Richard Trexler

Their speeches are Babel, Tuscan, Venetian, Lombard, but also German, Flemish and the harsh French of the Low Countries.

One historian of Florentine prostitution, Richard Trexler, found that a large proportion of the women registered in the city in the 15th century were not Florentine at all, but came from the north, from Germany, Flanders and the lands beyond the Alps.

And on each woman's head, catching the torchlight, you see something strange, a small bell.

And on each woman's hands, despite the heat of the August evening, a pair of gloves.

Greta from Bruges is shy and sad, and she attracts the lonely.

And there are a dozen others, from Lombardy, Venice, the Romagna, Germany, Flanders and even Hungary, each with her own story and her own reasons for being here.

The historian Richard Trexler, who studied the Onistar's records, found that many of the women registered in 15th century Florence had come from far away, and that a striking number were from the Low Countries and the German lands.

Why they came is not always clear.