
that from Apollo this art goes far above,
and my singing and my writing on paper is forgotten by whoever tries me in that guise,
that Venus shares with her followers.
(vv. 154-171)
But Veronica, although she exercised it with grace and supreme wisdom (and she was aware of this mastery), did not love her job. A woman with a heated character, inclined to savor the pleasures of her sensuality, she was however too clear-headed to forget the humiliation that a courtesan could suffer at her work even from her most faithful companion.
Retired from the profession, despite the economic difficulties that made her life difficult - even for the maintenance of six children - she continued to devote herself to writing. The same year, she was accused by Rodolfo Vannitelli to have carried out witchcraft practices and other infractions against the laws of the Church and of the city of Venice.
She was convicted but escaped the trial unscathed thanks to the intervention of one of her protectors or presumed lovers
In the end, tired because of wounds, Veronica suffered many, she decided to convert to the Church and thus atone for her debaucheries. He dedicated himself to helping the fate of poor girls with children who wanted a better life, hence the appeal to the Doge to create a shelter for these women, which however was not immediately realized, he had to wait a few years to be realized later. He died on July 22, 1591.
[In the face of Venice, shimmering with water, Veronica perhaps sees a reflection of her own face, of its luminous seduction; perhaps she envies Venice's purity, proud virginity. She looks at her homeland, splendid and as if suspended, on the water's edge, between reality and illusion, she sees her own difficult balance between pride and misery, between heights and falls... Veronica was nothing else but an incarnation of the same enchantment: like a flicker on the water, a wave of the lagoon, shiny and light… free, elusive» (Francesca Favaro, voice Veronica Franco, in «Poesia.Speciale 25 anni. Vite di poeti», XXVI, 278, 2013, p. 58).]
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