562 guido ruggiero
that.”41 later in the comedy, Marcolina’s sister points out another plus of
her abandoning the brothel, noting that she has become “a refined whore”
and now can choose those she wants to take as “lovers,” rather than being
at the mercy of the madam who ran the brothel.42
Beyond Marcolina’s increased earnings, three things are noteworthy
here: the claim that she had become a more refined prostitute; that she
was now more selective in whom she accepted; and that she accepted
these men as “lovers.” as noted earlier, there had developed in Venice a
social hierarchy of prostitution that in many ways mirrored the increas-
ingly stratified hierarchy of the city. refinement, exclusivity, and love all
contributed to defining that hierarchy. as one moved up from part-time
workers and women working from bordellos, the nature of the exchange
changed. once again we are beyond the looking glass of Venice’s won-
derland, and prostitution reveals itself to be increasingly unfamiliar from
a modern perspective: at higher levels, customers tended to become lov-
ers, and the relationship sought was more than sexual, involving ideally
refined manners along with other attributes of a more elite way of life.43
closely tied to this was exclusivity, which meant that a prostitute chose
her clients and accepted only the best. at the top of this hierarchy, and
perhaps in a position to which Marcolina aspired, lay the apogee of Vene-
tian prostitution—the “honest” courtesan. as Bandello’s portrayal of the
unnamed Venetian courtesan that opened this essay makes clear, she was
anything but a reliable or “common” lombard prostitute who could be
simply bought. definitely not common to all men, she decided which men
were notable and refined enough to enjoy her favors and accepted them
as “lovers.” Those lovers, of course, had to pay for her love, but she was
an “honest” courtesan because money was not enough and sex was not
all she offered. it may be that, in fact, the ideal of an educated refined
woman who accepted only the best men as her lovers and offered in turn
educated conversation, wit, and an elite mannered, refined relationship
was more a fantasy than a reality, as cynical observers like Pietro aretino
41 La Bulesca, ed. Bianca Maria da rif, in La letteratura “alla Bulesca”: Testi rinacimentale
veneti (Padua, 1984), pp. 48– 84; for Marcolina’s speech, see pp. 58–59.
42 ibid., pp. 69–70.
43 for this see Guido ruggiero, “Who’s afraid of Giulia napolitana? Pleasure, fear, and
imagining the arts of the renaissance courtesan,” in Martha feldman and Bonnie Gordon,
The Courtesan’s Arts: Cross-cultural Perspectives (new york, 2006), pp. 280–94; and Guido
ruggiero, “Prostitution: looking for love,” in Bette Talvacchia, ed., “a cultural history
of sexuality in the renaissance” (oxford, 2011), which focuses on the issue of love and
prostitution in the renaissance more generally.