Evergreen Reads to Empower Your Mind
The Standard Sister
Note no.26
History
December 20, 2025
Hello Stranger
For much of history, women gained access to culture through visibility—through the body, charm, or desire—while essence was assessed only afterward, if at all. This logic did not belong to one era or one place; it functioned as a recurring cultural condition, shaping how women were permitted to enter public life. It is tempting to imagine that such dynamics are confined to the past, yet traces of them continue to surface even today, whenever visibility precedes legitimacy. Few historical figures illustrate this mechanism more clearly than the sixteenth-century poet and courtesan Veronica Franco. Born into a role largely prescribed to her, Franco did not reject it outright. Instead, she worked within the expectations placed upon her, choosing a path that was far from inevitable.
Veronica Franco, painted by Jacopo Tintoretto c. 1575.
Veronica Franco: The Feminine Paradox
Article by The Standard Sister
Veronica Franco was born around 1546, at the height of the Venetian Renaissance—the era of Titian and literary salons—when the Venetian Republic balanced delicately between aristocracy and moral transgression. Her family belonged to the cittadini, the upper middle class that filled the bureaucratic and administrative roles of the Republic. Her mother herself was a respected courtesan—part of a distinctly Venetian class of women far removed from the image of street prostitution. These courtesans were educated, culturally literate, and moved with ease among judges, poets, politicians, and noblemen, playing music, writing poetry, and debating philosophy with equal confidence. From her mother, Veronica learned not only the art of seduction, but the art of thought. In many ways, the courtesan was the only female figure permitted true freedom—independence, intellectual agency, and the right to think aloud. As a young woman, Veronica initially attempted the path expected of her. She married a physician named Paolo Panizza, but the marriage quickly dissolved. By 1564, she had already written her first will and demanded the return of her dowry. She never remarried, yet gave birth to several children, the exact number uncertain, though only a few are known to have survived into adulthood. Her relationships with wealthy and politically connected men allowed her to live comfortably, raise her children, and maintain servants in her household. Her intellectual brilliance flourished in the literary salon
Illustration of Veronica Franco
of Domenico Venier—poet, patron, and member of one of Venice’s aristocratic families. There, she debated, advised, and wrote, expanding her status from esteemed courtesan to groundbreaking poet. In 1575, shortly before the outbreak of the plague in Venice, she published Terze Rime (Poetic Triplets), a collection of twenty-five poems, seventeen of which were written by Franco herself. A year earlier, she had met the future King Henry III of France during his visit to Venice—a brief affair that would later be immortalized in her poetry and transformed into legend. But fame proved fleeting. In 1576, the plague swept through Venice, killing nearly a third of its population. Franco fled the city, and when she returned after the epidemic subsided, she found her home looted and her possessions gone. In the aftermath, she is believed to have appealed to the Venetian Senate with a proposal to establish a charitable institution for impoverished courtesans, though surviving documentation does not conclusively confirm its realization. In 1580, she published Familiar Letters, a collection of letters addressed to lords, kings, and lovers—real or imagined.
Catherine McCormack as Veronica Franco in Dangerous Beauty (1998)
The first was written to King Henry III, carrying a tone of memory, intellect, and restrained desire. Whether these letters reflected lived relationships or literary invention, her language reveals a woman who wielded words as weapons, confronting men fluently on their own terrain. That same year, however, marked the beginning of her downfall. At a time when witch hunts across Europe had reached their peak, Franco was accused of witchcraft by her son’s tutor, Ridolfo Vannitelli, who described her as “a witch and a public whore who summons the devil.” In his testimony, he warned that “if this witch is not punished, others will follow her in defiance of the holy faith.” Through her connections, Franco escaped execution—but her reputation was irreparably damaged. The death of Domenico Venier in 1582 sealed her fate. Tax records from the following years place her in one of Venice’s poorer districts, among aging courtesans living on the margins of the city. These records suggest a significant decline in her economic status, though the extent of her poverty remains open to interpretation. She published no further works. When she died in 1591, in her mid-forties, few remembered her name in the city that had once turned her into a symbol—and just as swiftly erased her. Gaining a place for women in culture has often been measured along two parallel axes: appearance and intellect. History suggests not that the body led women further, but that it was frequently the threshold they were required to cross. For women like Veronica Franco, visibility was not a strategy but a condition—one that allowed entry, even as it constrained what could follow. Today, it is tempting to believe that the world has moved forward—that essence has finally taken precedence over surface, or at least that intellect and appearance now carry equal weight. Yet even in an era in which women lead global corporations, write bestsellers, and shape public discourse, visibility remains the primary currency of cultural value. One of the most powerful women in the world built an empire along this familiar axis: Kim Kardashian entered public consciousness through a sex tape and went on—amid persistent skepticism—to construct a billion-dollar brand, pursue a law degree, and collaborate with global corporations. Read together, these two stories—separated by centuries—illuminate an ancient feminine paradox. Would we have read Veronica Franco’s poetry had she not first been a courtesan? Are the opposing extremes of her story what render it historical? And could either have endured in the pages of history without the other?