Pietro Aretino

“ Without the scholars of the fifteenth century, it is hardly possible that such a brigand as Pietro Aretino, who levied black mail from princes at the point of his venomous quill, or such an unprincipled biographer as Paolo Giovio, who boasted that he wrote with a golden or a silver pen, as pleased him best, could have existed. Bullying and fawning tainted the very source of history, and a false ideal of the writer's function was established by the practice of men like Poggio.
It is obvious and easy to compare the humanists of the Renaissance with the sophists of antiquity. ”

“ And, as it often happens that a parody reveals the nature of the art it travesties, such light is thrown upon our subject by the vile Pietro Aretino, who, because he was a man of talent and unscrupulous in its employment, held kings and potentates beneath his satyr's hoof. ”

“ And yet, all this while, it was known to every one in Italy that Aretino was a pander, a coward, a liar, a debauchee, who had wallowed in every lust, sold himself to work all wickedness, and speculated on the grossest passions, the basest curiosities, the vilest vices of his age. [523]
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Sometimes he met with men stout enough to treat him as he deserved. The English embassador at Venice cudgeled him within an inch of his life. Pietro Strozzi threatened to assassinate him if he showed his face abroad, and Aretino kept close so long as the condottiere remained in Venice. ”

“ The renowned poet, Pietro Aretino, having left Rome before the sack of that city, and repaired to Venice, then became the intimate of Titian and Sansovino, which was both honourable and useful to the former, who was by that circumstance made known wherever the pen of the writer had reached, more especially to certain powerful princes, as will be related in due time. ”

“ Among the natives of Arezzo the most famous are the Benedictine monk Guido of Arezzo, the inventor 457 of the modern system of musical notation (died c. 1050) , the poet Petrarch, Pietro Aretino, the satirist (1492-1556) , and Vasari, famous for his lives of Italian painters. The town never possessed a distinct school of artists. ”

“ It will be impossible to do more than make general reference to the vast masses of Italian letters printed in the sixteenth century. I must, therefore, content myself here with mentioning the collections of La Casa, Caro, Bernardo, and Torquato Tasso, Aretino, Guidiccioni, together with the miscellanies published under the titles of Lettre Scritte al Signor Pietro Aretino, the Lettere Diverse in three books (Aldus, 1567) , and the Lettere di Tredici Uomini Illustri (Venetia, 1554) . ”

“ That a scholar should vaunt his own achievements [333] and extol his patron to the skies, that he should ask for money and set off his panegyrics against payment, seemed not derogatory to a man of genius in the fifteenth century. Yet these habits of literary mendicancy and toad-eating proved a most pernicious influence. Italian literature never lost the superlatives and exaggerations imported by the humanists, and Pietro Aretino may be called the lineal descendant of Filelfo and Poliziano. ”

“ We learn also from Sanudo that the Companions frequented the parlours of nunneries as well as the palaces of their noble relations and friends, and that in 1514, for instance, they played a comedy by Plautus in the convent of Santo Stefano. The Company of the ‘Sempiterni,’ the ‘Eternals,’ wished to give a performance of Pietro Aretino’s ‘Talanta’ in one of the monasteries, but this was more than the monks could endure, which will not surprise any one who has read Aretino’s works; they might as well have proposed to give one of Giordano Bruno’s obscene comedies ”

“ With this we may compare the following extract from a letter, addressed in May 1544 to Titian, by one of the most unprincipled of literary bandits who have ever disgraced humanity, but who nevertheless was solemnised to the spirit of true poetry by the grandiose aspect of nature as it appeared to him in Venice. That Pietro Aretino should have so deeply felt the charm of natural beauty in an age when even the greatest artists and poets sought inspiration in human life rather than the outer world, is a significant fact. ”

“ Pictures for private rooms, and portraits, he painted in great number, and with comparative ease; and we no where meet with more beautiful hands, more rosy [Pg 106] flesh tints, or more novel accessaries than in these. Thus, in taking the portrait of Pietro Aretino, he distinguished five different tints of black in his dress; imitating with exactness those of the velvet, of the satin, and so of the rest. Being invited to Rome by Agostino Chigi, and there esteemed as one of the first colourists of his time, he painted in competition with Peruzzi, and with Raffaello himself ”

“ His life-sized portrait of Charles in full armor, seated on a white war-horse, has perished. But it gave such satisfaction at the moment that the fortunate master was created knight and count palatine, and appointed painter to the Emperor with a fixed pension. Titian also painted portraits of Antonio de Leyva and Alfonso d'Avalos, but whether upon this occasion or in 1532, when he was again summoned to the Imperial Court at Bologna, is not certain. From this assemblage of eminent personages we notice the absence of Pietro Aretino. ”

“ The mode of life, the morals and the philosophy of the public women, who with all their sensuality and greed were not always incapable of deeper passions, as well as the hypocrisy and devilish malice shown by some in their later years, are best set forth by Giraldi, in the novels which form the introduction to the 'Hecatommithi.' Pietro Aretino, in his 'Ragionamenti,' gives us rather a picture of his own depraved character than of this unhappy class of women as they really were. ”

“ By them, as by his other biographers, he has been judged, not indeed unjustly, yet perhaps too much from the standard of our own time, too little from that of his own. With all his infamies, Aretino was a man whom sovereigns and princes, nay even pontiffs, delighted to honour, or rather to distinguish by honours. The Marquess Federigo Gonzaga of Mantua, the Duke Guidobaldo II. of Urbino, among many others, showed themselves ready to propitiate him; and such a man as Titian the worldly-wise, the lover of splendid living to whom ample means and the fruitful favour of the great were a necessity ”

“ Aretino's fortune was secured. It was discovered that he had the art of pleasing princes. He knew exactly how to season his servility with freedom, how to flatter the great man by pandering to his passions and tickling his vanity, while he added the pungent sauce of satire and affected bluntness. Il gran Diavolo, as Giovanni de' Medici was called, introduced Aretino to Francis I., and promised, if fortune favored him, to make the adventurer master of his native town, Arezzo. ”

“ If we inquire minutely into the circumstances of Aretino's career, we find that he had worked himself into favor with a set of princes—the Marquis of Mantua, the Dukes of Ferrara and Urbino, Giovanni de' Medici, and the King of France—who were powerful enough to confer fashion upon an adventurer, and to place him in a position where it would be perilous to contest his claims, but who were not eminent for literary taste. In the Court of the two Medici at Rome, who exacted more scholarship and refinement than Aretino possessed, he never gained firm footing ”

“ To send him a heavy fee was the sure way of receiving an adulatory epistle, in which the Scourge of Princes raised his benefactor of the moment to the skies. In a word, Aretino's art consisted in making each patron believe that the vigilant satirist of other people's vices bestowed just eulogy on him alone, and that his praises were wrung from the mouth of truth by singular and exceptional merit. The fact is that though Aretino corresponded with all the princes of Europe and with at least thirty Cardinals, his letters are nothing but a series of the grossest flatteries. ”

“ Still, in spite of these defects, Aretino's plays are a precious mine of information for one who desires to enter into direct communication with the men of the Renaissance.
Aretino's point of view is that of the successful adventurer. Unlike Machiavelli, he has no sourness and reveals no disappointment. He has never fallen from the high estate of an impersonal ambition. His report of human depravity is neither scientific nor indignant. He appreciates the vices of the world, by comprehending which, as means to ends, he has achieved celebrity. ”

“ It is almost as impossible to slur him over with a passing notice as it would be to dwell but casually upon Machiavelli or Ariosto, Cellini or Poliziano, in reviewing the Renaissance. Base in character, coarse in mental fiber, unworthy to rank among real artists, notwithstanding his undoubted genius, Aretino was the typical ruffian of an age which brought ruffianism to perfection, welcomed it when successful, bowed to its insolence, and viewed it with complacent toleration in the highest places of Church, State, and letters. ”

“ Titian, passing from the courts of Ferrara to those of Mantua and Urbino, attended by a band of assistants, was a magnificent personage, whose presence was looked upon as a favour, and who undertook a commission as one who conferred a coveted boon. Among those who clustered closest round the popular favourite, no one did more to enhance his position than Aretino, the brilliant unscrupulous debauchee, wit, bully, blackmailer, but a man who, with all his faults, had evidently his own power of fascination, and, the friend of princes, must have been himself the prince of good company. ”

“ The merit of these comedies is naturalness. Such affectation of antithesis or-174- labored epigram as mars their style, was part of Aretino's self. It reveals the man, and is not wearisome like the conceits of the pedantic school. What he had learned, seen or heard in his experience of the world—and Aretino saw, heard and learned the worst of the society in which he lived—is presented with vigor. The power to express is never shackled by a back-thought of reserve or delicacy. Each character stands outlined with a vividness none the less convincing because the study lacks depth. ”

“ Aretino congregated round him a whole class of literary Bohemians, drawing forth the peccant humors of more than one Italian city, and locating these greedy adventurers in Venice as his satellites. It is enough to mention Niccolò Franco, Giovanni Alberto Albicante, Lorenzo Veniero, Doni, Lodovico Dolce. They were, most of them, hack writers, who gained a scanty livelihood by miscellaneous work for the booksellers and by selling dedications to patrons. More or less successfully, they carried on the trade invented and developed by Aretino ”

“ Aretino is invited to reappear among men, for the world, says Rizzi, has again become worthy of such a man's presence. Leaving Dante to Jesuits, and Beatrice to priests, it has made Aretino its favorite model, and has, consequently, said farewell to everything resembling shame. In the last of these five sonnets the poet addresses his beloved thus: "And we too, O Love! do we still keep holy honor, home, faith, prayer, truth and noble sorrow?"
After the five sonnets to Aretino come the three to the boar (Al Maiale) which have already been mentioned. ”

“ A less pleasant light is thrown upon the great painter by his friendship and close association with the infamous Aretino. This curious product of the Renaissance came to Venice in 1527, and with Titian and Jacopo del Sansovino formed "the so-called Triumvirate, which was a kind of Council of Three, having as its raison d'être the mutual furtherance of material interests, and the pursuit of art, love, and pleasure." To Titian's association with Aretino some critics have ascribed the stronger vein of sensuality which is discernible in some of his later works. ”

“ Evil is good for its own sake also in his eyes. Having tasted all its fruits, he revels in recalling his sensations, just as Casanova took pleasure in recording his debaucheries. His knowledge of society is that of an upstart, who has risen from the lowest ranks by the arts of the bully, flatterer and pander. We never forget that he began life as a lackey, and the most valuable quality of his comedies is that they depict the great world from the standpoint of the servants' hall. Aretino is too powerful and fashionable to be aware of this. He poses as the sage and satirist. ”

“ If we place Poliziano or Guicciardini, Bembo or La Casa, Bandello or Firenzuola, Cellini or Berni, Paolo Giovio or Lodovico Dolce—typical men of letters chosen from the poets, journalists, historians, thinkers, artists, novel-writers of the age—under the critical microscope, we find in each and all of them a tincture of Aretino. It is because he emphasizes and brings into relief one master element of the Renaissance, that he deserves the rank assigned to him. ”

“ See Lettere all'Ar. vol. iv. p. 352, for a vivid description, written by Francesco Marcolini, of Aretino's train of living and prodigal hospitality. It realizes the vast banqueting-pictures of Veronese.
[505] Lettere, iii. 72.
[506] Lettere, i. 206. This passage occurs also in a letter addressed to Aretino by one Alessandro Andrea (Lett. all'Ar. vol. iii. p. 178) ; whence Mazzuchelli argues that Aretino tampered with the letters written to him, and interpolated passages before he sent them to the press. See last page, note 1. ”

“ When Cosimo pensioned him, which he did liberally, considering his habitual parsimony—to the extent, at least, of 160 ducats a year—he had doubtless an eye to Aretino's dangerous character as Spanish agent. Aretino could ridicule and revile Cosimo, and in the same breath threaten the Florentine agent that he would obtain from the Duke his immediate recall; and if the Medicean prince felt himself at last to be seen through by Charles V he would naturally not be anxious that Aretino's jokes and rhymes against him should circulate at the Imperial court. ”