ABSTRACT
Early seventeenth-century Bologna was unique for its relatively tolerant legislation on female prostitution. Most Bolognese could count prostitutes and dishonest women as near neighbors, and for many laboring-poor, prostitution and prostitutes per se were not a serious problem. Regulation and enforcement in Bologna show that secular and religious civic authorities and the general populace approached prostitution primarily as an issue of economics and public order, and only secondarily as an issue of morality and public decorum. The chapter examines the residential and social integration of prostitutes in Bologna’s neighborhoods. In 1583, twenty-one dishonest women lived in the house of Gradello on Bologna’s heavily populated Borgo Nuovo di San Felice, by the eastern wall. Stable relationships with men, referred to in Bologna as amici, “lovers,” or as amici fermi, “firm friends,” offered a measure of economic security for prostitutes by providing money, clothing, and food in varying amounts depending on the men’s own status.
