The Saint Who Was Also a Hooker (Courtesan)

Lyrics

[Intro]
In the salon of San Marco, 1575,
Veronica Franco sits with her quill.
The bishop waits for her words.

[Verse 1]
She was born in 1546, Veronica,
daughter of Paola Fracassa, who taught her the trade.
At eighteen, around 1564, she entered the lists,
the Catalogo di tutte le principali et più honorate cortigiane di Venetia,
priced at two scudi per night.
But her mind was the real currency.
Pearl necklace draped over silk,
scent of ambergris and musk filling the room.
The cool air, fifteen degrees Celsius, seeps from the canal.

[Chorus]
The saint who was also a courtesan,
writing terze rime by candlelight.
'When we too are armed and trained,' she wrote,
'we can convince men that we have hands, feet, and a heart like yours.'
The bishop loved her sonnets,
read them in his chambers, under the cross.

[Verse 2]
Her salon in Cannaregio, tapestries on walls,
gilded chairs for kings and poets.
Henry III of France visited in 1574,
she sent him letters, sharp as her quill.
The lute rests nearby, strings still humming from evening songs.
Marzipan and biscotti on the table,
spiced wine warming the guests.
Outside, gondolas glide at nine PM,
lapping water against stone.

[Bridge]
They called her Cyprian, from Aphrodite's isle,
but she was more—poet, diplomat.
The records forget her mother’s full story,
Paola, mentor in shadows.
And the servants, unnamed, who lit the brazier.
But Veronica’s voice persists,
in leather-bound books, ink faded but bold.

[Verse 3]
She died in 1591, at forty-five,
after trials by Inquisition, acquitted.
Her poems survive, translated by Jones and Rosenthal in 1998.
The bishop, unnamed in whispers,
kept her words like relics.
In that salon, under flickering light,
she armed women with verse.

[Outro]
Veronica Franco, saint of sonnets and salons.
The bishop loved her still.