560 guido ruggiero
this area was over the famous Ponte delle Tette where, according to law,
in the 16th century prostitutes were supposed to expose their breasts to
encourage young men to express their sexual desires with women rather
than men. The location of this district in a way is a perfect metaphor for
renaissance attitudes towards prostitution in Venice; for it was at once
at the heart of the city, just off the most important commercial districts
of the city thriving with the economic life that made Venice great, yet at
the same time it was isolated and relatively invisible if one did not seek
it out. Thus it provided readily available and relatively inexpensive illicit
sex with decorum.36
This was a goal that in Venice appears to have become more widely
shared across the renaissance; even as practice and Venice’s reputation
as a city where prostitution was widely available clearly seemed to con-
tradict this goal. exemplary of this is legislation passed in 1502 where
the authorities once again tried to force prostitution off the more public
streets of the city and back into the area around the castelletto. it ordered
that within four days all prostitutes must return to practice their trade in
that area or face a penalty of six months in jail, 25 lashes, and a fine of
100 lire. in addition, this was to be announced by a communal herald in
the areas where prostitution was being most intensively practiced outside
this area. That list of places is instructive: “in san luca in the street of the
house of the corner family, in san luca at the bridge of the fuseri, in san
anzelo in front of the house of the Malipiero family, in san samuele... in
san Moisè... in san salvador, before the houses of the nani family, in san
lio, in santa Maria formosa on the ruga Giuffa, in santa Maria formosa
on the calle longa, in san antonio at the arch, in san Giovanni Bragola
[today Bandiera e Moro], in santa Trinità [today Ternita], in santa Maria
Mater domini... in san stin... in san silvestro... in san aponal in the
square, in san Polo in the street of the cavalli, in san Pantalon... in san
leonardo... at the Biri in the street of the house of the Zusto family, in
with the prostitution practiced in the area and became a term in Venetian dialect also
denoting an old run-down prostitute; see Giuseppe Boerio, Dizionario del Dialetto Veneziano
(Venice, 1856), p. 136, col. 3.
36 for a discussion of a number of civic initiatives to foster a similar more decorous and
moral vision of the city by theoretically “saving” women from prostitution see, ruggiero,
Binding Passions, pp. 52–54. see also the imaginative study of elizabeth Pavan, “Police
des moeurs, société et politique à Venise à la fin du Moyen age,” in Revue Historique 246
(1980), 244–66.