The Ambassador and the Courtesan by Paola De Santo - 9781644534151

University of Delaware Press

The Ambassador and the CourtesanPolitical Bodies in Renaissance Italy\nAuthor(s): Paola De Santo\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: University of Delaware Press, United States\nImprint: University of Delaware Press\nISBN-13: 9781644534151, 978-1644534151\nSynopsis\nDrawing on literature, legal texts, and archival materials, The Ambassador and the Courtesan offers a comparative analysis of these two emerging roles in the early modern period and in Renaissance Italian society. While these two figures may appear unrelated, this book demonstrates their shared relation to the body politic, including the relationship of their very bodies to that metaphorical body. One imagines the early modern ambassador as traveling from one center of power to another, gathering news and disseminating it in writing, as well as negotiating in person. The courtesan, in contrast, is normally imagined employing her body in the service of entertaining elite clients in the enclosed space of the urban salon. These c.