The Ambassador and the Courtesan: Political Bodies in Renaissance Italy
Drawing 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 characterizations reinforce their very different roles in Renaissance Italian society and culture, but by placing them in dialogue, salient points of convergence emerge detailing how they were integral to the concurrent emergence of a modern subjectivity of the individual and the formation of the modern state.
1147239754
The Ambassador and the Courtesan: Political Bodies in Renaissance Italy
Drawing 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 characterizations reinforce their very different roles in Renaissance Italian society and culture, but by placing them in dialogue, salient points of convergence emerge detailing how they were integral to the concurrent emergence of a modern subjectivity of the individual and the formation of the modern state.
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The Ambassador and the Courtesan: Political Bodies in Renaissance Italy

The Ambassador and the Courtesan: Political Bodies in Renaissance Italy

by Paola De Santo
The Ambassador and the Courtesan: Political Bodies in Renaissance Italy

The Ambassador and the Courtesan: Political Bodies in Renaissance Italy

by Paola De Santo

Overview

Drawing 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 characterizations reinforce their very different roles in Renaissance Italian society and culture, but by placing them in dialogue, salient points of convergence emerge detailing how they were integral to the concurrent emergence of a modern subjectivity of the individual and the formation of the modern state.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781644534168
Publisher: University of Delaware Press
Publication date: 02/10/2026
Series: The Early Modern Exchange
Pages: 210
Product dimensions: 6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

PAOLA DE SANTO is Assistant Professor of Italian at the University of Georgia in Athens. De Santo’s research focuses on early modern Italy, with a particular interest in women writers. Together with Caterina Mongiat Farina, she is editor and translator of Isabella Andreini’s Letters (1607) for the Other Voice in Early Modern Europe Series, and editor of an Italian-language critical edition of Andreini’s Lettere.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Politics of Dual Identity
 
Chapter One    From Mind to Body: Formation and Narration of the Early Modern Ambassador 
Chapter Two     Ambassadors in "Utopia" 
Chapter Three  Tasso’s Messengers: Ambassadors and Poets 
Chapter Four    Armida’s Mission: Reconciling Body and Language 
Chapter Five    Controlling Her Corpus: The Courtesan as Political Writer 
           
Notes
Bibliography
Index
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Related Subjects

Literature
Literary Criticism
European Literature
Renaissance European Literature - Literary Criticism
Literature
Literary Criticism
European Literature
Renaissance European Literature - Literary Criticism

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