The Book of the Courtesans (13 page)

VERONICA FRANCO

Chapter Four

Brilliance

The bodily eye can scarcely bear the splendor of her brow.
—VERONICA FRANCO,
“By an unknown author in Praise of Verona,
where Franco is staying”

B
ENEATH A THIN
veneer of intellectual
associations, “brilliance” is fundamentally a sensual word. Whether
applied to the taste of vintage wine, a musical performance, a scientific
theorem, a witty remark, or a quality of intelligence, the metaphor evokes a
particular kind of light—a light that not only reveals whatever lies in
its path but is also pleasing, even thrilling, in itself. We think, for
instance, of a garden in the late afternoon, when rays of light, alternating
with shadow, have a remarkable intensity, one that makes leaves and flowers and
vines all seem as if they have been newly blessed.

In this sense, it can be said of almost any successful courtesan that she
was remarkably brilliant. Whether entering a grand ballroom or her private box
at the opera, she had to shine. Many of the images that have been drawn of her
preserve this radiance. Paintings by Titian as well as Veronese and Giorgione,
or two centuries later by Boucher and Fragonard, and still later by Manet, have
all captured this characteristic luminescence. Not only does the courtesan’
s hair shine; her eyes are shining, too, and wherever flesh is revealed,
whether her breasts, her arms, or legs (or as in Boucher’s
L’
Odalisque
, her buttocks), her body seems to give off light.

Where her body is not revealed, she is covered with reflective surfaces,
adorned with shiny silks and glowing velvet, glittering sequins and beads sewn
into the bodice or hem of her dress, a sparkling gem gleaming on her hand or
suspended above the intriguingly dark line of her cleavage, lustrous pearls
dangling from her ears, a diamond tiara settled on the top of her head, a gold
chain circling her ankle. In Nadar’s early photographs of Sarah Bernhardt,
who, when she was still young and following her mother’s plans for her,
performed as a courtesan as well as an actress, light ripples over the cloth
draped around her bare shoulders. And in almost all the photographic records we
have of La Belle Otero, she is dripping in sparkling jewelry.

The courtesan’s shine was so bright it appeared to fall on everything
around her. The effect was stunningly simulated in the courtesan’s drawing
room that appears in
La Traviata,
as filmed by Franco Zefferelli; it
is suffused with a shimmering light that, reflected off crystal, silver, and as
well a seemingly infinite number of mirrored surfaces, bathes the eyes in a
warm and exciting brilliance. A similar gleam can be found in the decor of
Maxim’s, the restaurant made famous by the continual presence of courtesans
and their benefactors, where each room is wrapped in necklaces of vibrant
mirrors that serve to intensify the incandescence of its patrons.

If the effect of shimmering light is known to inspire desire, perhaps this is
because the experience of love often feels filled with light. Accordingly,
those who have newly fallen in love are said to glow. Likening this state of
mind to the process of crystallization, Stendhal describes a practice in
Salzburg in which a tree branch would be thrown into a salt mine and retrieved
two or three months later so “covered with sparkling
crystallizations” that the original branch was no longer recognizable. In
this sense the beloved is not only a source of light; she is also a mirror
reflecting back not just her lover’s desire but the resplendent beauty of
eros altogether.

Eros and Aphrodite came back into fashion during the Renaissance, which was,
not coincidentally, the same period during which courtesans rose to prominence.
Countless images were painted in this period of Venus, the goddess of love,
accompanied by
éclats
—dramatic, rosy bursts of light—
surrounding her like aureoles of dawn or misty haloes diffusing into the
atmosphere. The men who made these images were the same great masters who had
begun to paint courtesans. Indeed, the likeness of a courtesan is often
preserved in an image of Venus; a figure of Danaë; as one of the Three
Graces; or as Diana or Galatea, for whom she would have served as a model.

We have pointed out earlier the pragmatic nature of this choice. Unlike a
proper lady, a courtesan would have been free to pose without her clothing, and
afterward to let this image of her nude body be publicly displayed. But the
conflation of courtesan and goddess was more than practical. In this time of
transformation, it was through pagan mythology that bodily desire was being
reclaimed in all its glory.

In the Sala del Maggior Consiglio of the Palazzo Ducale in Venice, two
seemingly contradictory allegories, pagan and Christian, reside side by side in
harmony. On the high ceiling, Veronese has painted Venus as she assumes her
powers, casting and encircled by blazing light. And underneath this image,
against the vast wall where the doges sat as they received foreign dignitaries,
Tintoretto has painted a flock of saints and godly Venetian souls floating
upward into the soft and luminous light of heaven. The painters were not from
opposing camps. Veronese portrayed his fair share of religious subjects, and
though Tintoretto’s best work is religious, he was a friend of Veronica
Franco and painted her portrait as well as his own versions of Venus.

Even so, the reclamation of eros was fraught with conflict. If on the one hand
the Borgia pope, Alexander VI, kept his own courtesan, the famous Vanozza dei
Cattaneis (who in turn owned a series of brothels surrounding the Campo di
Fiori in Rome), the painter Raphael rejected his mistress and model, La
Fornarina, on his deathbed and repented the sin of loving her. In a sense, the
courtesan’s profession was born of this ambivalence. Unchaste by definition,
she became the unofficial representative of the pagan world. Yet this did not
prevent the representatives of Christian morality and civic order from
chastising her. Forbidden at times to dress as a lady would dress, she was
barred from attending church during particular hours and even kept from some
secular events. Still, whether seen as divine or luciferous, the light she cast
was not dimmed by this ambivalence. It was almost as if she possessed a
powerful source of light within her, a light that emanated not from her beauty
alone but also from what she knew.

If brilliance is always colored by the metaphorical evocation of light, light
in turn is itself a metaphor for knowledge. To shed light on a subject is not
only to see it but to understand. It is divine light that brings revelation, a
shining light that guides us through dark times, a brilliant mind that can
illuminate dark corners of the universe, the light of reason that orders
thought.

Certainly, most courtesans had that indefinable light we see in the eyes of
many intelligent people. As a group, they were remarkably accomplished. Mogador
was both a successful performer and a novelist. Tullia D’Aragona wrote
philosophy. Veronica Franco was a poet, Pompadour a respected patron of the
arts, Païva an extraordinary businesswoman, Ninon de Lenclos a famous wit.
But a courtesan had to have another kind of intelligence, too: an active
awareness of what transpires between one person and another during any given
moment. She would then be able to read not only French and Italian (and perhaps
English, too) but the movements of hands, the slight blush of a cheek, lines
around the eyes, a sigh.

We know, of course, that many other women had and still have this skill. But
what once made the courtesan exceptional in this regard was that her brilliance
was neither concealed nor limited. Rather, she extended her perceptions freely
into realms of which proper ladies were supposed to remain ignorant. Imagine
the effect then: A man feels a sudden burst of desire, which goes unspoken as
if unseen, a source of embarrassment in his own drawing room. But in the
presence of the woman he keeps, he is a book which she reads openly and with
satisfaction, the knowing look in her eyes filling him with delight.

More and more, we are understanding how critical the need for reflection is to
the human psyche. No experience seems complete unless it is witnessed. To have
desire as well as feeling recognized and mirrored is itself a desire. This is
perhaps one reason why there are so often mirrors in paintings of courtesans.
Of course, the mirror was supposed to stand for vanity. But the haunting
luminescence of these images suggests far more than the temptations of a minor
vice. In one of Titian’s greatest paintings, the subject, a beautiful woman,
has turned away from the mirror. One senses her lover has surprised her at her
toilette, though he is not present in the mirror either. What is reflected back
is simply a fragment of light, implying vision itself and the capacity for
perception. To be seen by another, especially a lover, is literally
enlightening.

The power of the experience is evident in another painting by Titian, too, in
which he depicts Venus turned toward a mirror but startled, her hand at her
breast, not in modesty but touching her heart, as if she were temporarily
shaken by her own image. But of course we are all shaken by what she sees in
the mirror, which is after all, since she is the goddess of love, the knowledge
of sexual passion.

Carnal Knowledge

. . . 
if Socrates was so wise and virtuous why don’t you make a practice
of imitating him? For as you know he discussed everything with his friend
Diatoma and learned all manner of wonderful things, especially concerning the
mysteries of love.—Tullia D’Aragona
, Dialogue on the
Infinity of Love

Although it is clear that the courtesan would need to have carnal
knowledge, what has not always been so evident is the profound nature of what
she knew. The realm of sexual pleasure is also the realm of the psyche. To love
or be loved, to touch, be touched, feel pleasure, passion, ecstasy, to
surrender and release engages every human faculty, not sensual adroitness alone
but intelligence of every kind. As well as being willing to give pleasure, a
good lover must be sensitive and aware, registering what kind of touch, for
instance, on which part of the body arouses desire, knowing which mood calls
for a robust approach, which moment requires gentleness, able to laugh or tease
while at the same time probing both the mind and body of the loved one for
gateways to greater feeling.

The desire to give pleasure is, however, not the only motive. The deepest
ardor of the lover is the desire to know the beloved: to test, feel, see, taste,
smell, witness every response, every shade of sensation. In this sense, it is
right that Venus as well as courtesans should so often be depicted with mirrors.
In recognizing even the subtlest desires of the beloved or in answering these
desires with a delicate precision, the lover is providing a mirror for what the
beloved feels. The beloved feels known, even ravished, by this intense
reflection. And, in turn, the one who is loved feels an echoing need to know,
because being a lover as well as the beloved, the desire is to please by
knowledge, even know all that can be known at once.

The urge to consume knowledge can be consuming in itself. Though in an
afternoon of lovemaking desire may arc and come to fruition, the desire to know
is inexhaustible. The wish is for an impossible thoroughness, a complete union
between the knower and the known. Yet as Tullia D’Aragona, an Italian
courtesan born at the beginning of the sixteenth century, has written, “.
 . . Because it is not possible for human bodies to be
physically merged into one another, the lover can never achieve this longing.
”

Respected as an exceptional woman, in
1547
Aragona was
cleared of a charge of breaking the sumptuary laws of Florence where, in the
mid-sixteenth century, courtesans were required to wear yellow cloaks. It was
because she was a poet that the charges were dismissed. As if to prove that her
acquittal was just, her
Dialogue on the Infinity of Love
was published
later that year, though the substance of her philosophy argues that eros makes
everyone exceptional. “Lovers,” she says, “entertain both
hope and fear. Simultaneously they feel both great heat and excessive cold.
They want and reject in equal measure, constantly grasping at things but
retaining nothing in their grip. They can see without eyes. They have no ears
but can hear. They shout without a tongue. They fly without moving. They are
alive while dying.”

Erotic desire and pleasure both have the effect of unshackling (or, from
another point of view, unhinging) the mind. Received ideas of reality,
prejudices, caution, even the restraints of reason, seem to wither, if not
vanish, in the presence of the mysteries of love. That a courtesan such as
Tullia D’Aragona, who was well trained by her mother, also once a courtesan
herself, used beauty, timing, and many other skills to inspire love was thus
used by her enemies as a criticism. Thomas Coryat warned British men who
traveled to Italy in the sixteenth century that under the influence of a
courtesan, they would be liable to temporary insanity.