History's Greatest Courtesans

[Kazimiera]

The Lady’s Not a Tramp: History's Greatest Courtesans

Source: http://www.neatorama.com/2014/09/30/...s-Not-a-Tramp/

For most of recorded history, women had just a handful of options open to them: they could marry (hopefully to men of means), they could teach, they could join convents, or they could do something a little more exciting …like becoming mistresses to the rich and famous. These eight are among history’s best-known high-class ladies of the night.

1. PHRYNE (Fourth Century BC)



As a child, she was called Mnesarete (Greek for "virtue"), but because she was born with sallow skin, she was called Phryne (Greek for "toad"). Still, Phryne became the most successful and sought-after courtesan in ancient Greece, commanding 100 times the going rate. Supposedly, she was even the model for the sculpture called Aphrodite of Cnidus, one of the most famous works of Greek art.

Lust Rewards: Phryne became incredibly rich thanks to her liaisons with powerful men in Athens. According to legend, she even offered to pay to rebuild the city walls of Thebes, which had been destroyed by Alexander the Great in 336 BC, but there was a condition: the new wall had to contain the inscription “Destroyed by Alexander, restored by Phryne the courtesan.” Her offer was declined.

Around 340 BC, Phryne was accused of affronting the gods by appearing nude during a religious ceremony. At her trial, the orator Hyyperides -her defender and also one of her lovers- ripped open Phryne’s robe and exposed her to the court. Why? He considered it a legitimate defense. She was, after all, the most beautiful woman in Athens, and someone that gorgeous must be on good terms with Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty, no matter what codes of conduct she appeared to have broken. It worked. The judges ruled in Phryne’s favor.


2. THEODORA (497-548)



Theodora’s father died when she was young, so her mother sent the girl to work, first as an actress and then as a prostitute.

Theodora became the mistress to a politician named Hecebolus and then caught the eye of Justinian I, the emperor’s nephew. Justinian was so enamored with Theodora that he wanted to marry her, but Byzantine law forbade royals from marrying mere actresses (and prostitutes, presumably), so his uncle changed the law and Justinian and Theodora became husband and wife.

Lust Rewards: Justinian ascended to the throne in 527, and together he and his wife ruled Byzantium (also known as the Eastern Roman Empire). Theodora proved to be a gifted politician -she helped to create a new constitution to curb corruption, expand the rights of women in divorce, closed brothels, and founded convents for former prostitutes. When she died at around the age of 50, she had been empress of Byzantium for more than 20 years. Historians consider her to be the most influential and powerful woman in the empire’s 1,100-year history.


3. VERONICA FRANCO (1546-91)



Like mother, like daughter: Veronica Franco was the privileged offspring of Venetian courtesan Paola Fracassa. She studied Greek and Roman literature and learned to play the lute. After marrying and divorcing a doctor, Franco consorted with politicians, artists, philosophers, and poets. She became an accomplished poet herself and celebrated her sexual prowess in writing -her book Familiar Letters (published in 1580) was a collection of 50 letters written to her lovers, including King Henry III of France and the Venetian painter Jacopo Tintoretto.

Lust Rewards: In the 1570s, Franco lost most of her money to thieves, but it was her overt sexuality that was her undoing. In 1580, she was charged with immorality and witchcraft by the Roman Inquisition courts. She managed to avoid conviction by giving an eloquent speech in her defense, and then a wealthy patron named Domenico Nenier came to her aid. She never regained her former glory, though: Veronico Franco lived out the rest of her life in a section of Venice populated by destitute prostitutes.


4. NELL GWYNNE (1650-87)



Eleanor “Nell” Gwynne had a troubled childhood in London: Her father left the family when she was young, and her mother drowned in a pond after a drinking binge. Young Nell sold oranges to get by, but by the time she was 15, she’d also started working as an actress. Famous playwright John Dryden wrote roles for her, and she proved to be a comedic talent. With fame cam wealthy men -eventually, Gwynne became a courtesan, cohabiting with members of the English nobility, including Charles Sackville, the sixth Earl of Dorset, and King Charles II.

Lust Rewards: Gwynne’s main man was King Charles II, and she was his mistress exclusively from about 1670 until he died in 1685. They had two sons, and Charles built her a mansion near Windsor Castle. On his deathbed, Charles pleaded with his brother, James II, to “not let poor Nell starve.” James II carried out those wishes, proving for Nell Gwynne until her death two years later in 1687.


5. CORA PEARL (1835-86)



Emma Crouch was born in Plymouth, England, to a British musician and womanizer who deserted his family and moved to America. At around the age of 20, Emma worked as a milliner, dabbling in prostitution to augment her low wages. During this time, she met Robert Bignell, owner of a dance hall, and became his mistress. He took her to Paris, where she was enamored with the 19th-century Bohemian atmosphere. When Bignell returned to England, Emma stayed behind, changed her name to Cora Pearl, and became the city’s most famous courtesan.

Lust Rewards: Cora Pearl had a series of lovers in high places, including the French statesman Duc de Morny, the half-brother of Napoleon III, and the Prince of Orange, heir to the throne of the Netherlands, who gave her a string of black pearls that became her signature ornament.

Pearl was known for her decadent ways -she once had waiters carry her naked on a silver plate into a fancy dinner, and she sometimes bathed in a tub of champagne in front of her dinner guests. But a shooting at one of her mansions led to her expulsion from France. She ended up indigent, living in a boardinghouse, where she died at age 51 of stomach cancer. In her memoirs, she left no regrets: “I am far from posing as a victim; it would be ungrateful for me to do so. I ought to have saved, but saving is not easy in such a whirl of excitement as that in which I have lived.”


6. MADAM DE POMPADOUR (1721-64)



When Jeanne-Antionette Poisson was nine years old, her mother took her to see a fortune teller, who said that the little girl would grow up to be the mistress of a king. That seemed unlikely for the daughter of a disgraced French financier and a courtesan, but Jeanne-Antionette eventually made good on the prophesy. In 1745, she was invited to a costume ball at the Palace of Versailles. Jeanne-Antionette dressed as a shepherdess -King Louis XV was dressed as a tree. Within a month, she was his mistress.

Lust Rewards: Louis gave Jeanne-Antionette her own coat of arms and the title “Marquise de Pompadour,” or Madame de Pompadour. Louis doted on her, and Madame de Pompadour spent fortunes on gems, art, and ornate porcelain. She also became one of Louis’ foreign policy advisors, and even encouraged him to fight the Seven Years’ War with England, which ended in France’s defeat. The public blamed her for the war’s devastation, but Louis remained loyal to her. She died in 1764, still a member of the royal court.


7. MATA HARI (1876-1917)



By the time Margaretha Geertruida Zelle MacLeod was 18, she’d married a Dutch colonial army officer who was twice her age and moved with him to the Dutch East Indies. They had two children, but their marriage was on the rocks from the start- Margaretha liked the company of other men, and he liked to drink. Eventually, they divorced, and with little money and no skills, Margaretha turned to dancing and prostitution to make ends meet. In 1902, she moved to Paris, where she gained fame as an exotic dancer. Two years later, she was a sensation, flaunting her sexuality with Indonesian-derived dance and a new name: Mata Hari.

Lust Rewards: Mata Hari became the mistress of wealthy industrialist Emile Etienne Guimet, and she was famous for a cabaret striptease in which she was left wearing only a bejeweled bra and an ornamental headdress and armbands. But she still had ties to the Netherlands, which allowed free entry into Germany. And as the Germans and French got entrenched in World War I, she became an object of concern for the French military.

No one has ever proved that Mata Hari was (or wasn’t) a German spy. According to some researchers, she took money to spy on the French because she was drowning in debt, but never actually participated in any espionage. Others claim she was a German operative with the code name of H-21. Whatever the truth, she was arrested and executed by firing squad in 1917 at the age of 41. Documents concerning her trial have been sealed, not to be opened until 2017. Stay Tuned.


8. SHADY SADIE (1861-1944)



The closest thing the wild American West has to a famous courtesan is Josephine “Sadie” Marcus. At 18, Josephine ran away from home to join a traveling theater company as a dancer. While on tour, she romanced Tombstone, Arizona, deputy sheriff Johnny Behan; she liked the area so much that she moved there and became a prostitute, earning her the nickname “Shady Sadie.”

Lust Rewards: In her early 20s, Sadie met famed lawman and gambler Wyatt Earp, who already had a common-law wife named Mattie Blaylock. But Blaylock was addicted to laudanum -an opiate used to treat headaches- and Shady Sadie won Earp’s heart. No marriage records exist, but Sadie adopted the name Earp by 1882, and the couple traveled the West, gambling, hunting for gold and silver, operating saloons as far north as Alaska, and running horse races in San Diego.

Wyatt Earp died in 1929, but Shady Sadie lived until 1944. When she passed away, she was cremated, and her ashes were interred with Wyatt’s remains in Colma, California.

[Kazimiera]

5 Great Seductresses of Italian History

Source: http://www.swide.com/art-culture/top...ory/2015/01/03

Five women devoted to sensuality and seduction out of passion or necessity. Take a journey of discovery through ancient Rome, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to find out who these free-spirited, voluptuous women were.

Mythological prostitutes, restless emperors’ wives, lovers to popes and kings, and refined courtesans: Italian history can also be viewed from the perspective of these daring and unscrupulous women who became famous for having shaken up the customs and the morality of their time, with varying degrees of violence. Many of these women paid the price for their infamy with the scorn of prejudiced and chauvinistic chroniclers of history and writers of memoires.

They were often punished by damnatio memoria, condemnation to being forgotten, and they were not forgiven for being free women who skilfully exploited their beauty and attractiveness, either to improve their social status or simply out of love for the ancient game of seduction. Here are the stories of these five grandes dames of eroticism.

ACCA LARENTIA



A figure from Roman mythology, she is the symbolic mother of all Italian seductresses and courtesans. A demi-goddess borrowed from Etruscan culture, she was a prostitute who was considered the protector of the people. A holiday known as the Accalia or Larentalia was dedicated to her on December 23 of each year. According to certain traditions, Acca Larentia was the adoptive mother of Romulus and Remus, founders of Rome.

It is said that the twins, who were abandoned in a basket on the river, were rescued by Pastor Faustolo, who brought them to his wife Acca Larentia, a former prostitute who, because of her past, is associated with the figure of the “wolf” in the story, a term used by the Ancient Romans in reference to prostitutes. Other versions of the legend say that the twins were rescued and nursed by a real wolf.


MESSALINA



Valeria Messalina was born in Rome in 25 AD and at the age of fourteen was forced, on a whim of the Emperor Caligula, to marry her mother’s fifty-year-old cousin, Claudius, who was crippled and had a stammer. When Caligula was killed, she and her husband were elected emperors of Rome. Beautiful, restless and transgressive, Messalina did not much care for life at court. Her character is shrouded in an aura of vice and perdition: she is said to have convinced her husband to force many of his young subjects to lie with her, she had incestuous relations with her brothers and legend even has it that at night she prostituted herself in brothels under a false name, fully shaved, her nipples covered with gold dust, heavily made-up and offering herself to gladiators and sailors.

According to the account by Pliny the Elder, she once challenged a famous prostitute to see who could have sex with the greatest number of partners in 24 hours, and won with the score 25. Ruthless and unscrupulous, she is said to have bumped off many of her enemies. After her many lovers, Messalina fell in love with the consul Gaius Silius. The two organised a public wedding and got married, taking advantage of the emperor’s temporary absence. Claudius became aware of their relationship and condemned the two lovers to death. Messalina then tried to hide but was discovered and killed by an army officer who supposedly said, as he was running her through: “If your death is mourned by all your lovers, half of Rome will cry.”


MAROZIA



Maria, known as Marozia, was born in Rome in 892 was was the daughter of the Senator Theophylact. Beautiful and obsessed with power, for two decades she dominated Rome’s political scene with her intrigues and seductive powers. She was illiterate, but through her cunning she managed to forge alliances and important friendships of convenience, exploiting her charms and beauty. According to some sources, at the age of fifteen she was the concubine of Pope Sergius III, her cousin. She married three times and always for political ends. Her first husband was Alberic of Spoleto.

During her rise to power she married Guy, Marquis of Tuscany and became the main enemy of Pope John X, whom she deposed and had imprisoned. Marozia managed to manipulate the subsequent papal elections (of Leo VI and Stephen VIII), eventually acquiring the title of pope for her son. Bishop Liutprand of Cremona said of her: “Mariozza is as beautiful as a goddess and as fiery as a bitch.” She was imprisoned in a convent by her son to stifle her dangerous ambitions. She died in 955, at age 63.


LUCREZIA BORGIA



Born in 1480, she was the illegitimate daughter of the man who later became Pope Alexander VI. She was one of the most famous and controversial figures of the Italian Renaissance, and, along with her family, she became a symbol of the unscrupulous politics and sexual corruption of the Renaissance popes. Her marriages were intended to serve the unscrupulous political machinations of father and her brother Cesare. She initially married Giovanni Sforza, Lord of Pesaro, but the marriage was annulled a few years later. During the annulment process Giovanni accused her of having an incestuous relationship with her father, Alexander VI. Later he also spoke of incestuous relations with her brothers Cesare and Juan. Lucrezia then remarried to Alfonso of Aragon, the illegitimate son of the King of Naples, who was assassinated shortly after for political reasons.

She then became the wife of Alfonso d’Este and enlivened the court of Ferrara with her charismatic presence, distancing herself from the scandals and her stormy past. In 1512 she began to wear a cilice (a shirt made of hair worn as a sign of atonement) and enrolled in the religious order of the Franciscans, dedicating herself to the poor and needy. She died during childbirth in 1519, at 39. Historians, writers and artists have written and imagined a lot of things about her: described as a harlot, an incestuous lover and a poisoner, the darkest accusation made against Lucretia is that she was a dark lady, a femme fatale who was a willing accomplice (though in reality she may have been forced) to many of the crimes committed by her family.


VERONICA FRANCO



A courtesan and poetess in sixteenth century Venice, she was the daughter of a prostitute and was initiated into the profession by her mother. She was a lover to very powerful men such as Henry III of Valois, King of France and Poland. As a much-coveted courtesan, her profession allowed her to express herself artistically, despite not being aristocratic, and brought her into contact with writers and influential politicians. She self-published her poems and enjoyed the benefit of the profits from her work. She practiced her profession with dignity, as she wrote: “Shame is not in the necessity of she who sells her body but in the hauteur of he who buys it.”

In her letters she spoke with sincerity of “women forced to eat with the mouths of others, to sleep with the eyes of others, to move according to the desire of others.” During the Inquisition she was accused of witchcraft, but the charges were deemed unjustified and she was soon released. She became very rich and was a great frequenter of the Venetian intellectual aristocracy, and her salon was enlivened by nobles, prelates and artists. She was the author of refined sonnets and devoted her spare time to writing. Tintoretto depicted her in a beautiful painting. She used her savings to found a care home to accommodate women tired of prostitution. She died of fever in 1591, at age 45.

[Kazimiera]

4 Mistresses Who Changed History

Source: http://www.history.com/news/history-...hanged-history

They say that behind every successful man there stands a woman. But that lady looming in the background isn’t always his spouse. Meet four powerful women who bedded but never wedded their influential paramours, leaving their mark on history by serving as confidantes, muses, strategists and advisers.

1. Diane de Poitiers



Born into a noble French family in 1499, the celebrated beauty Diane de Poitiers received a humanist education fit for a Renaissance king. At 15 she married Louis de Brézé, a royal officer 40 years her senior. Her husband’s prominent position thrust Diane into the core of François I’s household, where she served as a lady-in-waiting to Queen Claude. A favorite at court, Diane attended the birth of Henri II and was later given the task of teaching the future king courtly manners. She became a widow in 1531, and in 1533 Henri was joined in gloomy matrimony to Catherine de’ Medici.

By 1538 the close relationship between Henri and Diane had evolved into a passionate love affair. After her lover ascended the throne in 1547, Diane advised Henri on political matters and penned many of his official letters, signing them “HenriDiane.” Her likeness appeared on coins and inspired works of art. The young king remained in unwavering thrall to his middle-aged mistress, who would periodically send him to his wife’s bedchamber to produce legitimate heirs. (Diane bore him no children, but three of his other mistresses did.) Henri’s death after a 1559 jousting accident brought an abrupt end to Diane’s de facto reign. Catherine confiscated her chateau and banished her to the countryside, where she died—allegedly with her beauty still intact—at 66.


2. Aspasia of Miletus



References to a powerful woman named Aspasia, the live-in partner of the ancient Greek statesman Pericles, appear in the writings of Plato, Aristophanes, Xenophon and other classical Athenian authors. It is thought that she was born in the Ionian colony of Miletus around 470 B.C. and moved to Athens, where she became a hetaera—a type of courtesan who received an education in order to keep intelligent, sophisticated men company—and possibly ran a brothel. She then moved in with Pericles and bore him a son; according to Plutarch, the prominent politician loved her so much that he kissed her every morning and evening until the day he died. Because Aspasia was a foreigner, Athenian law prevented the couple from marrying.

Ancient sources relate—derisively, at times—that Pericles frequently consulted his companion about political and military matters. Plato even joked that Aspasia, described as a skilled orator and engrossing conversationalist in her own right, ghostwrote Pericles’ most famous speech, a funeral oration delivered during the Peloponnesian War. Though we may never know the extent of her influence, Pericles achieved ambitious building projects and presided over a golden age of democracy during their relationship. According to some accounts, Aspasia outlived her famous lover and was later linked to another Athenian bureaucrat, Lysicles.


3. Lola Montez



Little is known about the early life of Eliza Rosanna Gilbert, born in Ireland in either 1818 or 1821. Described as exotically beautiful, she eloped as a teenager and spent some time in India; her marriage dissolved within several years. Around 1843 she made her debut on the London stage under the name Lola Montez, billing herself as a “Spanish dancer.” After performing in various European capitals she wound up in Munich, where she became the mistress of Ludwig I of Bavaria. The aging German king raised eyebrows by making her a countess, building her a palace, granting her a large annuity and deferring to her on political matters.

For more than a year Lola essentially ruled Bavaria with an iron first, spying on and destroying her critics as her besotted lover indulgently stepped aside. Revolutionary stirrings caused largely by her influence forced Ludwig to abdicate in 1848. Lola fled Bavaria and resumed her career as a performer, spending time in Europe, the United States and Australia before settling in New York. (Along the way she crammed in two illegitimate marriages, a murder charge and various scandals due to the provocative nature of her signature “spider dance.”) She died in New York in 1860, one month short of her 40th birthday.


4. Barbara Palmer



As ambitious as she was beautiful, King Charles II of England’s most infamous mistress was born Barbara Villiers into a family of modest means in 1640. At 19 she married Robert Palmer and traveled with him to Holland, where Charles was living in exile during Oliver Cromwell’s decade of parliamentary rule. A royalist sympathizer, Barbara quickly became the ousted king’s lover; when he returned to London later that year, he summoned her to his side. Barbara soon gave birth to the first of seven children, of whom five were acknowledged by Charles. Her estranged husband reluctantly accepted the relationship and even received a peerage for his complacency.

The uncompromising Barbara’s famous control of her royal lover hardly waned after Charles’ 1662 marriage to Catherine of Braganza. She had herself appointed Lady of the Bedchamber, a position that guaranteed her a hefty salary and access to the most powerful figures at court. Barbara amassed a small fortune serving as an intermediary for those hoping to gain the king’s favor; she also wrangled royal titles for her sons despite their dubious paternity. (Barbara, like Charles himself, had a stable of paramours, including her cousin John Churchill, Winston’s ancestor.) Charles cast Barbara aside around 1674, and she died in 1709 at the age of 68. Barbara’s many notable descendants include the late Diana, princess of Wales.

[MinervaItalica]

Strange to not see Poppaea. Good reading though, thx.

[Kazimiera]

Strange to not see Poppaea. Good reading though, thx.

Feel free to add her.

[MinervaItalica]

Just other two:

Poppaea Sabina



When examining the prominent figures in the history of the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, there is no single figure attracting such attention, and disdain, from Roman historians as the Augusta (Empress) Poppaea Sabina. Despite her renown, there is much disagreement about the character and actions Poppaea Sabina. Some historians, such as Tacitus and Cassius Dio, vilify her as a demimondaine, whereas other historical sources, such as archaeological evidence in the remains of the city of Pompeii, and the writings of Josephus, proclaim her virtues. When examining the sources about her life, one can not help but to notice duplicity in the opinions on her life, actions and character.

Poppaea was born in the city of , the only daughter of ex-Quaestor Titus Ollius. Her mother, of the same name, was an elder of the community and regarded by many as a woman of virtue and grace. Tacitus went as far as to say she was the “loveliest woman of her day”. Poppaea was not the only member of her family to rise to high station. Her maternal grandfather, Poppaeus Sabinus, was a Consul of Rome, a victorious military commander, receiver of a triumph and friend of the Roman Emperors. After her father died, his step-father and subsequent half brother both, in their own times, rose to the rank of Consul. The family owned several villas in the city of (known as the House of Menander and the House of the Gilded Cupids), and she herself owned a villa in Oplontis, in the outskirts of Pompeii.

Poppaea herself, for better or worse, made her career out of marriage. Later she would be harshly criticised by Tacitus especially for the way she used her feminine wiles to climb the social ladder to the position of. Her first marriage was to a leader of the Praetorian Guard, Rufrius Crispinus. With Rufrius, Poppaea had a child, named after her husband. Rufrius, however, did not long hold his position. Agrippina the Younger, the new Empress, had him removed as she feared he was too fond of the previous Empress.

Her second marriage, of which Tacitus is very disdainful, was to a friend of Emperor Nero by the name of Otho, who would one day be Emperor himself. Tacitus claims that Poppaea married Otho solely to get closer to Nero, with the goal of becoming Empress. The fact that Poppaea very rapidly became Nero’s mistress, and would become his wife seems to credit this belief, although whether it is really accurate is quite impossible to prove.

Nero seemed to take a rather quick liking to Poppaea, and she quickly became his favourite mistress, convincing him to divorce his wife. Poppaea quickly divorced Otho, who was promptly dispatched to Lusitania. Within days she was married to Nero, and the new Empress of Rome. Most sources report the marriage to be a happy one, and Nero is most commonly believed to have had genuine love and affection for her. This was, of course, until, in a fit of rage, he delivered a kick to her abdomen while she was pregnant, which led to her death. Although some modern historians believe that it was more likely a result of miscarriage complications, rather than a direct result of the kick. After Poppaea’s death Nero, rather than following Roman tradition and cremating her, instead embalmed her body with spices and had her buried in the Mausoleum of Augustus.
http://www.allempires.com/article/in...poppaea_sabina

Virginia Oldoini



The Risorgimento was a relatively brief period of time, spanning just over 20 years, from 1848, to 1870. Led by House of Savoy and Minister Camillo Benso di Cavour, the free modern unified state of Italy was supported by intellectuals and Europe’s most advanced nations.

From the first Italian-style dress, which was made in velvet and produced entirely in Italy, to the Neapolitan and Calabrian hats, seen as symbol of liberalism, through the patriotic styles inspired by the costumes of Verdi’s operas, Italian fashion began its path.

One woman and her outfits shaped this initial journey through Italian fashion. She was a muse, a powerful figure, who inspired literary and cinematographic imagination.

Virginia Oldoini, the countess of Castiglione, was the key-figure of this period.

She was sent by Cavour to the French court as his emissary to plead the cause for Piedmont and Italy, with Napoleon III. The countess, who was considered a famous beauty, won the Emperor’s favors and his support for the Wars of Independence, a decisive factor in the victory of Italy over Austria.

Her wardrobe was inspired by the last courtly-romantic period: the rigor of the corset and the high waistline enabled the skirt to play a dramatic role with its volume. The crinoline offered a last glimpse of corolla silhouette, typical of romantic women, who were changing their elegant profile, into sensual shapes, made possible by the tournure.

She used to wear complicated coiffeurs, embellished with pearls and flowers. One of her dresses, was displayed at the National Fine Arts Exhibition of Turin in 1880.
http://www.afashionhistory.com/fashi...alian-fashion/