Vanessa Saraceno

Adoration

The island of Giudecca, south of the historic center of Venice, is the home of the Convent of the Convertite, which for about 200 years has been a women’s jail for the imprisonment and rehabilitation of condemned prisoners. Even before that, the building was a convent where prostitutes and women considered immoral were locked up against their will. Nevertheless, behind those walls, and in particular in the parlor, there is another story, and according to this story women performed for high society offering shows of transvestism, sometimes even blasphemous.