Pietro Aretino

Italian writer

• Born: April 20, 1492
• Birthplace: Arezzo, Republic of Florence (now in Italy)
• Died: October 21, 1556
• Place of death: Venice, Republic of Venice (now in Italy)

Aretino thrived in the use of the vernacular, wrote biting satire that exposed the corruption of Renaissance Rome, and produced comedies that are among the best in Italian literature. He has often been criticized for the explicit sexual prurience of his works, and his virtuoso exploitation of the press made him perhaps the world’s first paparazzo.

Early Life

Pietro Aretino (PYEH-troh ah-ray-TEE-noh), whose original family name is not known, took his name from his birthplace, Arezzo. The events of his life have often been embellished with slanderous anecdotes, especially in an anonymous biography published in Perugia in 1538. Born the son of Tita, his mother, and Luca, either a cobbler or an artisan, Aretino went to Perugia some time before 1510, possibly to work as a journeyman bookbinder or even to receive an education there.

The title of his first published poetical work, Opera nova (1512), might indicate that in his youth he was thinking of a double career as a writer and painter. Opting for a writing career, Aretino left Perugia in 1516, intent on seeking a patron in Rome. There he was admitted to the house of the wealthy banker Agostino Chigi, a generous patron of writers and artists (among them the painter Raphael) and host to cardinals and popes.

Chigi’s promotion of unknown writers speaks well for Aretino’s talent to please and his genius for witty improvisation in the vernacular. Aretino was also, possibly, autodidactic, and he had a mocking contempt for the Humanistic ideals of education, erudition, and writing. Aretino rejected the Humanists from the outset, and from his early works onward, he sneered at them as pedanti (pedants).

Life’s Work

Having gained insight into the public and private affairs of Roman ecclesiastical society while at Chigi’s house, Aretino’s appetite for gossip was indulged further when Pope Leo X summoned him to the papal court. After the death of the extravagant pope in 1521, Aretino’s time as the so-called Pasquino’s chancellor had come: By means of pasquinades (named after the Pasquino, a statue on which people pinned comments on current affairs), Aretino scoffed at the papal conclave. He canvassed support for Giulio de’ Medici, from whom he and others expected a continuation of patronage.

After the election of the puritanical Adrian VI to the Papacy, Aretino left Rome. After some months in Mantua, at the court of the marquis Federigo Gonzaga, Aretino moved to the military camp of the general Giovanni de’ Medici (also known as Giovanni delle Bande Nere), a condottiere (mercenary leader) who became a good friend. The early death of Adrian VI and the election of Giulio de’ Medici, who became Pope Clement VII , induced Aretino to return to Rome. There he found himself in the midst of a political controversy, which had arisen between the faction supporting King Francis I of France (led by the datary Gian Matteo Giberti), and those on the side of Charles V of Habsburg. Both Francis and Charles would later become Aretino’s benefactors.

Aretino broke with Giberti by lending support to the engraver Marcantonio Raimondi, who had worked on a series of drawings (depictions of sexual positions) by Giulio Romano. After having published the scandalous Sonetti lussuriosi (1524; The Sonnets , 1926), a set of poems that accompanied the engravings, Aretino had the good fortune of being received by Giovanni de’ Medici, and it was through him that he met Francis I. When the pope formed an alliance with Francis, Aretino returned to Rome, where in 1525 he narrowly escaped an assassination attempt, carried out, in all probability, on the orders of Giberti. Disillusioned by the inactivity of the pope, Aretino announced his departure in the first version of the comedy La cortigiana (wr. 1525, pr. 1534, pb. 1537; The Courtesan , 1926) and duly returned to Giovanni. Meanwhile, Francis I was defeated and imperial troops invaded Italy.

Following the fatal wounding of Giovanni, Aretino predicted a dark future for Rome. He then moved to Mantua, where he wrote the comedy Il marescalco (wr. 1527, rev. 1533; The Marescalco , 1986) and, in the second version of The Courtesan, announced his intention to go to Venice. On his arrival there, Aretino was already a celebrity, and the doge, Andrea Gritti, received Aretino’s announcement (by letter) of his intention to stay. Aretino came to regard his beloved Venice as his home.

Soon he made friends with Titian, who painted six portraits of him the first already completed in 1527. Another friend was the sculptor and architectJacopo Sansovino, who moved to Venice after the sack of Rome (1527), an event that contributed strongly to Aretino’s prophetic repute. It was in 1532 that Aretino coined for himself the agnomen (or additional name) Il Flagello dei Principi, il divin Pietro Aretino (the Scourge of Princes, the divine Pietro Aretino).

In 1534, Aretino published not only a revised version of The Courtesan but also his earliest religious writings, La passione di Gesù (the passion of Jesus) and I sette salmi de la penitenzia di David (Paraphrase upon the Seaven Penitentiall Psalmes of the Kingly Prophet , 1635). None of his religious works, however, is of major literary merit. The notable Ragionamento della Nanna et della Antonio (The Ragionamenti: Or, Dialogues, 1889), which looks at the lives of nuns and married women, was published in 1534. The second part to this work, Dialogo nelquale la Nanna il primo giorno insegna a la Pippa, which dealt with prostitution, was published in 1536. Certainly, it was the publication of Lettere (1537-1557; The Letters, 1926) that guaranteed his reputation and his income.

Apart from the dialogues, he published other comedies, Lo ipocrito (pb. 1540), La Talanta (pr., pb. 1542), and Il filosofo (pb. 1546), and a tragedy, La Orazia (pb. 1546). Aretino, although never married, had two daughters whom he cherished greatly. He revisited Rome in 1553, hoping in vain to obtain a cardinal’s hat from Julius III. Anecdote also surrounds the circumstances of his death: Anselm Feuerbach (1829-1880), in a painting of 1854, depicts Aretino falling back and breaking his neck after a fit of laughter.

Significance

Though Aretino was condemned to damnatio memoriae shortly after his death, his writings have been read not so much for the author’s interest in sexuality as for his incisive satirical commentary on the corruption pervading official life in Renaissance Rome. The pasquinades are of interest in regard to ecclesiastical and cultural history. His letters have proven to be a valuable source for contemporary history.

The unremittingly satirical dialogues, intended to expose Roman demoralization, impress with their rich linguistic color. His dramas, which abandoned existing plot-structural norms, and may have influenced writers such as François Rabelais and William Shakespeare, consolidated Aretino’s position in Italian literary history.

Aretino’s rejection of Humanistic education was as open as his pride in being a spontaneous writer with little education. Nevertheless, his works reveal that he was a careful thinker and writer, and that he had a capacity (paradoxically) to mask, beneath a satirical surface, a clarity of expression and indeed a warmth of feeling.

Aretino, an expert in using the press for purposes of scandalmongering and favor with the powerful and to disseminate his own works may be regarded as the pioneer of modern yellow, or sensational, journalism.

Aretino’s Major Works

1512

• Opera nova

1524

• Sonetti lussuriosi (The Sonnets, 1926)

1525

• La cortigiana (rev. 1534; The Courtesan, 1926)

1527

• Il marescalco (rev. 1533; The Marescalco, 1986)

1532

• Marfisa

1534

• I sette salmi de la penitenzia di David (Paraphrase upon the Seaven Penitentiall Psalmes of the Kingly Prophet, 1635)

1534

• La passione di Gesú

1534

• Ragionamento della Nanna et della Antonio (The Ragionamenti: Or, Dialogues, 1889)

1536

• Dialogo nelquale la Nanna il primo giorno insegna a la Pippa

1537-1557

• Lettere (The Letters, 1926)

1538

• Il Genesi

1538

• Ragionamento de le Corti

1538

• I quattro libri de la humanità di Cristo

1539

• Vita di Caterina Vergine

1539

• Vita di Maria Vergine

1540

• Lo ipocrito

1540

• L’Orlandino

1542

• La Talanta

1543

• Le carte parlanti

1543

• Vita di San Tomaso Signor D’Aquino

1546

• La Orazia

1546

• Il filosofo

Bibliography

Andrews, Richard. “Rhetoric and Drama: Monologues and Set Speeches in Aretino’s Comedies.” In The Languages of Literature in Renaissance Italy, edited by Peter Hainsworth et al. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. A study of Aretino’s plays.

Cairns, Christopher. “Aretino’s Comedies and the Italian ’Erasmian’ Connection in Shakespeare and Jonson.” In Theatre of the English and Italian Renaissance, edited by J. R. Mulryne and Margaret Shewring. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991. A study of Aretino’s plays by one of the modern authorities on Aretino.

Cairns, Christopher. Pietro Aretino and the Republic of Venice: Researches on Aretino and His Circle in Venice, 1527-1556. Florence, Italy: Olschki, 1985. Research on the most important phase of Aretino’s life.

Cottino-Jones, Marga. “Rome and the Theatre in the Renaissance.” In Rome in the Renaissance: The City and the Myth, edited by P. A. Ramsey. Binghamton, N.Y.: Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1982. Another study of Aretino’s plays.

Richardson, Brian. Printing, Writers, and Readers in Renaissance Italy. New York: New York University Press, 1999. Observations on Aretino’s formidable ability to make use of the press.

Ruggiero, Guido. “Marriage, Love, Sex, and Renaissance Civic Morality.” In Sexuality and Gender in Early Modern Europe: Institutions, Texts, Images, edited by James Grantham Turner. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. An ethical study of sexuality and gender during Aretino’s time. Includes bibliography and index.