this period, free love and marriage were less severely differentiated.  It was the rise of the middle class, he considers, anxious to protect their wives and daughters, which led to a regulated and publicly recognized attempt to direct debauchery into a separate channel, brought under control.[153] These brothels constituted a kind of public service, the directors of them being regarded almost as public officials, bound to keep a certain number of prostitutes, to charge according to a fixed tariff, and not to receive into their houses girls belonging to the neighborhood.  The institutions of this kind lasted for three centuries.  It was, in part, perhaps, the impetus of the new Protestant movement, but mainly the terrible devastation produced by the introduction of syphilis from America at the end of the fifteenth century which, as Burckhardt and others have pointed out, led to the decline of the mediaeval brothels.[154]

The superior modern prostitute, the “courtesan” who had no connection with the brothel, seems to have been the outcome of the Renaissance and made her appearance in Italy at the end of the fifteenth century.  “Courtesan” or “cortegiana” meant a lady following the court, and the term began at this time to be applied to a superior prostitute observing a certain degree of decorum and restraint.[155] In the papal court of Alexander Borgia the courtesan flourished even when her conduct was not altogether dignified.  Burchard, the faithful and unimpeachable chronicler of this court, describes in his diary how, one evening, in October, 1501, the Pope sent for fifty courtesans to be brought to his chamber; after supper, in the presence of Caesar Borgia and his young sister Lucrezia, they danced with the servitors and others who were present, at first clothed, afterwards naked.  The candlesticks with lighted candles were then placed upon the floor and chestnuts thrown among them, to be gathered by the women crawling between the candlesticks on their hands and feet.  Finally a number of prizes were brought forth to be awarded to those men “qui pluries dictos meretrices carnaliter agnoscerent,” the victor in the contest being decided according to the judgment of the spectators.[156] This scene, enacted publicly in the Apostolic palace and serenely set forth by the impartial secretary, is at once a notable episode in the history of modern prostitution and one of the most illuminating illustrations we possess of the paganism of the Renaissance.

Before the term “courtesan” came into repute, prostitutes were even in Italy commonly called “sinners,” peccatrice.  The change, Graf remarks in a very interesting study of the Renaissance prostitute ("Una Cortigiana fra Mille,” Attraverso il Cinquecento, pp. 217-351), “reveals a profound alteration in ideas and in life;” a term that suggested infamy gave place to one that suggested approval, and even honor, for the courts of the Renaissance period represented the finest culture of the time.