Falk’s Reviews > The Boundaries of Eros: Sex Crime and Sexuality in Renaissance Venice > Status Update

(Contd.) “One assumes that marriage was, in fact, often the end result of such brutal directness; occasionally when it was not, as in the case of Giacomello Zaratino's violent wooing of Maria di Martino in 1424, the event was recorded. The Avogadori reported that "the said Giacomello Zaratino with a naked blade in hand crossed the little bridge and grabbed this Maria by her arm. He then dragged her under a pomegranate tree and beneath the tree raped her twice taking her virginity. While accepting her flower [of virginity] he promised to take her as his wife." Knife, rape, and a promise of marriage apparently seemed less daunting to Maria and many other young women than one might expect. In her case an affair ensued: "After [the rape] he regularly entered the house of the said Nicolo [Nicolo Contarini, the noble in whose house Maria lived], knowing her carnally in bed and on a chest." ....
From rape to fornication to marriage appears to have been a relatively common progression—one that was occasionally aided by a fornication case heard by the [Council of] Forty. This, in turn, implies that a fair amount of violence against women may have been typical of sexuality, a conclusion that will be borne out in our examination of other sex crimes. .... [V]iolence and sexuality were easily associated. Relationships could swing from one to the other in the process of courtship.” (pp. 31-32)