Courtesans in Rome under the Renaissance popes
In addition to art, culture and science in Europe , the Renaissance period was also a heyday of courtesans , a socially accepted form of prostitution . In Rome in particular, this form of prostitution largely determined the city's reputation and appearance. The special social structures and the cultural climate in Rome in the 16th century created the conditions for a coexistence of clerical splendor and love for sale. In view of the high number of prostitutes, the expression of Rome as "head of the world", Roma caput mundi , became a derisive Roma cauda mundi - "Rome, tail of the world".
At celebrations, theater performances, feasts and receptions, especially for church dignitaries, the absence of women was increasingly perceived as a loss and a lack. To fill this “void”, courtesans were invited to these societies. The name courtesan is derived from Cortigiana , which actually means lady-in-waiting , and around 1500 referred to the upscale prostitute, comparable to the hetaires of ancient Greece .
Rome as the center
At the time of the Renaissance, young women flocked to Rome from many countries in order to escape their class and make their fortune as courtesans without the harsh restrictions and requirements that existed in other European cities. In addition to port cities such as Venice , Genoa and Pisa with many single sailors and wealthy merchants, Holy Rome was also populated by numerous prostitutes.
In the epoch of the Renaissance, a "liberalism" in the sexual area increasingly prevailed in Rome. Some women achieved an incredible social rise to courtesans and many officials, scribes, prelates, bishops and cardinals sought and found variety, entertainment and relaxation with the more exclusive courtesans. But only rich men could afford the services of a courtesan. B. the very wealthy banker Agostino Chigi , whose companion was Imperia Cognati .
The well-known courtesans led a very elaborate lifestyle with their own servants and stood out for their elegant and magnificent appearance according to the latest fashion. As socially acceptable prostitutes, they could move around in public, take part in banquets and were an integral part of social life. They were not only tolerated, but also very respected and belonged to the "sights" of self-educated travelers. Courtesans were socially accepted for a long time not only because of their appearance, but also because of their education, well-groomed manners, and cultivated conversation. The famous courtesan Tullia d'Aragona was an admired poet and famous for her dialogues on "The Infinity of Love". A courtesan's activities were not limited to sex alone; As educated and attractive women, they were also responsible for cultural suggestions. Some courtesans also appeared as musicians, and music in particular was said to have an extremely seductive quality.
At the time of the Renaissance, it was not a scandal for a courtesan in Rome to drive openly through the city with a cardinal in a carriage. In 1539 the courtesan Saltarella was reported to have had dinner with five cardinals. Cardinal Cornaro had a well-known relationship with a courtesan named Doralice until she was expelled from Rome in 1566. Some courtesans lived in the Cardinal Palace and became constant companions of the cardinals, just as they received other high-ranking persons. Burke wrote the following in his book "The European Renaissance":
- “ The courtesan went to church with her servants. Far from being common property, she was only less of a mistress or concubine. Strangely enough, the high-class courtesan, with her luxurious appearance, her poetic skills, her lute and her lapdog, resembled the wife of the patrician or nobleman. "
The term courtesan
Johannes Burckard left the oldest known evidence of the use of the term courtesan in his Liber Notarum in 1498 . The companions of the papal court officials were called by him "Quedam cortegiana, hoc est meretrix honesta" (Eng. "A so-called courtesan, that is, an honorable whore " ). The explanatory note in his description makes it clear that the term courtesan applied to a prostitute and not to a lady. It also makes it clear that the term was new, thus only just emerged, and that this was indeed a salable woman, but at the same time she was honesta , which here means as much as respectable or socially recognized .
Requirements and development of the courtesan system
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When Pope Innocent II stipulated at the Second Lateran Council in 1139 that marriage was an obstacle to receiving church ordinations, concubinage replaced clerical marriage and became more widespread.
The Curia tried again and again to force the clergy to give up their relationships with women. In 1367 officials from Urban V ordered that clerics had to dismiss their concubines on punishment of excommunication . After all, four of the five clergymen of the Church of S. Angelo de Scambiis appeared to separate from their concubines according to the decree.
Also a papal brothel under Alexander VI. is proven. In 1496 two officials from Pope Ludovico Romanelli rented the office of "Capitaneus Prostibuli de Ponte Sixto" , a head of the brothel near the Ponte Sisto . Romanelli hired from the Pope's officials the right to collect a monthly fee of two carlini from each of the whores living there and to run an inn and a restaurant in the brothel . This deal made good profits not only for Romanelli, but also for the Catholic Church.
The social structures in Rome at the time of the Renaissance were similar to those in ancient Greece . Honorable women and girls had no place in everyday city life. Their area was limited to the house only. Honorable women were only allowed to meet with their husbands or male relatives without arousing suspicion. Even participation in parties, festive meals or other social events in which men were present was denied to her. This situation was exacerbated by a massive surplus of men in the holy city and the obligation to be celibate for the majority of the men living there. In addition, the lack of equal companions at the papal court, with its glamorous receptions and celebrations at many royal embassies, was felt to be very painful, as the female element played a very important role at most of the Renaissance courts. This encouraged the emergence of a courtesan system similar to that of the hetaerae in Greece. In a broader sense, Renaissance is also called the rebirth of classical antiquity in its influence on science, literature, society, the life of the noble circles and the development of people towards individual freedom in contrast to the class system of the Middle Ages. This rebirth of Classical Greece also applied to the rebirth of the Roman courtesan system.
Number of courtesans in Rome
The exact number of prostitutes living in Rome can only be traced back to estimates from contemporary sources. In 1490, 6,800 whores are said to have been counted in the city, with an estimated population of 30,000. The most reliable source of a census in Rome shows 9,328 households and 53,689 “souls” living in them for the years 1526 and 1527. Of these households, 2,142 were run by women alone, 29 of whom were named courtesans. Since the names of the women were seldom professional titles, there can only be very few wealthy widows, noble ladies, abbesses and a few professionals. A large proportion of the households run by women must therefore have been that of courtesans, who earned well enough to head and maintain a house and a large household.
The amazement at the strikingly large number of courtesans and prostitutes in Rome, who enjoyed obvious social recognition, is also reflected in the many contemporary travel reports and letters from diplomats, wealthy travelers, and merchants who visited Rome. The French traveler Villamont, who came to Rome in 1588, wrote the following:
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Michel de Montaigne , Arnoldus Buchelius , Bartholomäus Sastrow , Thomas Coryate , Richard Lassels and Philipp Eduard Fugger made very similar statements in their correspondence and travel reports.
origin
In the 16th century there were basically only two options open to a woman to shape her life in a socially acceptable form: Either she married or she went to a monastery . In reality, most girls and women were denied both of these options, as in both cases a dowry was required that not every family or single woman could provide. While it was difficult for many families to raise a dowry for a daughter, families with many daughters were not at all in a position to provide “respectable” care for all of their daughters. Girls and women who had no dowry had to fend for themselves.
The career opportunities for women were very poor. Unmarried and penniless girls could only find employment as maids, laundresses, cooks or waitresses. She could only earn some money as a cheap worker in large cities with artisanal production. In the countryside, day laborers were only wanted at harvest time and more demanding jobs were not available to women. All professions had low wages, hard physical labor and no social recognition in common.
The chance of either earning a dowry as a courtesan until a respectable marriage could be entered into, or of becoming a wealthy companion of rich men and patrons and abandoning one's socially unacceptable status, was so seductive that women from all over Europe came to Rome came to take their chance.
Many of the courtesans living in Rome were therefore not born Roman women, but migrated women. According to contemporary sources, most of the courtesans came from other Italian cities or distant countries. Many Spanish, French, German, Greek and Slavic women lived in Rome as courtesans.
Career entry
As was customary in the 16th century, many courtesans were not recorded by their father's name or occupation (e.g. tax lists, court records, censuses). Only a few cases are recorded in the archives in which the women were given their own name and the name and occupation of their father. The mothers of the courtesans are often mentioned, and the mothers of the courtesans are also very often mentioned and considered in their wills. This suggests the reasonable assumption that in many cases the fathers were unknown, the fathers died early, left their families, there was no known father or these women were born illegitimate children. Because of the stigma of being born out of wedlock, such women were part of the lower class of society at that time. Without exception, the motive for taking up this profession was to escape the misery of the lower class and impoverished middle class and to achieve social recognition and prosperity. But not all of the women working as courtesans in Rome had voluntarily taken this step.
Because of their unusually good earning potential, young girls were often persuaded or forced to prostitute themselves by third parties. Occasionally it was professional pimps who brought young girls into their power in order to benefit from the prostitution business. However, pimps remained an absolute marginal phenomenon, whose wives worked exclusively as prostitutes, never as courtesans. Since whole families could live on the income of a courtesan, it was often the mothers who sometimes force their daughters into prostitution. The court archives (e.g. Governatore di Roma ) also record cases in which mothers sold their daughters to wealthy gentlemen. It was also often older courtesans who introduced a young girl into their trade. Recruiting a successor was a popular form of retirement, which is why courtesans who did not have daughters of their own were happy to take in orphaned girls and educate them accordingly.
An amazing number of women who worked as courtesans reported that they were married. So the job of courtesan could be the only way to live an independent life without a husband instead of enduring a bad marriage.
Many foreign women had come to Rome with the numerous mercenary troops. Most of the Spanish women in Rome had moved to Italy with the Spanish army as sutlers . The famous Isabella de Luna , one of the most famous courtesans of the 16th century, had started her career as a sutler. Often clergy brought their loved ones to Rome and settled there.
Courtesans, educated prostitutes
The services courtesans rendered to members of the curia and wealthy citizens went far beyond the services of ordinary prostitutes. In addition to satisfying the sexual desires of their customers, courtesans primarily had to replace the missing court ladies and beautify banquets, parties and other events with their presence. Prerequisites for such appearances were a certain demeanor, demeanor, education and the ability to have gallant conversation. Hence, one of the most important differences between a prostitute and a courtesan was that the courtesan had a certain level of education that enabled her to move into the highest social circles. In addition to good manners, she was expected to be able to read, write, sing, dance and make music. Hardly any of the girls or women from the lower or middle class brought these skills with them when they were hired by an older courtesan or when they decided to work as a courtesan themselves. It took a high degree of intelligence and a quick grasp of things to learn and to copy the elegant behavior of customers.
The most educated of the Roman courtesans, Tullia d'Aragona , had acquired her knowledge through her mother Giulia Campana, who was herself a celebrated courtesan and for a long time the mistress of Cardinal Luigi d'Aragona. Her education was evident in her poems and in her " Dialogue on the Infinity of Love " published in 1547 . In this dialogue she discusses Plato's conception of love. Sperone Speroni immortalized it in his “ Dialogo dell'Amore ”, Girolamo Muzio dedicated many of his poems to it and Nicolò Martelli even compared them to Cicero . It was reported of the “ divine Imperia ”, the epitome of the great courtesan, that she not only read Italian and Latin writers, she is also said to have composed and poetry herself.
Of course, women like Tullia d'Aragona were an exception. For many courtesans, the knowledge that they acquired or copied without in-depth instruction was only a superficial coating - but not an exclusive pretense. After all, the actual education of courtesans was so high and valued. Michel de Montaigne noted in his travel diary in 1581 that he had “ occasionally visited public ladies ” in Rome “ to hear them speak and to enjoy their agility ”.
Courtesans should be well-read enough to converse with educated gentlemen, although they were expected to be quick-witted and unabashed in expressing their thoughts and to react amusingly to rough jokes and personalities. With all the sources and reports, however, it should not be forgotten that their education was purely for the purpose of dispersing and entertaining their wealthy clients.
The end of the golden age of the courtesans
The golden age of the Roman courtesans, i.e. the time of their highest social recognition and freedom, stretched from the late 15th century to the first two decades of the 16th century. In the early 1520s, probably under the influence of the massive moral criticism of Martin Luther , the first attempts by the Catholic Church to limit prostitution in Rome.
In 1520 the convert monastery " Santa Maria Maddalena " was founded for former courtesans. At the same time it was ordered that every courtesan who died in Rome had to leave a quarter or fifth of their property to this monastery. If she disregarded this order, all her property would go to the monastery and her will was declared invalid. This was the first concrete legal disadvantage for courtesans.
In 1522 Hadrian VI banned the " mulieres inhonestas " wear the " habito romano ", the clothing of the noble Roman women. With this measure the aim was to make the courtesans distinguishable from the noble ladies on the basis of their clothing. Since Hadrian died in 1523 , this measure was never really implemented and was quickly forgotten.
In 1527, the changed Sacco di Roma ( ital. For sacking of Rome ) by German mercenaries and Spanish mercenaries the lives of courtesans largely. After the Sacco di Roma, their social status was no longer undisputed and uncritical. The traumatic events of the looting left those affected with a desire for repentance and contemplation as well as for moral and ecclesiastical renewal. The personal advisory staff of Paul III. criticized in a list of suggestions for improvement for the Church of Rome also the recognized status of courtesans. Paul III recalled the law of Hadrian VI. and instructed the Roman district chiefs to strictly observe this law.
In 1550 Julius III banned the courtesans the use of carriages . This was a hard blow to most courtesans, as carriages were considered a luxury item and could be used in public without the risk of being stained on foot. Customers could also drive into their companion's house in a carriage without being seen. The carriage ban was one of the most frequently violated laws in Rome for a long time and resulted in large amounts in the treasury of the Curia .
In 1566 Pius IV ordered all courtesans to be banished to a separate district in Rome. In June all courtesans were evicted from the neighborhood surrounding the Vatican. In July of the same year the first famous courtesans were ordered to leave Rome within a week. Everyone else was told to move to the Trastevere district . Systematically all rich and affluent courtesans were expelled from the country. Only those who got married or entered a convert's monastery could escape exile. Since the residents of Trastevere were not ready to leave their district, the district of Hortaccio became the new courtesan "ghetto".
In 1569, the construction of a wall began to separate the Hortaccio district from the city. All courtesans and prostitutes found outside this part of the city were publicly whipped and expelled from the Papal States. In addition, they were forced to attend regular sermons that were held for them, and priests were commissioned to visit courtesan's homes to convert them to better lives.
After these drastic measures, there were no more such strict restrictions on courtesans in Rome. However, they were still forbidden to live in the main streets and near respectable women, to leave their homes in the evening, to have intercourse with married men, to go to mass on holy night or to receive men that night, as well to take part in public parades or parties.
During the pontificate of Clement VIII , courtesans were forced to wear yellow sleeves to visually distinguish them from decent women. Likewise, stakes were placed in the streets, which were mainly inhabited by courtesans, to prevent carriages from driving up there.
literature
- Alois Uhl: Pope children. Life portraits from the time of the Renaissance , Winkler, Düsseldorf 2003, ISBN 3-538-07160-8 .
- Monica Kurzel-Runtscheiner: Daughters of Venus, the courtesans of Rome in the 16th century. CH Beck, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-406-39757-3 .
- Alfred Semerau: The courtesans of the Renaissance. A contribution to the history of morals. K. König, Vienna 1926; NA: Outlook, Bremen 2012, ISBN 978-3-86403-810-5 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Source: D. Gnoli, Descriptio Urbis Doma 1894