Santa Elisabetta delle Convertite

Since the previous century, Florence had had a convent for repentant women.

Santa Elisabetta delle Convertite, where former prostitutes could enter religious life, imitating Mary Magdalene, whom medieval Christians believed, wrongly as modern scholars agree, to have been a reformed sinner.

In later centuries, the fees collected by the Onestar would help to fund this convent.

For some women, the convertite offered security, community and the hope of redemption.

As the morning sun warms the courtyard, Messer Cosimo leaps from Caterina's shoulder onto yours, wraps his tail round your neck and begins to search your hair, with great seriousness, for fleas.

He finds several.

katarina laughs until she cries he likes you she says that's lucky he bites the officials by mid-morning as the women sit mending their gowns in the courtyard the talk turns as it always does to escape and in florence unusually there are several recognised ways out The first is the convent, Santa Elisabetta delle Convertite.

As we have seen, took in women who wished to leave the trade and enter religious life.