Table of Contents

Foreword by Catharine R. Stimpson Acknowledgments Introduction 1: Satirizing the Courtesan: Franco's Enemies 2: Fashioning the Honest Courtesan: Franco's Patrons Appendix: Two Testaments and a Tax Report 3: Addressing Venice: Franco's Familiar Letters 4: Denouncing the Courtesan: Franco's Inquisition Trial and Poetic Debate Appendix: Documents of the Inquisition 5: The Courtesan in Exile: An Elegiac Future Notes Works Cited Index

Reviews

This first full-length study in English of Venetian courtesan and writer Veronica Franco's life and work is an adaptation of Rosenthal's (Italian, Univ. of Southern California) dissertation. Writing from a feminist, social-historical perspective, Rosenthal demonstrates that Franco worked within the literary traditions of 16th-century Venice, using her social position and her writings to argue against a restrictive, misogynistic definition of women. Despite scurrilous attacks, Franco defended the courtesan's role as having intellectual and artistic--rather than erotic--significance. Rosenthal is strongest when presenting historical background and analyzing specific poems and letters; her theoretical summations are occasionally marred by a strained use of the jargon of feminist criticism. Recommended for scholarly collections in women's studies and in Italian literature and history.-- Ellen Finnie Duranceau, MIT Lib.