Courtiers and Courtesans: The Struggle Over a Word and Its Ambiguities in the Feminine Verb

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"Meloni, who in reality limited herself to playing Trump's courtesan and didn't lift a finger" on Gaza, CGIL Secretary Maurizio Landini told "diMartedì" —implicitly authorizing the conclusion that, since he's doing nothing on Ukraine, he's a "Putin's courtesan." "The term 'courtesan' will be reprimanded because it's a sexist term. Does she intend to follow Trump's lead without making any impact?" Giovanni Floris immediately responded. "Of course, to be at Trump's court," he clarified. "The general secretary of the CGIL, Maurizio Landini, evidently clouded by mounting resentment (which I understand), called me a 'courtesan' on television," the Prime Minister immediately responded on social media: "I think everyone knows the most common meaning of this word... And here's another splendid example of the left: the one that for decades has lectured us about respecting women, but then, in order to criticize a woman, for lack of arguments, calls her a prostitute." The debate continued on talk shows and in post-releases: "No, by 'courtesan' I absolutely didn't mean 'woman of easy virtue', especially since I was able to clearly state my thoughts immediately that same evening," Landini insisted on Massimo Gramellini's "In Altre Parole," adding that he also found it strange that the prime minister's reaction came 48 hours after my interview, coincidentally the day before the budget law was released. It was a way of talking about something else and of describing a CGIL (Italian General Confederation of Labour) that apparently doesn't address workers' issues."

Rosy Bindi was also present. Recalling the 2009 episode of "Porta a Porta" when Silvio Berlusconi called her "more beautiful than intelligent," she pointed out that "on that occasion, unlike this one, the word wasn't incorrect; the concept was clear: it was a pure insult." But "in Landini's case, I think the word shouldn't have been used, because it has the meaning it does: you open the dictionary and find certain things written there, so much so that Floris reacted immediately." She agreed with the sentiment, and was also "very surprised that there was a reaction 48 hours later." But while admitting that "Landini didn't mean what's written in the dictionary," she reminded him that "we have to be careful, because these people use everything as a weapon of mass distraction. They need everything just to avoid talking about the country's real problems. And unfortunately, we sometimes fall for it." Hence an invitation not to do like Berlusconi and to apologize, which Landini however rejected.

The vocabulary, precisely. As the paradigmatic one from Treccani explains: “Courtisan (ant. cortegiano) [der. of court]. - adj. 1. [concerning the court]. 2. (fig.) [demonstrating flattery: c. spirit] ≈ (contemptuous) courtly, deferential, hypocritical, flattering, servile…; sm 1. (stor.) [an employee of the court with an honorary rank, court gentleman]. 2. (fig., contemptuous) [person of servile, opportunistic spirit] ≈ flatterer, hypocrite, (pop.) bootlicker, flatterer, (pop.) pimp”. And instead: “Cortigiana (ant. cortegiana) n.f. [feminine of courtier]. – Prop., court woman: it would be much less difficult for me to create a lady who deserved to be queen of the world, than a perfect courtesan (B. Castiglione). Already in the 16th century the word was used to indicate women of free morals, not lacking in culture and refinement. With an offensive meaning, in modern literary usage, prostitute: I saw Antonietta, withered, made up, dressed scandalously, ... in the company of another c. of a second rate like her (Soffici); dim. courtesan; scornful courtesan; worse, courtesan”. In turn, Salvatore Battaglia's Grande Dizionario della lingua italiana cites, as one of the oldest testimonies to the semantic shift, a passage by the sixteenth-century cleric and short story writer Matteo Bandello: "She was very beautiful and young. Therefore, being dressed as a courtesan and using the behavior of a whore, she began to serve those on the ship, […] with those services that men commonly seek from women."

But has the more recent meaning absorbed the older one, or can the two coexist? And, if so, how can we distinguish when one is meant or the other? If you think about it, it's not the only term for which such ambiguity can exist. What chance would a man accused of sexual harassment have of getting away with it by claiming that his "do you want to fuck" to a woman was actually a job offer as a cleaning lady? And what technical possibilities would there be for passing off a "go to hell" as tourist advice? There's even the old joke about the cyclist who, struggling uphill with his voice hoarse from exertion, asks for directions to a shrine: "Is that okay for the Madonna?", and mistaking the destination for an exclamation, the response is a blasphemy to the Eternal Father, followed by a "I look like Coppi!"

And the pejorative ambiguity between masculine and feminine in Italian is quite widespread, even more so than in the dictionaries, as was recalled in this controversy with a monologue by Paola Cortellesi at the 2018 David di Donatello Awards. "A courtier: a man who lives at court. A courtesan: a whore. A masseur: a kinesitherapist. A masseuse: a whore. A man of the street: a man of the people. A woman of the street: a whore. A helpful man: a caring man. A helpful woman: a whore. A walker: a man who walks. A walker: a whore. A cheerful man: a joker. A cheerful woman: a whore. A man of the world: a great gentleman. A woman of the world: a great whore." “But look at this contrast / what a ridiculous illusion / the barrel is so big and the button so small,” glossed the song sung by the dwarves in the oldest Italian dubbing of Walt Disney’s “Snow White.”

But be careful. Baldassarre Castiglione's The Courtier is a manual of etiquette, which shows us that the term was not originally negative at all. Written between 1513 and 1524, revised and finally published in 1528, shortly before his death, the work is inspired by the courtier's experience of the Duchess of Urbino Elisabetta Gonzaga, and is presented as a dialogue in four books describing the ideal habits and customs of the perfect courtier. The third book illustrates in particular the rules for becoming a perfect lady, that is, a courtesan, in the sense of a master of good manners, who is in fact the antithesis not only of Trump's egocentric coarseness and gaudy orange hair, but also of the "fish-talking" tone often attributed to Giorgia Meloni. In short, for the great theorist of courtesanism, the Prime Minister would, if anything, be an anti-courtesan. Initially dedicated to Alfonso Ariosto, a diplomat and brother of the poet's grandfather, and later to Miguel da Silva, a Portuguese bishop and a close friend of Raphael, the first book explains the main characteristics a courtier should possess. It therefore deals with nobility, war, the relationship between a man of arms and a man of letters, the proper use of language, and the relationship between painting and sculpture: two disciplines that, along with literature, the perfect courtier must master.

The second book isn't just about using the skills acquired by the courtier: from chivalric exercises to dressing appropriately, from cultivating friendships to excelling at court games. It also devotes considerable space to conversation, with a broad excursus on witticisms, paying particular attention to which types of courtiers are suited to a good courtier and which are to be avoided. In short, if he had read The Courtier, Landini would have avoided that joke about courtiers. After moving, in the third volume, to the courtesan in the sense of "woman of high society," the fourth book brings together the protagonists of the previous books with a discussion of love, the types of desire that can manifest themselves: sensual, rational, intellectual. Which is best suited to the courtier? The author also discusses the relationship between the courtier and his lord, what the relationship should be like between the two, and how the courtier can effectively advise his lord, without limiting himself to servile flattery. In short, in many ways Castiglione's courtier is the polar opposite of Landini's. Antonio Gramsci, to whom Landini should theoretically owe a certain intellectual debt, argued in his Prison Notebooks that "for understanding the Renaissance, Baldassarre Castiglione's The Courtier is more important than Orlando Furioso."

The Courtier was so little courtly in the Landinian sense that in 1583 it was heavily censored by the Jesuit Antonio Ciccarelli, according to the rules established by the Conciliar Congregation for the Index, published in 1564. It was one of the first books to undergo this purge, precisely because it was a bestseller and an outright ban was unthinkable. During his visit to Italy, Francis I of France had read it and was so impressed that he had it translated into French. He had several copies made, which he distributed among his courtiers, precisely because he believed the book depicted his ideal model of a royal court, the same one he aspired to for his own. But, especially in relation to ecclesiastical power, it had been too little courtly in the Landinian sense.

“Many times the brave are known more in small things than in great ones,” we read in The Courtier. And, even more definitively: “The aim, therefore, of the perfect Courtier, of whom up to now no mention has been made, I believe is to gain, by means of the conditions attributed to him by these gentlemen, such a goodwill and goodwill of the prince whom he serves, that he can tell him and always tell him the truth of everything that he needs to know, without fear or danger of displeasing him; and knowing that the mind of the latter is inclined to do something unsuitable, he dares to contradict him, and in a gentle manner makes use of the grace acquired by his good qualities to remove him from every vicious intention, and lead him to the path of virtue; and thus the Courtier having in himself the goodness, as these gentlemen have attributed to him, accompanied by the quickness of wit and pleasantness, and with prudence and knowledge of letters and many other things: he will know in every purpose dexterously to show his prince how much honor and benefit arises for him and his from justice, generosity, magnanimity, meekness, and the other virtues that befit a good prince; and, conversely, how much infamy and harm comes from the vices opposed to these." In short, it is the Landinian courtier that Putin, intent on attacking Ukraine, supports: "Of course, you will take Kyiv in three days and the Ukrainians will even applaud you." The Courtier of Castiglione, with a capital C, precisely because he wants the good of his lord, would instead have explained to him: "Forget it, you have more to lose than to gain."

Even Indro Montanelli and Roberto Gervaso , in the Italy of the Counter-Reformation that in 1968 represented the first Italian best-selling book to interpret the events of the Reformation through a lens of sympathy for Protestantism, considered Castiglione so important that they dedicated a chapter to him: the twenty-sixth, which is in fact titled "Courts and Courtiers." In the plural, however. Halfway through the text comes the judgment on the book and the character. We do not know how closely these precepts were followed and what sanctions the society inspired by them meted out to those who contravened them. But the book has documentary value because, even if it does not represent the customs of that society, it embodies its ideals. Every gentleman had the duty to be inspired by them, because a good court makes a good prince, and a good prince makes a good state. Castiglione claims that the court had a didactic and refining function, ignoring, or pretending to ignore, that it was also a cesspool of vice, a hotbed of corruption, a breeding ground for scoundrels. That is, he saw only the good. His contemporary Pietro Aretino saw only the bad. And the rest of the chapter instead tells of "the Tuscan poet / who spoke ill of everyone except Christ, / excusing himself by saying, 'I do not know him!'" according to Paolo Giovio's ironic epigraph. In whose verses, comedies, letters, and dialogues, a world of courtiers, both male and female, emerges, already characterized by today's pejorative meaning, even if in reality the terms are largely out of use. Rather, they were still solid in the 19th century, from "Cortigiani vil razza dannata," an aria from Rigoletto from 1851, an invective, to The Splendors and Miseries of Courtesans, a novel by Honoré de Balzac, first published in four parts between 1838 and 1847, which however places the splendor alongside the misery.

But there was also Veronica Franco , who lived in Venice between 1546 and 1591: introduced by her mother to high-class prostitution as a young girl, she was at the same time a poet prominent enough to be considered one of the greatest female intellectuals of the time, and even to be admitted to one of the city's most important literary circles. She was in fact described as an "honest courtesan," although this did not prevent her from being persecuted by the Inquisition. "If we are armed and trained, we are able to convince men that we too have hands, feet, and a heart like theirs; and even if we are delicate and tender, there are delicate men who can also be strong, and vulgar and violent men who are cowards. Women have not yet understood that they should behave this way, so that they can fight to the death; and to demonstrate that this is true, I will be the first to act, holding myself up as a model," is one of her writings that makes her a forerunner of feminism. Same concept in verse: “I do not know if you consider it a small risk / to enter armed camp with a woman; / but I, although deceived, warn you / that associating with women is on the one hand / a reproach to a strong man, but on the other it is / a matter considered of great importance. / When we are still armed and experienced, / we can give a good account to every man, / because we have hands and feet and heart like yours; / and if we are soft and delicate, / even such a man, who is delicate, is strong; / and such, rough and harsh, is lacking in courage. / Women have not realized this; / for if they resolved to do so, / they could fight with you to the death. / And to make you see that I speak the truth, / among so many women I want to begin, / giving them an example of how to follow it.” In short, one can also be a courtesan without being a courtesan.

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