TICKETS, TOKENS, TRICKS

The price list of a brothel in Italy is dated June 1932. Brothels were abolished in Italy in 1958 by  the law of  Senator Lina Merlin following the abolishments of State prostitution in France in 1946
and later in the Countries of the United Nations.

This image is from the book "Prezzario" (tr.Price List) published by Kurumuny Editors, 2010
ISBN 978-88-95161-51-8

English translation:
Price List of a famous house of pleasure
---------------
Discounts for young soldiers only
---------------
Regular appointment: 1,30 Lira
Double appointment:
2,50 Lira
15 minutes:
3,05 Lira
half an Hour:
4,50 Lira
One  hour: 7 Lira
Two hours: 10 lira
-------------
The home offers
free soaps and towels!


In Italy, social healthcare is free for most of it, such as for general hospitals following emergencies and for surgeries. Exceptions are specific consultations, blood tests and examinations that your doctor will prescribe to you for specific check-ups. In these cases, the Italian government charges part of the costs based on the patients' income and this contribution is called the English word "ticket". We call these fee contributions "tickets".

Another example of a ticket price list
dated 1939
English Translation:
Amounts due to the esteemed house:
(left) Fast service: 1.10 - 20 minutes: 3,60 -
full hour 7,50 ---
(right) double 2,00 - half an hour 4,80 -
two hours 12,00 - prices are in Lira
----------------------------
For the toilet no need to go outside
any more
----------------------------
water, soaps and towels are an additional 20 cents.

I have recently learned that the word "ticket" translated at one time the Italian word "marchetta" which was the single fee clients were charged in brothels for a prostitute's session. In Italy brothels were called "casa chiusa" (literal translation "walled-in homes") or "casa di tolleranza" (tr.legal prostitution houses). On a the higher language register they were called "postribolo":  which comes from the union of the Latin verbs "prostare" (to be for sale in public) and "stare" (to be still, to be motionless, waiting) which gives birth to the noun "stibulum";  as a consequence "pro-stribulum", "pro-stitum". This is also where the word "prostituta" (Engl."prostitute") comes from. In Italy, these places were commonly known as "casino" - not to be confused with the Italian word "casinò" (the accent is on the last letter of the word and describes i.e. the casinos of Las Vegas and Montecarlo).

Brothels were legal in Italy and under the supervision of the Italian government from February 1860 (based on a decree by Camillo Benso Count of Cavour on the year before)  to September1958 after about a decade of fights against legal prostitution by Senator Lina Merlin, the first woman to seat in the government of the Italian Republic.

In order to receive your medical assistance in the Italian healthcare system, tickets must be paid in advance. The same thing happened in most of the brothels in Italy, especially in the major cities such as Rome, Milan, Genoa or Naples - payment was in advance - while in smaller towns you could decide about the sessions you were interested in with the prostitutes in their rooms. Prostitutes would give their clients their 'tickets' or 'tokens' accordingly, which had to be paid upon exit to the "Maîtresse", a French word for the brothel's manager.

Reproductions of brothel tickets, they look like fiches, coins, tokens.
These tickets were created as entrance tickets for a Music Hall
that was opened in Milan in the 1990s and was originally
a famous brothel. It was called "La Marchetta di Fiori Chiari". 

'Tokens' were copper disks with a hole in the center in order to be inserted in e needle as proof of payment. They were usually placed on the table of the "cocotte", a French name in use in the brothels in Italy for prostitutes.

Philippe IV Le Bel 

The word "brothel", in Italian "bordello", comes from the French expression "au bord de l'eau" (tr. "at the waterfront") based on the decree of French King Philippe IV Le Bel (1268-1314), who ordered that ladies could practice the art of prostituting in boats near the borders of rivers and lakes.

Fresco from a famous wolves' den
in Pompeii. Frescoes were probably
a way to advertise
the specialities on offer.

Brothels in Ancient Rome were called "Lupanari" (tr. "she-wolves' den/lair"), for the people in Ancient Rome "she-wolves" was a common name for prostitutes.  'She-wolf' is nowadays a very seducing woman's name in expressions such as: "che lupa!" (tr. "what a she-wolf", "what a sex-bomb").

Edouard Manet, Olympia, 1863: this work of art elicited a
scandal at that time, the subject was contemporary and
the model was a prostitute in her bedroom. The black cat
was a parody of the faithful dog at the feet of Venus. 

The French word's usage for brothels' actants is not by accident. Brothels under the supervision of the government were invented in France towards the end of the 18th century. Accordingly, they were first abolished in France in 1946 following an abolitionist movement that spread through Great Britain, Germany, the United States, Canada and other countries.

In the Renaissance period in Italy prostitution took its highest peak. In Rome, there were supposed to be about seven thousand harlots. At that time prostitutes were normally called "puttana" (tr. whores"). In the Renaissance period it is interesting to know that a high percentage of the prostitutes were "cortigiana" (tr."courtesans"): educated to art, literature, music, politics sometimes painters and musicians themselves.

Courtesans were endowed with beauty and talents, models for artists and scholars,  lovers of important artists and cardinals; they paid their taxes like in ancient Rome and made fortunes out of their art. This lasted until the Counter-reformation (also known as Catholic reformation) in the second half of the 16th century put restrictions to prostitutes because of their becoming too rich.

Titian, Venus of Urbino, 1538: it was originally a
painting for a wedding chest for educational purposes. 

The word "prostitution" was first used in the late 18th century and has always had a very negative, sinister meaning. On the contrary in the origins, it was a sacred art that was practised in Ancient Greece in the temples of Venus and Aphrodite. It was also practised in Southern Italy and in important civilizations such as Babylon, Ancient Mesopotamia and Ancient Persia.

Renaissance traditions and mores take inspiration from the classical ages, this is also the case of the Renaissance courtesans who originated in Ancient Greece, where they were called "Etera".

Raphael, Madonna Sixstina, 1513-1514: According to some
sources the model was a courtesan, Beatrice Ferrarese,
known as "La Fornarina" (tr. the baker) a euphemistic nickname
that was in use among the courtesans of high rank at that time.
The mystery about "La Fornarina" still exists. By the way,
I didn't know that the most famous angels of all time
were part of this painting!

There is nothing I wish to add to this post, except for one sad thought, thinking of all the women (and men) who nowadays cannot find a place to practice what they wish to do, out of choice or by constraint we will never get to know.

I would just stay for a moment on the concept that to me everything deprived of art, love and passion sends messages of death.  In this case, the word "prostitution" itself expresses the involution of sacred sessions involving the art of seduction, which by choice can be performed for one man for a lifetime (Titian's painting) or for more men for a shorter time each (Manet's painting). It depends on the different personalities and with role-playing that is very intimate and cannot be subject to the judgement of the Church, of institutions or other groups of people with the aim of destroying something that has an important historical background.

Sacred or profane, what matters is the way
we do things,. We may be virtuous in the most
delicate life's fields! 

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- Original Posts by Roberta Niccacci -

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