Fascinating review article on the relationship between the state and elite prostitutes in eighteenth-century Paris: ‘The Case of the Closely Watched Courtesans’. The painting above, which was chosen to illustrate the article, was a portrait of Marie-Louis O’Morphy, supposedly commissioned by Casanova. O’Morphy, who was to become one of Louis XV’s favourites, was discovered by Casanova in a filthy hovel, an episode covered in Dave’s ‘God’s Anarchist: Part 2’ article which explores the moral context of eighteenth-century Europe and North America.
‘Casanova in Paris: The Shadows of the King’ is now freely available here.
27 long form articles on Casanova’s life and times are freely available here.
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