A Venetian courtesan becomes a hero to her city, but later becomes the target of an inquisition by the Church for witchcraft.
— My cage seems bigger than yours, but it's still a cage. If you want sympathy, you won't get it. I don't want your sympathy.
— Do you know what my daughter's nurse told her this morning? That in a girl's voice lies temptation. A known fact. Eloquence in a woman means promiscuity. Promiscuity of the mind leads to promiscuity of the body. She doesn't believe her yet, but she will. She'll grow up just like her mother. She'll marry, bear children and honor her family... spend her youth in needlepoint and rue the day she was born a girl. And when she dies... she'll wonder why she obeyed all the rules of God and country... because no biblical hell could ever be worse... than this state of perpetual inconsequence.
— And where might you be going?
— Nowhere.
— That nowhere has a nice tenor.
— You're yoo young to accept what I would truly give you.
— Well, I am not so young as you are vain.
— Stand! Stand! All of you who defiled your sacred marriage beds and declare your sin! Stand up with me! As we stood against our enemies at sea!
— There. You seee, your Grace? There are: no accomplices. He does this to rescue her from your justice.
— Then I stand alone for Venice: and for this woman.
— Arrest the senator. His trial will commence tomorrow.
— Minister. Do you wish to speak? I repeat, do you have something to say to this court?
— I am standing.
— Must be interesting, being in a room full of men, most of whom you've seen with their pants down.
— Puts it all in some kind of perspective.
— You know her husband well.
— Not at all well, but his reputation precedes him.
— Surely the holy inquisition need not sully its hands with a common whore? It is a matter for the state, don't you think?
— I leave this woman to Venice which richly deserves her.
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