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Around the halfway point of the 1998 drama film Dangerous Beauty, the movie's protagonist points a sword at the throat of the

man who has just publicly mocked her, and she challenges him to a duel. What follows is a battle

of both body and wit, as the swordsman and swordswoman trade poetic verses while engaging in a flamboyant

fencing match that ends on a boat in a Venetian canal. It's very cinematic and an incredibly fun

scene to watch. I'm especially fond of the classic moment when our heroine finds the fabric of her dress punctured,

so she removes the skirt to reveal a pair of pants underneath in a bit of delightful 90s feminist revisionism.

The fight in the movie is a turning point for these two characters who have previously been cordial.

Earlier in the film, both of them, poets,

had worked in harmony to exalt Venice's beauty.

Now, our heroines' lines are criticizing her partner's disregard

for the minds of women,

while he's calling her a whore. He is Mafio Veneer, and she is

Veronica Franco, and as it happens, both of their accusations about the other are true.

The movie Dangerous Beauty takes a lot of artistic liberty as a biopic of the

Venetian courtesan and writer Veronica Franco, though it does pull from the true history found at its

source material, the biography, The Honest Cortizan, by Margaret Rosenthal.

The basic story of the movie is factual.

Veronica Franco, the daughter of a cortisanne, rose from obscurity to the heights of Venetian society,

entertaining and serving many high-ranking men, including a young Henry III of France.

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