Note 17 — V ITALY

There is a life of this lady by Tassini—Veronica Franco celebre letterata e meretrice veneziana. She was married in her youth to one Paniza, a physician, but she left him to take up the career of a courtesan. Her name appears in that extraordinary document which the late Earl of Orford printed for private circulation in 1870: “Catalogo di tutte le principal et piu honorate Cortegiane di Venetia, il nome loro, et il nome delle loro pieze, et le stantie ove loro habitano, et di piu ancor vi narra la contrata ove sono le loro stantie, et etiam il numero de li dinari che hanno da pagar quelli gentil homini, et al che desiderano entrar nella sua gratia.” Her description runs: “204, Veronica Franca, a Santa Maria Formosa, pieza so mare 2 scudi.” In 1574 she gave up her profession, and by her wit and beauty gained a status not unlike that of her forerunners in Athens. She certainly enjoyed the friendship of divers men of note, Domenico and Marco Veniero, Marcantonio della Torre and Tintoretto. Henry III. visited her when passing through Venice and took away her portrait. In middle life she devoted herself to religion and good works, and tried to induce the Signoria to found an asylum for penitent women. She died in 1591, aged forty-five. The book she sent to Montaigne was probably Lettere famigliari a diversi, dedicated to Cardinal Luigi d’Este. Lord Orford evidently had not read Tassini’s book or Montaigne’s Voyage, otherwise he would have been able to give a more precise date to the Catalogo, which he puts down vaguely to the sixteenth century. According to Fynes Moryson, “the tribute to the State from the Cortizans was thought to exceede three hundreth thousand Crownes yearely.”