Imperia Cognati

Imperia Cognati (also called Imperia La Divina, meaning Imperia The Divine; also, The Queen of Courtesans, 3 August 1486 – 15 August 1512 ) was a Roman courtesan. She has been considered the first celebrity of the courtesan class which emerged in Rome in the late 15th century.

Historical background In the 15th century, the courtiers of the Papal court developed the custom of hiring female escorts to accompany them in court life. As the Papal courtiers were clerics who were banned from marrying, the women they consorted with could not be marriageable, but at the same time, they must be educated and know their etiquette to be able to converse and participate in formal court life. This was the development of a new class of prostitutes in Christian Europe: the courtesan, which then spread from Rome to other parts of Europe, and Imperia was to become the first famous representative of this new type of prostitute. Courtesans by custom kept a main client as a steady supporter, while in addition openly entertaining others as temporary clients.

Name and origin Imperia was born the daughter of Diana di Pietro Cognati or Corgnati ), a Roman prostitute. Her father was called Paris, either by given name or "De Paris" as a toponymic surname. The place of her birth is commonly claimed to be Rome, or more specifically the Via Alessandrina in the district of Borgo. as Sappho in The Parnassus in the Vatican Palace, and as a sibyl on Chigi's designated tomb at Santa Maria della Pace. Honoré de Balzac described a courtesan called Imperia in his 1832 short story in his collection . The story takes place at the time of the Council of Konstanz, 100 years before the death of Imperia Cognati. Balzac's character of Imperia has been portrayed by the German painter Lovis Corinth in The Fair Imperia (1925), and inspired the 1993 larger-than-life Imperia statue in the harbour of Konstanz. The historical Imperia has been portrayed in 2005 by the actress Manuela Arcuri in an Italian TV film production . She appears as a character in the historical mystery, The Wolves of St. Peter's, by Gina Buonaguro and Janice Kirk. She appears as a character in the historical story, Aranyködben fáznak az istenek, by László Passuth.