The Honest Courtesan
 Cover of the book | |
| Author | Margaret Rosenthal |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Biography |
| Publication date | February 1, 1993 |
| Publication place | United States |
The Honest Courtesan is a 1993 book by Margaret Rosenthal, a biography of Veronica Franco, the 16th-century Venetian courtesan.
Description
"The Venetian courtesan has long captured the imagination as a female symbol of sexual license, elegance, beauty and unruliness. What then to make of the cortigiana onesta - the honest courtesan who recast virtue as intellectual integrity and offered wit and refinement in return for patronage and a place in public life?" Veronica Franco (1546–1591) was such a woman, a writer and citizen of Venice, whose published poems and letters offer testimony to the complexity of the honest courtesan's position.
Adaptation
The book was adapted for the 1998 film Dangerous Beauty, directed by Marshall Herskovitz and starring Catherine McCormack as Franco. Also released as A Destiny of Her Own in some regions, the film was re-titled The Honest Courtesan for video release in the United Kingdom and Europe in 1999.
First edition
The Honest Courtesan : Veronica Franco, Citizen and Writer in Sixteenth-Century Venice. Margaret F. Rosenthal. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1992. ISBN 0-226-72811-0 (hardbound), ISBN 0-226-72812-9 (paperback)