Veronica Franco

Veronica Franco was the daughter of a cortigiana onesta. In Renaissance Venetian society the cortigiana onesta, were intellectual courtesans, and cortigiana di lume, were lower-class prostitutes who tended to live and practise their trade near the Rialto Bridge. Franco was perhaps the most celebrated member of the former category. She could boast of a fine education and considerable literary and artistic accomplishments. Franco learned the art at a young age from her mother and was trained to use her natural assets and abilities to achieve a financially beneficial marriage. While still in her teens, Franco married a wealthy physician, but the union ended badly. In order to support herself, Franco turned to serving as a cortigiana to wealthy men. She quickly rose through the ranks to consort with some of the leading notables of her day and even had a brief liaison with Henry III, King of France.

Franco was listed as one of the foremost courtesans of Venice in the Catalogo de tutte le principal et più honorate cortigiane di Venetia (published about 1565).[1]

Franco wrote two volumes of poetry: Terze rime in 1575 and Lettere familiari a diversi in 1580. She published books of letters and collected the works of other leading writers into anthologies. Successful in her two lines of work, Franco also founded a charity for courtesans and their children.

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, 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. 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.

By the 1570s, she belonged to one of the more prestigious literary circles in the city, participating in discussions and contributing to and editing anthologies of poetry.

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. Upon her return in 1577, she defended herself with dignity before the Inquisition on charges of witchcraft, a common complaint lodged against courtesans in those days. The charges were dropped. There is evidence that her connections among the Venetian nobility helped in her acquittal.

Her later life is largely obscure, though surviving records suggest that although she won her freedom, she lost all of her material goods and wealth. Eventually, her last major benefactor died and left her with no financial support. There is little information for her life after 1580. Records suggest that she was less prosperous in her later years, but was not living in poverty. However, she published no more writings. Although her fate is largely uncertain, she is believed to have died in relative poverty.[2]

In 1575, Franco's first volume of poetry was published, her Terze rime, containing 18 capitoli (verse epistles) by her and 7 by men writing in her praise. That same year saw an outbreak of plague in Venice, one that lasted two years and caused Franco to leave the city and to lose many of her possessions. In 1577, she unsuccessfully proposed to the city council that it should establish a home for poor women, of which she would become the administrator. By then, she was raising not only her own children but also her nephews, who had been orphaned by the plague.

In 1580, Franco published her Lettere familiari a diversi ("Familiar Letters to Various People") which included 50 letters, as well as two sonnets addressed to King Henry III of France, who had visited her six years earlier.

Franco's success was not limited to being a coveted courtesan, it was her wittiness and often criticized voice that was immortalized by way of being published that has brought forth much recognition. Records indicate that the amount of actual publications were limited as they were thought to have been at her own expense, or private publications. Her work is known to have been included in an anthology of women poets in the eighteenth century (1726) edited by Luisa Bergalli.[3]

"When we too are armed and trained, we can convince men that we have hands, feet, and a heart like yours; and although we may be delicate and soft, some men who are delicate are also strong; and others, coarse and harsh, are cowards. Women have not yet realized this, for if they should decide to do so, they would be able to fight you until death; and to prove that I speak the truth, amongst so many women, I will be the first to act, setting an example for them to follow."

— Veronica Franco

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. The polemic literary battle or discourse, between Veronica Franco and Maffio Venier has warranted many literary analyses to date.

Franco's life was recorded in the 1992 book The Honest Courtesan, by US author Margaret F. Rosenthal.[4]

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”.[5] 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.”[5] Franco's literary work demonstrates her ability to defend women kind, as a whole, in a format that can be studied and understood as ahead of her time. Franco's work fearlessly embarked on juxtaposed realms such as sexuality and women's agency as a whole. In doing so, she challenged and disrupted the patriarchal norms that surrounded her.

Franco is also portrayed in the 2012 Serbian novel named after her (Serbian: Штампар и Вероника) authored by Serbian writer Katarina Brajović.[6]

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."[7] 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.

• sample of poems and letters by Veronica Franco 2013 Veronica Franco Project, USC Dornsife.
• portraits, attributed to Tintoretto 2013 Veronica Franco Project, USC Dornsife..
• Michael Asimow, Dangerous Beauty: The Trial of a Courtesan UCLA Law School (May 1998
• Rosenthal, Margaret F., "Veronica Franco's Terze Rime (1575):[ The Venetian Courtesan's Defense" https://web.archive.org/web/20060526064853/http://www.rsa.org/rq.htm] Renaissance Quarterly 42:2 (Summer 1989) 227-257
• Adler, Sara Maria. "Veronica Franco's Petrarchan Terze rime: Subverting the Master's Plan," Italica 65: 3 (1988): 213–33.
• Diberti-Leigh, Marcella. Veronica Franco: Donna, poetessa e cortigiana del Rinascimento. Ivrea, Italy, 1988.
• Jones, Ann R. The Currency of Eros: Women's Love Lyric in Europe, 1540–1620. Bloomington and Indianapolis, Ind., 1990.
• Phillipy, Patricia. "'Altera Dido': The Model of Ovid's Heroides in the Poems of Gaspara Stampa and Veronica Franco," Italica 69 (1992): 1-18.
• Stefano Bianchi, La scrittura poetica femminile nel Cinquecento veneto: Gaspara Stampa e Veronica Franco, Manziana: Vecchiarelli, 2013. ISBN 978-88-8247-337-2

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