Courtesans in Rome: Between the Sacred and the Profane | Private

Step into the layered streets of Renaissance Rome and uncover the lives of the women who moved between power and taboo, culture and survival. This walking tour traces a world hidden in plain sight, informed by the presence of courtesans—poets, muses, and companions to popes and painters—whose influence echoed through the salons and sanctuaries of the capital.

From sacred facades to secret alleys

Begin in the refined surroundings of Piazza Navona and its surrounding streets, where the contradictions of papal Rome come into focus. As you walk through Via dei Coronari and past Piazza Fiammetta, your guide reveals how courtesans lived and worked in close proximity to cardinals and clergy, often under the discreet protection of powerful patrons.

Stop at the church of San Agostino, where sacred art and sensual inspiration were never far apart. Nearby, the narrow Alley of Divine Love evokes the blurred line between devotion and desire.

Lives lived between poetry and survival

Continue along Via della Scrofa and into Campo de' Fiori, once a center of public life and spectacle. Here, courtesans moved among artists, merchants, and philosophers—women who wrote, debated, and inspired. Some of them appear in the paintings of Caravaggio, who captured their features not as ideals, but as they were: real, flawed, and unforgettable. His work, shaped by their presence, remains a rare record of women otherwise written out of history.

In Piazza Farnese, and later across the Ponte Sisto, the route leads you to Villa Farnesina in Trastevere—an elegant Renaissance villa where stories of patronage, beauty, and scandal come full circle.

This tour offers a rare glimpse into a chapter of Rome's past often left in shadow—where women negotiated art, influence, and identity in the heart of the Eternal City.