Queer Places:
Palazzo Pucci (now Meublé Il Riccio), Via Talosa, 21, 53045 Montepulciano SI

Caterina Vizzani aka Giovanni Bordoni (1718 - June 16, 1743) was an Italian retainer. Catherine Vizzani's biography was written in 1744 by Professor Giovanni Bianchi of the University of Siena, who had performed her autopsy. In 1751, it was translated into English by John Cleland as An Historical and Physical Dissertation on the Case of Catherine Vizzani. Vizzani had begun her romantic relationships with women in her teens, and before long was passing as male to the point where she ended up being shot in a dispute with a man over a woman. The author concluded that Catherine had somehow been perverted by listening to inappropriate stories.

Vizzani was born in Rome, the daughter of a carpenter. At the age of 14, she fell in love with – and her sentiments were reciprocated by – Malgherita, a girl to whom she went each day to learn embroidery. Already she liked to dress in men's clothing, which also allowed her to pay court to her beloved at night by standing under her window. The relationship between the two girls lasted more than two years, until Malgherita's father confronted Vizzani and treatened to denounce her to the courts. Vizzani thereupon decided to move to Viterbo and definitively take on men's dress and identity (under the name of Giovanni Bordoni). Forced to return to Rome because of lack of money, she found work as a (male) retainer for a vicar in Perugia through the intermediary of a priest whom she had met near a Roman church. The vicar declared himself completely satisfied with the services of ‘Giovanni’ except for one thing for which he always reprimanded him: Giovanni ran after women too much. Vizzani's cross-dressing extended to wearing an artifical leather penis; claims of a venereal disease were used to justify to washerwomen the stains from menstrual blood on her clothing.

Giovanni's reputation as a great seducer spread rapidly. After the ‘dissolute retainer’ received a serious wound to the neck from a rival for one woman, the vicar decided to write to the Roman priest who had recommended Giovanni to him to complain about his intemperate behaviour. The priest spoke with Giovanni's father, Pietro Vizzani, and learned the truth, but decided to remain silent in order to protect the girl.

After three or four years, Vizzani left the vicar's employ and moved to Monte Pulciano, to the estate of Cavalier Francesco Maria Pucci. There she fell in love with the niece of the local priest; the girl was kept under strict surveillance by her uncle, but she found a way to escape and accept Giovanni's courtship, deciding to flee with her suitor to Rome, where he promised to marry her. She revealed her project to her sister, who threated to expose the two if they did not take her with them – the first hitch in their plan. The two girls rode the horse taken for their escape, while Giovanni followed them on foot. In Lucca the three fugitives picked up a gig, but it broke down during the journey; men sent by the girls’ uncle in pursuit were able to catch up with them easily. One of them started a fire and struck Vizzani on the leg – he also killed a dog and injured a child. Vizzani's injury was neglected by the same doctor, Bianchi, who later recorded her story; though not serious, the wound became infected and proved fatal. On her deathbed, Vizzani revealed her real sex to a nun and expressed a desire to be buried in women's clothes and garlanded as a virgin. Vizzani's funeral attracted a large crowd, partly as several religious figures had proclaimed her a saint because of her virgin death. Vizzani's virtue, in the eyes of her contemporaries, was her ‘success’ in maintaining strict heterosexual virginity notwithstanding her having lived in the constant company of young men. It was impossible for them to imagine a woman who simply had no interest in men. At the age of 24, Vizzani had paid with her life for her exclusive love for women.

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