An interactive map, also rendered by the author, can be found here. Three courtesans’ locations could not be pinpointed because they were too vague: Franceschina Zaffetta (#103) at wooden bridge next to a baker in Cannaregio, Lugretia Mortesina (#149) somewhere in Castello, Lugretia (#160) at the head of the hall of the Visentin, and Pasqua Misocca (#194) at the “two bridges.” Rendered by the author with Palladio. Size of points is relative to the number of courtesans listed at a single location, the largest being thirty and the smallest being one. The courtesans of the catalogue, mapped by location. Whether or not a reader was familiar himself with its winding streets, canals, and open spaces, viewing this catalogue would allow him to construct a “sexual map” of Venice, adding an additional air of fantasy to his understanding of the already myth-steeped city.įigure 2. This snapshot, “bird’s-eye” view of the catalogue can show us patterns and trends in the Venetian sex industry that the sixteenth-century reader on the ground might have missed, but can also show us how the very real locations and individuals listed in the catalogue would have become a part of a reader’s imagined Venice. A vast majority of the locations listed in the catalogue can still be found in Venice today, allowing us to imagine the sex industry spatially, in almost the exact same manner in which a premodern person might have. However, a curious reader - in the sixteenth century or today - could look at this catalogue in other ways. There has been some debate over the exact intentions of the catalogue’s compiler, but, taking it for the moment at face value, its primary purpose was ostensibly to guide its reader in finding and purchasing the services of a courtesan on the list (or all of them, as a note at the end of the catalogue suggests!). However, the catalogue contains a wealth of data that, when analysed more closely, can offer insights into how early modern readers may have viewed and used this document, as well as how the Venetian sex industry functioned in the sixteenth century. Public domain, via Google Books.Īt first glance, the catalogue seems almost mundane scholars have largely only taken notice of it for its inclusion of famed courtesan, poet, and humanist Veronica Franco (#204). The first page of the catalogue, as reprinted in Leggi e memorie venete sulla prostituzione fino alla caduta della Republica (Venice, Italy: Published privately by the Count of Orford, 1870-72).
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