List of Italian Renaissance courtesans
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The following is a list of notable Italian Renaissance courtesans.
In Italian Renaissance society existed the category of a cortigiana onesta (literally, honest courtesan), who were intellectual sex workers who derived their position in society from refinement and cultural prowess. They served in contrast to other sex workers such as cortigiana di lume or meretrice ('harlots'), who were lower-class prostitutes.[1]
In the middle of 16th century was printed "Catalogo de tutte le principal et più honorate cortigiane di Venetia" (Catalog of all the Principal and most Honored Courtesans of Venice).
List
15th-century
- Fiammetta Michaelis (it) (Rome; 1465–1512)
- Giulia Campana (Pendaglia; Ferrarese) - mother of Tullia d'Aragona.
- Imperia Cognati (Rome; 1486–1512) - one of the first famous profeccional courtesans in Renaissance.
16th-century
- Beatrice Ferrarese (Beatrice De Bonis)[2]
- Lucrezia Porzia ("Matrema non vòle")[3] - Roman
- Antea
- Beatrice Pareggi (La Spagnola)[4]
- Tullia d'Aragona (1501/1505–1556) - poet, author, and philosopher. Daughter of Giulia Campana (Pendaglia; Ferrarese)
- Camilla Pisana (Florence; fl. 1515) - poet
- her companions Alessandra Fiorentina, Brigida, and Beatrice Ferrarese
- Angela Greca[5][6] (Ortensia Greca, Grechetta) - model of Titian's "Danae", cousin of Camilla Pisana.
- Barbara Salutati (it)) (d. after 1544) - singer, poet, Machiavelli's muse
- Isabella de Luna (Rome; died 1564)
- Pandora - Isabella de Luna's companion
- Lucrezia Galletta (Rome; 1520s – 1580) - later banker
- Veronica Franco (Venice; 1546–1591) - poet
- Lucrezia Di Siena (fl. 1564) - stage actress, the first identified female actor in Europe since antiquity. Possibly worked as courtesan before stage.
- Caravaggio's models:
- Anna Bianchini (Annuccia) (it) (c. 1579 – 1604)
- Fillide Melandroni (Rome; 1581–1618) - courtesan
- Maddalena (Lena) Antognetti (1579-?) (it) - prostitute
- Amabilia Antognetti[7]
- Domenica Calvi (Menicuccia)[8]
- Angela Del Moro (Giulia Angela, La Zaffetta)[9]
- Giulia Lombardo[10]
- Marietta Mirtilla del Brocardo[11] - muse of poet Antonio Brocardo
Fictional
- Pietro Aretino: "La Cortigiana" (it), 1525; Ragionamento della Nanna e della Antonia fatto a Roma sotto una ficaia (1534); Dialogo nel quale la Nanna insegna alla Pippa sua figliola (1536)
- Honoré de Balzac described a courtisan called Imperia in his 1832 story La Belle Impéria. The story plays at the time of the Council of Konstanz, 100 years before the death of Imperia Cognati.
- Balzac's figure of Imperia has been portrayed by the German painter Lovis Corinth in 1925, and inspired the 1993 larger-than-life Imperia statue in the harbour of Konstanz.