When Veronica Franco comes of age, she cannot marry Marco Venier, whom she loves, because she is well born but penniless. Her choice: cloister or courtesan. She steels her heart, and with beauty ...

Veronica is brilliant, gifted and beautiful, but the handsome aristocrat she loves, Marco Venier, cannot marry her because she is penniless and of questionable family. So Veronica's mother ...