The beautiful Isabella de Luna, of Spanish extraction, who was reckoned amusing company, seems to have been an odd compound of a kind heart with a shockingly foul tongue, which latter sometimes brought her into trouble.At Milan, Bandello knew the majestic Caterina di San Celso, who played and sang and recited superbly.It is clear from all we read on the subject that the distinguished people who visited these women, and from time to time lived with them, demanded from them a considerable degree of intelligence and instruction, and that the famous courtesans were treated with no slight respect and consideration.Even when relations with them were broken off, their good opinion was still desired, which shows that departed passion had left permanent traces behind.But on the whole this intellectual intercourse is not worth mentioning by the side of that sanctioned by the recognized forms of social life, and the traces which it has left in poetry and literature are for the most part of a scandalous nature.
We may well be astonished that among the 6,800 persons of this class, who were to be found in Rome in 1490--that is, before the appearance of syphilis--scarcely a single woman seems to have been remarkable for any higher gifts.Those whom we have mentioned all belong to the period which immediately followed.The mode of life, the morals and the philosophy of the public women, who with all their sensuality and greed were not always incapable of deeper passions, as well as the hypocrisy and devilish malice shown by some in their later years, are best set forth by Giraldi, in the novels which form the introduction to the 'Hecatommithi.' Pietro Aretino, in his 'Ragionamenti,' gives us rather a picture of his own depraved character than of this unhappy class of women as they really were.