Introduction

During the past few decades, under the stimulus of a growing interest in the history of gender and sexuality, considerable attention has been paid to the history of prostitution.Footnote ¹ Consequently, a growing body of information is now available regarding the regulation of the sex trade in Europe in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, the restrictions governing the lives of prostitutes, and prostitutes’ often successful efforts to evade control. However, this increased knowledge has not led to uniformity of opinion among historians about the place of prostitutes in the society of their day or the effects prostitution had on the lives of the women involved. Rather, scholars seem to share the ambivalence that characterized attitudes toward the sex trade throughout Christian Europe during the medieval and early modern periods. Ecclesiastics from the time of Saint Augustine condemned prostitution as sinful while also insisting it was necessary in order to protect decent women from men’s uncontrollable carnal passions and to avoid worse sins such as sodomy, adultery, rape, and incest.Footnote ² From the late Middle Ages into at least the sixteenth century, European authorities often applied such ideas by legalizing prostitution even while they hedged it round with spatial and temporal restrictions designed to keep its sinful aspects and baneful influence away from the general public.

Modern historians seem to reflect these conflicting views on prostitution. Some stress that it was regarded as morally reprehensible, and that prostitutes were defined as fallen women who needed to be contained, controlled, and distinguished from respectable women by particular signs.Footnote ³ From this point of view, prostitution and its practitioners were stigmatized and marginalized from respectable society. On the other hand, historians have also emphasized that prostitution was generally accepted in late medieval and early modern society, and that it was a widespread phenomenon, pursued sporadically even by women who were not professionals in the field. Sex workers, it is argued, might establish relatively normal relations with those around them, and, even if they defied the controls imposed on them, little action was taken unless they seriously disturbed their neighbors. Therefore, these historians feel, prostitutes were not really marginalized and stigmatized but rather integrated to a surprising degree into the society around them.Footnote ⁴

In this second interpretation, economic considerations have an important part to play, as prostitution could provide women with a better income than did other forms of work available to them. Their earnings allowed sex workers to hire servants, make purchases, and, potentially, become valued customers of local shopkeepers and artisans. Thus, money could counteract the moral stigma normally attached to the sex trade and allow the more successful prostitutes or courtesans to gain a higher socioeconomic status than that attainable by poor but respectable women.Footnote ⁵ Ultimately, then, according to this kind of argument, prostitution might be a good option for women in that it could open the way to a higher income and a better life, despite all the moral strictures surrounding the profession.

This basic question of whether prostitution was a permanent stigma or a work option like any other and a vehicle toward social betterment will underlie the discussion that follows. Here prostitution is examined within one particular context — that of Venice between 1360 and 1460. During that period the sex trade became legalized within the city, although it was in theory limited to a single brothel area and conducted under government supervision. This obviously involved some marginalization and considerable control over prostitutes’ activities, but it also gave sex workers a legitimate role and place in local society. Moreover, the Venetian system favored women as the official brothel-keepers of the city, enabling them to make money licitly in the sex trade and to become its effective entrepreneurs. It is, therefore, possible to evaluate the consequences of this particular organization of prostitution not just on the prostitutes, but also on the brothel-keepers, or “matrons.”Footnote ⁶ Although precise statistics are, as usual, lacking, some sense can be gained of these women’s relative poverty or wealth, economic and social integration, and the degree to which they could use their work to construct a life for themselves. To carry out this analysis, first a description will be given of the circumstances in which Venetian prostitution was conducted in the late fourteenth and first half of the fifteenth centuries. Several authors have dealt rather generally with this subject, but more information and greater precision will be offered here to provide the context in which sex workers operated.Footnote ⁷ Then a closer look will be taken at the activities of both matrons and prostitutes during the first century of their legal presence in Venice.

Prostitution in the First Castelletto, 1360–1460

During the later Middle Ages, Venice followed a pattern similar to many other European towns: urban authorities moved from repressing prostitution, to attempting to contain it spatially, to, finally, setting up municipal brothels where the sex trade could be conducted legally.Footnote ⁸ In Venice, legislation of the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries was geared toward outlawing at least the public manifestations of commercialized sex. Venetians were required to expel prostitutes and pimps from their property, and keepers of inns and taverns were prohibited from allowing prostitutes to live or work on their premises.Footnote ⁹ If these regulations by no means eliminated prostitution from the city, they probably ensured that it remained a marginal phenomenon. This policy of repression underwent a major change in 1358, however, when the Venetian government, like authorities elsewhere, decided not only to legalize prostitution, but also to set up a single official brothel area regulated and supervised by public officials.

Various explanations have been offered for this general shift in policy within European towns. Some historians conclude that governments simply realized that they could not eliminate prostitution and were therefore better off controlling it; others argue for an evolution toward greater intervention in private life and more control over sources of public disorder, such as the sexual desires of youth. The Black Death and its demographic effects are sometimes thought to have had an influence, in that they increased concerns about population and about nonreproductive sexual practices such as sodomy.Footnote ¹⁰ Moreover, in a postplague world where not only population, but also revenue declined dramatically, prostitution might offer a way to help fill houses vacated by plague victims and revive the depleted income of inns, taverns, and the town in general.Footnote ¹¹

The year in which prostitution was legalized in Venice — 1358, a decade after the first traumatic visit of the Black Death — suggests some connection with the famous plague. However, the government’s motives do not seem to have been directly financial, as the sex trade in Venice was initially not taxed.Footnote ¹² Nor was it intended to stimulate the business of tavern- and innkeepers, as prostitutes were at first prohibited from working in such establishments. Nevertheless, the decision to tolerate prostitution had an economic motivation that needs to be understood within the context of Venetians’ experiences during the decade from 1348 to 1358. After the drastic population decline occasioned by the Black Death, Venice witnessed not only the conspiracy of Marin Falier (1354–55), but also crippling wars, first with Genoa (1350–55) and then with the King of Hungary (1356–58).Footnote ¹³ By 1358 the city was so financially exhausted that the Venetian ruling class chose to end the war with Hungary even at the cost of abandoning their territories on the Dalmatian coast and the title Duke of Dalmatia, which the doges had proudly held for centuries. That the legalization of prostitution followed the peace with Hungary by only a few months suggests that it formed part of a program to revitalize the city after a decade of plague, war, heavy taxation, and disruptions in the city’s vital international trade.

The legislation of 1358 merely hints at the motivation behind the new policy toward prostitution, as it states that it is “necessary because of the multitude of people entering and leaving our city to find a suitable location in Venice as a dwelling-place for prostitutes.”Footnote ¹⁴ This “multitude” must refer above all to the numerous foreign merchants who visited Venice for commercial purposes, suggesting that the government viewed prostitution primarily as an incentive to encourage foreign merchants to keep frequenting the city.Footnote ¹⁵ Since these traders were normally resident for short periods of time, without their families, they looked for diversion in the taverns and among the women who offered company and sexual services for a fee. Making it easier for them to find such entertainment might help boost Venice’s commerce after the numerous problems the city had experienced. Such thinking on the part of Venice’s patricians would be rather similar to that of the authorities of other commercial cities, such as Bruges, where leniency toward the sex trade was connected with a desire to maximize the city’s attractiveness to foreign merchants.Footnote ¹⁶

That legalizing prostitution was intended primarily to serve the merchant community is also indicated by the government’s intention, from the start, to locate the public brothels in the chief commercial area of the city, the Rialto.Footnote ¹⁷ True, prostitutes had already established themselves there, attracted by the ready money of the businessmen and artisans frequenting the area and aided by the numerous inns and taverns of the district, which lent themselves to the trade, whatever the regulations might be.Footnote ¹⁸ Nevertheless, that the Venetian government was prepared to locate a business generally seen as sinful and sordid in its most prestigious commercial zone, where nobles and wealthy foreign merchants regularly gathered, indicates that they had a very clear idea of the role that prostitution was to play.Footnote ¹⁹

The idea of legalizing prostitution within the city may nevertheless have created some dissension within the Venetian ruling elite. In the legislation of 1358, the Great Council delegated the duty of finding an appropriate location for the public brothels to the Capisestieri, whose duties involved maintaining order in the six sestieri (districts) of the city, and who had been granted jurisdiction over prostitutes and pimps, as well as foreigners, inns, and taverns.Footnote ²⁰ However, the Capi seem initially to have hesitated to carry out their task. Two years after legislation had directed them to decide where at the Rialto the municipal brothels should be established, they had still not found a suitable site; rather, they were continuing to expel the prostitutes. Consequently, in 1360, affirming once again that prostitutes were “absolutely necessary in this town,” the Great Council established a deadline for the magistrates to find an acceptable location, adding that, even if they failed to do so, the brothel area would still be created.Footnote ²¹ Only then did the Capi finally propose an acceptable place to house the prostitutes.Footnote ²²

This apparent reluctance on the part of the Capisestieri most probably arose from a concern for public order at the Rialto. One of the permanent objections to prostitution was that it went hand-in-hand not only with drunkenness, gambling, and generally indecent behavior offensive to good citizens, but also with crimes of theft and violence.Footnote ²³ Such dangers were already evident in the period 1358–60, when prostitutes were being allowed to establish themselves permanently at the Rialto. For example, in May 1360 an investigation was held into the death of a Maffeo Granella, after he had been assaulted in a brothel at the Rialto run by a Franceschina from Murano.Footnote ²⁴ Maffeo had quarreled with one of the prostitutes and struck her, whereupon Franceschina and others had intervened. When Maffeo turned against them, there arrived on the scene Franceschina’s “familiar,” Giovanni, who lived in the brothel and evidently acted as its protector. Maffeo then attempted to escape, and an armed struggle ensued in which he was so severely wounded that he later died. One can understand why such incidents would have made the Capi reluctant to accept the presence of prostitution in the heart of the city. In fact, once they had finally agreed to do so, the first measure they took was to appoint six armed custodians to keep order and prevent fights from breaking out.Footnote ²⁵

Unfortunately, the legislation of 1358–60 does not indicate exactly where the brothel area was finally set up, but it must have been mainly in the parish of San Matteo, or San Maffeo as the Venetians called it, in the western section of the Rialto area. This parish was home to some of the more infamous inns of the city and was generally of a lower reputation than the adjoining parish of San Giovanni Elemosinario, into which the prostitution district probably extended a little.Footnote ²⁶ The public brothels would therefore have been away from the immediate vicinity of the Rialto bridge and from the banks, most of the government offices, and the loggia where Venetian and foreign merchants met to exchange information and settle business deals. It would instead have been closer to the public markets that were frequented by people of every degree. This location was undoubtedly deliberately chosen in order to keep the potentially offensive business of prostitution at one remove from the more dignified commercial area. Indeed, the intention to keep prostitution in a subordinate position was already evident in the legislation of 1360, which, while permitting prostitutes to stay at the Rialto, ordered them to remain in their callicelli (side streets or alleyways), and prohibited them from soliciting in one of the major streets leading to the state-owned butcher shops. It also forbade them to wander about the city except on Saturday, which was market day in St. Mark’s Square.Footnote ²⁷ Such directives demonstrate the permanently ambivalent attitude that characterized urban policies on prostitution; even while the government was stating that prostitutes served a vital function for the city, it continued to regard them as sinners leading an immoral and offensive life that should be hidden as far as possible from the public gaze.

As was also the case in other towns, the Venetians required all prostitutes to live in the designated brothel area, which they tried to close off from the neighboring sections of the city. While it is not clear what steps were taken to achieve enclosure, access was evidently permitted through a single major gate.Footnote ²⁸ This arrangement was probably the origin of the name given this district — the Castelletto, or small castle, which was applied to municipal brothels in other towns as well.Footnote ²⁹ The use of a main gate was most probably intended to enhance public security. If a crime was committed during the day, the gate could be locked and a bell rung to alert everyone present to aid in capturing the culprit.Footnote ³⁰ At night the main gate was locked, not just to prevent prostitution from expanding to other areas of the city or disturbing residents, but also because allowing the Castelletto to remain open would have increased the risk of brawls, violence, and crime conducted under cover of darkness.Footnote ³¹

Responsibility for drawing up the initial regulations for the Castelletto was evidently entrusted to the Capisestieri, but, since their archive has almost completely disappeared, the earliest rules regarding the municipal brothels have to be deduced from later references. Initially, those involved in prostitution were supposed to remain permanently within the Castelletto and, apart from Saturdays, were not permitted to leave it without the permission of the Capi.Footnote ³² Such strict regulation was impossible to apply, however, and the authorities were constantly presented with the problem of prostitution’s spilling out into the rest of the Rialto and beyond.Footnote ³³ In 1416 the Capi seem to have accepted this reality, as they decreed that prostitutes and their ruffiane (female intermediaries) living anywhere in the city had to wear a typical symbol of prostitution — a yellow scarf — when they went about in public.Footnote ³⁴ However, according to the Senate, the women used this concession to live and ply their trade everywhere in the city. Therefore, five years later, the Senators annulled the ruling in an effort once again to limit prostitution to the Castelletto.Footnote ³⁵

This vacillating policy is typical of the approach of the Venetian authorities to the question of prostitution, as various factors made it difficult for them to maintain a consistent line. One problem was that constant interaction between the prostitutes and the officials appointed to deal with them led at times to personal bonds that undermined the officials’ willingness to enforce government regulation. The Capi’s decision of 1416, just mentioned, to allow the prostitutes to move about Venice practically at will is probably an instance in point. The degree to which patricians who served as Capi might become advocates of prostitutes’ interests is demonstrated by a case against Giacomo Davanzago, who acted as Capo for the sestiere of Santa Croce in 1398. On that occasion, he intervened in the effort of a patrician, supported by other officials, to expel two prostitutes from a house they were illegally occupying. Although no mention is made of Giacomo’s relations with these prostitutes, a real sympathy must have existed for him to intervene on their side, doing, as is stated in the case, exactly the opposite of what his office required. He and his men attacked the proprietor of the house and his companions with a sword, and forcibly gave the keys back to the prostitutes.Footnote ³⁶ Such behavior eventually led the Venetian government to try to prevent such relationships from developing by forbidding officials to eat, drink, or sleep with the prostitutes, or even to receive flowers or other gifts from them.Footnote ³⁷ The flowers singled out for special mention were roses, which then as now possessed a romantic significance; presumably, the sex workers were deliberately cultivating amorous relations with those responsible for containing them in order to undermine the restrictions on their activities.

In addition to the Capi, more important bodies, such as the Senate, were not always prepared to enforce the legislation on prostitution.Footnote ³⁸ From the start, the authorities’ approach to prostitution was pragmatic, and their subsequent policies were much influenced by financial considerations.Footnote ³⁹ The consequences of this approach are evident in their position on prostitutes’ presence in inns and taverns. Initially, prostitutes had been banned from these locales in order to maintain them as decent places where respectable people could go.Footnote ⁴⁰ However, prostitutes’ presence in inns and taverns was useful, as it led to more business and increased the income from the tax on retail sales of wine. Since this tax was one of the main sources of revenue for the government, the Senate decided in 1421 to revoke the original rule and permit prostitutes not only to sleep in inns and taverns, but also to gamble in them, up to a limit.Footnote ⁴¹ In this ruling the Senators explicitly admitted that their motive was to increase the business of the inn- and tavern-keepers at the Rialto, and, thereby, the government’s income. Although the authorities realized the deleterious effects of allowing prostitutes to frequent taverns, they chose to set aside moral considerations in favor of fiscal interests. Subsequently, policy shifted repeatedly, depending on what prevailed — a desire to increase the income from the tax on wine sales or concern about the negative effects of permitting prostitution in the city’s inns and taverns.Footnote ⁴²

Such vacillation was encouraged by some private Venetian citizens who were happy to benefit financially from prostitution even if this meant contravening the laws. Not only did proprietors constantly rent to prostitutes outside the Castelletto, but in 1467 the nobles who owned two inns at the Rialto lobbied to have prostitutes be allowed to work in them, arguing that, without the prostitutes’ presence, they would not be able to obtain the rents necessary to pay the high taxes imposed on their properties.Footnote ⁴³ Significantly, the government accepted this argument, even while insisting that prostitutes not sit at the door or outside the taverns to attract business. Evidently, the Venetian authorities were most concerned about public manifestations of immoral or obscene behavior and the effects these might have; rather hypocritically, they were happy to benefit financially from what they attempted to hide away.Footnote ⁴⁴ Such contradictory attitudes and policies must have contributed to undermining the limitations placed on prostitution and to ensuring that the goal of containing it was never really achieved.Footnote ⁴⁵

By 1423, problems regarding the enforcement (or lack of it) of the regulations surrounding prostitution led the principal Venetian judicial body, the Quarantia (Council of Forty), to issue what amounted to a new code on the subject. This legislation constitutes the first extant summary of the rules governing prostitution in Venice and provides an idea of how the trade was being conducted in the early fifteenth century.Footnote ⁴⁶ The new regulations included some relaxations of earlier rulings, which must have proved unenforceable. For example, while the prostitutes were still required to live in the Castelletto, they were now allowed to spend the day “alle volte de Rialto” — in other words, in certain vaults or warehouses in the Rialto area.Footnote ⁴⁷ The legislation specified which vaults these were and clarified that they had “always” been used by prostitutes. The authorities were therefore recognizing that prostitution had in fact never really been successfully contained within the Castelletto. Now they were prepared to accept a limited extension, possibly because the vaults used by the prostitutes were in obscure places, for example, behind some of the local inns. By specifying these premises, the authorities probably hoped to limit the further spread of prostitution beyond this customary area, which proved, as usual, impossible to achieve.

These new regulations of 1423 also extended the opening hours of the Castelletto and granted the prostitutes a liberty they had probably already been enjoying — they could spend the night outside the Castelletto if they wished to sleep with a client. On the other hand, some concessions previously made to prostitutes, such as permission to sleep and gamble in inns and taverns, were revoked, and other customs that had crept in contrary to the laws were also prohibited. These included prostitutes’ or their pimps’ keeping houses outside the Rialto area and using these not only to live but to work in, thereby annoying the good citizens who wanted to “live honestly.” Similarly, it was forbidden for anyone to marry a prostitute and have her continue working in the Castelletto. Marriage with a prostitute was traditionally advocated by the Church as a way to rescue these women and was not supposed to lead to effective pimping.

The regulations of 1423 refer not just to the prostitutes, but also to the matrons, or the women who organized prostitution in the brothel zone. As has been seen in the case of Franceschina da Murano, such women were already operating at the Rialto prior to the creation of the Castelletto. Subsequently, the Venetian government accepted and confirmed their role; in fact, the rules of 1423 prohibited keeping prostitutes in any other way than that followed by the matrons of the Castelletto. This is not to say that male pimps disappeared from Venice. On the contrary, they are frequently mentioned, but they were not officially tolerated; increasingly severe legislation was issued against them during the fifteenth century, and they were occasionally banished temporarily from the city.Footnote ⁴⁸

In concentrating the management of official prostitution in the hands of women, Venice differed from other Italian towns, where men did at times direct public brothels.Footnote ⁴⁹ The Venetians’ position is, therefore, somewhat unusual and may be related to assumptions about proper male behavior. For example, in 1423, when the Quarantia revoked permission for prostitutes to gamble and sleep in inns and taverns, it justified this decision on the grounds that the presence of prostitutes in these locales was “a very bad and wicked thing, because, as is clear to everyone, it has made many become not only useless but even thieves, for, having consumed their own wealth illicitly lazing about with the prostitutes and gambling, they now want to live from others’ work” rather than by the sweat of their own brow.Footnote ⁵⁰ Evidently, then, the Venetian elite subscribed to a kind of mercantile ethic according to which men were expected to work hard, be disciplined, and make money to sustain their family and their city. Laziness and self-indulgence meant consuming rather than producing wealth and incited men toward parasitism and crimes such as theft. Relying on the earnings of prostitutes also inverted the normal gender relations, by which men should support women and not vice versa. It led to pimps’ threatening and even beating the prostitutes, which the Venetian authorities condemned; proper social order required that men should control but also protect women.Footnote ⁵¹ Pimping by men must therefore have seemed to Venetian authorities an inversion of acceptable male attitudes and potentially threatening to the very fabric of society.

In contrast to this vision of male pimps as parasitic wastrels, the attitudes of the Venetian elite toward the prostitutes were much more nuanced. It is sometimes stated that, prior to the Reformation, only neutral terms were used to describe prostitutes, but this could hardly be the case, given the attitudes to sex propagated by Christian authorities.Footnote ⁵² Rather, the terminology used to describe prostitutes reflected the traditional ambivalence referred to above. A sense of the immorality of the trade is evident in the term sinner, which was regularly applied to sex workers in Venetian legislation. However, at the same time, the Venetian elite manifested considerable sympathy and pity for the misery and poverty of prostitutes’ lives. In Venetian legislation prostitutes were repeatedly called “poor,” “wretched,” even “poor little prostitutes”; significant is the term mamola by which they were generally known.Footnote ⁵³ Originally signifying a type of violet, mamola came by extension to denote a young woman, immature and inexperienced.Footnote ⁵⁴ Its application to prostitutes suggests that, despite their involvement in what was considered immoral work, they were viewed as young and defenseless, vulnerable to the ruses and manipulation of those around them. Repeatedly, in fact, the government stepped in to protect them from exploitation and violence.

Perhaps the Venetians’ limitation of brothel-keeping to women was regarded in part as a means of protecting the prostitutes, as male brothel-keepers were sometimes seen as more exploitative and violent.Footnote ⁵⁵ Moreover, the Venetian authorities may have felt that matrons would more easily accept a system of government control that was intended to provide justice to all concerned, including the prostitutes. According to the rules imposed by the government, both matrons and mamole were required to register with the Capisestieri. As of 1410, the Capi exercised some control over brothels’ finances to ensure not only that the establishments’ creditors received their due, but also that the prostitutes were not cheated. The rules stipulated that the money they made was to be deposited in a locked box kept in each brothel and opened once a month in the office and in the presence of the Capi. Footnote ⁵⁶ These officials could then ensure that the creditors of the brothels were paid, starting with the owners of the premises and the custodians of the Castelletto, after which the other creditors would receive a part of the debt due them, pro rata. Further, the Capi kept an account for every prostitute, in which both debts and credits were registered. Each could see her financial situation when she wanted. She could thus be relatively certain that the account was kept correctly and that, through her work, she would eventually be able to pay off her debts completely and become again a free woman — a goal the Venetian government evidently had at heart.Footnote ⁵⁷

The Matrons of the Castelletto

After this sketch of Venetian regulations on prostitution, closer attention can be given to the role of women in the trade, particularly the matrons who acted as its entrepreneurs. Especially useful in this regard are the records of two notaries who drew up many acts for matrons and prostitutes at the Rialto. About one of these, Bernardo de Rodulfis, there is little information beyond that his office was at the Rialto and that he died in 1400.Footnote ⁵⁸ The second, Cecchino Alberti, is better known, as he was a grammar teacher as well as a notary and became a considerable literary figure. He wrote poetry in both Latin and Italian and belonged to various literary circles, as is clear from his exchange of verses with other writers and humanists.Footnote ⁵⁹ As was typical of notaries of the day, both Bernardo and Cecchino sought government posts as a source of income, and both acted as notary of the Capisestieri. Rodulfis did so for several years in the 1390s, managing to keep his job even when the Capi tried to fire him in 1397.Footnote ⁶⁰ Subsequently, for a period at the beginning of the fifteenth century, Cecchino acted as notary for the same officials. It is because of their connection with the Capi that both notaries drew up a relatively large number of private documents for matrons and prostitutes, sometimes doing so within the magistrates’ office.

Even with this notarial documentation, however, the matrons of the Castelletto remain rather shadowy figures, as there is little information on their origins and careers before they emerge as managers of brothels. As far as it is possible to ascertain, they were normally unmarried, almost always foreign, and possessed very limited financial resources.Footnote ⁶¹ Thus they resembled their prostitutes who, in Venice as elsewhere in this period, usually came from outside the city and were often initially destitute.Footnote ⁶² In fact, the matrons were probably prostitutes who had reached the age when they needed to think about alternative ways of making a living.Footnote ⁶³ If their whole experience had been in the sex trade and they did not have enough income to support themselves in any other way, their best solution was probably moving into the managerial side of the business.

Nevertheless, an occasional matron does seem to have a somewhat higher standing than the norm. One of the leading brothel-keepers in Venice in the late fourteenth century was Jacoba, daughter of Muzolo de’ Baladori from Monteveglio.Footnote ⁶⁴ Although her nickname, Florentina, suggests a connection with Florence, her home town of Monteveglio was close to Bologna; she may have been the daughter of a dyer from Bologna who became well enough established in his adopted city to gain citizenship in 1351.Footnote ⁶⁵ Her claim to Venetian citizenship and her use of a surname as well as her family’s place of origin suggests that she aspired to a higher social status than the typical prostitute. As further support for this possibility, her child, Marco Baffo, bore a patrician surname and may therefore have been fathered by a Venetian nobleman.Footnote ⁶⁶ That the boy took his father’s name attests to a fairly serious and long-term relationship between the father and Jacoba, who was able to be relatively generous to her son. In the early 1390s she gave him a house and 400 ducats, a considerable gift for a person in her position.Footnote ⁶⁷ Possibly she had received these assets from Marco’s father, and was passing them on to him as a kind of inheritance. Jacoba’s experience thus seems rather similar to that of a sixteenth-century courtesan like Veronica Franco, who came from a citizen family and whose relationships included at least one patrician, who fathered a child with her.Footnote ⁶⁸ Jacoba, too, may initially have been a superior-level prostitute, who, however, ended her career as the matron of a public brothel.

As Giovanni Scarabello has pointed out, the organization of prostitution in Venice was characterized, like so much of the city’s economy, by a mixture of public and private enterprise, with the state drawing up the general terms within which private initiatives were undertaken.Footnote ⁶⁹ As demonstrated above, the government established the basic rules of prostitution, but it was left to the matrons to organize the day-to-day operation of the trade. Setting up a brothel required a fairly large expenditure, and the matrons, who had little capital, relied constantly on credit. However, dealing on credit was normal in commercial operations of the day, and in Venice it was relatively easy to obtain financing for a potentially profitable venture. Since prostitution clearly generated a lot of money, the matrons seem to have had little difficulty in acquiring credit not just from the shopkeepers and artisans at the Rialto, but also from the patrician elite. As will be illustrated below, their reliance on credit drew the matrons into the very active business world of the city centered at the Rialto, while it also located them within a system of debt and obligation that enabled others to profit from the sex trade as well.

The matrons’ first necessity in establishing their business was to acquire suitable premises. They did this by renting housing from Venetian patricians or other wealthy families who owned property at the Rialto.Footnote ⁷⁰ The buildings might consist of single-floor houses or shops, or of large structures, with at least two floors and, possibly, with smaller houses or shops attached.Footnote ⁷¹ As elsewhere, there was often a fairly large reception room possibly with bedrooms off it and certainly on the floor above.Footnote ⁷² When the Castelletto was open, there might be a large number of people congregated in the reception area,Footnote ⁷³ and, while some of the clientele consisted of foreign merchants,Footnote ⁷⁴ perhaps more came from the artisan and worker population of the city.Footnote ⁷⁵ Venetian patricians seem rarely to have frequented the Castelletto, perhaps because they had access to servants, slaves, and lower-class but respectable women for their sexual adventures.Footnote ⁷⁶

Although there is little evidence of how the matrons furnished their brothels, they evidently recognized the importance of creating an impression of luxury and elegance. They might, for example, add a touch of class by draping the benches in their reception area with decorative covers called bancali; these cloths were often made of costly fabrics like tapestry or velvet, and were sometimes embroidered.Footnote ⁷⁷ Also potentially expensive were beds, the most important furnishings the matrons had to supply. Even if the matrons limited themselves to the simpler forms of beds rather than the large and complex ones with headboards and attached chests, these items, with their mattresses, cushions, sheets, and bed-coverings, would have represented a considerable capital outlay if bought.Footnote ⁷⁸ It is indicative of the matrons’ limited funds that they often chose not to purchase these goods, but, rather, rented the furniture and decorative articles they needed from the numerous strazzaroli, or secondhand dealers, at the Rialto, some of whom, including the occasional woman, specialized in renting household goods.Footnote ⁷⁹

Apart from renting and furnishing their premises, the major expense of the matrons lay in clothing their prostitutes, who certainly did not possess the funds to acquire the elaborate garments considered necessary for their job. The matrons went to considerable expense to obtain elegant clothes for their mamole, undoubtedly hoping to enhance their desirability by creating around them an atmosphere of beauty and luxury. Descriptions of these clothes show how impressive they could be, as they included outfits in silk, velvet, or even in gold brocade, with pearl buttons. Belts of silver or of silk with silver fittings were as popular with prostitutes as with the rest of the Venetian population.Footnote ⁸⁰ Furs were an important item, as were shoes, whose beauty might call forth the erotic associations connected with the sight of women’s usually hidden feet.Footnote ⁸¹ Such glamorous clothes were an attraction to the young women involved, who otherwise would never have been able to gain access to such finery, and who may have enjoyed the fantasy of imagining themselves members of wealthier social groups. The garments must have also enhanced the brothel experience for the customers, as artisans and workers did not normally have the opportunity to consort with such well-dressed women. While they probably did not mistake the prostitutes of the brothel for gentlewomen (an illusion deliberately fostered by procuresses in other circumstances), the visual and tactile impression created by these expensive clothes must have heightened the sensual pleasure provided in the Castelletto.Footnote ⁸²

The matrons sometimes acquired the expensive garments they supplied their prostitutes (or the cloth to make them) from artisans.Footnote ⁸³ More typically, they bought the clothes secondhand, from the used-clothes dealers of the Rialto.Footnote ⁸⁴ In this way, they probably succeeded in gaining elegant and good-quality clothing for only a fraction of its original cost. Whether buying from artisans or strazzaroli, the matrons frequently, as stated above, made their purchases on credit, and, when doing so, used techniques typical of the local money market. These included precise schedules for repayment, penalties for noncompliance, and, if the seller wanted additional security, a guarantor.Footnote ⁸⁵ Usually a man, the guarantor would become legally responsible if the matron defaulted on the debt, as occasionally occurred.Footnote ⁸⁶

All these financial operations by which the matrons furnished and ran their brothels meant that they became involved in the world of petty commerce that flowed around them. They sometimes built up long-term relations with particular strazzaroli, other shopkeepers and managers of inns and taverns that they frequented or from whom they regularly bought goods. The use of credit, often long-term, led to repeated encounters, and sometimes to additional business affairs connected or not with the repayment of their debts. Sales on credit evidently extended quite easily to shopkeepers’ lending the matrons cash as well; matrons frequently admitted to debts for money as well as clothes or other goods received. As a result, matrons might accumulate large debts with the shopkeepers with whom they regularly did business.

Probably typical was the relationship established by the matron Helena from Florence with a druggist, Redolfo Mazuchi, who had a shop at the Rialto in the first years of the fifteenth century. Helena had probably already transacted business of various sorts with him by 1404, when his shop was the site where she and an ex-partner drew up a settlement.Footnote ⁸⁷ Gradually, Helena must have been accumulating debts with Redolfo; the fact that in 1407, in his shop, she nominated a proctor to collect what she was owed in Florence, Bologna, Ferrara, Padua, and Verona (presumably the range of her business operations) may have been motivated by a need to repay him at least part of what was due. Nevertheless, it comes as something of a shock to see her, a year later, admitting that she owed him the huge sum of 1,054 ducats, equivalent at the time to the price of a large house.Footnote ⁸⁸ While this represents the cost of things she had purchased from him, it also included cash advanced to her and, possibly, interest charged on the growing debt.

That Redolfo was prepared to let Helena accumulate such a debt without requiring more security than a personal promise to repay testifies not only to the frequency of commercial transactions between them, but also to his assessment of her potential income. He must have seen Helena and her business as a useful investment: by selling and lending to her he was creating a long-term debtor with good credit, from whom he could expect to make considerable profit.Footnote ⁸⁹ It was presumably for this reason that he cultivated relations with Helena and other prostitutes by allowing them to use his shop as a place to conduct their business.Footnote ⁹⁰ Other shopkeepers at the Rialto must have felt the same way, seeing in the constant need of the matrons and mamole for cash and credit a windfall for themselves. For example, the strazzarolo Michele from Bergamo, who worked and eventually lived in the parish of San Giovanni Elemosinario, did business with various matrons. He rented beds, bench-covers, and clothes to Caterina from Bologna, while he also had dealings with Jacoba Baladori.Footnote ⁹¹ In 1393, when he and Jacoba brought their accounts up to date, Jacoba agreed she owed Michele 314 ducats for clothes and other things she had purchased for her mamole and for money he had lent her.Footnote ⁹² This too was a relatively large sum, and it is, perhaps, indicative of Jacoba’s difficulties in paying it that she almost immediately created Michele as her proctor to collect debts owed to her.Footnote ⁹³ Thereby, he could reimburse himself directly without having to rely, or put pressure, on Jacoba herself. Thus the stores of traders like Redolfo Mazuchi and Michele from Bergamo must have become regular haunts of women involved in the sex trade.Footnote ⁹⁴

The matrons’ involvement in the world of financial exchange further encouraged them to become businesswomen, as it accustomed them to commercial methods and alerted them to opportunities offered by the market around them. Some ventured into business operations beyond those strictly necessary for running their brothel. For example, Jacopa Baladori bought a whole collection of furnishings from beds to chests to kitchen goods from a Florentine immigrant, and sold them, together with other household goods, to the keeper of the Angel Inn at the Rialto.Footnote ⁹⁵ Perhaps she had been intending to use some of these in her brothel, but had decided instead to sell them, possibly to settle a debt.Footnote ⁹⁶ Matrons dealt in other items as well. Helena from Florence bought a considerable quantity of cotton thread, which she may have been trading or, possibly, giving to her mamole so that they could employ their spare time in handwork.Footnote ⁹⁷ Such commercial operations must have provided the matrons with considerable business expertise, and allowed them to gain the confidence of the men with whom they dealt. For example, Castellano di Sigismondo, who for a while operated a tavern at the Rialto, had dealings with the matron Helena from Florence and with Helena’s successor, Maddalena, called Fornaria, from Padua.Footnote ⁹⁸ Maddalena was the wife of Castellano’s brother Giovanni and operated an inn at the Rialto together with her husband.Footnote ⁹⁹ In 1419, Castellano and his brother Giovanni named Maddalena their proctor not only to collect debts, but also to sell Giovanni’s hemp and to deal in all his business affairs.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ While it was by no means unusual in Venice for men to name their wives as proctors, the brothers’ action shows they felt that Maddalena’s commercial experience had made her capable of negotiating successfully in a mercantile world dominated by men.Footnote ¹⁰¹

The matrons’ business affairs involved them not only with shop- and innkeepers of the area, but also with Venetian patricians, from whom they borrowed money fairly frequently. The matrons could have encountered these nobles as Capisestieri, as proprietors of the premises they rented, as suppliers of goods, or even, possibly, as clients. They seem to have established similar relations of trust with the patricians as they did with shopkeepers. For if the matrons occasionally offered pawns as security, at other times they furnished their noble creditors with merely a personal promise to repay, sometimes with a schedule of repayment, but sometimes without any deadline at all.Footnote ¹⁰² Once again, such dealings drew the matrons into the wider business networks of their creditors. Jacoba Baladori acted as guarantor for Nicoleto Barbadico, presumably because she owed him money; in consequence, she had to promise to pay over 300 ducats to his creditors.Footnote ¹⁰³ Such transactions must have introduced her to more complex financial operations. For example, one of the sums she promised to pay for Nicoleto bore interest according to the yield on letters of exchange drawn on Bruges. This was a normal method of deciding an interest rate, chosen in part because fluctuations in the exchange rates meant that the return was not fixed and, therefore, not technically usurious. However, it was a technique that a woman would usually not have occasion to encounter, much less employ.

That the matrons became accustomed to local business methods is further indicated by the manner in which they formed companies to carry on their brothel business. Anna from Verona, in particular, seems to have used such associations; possibly, she had little capital or credit, and needed the contribution of a partner.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ By 1392 she was operating together with Lucia “Nigra” Ziane, but the company ended in 1395, when Lucia evidently withdrew from the business.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ The quittance that Lucia issued to Anna on this occasion gives a sense of the nature of their partnership, as it refers to their company as one of mamole whom they kept at profit and loss, and to their common interest in bedrooms, beds, other furnishings, and the rent of houses. Subsequently, Anna went on to form an association with Helena from Florence, which lasted until around 1398. The two matrons then formally gave each other quittance for all the claims that might arise from their business affairs and, specifically, from their company of mamole.Footnote ¹⁰⁶ They also asserted that they had gone over and calculated their accounts together; therefore, it is possible that they were sufficiently literate and familiar with numbers to have kept their own accounts.Footnote ¹⁰⁷

Usually such companies were formed within Venice, but occasionally the matrons’ business associations extended further afield. For example, for an unspecified period Helena from Florence had an association with a Lancilotto de Belavitis de Taleto.Footnote ¹⁰⁸ The company must have operated at least between Venice and Treviso, as, when it was liquidated in 1404, Lancilotto agreed to transfer to Helena some prostitutes whom they had jointly kept in the latter town. The business had clearly had its ups and downs, for the partners had pawned some of their goods, including clothes and silver objects, with the moneylenders of Mestre. Perhaps Lancilotto had provided most of the capital for the enterprise and Helena had done much of the work, for the liquidation agreement left Helena debtor for some 733 ducats. That she could promise to pay this sum by installments over some fourteen months suggests that she was anticipating a relatively high regular income from her brothel.

While it seems clear, then, that matrons could make money from their brothels, it is frustratingly difficult to ascertain how they did so, especially in light of the financial control exercised by the government. In the case of the clients, there is no indication that the matrons charged for access to the brothel and its inmates, as sometimes occurred elsewhere.Footnote ¹⁰⁹ However, clients may have given them informal tips. It would seem likely that the matrons sold food and especially drink to their customers, which was a major source of income for brothel-keepers in some localities.Footnote ¹¹⁰ There are, in fact, references to matrons and prostitutes selling wine to their lovers or pimps, and the matrons undoubtedly attempted to do the same for their clients.Footnote ¹¹¹ However, the Venetian government was very careful about retail sales of wine, as has been illustrated. Selling wine was limited to tavern-keepers, and the government prohibited informal sales, such as by prostitutes, where tax was not paid; similarly, the government insisted that prostitutes drink only wine supplied by the taverns.Footnote ¹¹² Nevertheless, people did drink in the brothels, and alcohol probably added to the level of violence there.Footnote ¹¹³

It is somewhat clearer how matrons made money from their mamole. Since the prostitutes usually lived in the brothel, at least in the early years of the Castelletto, their food and drink were probably supplied by the matron, and they must have paid for it.Footnote ¹¹⁴ The same was true for lodging. Legislation of 1460, which established a new Castelletto, mentioned the custom in the earlier institution for the prostitutes to pay the reasonable sum of six lire per month for a room in a brothel or three lire per month if they lived outside the Castelletto, in the nearby shops or volte.Footnote ¹¹⁵ The matrons also must have passed on to the prostitutes the various expenses they undertook for their brothel, including their highest expenditure — the cost of the expensive clothing they purchased or rented for their mamole. The matrons may, in fact, have obtained more than they paid, as they sometimes presented these clothes to the Capisestieri for an assessment of their value. By implication, the prostitutes would be required to pay the estimated price as opposed to what the matron might actually have spent.Footnote ¹¹⁶

All this meant that the prostitutes might find themselves in considerable debt to the matrons.Footnote ¹¹⁷ Therefore, whatever a prostitute earned (and there is little indication as to what this wasFootnote ¹¹⁸ ), much of it must have gone to repay such sums, and they were forced to work for long periods simply to meet their obligations.Footnote ¹¹⁹ The prostitutes thus became caught up in a financial system that profoundly conditioned their lives, as it forced them to continue in the sex trade, whether they liked it or not, in order to pay off their debts. Moreover, their position of dependency left them open to pressure from the matrons to disobey or circumvent the government’s rules. Matrons might cajole their mamole into giving them the money they earned rather than putting it into the common chest.Footnote ¹²⁰ Matrons also seem to have persuaded their sex workers to borrow the money they owed them from a male friend, thereby acquiring their money without liberating the prostitute from her debt.Footnote ¹²¹ The behavior of the matrons was to a degree understandable, as they undertook many personal obligations in running their brothel, and must at times have found it hard to meet these, especially with the Capi controlling the brothel’s income. On the other hand, from the prostitute’s perspective, the matron’s actions could lead to yet deeper obligations or a longer period working to pay off her debt.

The dangers of this system were recognized by the Venetian government, which stepped in to try and protect the mamole. From the point of view of the Venetian authorities, the problem was that prostitutes might accumulate so much debt that they would never be able to free themselves from a life of sexual slavery. Consequently, the Quarantia limited the amount of debt a prostitute could accumulate with a matron to sixty ducats — still a sizeable sum, although it would have covered the cost of only a couple of the expensive dresses they wore.Footnote ¹²² The authorities were also aware that many other people besides the matrons tried to make money from the prostitutes. Since tavern- and innkeepers overcharged the mamole, the Great Council fixed the amount of credit a prostitute could build up with them.Footnote ¹²³ Even the scribes of the Capi tended to blackmail the prostitutes by demanding fees every time they showed them their accounts. The government therefore decreed that a mamola should not be forced to offer the scribes more than a voluntary tip; only on the final occasion that she reviewed her account, after she had paid off her debt, did she have to pay a fixed fee, presumably as payment for their administrative services.Footnote ¹²⁴

The Venetian government further realized that prostitutes might be exploited by men claiming to be acting in their interests, who, by paying off a debt to a matron, supposedly liberated the mamola.Footnote ¹²⁵ However, the real purpose behind their action was to force the prostitute to work for the liberator in order to pay back not only the original debt, but even interest on it. If the prostitute complained, the new creditor could threaten to have her thrown into prison for debt, which would have prevented her from working and led to destitution. Consequently, the prostitutes put up with the injustice and ended up being more exploited than before. The Venetian authorities attempted to stop this practice, although as a commercial elite who held financial obligations sacrosanct, they would not consider canceling a debt, even if contracted in such circumstances. Rather, they prohibited charging interest in such cases, and stipulated that the Capisestieri, as the competent body, should determine a monthly rate proportional to the prostitute’s income by which she would repay the loan.Footnote ¹²⁶ This decision suggests again the government’s problems in dealing with male pimps, for it indirectly recognized their existence and their right to recover an outlay made on a prostitute, despite the legislation against such informal pimping.

Relations between Matrons and Mamole

The generalized sense that prostitution could be exploited for personal gain raises the question of the relations that developed between the matrons and the young women who worked for them. What has been said so far suggests that these relationships must have been rather complex. On the one hand, merely from a financial perspective, the mamole were valuable to the brothel-keepers and therefore merited care and attention. That the matrons had probably themselves been prostitutes should also have encouraged them to understand and feel sympathy for the difficulties of the mamole’s lives. On the other hand, the matrons were making an investment in their sex workers, and there was a strong incentive to regard them in a less humane fashion, as moneymaking assets.

It seems that these conflicting interests induced rather ambivalent attitudes in the matrons. At one level they were certainly anxious to protect their mamole from jealous and potentially violent clients, and did so even when it entailed reprisals against themselves.Footnote ¹²⁷ Further, if a prostitute really intended to leave the trade, a matron might be persuaded to cancel her debt and liberate her.Footnote ¹²⁸ On the other hand, there are many indications that the matrons conceived of their prostitutes above all in financial terms, almost as commodities to be bought and sold. For example, if a client/lover ran off with a prostitute, he was expected to pay off her debt to the matron, effectively buying her from her former mistress.Footnote ¹²⁹ Matrons might even buy women from people who had deceived or seduced them and wanted to make some money by selling or pawning them to a brothel-keeper. Jacoba Baladori gave ten ducats to a man who had persuaded a woman to follow him to Venice, and, on another occasion, thirty ducats to a widow who had managed to corrupt even nuns in order to pawn them in brothels.Footnote ¹³⁰ In these cases, the money given was treated as a loan, with the woman serving as guarantee for its repayment, but, in practice, she would have had to work in the brothel in order to pay it off.

A similarly mercenary point of view on the part of the matrons is evident in the techniques used to transfer prostitutes from one locality to another. Although some mamole might spend considerable time in one city and develop a personal clientele, moving prostitutes around was a common practice among brothel-keepers looking for new faces to keep alive the interest of their regular customers. Such practices help to account for the large proportion of foreign prostitutes found in municipal brothels of the day. In Venice, there seems to have been a lively commerce of this sort with other towns in Northern Italy, especially Treviso, and it is striking how many of these transfers involved Germans. German men and women must have acted as pimps, bringing German girls across the Alps and starting them on a peripatetic career through the Italian peninsula.Footnote ¹³¹ That many of them spent time in Venice can be explained, perhaps, not only on the basis of geography, but because Venice could offer an especially large clientele of German speakers who frequented or worked in the German commercial house, the Fondaco dei Tedeschi.

The methods used by matrons and other brothel-keepers to transfer their mamole are illustrated in the acts of the notary Cecchino Alberti. One of these documents recounts how the matron Helena from Florence acquired three German prostitutes from a German woman called Anne Spanga, who lived in Treviso and presumably ran a brothel there.Footnote ¹³² The exchange was essentially monetary, and was based on the system of debts described above — one that was evidently widespread throughout the world of international prostitution. Having paid 50 ducats of the debt of 200 ducats the prostitutes owed Anne, Helena declared that she still owed Anne the remaining 150 ducats. In turn, Anne ceded the mamole to Helena with all the rights pertaining to them. The exchange comes close to a purchase and the language is very similar to property transactions.Footnote ¹³³ Only incidentally is it mentioned that the prostitutes themselves consented to this exchange.

On other occasions not even this consent was mentioned. For instance, late in 1406, the same Helena paid 30 ducats and pledged herself to pay another 100 ducats to Anastasia from Venice, who had moved to Pavia and undertaken management of the public brothel there.Footnote ¹³⁴ Helena was acquiring a mamola called Caterina, nicknamed Florina, who had been a debtor of, and “subject to,” Anastasia in Pavia. Anastasia must have returned to Venice with Caterina, intending to exchange her for someone new. Once again, the agreement was purely financial: Helena assumed Caterina’s remaining debt to Anastasia, paying a part, providing a notarized obligation to pay the rest, and presenting a suitable guarantor. In turn, Anastasia handed Caterina over to Helena, with all related rights.

Although the brothel managers transferred the prostitute’s debt from one to the other, the prostitute, of course, remained ultimately responsible for its payment. This is evident in an exchange from Venice to Treviso in which the manager of a public brothel in Treviso, another German called Armanno son of Delman, acquired a prostitute from Caterina from Bologna, matron in the Venetian Castelletto.Footnote ¹³⁵ He paid part of the debt that the prostitute owed Caterina and obligated himself to pay the rest within three months. However, on the same day, the prostitute declared that she owed Armanno the full sum he had paid and would pay to her ex-matron.Footnote ¹³⁶ That these transactions were conducted in the office of the Capisestieri, with employees of the government acting as notary and witnesses, indicates that they were a normal part of the financial system of Venetian prostitution and that government officials had no difficulty in accepting and promoting this kind of trade in human beings.

Apart from essentially buying and selling young women, the matrons shared a widespread practice of using their prostitutes as guarantees or pawns. This article has already discussed men and women pawning women to matrons for even small sums of money, and the same was done by some corrupt officials who used their position as Capo for financial gain.Footnote ¹³⁷ It is, therefore, not surprising that the matrons themselves tended to use their rights over the prostitutes and their work as guarantees in their own commercial transactions. For example, when Jacoba Baladori acted as guarantor for a purchase of spun cotton by Helena from Florence, she required Helena to provide surety that Jacoba would not end up having to pay the sum herself. Consequently, Helena promised Jacoba that she would refund whatever Jacoba might be required to pay, and offered as guarantee all her mamole or her rights over them so that Jacoba could have recourse to them to recover her money.Footnote ¹³⁸ In such agreements, the prostitutes were being treated not as human beings but as income-producing objects with a monetary value negotiable in the Venetian financial market. That they were used in this way, whereas other workers evidently were not, indicates the low value placed on sex workers in the social hierarchy of the day.

The system of prostitution applied in the Venetian Castelletto would seem, then, to have been based on a multifaceted exploitation of the prostitutes. It enveloped them in a web of financial obligation that tied them to the trade; they were also reified by being used as pawns, forced to sell their bodies to provide money for someone to whom they were not directly obligated. Such techniques seem to have been common in medieval and early modern prostitution: they were known in fourteenth-century Florence as in sixteenth-century Augsburg and seventeenth-century Amsterdam.Footnote ¹³⁹ Nevertheless, the idea of treating people as objects and in ways that forced them into sexual slavery did offend the moral or humanitarian sense of many people, and some urban governments attempted to do away with such a system. Already in 1325 the Florentines had dealt with the issue in a number of provisions intended not only to prevent humans from being used as pawns for debt, but, in particular, to protect women from being sold into prostitution.Footnote ¹⁴⁰ These regulations prohibited buying a woman or otherwise obligating her to stay in a brothel for sinful purposes. Also prohibited would have been the kind of relationship between matron and mamole that existed in Venice, as it was forbidden to use obligations stemming from loans of money or from the provision of clothes or merchandise to force a woman to prostitute herself. The situation in Florence seems, in theory, also to have been more liberal in that if a prostitute wanted to leave the business, all her financial obligations were annulled. As has been shown, this might occur in Venice in practice, but exceptionally, on an ad hoc basis rather than by government decree.

By comparison to the Florentines, the position of the Venetian patriciate on such issues was more complex and nuanced. As indicated above, the Venetian authorities were unwilling to undermine the fundamental principle of repayment of a debt that an individual had contracted. However, they did object to other related practices, such as charging interest on loans made to liberate prostitutes from their matrons. In 1438 the Venetian government also decided to outlaw the pawning of women in such a way as would force them into prostitution or keep them in the trade. The motives behind this decision were multiple. On the one hand, the Venetians, who prided themselves on their piety, were concerned about the religious implications of compelling women to remain in a permanent state of sin. In fact, the legislation condemned the use of prostitutes as pawns because it prevented them from leaving the trade when they wanted to, which was defined as an injury to God as well as shameful for such a religious city as Venice.Footnote ¹⁴¹

The law further stated that such forced prostitution went contrary to Venice’s much vaunted traditions of liberty. It is well known that Venetians were proud of their city’s freedom and that liberty played an important role in the myth of Venice as an ideal city-state. However, Venetian liberty is usually associated with the claim that the city was never conquered and with its self-government along republican lines. It is, therefore, surprising to find Venetians connecting the concept of liberty with what might now be called human rights. Nevertheless, this legislation of 1438 moves in that direction, as it makes a clear correlation between the ideal of freedom and the right of women, as well as men, to choose a morally decent life. The law states that “our city has the fame of being free, and what principally accords with true liberty is that everyone, when they want to, be able to live well.”Footnote ¹⁴² Liberty is thus clearly connected with the possibility of exercising moral choice and deciding to abandon sin for a virtuous life. Since pawning prostitutes prevents such a choice, it is said to constitute “the highest iniquity,” and the legislation consequently prohibits using any woman as a pawn in such a way as would force her to sell her body. Rather, from now on, it is proudly declared, such women should be free.

This legislation is interesting in that it suggests that the concept of liberty in Venice possessed ethical-religious as well as political implications. However, not too much should be made of it. Despite its high moral tone, the law was aimed only at women who had been unfortunate enough to have been used as pawns. It did not begin to undermine the wider system of personal debt that kept so many prostitutes committed to the brothel for many years, even when they too may have wanted to leave. One has to conclude that the Venetian sense of injustice was rather limited and was aroused to action only by extreme or particular types of exploitation.

Marginalization versus Integration

After this discussion of the practices of Venetian prostitution and contemporary attitudes to it, an effort can be made to assess the effects of this commercial system of prostitution on women’s lives and on their relations with the society around them. First, as regards the prostitutes, the position of the mamole seems similar to the rather ambiguous mixture of acceptance and disdain, marginalization and integration noted by Elizabeth Cohen as typical of prostitutes in early modern Rome.Footnote ¹⁴³ On the one hand, the Venetian authorities were relatively liberal in that they tried to establish reasonable and fair conditions for the prostitutes, and ensure that they received justice and protection in their work. Moreover, official regulations granted the mamole some freedom, in that they could, to a degree, choose their lovers and develop special relations with clients. The legislation also guaranteed sex workers a legitimate place in Venetian life and in the constructed space of the city. Prostitutes were legally permitted to ply their trade during the day in the Castelletto and in certain areas around it; in practice, they seem to have been able to solicit almost anywhere at the Rialto — at the market, near shops, and in open spaces. Because of government policy, their presence had to be accepted by all who frequented the zone, and prostitution must have come to be seen by many as a normal part of local life.

Thus the legalization of prostitution, at one level, won the mamole some integration into local society. As illustrated above, some shop- and innkeepers welcomed their presence, and were happy to do business with them. Other groups active at the Rialto seem to have reacted similarly. Clergy attached to the local churches by no means scorned prostitutes; rather, some acted on their behalf or assisted them financially. Notaries at the Rialto drew up documents for mamole just as they did for merchants and for nuns.Footnote ¹⁴⁴ If some government officials abused their powers and exploited sex workers, others became their friends and supporters, reflecting the rather benevolent attitude of the authorities as well as the personal contacts that grew out of frequent interaction. Further, the connections the prostitutes could set up with powerful individuals such as the Capisestieri brought them agency and influence, which they could use to reduce or avoid the limitations officially imposed on their activities.

On the other hand, the Venetian government’s legalization of prostitution by no means canceled the stigma connected with sex work. The authorities themselves ensured that this was so by acting constantly on the assumption that prostitution was an immoral, sinful activity, to be hidden as far as possible from the sight and the knowledge of decent people. Such assumptions must have influenced the way in which others not only regarded, but also reacted to sex workers. Surviving criminal records reveal in striking terms the degree to which prostitutes were physically ill treated, suggesting once again that they were viewed as possessing little value or status.Footnote ¹⁴⁵ Moreover, prostitutes might be treated practically as objects, while exploiting the mamole seems to have been regarded as normal and was done by many of those around them, including the matrons themselves. Even the apparent acceptance of sex workers by shop- and innkeepers at the Rialto was undoubtedly based in part on a rather cynical calculation of the profit to be made from them. For the mamole, the results seem often to have been poverty and relative isolation, as might be expected for young women who were so often foreigners.Footnote ¹⁴⁶

That prostitution in Venice continued to be regarded as a degrading activity is further suggested by the apparent general assumption that the best solution for a prostitute was to abandon the trade. Government legislation was directed toward providing a means for the mamole to do this by paying off their debts and liberating themselves. Ordinary Venetians saw freeing a prostitute from sex work as a meritorious charitable act; occasionally, a bequest was left to enable a prostitute to pay off her debts, find a husband, and lead a God-fearing life.Footnote ¹⁴⁷ As for the mamole themselves, their attitudes are rarely recorded, but some certainly sought an avenue of escape. As previously discussed, this might be achieved through a personal decision — the reform so often preached by ecclesiastics — that might lead to an elimination of debt and the possibility of a new start in life. A few houses for repentant prostitutes existed in Venice in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, although entering them probably implied a quasimonastic style of life.Footnote ¹⁴⁸ Other, less formal means might also be found to escape from sex work. These often utilized relationships with men — finding someone willing either to pay off one’s debt (without imposing a worse servitude) or to provide an alternative existence that, if not actually marriage, might be close to it.

An interesting example of this last possibility is provided by the agreement made in 1400 between one of Jacoba Baladori’s mamole, Margarita, called Gretola, and an immigrant from Rimini, Micheletto di Nanni.Footnote ¹⁴⁹ Micheletto was prepared to furnish Margarita with a loan of 100 ducats, at least part of which was probably intended to repay what she owed her matron Jacoba. This loan came with binding, if fairly generous, conditions, as Micheletto had evidently established a close relationship with Margarita that he wanted to turn into something more permanent. He promised not to ask for the money back provided that Margarita came to live with him, serving and obeying him and looking after his property. Only if she failed to do this or if she left him without his consent would she be required to repay the loan. At one level, he was, like others, using financial bonds to manipulate Margarita. At another, however, he was providing her with an incentive to establish a relationship resembling that of an informal marriage; his specifications of how Margarita was to behave depict her as a wife in practice if not in title. Of course, the agreement would not necessarily be permanent, and Margarita might be left with nothing if it fell apart. On the other hand, it would allow her to abandon prostitution and set up a potentially long-term relationship with someone to whom she was probably emotionally attached. Such an arrangement would, in fact, not be so different from informal unions often entered into by lower-class couples who lived together, had children, and behaved as though they were married even if they had not performed the due ceremonies.Footnote ¹⁵⁰

Another alternative for the prostitute who wanted, or was compelled, to change her style of life, was, of course, that of becoming a matron. In certain ways, this does not seem a bad option, for running a brothel could permit a woman to become an entrepreneur handling large sums of money and realizing sometimes substantial profits. Even if most of this money was reinvested in her business or went to pay her many creditors, a matron could achieve a sufficiently high income for a comfortable, if not a luxurious, style of life. Such an assessment is supported by the wills of two matrons, drawn up while they were still operating in the Castelletto — Jacoba Baladori and Helena from Florence.Footnote ¹⁵¹ Both women could afford to employ servants or even to purchase slaves — an important investment when the matron was responsible for the cleanliness and maintenance of a large establishment.Footnote ¹⁵² Jacoba also employed a woman to carry out business for her.Footnote ¹⁵³ Both Jacoba and Helena could afford to be generous to those close to them. The former left bequests ranging from fifteen to fifty ducats to various male friends, including the notaries who had drawn up acts for her and to one of the scribes at the office of the Capisestieri. Footnote ¹⁵⁴ Helena bequeathed 100 ducats to create a dowry for the daughter of her executor. Although neither woman mentions property, which could have provided them with a permanent income, matrons were able to gain enough economic security to eventually retire from brothel life. Lucia “Nigra” Ziane seems to have done so, as did Helena herself, who, around 1416, turned over her brothel to an aspiring matron, Magdalena “Fornaria” from Padua, and moved to the nearby parish of San Cassian.Footnote ¹⁵⁵

As has been shown, the matrons’ business operations entailed interaction with patricians and merchants as well as with used-clothes dealers, innkeepers, and artisans. They were thus accepted as business partners by people of every social level; they seem to have found credit easily and must therefore have enjoyed the trust of many around them, despite what was felt to be the rather immoral nature of their activities. They seem, then, to have enjoyed a high degree of social integration. That this could extend even to devotional groups is indicated by the will of Helena from Florence, which refers to a religious confraternity, that of the Holy Apostles, with which she had formed an association.Footnote ¹⁵⁶ Located in the eponymous church in the sestiere of Cannaregio, the confraternity was one of the largest in Venice that accepted female members, although it charged higher fees to those who resided outside the parish of the Santi Apostoli. Helena did not actually assert in her will that she was a member of this group, but she was close enough to it to expect that its members would attend her funeral, or might be persuaded to do so. She left them the rather large sum of ten ducats on the condition they accompanied her funeral procession and prayed to God for her soul. The sum involved, and the fact that the bequest to the confraternity was the first one listed in her will, suggests that she set considerable store by her relationship with this pious group. Presumably she saw her connection with the devotional and charitable activities of a confraternity as a way to compensate, at least in part, for a life spent engaging in or promoting activities for which she might be punished in the afterlife. In addition, she may have felt that the presence of a respected religious sodality at her funeral would supply a degree of social respectability that she might otherwise have lacked. As for the members of the confraternity, it is striking that they were prepared to accept at some level a woman who was openly running a brothel in the Castelletto and therefore directly contradicted the high standards of behavior normally demanded by devotional groups. Money may have been a factor here, as Helena could use her cash income to make significant donations to the confraternity’s activities and thereby mitigate the disdain that might have been aroused by her occupation. She may have been merely a token member or benevolent supporter of the confraternity, offering donations without participating directly in the group’s activities. Nevertheless, her bequest suggests that, perhaps through her financial resources, it was possible even for a matron of the Castelletto to benefit from the city’s confraternal life.

However, while these considerations suggest a relatively high degree of social acceptance, a look at other bequests in these matrons’ wills calls for a more nuanced view. Neither Helena nor Jacoba seems, for example, to have developed very extensive social bonds. As might be expected, neither possessed much of a family. Jacoba left a slave to her beloved son, presumably Marco Baffo, but otherwise, she, like Helena, named only their adopted sons as relatives.Footnote ¹⁵⁷ Apart from a servant and this child, the only people to whom Helena was close were the family of Castellano di Sigismondo — the innkeeper with whom she had had business dealings. He was named as her sole executor and the beneficiary of what was left of her goods after the other bequests had been paid. Moreover, the largest sum that Helena left was to Castellano’s daughter for her marriage. Both she and Jacoba seem, notably, to have been without the network of female associates that older women normally accumulated. Presumably, then, their careers had tended not only to dissolve family bonds, but also to isolate them personally from the social world around them, despite the business network in which they functioned.

Similar conclusions arise from events surrounding the execution of the will of Jacoba Baladori, who died soon after it was drawn up. She had left seventy-five ducats (fifteen each) to the five men she nominated as her executors: two were officially resident in Bologna, another (of Lucchese origin) resided in Treviso, another was the parish priest of San Cancian, and the last the used-goods dealer, Michele from Bergamo. Although the bequest was conditional on their agreeing to handle her estate, none of them seemed eager to do so. In a series of notarized deeds, they repeatedly passed their responsibilities as executor from one to another, until a person extraneous to the group was finally named to act for the estate.Footnote ¹⁵⁸ While it is possible that some of the five were busy or outside Venice and therefore did not feel they could deal with the duties involved, it may well have been that they did not want to appear repeatedly in public as a representative for a woman well known as a matron in the Castelletto, or to perform such tasks as pursuing the debts owed her by her mamole.

Thus, it would seem that the financial aspects of the system of prostitution established in the first Venetian Castelletto had differing effects on women’s lives. For the prostitutes, it meant relative poverty, exploitation, and, often, brutality. If they gained sufficient integration to be able to work and function in local society, they remained marginalized, spatially to a degree, but above all morally, as prostitution continued to be seen as a sinful activity that reduced the status and value of the workers involved. At best, becoming a mamola was a means of survival that could lead to a more respectable place in society, although even such a solution might not always be available or secure. For the matrons, their role in the Castelletto could have attractive economic consequences, in that they might handle large sums of money, become businesswomen of a sort, and achieve a relatively comfortable style of life. They might further use their income to gain a degree of social respectability. However, it would seem that they too remained tainted by the profession they pursued, and that real social integration was difficult if not impossible for someone with continued involvement in the sex trade.

Conclusion

The system of prostitution discussed here lasted, in theory, for a century, from 1360 to 1460. The Venetian authorities then decided to replace the first Castelletto with a new area of public brothels at the Rialto and at the same time they revised the regulations governing prostitution.Footnote ¹⁵⁹ The new legislation repeated some of the earlier rules, but it also introduced changes representing a liberalization of policy, generally in favor of the prostitutes. On the one hand, the mamole were still required to live in the Rialto area, register with the Capisestieri, and submit to their jurisdiction. They were not permitted to go outside the island of the Rialto except on Saturday morning and then had to wear their appropriate “sign.” However, the new Castelletto does not seem to have been an enclosed site as the previous one had been; rather, it was an open street, and no mention is made of a gate to separate the area from the surrounding property.Footnote ¹⁶⁰ In addition, prostitutes were allowed to live outside the Castelletto proper, not only in the traditional vaults but even in taverns, inns, and bathhouses, although they could not work in these establishments during the day or engage in gambling.Footnote ¹⁶¹

The regulations also suggest that one of the authorities’ greatest concerns by 1460 was to protect the mamole from exploitation. Apart from the prohibition on pawning women and renewed penalties against pimps, several clauses were designed to avoid the constant danger that prostitutes would have to sell themselves merely in order to repay their debts. Credit was identified as the crucial problem here, and limitations were imposed on the practice of selling goods of all sorts to the prostitutes on credit. Innkeepers and others were forbidden to extend credit to the prostitutes at all, and no one was allowed to give them anything on credit without the permission of the Capi. Although it is nowhere stated, these restrictions in practice outlawed the methods used by the matrons of the first Castelletto, who had provided clothes and other goods on credit, and recouped their outlay through the prostitutes’ work. In fact, the legislation of 1460 omits the clause requiring prostitutes to be kept only in the manner used by the matrons; it makes no mention of the matrons at all. These women, once essential in brothel organization, had evidently lost their place in the legalized sex trade.Footnote ¹⁶²

The creation of the second Castelletto suggests, then, that a change had occurred in the attitudes of Venetian authorities toward prostitution. By 1460 Venetians had, perhaps, become used to the presence of prostitutes in the city and were a little less anxious to enclose and restrict them. That patricians were becoming more tolerant of the sex trade is supported by the fact that a Venetian patrician not only came forward to offer his property for the new Castelletto, but also agreed to maintain it and construct more accommodation for prostitutes if necessary.Footnote ¹⁶³ In addition, concerns about the exploitation of the prostitutes were resulting in their gaining greater independence, in that, in theory, they were no longer under the control of a matron, while restrictions on the use of credit should have reduced their indebtedness to local artisans, shopkeepers, and innkeepers. They might, therefore, be better off, as they could keep more of their income, while they could also make more of their own decisions about the organization of their work.

In the years after 1460, this more liberal attitude toward prostitution seems to have prevailed. Although government bodies intervened to correct dangerous or scandalous situations, they did little to enforce the laws regulating prostitution. At times, in deference to the interests of property owners, they even permitted prostitutes to live in areas of the city that should have been off-limits to them.Footnote ¹⁶⁴ The authorities took more vigorous action against pimps, but in such a way as helped liberate the prostitutes from the control of their supposed protectors.Footnote ¹⁶⁵ This relative toleration undoubtedly contributed to the spread of prostitution throughout the city, and to the emergence of the famous courtesans. More affluent than the ordinary prostitutes, courtesans also offered more elegant surroundings and more refined entertainment. They numbered Venetian patricians among their clients and could call on the support of their high-placed friends in order to evade the regulations imposed on them. In fact, although the government tried repeatedly from the late fifteenth century to force prostitutes back to the Rialto and to limit the luxuriousness of their dress and furnishings, its efforts encountered considerable resistance.Footnote ¹⁶⁶ At one point in 1543 the authorities explicitly lamented that recent legislation against prostitutes could not be implemented because of the favor that nobles and citizens were extending to these people of “base and detestable” condition.Footnote ¹⁶⁷

Thus, in the period from the legalization of prostitution in 1358 to the sixteenth century, government policy in general tended toward an increasing, if often unofficial, toleration. Initially the authorities had expected to be able to contain the sex trade and use it for their own purposes, but too many interests, whether financial or emotional, became wrapped up with prostitution for control to be effective. In addition, the concern of the elite to secure justice for the prostitutes and to eliminate exploitation led them to permit greater freedom to sex workers — a tendency that ultimately proved difficult, indeed impossible, to reverse. The result was an expansion of the sex trade in ways that the authorities did not want but were unable to prevent. In the end, then, despite concerns about immorality and disease, sixteenth-century Venice became noted for the relative freedom it granted its sex workers, and visitors regarded its famed courtesans as one of the most noteworthy sights of the city.